The Entertainer's Critique Vol. 1 Issue 3

Hello everyone, I hope you haven’t missed me too much in my absence of a post last week, but here we are; another edition of the Entertainer’s Critique for your viewing and sporcling pleasure. This week I take on two new quizzes with slightly different twists than last week.
Can you name the 'someone and the somethings' band names? - raffeling

This quiz was quite recently published and was on the homepage, so I thought why not give it a try? I was not disappointed by this quiz, yielding some of the classics such as __________ and the Mothers of Invention, __________ and the Heartbreakers, and __________ and the Family Stone. I enjoyed it but thought that the time limit might be lowered. I only managed a few of the options on my first try, but after thinking a bit, I managed to get more. Go ahead and test your knowledge on this quiz; quite fun! This quiz received a rating of 5 stars from this reviewer. With the classics, you can never go wrong.
Can you name the 'Weird Al' Yankovic Studio Albums? – MRL

Browsing the lists of Music’s most recently published, I came across this quiz. Weird Al is an excellent musician and I respect him fully. In addition to this I believe he is very funny and has funny ideas. I have all of his albums (big fan) and have seen him live, so I thought I might test my memory this time. Of course, if you aren’t a Weird Al fan, you might find this quiz a little challenging, but I encourage you to play it and see how many you can guess. This quiz gets 4 stars, only for the fact that not everyone is a fan of Weird Al and his work, and might not know it as well.

Well, that wraps up the third issue of the Entertainer’s Critique; be sure to check in next Wednesday for a new special Vol. 2 feature of another Sporcle reviewer! Hmmm… Who will it be? Until next time, keep on sporclin’!

-PandaStudio7

The Sporcler's Review - Mar. 20-27

Welcome to the Sporcler's Review. This is Enigma 9994, bringing you my picks for the best User Created quizzes from the past week. But before that, let's look at the results from last week. The winner, with 67% of the vote, was xxDUNE with Fabulous Fonts II. The runner up was $100,000 Trivia Pyramid by druhutch. So just to give you an update, the quizzes that have qualified for the March best quiz poll are, xxDUNE with Fabulous Fonts II, puckett86 with Factor Frenzy, strags11 with What day of the week were you born?, puckett86 with World Countries Border Blitz, and FearTheManatee with Movies by Lego. But that aside, let's get to this week's picks.

Geography: UN-sanctioned - Hejman

History: Multiple Nominations for U.S. President - TimeAndTide

Just For Fun: Follow the Directions - sproutcm

Science: Blitz: Name an Element - sproutcm

Sports: Colleges from non-obvious states - MrVercetti

Pop Culture: Packing Heat (Movie Images) - druhutch

That wraps it up for this week's "Sporcler's Review." Congratulations to xxDUNE, as well as sproutcm for having two quizzes nominated this week. Thanks, and  happy sporcling.

The Weekly Geo Vol. 1 Issue 4

I hope you enjoyed the classic Farmer Bob spin on "Focused on Fun." His writing style is something this site has never seen. I know I am a fan of it, what do you think? And I apologize for the slight tardiness of this post, it should've been posted on Friday, but no matter, here it is; the fourth issue of the first volume of "The Weekly Geo."

Blitz: Name a Country - puckett86

Well, here it is, another quiz by puckett86. I just don't know why this guy keeps on making great quizzes - it really is mysterious, but I'm not complaining - his quizzes really are great. In this quiz, there are 30 geography questions, each of which has multiple countries that would apply, in a grand total of 3 minutes. This quiz was pretty fun to play, just the right amount of time, too, as I found myself rushing at the end with only a few to go. I managed to pull off a score of 26 in the time provided, and I could've answered the last 4, but I didn't have the time to think of them. All in all, a great quiz.

World History A-Z - History_Lover

I really got into this quiz - very fun. In it, you try to name the person, place or thing based on the letter and hint. It was a true test of overall history trivia knowledge, containing all types of hints. I ended up getting 24 out of the 26, missing the one for the letter K - The 'Shakespeare' of sanskrit, and for Y - First shogun of Japan. I really had to use my acquired Wikipedia knowledge to get those 24 though. This quiz definitely deserved to be published. Truly great.

Well, that's all for today. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for "The Sporcler's Review" for some new quizzes to vote upon, and look out for the upcoming poll about the best quiz of March, compiling all of the winners for best of the week into one poll.

Enigma9994

Focused on Fun Vol 1 Issue 2

Hey Hey,

Whats up my fellow Sporclas. As you probably heard from 'nigma999, I'm the newest writer to the AWESOME blog about one of yours and my favorite sites, SPORCLE!!!! Today Im doing the Focused for Fun. As many of you know, March Madness has been going on, ELITE EIGHT Is coming up, SO EXCITED. So of course there has been many quizzes of basketball out this week.

So for the my first "FOCUSED ON FUN" quiz pick i have:

Can you spell Gadaffi? by SporcleEXP

Usually i prob won't pick games that Sporcle admins have created BUT, this one has fit in with current times real nice. If you didn't hear from the THOUSANDS of media stories on what is happening in Northern Africa and the Middle East, than (as ESPN says) COME ON, MAN! So now back to the quiz itself. So the funny thing about this quiz is that instead of multiple spellings being accepted for a question like some other quiz makers do, this is ALL about the multiple spellings of one word, the last name of the Libyan leader. Its a cool quiz, try it out. I would be SUPRISED of if anyone could get 100 porciento on this quiz.

Numba Tooooooo: NCAA Tourney Appearances by Conference by cobhc

So going < to my intro, i love basketball. I <3 all sports actually. And MARCH MADNESS is no exception. Fun quiz, good idea, good presentation what more can I say? Also includes my favorite college team WASHINGTON HUSKIES (yea, im from Seattle).

That wraps up my very first edition of Focused on Fun on the Sporctastic blog. I had a great time writing and i hope you guys like this. So enjoy won't you my homies, kick back and watch some BBALL. I'll be back next Saturday so don't miss me TOO much. But till then, PEACE OUT!

-FarmerBob

1 Month Anniversary (and Changes) - Mar. 13-20

Hello again, sporclers. I have some changes to announce for the site. First off, we have a new writer! His name is Farmer Bob. He will be the new author of "Focused on Fun," the position previously held by Gwukelic. But don't worry; Gwukelic is still a member of the team, and will post about site updates and other news regarding Sporcle. He just has far to much on his schedule to have to write weekly posts. 

In other news, "The Sporcler's Review" has reached it's one-month anniversary (as indicated by the header). I have grown quite fond of this site - it is really fun to write for. Never did I think when I started the site 1 month ago that I would have four authors! I just hope to keep expanding my reader base and keep providing interesting content for you all to read.

After that incredibly long intro, let's look at the winners from last week, shall we? For the first time in the history of the site, we have a tie for first place. The winners are strags11 with What day of the week were you born? and puckett86 with Factor Frenzy, each receiving 41% of the vote. Both of these great quizzes are now eligible for the title of best User Created Quiz of March. And now, I present "The Sporcler's Review" for the week of March 13-20. 

Geography: Country Name Length by Continent - TimeAndTide

History: Presidents by Postage Stamp (images) - Hejman

Just For Fun: $100,000 Trivia Pyramid - druhutch

Pop Culture: Fabulous Fonts II - xxDUNE

Science: Sequence Safecracker - puckett86

Sports: Road to the NCAA Championship - rg2607

That will be all for this post of "The Sporcler's Review." Ultimately it is you who decides the best quiz of this selection, so don't forget to vote. Until next time.

Enigma9994

The Weekly Geo Vol. 1 Issue 3

Hey, It's Enigma9994 here with another version of "The Weekly Geo." Our website is nearly at its one-month anniversary, and I'm pleased with the results so far, especially in the number of international viewers. I live in the United States, but I'm very interested in other places (that's why my favorite category is Geography), and I think it's really cool that people outside the US have seen the things we wrote as well.  Also, we might add another writer to the site soon. It's not finalized yet, but I'll keep you posted on the happenings. Also, you may notice that from this post on, I will not be giving star (or globe) ratings on quizzes for this column, because in reality, being uncritical, I usually give everything a five. And we wouldn't put poorly made quizzes on this site, now would we? But, tangents aside, let's get to this week's "Weekly Geo."

Country Names That Are Also... - Omno

I liked the idea of this quiz a lot. Essentially, you have to guess the country names that are also a Scrabble-accepted word, a gulf, a world capital, a river, a lake, or a top 1000 baby name. The really tricky one for me was a top 1000 baby name, and as cep8888 put it in the comments, "I eagerly await the day Djibouti cracks the top 1000 names." I also liked what Omno put for his source: Wikipedia trial-and-error. And there was something strangely calming about the color scheme.

Presidents by Postage Stamp (images) - Hejman

With a quizmaster score of 10,053 and a prestigious editor position in Miscellaneous, it is safe to say that Hejman is a veritable professional sporcler. And it showed once again through this quiz. Hejman has this knack for finding great ideas that nobody has thought of, and making them into classic quizzes, time and time again. In this quiz, you name the president by an picture of a stamp made in their image. And don't go guessing Obama or Bush, because USPS laws require that stamps do not have images of living people on them. All in all, a good quiz.

That wraps up this Friday post of "The Weekly Geo," column of "The Sporcler's Review." Remember to vote on both polls as well as leave a comment about your thoughts. You can also contact us at the emails on the page labeled "Contacts." Thanks.

Enigma9994

The Entertainer's Critique Vol. 1 Issue 2

Hello everyone, it has been two weeks, but finally "The Entertainer's Critique" is back on time, bringing you another full load of quizzes for you to play at Sporcle. This week, I will be reviewing two new favorites. Well, here they are. Enjoy!

Quiz 1: Can you name the animals Pokemon are based on? - OctoKing

This quiz was especially fun to play for me. Being of the early Pokemon generation, I knew most of the early Pokemon, but ended up guessing them toward the end of the quiz. I thought that this quiz was quite entertaining, with a good selection of Pokemon to be named, but one thing I disapproved of was that you did not have to enter them in order, thus making it easy to guess animals that would make good Pokemon; for example, I guessed skunk as well as weasel and got two correct just by guessing. Overall, I give this quiz 4 stars, if not only for the reason that I greatly enjoyed playing it.

Quiz 2: Can you name the lyrics to this Beatles song with no hint whatsoever (volume VI)? - fiendishthingy88

A new quiz on Sporcle, this quiz is quite ingeniously named "Figure Out the Lyrics (Beatles 6)." And I thought that Hollywood was unoriginal! But this is the Beatles we're talking about, the band that influenced an entire generation, and with regards to the fact that I listened to them almost every day for about six years, I decided that this quiz was worth 4 stars. It is hard to deny that the Beatles were musical geniuses, and after playing this quiz and fully examining the lyrics of the song, I believe you will concur.

That about wraps up this edition of "The Entertainer's Critique," and until next time, keep on sporclin'!

Pandastudio7

The Sporcler's Review - Mar. 6-13

I know this week was a bit short on posts. Both PandaStudio7 and Gwukelic were unable to post their columns for this week, but look hopefully to a full week next week. But this week, you voted on the best User Created quizzes, and the results are in. The winner, taking 54% of the vote, was puckett86 with World Countries Border Blitz. The runner up, with 38%, was KeanuReeves with The Office: Fill in the Desks (Map Quiz). Coming in third with 8% was betraisefold with JULBEMD Foursomes Minus One.

Once again, we have a new lineup of great User Created quizzes for you to play and subsequently vote upon. And a reminder to those who haven't read my first post, some of my categories are combinations - Just For Fun also includes Miscellaneous, and Pop Culture is an amalgamation of Entertainment, Literature, Movies, Television, Music, and Gaming. And now, here are my picks for the quizzes of the week of March 6-13.

Geography: Nationality of Mt. Everest Climbers - PumpkinBomb

History: Famous Apologies - WindSword

Just For Fun: What day of the week were you born? - strags11

Science: Factor Frenzy - puckett86

Sports: Smallest US Cities Having a Sports Team - quizer500

Pop Culture: About to Die (Pics) - FIXED - tallsaul

Until next time sporclers, vote on the best quiz of the week as well as March's question. Be on the lookout for the "Entertainer's Critique" on Wednesday. That's all for this week. Thank you.

Enigma9994

The Weekly Geo Vol 1. Issue 2.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to "The Sporcler's Review." It is Friday, and that means I'll be reviewing the finest selection of Geography, Science, History, Language and Literature quizzes for your reading pleasure. And just to comment, we know we missed "The Entertainer's Critique" for this week - this is because the writer for it, PandaStudio7, was just incredibly busy and couldn't find the time to post. Expect to hear from him next Wednesday. But right now, we have the second edition of "The Weekly Geo."

Factor Frenzy - puckett86 - 4 stars

Coming from the category of science (I personally don't think that category gets enough attention), this quiz was great. You have to factor the given numbers from the least to the greatest. The main challenge in this quiz though is the time. There are 36 numbers to factor, and only 2 minutes to do it in. This really provides a sense of urgency. You can't imagine my frenzied state when I had about 3 seconds left and I came upon 36, the number with the longest factorization on the quiz (1,2,3,4,6,8,12,18,36). But anyways, I managed a score of 23 out of 36, that's an accomplishment for me at least.

U.S. State with the Highest/Lowest... - Kicking222 - 4 stars

Now this quiz is pretty old, but it just got published recently. I liked this one because of its unique format - there are 13 categories, like population, area, etc., and you have to name in one column the highest/largest/most in that category, and in another column the lowest/smallest/fewest in the category. It was fun to play, and it provides some pretty interesting facts as well. What better place to learn than Sporcle?

And as a side note, yesterday I got my first quiz published! It was a big event for me; I'm incredibly excited about it. Mixed Word: Fortune 500 Companies. It probably would come as no big deal to Gwukelic; he has 12 published! Well then, you'll hear from Gwukelic tomorrow in "Focused on Fun," and remember to vote in the ongoing polls if you haven't yet. Until next time.

Enigma9994

Sporcler's Review - Feb. 27- Mar. 6

This week was a big week for "The Sporcler's Review" as a whole. We welcomed two great writers to the staff, and expanded our weekly offerings from one to four posts! We'll continue to look for new and exciting new features for the site, and if you have any ideas, comment about it. Anyways, last week's big winner was FearTheManatee with Movies by Lego, recieving 42% of the vote. The runner up was puckett86 with Minesweeper, getting 34%. Tied for third place were the quizzes Map the Caribbean, Speed Dating, and Speed NBA History, each getting 8%.

It's time for some fresh new quizzes to vote on now. I had quite a bit of fun playing this week's plethora of quizzes, and I hope you will too. So now, I present my picks for the best User Created quizzes of the week of February 27 - March 6. Enjoy.

Geography: World Countries Border Blitz - puckett86

History: Hybrid Presidents - tobley

Just For Fun: JULBEMD Foursomes Minus One - betraisefold

Science: Element Trio by Beginning Pair - leppyfresh

Sports: NFL Franchise Yards Leaders - cdmiamifan13

Pop Culture: The Office: Fill in the Desks (Map Quiz) - KeanuReeves

Remember to vote on which one of these quizzes will be crowned best of the week, and there's a bit of added importance now, as the one you select will also be eligible for the best quiz of March, along with the weekly winners to come. Also vote March's question, "If you could be the editor of any category, which would it be?" Right now, Geography is in the lead, closely followed by Sports and Music. 

Also, on the site of Sporcle, some changes have taken place. One, within the Minute Morsel, Word Scramble has been renamed to Mixed Word. Also, the in site search engine has been given a complete overhaul for the better. Now instead of just showing quizzes, it will search for other things, like users as well. It will also display the creator, rating, description, and amount of plays for quizzes that are searched, arranged by a number of categories. That's all for today. Thanks.

Enigma9994

Focused on Fun Vol. 1 Issue 1

Welcome everybody to this wonderful blog. I must inform you that this is my first post for this blog. From now on, I shall be posting my "Focused on Fun" writings every Saturday. In my posts, you will see reviews of all sorts of exciting and enjoyable quizzes that fall under the Sporcle categories of Miscellaneous, Just For Fun, Sports, Religion, and Holiday. Under this column, you will also find two reviews, provided by me, with also a rating and quiz feedback that I recommend you read for your own personal reading pleasure. Let's get started!

Quiz Numero Uno: Thank you for calling... - Hejman  Category: Just For Fun

There's a reason why quiz creators put their games under certain categories. I mean that's why Sporcle did that, right? You can find quizzes under the category you're most interested in. They even created 15 of them all for your intelligent (most of us I hope) brain's entertainment. Anyway, I'm happy to tell you that Hejman is a smart man. He puts his quizzes in the correct category every time (and this quiz is no exception). Honestly, this quiz is, without a doubt, a fun game to play. The object of this game is, and I quote, "Name the Fortune 500 companies from what their receptionist might say when you call?" Ironically enough, I think I've called some of these places before and this is almost exactly what they said. I'm being sarcastic for those of you that don't know me (but get used to it because I do it a lot). Anyhow, I'm going to have to give this quiz 5 globes because of Hejman's creative concept and amusing detail of words. He does a great job of selecting the correct words to hint you towards guessing the famous and well known companies. I highly suggest you play it.

Quiz Numero Dos: Best of the Best - March Madness - Sporctastic  Category: Sports

Well it is that time of year again. March Madness baby! One of my favorites months of the year. You want to know why? If you don't know, read the the beginning of this paragraph again. I think you'll figure you out. Back to the quiz though, this quiz is Sporctastic! What? I can't use that word. It's not like I stole it from anywhere. It just came to me as I was writing. In all seriousness, this quiz is really good. I mean it is awesome. Not just because I love the game and the NCAA Tournament, but also because Sporctastic does a marvelous job of creating a new, creative quiz that all people (especially sporclers) can appreciate. He designs an ingenious way of making you name all the college basketball teams that have had the most success (using his scoring method - very clever by the way) in the NCAA Tournament. I easily gave this quiz 5 globes. My score was 58 out of 66 (87.9%), but soon to be 59 out of 67 (88%) once the Washington Huskies go to the Sweet Sixteen this year. :) It's fine with me if you can't beat my score, but I still advise you to play it. You'll have fun. That's why I'm telling you about it. Don't you remember what this post is about? (Don't you dare look up!) You should have it memorized. Okay, you don't need it memorized, but I hope you have come to remember the name.

Well folks, that's all I've got for you today. Have you been enjoying my Spanish? I think it's pretty good and I'm quite proud of myself. Let's see you guys speak in another language outside of English. It's hard. All the words end in "O". Burrito, taco, el queso. The list goes on forever and if you haven't figured out that I enjoy food, you either should learn some Spanish or just go out more, probably to the local Mexican restaurant in town. Now, don't forget to follow our blog and make sure to come back tomorrow for Enigma9994's "The Sporcle Review." More importantly though, remember to stop by to read about two more reviews presented by me, gwukelic, next Saturday. Thanks and good night.

The Weekly Geo Vol. 1 Issue 1

Hey, this is Enigma9994, bringing you the first edition of "The Weekly Geo." I will be posting this every Friday, in addition to other weekly features like "The Sporcler's Review," and posts from Pandastudio7 and Gwukelic, "The Entertainer's Critique" and "Focused on Fun." In this column, I will be reviewing, rating, and providing feedback on a few recent quizzes in the categories of Geography, History, Science, Language, and Literature. So lets delve right in, shall we?

100 Dots on a map: US - purplebackpack89 - 5 stars

This quiz was really quite enjoyable. The premise - name the U.S. city by it's dot on a map. Sounds easy right? Well, you have to name 100 of them, in order. I don't usually have the patience for long quizzes like this, but I made an exception, because I just had to test myself. This quiz had some dots that were just obvious, but others that were more tricky. If I took one thing away from this quiz, it would probably be the capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands; I'll have to remember that one. Anyways, I finished off with 83 of the 100 correct, and my challenge to you is to beat that score (I know you can).

Map the _____ Quizzes - diving - 4 stars

Now this isn't really a quiz so much as it is 5 quizzes, so far. Perhaps some of you have noticed diving, a Sporcler that has gotten quite a bit of attention in the last week for his series of Map the _____ Quizzes. Since February 27th, he has released 5 of them; Map the Caribbean, Map Oceania, Map the Mediterranean, Map the Indian Ocean, and Map the North Atlantic, and my suspicion is that more are on the way. If you haven't played any of these quizzes, I suggest you give one a try - it provides you a map of a body of water, and asks that you name the features, countries, and islands that are labeled. In fact, they have their similarities to 100 Dots on a map: US.

Well, that wraps up the first post of "The Weekly Geo." I think it was quite lengthy, much longer than I thought it would be, but that's usually how first posts go. Don't forget to vote in the ongoing polls, and look forward to Gwukelic's first post of "Focused on Fun" tomorrow. Until then, happy sporclings.

Enigma9994

The Entertainer’s Critique Vol. 1 Issue 1

I am glad to be graciously welcomed by the staff of The Sporcler’s Review, as well as eager to share my opinions and thoughts on all the latest quizzes every week. This column is new and will be most frequently posted every Wednesday. This column will primarily focus on entertainment, music, movies, television, and games, with possibly a few miscellaneous quizzes mixed in. Every week you can expect the reviews of the latest quizzes, along with thoughts and commentary. Every week, I will review two quizzes, and rate each one 1-5 stars (5 high, 1 low). Now the moment you've all been waiting for; I will present this week’s Entertainer’s Critique for your viewing (and sporcling) pleasure.

Quiz 1: Can you name the countries and polities which have won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film?

Category: Movies

From the moment I saw this quiz on the published list, it caught my eye; I just had to play it! Being a lover of foreign films myself, I thought the idea quite clever. Although it was a clever idea, I realized that really all I had to do was guess major foreign film hubs to get correct answers; surprisingly I was right in my philosophy. This quiz I personally gave 5 stars, being a lover of foreign films myself. If you would like to play the quiz yourself and find out what country won the most Academy Awards for Foreign Film, here is the link.

Quiz 2: Can you name the band or artist from the image hints below?

Category: Music

Although old, this quiz still has its charm, with 48 picture clues, and 8 minutes to answer, it gives you plenty of time for you to hit yourself over the head saying, “God I knew this a minute ago!” I enjoyed this quiz thoroughly and it was quite well done, getting a rank of 5 stars from this reviewer. If you would like to play the quiz, here is the link.

That about wraps up the lineup for this week, and with another post coming from Gwukelic and Enigma9994 later this week be sure to check in often and follow! Be sure to vote in this week’s survey, and until next time, keep on sporclin’!

Pandastudio7

New Additions

Hello, this is Enigma9994, and I would like to take this time to announce some new additions to the Sporcler's Review. First off, I would like to welcome two new members to the team: Pandastudio7 and Gwukelic, both avid sporclers like myself. They will each write their own column which brings me to the next additions: the changes to the schedule. Here is the new weekly schedule for the Sporcler's Review.

Sunday: The Sporcler's Review - Enigma9994 (same as before)

Wednesday: The Entertainer's Critique - Pandastudio7 (a review and rating of select quizzes in the categories of Music, Entertainment, Movies, Television, and Gaming)

Friday: The Weekly Geo - Enigma9994 (a review and rating of select quizzes in the categories of Geography, Science, History, Literature, and Language)

Saturday: Focused on Fun - Gwukelic (a review and rating of select quizzes in the categories of Miscellaneous, Just For Fun, Sports, Holiday, and Religion)

You will learn more about these new columns from their writers on their first posts. Thanks, and be sure to check out the first edition of "The Entertainer's Critique" tomorrow!

Enigma9994