Over the past two months I have attended a few quiz’s. These have either been due to friends heading overseas seeking sponsorship or where I happen to end up in a quiz on pub quiz night.
Quiz’s and random facts have always been an opportunity to push and probe the brain to find out how random its recesses really are. Last night while in a good pub quiz in Belfast it became more apparent that the days of the pub quiz are at the hands of an ever emerging enemy. The mobile phone is the Dr Moriarty of the pub quiz world. As we all sit there attempting to piece together the trail of clues our thought process gives us on the quest for that elusive answer. The mobile phone is lurking in the background trying to get a signal to issue that fatal blow of a wikipedia answer.
It also dawned on me that some people actually enjoy seeing if they can find the answer via their mobile as much as they would have previously enjoyed a quiz. In fact it may even give them a whole new challenge racing against time knowing that the answer may not be in their head but it is in their pocket.
Even the inner sanctum of the two stalwarts of any quiz have been mutilated. The picture round was brought town by google images and the music round was taken out the back and shot by Shazam.The crafty genius that is Shazam is an application for the iPhone which can identify song clips. Genius as it may be, I wonder if it was invented by some nerd who couldn’t take the music round pummeling like a man.
Last night as I was listening to the tie breaker, which we weren’t part of. I at last got the opportunity to relish the randomness of the fact, that my brain knew that badminton was introduced as an Olympic sport in 1992! I was quite enjoying the fact until the iPhone confirmed for me before the quizmaster that my brain was indeed random!
Posted by theofficeinthestoreroom 