For most of the history of CMEpalooza, our special sponsor events have been a riff off of a popular board game, game show, or church fundraiser for people over the age of 75. Consequently, we’ve adapted things like Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, Clue, and Bingo, not just because they are easy for you to understand, but because they are proven formats that should work (and usually do, as long as I don’t screw up the instructions).

But this Spring, we’re trying something a little bit different with the launch of our one-of-a-kind design called “Liar Liar Pants on Fire” (I couldn’t think of a good way to fit “CME” or “Palooza” into the title – my branding needs work) (note from Derek: It’s not that hard. “Liar Liar Pants on CMEpalooza Fire.” See? Brilliant.). This special event combines two of my favorite things — our CMEpalooza sponsors and making stuff up.

Here is how it works:

1. Click here to download the forms you will need. Liar Liar Pants on Fire is pretty simple – no gameboard to figure out. You’ll just get the full list of “truths/lies” and an answer sheet.
2. Our “truth/lie” statements have been divided into three sections, grouped alphabetically. What you need to do is read each statement and determine if it’s a true statement about the sponsor or a lie. So how do you do that? Well, you can guess, but you probably wouldn’t do so well, and that’d just be wasting your time and mine. Your best bet is to go to our Sponsor page and visit each company in question. You should be able to figure out pretty quickly through some basic sleuthing whether the statements are true or an altered version of the truth (ie, a lie). These shouldn’t be that hard with just a teensy little effort on your part.
3. You can use the answer sheet in the forms to complete your guesses/responses. You get up to three entries – one for each group of sponsors. There is one group of sponsors with only 7 clues while the others have 8 clues (we have an odd number of sponsors for the Spring). You must get every answer correct to qualify for our prize drawing. If I’m in a nice mood, maybe I’ll let you get one wrong. We’ll see.
4. Completed answer forms can be sent to me at scott@excaliburmeded.com. Make sure to include your name and professional affiliation in your email so that when we announce that you’ve won, everyone can be sufficiently jealous.

We’ll have five prize winners who will each receive a $100 Amazon gift card. Derek recommends fancy bath salts like these.

This event will be open until Friday, March 31, at 5 pm ET, so get cracking!

 

Lots of news recently about the failures of regional banks. Makes me glad that Derek and I agreed years ago to invest all of the dollars we bring in from CMEpalooza sponsorships into 1980s vintage T-shirts (Note from Derek: Dude! I thought we agreed to keep this quiet? You’re going to drive down the value of the Hardcastle and McCormick shirt I just bought on eBay.”)

Here is Derek modeling one of our most recent finds:

As you can imagine, the market for these kinds of rarities is red hot, and we have no problem finding other suckers wise investors willing to plunk down some serious scratch for our primo wears. That’s good news for you, O Wise CMEpalooza Acolyte, because it means we have plenty of money to spread around in our various promotions.

In the next two weeks, we’ll have two opportunities for you to pad your bank account:

• Monday, March 27 marks the debut of a brand-new sponsor event called “Liar Liar Pants on Fire.” This will test your sleuthing skills of our current CMEpalooza Spring sponsors and let us see how smart you are at deducing truth from fiction.
• The following Monday (April 3) marks the return of the CMEpalooza STEPtacular Challenge, sponsored by Talem Health. The great thing about this one is that, even if you don’t win money in our prize drawing, you will get a free (and soon to be vintage) T-shirt just for participating.

Further details about each of these opportunities will be forthcoming shortly. But at least this gives you something a little extra to look forward to this weekend.

My 16-year-old daughter sent me this Never Have I Ever: Retro Edition that’s been circulating around the various social networks recently.

I scored zero points. Scott scored 1 point — he wasn’t cool enough for a MySpace account.

(Quick side note: my daughter was completely baffled by my description of a floppy disk, especially when I started expounding on the differences between a 5.25″ floppy and a 3.5″ diskette.)

Not wanting to be left out of the fun, I put together my own Never Have I Ever list. I thought you might enjoy it, too.

Never Have I Ever: Video Conference Edition
Give yourself 1 point if on a video conference you have never…

• Started talking at the same time as another person and then both said “Go ahead” at the same time
• Started talking while muted
• Told someone they were talking while muted
• Yelled at a cat/dog/kid/spouse/partner/etc. while you thought you were muted, but you were not muted
• Had a cat/dog/kid/spouse/partner/etc. accidentally pop on screen
• Turned off your camera and folded laundry/emptied dishwasher/some other household chore
• Turned off your camera and reclined on a couch/bed/floor
• Turned off your camera and gone into the bathroom
• Been the only person with their camera on
• Been the only person with their camera off
• Been the only person in a meeting and then realized you got the time wrong
• Apologized for leaving early because you had another meeting, but you didn’t actually have another meeting
• Realized your shirt was inside out when you saw yourself on camera
• Given a presentation and asked “Can you see my slides?”
• Watched a presentation where the presenter kept their slides in “normal” mode rather than “slide show” mode
• Heard someone arrive late and interrupt the person speaking by loudly saying something like “HELLO? THIS IS [PERSON’S NAME]. SORRY I’M LATE. I HAD TROUBLE GETTING ON THE ZOOM/WEBEX/TEAMS/ETC.”

Once again, my score is zero. Hopefully, our collective score for CMEpalooza Spring will be much higher (except for cats and dogs on screen. The more cats and dogs on screen, the better. Kids, too, I suppose. Not spouses and partners, though. They’re annoying.)