I liked college. (AKA I want a Shout out)

She wanted one so badly and without much waiting it appeared.

And now to our story.
The other night (sorry - it wasn't last night. I am clearly too honest for the damn blog title) I came home from class still in the "I love my new apartment, my new neighborhood, my new routine (new part-time job etc.)" mode and was flipping the channels. I could not for the life of me figure out what to watch and then - duh! - like a lost dog who has found its owner (I can only imagine as 1) I am not a dog and 2) I have never witnessed such a reunion) - I realized - Jeopardy! (and another thing - why in the world would I propose an analogy in which I compare myself to a dog?)
I am the dog?

After so many weeks (ok - it was probably max 2) away from it, it still isn't part of the new routine. And now that I think about it - maybe that is best. Maybe it should be something to be relished. Like an ice cream sundae, or a manicure (WITH the extra massage) (ok not sure what the deal is today with my references to things that I really shouldn't be referencing as, like the dog, I have never had a manicure and then the massage the nice ladies are always trying to upsell you with.) Yes, maybe Jeopardy should not be part of the routine but a game show only for special nights and special days. . . . . .
Nah.


So - the game. 3 female contestants. (definitely mention worthy)
We had Celeste (is Brooklyn-like with her full name, Celeste Denucci and her bob with chunky glasses a la Stella Daily)
She was trying to defend her family's name as her brother had been a champ sometime back and had lost after maybe two or three games. He did lose to someone who ended up in the season Tournament of Champions and ended up placing pretty well. Did I lose you here?!

Back to the introductions.
Erica, a sociologist who barely cracked a smile. Would you? Do you remember those Soc classes? I had to take one core. Imagine taking 'em as your major? Less smiling makes sense to me. Oh the other thing about Erica is she doesn't read books. She said this on national TV. I know next time I am looking for a sociologist to hire there's one I WON'T be calling and her name is Erica. She doesn't get her info from books. Only TV and the Internet.
Then there was Margaret. This is Jeopardy at its finest especially when I used to think there were never any contestants under age 100. (This was probably when I was like 12 and anyone over 50 seemed like they were 100). In any case, Margaret is a retired attorney who, it sounded like, is living it up. Golf, boating and the like. Don't forget weekly attendance at pub quizzes where she usually ends up finishing the keg and wearing a lampshade on her head. (I made that last part up)

Now let's really get on to the game. Yeesh.
There was a "Free" Enterprise category. Free kick was one of the answers. Love those HBC (Huntington Boys Club) soccer (oh sorry, football) references. There was also a "Throw it here" category having to do with people throwing items. "Who is Woodrow?" was the answer to This President was the 1st to attend a World Series game and throw out the first ball in 1915.
In this game, I also learned:
Cairo, with 8 million people, is the largest populated city in Africa.
Johnson & Johnson have been selling Band-Aids for 85 years.

Other categories included Pop Culture (me loves me some pop culture even though Duran Duran was NOT mentioned), Pronouns (me also loves the pronouns and simpleton-ly named categories) and Lass Words (a category filled with words of famous females (gee, how coincidental - three female contestants - and a whole category on female words)

Celeste selected both of the Daily Doubles and she also won the game. The champ remained the champ. The Final category was Oscar-Nominated Movies (would you like a little pop culture with your pop culture?!) and the clue was "One of the two Oscar nominated movies with Don Hewitt of '60 Minutes' as a character"
I immediately thought of one - The Insider and did not get the other (but I still would have gotten the question right since you only have to had written down one of the two). Kinda odd considering the other one was Good Night and Good Luck and I just had watched part of the movie on a certain flight back home from a certain European country where certain family members live.
One contestant (Marge) wrote down Roger and Me - nice shout out to Michael Moore but oh so wrong and then another, Erica (the soc's number you will lose) wrote down The Outsider. We had a good smug chuckle with that one. And then. . . and then. . . we had our own little daily double and we watched another episode. This is where the "Shout out" comes in.

Cutting to the chase, a certain someone told me her son was sick and then less than 24 hours later a category basically dedicated to the guy shows up. "Turn me Lewis" So we had all questions with Lewis in the answer. My personal favorite was Merriweather Lewis, who is the Lewis of Lewis and Clark. From now on, the almost one year old, Lewis I know is going to be Merriweather to me. How many times you think I can say Lewis in this here blog post?
This round also gave viewers who love the categories Pop Culture and Oscar-nominated movies (hi) the category of Actors and Actresses. This actor wrote Ash Wednesday and The Hottest State. Well, how do you like that? The question is "Who is Ethan Hawke?" and I have just happen to have a little anecdote about meeting Ethan Hawke (in his pre-married and now sadly pre-divorced days). A certain someone was with me and no! it wasn't Lewis. A classic image of certain someone usually pops into my head when I hear the name Ethan Hawke and it is a memory of an arm with a lighter and the call, "I have a light!" Yes, it is true. This story involved us - little 'ol us - giving a light to Ethan Hawke in the Village one night in the late 90s. (Mid to late 90s might be a more fit description of the time but the mid 90s was too long ago for me to be at peace with it! As cliched as it may sound - let's not go there.)
So there you have it, a request for a mention and it just couldn't be avoided.

So, Celeste won again even though she didn't get Final correct (the horror) and now she is a three time champ with $60,402. Nice work, Denucci!

That is all about some Jeopardys I watched in late July! (as the date indicates.)

Last Night's Quiz Night....

So...I still think it's all a hoax but last night, Glen and I were checking out some of the bad quiz shows on TV here and lo' and behold someone got a correct answer! There was not a large jackpot involved nor was the question one of those strange & vague 'add the numbers' b.s. but still, someone on the phone still won money. (50 quid)

It was somewhat thrilling.

Deny, Deny, Deny

He might deny such allegations but do you in some small way think Ken made comments on his blog with ulterior motives? In my humble opinion his postings (both the digs on Jeopardy and then the apology) were pretty funny (you knew I would say that, right? I mean, he is this blog's mascot after all) but were they really at the end of the day necessary? That then leads to an entire discussion (could take days) on the question of "Are blogs necessary? and we just won't go there. What I will tell you is his book is coming out September 12 and perhaps he (or his PR firm or his publicist - I assume he has a publicist who made him pose for the photo here) wanted to get his name back out there. What better way to do that then write something not very Mormon-ish (a word?) and not very similar to his all around nice demeanor.
Then again, a major reason I liked Ken all along as he was playing the game, was his off the cuff remarks, his out of the (little blue) box manner, his snarkiness and "What's a Ho?" (never gets old)
Please discuss. (Comments section)


But on to other matters such as Last Night's Jeopardy! (and the night before)
To be continued. . .

Editor's note: I just went to Ken's blog. His pageviews went from 1,800 on Tuesday to 573,000 the next day! Pre-orders for the book also went up. (oh for me? you really shouldn't have)
Me smells a promotion for some PR wanker somewhere in the West!

All is not well

in Jeopardy-ville. Haven't even read the article yet but felt it more important to put it up here for loyal readers. The people NEED to know!
More to come. . .

Proposal for Last Nights...

The Last Night's Jeopardy European chapter really misses the comaraderie of watching Jeopardy with our buddies. How about an iSight Jeopardy viewing at some point next week? Waddaya say? We will have our legit internet by Tuesday. Let us know if New York headquarters approves and we can set up a meeting for a later date.

Procrastination Part Deux

So - we don't have a splitter right now which means we can't be online wirelessly using the cable modem and watch TV (using the cable line) at the same time. Living with a techie means he'd we'd rather sit on the couch with our computers and it, therefore, makes watching last night's Jeopardy on Tivo down and out impossible. Also, we both now have commutes into Manhattan to contend with leaving less time for leisure activities such as watching Jeopardy. Kidding, of course.
No TV = No Jeopardy.
That's the bottom line.
Jeremy's no longer working from home (overall, this is a good thing BUT now I can never call him up in the middle of the day if I am at school and say things like, "Um. . there's a good Oprah on today that I wanted to see, can you Tivo it?!"). Plus starting today I, too now have a place to be at a certain time on certain days. In other words - a part-time job.
So, it was actually probably a nice thing that we couldn't snap on the TV while eating dinner but rather, we caught up on our trivia question-a-day calendars of which we have two for 2006. We have a Jeopardy one (duh) and a Trivial Pursuit one as well. One was a gift, the other we picked up a few days later when we saw it half price (post-January 1) at Barnes and Noble.

We had been neglectful of them for about two weeks so we have several questions to read and answer all at once. It was a bevy of trivia here at the new place!

We prefer the Jeopardy one (again, duh) because it usually has three to five questions in a row of the same category and you can really get into a groove that way (trust me). The Trivial Pursuit questions are all out of nowhere and pretty random.

Plus, the Jeopardy ones always have some sort of connection to something going on.
For example, last night's holiday celebration was spent at another Jeopardy-loving household and trivia talk came up. In fact, one of Jeremy's trivia partners was there along with another soon-to-be trivia partner. This soon-to-be trivia partner is a Canadian native (no, it wasn't Alex!) and the hope is that all Canadian questions will be answered quickly (and correctly) by him once he joins the team later this month.

Well, wouldn't you know it?! The Jeopardy category for the dates of approximately June 25 through June 30 was Canadian Provinces. Oh, how we wish Avi were in our messy, box-infested living room right then! But he wasn't so we trudged through and we did miserably.

By the end, Jeremy just kept saying, Newfoundland? And unfortunately that was never the correct guess answer.

So, that event being done, of course I had to write about it right away. And yes, the main reason being is that I should be studying.

I have a final tomorrow night. A final for a class in which I have missed the past two sessions. A final in which I could really bomb especially since I was hardcore at the beginning of June and rocked the midterm. A final that I really wish was next Thursday and not tomorrow Thursday.

Now dear reader, I hope you have enjoyed tonight's tales from Brooklyn (for the first time!). Procrastination Part Deux is officially ending right now.

What Is 4 More Years Of Hurt?

Just a quick posting before I cry all day editing the behind the scenes of England's defeat to Portugal last weekend...

So I've entered the stadium in Gelsenkirchen on Saturday, ready for another day of joy/heartbreak (yeah, should have known better) and am walking to the media compound when, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a quiz going on. Upon further investigation, a popular soft drink is hosting a contest between an England and Portugal fan. They've easily answered all the preliminary questions so it comes down to sudden death. The music of choice to soundtrack the pivotal moment? Why the final Jeopardy theme of course! And - yep, you've guessed it - the Portuguese fella beat the Englishman and won. Perhaps I should have gone back to Berlin there and then and saved myself all the upset that was to come. But 40 years of hurt will now have to become 44 years at the very least (American readers might want to Google the 1966 World Cup at this point), which makes for plenty more Jeopardy posts before an Englishman can lift the World Cup.