853fisher

I think that was the first game of the season in which all clues weren't revealed. I'm looking forward to another streak of completion starting tomorrow! I was ready to get pissy about how Mayim pronounced "Capernaum," but it would seem she was correct and every religious and lay teacher I had was wrong. Imagine that. I really liked the linear play in the first round, starting at the beginning and going down each category one by one and would be happy to see more of that. I can't recall the last time a contestant was as visibly nervous as Robinson-Gisette, but good for them for sticking with it and coming up with some responses from the bottom.

Oh, I have no doubt it was intended good-naturedly. Nobody will stick the landing 100% of the time. I just don't like those kinds of comments no matter who makes them. I roll my eyes wondering why that person is so unimaginative.

I thought she said "I feel like, why would anyone do that? But that's awesome." I would have absolutely hated that she said it, without the second sentence. I still agree with you that she didn't need to say anything, but she saved it for me. By the way, I did a reading of one of these with friends, just at home sitting around the sofas with maybe 15 or so people/. It was fun! So that's why. ;)

I've seen it argued elsewhere that Matt will have known Austria was the obvious answer, and suspected that the other players would bet big, so he chose Poland thinking that his only hope was being the only one to get it right with a non-obvious answer. I don't know, that's a few orders of thinking too intricate for me. I think he just ran out of gas, but I thought it was an interesting suggestion.

RE "Recent Movies," when a category is really in my wheelhouse, I like to consider whether I "agreed" with the difficulty suggested by the dollar amounts. The only one I hadn't even heard of was "Resistance" in the $2000 slot, so that scans (although I note it was at-home on-demand only, and I don't enjoy watching movies that way, so I don't bother). I might have moved "The Meg" up a few boxes, especially since it was the least recent, but otherwise I think the placements made sense. One last thing: I hated the little plug for the new "Venom" movie, which is of course a Sony affair. Yes, I know we have full categories sometimes, but that seems less gratuitous to me somehow. I hope we don't get a lot of that moving forward. I think it's a slippery slope.

I was disappointed to have the game spoiled for me. I watch on YouTube and, depending on my lunch schedule, sometimes catch it while the uploader is still "live." The top comment in the chat window, before I could close it and well before the game's "live" conclusion, was "shame Matt lost today!" Some people are, at best, very thoughtless. Anyway, congratulations to him. I enjoyed watching him play and hope he will make fruitful use of his newfound platform. I think we should all be grateful that he came along when he did, even those who would have preferred fewer runaways or a different personas. That reads pointed, but I just mean that it was probably a good thing the media had something else to discuss besides the behind-the-scenes turmoil we're still not entirely out of the woods on, and we all benefit when the show is strengthened, or at least its detractors sidetracked. I'm not sure just when it fell apart, but that seemed sort of like an odd game. Is there any chance Matt was Mike Richards' last horcrux? I bet the remaining 8 contestants for the week took a deep breath out. I'll look forward to what happens next.

I did too, and her hairstyle. It was a really becoming look on her. I would have said so in my own post but I didn't want it to seem like a tacky afterthought to my critique. "Well, here's what I didn't like...but her outfit was nice." But now you've put it on the table, I can second it.

These were pretty good boards for me, except gemstones and state geography. I always love a mention of Lucy. I didn't know about FJ, so I said "giraffe," which I thought was cute. I didn't love Mayim's comment about the flying wedge. I want the host of J! to exude mastery of the material, even though I understand that they don't necessarily know all these things independently. I guess she thinks she's being appealingly self-effacing, maybe "relatable," when she makes those jokes or tells interviewers that she's sure she'd do badly as a contestant. I'm sure others receive it that way too, but it's just not for me and I hope it's kept to a minimum. She's still exceeding my expectations overall. Thanks for this! I hadn't considered that at all. If it were me, I'd say, "let 'em Google it, I'm from _____." But then I'm a pain in the ass, at least sometimes. ;)

Thanks for that perspective! I would say I love the Cape, and know it too, although it sounds like maybe not as well as you (meant earnestly, not snarkily). I agree that “the Cape” is in common colloquial use, but locals always seemed eager to share about their particular towns. Out where I live now, people say “we’re going up to Napa for the weekend,” but those who live there would certainly introduce themselves as being from Yountville or St. Helena or what have you, not “Napa Valley, California.” On the Cape too, I would have imagined that people would want to name their own particular place, but I guess you could say there's a certain all-Cape pride too. I just couldn't recall, in all the years I've been watching, when anyone was introduced other than with a specific city. Anyway, despite all the proverbial ink spilled, it's not the end of the world, whatever the reason.

Today I thought it was odd that the contestant was "originally from Cape Cod, Massachusetts." Cape Cod is a region, not a city, and I can't think when they've ever introduced anyone as "from Upstate New York" or "from the Bay Area" or whatever. It doesn't harm anyone, I just wondered what it was about. It's a good thing to enforce the given rules, of course, but "biathalete" was one of those real groan moments. Fortunately it wouldn't have affected the outcome either way. Similarly, not like she wouldn't have left with $1,000 for 3rd place regardless, but I was sorry Maddie wasn't able to dig herself out at the end there. You know, that's pretty clever! But I don't know. One source I found suggested that New York argued it should be considered part of their mainland in part because of its large size. I thought that seemed a bit weak.

That would've confused me too. Apparently the legal fiction that it is a peninsula was arranged in order to retain state control of waterways, since the federal government otherwise claimed they fulfilled conditions to fall to them.

I was hung up on “naff,” which is double letter but obviously not vowel. I like “twee” but love “naff.” RE bias, I think she might have known it, but if the voice in her earpiece says “no,” it says “no.” Eh, maybe I’m just in an uncommonly generous mood again. ;)

I continue to think that Mayim has improved well. Now I would like her to work on / someone to work with her on pronunciations of foreign words and names. They are not awful, and it might be unfair to expect Alex’s sort of flair, but they could use more precision. I had no clue at all on FJ. I tried pasting together “hot” and “present” in my mangled French, but only spooked the cats. I have some real knowledge gaps in “western civ” / European history, and it occurred to me recently I never took that in school like many folks did! Maybe even most folks, I’m not sure, but it wasn’t in my curriculum. I consider myself a lifelong learner but haven’t gotten around to it yet, I guess. I liked seeing a mention of IIT, where my father graduated. I think all my architectural taste must be in my mouth, because the building pictured struck me as…just a box with glass. I prefer daring shapes or more ornament, sometimes a lot more ornament, and just don’t get what the fuss is in many modernist buildings. I will grant that this particular example was ahead of its time when it was built. Still, the gorgeous red brick Victorian they recently sold is much more my style. I’m sure Mies van der Rohe is devastated.

You have a good memory. That was last Monday. The clue in Movie Taglines was "1955: 'teenage terror torn from today's headlines.'" They were looking for "Rebel Without a Cause."

I thought you meant something like the proverbial pink elephants, but I looked this up, and I’ll stick to my regularly scheduled liquid vice, I think! This timely announcement let’s us know just “Tournament of Roses” is fine, and it seems doubly appropriate for this forum:

Don't feel left out. Many who have don't either. ;) David Lynch can be an inscrutable filmmaker. I saw his "Blue Velvet" a week or two ago and am still trying to decide what it meant, in a good way. If Wikipedia is to be believed, he is working on something for Netflix right now, so we can all wait for the clues on that.

I wondered about that. I might have pressed my luck on "Rose Bowl Parade" in the heat of the moment.

There was something sublime about how Johnny rolled the "r" in Angie's last name. I didn't have a clue on a single one of the 90s Music answers. I am not old enough to have picked any of it up by cultural osmosis and it's just not my style to seek out now. James' monologue could have been made for me, but generally, I know what I like. I couldn't help but think that it would have been a bear to come up with the FJ answer at the last second. I guessed it pretty quickly and didn't come up with anything better, but I would have had to hurry to put it down legibly. I'm sure all the contestants would rather be winning, but I'm glad they continue to give it their all and seem to be enjoying themselves, generally speaking. I liked the very warm look from Angie to Anthony when he tried "South Pasadena." I was curious, and as far as I can tell, "Reefer Madness" never showed here in San Francisco during its initial run or first reissue. Perhaps that's why everyone and their mother is on it, because they collectively missed the lesson. It first shows up on the movie pages in 1962 as part of a "Three Big, Torrid Hits!" bill along with "10 Days in a Nudist Camp" and "The Burlesque Rage: Girls! Gals! Dolls!" so I'm not sure anyone at those screenings was getting the message either. ;)

Mayim seems to like "absolutely!" in place of the giggling from her first round when she wants to acknowledge a response that is fun, cute, whatever. I think it's a good compromise. It's nice and crisp and not too much. It made me smile that Hungry Hungry Hippos got the "absolutely!" treatment. I knew FJ immediately. It helps that I live in San Francisco and immerse myself in its history for fun. In general I thought the clue was probably medium-tough. Chicago is a good guess. Their great fire was actually 150 years ago next week: it ignited on October 8, 1871. I wonder whether the contestants who answered Boston or Pittsburgh were thinking of something particular or just took a stab at cities they knew were prominent by 1906. Here is a bit more from an SFFD Friends group about James O'Neil and his wife Mary. The subsequent fires were even more lethal, but James was killed by the earthquake itself while on night watch at the firehouse. I read in another source that he was drawing water for the horses when the American Hotel next door collapsed onto him. Later, when one of the first big fires touched off around the corner, there was no water to be had at all. I go by these sites sometimes and will have to remember James when I do. I couldn't quickly learn anything about how Mary or their daughter fared after 1906, but I did learn that the exact site of James' grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in nearby Colma appears to have been lost in the shuffle. Anyway, the Call article mentioned in the clue is here. That paper, after a series of mergers, became part of the Examiner, which is still published.

Perhaps I was feeling uncommonly generous after a pleasant night out, but I thought Shrek had to be a joking “don’t know” answer. Otherwise it was absolutely dreadful, even if you allow that she might’ve focused on the wrong year of the two mentioned. But I thought she seemed a quirky type, and the answer made me laugh with her. RE “Wizard of Oz,” I can understand why they accepted that answer. But I would have awarded beaucoup style points to anyone who included “Wonderful,” which to my mind is the strictly correct answer to the prompt given. I’m afraid I didn’t much like Mayim’s outfit either, but I told myself that if she continues to make small changes to her hosting style on her current path, she could turn up in a gunny sack and that would still be preferable to other options.

The exception to the "no leading article required" rule, which is not pertinent to the case we're discussing but which I find interesting, is when there is another notable work with that title. The example I've seen given is that "Invisible Man" would not be accepted for the HG Wells novel "The Invisible Man," because of the Ralph Ellison novel of that name. I thought the tee-up, “a weather event had a major impact on where you lived during one of your semester breaks,” meant something like “I couldn’t visit X because of a disaster so I ended up in Y instead." I don't envy them all trying to tease out a 30th anecdote, but "food spoiled in our fridge while we were away" was a letdown from my imagination. I don't care for terms like "the flyovers" and have thought that it would be nice to have something similar but less dismissive. I will try to remember "non-coastal America," although that's not quite perfect either. The clues in that category were pretty good too. I have a lot left to learn about those parts of the country.

I believe it's their first full category this season. Occasionally they have spare clues peppered here and there, but I don't remember whether there have been any of those recently. The other two special video categories so far have been 1 "indulging our local affiliate's news team" and 1 "promoting an upcoming docuseries." I would venture to say that 1 per week feels like par for the course lately, but I'm always happy to see more of the Clue Crew. (I know the video clues drive the team at the J! Archive up the wall, though.)

I forgot to add, and I suppose it may just be a matter of taste or a grouchy mood, but I thought Mayim went a bit OTT at the end there. "Wow! You took a really big risk! That was so fun to watch!" In general, I just don't like having these things narrated to me. I believe it was authentic too, only a little much. It was a good win, about $70K more than I made today, but the result wasn't in question, the wager was less than half his total, and the clue wasn't a massive head-scratcher either. I don't know, maybe I've just been desensitized to large wins recently? She writes regularly about the show for a site called "The Ringer," which I think is largely sports-oriented. She broke the story about Richards' podcast and before that wrote a book on the show's history.

I was going to say that I might be tempted to bet big on an FJ with a relatively limited number of potential answers, but then it occurred to me that "The Continents" doesn't necessarily mean the response they're looking for will be one of them. Eh, I still think I would have found the category tempting. I did know it was Africa. I've achieved serenity regarding BMS, and I admit I haven't minded Mayim often repeating the answer with the missing first name or whatever else. If they're not going to require it of the contestants, fine, I suppose. But I still want that info filled in for viewer edification. What if I had no idea who played in "Good Will Hunting"?

I've heard rumors to that effect but I'm not sure whether it's official. I hope they add someone for sure, but I would find it a bit lazy if we met a second new detective in a row who started as a peripheral UC officer and just couldn't tear themselves away for the "elite squad."