853fisher

Transliterated from Arabic, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is "Al-Mamlaka Al-‘Arabiyyah as Sa‘ūdiyyah" and United Arab Emirates are "Al-’Imārat Al-‘Arabiyyah Al-Muttaḥidah." And, actually, Syria is "Suriyah." So while Janice seemed to me to be kidding, she was in a way on to something! As many little gaffes as there seem to have been recently, I appreciate that the writers thoughtfully pinned this one to the English only.

By the way, the 10 most populous countries are China, India, United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, and Mexico. I'm afraid I was stumped on FJ. All my lizard brain could do was think of anything with an "h." Pnomh Penh? Not a country. Philippines? Not the end. Etc. I doubt Bangladesh would have come to me given an hour. I like to think of myself as fairly worldly, but I still have a lot to learn about countries outside of our own and Europe. I did think Janice's suggestion that she was trying to write "Syriah" just to have something was cute.

I know there are several months of games left before the ToC, but someone on Reddit helpfully put together a list of how things stand now. There are Amy, Matt, and Jonathan Fisher at the top. Then, 2 7x, 1 6x, 2 5x, 1 4x, and 5 3x winners, plus the winner of the Professors Tournament. I think some of those 3x winners will get bumped off. It's not rational, but somehow that's not "enough" for me IMO. I'd prefer more like 5x and up with very rare exceptions, but now that they've said they will have a ToC in November every year, we may see more shorter-tenured winners. Kelly Donohue is 11th of 15. He will have earned his place fair and square if 5 people don't exceed him, but I bet the show would rather not feature him again if they can help it. I don't want to see him either. He made my skin crawl even before the gesture, which I remain unconvinced was entirely innocent, so I'll be rooting for 4x and 5x champs!

The tournament Mayim is definitely doing in primetime starts the 8th of next month, I think. I don't have any information either way, but I would be surprised if they hadn't made sure she'd also be hosting the syndicated show during that time.

Good points about Manning. The call I wasn't sure about was "Barney the Dinosaur." The show was called "Barney & Friends." Would they take "Meredith Grey" for "Grey's Anatomy"? Maybe that's not really analogous, and maybe they could find a citation for "Barney the Dinosaur" in some source. He clearly knew what they were going for, and it wouldn't've affected the outcome either way. Maybe I'm just being nitpicky today.

I have been making a point to watch early in order to avoid potential spoilers. I open today's YouTube upload in my app...and before I can press play, unmissable in the center of the screen, is someone's comment about Amy's loss. I mean, on the grand scale of life's indignities, it's a bagatelle. I just find it so thoughtless. I watch a few other game shows online, and I never comment on the result the day they air, for exactly this reason, whether it's a Jeopardy megachamp's defeat or a run-of-the-mill "25 Words or Less." Maybe this is just the way it is in the internet age? The show airs at 3:30 Central in Chicago, hours earlier than almost anyone else, and every media outlet there, plus several institutions and even Rhone's Congresswoman, seemed to have posted about it by 4:15. That's fine, except that of course those posts aren't geofenced. I have close friends and some family from Chicago, so Facebook knows I am interested and sends me posts from there too. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, but I wish we could come to some kind of agreement as a society on the etiquette for these things. (I guess I'd better not hold my breath.) Anyway, on to the game itself! It was fun to see Rhone so surprised and thrilled. I wonder how far he'll go. Amy can be proud of her performance, and I'm certainly grateful for the quotidian visibility she offered trans communities. The ToC really will be one to watch this year. I don't remember much about how I did on the boards, except that the football clues went on way too long for my tastes about something in which I have no interest. I didn't bother even listening to the last few. Thank goodness we got through all the clues.

There are about 15 hours worth of shows now, I think. That doesn't seem like enough for a "24/7 streaming channel," and I don't understand the point of it anyway. Viewers already can "dip into it anytime" by tapping any of the videos and turning autoplay on. Am I missing something? Get off my lawn! In general, I echo the consensus about how this is going. I get the sense Judy wanted a claque, but it adds little. Nana's favorite grandchild in particular sits there looking sweetly, decorously terrified, and for what? The debriefs could be great but Sarah doesn't bring a perspective. She doesn't even get to have a last name. Feh to her. I'm still watching, so maybe the joke's on me! It's a guilty pleasure. The basic format is still there, although I agree they need tighter edits, and they have definitely filed down some of Judy's harshness: I couldn't believe the way she let the "cable car" bus rental guy shout over her for a good 20 seconds without comment. Will this keep going beyond the initial order? I don't know. She said something like "5 or 6 million people may be watching" in a recent case. Quite a dip from 10! I bet 5 is generous. It annoys me having to pull up a whole different app. How many just watched her last show to have something on while they do chores? One thing I will break with the room on. Judy really should have paid Byrd the courtesy of engaging with him personally and directly before he heard in the media that she was moving on, and I think less of her for not doing so. But in terms of the show, I never thought he added much and haven't missed him once. PS: they didn't rent a "cable car." They rented a cheesy bus decorated with the better part of a retired cable car's chassis. I was surprised by how much it annoyed this SF local that they didn't just call a spade a spade. If the case were about a toy car designed to look like a Maserati, they wouldn't keep referring to it as "a Maserati." Grumble.

I half expected to learn that, I don't know, the actor who plays Vic is a gifted skater and they were setting him up for something dazzling in the last act. Otherwise I'm with you, that didn't really make sense to me either.

Apropos of nothing exactly, I was thinking (dangerous!) and I feel a little bad for Matt Amodio, or at least as bad as I possibly can for someone who just won $1.5M. Other "superchamps" got a little more time to themselves in the limelight, but he was supplanted in the general public consciousness by Amy barely a month later. I wonder if he feels he lost a bit of an opportunity to do the rounds, try to pursue other projects, etc. I was at Washington & Lee in Lexington. I did have friends and acquaintances "in town," mostly through my church, and don't recall them using the language in question. Although about 2/3 of the student body is from the South, it occurs to me that most of the people I knew well on campus were like me, among those recruited aggressively from elsewhere because the school would like to change its image. The conservative Old South types who still dominate didn't seem too interested in getting to know me, and I confess the feeling became mutual fast, so I guess upon reflection I'm not really sure whether they "take" or "make"!

I didn’t know that! Thanks. Where I went to school in SW Virginia must be too far “north south” for that. That usage makes me think of the way my grandmother, a New Englander, speaks, and of alternate forms like “make a party,” rather than give or throw one, which I heard a few times and use just because I like it.

Koré charmed me with her story about "making a picture" with Shaun Cassidy. I just love that older-fashioned way of putting it. Avinash, on the other hand, I was done with as soon as he found the DD he was hunting for and bet small. He deserved the audible eyeroll from Ken. I would have really liked Ken's opening, about learning a "38th fact" about Amy, if he'd cut the list of 5 or 6 past stories. Sometimes he just waxes too enthusiastic and goes on too long for me. We don't need to begin every episode with such a long recitative about her, and oh by the way two others have joined us too. I half want him to pull out an unfavorable stat about Amy's performance in the last game, and comment that the challengers might be able to exploit that, just for a change of pace! I feel I know what others are picking up on when they say this. I just can't verbalize what those things are (at least not succinctly), and I don't react the same way, but I think I "get" it. There's probably a German compound noun for that or something. ;)

I didn't love the way it was executed, but I thought "Torvill & Dean fever" was at least a clever page out of "1980-something" that we hadn't seen before.

The runners-up seemed like great sports today. I felt badly for Brittany, who seemed a bit checked out by the end of DD. I thought she might have swung on a few clues she would have left alone in another situation, contributing to her low score. There were a couple odd moments, like "prime minster" [sic] on the Benazir Bhutto clue. I really like the way the interim EP sounds when he talks about the show, but I don't ever remember those kinds of errors until recently. I hope they get a handle on them. I believe as of today Amy has exactly half as many wins as Ken. She will be tied with Matt for longevity if she wins tomorrow. To think that Ken went on twice as long as either of these very impressive runs is still pretty mind-boggling to me!

The new EP recently announced that he plans to have it in November every year, beginning this year. It's his way of having a consistent "postseason," during (I think) the "sweeps" period for ratings. Depending on how Amy's run goes and what happens afterwards, they may have more contestants with fewer wins than usual in the tournament.

As of the show aired yesterday, Amy has lost $143K in FJ wagers (meaning that she could have earned $286K more over her run to date). 36 games at $2K and $1K for the second and third place finishers makes $108K in consolation money for her opponents. So indeed, she's gambled away more in that round than those she's beat have made. She has successfully wagered $273,800 in FJ, accounting for about 23% of her total winnings.

Ken's right, it would have been helpful to know that "The Paper Chase" was about law students. Unfortunately, it sounded to me like paper-pushing, so I said "Office Space" just to have something. I was only off by 2 years! I'm vaguely familiar with "Legally Blonde" and "Clueless" but haven't seen any of the three movies in the clue and response.

I'd forgotten that! I was just reading that he was on "Jep," the short-lived kids version on GSN around 2000. The experts say he is the first from that show to appear on the adult show, not that there were many of them to begin with. Have fun! I recall more than are listed now, but the end of Flash was tough.

Having happily wasted many hours playing his online game show - esque games, I was glad to see Cory among the contestants this week. He'll play today. I'm still on team Amy but if somebody has to beat her, I wouldn't be sorry if it were him. We've never met but it's exciting to feel I "know" someone on the show again!

In this very interesting post from the EP, Michael Davies, he announces that they will begin publishing "daily box scores" with some interesting statistical information, including some that has not been released to the public before about attempts to buzz in. I appreciate the sense that the EP is sincerely interested in the show for its own sake, which radiates off some of the posts he has been making recently. He is trying to sell "it's just like a sport! really!" a little too hard for my liking, but that's my baggage. It will be interesting to see the promotional push he mentions for the ToC in November. If nothing else, I think this sort of approach gives a new potential focus to the media narrative around the show beyond the not-quite-resolved-yet hosting debacles. That's got to be a good thing.

I got that album as a birthday present and have always loved it, but you're right, that was quite an accent. Then again, you should've heard Susan Lucci do it while Bernadette was on vacation. She tried her best, bless her heart! Cheryl Ladd and Crystal Bernard, not long off her roll in "Wings," also did it at different times. I think they were trying to convey that the shows were relatively long-running, not obscure, but it occurred to me that might not come across to someone unfamiliar with Broadway. If someone's reference points are just a few of the shows that have been going for 10, 20, or 30, that clue might make them look for something lesser-known.

I've been on an "Annie Get Your Gun" kick for a little while, listening intermittently to versions of favorite songs from different recordings, so that was good luck. I didn't know what role SJP played on Broadway, although once they said it I remembered (funny how that works!), but I decided that was really THE Ethel Merman role they were most likely to ask about. Others, I thought, were too obscure or unlikely for there to be another character with that name (like Dolly or her character in "Anything Goes," Reno). Turns out hours wasted away listening to the same songs pay off pays off! At least Amy's guess was informed. "Mary" is I guess at least a common name, but "Melissa" was ridiculous. Amy looked really strong today. I find it fascinating to watch the other contestants after she gets a late DD, for instance. Sometimes they seem to be having a great time clapping along. Other times they look like deer in the headlights, or even downright sour. I really try not to judge them: how would I feel if I fulfilled a lifelong ambition and ended up getting steamrolled? But sometimes I think it wouldn't kill them to do as I was taught when I was on TV quiz bowl (hardly the same situation, I know) and in other settings, and display a bit more warm sportsmanship.

I got FJ instantly from "brother." Of course I could've been dead wrong, but it just rang that bell for me. As I might have remarked before, the biographical novel "Lust for Life" about Van Gogh made such an impression on me that to this day I can vividly recall where I was when I read it. I understood what they were going for after the first clue passed, but count me in with those who thought Chess Stratagems was too clever by half. I do think the writers get it right more often than they get it wrong on the sort of "cutesy" categories, though. WBZ? My thoughts are with you! I will reserve further comments on preemptions for another time, but I think Alex said it all anyway.

I wonder why the show used New Hampshire's seal, photoshopped to read "New York." I feel like we've seen New York's before many times on L&O shows, haven't we? (No, I'm not fabulously knowledgeable about state seals, my family is from New Hampshire. Yes, you may draw inferences about my level of engagement in the rest of the episode from my focus on this point.)

I also like Nancy's better than Cher's, but I like Dalida's even better. She was born in Egypt to Italian parents and lived most of her life in France, and could sing in 10 languages. I just adore her! Sadly she was something of a tortured soul and she died by suicide when she was only 54.

I loved the mention of “grabbing the brass ring.” That is one of my favorite little things that has become a memory most places but is kept up as a beloved tradition in a few special places, about a dozen in the USA in this case. It involves a dispenser extended perpendicular to the carousel platform and filled with small rings, which riders grab as they pass. This is thought to be a riff on the carousel’s origin as a military training device, and it does take more dexterity than you might guess, especially when you’re on an animal going up-and-down rather than a stationary one. Here’s a good video of how it works. (The rest of the novella about brass rings is under spoiler tag for those driven nuts by scrolling through big chunks of text.) I will say I was also disappointed that Judy Woodruff got the stand-and-stare. I really admire her and the way the NewsHour approaches things. I'm afraid I recall that Gwen Ifill was also a TS in the $2000 box not long ago. For shame!