Nerd Olympics
Nerd Olympic Board
As many of you will know, we have decided to form an executive committee to decide the nature, content and venue of the Nerd Olympics, known as the Nerd Olympic Board, or NOB for short.
What we haven't discussed yet is a leader and forgive me if I am speaking out of turn, but I would like to nominate Marc as the head of this board. Would other nerd members please indicate if you think Marc is a NOB-head as well.
| Marc should be the NOB-head | Marc should not be the NOB-head |
|---|---|
| Marc | |
| Abi | |
| Neil (Marc is a natural) | |
| Lee |
Participants
We need a list of definite competitors for the Nerd Olympics. It seems as though we may have a few new additions. All competitors should be willing to participate in the whole competition. The list of definitely competitors is as follows:
- Marc
- Lee
- Neil
- Abi
- Matt
- Elín
- Tim
- Sissy
We need to get this list finialised A.S.A.P.
Venue
The Nerd Olympics will be held at a variety of stadia around England. Each host should aim to hold about four medium sized events. People willing to host events are as follows:
- Neil / Abi
- Marc
- Lee (can I have Tetris?)
Round 1 - Hemel Hempstead Stadium
Is any-one interested in having round 1 of the nerd olympics this weekend? At our flat (Neil & Abi)? It'd just be a good excuse to play SingStar. Abi's working on Saturday but people could come round Saturday evening and have some events on Sunday morning? I'll have to hunt out a good pool pub. We could formulate a final list of events for round 1 in the meantime via the Wiki.
Note: Tim can't make this weekend, and doubtless other people won't be able to too, so we'd have to think of another date. Any ideas?
Note: Lee also can't make this weekend as she is moving house!!!!! Her room is now a moving mess, but it is all very exciting.
Next weekend is proms in the park
Maybe the weekend after that (22nd & 23rd) or in six weekends time?
22nd & 23rd is good for me - Neil
Note: Please don't have it without Lee. She really wants to play too...
Note: Can I play? - Elín
Yeah, of course! - Neil
Note: ^_^ - Elín
Elín will have to get bonus nerd points before even starting the competition for going through all the effort of typing that funny unicode character in her name everytime! - Neil
NEWS FLASH - What about having the first round on the 9th September? It is also my bifday weekend so we can have a piss up for that (and Elin's and Lee's bifdays as well if they want). Whaddya fink? Abi
Events
- Specialist round
- We could have a short quiz where everybody answers questions on somebody else's special chosen subject. We could agree the subjects beforehand to prevent people from picking stupid topics. We'd have to think of someway to stop people picking impossible to answer questions that nobody would ever know though.
- Pool
- Standard knock-out tournament, à la the world cup? I think the hotel across the road has pool but I'd have to investigate prices.
- Death-tank
- Simple - depending on number of players, everyone can just play at once
Neil, do you have Death Tank available at your house? How many players max? -- Marc
Yup, despite Abi's protesting my Saturn is still cluttering up the flat. I've got six controllers but I think it can do it up to 7 if anyone knows a place to get cheap Saturn controllers. Ooh, actually there's one on ebay. Yay, I've won a different one for £1! So if we ever do one day hold the olympics (sob sob) then death tank will be a nice quick round with everyone simoultaneously -- Neil
- Singstar
- Some kind of complicated system where you have home and away matches so that you get to choose the song on home matches or something
BTW - Abi is obsessed with SingStar and she's bought the Rocks! disc again despite taking two of them back for not working. This one seems ok for now though so with we've now got all of them. -- Neil
- Typing
- Take it in turns typing up a letter and deduct marks "according to the level of" accuracy?
Deduct marks for accuracy? How ironic -- Marc
Is that ok? -- Neil
I"ll b grate, woo hoo! - bAi
- ooh actually could we have an accurate punctuation test as well? We could combine it with spelling bee idea. I'll get Esty to set the questions.
- Tetris
- The original GameBoy version, most lines in 10 minutes or something? - how about some sort of tournament involving head-to-head matches, as we did in A-levels?
I think we could do both types - a knock out tournament and most lines in x minutes -- Marc
We could collect points for each round with points for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
Let's give everyone who participates points wherever possible. It'll encourage everyone to join in everything. -- Marc
Is this too anal to bother with? No. It'll be fun.
Matt's gonna win this one- I have an original gameboy with Tetris and Matt was obsessed with it for months! Thought I'd never get it back! --Elín
Tim and Lee are pretty good at tetris too though, it's a tough call. Hrmm... I wonder if we should take bets or have a sweepstake on the side? - Neil
Okay, I'll give you some odds - Tim and Lee 3/1 Matt 5/1 Marc and Neil 10/1 Elín 13/1 (haven't studied her form but could be a dark horse) Tom and everyone else 15/1 (no idea about their Tetris credentials) Abi 100/1 (I'm crap...)
Honest Abi's Bookies pays out in spirit shots so roll up roll up!
Matt's obsession with tetris was short-lived. Whereas Lee's was ongoing. But Matt can't be bothered to argue, so yes Matt's odds really are 5:1 - Go Matt Go!
Scoring
As Marc suggested it'd be nice if everyone gets some points for each round so I propose that for each round you should get 1 point for coming last, 2 for coming 2nd to last and so on up to the number of competitors, but then you should get one extra bonus point for winning the round. If there are any ties then all people who finished at the same rank get the same number of points which is the higher score, (eg, if there are five competitors and two people place joint second then the winner gets 6 points and the two second place people get 4 points each). If anyone doesn't take part in a round then they get zero points but the other players still score as if everyone was taking part. So for example if there are 5 total competitors but only 4 take part in a particular round, with two people placing equal third then the scoring would be as follows:
| 1st place | 6 points |
| 2nd place | 4 points |
| 3rd place | 3 points |
| other 3rd place | 3 points |
| Non-partaker | 0 points |
As an additional twist I think that each competitor should be allocated one joker card (like they do in pub quizzes). Any player can adopt to play their joker card for any round, although it can only be played once. After playing the card the competitor will get double points for that round, but the competitor must choose to play the card before the round commences. So for example if Abi thinks she will do particularily well in the SingStar round, she can use her joker card then and get twelve points instead of six.
Note: Marc: I agree with most of this (and like the joker card idea), but I think it might be best for the winner to get 10 points and count down to 1. If few people participate in the event, it's not fair for the maximum amount of points scored to be less than they otherwise would be.
Reply: Neil: I think that was what I was trying to describe, eg "but the other players still score as if everyone was taking part". So if there are 8 total competitors in the whole olympics and one doesn't take part in a particular round then the winner of that round will still get 9 points, 2nd place would get 7 and so on but the person who didn't take part would get zero instead of the free 1 point they could have gotten for just taking part and coming last. I guess it doesn't really make any difference if you count down from 10 instead of counting down from the number of competitors (unless there are more than 10 of course..) except that it would be slightly more of a punishment if you didn't take part because you would be down more than one point.
Query: What if someone is taking part in the overall Nerd Olympics but can't make it to that particular round? - Lee
Rough Event Ideas
- Typing
- Arm wrestling
- Pin the tail on the donkey
- Swerve (fun, four-player computer, high-paced game)
- Variety of runs
- Long jump (Long jump????????? - you what?)
- Tetris
- Spelin'
- IQ (or something like Raven's Matricies)- I must be very thick, what are raven matricies?
- Downing a pint - draught
- Not downing a pint and liking your ale in little sips test
- Dancing game
- Bop it
- Lung capacity
- General grammmar and punctuation test (with extra points for the vehemency of your convinctions)
- Pool competiton
- Taste test
- Curry taste test (if you can handle a vindaloo test)
- Count to 100 (one, two, miss a few, ninety-nine, a hundred)
- Middle C
- Specialist round (like on Mastermind)
- Pictionary
- Table tennis
- Table football
- Darts
- Spot the dots
- Sudoku
- Calculator speed relay
- The biscuit game
- Internet fact search
- Mallet's Mallet
- Name game
- Stop watch
- Banzai
- Guess the song
- Death Tank
- Skimming (boing boing boing - not with my phone)
- Staring
- Eating doughnuts (no licking lips)
- Eating crackers (no liquid allowed)
- Classing game, e.g. Street Firhget 2
- Lighting a fire
- Classic nerdy rock song lyric test
- The calcultor game
- ASAP
- Synonym game for rude body parts
- Super Mario Brothers on the Gameboy Color (remember that?)
- Scrabble! (so Abi can get some points..) - oi! I can get points! Maybe not in the biscuit game...
- Make a rocket like they did on Beauty and the Geek
- Complete the Red Dwarf quote
- Weight to height ratios (skinniest wins)
- Worst eyesight
- 'Success with the ladies' test
- Odd habits / phobias / general anti-social behaviour test
- Testo de povo kompreni esperantajn frazojn
- Geocaching time trial!
- The great "can you taste the difference between bottled water, tap water and filtered water?" test - wot like they did on BBC Breakfast News?
- Singstar
- The guitar game
- What is the guitar game? Does that mean Tim is going to bring his guitar? Yay - Neil
- The guitar game is on the PS2, it is so so so much fun! Like dance mat style, but with a guitar (Tim should bring his guitar anyway though) - Lee
- Does the guitar game have real strings or is it just normal PS2 buttons in the shape of a guitar? Does Tim get extra points if he brings his guitar? - Tim
- YES - Lee (but must be confirmed by the NOB head)
- Is this the guitar game? - Neil
- YES!!! - Lee
- Krypton Factor style game
- Monopoly/ Psionopoly
Singstar song list
In case anybody wants to practice, here's the list of songs in Singstar.
| Artist | Song | Game |
|---|---|---|
| A-Ha | Take On Me | Singstar |
| Alice Cooper | Poison | 80s |
| Alicia Keys | Fallin' | Party |
| Annie | Heartbeat | Pop |
| Ashford & Simpson | Solid | Party |
| Ashlee Simpson | Pieces of Me | Pop |
| Atomic Kitten | Eternal Flame | Singstar |
| Avril Lavigne | Complicated | Singstar |
| Avril Lavigne | Sk8er Boi | Pop |
| Banarama | I Heard A Rumour | Anthems |
| Belinda Carlisle | Heaven Is A Place On Earth | 80s |
| Beyonce | Crazy in Love | Pop |
| Bill Withers | Ain't No Sunshine | Party |
| Billy Joel | Uptown Girl | 80s |
| Black Eyed Peas | Shut Up | Pop |
| Blink-182 | What's My Age Again | Pop |
| Bloc Party | Banquet | Rocks |
| Blondie | Atomic | 80s |
| Blondie | Heart of Glass | Singstar |
| Blu Cantrell | Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!) | Party |
| Blue | One Love | Singstar |
| Blur | Song 2 | Rocks |
| Bob Marley | No Woman No Cry | Party |
| Bonnie Tyler | Total Eclipse Of The Heart | Anthems |
| Bowling for Soup | 1985 | Rocks |
| Bucks Fizz | Making Your Mind Up | Anthems |
| Buggles | Video Killed The Radio Star | Party |
| Busted | Crashed the Wedding | Singstar |
| Busted | Year 3000 | Party |
| Candi Staton | Young Hearts Run Free | Anthems |
| Carl Douglas | Kung Fu Fighting | Singstar |
| Charlene | I've Never Been To Me | Anthems |
| Charlotte Church | Crazy Chick | Anthems |
| Cher | If I Could Turn Back Time | Anthems |
| Coldplay | Speed of Sound | Rocks |
| Culture Club | Karma Chameleon | 80s |
| Cyndi Lauper | Girls Just Wanna Have Fun | Party |
| Dandy Warhols | Bohemian Like You | Pop |
| Daniel Bedingfield | If You're Not the One | Singstar |
| Dead Or Alive | You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) | Anthems |
| Deee-Lite | Groove is in the Heart | Singstar |
| Deep Purple | Smoke On The Water | Rocks |
| Destiny's Child | Survivor | Party |
| Dexy's Midnight Runners | Come On Eileen | 80s |
| Dido | Thank You | Singstar |
| Dido | White Flag | Party |
| Dolly Parton | Nine To Five | 80s |
| Duran Duran | Hungry Like The Wolf | Party |
| Duran Duran | Rio | 80s |
| Elton John & Kiki Dee | Don't Go Breaking My Heart | Party |
| Elvis | Suspicious Minds | Singstar |
| Elvis | Way Down | Party |
| Erasure | A Little Respect | 80s |
| Erik B. and Rakim | Paid in Full | Pop |
| Europe | The Final Countdown | 80s |
| Fairground Attraction | Perfect | 80s |
| Foreigner | I Want To Know What Love Is | 80s |
| Fountains of Wayne | Stacy's Mom | Pop |
| Frankie Goes to Hollywood | The Power of Love | 80s |
| Franz Ferdinand | Do You Want To | Rocks |
| Franz Ferdinand | Take Me Out | Party |
| George Michael | Careless Whisper | Singstar |
| George Michael | Faith | Party |
| Girls Aloud | Biology | Anthems |
| Girls Aloud | Love Machine | Pop |
| Gloria Gaynor | I Will Survive | Anthems |
| Good Charlotte | Girls and Boys | Singstar |
| Good Charlotte | I Just Wanna Live | Pop |
| Gwen Stefani | What You Waiting For? | Rocks |
| Hard-Fi | Hard To Beat | Rocks |
| Hole | Celebrity Skin | Rocks |
| Hoobastank | The Reason | Pop |
| Jamelia | Stop | Pop |
| Jamelia | Superstar | Singstar |
| Jamiroquai | Cosmic Girl | Party |
| Javine | Real Things | Party |
| Jay Sean | Eyes on You | Pop |
| Jet | Are You Gonna Be My Girl? | Rocks |
| Joss Stone | Super Duper Love (Are You Digging On Me?) | Pop |
| Kasabian | Club Foot | Rocks |
| Kate Bush | Running Up That Hill | 80s |
| Katrina And The Waves | Walking on Sunshine | 80s |
| Keane | Everybody's Changing | Rocks |
| Keane | Somewhere Only We Know | Pop |
| Kim Wilde | Kids In America | Anthems |
| Kings of Leon | The Bucket | Rocks |
| KT Tunstall | Black Horse and the Cherry Tree | Rocks |
| Kylie Minogue | I Should Be So Lucky | Party |
| Kylie Minogue | In Your Eyes | Pop |
| LeAnn Rimes | Can't Fight The Moonlight | Anthems |
| Lemar | 50:50 | Singstar |
| Liberty X | Just A Little | Singstar |
| Little Richard | Tutti Frutti | Party |
| Madness | Our House | 80s |
| Madonna | Like a Virgin | Singstar |
| Madonna | Material Girl | 80s |
| Manfred Mann | Do Wah Diddy Diddy | Pop |
| Marillion | Kayleigh | 80s |
| Marilyn Manson | Personal Jesus | Pop |
| Maroon5 | This Love | Party |
| Maximo Park | Apply Some Pressure | Rocks |
| McFly | Obviously | Pop |
| Mis-Teeq | Scandalous | Singstar |
| Motörhead | Ace of Spades | Singstar |
| Natasha Bedingfield | Single | Party |
| Natasha Bedingfield | These Words | Pop |
| Nena | 99 Red Balloons | 80s |
| Nirvana | Come as You Are | Rocks |
| Outkast | Roses | Pop |
| Petula Clark | Downtown | Singstar |
| Pink | Get The Party Started | Singstar |
| Pink | Just Like A Pill | Party |
| Pussycat Dolls | Don't Cha | Anthems |
| Queen | Don't Stop Me Now | Rocks |
| Queen | Radio Ga Ga | Anthems |
| Queens Of The Stone Age | Go With The Flow | Rocks |
| Razorlight | Somewhere Else | Rocks |
| Rick Astley | Never Gonna Give You Up | Singstar |
| Ricky Martin | Livin' La Vida Loca | Singstar |
| Robbie Williams | Let Me Entertain You | Pop |
| Robbie Williams & Kylie Minogue | Kids | Pop |
| Ronan Keating & Yusuf Islam | Father and Son | Pop |
| Roy Orbison | Pretty Woman | Singstar |
| Run DMC | It's Tricky | 80s |
| S Club | Don't Stop Movin' | Singstar |
| Scissor Sisters | Laura | Anthems |
| Scissor Sisters | Take Your Mama | Party |
| Simple Minds | Don't You (Forget About Me) | 80s |
| Sister Sledge | We Are Family | Pop |
| Snow Patrol | Run | Rocks |
| Soft Cell | Tainted Love | 80s |
| Sonny & Cher | I Got You Babe | Party |
| Sophie Ellis-Bextor | Murder on the Dancefloor | Singstar |
| Spandau Ballet | Gold | Party |
| Spice Girls | Who Do You Think You Are | Party |
| Starship | We Built This City | 80s |
| Steppenwolf | Born to be Wild | Pop |
| Steps | Deeper Shade Of Blue | Anthems |
| Stereophonics | Dakota | Rocks |
| Sugababes | Round Round | Singstar |
| Survivor | Eye Of The Tiger | 80s |
| Take That Featuring Lulu | Relight My Fire | Anthems |
| Tears For Fears | Everybody Wants To Rule The World | 80s |
| The Beautiful South | A Little Time | Party |
| The Bravery | An Honest Mistake | Rocks |
| The Cardigans | My Favorite Game | Rocks |
| The Clash | Should I Stay or Should I Go? | Pop |
| The Cure | Just Like Heaven | 80s |
| The Darkness | I Believe in a Thing Called Love | Singstar |
| The Foundations | Build Me Up Buttercup | Party |
| The Hives | Hate To Say I Told You So | Rocks |
| The Hives | Main Offender | Pop |
| The Killers | Somebody Told Me | Rocks |
| The Offspring | Self-Esteem | Rocks |
| The Police | Every Breath You Take | Party |
| The Pretenders | Brass In Pocket | 80s |
| The Rolling Stones | Paint It Black | Rocks |
| The Scorpions | Wind of Change | Rocks |
| The Undertones | Teenage Kicks | Rocks |
| The Weather Girls | It's Raining Men | Anthems |
| Thin Lizzy | The Boys Are Back In Town | Rocks |
| Tiffany | I Think We're Alone Now | Party |
| Tina Turner | Simply The Best | 80s |
| Tom Jones | It's Not Unusual | Pop |
| Ultra Nate | Free | Anthems |
| Vanilla Ice | Ice Ice Baby | 80s |
| Village People | YMCA | Singstar |
| Westlife | World of Our Own | Singstar |
| Wham! | Wake Me Up Before You Go Go | 80s |
| Whitney Houston | I Wanna Dance With Somebody | Anthems |