The King William’s College Quiz has come and gone for another year, and of course its insistence that quiz-takers “know a lot of things” of course just makes the whole thing harder than it really needs to be. Therefore, once again we bring you the Not Quite The King William’s College Quiz, which we promise is not quite as hard as its namesake and panders to nerds shamelessly. Probably the latter is more important to nerds.

(P.S. Although still probably much easier than the real KWC Quiz, this should be much harder than last year or the year before.)

QUESTION ONE

a. Whose first instinct was not to feed the tarantula?

b. Who once crashed into a car on purpose?

c. Who always wanted to be a hawk?

d. What promoted rust?

e. Who considered herself an underachiver?

f. Which pair of gardeners hated one another?

g. Who kept nunchaku in his trousers?

h. Who was unaffected by fifty-dollar words?

i. Who explained that knowledge of kung fu was a statutory requirement in his home?

QUESTION TWO

a. Who changed his name when he became a matador?

b. Who informed the audience that he knew his enemies had a secret?

c. who was followed by jealousy everywhere he went?

d. Who was given property by the seaside?

e. Who used their knowledge of soldier’s songs in pursuit of a seat in the Senate?

f. Who was defiantly proud of not being a work of art?

g. Who loved fried boar’s tripe with honey?

h. Who invented the latest thing in baths?

i. Who argued that peace was beyond all price?

QUESTION THREE

a. Who liked toast, but was suspicious of muffins?

b. Who was concerned about the expense of nuclear weapons?

c. Who was given a bare belly when he was hit with 200 million volts of electricity?

d. Who gained superpowers from a starfish?

e. Who once went to purchase uranium for children?

f. Whose reincarnation involved ketchup?

g. Who was too smart for hard work?

h. Who always wore a floatation device so that he would not drown?

i. Who earned a dollar for peeling potatoes?

QUESTION FOUR

a. Who was once endowed with the power of love?

b. Who was adopted by a demon?

c. Who refused to fight the King of the Rock?

d. Which rose was plucked by the younger son of a king?

e. Who remembered a cat?

f. Who hated the smell of humans?

g. Who is estimated to have a fortune exceeding one billion dollars?

h. Who believed there was a star expressly for her?

i. Whose middle names were the result of a local tradition?

QUESTION FIVE

a. Who was the brother of a mortician?

b. Who appeared in pornography under an assumed, but real, name?

c. Who considered amaretto a “wussy drink”?

d. Who started smoking at the age of nine?

e. Who did not discover he had a son until he was thirty-two?

f. Who considered the revelation of his baldness a firing offense?

g. Who assisted in an escape from a Dyson Sphere?

h. Who had a firm belief about the distinction between a custodian and a janitor?

i.Which journalist refused to speak to her birth mother?

QUESTION SIX

a. Who once requested some French cologne?

b. Who gave up his dream to move to Italy?

c. Who acted only in the ultimate greater interest?

d. Who knew that the form of the devil was a griffin with wings of leather?

e. Who was a fool without a crown?

f. Who committed suicide and then helped a soul escape Purgatory?

g. Who always considered being from Texas to be a capital crime?

h. Who was born and raised in a bad block?

i. Who was a 1951 model?

Voting is now open for the 2014 rec.sport.pro-wrestling Awards – the Theszies! You can vote HERE.

The Theszie Awards are the oldest fan awards in pro wrestling history, going back to 1990 (when Mr. Perfect quite appropriately won Best Wrestler and Junkyard Dog v. Ric Flair at Clash XI won Worst Match). They offer a record of wrestling fan opinion lasting decades, and although we may not agree with some awards in retrospect, what matters is that they offer a snapshot of every year of wrestling as the fans loved it. We think that’s pretty cool.

As usual, following the nominations period, we have compiled all of the nominations into pulldown menus to make voting faster and easier (since the pulldown menus should include most, if not all, of the most popular candidates for each award), while still allowing for write-in votes for those who don’t see their favorite choices as nominees. We do this strictly to streamline the voting process; this should not be construed as favoritism towards any wrestler for being nominated, as we do not nominate wrestlers ourselves.

(We have edited the nominations to remove some nominations that we thought were inappropriate, mistakes/errors, or unlikely to get enough votes to justify the nomination – for example, someone nominated Aiden English for Best Flyer, and while we might like Aiden English, he’s not exactly a luchador – however, this does not mean people cannot vote for those wrestlers in those categories.)

We have added a new award this year for Best Wrestling Media, to celebrate independent wrestling journalism and commentary. This was done partially because we recognize the importance to the wrestling community of recaps, podcasts and fan reviews, and partially because fan-created media was threatening to completely overwhelm actual wrestling shows produced by wrestling companies in the Best TV/Youtube Show category, and while we’re fans of Botchamania and other shows like it, the work that goes into creating Botchamania is far different than the work that goes into creating a regular original wrestling program. We want fans of these fan-driven shows to be able to celebrate their favorite shows; we just don’t want actual wrestling to be ignored or overlooked in favour of it. Hence the new category.

We’ve also used TECHNOLOGY to let you save your ballot and return to it later, if need be. Finally, we’ve also given fans the opportunity to include their own commentary on their voting choices for each award or just The State of Wrestling in General in 2014.

The deadline for entering votes is February 7, 2015. Have fun!

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And that’s it. We’re done. For the time being.

As always, you can also go to the dedicated Al’Rashad site.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

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The second-to-last page!

As always, you can also go to the dedicated Al’Rashad site.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Click on thumb to see full

And now, the very end begins. Or the beginning ends. Whichever you like.

As always, you can also go to the dedicated Al’Rashad site.

And another season of ‘The Amazing Race’, the Light Side counterpart to ‘Survivor’, has now entered the books. This was advertised as the “Silver Anniversary” of the Race, and while that isn’t true from a strict chronological standpoint, there was definitely a sense that they were pulling out all the stops to make this a good one. As far as I’m concerned, they succeeded; this was quite possibly my favorite Race ever. Why? Follow me below the spoiler tag to find out!

continue reading "Amazing Race 25 Round-Up"

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Click on thumb to see full

Our EXTRA-SIZED FINALE ISSUE continues on!

As always, you can also go to the dedicated Al’Rashad site.

The rec.sport.pro-wrestling Awards are the oldest public-vote wrestling awards on the internet. Dating back to 1990 (when Curt Hennig won Best Wrestler, Scott Steiner’s Frankensteiner won Best Move, and Hulk Hogan versus Earthquake won Worst Feud), the RSPW Awards now span over two decades and are far and away the most comprehensive wrestling awards in wrestling fandom. They are the oldest awards and the best awards. You can see the results of the 2013 Awards (which also contain the entire history of winners in all categories) for the “best of year” awards here and the “worst of year” awards here.

This is the Call to Nominations for the 2014 RSPW Awards. The Nominations phase is not a strict rule of eventual award nominees – if nobody nominates Dean Ambrose for Best Wrestler, for example (let’s say that an apocalypse happens and we’re all too busy for the next month, because that is the only way that will happen on the internet), come time for voting, people can still vote for Dean Ambrose as Best Wrestler. The Nominations are intended, instead, to present voters with a list of suggested candidates to consider when assigning their votes (as voters will vote for a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each category).

Maybe when voting for Best Tag Team, you will forget about how great the Young Bucks have been this year (or maybe you don’t watch PWG/RoH/New Japan often enough to know). Maybe you weren’t aware of how much fun CHIKARA is as a promotion, and seeing them nominated causes you to check them out. That’s the point of the nominations: to expose wrestling fans to the wider wrestling universe. Just like the Awards themselves, when you think about it. You can nominate candidates for awards here.

Please note that this year we have added a new category: Best Wrestling Media, for podcasts, websites, magazines, and all other forms of independent pro wrestling-focused journalism.

Nominees are due by December 28, 2014. Awards voting proper will begin on January 1, 2014. A list of current nominees can be found here.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Click on thumb to see full

Our EXTRA-SIZED FINALE ISSUE continues on!

As always, you can also go to the dedicated Al’Rashad site.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Click on thumb to see full

Our EXTRA-SIZED FINALE ISSUE continues on!

As always, you can also go to the dedicated Al’Rashad site.