JEOPARDY Archives - Page 15 of 20

Politics, Alex Trebek and JEOPARDY!

It could be that I’m STILL ticked off that Alex Trebek ruined my picture with him.

It’s no great secret that many game show hosts in the United States are politically conservative. Here are articles from the Daily Beast and Salon.

This list of MCs includes Alex Trebek, host of JEOPARDY, a show I’ve been watching in one iteration or other more than half of my life. I’m not suggesting a political litmus test, so the fact that he speaks approvingly of the Tea Party is disappointing to me but doesn’t alter my appreciation of the game.

However, his comments on air are cumulatively starting to irritate. As Salon suggests: “In Trebek’s universe, when a woman wins, a battle of the sexes begins, whereas when a man wins, the universe is in accord.”

The show itself got dinged for its recent sexist “what women want” category. Trebek doesn’t write the questions, but after 30 years, certainly has enough sway that if the category or the questions therein (which you can read HERE) bugged him, they’d likely be altered.

So I took some odd pleasure from this recent gaffe during the interview section, made available by the show’s producers.

Of course, it could be that I’m STILL ticked off that he ruined my picture with him. After I was on the show, taped in September 1998, I received a photo, but it was just of me with no Trebek. I’m sure it was because when I posed for the photo with him, I could see on a monitor that he did the rabbit ears thing behind me like an eight-year-old.

In any case, I imagine the now appropriately mustachioed host will probably retire in a couple of years. And the show still interests me, so that trumps whatever irritation I have with the host for enjoyment, so far.
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Here’s one of those recent Jeopardy! Hometown Howdies.

June Rambling: Hal Holbrook; Marimba Queens

I see signs that say ClOSED, and it makes me a little bonkers.

pinned on Pinterest by Roger Green (not me)

My denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) voted for marriage equality at its General Assembly this month. “Ministers will be allowed to marry same-sex couples in states where it is legal.”

On the other hand, Freedom and Faith Coalition’s Road to Majority conference had an Obama figurine in the urinal.

CBS News Sunday Morning did a piece, Born this way: Stories of young transgender children. The ever-interesting Dustbury on Gender Confirmation Surgery.

Writer Jay Lake worked closely with Lynne Thomas, an Illinois-based librarian… to ensure that all his blog posts and essays would be saved for posterity. “Though this is a relatively uncomplicated task for his blog content, which he unambiguously owned, it gets problematic when you wade into the legal rights of preserving your social media presence. ‘You can’t just download Facebook content into an archive.’”

A cartoon from 2008, and still apt: A Concise History Of Black-White Relations In The United States.

Mark Evanier on O.J. Simpson trial nostalgia.

Evanier saw Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain. I remember watching the Holbrook special on CBS in 1967. Hadn’t seen it since, but it had a profound effect on me in terms of the wonders of storytelling. Also made me a big Hal Holbrook fan; I watched the Senator segment of The Bold Ones a few years later, which lasted one season, but won five Emmys.

Evanier introduces Julie Newmar to Wendy Pini. The former was one of the portrayers of Batman’s Catwoman; the latter, the artist who draws Elfquest, and who used to show up at FantaCo in Albany frequently.

Alex Trebek Sets A Guinness World Record For Hosting ‘Jeopardy!’ And Who is our new favorite ‘Jeopardy’ loser? His imitation of Putin WAS fun.

Eye Macs.

There’s a new blog, Verizon Wireless Hell. Meanwhile, Time Warner’s Roadrunner e-mail was out for several days, and not for the first time, but only the residential customers. As one unhappy customer I know wrote: ” TW is too big, and its equipment is too small, to provide reliable service, despite their eternal advertising.”

William Rivers Pitt: The Astonishing Privilege of Fatherhood

Distribution of letters in parts of words and auditory illusion.

The Seven Lady Godivas: Dr. Seuss’s Little-Known “Adult” Book of Nudes.

Jaquandor: please add this to my pet peeve list: the use of I as a lower case L. I see signs that say ClOSED, and it makes me a little bonkers.

Pantheon Songs on the importance of Blind Willie Johnson.

Jim Keays passed away. “He was the lead singer of The Masters Apprentices, one of the seminal Australian psychedelic rock and pop bands of the 1970s.” Eclectic stuff.

Tosy: U2, ranked 60-51 and 50-41.

Watch the bass player. Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens (ca. early 1940s). “This film seems to be a mirror image of how things are supposed to be. This is because original Soundie films were printed backward so that they could appear correct when played in the Panoram machine (an early film jukebox).” Someone flipped the tape, and it’s supposed to look like this. It’s also at 7:50 here, which has nicer resolution.

Was the Eagles’ ‘Hotel California inspired by an older Jethro Tull track?

Beatles’ lyrics and the words they used most. They used LOVE 613 times, more than any word that wasn’t a pronoun (you, I, me); an article (the, a); or a preposition (to).

The Groovy Imitation Bands of 1960s Japanese Rock.

Bobby Womack, the revered “poet” of soul music for his prowess as a songwriter as well as singer and guitarist, died at 70.

Maya Angelou reading her poem Phenomenal Women. And a graphic representation. Plus, Melissa Harris-Perry shares her exclusive interview with Dr. Angelou.

The Racialicious Tony Awards recap. The In Memorium segment, not in the show, only on YouTube(!)

A Tom Waits/Cookie Monster mashup.

A World Cup-themed Mickey Mouse short.

FROZEN support group. NSFW.

The 13 Most Ghastly Horror Comic Artists, Part 1 and Part 2.

GOOGLE ALERTS (me)

Jaquandor thanked me for pointing him to a couple articles. One was about Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson returning to the comics pages in the Stephan Pastis’ Pearls before Swine strip.

Interesting that Julio cites me for providing a graphic about technology ethics when I clearly noted the source, but I appreciated the shoutout.

Is UNO the card game that destroys relationships? The Daughter and I like it, and she’s more cutthroat than I. Jaquandor loves Chuck Miller’s description of the game.

Arthur links to me linking to him, but also has interesting linkage about the Bible.

SamuraiFrog answers my question about politics and about Dustbury and Playboy Playmates.

GOOGLE ALERT (not me)

Alcoholics fight ‘rampant epidemic’: Roger Green played for the Junior All Blacks. He screen-tested to play James Bond in Diamonds are Forever and acted on the big screen with Orson Welles. He married into British high society. Drove a white Mustang across the US. Made a fortune importing meat into Saudi Arabia. But he also had fights, criminal convictions, and three failed marriages. And he looks back on it all with disdain.

HOME angler Roger Green reeled in top prize in the Trowbridge Seniors match at Farleigh Wood on Tuesday with 29 lb 12 oz of carp and skimmers.

Teevee; remembering Dee, Gwynn, Kasem, Noll

I always regretted the 1994 baseball strike, in part because I wanted to know if Tony Gwynn would hit .400.

I was watching JEOPARDY! per usual. But this was strange: in the six days between June 6 and June 13, inclusive, none of the contestants got the Final correct in five of them, whereas I KNEW four of them, and guessed correctly on the fifth. The one question I got wrong, two of them got right.

These are the six final answers:

20th CENTURY AMERICANS: In 1911 Glenn Curtiss received this document Number 1.
THE MEDITERRANEAN: It’s the only U.N. member country in the Mediterranean where English is an official national language.
SCIENTISTS: As a humorous tribute, an astronomical term equivalent to at least 4 billion has been named for him.
CAPITAL CITY WORDPLAY: Ending in the same 2 letters, these 2 are capitals of a nation that covers a continent & of a nation reaching onto 2 continents.
CURRENT TELEVISION: George Romero declined to direct a few episodes of this series, calling it “basically…just a soap opera”
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: William Sullivan retired from the Foreign Service in 1979; he was the last U.S. Ambassador to this country.

Which one did I get wrong? If you guessed CURRENT TV, you’d be right. Not only don’t I watch that much TV, even when I read about it, it generally doesn’t stick. Even though I knew who George Romero was – creator of Night of the Living Dead – I had no recollection of what the TV show was called.

This is not a complaint. It’s just an observation that, for someone who used to be able to quickly fill out the TV Guide crossword puzzle, I doubt I’d get it half-finished, especially since I’m not reading TV Guide (pretty much since it changed the size to standard magazine format) or Entertainment Weekly (in the last 18 months), I’m pretty much out of the loop unless it’s a big story.

The truth of the matter is that the stuff that’s REALLY interesting to me shows up on YouTube. I don’t even seek it out; it’s either in a newsfeed or occasionally, on someone’s Facebook.

For instance, John Oliver’s show is on HBO. I don’t have HBO, and I don’t WANT HBO; don’t have time to watch it, even if it weren’t an extra charge. But I get to see him bash the owner of the Washington, DC American football team and note the importance of net neutrality.

Jaquandor was ranting about a current Apple commercial. I fully understand his sentiment; as the fat kid who couldn’t climb the rope or do a chin-up, I found gym a humiliating experience, and Mr. Lewis, my gym teacher for five years, a sadistic schmuck. What surprises me is that, somehow, I managed to miss the original Chicken Fat campaign from the 1960s, when I watched LOTS of TV.
***
How does one develop sports rooting interests, or antipathy? Beyond geographic proximity, it can be a number of factors. I was rooting for the New York Rangers to beat the LA Kings for the Stanley Cup (NHL hockey), but it was not to be; NYC is only 150 miles away. My rooting for the San Antonio Spurs over the Miami Heat in the NBA (basketball), who had won the previous two years, was based more on disdain for Miami, who stacked the deck pretty much the way the New York Yankees did in when George Steinbrenner owned the team. Yet, I never hated the Yankees; proximity, and the fact that the very first major league baseball game I saw was at Yankee Stadium (NYY beat the Washington Senators, 4-3), won out.

One of my favorite American football teams not playing in New York or New Jersey was/is the Pittsburgh Steelers. Even when they won four Super Bowls in the 1970s, I still liked them. It couldn’t have been because two of their players, Franco Harris (1950) and Lynn Swann (1952) shared my birthday, as I didn’t know that at the time. Maybe it was because they were rather mediocre before that run. I was sorry to read that Chuck Noll, coach of those SB wins, died last Friday at the age of 82.

But I was REALLY sad to read that baseball player Tony Gwynn died Monday of salivary gland cancer at the age of only 54. He was a class act, playing his whole career with one club, the San Diego Padres. He was a model of consistency as a hitter, which got him into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot and was apparently a terrific guy. I actually saw him play a few times when I would visit my sister in San Diego, and we would catch a game; I’ve been to the San Diego stadium more times than any other major league facility. I always regretted the 1994 baseball strike, in part because I wanted to know if Tony would hit .400; he ended the shortened season at .394. Here’s Ken Levine’s great tribute to Tony Gwynn.

I listened to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 radio program/Top 10 TV show, on and off, for decades. It was fun because he really seemed to enjoy his work. I think I actually got subscriptions to Billboard in the 1980s partly because of him. Another Ken Levine tribute.

I loved Ruby Dee in the movies A Raisin in the Sun and Do The Right Thing, the TV miniseries Roots, and a whole lot more. But it was also the leadership of Ruby and her late husband Ossie Davis in the civil rights struggle that had a great impact on me. They both received Kennedy Center Honors in 2004.
Here’s Ruby Dee on the Psyche of Black America. Also, a PBS program called With Ossie and Ruby, an episode featuring the late Gil Scott-Heron (circa 1981) – Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3.

Oh, those JEOPARDY! solutions:
A pilot’s license
Malta
Carl Sagan
Canberra (Australia) and Ankara (Turkey)
The Walking Dead – that one I got wrong
Iran

May Rambling #2: New Zealand music

I rant about the JEOPARDY! Million-Dollar Tournament.

Descendants of Solomon Northup, who recounted his story in a memoir, 12 Years A Slave.

The Real Origins of the Religious Right. “They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation.”

Dustbury points to an article about how the ineptitude of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and its predecessors, go back nearly a century.

The Worst Argument Ever Made Against Gay Marriage.

Amy Biancolli’s book: To plunge is to live. Also, her parents in love.

Judy Sanders, a former local news reporter and photographer, is dying of ovarian cancer. Confronting the long goodbye from Paul Grondahl, and a piece by her former colleague, Ken Screven.

Diane Cameron’s blog Love in the Time of Cancer has been going on since 2008, but I just discovered it.

Getting kicked out of the prom.

New York Erratic asked: “Have you ever dated anyone who turned out to be gay?” I had a serious relationship with a woman who left me for another woman, with whom she stayed for some time. About 20 years later, she married a man, an old friend of hers.

Dan writes about The Casino And All The Promises, which is both a local issue and a cautionary narrative if casinos are offered to your town.

Lisa has been having the same blog problems I have

Mr. Frog on meeting celebrities

The Good Wife is my favorite TV show. Here’s why I love it, and why I have a difficult time explaining it to others.

Dustbury reminds me why I love word processing, and wish I had a goat.

A great interview with Mel Brooks, who’s promoting the rerelease of Blazing Saddles.

Dead Man Walking, and Burying the Bentley.

Mark Evanier’s childhood, and the color orange. Sweet story of coincidence.

New Paltz Students Find $40K in a Couch; NP is my alma mater, BTW.

Luckiest Unlucky Man or Unluckiest Lucky Man?

You’re Not Here. Abbott and Costello with the famed movie tough guy, Mike Mazurki.

How did Fred Astaire literally dance on the ceiling in the movie Royal Wedding?
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The Oatmeal cartoon about irony. Is it ironic that the song Ironic is not about being ironic?

LYNDA BARRY SELLS OUT. I love her work.

Irene Vartanoff writes about Marvel Comics’ original artwork in the 1960s. And she would know.

Drawn Out: The 50 Best Non-Superhero Graphic Novels.

The Documentary “Stripped” shows the past and future of comic strips. I supported Kickstarter for this.

Arthur celebrates NZMM: New Zealand Music Month. Lots of good stuff, but I must note #14, “New Zealand’s First Record.”

Tosy: U2 – Ranked 80-71 and 70-61.

Another great review of the niece’s album: Rebecca Jade & the Cold Fact. (Hey, it’s good!)

Pantheon Songs remembers Marvin Gaye.

Muppet section: Joe Raposo and Roosevelt Franklin and Time In A Bottle. “Today me will live in the moment unless it’s unpleasant, in which case me will eat a cookie.” – Cookie Monster.

What IS a photocopier?

How do you spell the color: grey or gray?
***
The local Jewish Community Center had an ad campaign many found offensive. Several others thought it was poor because they couldn’t even read what it said. In any case, the ad is gone, and a couple of people suggested my blog post on the topic may have helped.

SamuraiFrog said ‘Why Not Ask Me Anything?’ and ~~blames~~credits me for him doing so. He answers my questions about music, and specifically about Billy Joel.

Likewise, Arthur’s Internet wading was my fault, or suggestion.

I rant about the JEOPARDY! Million-Dollar Tournament.

March Rambling: mostly about me

I’ve been Superman, Abraham Lincoln, and a Georgia O’Keefe painting.

My old buddy Augustus (who you FantaCo customers might have known as Matt), put this together for my birthday. Pic on the left is from the cover of the FantaCon 1988 convention program, drawn by the late Chas Balun. The image is on the right was John Hebert’s rendition from Sold Out #1, c. 1986.
This is about me because: It was so cool. And he wrote: “Thank you for turning me on to a world of literature far beyond science fiction and fantasy. You are still an influence on this boychik. Long may you arrange. (books in order).” And you thought I couldn’t blush.

Now Jaquandor KNOWS how to celebrate my birthday. He added me to his sentential links here. He answered my question about football.
This is about me, obviously. (Sidebar: some highly educated person wrote: “As is my want” recently in a mass e-mail I received. You have NO idea how difficult it was for me NOT to correct him. Jaquandor would NOT make this misteak, er, mistake.)

Tom Skulan of FantaCo is being interviewed for Theater of Guts.
This is about me because: I worked at FantaCo for over eight years I took the photo of Tom, and also the pic of the late Chas Balun looking towards the ceiling. I find it interesting that my photos of the store and the FantaCon have been so heavily used since I am really a lousy photographer.

Dustbury answers my question about women’s fashion. Not only does he know more about the topic than I do, but he also knows more about popular music.
This is about me because: as a librarian, I am always ready to defer to people with greater expertise.

Occasionally, I’ll do one of those BuzzFeed games. This month, I’ve been Superman, Abraham Lincoln, and a Georgia O’Keefe painting.
This is about me because: actually I found the first two descriptions relatively accurate; the third, maybe not so much.

Meet Jeopardy!’s new master–and his controversial strategy, [Podcast interview] by Glenn Fleishman, two-time JEOPARDY! winner. Plus Arthur Chu’s social media brand, from the New Yorker.
This is about me because: I like to watch JEOPARDY! And now that Chu’s 11-day run is over, these articles will stop, at least until the Tournament of Champions. See also, Ken Jennings’ interview with Julann Griffin, the mother of JEOPARDY!

Tosy continues to count down his U2 song rankings, from 144 to 135 and 134 to 125 and 125 to 115 and 114 to 101.
This is about me because: When I wrote that I was linking to his return post last month, he wrote, “Thanks, Roger! I need the pressure!” I THINK he meant that in a good way.

Eddie, the Renaissance Geek, links to Green Day songs.
This is about me because: I mean it’s GREEN Day. Yeesh. How is it that American Idiot is MORE relevant now than it was a decade ago?

In the years 1965-1966, Pete Seeger hosted a television series, Rainbow Quest, devoted to folk music. Here are 13 of the 39 episodes.
This is about me because: I loved Pete Seeger’s music, and I used to sing folk music, and this was posted by a sort of relative.

Incredibly dirty R&B: gloriously filthy music from the 30s-50s
This is about me because I really like music, as my posts this year should suggest. I’m particularly interested in the history of music in the United States. Yeah, that’s the story.

Why Sharp Little Pencil writes.
This is about me because: we lived in the same county (Broome, NY), at the same time, once upon a time. And because she speaks truth to power, which I find to be an admirable thing.

Here is, on a wall of Binghamton High School, a picture of Rod Serling.
This is about me because: Rod Serling went to what was then Binghamton Central High School, as did I. He was student government president, as was I. I got to introduce him to an assembly, sort of.

Mark Evanier linked to twelve songs, all but one sung by Mel Blanc, voicing a different cartoon character, each a “Happy Birthday” song for a different month. Here’s
January and February, and
March and April, and
May and June, and
July and August, and
September and October, and
November and December. PLUS Happy Birthday played on “the 5th largest organ in the world”
This is about me because: did I mention this is my birth month?

12 YEARS A SLAVE: portraits of Solomon Northup’s descendants
This is about me because: what it says about our preconceived notions. And because it’s about movies. And Northup lived around here.

My cousin Dr. Anne Beal is leaving one important job for another.
This is about me because: my family had Thanksgiving dinner with hers, and about a dozen other people, in 2013.

Stephen Bissette‘s open letter to DC on Facebook about NBC’s Constantine.
This is about me because my friend Steve’s dissection of DC is so deliciously understated, and addresses the issue of common courtesy.

Rory O’Neill, aka Panti Bliss, a leading drag performer in Ireland, speaks about homophobia.
This is about me because the narrative reminds me of certain people on a certain “news network” defining racism for black people.

Lisa retells the story of Esther, which led to the holiday of Purim.
This is about me because: about 20 years ago, I played Haman in a church play.

What’s the reality behind “senior moments”?
This is about me because: because…because…oh, yeah, because this TOTALLY explains mine.

Anthony sees an anxious face in this picture of a building.
This is about me because: so do I.

The Lost Art of the Unsent Angry Letter from Jaquandor, and the AmeriNZ response.
This is about me because: I seldom respond quickly to comments on the Internet so that I can avoid unnecessary noise.

SamuraiFrog is linking to Muppet stuff, such as Sequel Song and Lipton Tea commercials, and searching for sushi and St. Patrick’s Day.
This is about me because: The Daughter REALLY wants to see the new Muppet movie, so I GUESS I’ll just HAVE to take her.

Les Miserables is back on Broadway, and Sesame Street has put together an excellent cookie-themed parody of it.
This is about me because: I love theater and Muppets. And COOKIES!

Frog is also still writing his 50 Shades of Smartass. Here’s Chapter 17 and Chapter 18 and Chapter 19 and Chapter 20.
This is about me because: now I have an excuse to REALLY NEVER EVER have to read the books.

Dustbury notes that a strange story about the woman’s auto-payments hid her death for six years!
This is about me because my auto-posting on this blog, and directed to Facebook and Twitter, would probably hide my own demise for a month.

I love this church sign.
This is about me because: I TOTALLY mean it. Bring it on, Westboro! Here’s my Fred Phelps tribute post. Here’s Nathan Phelps’ statement on the death of his estranged father. And Dustbury points to the new Westboro poison meister.