Totally Calcified and Unreliable Memories from Des Devlin:
This was the first contest I ever attended. Sadly, my team was swiftly reduced to two people, and gave up the ghost shortly thereafter. But I recall this contest as fondly as any I've played. I guess everybody has a soft spot for their premiere contest, and I'm no exception. Like the rookie saps we were, our team was actually very excited (and I mean cheering and jumping excited) to get Question #1 and Song #1 correct. And I can truthfully say that our team stood proudly in a tie for FIRST PLACE, all the way through most of Song #2.
I think we finished twelfth, despite never making it to the 8 AM finish line. (No idea where the "12th" memory comes from. It seems to me that somebody--the other 50% of my team, I assume-- found somebody on Rule Six the next day to check.) Our early bedtime was a reflection on our hopeless inexperience and lack of personnel, not on the contest, which was swell.
The first two boni, Rob Kent's First & Last Lines Super, and Dan Aramini's TV Annuals Hour, were both terrific, a great 1-2 punch to open things up. Those two gentlemen are as much to blame as anyone for provoking my continued attendance.
The Rule Six players still active (and indeed, a statistically scary amount are) will say that in retrospect, their contest was too jam-packed full of stuff. 50 members strong (many of whom had been chomping at the bit to win for several semesters previous), they'll tell you today that given the chance at last, EVERYthing went in. With an 84-question Super, and Hours of 39, 42, 30, and 35 questions apiece, I can only smirk at what was once considered an over-exuberant, unmanageable level of trivia.