Kathira

A big win for Tracey Flick. Actually, Claire was very impressive and deserved her win. They were all good, charming and level-headed, and I have every confidence that they will all go on to stellar careers. And they all have a fun experience to write about for their college admission essays and put on their resumes. I got gnu, Christmas, United States, arrow, poison, dude ranch, and cherry. Who knew Washington D.C. even had an official fruit? But I got to cherry fairly quickly. I got it from the cherry blossoms - George Washington chopping down the cherry tree didn't even occur to me. Probably because pretty much everybody recognizes that it's totally made up and isn't even in kid's books any more as far as I know. Obviously the contetsants had never heard of it.

Poor Maggie. That was a heart-breaker. Although I didn't get FJ either. It's been too long since I was in high school English class. I don't think Lord of the Flies is a book anyone reads unless it's assigned. The first thing I thought of was Robert Graves' Good-bye to All That although I knew it was too early. I also thought of The Winds of War - it was at least the right time period, but American, the same as Maggie's decent guess of Catch-22. They missed a couple of what seemed like Toddler Jeopardy clues, but I guess they were "easy if you know it." It seems like all the kids have somewhat surprising gaps in their knowledge. A bunch of stuff that was common knowledge back in the day seems to have disappeared in this generation. I got red (carmine), Wuthering Heights, Red Dead Redemption (I have 13-year-old son - the only one I missed in the video game category was Deus Ex, which he doesn't play. Apparently it's a somewhat older game and none of his friends play it.). Also got Pan, fainting goats, shy and Tesla. Tesla was a surprising miss - my son and his friends seem to be obsessed with the cars and by extension, Elon Musk. He's always talking to me about what an interesting person Elon Musk is and how we should get a Tesla. Sure kid, when I win the lottery (or a lot of money on Jeopardy).

Man, that was a tough watch. Poor Dan just couldn't catch a break. And so many TS's. I got vandalism, lemur, IHop, alien, hemlock, anthrax and nose. There might have been more but I stopped writing them down. FJ was pretty easy. I think the end girl was bidding enough to win if she missed it and Audrey bet 0. It's always tough to figure out what to bet when your options aren't just winning, but coming in second with enough money to get a wild card slot.

Me, too. Although the only TS I wrote down was police academy. I thought the clue for that one was badly worded, and that it couldn't possibly be as easy as police academy. But then they also described a stop sign, so there's that. That one really was Toddler Jeopardy. Seriously, 3-year olds know what stop signs look like. If they hadn't reversed "Pippa" Longstocking, I might have had to write them a strongly worded email of complaint.

I agree, her voice is natural. It was a bit jarring at first, but easily gotten past. I'm sure she's had to deal with a lot - being small and having a squeaky voice can't have been easy, especially as she's gotten older. Fortunately, she's pretty smart. I wouldn't mind seeing her back in the finals, if her total holds up. Bernadette on BBT isn't a perfect comparison, though. Yes, Melissa Rauch is short (under 5' tall) but her normal speaking voice is a considerably lower register. If you've only ever seen her as Bernadette, hearing her speak in interviews is startling.

By convention, cyborgs are part human (or alien) and part machine. They almost always have human brains, where androids are fully machine, including the brain, although they appear human. On Star Trek, the Borg were cyborgs, and Data was an android. On Doctor Who, the Cybermen are cyborgs. Technically speaking, the Daleks are also, as they have a living component inside the machine shell. The "hosts" on Westworld are androids. I'm sure that was more than you wanted to know. LOL I got technical knockout and prime (Anish's missed DD) as well as FJ. I don't know anything about Dear Evan Hansen, beyond the fact that it exists and is current and popular. I pre-guessed Hamilton or the Book of Mormon.

Mary Ann does have some annoying habits, but what contestant doesn't these days? I was touched by her story abut being the first member of her family to attend college. (Or even being in the first generation with greater than a high school education.) I teach at a local community college and many of our students are in that position. It can be very hard to navigate the shoals of higher education when no one in your family has even heard of a FAFSA application. I tutor an immigrant student from Thailand who speaks a language I've never even heard of (it's called Karen and only has around 300,000 speakers) and yet there she is working hard every day, trying to succeed and get her degree. Anyway, like Lonnie, I went with L-1 for FJ, realizing too late that L stands for lumbar, which is the lower spine. I got a couple of TS's - Lebanon and Boys in the Band, but I was also distracted by election stuff. At least they didn't pre-empt Jeopardy altgether.

I also thought it was possible she was expecting or post-partum. If she's pregnant, or just had a baby, she could be on leave. Also, it said she was a "visiting" professor, which could mean she's essentially an adjunct, so not teaching right now. Again, possibly baby-related.

Just catchng up this morning, as we were pre-empted by a politcal debate last night. I get it, politics are very important, but so is Jeopardy! At least they showed it overnight and my DVR recorded it correctly. I got vivid, Buddhism, and Scott Turow - a classic "no, it's the other one" answer. The two big former lawyer authors are him and John Grisham and I always thought it was too bad that Grisham is bigger, as Turow is the better writer. Like Emily, I went with Rhone and Elbe for FJ. I'm glad she won, I like her. I also liked the older pharmacist lady. I think she can be happy with her correct FJ answer. It's like a consolation prize - you didn't win, but at least you were the only one to get the FJ correct. I looked Emily up. (Gee, a professor who lives in Swarthmore, PA. Maybe she works at the college?) Anyway, according to their site, she's a Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian. For some reason Russian studies folks tend to do well on Jeopardy. BTW, do we think she's pregnant?

I knew that Hitch used chocolate syrup for blood in that scene and that they used a body double for Janet Leigh. What they used the melon for, I'm not sure. Maybe to make the stabbing into flesh sound? I also got The Witches of Eastwick, Mayans, Bede, and Egypt. The Witches of Eastwick was the book that convinced me that I could never be a fiction writer. The language and imagery is so beautiful and it isn't even rated as one of Updike's best books. I knew I could never write like that. Now when I tell people that, they usually laugh and say that there are plenty of published authors who can't write like Updike and that that shouldn't be a disqualifying factor. LOL

At least you got half the show. My channel cut out due to "technical difficulties" from after the first few questions ntil right before FJ. Which I also got easily - maybe the other two don't vacuum? Or maybe they just don't have pets. We've had Dyson Animals for years.

In your defense, many of the comedies do have similar names that don't necesarily have anything to do with the plot. The plots tend to be similar, too - it's all a merry mix-up and ends with everybody married to the right person. Twins! Mistaken identities! Cross-dressing disguises! Comical servants! "All's Well that Ends Well" might as well be the name of all of them. I did get tonight's FJ though. It was one of the more obvious ones.

At first I was going to say that Outlander shouldn't count as American, since so much of it is set in Scotland, etc, but that criterion would also eliminate Catch-22, which is set almost entirely in Italy, and Dune, which is set in space in the far future. To Kill a Mockingbird is such a quintessentially American book, I'm glad it won. I voted for Dune, which knocked my socks off the first time I read it. I almost went for Lord of the Rings, which I was obsessed with as a young teen, but ultimately I stuck to my private criterion of American authors.

I agree, Jonny was better as the Creature - more visceral and at the same time child-like. Although to be fair, I liked him better as Frankenstein also. I'm not a huge Benedict Cumberbatch fan and find him overrated. I feel the same way about Eddie Redmayne.

OK, I'll give him that. That was sweet.

Wow, I got both missed DDs, Catch-22 and Librarian of Congress, and the FJ. I said Blarney Stone at first, but then changed to the Stone of Scone. I've been watching PBS's Great American Read and Catch-22 is one of the books they've been featuring. Although I would probably have known it from the quote anyway. I liked both Tori and Todd and would have been happy with either one of them beating Dhruv, who bugged me in some indefineable way. By the way, I thought the choices for the Great American Read should have been limited to American authors, but they didn't ask me. At least an American novel got the top slot.

I liked learning that, too. It also pointed up the fact that folks from India tend not be too attached to their surnames, as they often aren't patronymics, the way Western names are. He said his family gave him that name because of its religious connotations, not because it was his father's name. Not a good night for me. I didn't get many TS's, other than Picardy and totally blanked on FJ.

The Citizens United decision is usually referred to that way. I'm reasobnably familiar with it, enough to have gotten the answer, but I couldn't have come up with "vs. the Federal Election Commission." On the other hand, the Brown decision usually referred to as Brown vs. the Board of Education, like Bush v. Gore, etc.

OK, I'm out. I couldn't make it more than 10 minutes in. It was just excruciating. I hate all of them and don't want to spend another minute hanging out with them. And much as I love David Tennant, he seriously needs to give up on American accents. It's just painful to listen to. He (or his agents) should tell any future directors, producers etc. that he can either do a London English accent, ala Jessica Jones, or just use his natural Scottish accent. They can either say he's an immigrant, or just go with it with no explanation.

Because I speak of the pompatus of love...

I got Checker cab (seriously, people, there was a picture of one!), water mocassin, Citizens United, Drugstore Cowboy, Space Cowboy, John Travolta and Mussorgsky. Combine that with Mar-a-Lago for a good night for me. I thought a couple of the categories, like Down_____ and 3-Letter Words really played to Eric's strengths as a crossword puzzle writer. He was lucky he racked up the points there. And also that the other contestants fell apart as badly as he did at the end.

Yes, and it's pronounced more like Sol-mon. There seems to be some difference of opinion on how the name of Scottish politician Alex Salmond is pronounced, however. People with Scottish accents seem to pronounce the "l" fairly strongly, as Sal-mund, but the British newspeople seems to say it more like Sau-mund.

Or almond vs. ah-mond. English is an ever-evolving thing and meaning, pronunciation and even spelling, are a moving target.

When I was a kid in church, we used to giggle over the hymn about the "bomb in Gilead." Because of that, I tend to make a conscious effort to say Bal-m.

I liked middle girl's (Allison? Jessica?) blouse with all the chemistry instruments on it. Pretty much the only TS I got was the Battle of the Hot Gates (Thermopylae). Totally blanked on FJ.