853fisher

Not much buzz around the show this season, it seems. I haven’t minded the switch away from “all or nothing” in the bonus round, but as one might have predicted, some of the riddles seem tougher to me. Most everything else seems the same. The only thing I really dislike is the game where you’re asked to guess the combined price of two items. The trouble is that they give no info about quantity or size. It’s just “peanut butter and marshmallows” or “soup and detergent” and it drives me up the wall!

Me five, as pertains to the “vagina chronicles” club. Now I don’t feel completely wacky. Or at least not for this reason. ;) The seven reaction options on Facebook are like, love, care, haha, wow, sad, and angry, each represented by a little emoji. Unfortunately I agree “aha” is out because it doesn’t fit that category. I remember when it was a like or nothing. The more I learn about how Facebook parses these expanded reactions, the less interested I am in leaving any of them, but that’s a whole can of worms, so I’ll leave it there.

The J! Archive shows the last two clues related to the Edmund Fitzgerald in February ("which lake did it sink in" was a triple stumper) and last November (someone filled in "The Wreck of _____" with a hint about late fall wind on the Great Lakes). Let us remain vigilant! In other news, remember when we were wondering whether we'd ever have a contestant who cleared 3 or 4 wins again? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

I was going to take an afternoon cup of coffee to help get through some writing later, but Mr. "HOLLYWOOD! came to Kansas City..." woke me right the hell up. There's always one in the local newsroom, apparently. I watched it back a few times and thought Mike definitely mouthed the F-word after his missed DD. It looked to me like he remembered where he was about half a second too late. I don't blame him for that under the pressure, and I'm not clutching my pearls about it, but I was a little surprised they didn't use a shot of Mayim there or something, given typical broadcast standards.

That was an exciting endgame! Emily and Wren seemed to me to come out of nowhere to get within striking distance of Tyler. I liked all of them, so I didn't mind who won. I loved the mention of Andean condors. Closely related Callifornia condors have fascinated me for years. They were in the news today because scientists have determined that they can reproduce without a male parent. FJ was an instaget for me, although I hadn't previously known what specifically "the shores of Tripoli" was referring to, so I definitely enjoyed that. I learned the "Marines' Hymn" when I cared for a historic carousel with a Wurlitzer organ. For many years they issued 10-tune music rolls, but started to do only 6 during the Depression. They would repeat the same verse, chorus, and bridge on each song until it took up one-sixth the length of their earlier rolls, so they could tell buyers they were getting the same amount of music while reducing arranging expenses. The result can be monotonous, so most surviving copies of those 6-tune rolls have been edited, but I purchased a few uncut out of curiosity and an archival instinct. I used to like to sing along to pass the time when I was on duty at the controls, and thanks to a particularly long version of the "Marines' Hymn," I learned all three standard verses plus an unofficial one from a 1941 mission to stave off a Nazi invasion of Iceland. That last one goes: "Again in 1941 we sailed a northward course / and found beneath the midnight sun the Viking and the Norse. / The Iceland girls were slim and fair, and fair the Iceland scenes, / and the army found in landing there the United States Marines." I'm not sure J! will do a clue about the Iceland girls any time soon, but they got me through a few hot shifts, that's for sure!

That makes more sense than the idea that I would be in the dark about rum. ;) It was in the $1000 box too, I believe. Anyway, thanks. I’ve said in the past that those comments aren’t my favorites, but I can’t complain about ‘em if I don’t pick ‘em up!

I enjoy a tipple, but almost never order call drinks, so Sailor Jerry was a miss for me. I was still surprised I hadn't at least heard of it, especially after it was a "can't believe you didn't get that" from Mayim. Maybe we need a bar exchange. She can enjoy the house rum at mine while I order Sailor Jerry at hers. Having glossed over "7,000 miles," I was very pleased with myself for remembering at the last second that the capital of New Zealand is not Wellington but Auckland. Ummmm, no, self, that hasn't been right since 1865. And of course, 7,000 miles! So I should probably take my wager off twice for that one. Dad, who loves Copeland, calls it "row-DAY-oh" and so do all the dancers and musicians I've known. I think I read once that might have started as an affectation in response to European looking down upon American classical arts. The man himself apparently pronounced it "ROW-dee-oh." Didn't this come up last year? A colleague stopped by after lunch to chat and brought me a copy of the local gay paper. Who is on the front page but Peter from today's show? I'm sort of tickled by his nonchalance, compared to the usual answers to "how long have you wanted to be on the show?" The film festival he helms is a big deal around here.

I have to admit that I lost interest in Nancy when, after getting the first 3 clues right, she hit the first DD on the 4th in the same category, and bet less than it was worth "naturally." She was a little bolder on the third one, unfortunately at her peril. Oh well! I wondered what a greenstick fracture is, and it turns out it describes a bone that has bent and cracked but not broken into separate pieces. It occurs mostly in children. Ouch! In other news, I had entirely the wrong idea in "rewritten synopses" and thought "Goodnight Moon" was "The Shining." I had "Anna Christie" for FJ, not expecting it to be right but not knowing what else to say. I ought to get half credit since my first name was right. ;) I wish I had perceived the Russian actress' name as a clue. I had to look up Elizabeth Bennet. I have a definite blind spot in literature of that era A bit of a giggly day for Mayim, I thought, more like her first showing than the bulk of what she's done after her return. Hopefully just a blip.

Cheers to @Bastet for expressing better some of my ideas RE the Bible clues. I may have made it sound like I thought it would never be suitable material, which I didn't intend. It is the frequency and the focus, to the exclusion of other texts / traditions, that really bothers me. I raised the issue with a dear friend who has been taking the contestant test for years. He, the son of a preacher and also a regular congregant at his church, made me laugh by saying that he agreed with my perspective, but hopes they don't reduce the frequency of those clues before he gets on.

While I was monologuing about the Bible, I forgot to say that I thought "that is cool...but not as cool...as you picking...right now" was a tuh-ragic transition out of the interviews. Nobody nails it all the time, but I thought that was especially bad. Like, local access quiz bowl host bad. Fortunately, it's an outlier for Mayim, IMO.

Enough with the Bible categories! "David picked 5 stones before encountering this person" is fair enough: there are plenty of ways to know that from art and literature and so on, or from a basic "World Religions" audit. But I don't know how anyone would know "how long did Jacob serve before marrying Rachel" or "how many people were on Noah's ark" without reasonably in-depth scriptural study. I happen to be a practicing Christian but I don't think obscure elements of anyone's religious texts belong on a general knowledge quiz. Maybe I would feel differently if we were ever asked about the Vedas or Hadith or anything, but we're not. I don't know if there are really more of these than in the past, but it sure seems that way. It's hard to describe succinctly why this annoys me so much, he wrote in his third paragraph, but it seems to reek of a sort of religious hegemony which I would like to think our society is slowly but surely moving past. Grumping over. For now. Well done to Jonathan! It will be interesting to see whether he and Matt meet again. I think Jonathan is a little less consistent, but anything can happen. I liked Nancy so I hope she does well tomorrow. I was curious to know at which college she worked, and it turns out to have been Reed. It only took us into our seventh week of the season to get a third champion. ;)

I got Goodall having understood that FJ questions are usually not trying to trick me. When they mentioned Cambridge, that seemed to me to mean "name the British one," not "one went to Cambridge and the other went to Oxford, do you know which?" I thought Fossey was another one and, having read about her murder, thought she was American, although I didn't recall or know she was from here in San Francisco. I couldn't've named Galdikas to save my life, but fortunately, FJ was not trying to trick me. I wonder if it wouldn't be too impertinent a question if he ever does one of these "Ask Me Anything" threads on Reddit or something. It seems more common to refer to a partner regardless of gender in Europe, so I wondered whether she is from there.

There would have been many bonus points from me if the response had been given as “Where’s Waldo?” But then I was always easy to amuse.

I wonder whether the detail in the clue that Groff is from PA influenced the response of Benjamin Franklin? It's not an unreasonable guess if you haven't seen the show, but sometimes when a detail seems extraneous I try to parse "what it means" and might have fallen into the same trap myself, who knows? "Honky Tonk Woman" was a cute guess for FJ. I tried "Bad Girls," although I didn't think it was necessarily right. Sometimes by the end of an episode I'm ready to turn my brain off. Unfortunately I haven't ever seen or read "Cyrano," although I think I've watched different things inspired by it.

She has definitely been growing on me in the game, just in time for Ken to return in a few weeks. I still don't think especially highly of her outside the show for various reasons, but as long as she's hosting, her success is the show's, so I continue to wish her well. Thank you for this fascinating explanation, and for everything you all do for us. I feel a little less silly now. If there's ever a call for volunteers, I'd be proud to step up.

The J! Archive is still a wonderful resource, but I can never get the media clue links to go anywhere other than "404 Not Found." I infer from other posts that it's not just me who can't get them to work, but one of the archive's people often remarks on another board about how many he's had to do on a given day, so I imagine they work for somebody. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong! Holly is the author of this first major biography of the actor Ray Bolger, who had a large body of work but is best known as the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz." It's been on my list for a while, but maybe her appearance was a sign that I ought to hurry up and read it. Between that and her story about Fred Astaire, she seems to have tastes beyond her years, as I do. I wouldn't have minded to see her win. It will be interesting to see how long Jonathan can keep it going. He doesn't seem to me to have as much knowledge as Matt, and doesn't seem prepared to wager too much either. But you never can tell how things will go. Back when I was young enough to arrange my legs parallel to the floor and hope to get up easily afterward, they were calling it either "crisscross applesauce" or "Indian style," which I imagine is used less frequently now.

This last one was pretty bad. Barry was at his least likeable for me, and Glascott is just extraneous. Why are we getting so much of him? As consolation for "Schooled," where he had a larger role, being canceled? I'm not feeling it. Cheers to @mamadrama for sharing the Action Park video. I enjoyed reading these recollections too. When that logo flashed on screen, I thought it was a clever idea they hadn't drawn on yet. I did think the set, obviously not anywhere near an actual water park, looked awful and silly. Beverly IRL is totally insufferable and seems really insecure when it comes to her family. Yes, sure, I'm sure whenever she visits Manhattan she can hardly get across Washington Square without people stopping her to tell her how well-remembered her son is. ;) I'm not known for overestimating people's intelligence, but I think viewers know the difference between fact and fiction better than she gives them credit for.

Some of the commentary about "Lord of the Flies" and Golding makes me look back to the FJ question about "Just So Stories" and Kipling several days ago. I admit I had never heard of them, even in passing. I've read some pieces about the passing of Enid Blyton from the canon for young children in the UK, about which I really can't comment because I haven't read them, other than to say that she was once very big and now she isn't. Perhaps something similar happened to Kipling, making knowledge of this particular book more generational?

Me too. I didn't have time to get off that before someone onstage responded. I think I might have gotten it otherwise, although as @kathyk2 and @30Helens said, Piggy would have definitely given it to me, while Simon was a little vaguer. I did read it in the late 2000s for school. I recently culled books from childhood since my parents are downsizing, but I don't remember whether this one ended up in the "keep" or "donate" piles. That's probably a sign it should have ended up in "donate" if it didn't. I recall that it was a fair read and prompted interesting discussion, but haven't felt much of an instinct to revisit it or pass it on.

Birds of a feather! She and the others linked to Lincoln's assassination crossed my mind too. I ruled them out because I went through a period of fascination with presidential assassinations and didn't recall anything like a Supreme Court case before she and several others went to the gallows, although I remembered her execution in particular was somewhat controversial.

My brain skipped from "self evident" straight to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," so I briefly tried to think of a case about the death penalty that might have addressed the "first...truth." I couldn't, and that subject seemed incongruous with the 19th century. I did end up on Scott, but more because I thought his case matched the rest of the clue than because I had verified my guess with that specific tidbit. I was more confident when I thought that the same 20 or so Supreme Court cases seem to come up in most trivia contests, to the exclusion of any others. I was rooting for Anjolie after her pretty gutsy DD wager. Jonathan's FJ bet would have given him exactly $100 more than her assuming they'd both gotten it right and she wagered everything. If he were incorrect but she got it, she would have been the day's winner. But unfortunately for her, it was not to be. I had the right answer for dengue fever because of this NewsHour piece from the other week about an innovative way to mange mosquitos in Florida, and one of the interviewee's descriptions of its effects. Some interesting ideas here.

Good boards for me. I got all of “Disney Songs” and 4/5 on a few others. Unfortunately not much of an idea on FJ. I was thinking of guessing William Henry Harrison or Andrew Jackson, imagining a victory tour after Tippecanoe or New Orleans, but I was about a decade off on each. A quick skim of the Wikipedia article about Lafayette’s visit suggests it was linked to the 50th anniversary of independence in 1826. I might’ve been thinking of a Revolutionary figure if that had been the year mentioned, but I couldn’t get anything from 1824. Approaching it by naming Indiana cities didn't help me much either, but perhaps being from there was an edge for Adam. Anyway, good clue! I'm going to enjoy reading about the trip later. I liked everyone’s interviews today. I was impressed with Jonathan’s gracious answer about the prospect of facing Matt again, liked Adam’s anecdote about Santa Claus IN which I would like to visit one day, and agreed with Anna that Splendor is a really fun game. I recently discovered it and have found it easy to enjoy but tough to master. Like many recent board games with lots of tokens and counting, I find it even more pleasant online than in the physical realm, but I do feel tempted to throw a Renaissance party after Anna’s comments.

In the first recording I tried to watch, we went directly from “In 1540, this chief advisor to Henry VIII was executed” to “Who is Selena Gomez?” A woman of many talents, it would seem! Or a little glitch, but I know which one I’d rather believe. I laughed at the clue about Celine Dion covering an Eric Carmen song. I’ve heard it but would never have been able to place it, except that I was recently searching for a different song with the title “All By Myself” and was annoyed by all the results from those two artists! Perhaps there is meaning in everything. One favorite bit of trivia I learned recently, which may not be news to those a few years older than me, is that Foot Locker is the same corporate entity that was Woolworth's, two name changes later. This goes back to their purchase of Kinney Shoes in 1963 and a later plan to develop several "specialty stores" so they could get into malls. The idea was that, if one store failed in a certain mall, they could swap it out easily for another, but the shoe store is the only concept that really took off. The last Woolworth's closed in 1997 but Foot Locker is still doing fairly well, or at least it was pre-COVID.

What an odd damp squib of a first round. Fortunately things picked up a little. I think Mayim has found cause to mention outside the interview that Jonathan is an actor at least once each episode. I think she's genuinely interested in someone from her field, but it's enough already for me. I loved the clue about lighting fires on the Sabbath. I read a fascinating article about different devices observant Jews can use to comply with the rules without being too inconvenienced. I wish I could find it! I don't know how any of them get triple rhyme time that quickly. In FJ, I would have bet low since I know little about sports, but Yogi Berra transcends that field. I had to laugh because, if I hadn't known it was Yogi Berra, that quote might have read perfectly normally as "until it was broken, I expected my record to stand [indefinitely.]" There was a witty line in there somewhere about Mayim's green-on-green outfit when she asked Jonathan to speak in Irish dialect, but if I couldn't distill it at home, it's no wonder he couldn't under the lights.

It was maybe marginally closer to cap-er-nee-um, at least as I heard Mayim say it. But I swear I heard something between cap-er-num and cap-er-naum from several different people over multiple years. Never ever an extra vowel sound between "n" and "um"/"aum." Am I ever glad I did a little research before I mouthed off about it!