Test The Nation – Team Blogger
R6 – Dan Arnold, Ryan Couldrey, Allan Sorenson, Allyson Kenning, Rick Spence, Alexa Clark
R5 – Graeme Stewart, Katharine Hay, John Klein, Mark McIntyre, Jules Carlysle, David Jones
R4 – Jesse Hirsch, James Viloria, Christopher Bird, David Topping, Patrick Metzger, Jon Arnold
R3 – Kate Trgovac, Ryan Porter, Rannie Turingan, Craig Silverman, Adam Schwabe, Andree Lau
R2 – John Martz, Andy Nulman, Karen Whaley, Buzz Bishop, Frank Yang, Ryan Cousineau
R1 – Rebecca Bollwitt, Amber MacArthur, Julien Smith, Lainey Lui, Kerry Anne Holloway, Hugh McGuire
This is what a winning Test The Nation – Blogger team looks like, arrange as per the studio seating chart. The bloggers were victorious on Test the Nation against the backpackers who came in second place, the flight crew, the celebrity look-a-likes, the chefs and the cab drivers.

Our lovely blogger sign, just incase you didn’t know who we were.
While everyone else was checking out the celebrity look-a-likes, I spent the first hour in the holding room, getting individual shots of team blogger. And I obviously didn’t eat enough of the catered food, as I grew hungry and thirsty half way through the taping.

I actually shot this live when the announced we won. It’s the trophy heading up the stands.
I’m not certain of my exact score in the game, but I think I faired pretty close to the team average, which was 50 correct answers, out of 60 questions, which I think was pretty decent, considering, I was worried I would do a lot worse. But I suppose it helped that one of the rounds of questions was entitled, “Technobabble.”

I’m sure by the end of the show, all the other teams probably thought us bloggers were cocky bastards, as we chanted, cheered and snickered through the whole taping. But it was all in fun and definitely made the taping fly by really quickly.

Rick Spence and Samantha Bee. Sweep Sweep Sweep! Bee Bee Bee!
Congratulations go out to Rick Spence, who was the top scorer from all the teams and to Samantha Bee, from the Daily Show, who was our celebrity cheerleader. I must also thank my quick wikipedia studying for providing me the answers to at least two of the questions; 1) India being the second contry in the world to have a population over 1 billion in 2000 (China being the first, in the previous century) 2) The Netherlands being the first country to legalize same-sex marriages.


Also wanted to send shout outs to Heath Slawner over at Major Persuasion (who ended up subbing on the Cabbie Team) and to Eden Spodek from Bargainista who were our blogger team subs. And also to Lorne Cardinal from Corner Gas (who was cheerleading for the Cabbies) who totally congratulated the bloggers and patted me on the shoulder, but whom I completely snubbed, because someone asked me to shoot a picture of them with Samantha Bee.










































[...] to Rick Spence, and be on the lookout for photos of each person on the blogger team, taken by Rannie. Big thanks to Molly @ the CBC for getting me out here, being very encouraging, and supporting [...]
most bodacious shots as per usual
and congrats on your triumph!
Excellent job on the show and the photos. Indoor kids rule.
Woowho, Bloggers Rule!!! It would have been an upset if you guys lost.
woot!
I was wondering about the snickering: at some of the questions you could hear people laughing about the obvious wrong answers – was that you guys?
Hey, Rannie. Thanks for taking all those great pics. It was probably me that asked you to take my pic with Samantha Bee. My deepest apologies to Lorne Cardinal…
Bloggers rule.
[...] Rannie “Photojunkie” Turingan’s blog entry [...]
Bee Bee Bee Bee Bee Bee Bee!!!!!!
those questions were insultingly easy, or useless pop culture. the last show had more interesting questions… although this one was pretty hilarious thanks to the bloggers
great pictures man! super happy to have met you guys and participated in this. looking through your other pictures now.
YaY Bloggers!!
Nice Job, bloggers!
Rannie – I was the random person that told you I love your blog during the catered lunch… I realized after the fact that I totally didn’t introduce myself, but my mind spins on show day!
I LOVE that you got every blogger’s photos in their seating order. What a great concept for a post. I hope you had fun!
Great shots — love the arrangement. You guys all did us proud!
Yay Team Bloggers!
Hey Rannie,
It was great finally meeting you in person. I think we’ve been at some of the same events before and didn’t have a chance to connect. Your group photo collection is fabulous. Thanks for the shout-out. I had a lot of fun behind the scenes meeting other members of Team Blogger. I even learned some celebrity chefs produce their own podcasts and vlogs.
Congrats everyone. It was great to meet all of you! And thanks for the great photos Rannie!
Wow! Great photos. First, I was a substitute for the bloggers, then I almost made it on the look-alikes as Ben Stiller, then finally I played for the Cabbies. I loved you meeting of all of you. It was a blast and then some. Congratulations to the Blogger team, I knew from the first minute you were going to win. Bravo!
Great job with the pictures! Thanks for that!
Damn. We forgot to watch it last night. Damn.
Good job though
Hi Rannie – great meeting you and thanks for the photo! A lot sure has happened in the past 24 hours, and I’m just catching up now. We may all be bloggers, but most of us live in very different worlds. To get closer to yours, here’s my post about the show, along with some choice pix – hope you like ‘em…. http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2008/01/bloggers_1_rest.html
[...] has some great photos from the night, including our entire team [...]
Awesome blog post, and photo collection. I’ll be back later with photos of my own, but I’m still playing tourist. I’m hitting the ROM tomorrow before I fly out back to Regina.
[...] from photojunkie (lots of pics) and CalgaryGrit (among others, of [...]
Hey team bloggers! Congratulations!! You did the rest of the country’s bloggers proud.
Great photos as per usual, Rannie. Thank you for sharing the moment(s)!
Cheers,
Connie
Wonderful work shooting the blogger portraits and the TTN photos. Cool stuff.
Fabulous pix, and an awesome layout, Rannie. You are a model of blogging creativity.
It was great to meet you at TtN. I’ll keep my eye on your blog and hope that our paths cross again soon.
Rick
[...] Test the Nation See also: photojunkie Hugh McGuire Julian [...]
Here’s a smattering of my photos from the show and Toronto vacation.
http://www.abandonedstuff.com/2008/01/24/wasnt-that-a-party-test-the-nation-in-toronto/