Monday, October 12, 2009

What is...the question?

Earlier this evening Ma flipped on ABC and Jeopardy! prior to the Monday Night fooseball game coming on.  I had been taking a shower when she did this because it usually takes me about 2-3 hours to make my way to the shower once I get home form work because I'm lazy so while I was home from work before 5:30pm I was not in then shower until after 7:30pm, but at any rate I missed all of Jeopardy! but the "Final Jeopardy!" round.
Category: Anniversaries & Farewells.  
Answer: In 2009 it celebrated its 40th anniversary with a farewell tour of the British Isles, where it was built; today, it's in Dubai.
Anyways long story short I nailed the question (didn't think it was too hard being from around here.  Maybe this is just another example of
useless shit I kind-of know instead of things that could of gotten me a 4.0.  Do I care?  No, the 4.0 people are lame at parties.  Suckers.  But I digress).  Following my brief moment of awesomness I remembered that I really had very little to get excited about or be proud of.  It's not like I "won."  Had I gone through the whole game I would have been lucky to have $100, I'm pretty well sure of that.  These Jeopardy! people are crazy.  Granted, probably one episode out of 250 I feel like I could hold my own and get in the zone and ice a category and get the clap (from the audience, not from, well, nevermind..) that comes when a contestant sweeps a column.  I mean, legitimately, if I was on TV with a clicker in my hand And Alex Trebek reading answers I could own one category every 250 episodes.  A one in 3000 chance (six Jeopardy! round categories, six Double Jeopardy! round categories, times 250 episodes).  Bullshit Teen/College/Whatever-else-they've-since-come-up-with excluded.  I'm not talking Triple A shit - I want the real deal.  I want Holyfield.  I like my odds, and there are no flies on that. 

So by me nailing Final Jeopardy! on an average night I would have doubled up to $200 (This isn't to say I only know one question a night.  This is just to say I think I'd be slow to buzz in...a lot.  And as many responses as I might be able to come up with correctly AND buzz in there would be about an equal number that I'd answer incorrectly on when I buzzed.  Which would lead to a net gain of very little, on average, in my dollar dollar bill stack..) and my only hope would have been the first and second place people were neck and neck, both risked it all and both lost.  Not much to ask to allow me to be a returning champion, really.  I still enjoy chiming in on Final Jeopardy! (as does pretty much everyone, I'm sure.  But tonight wasn't a guess, just to make that clear..), and really it's OK to enjoy to.  Final Jeopardy! is the great equalizer - EVERYONE has a chance to respond.  No button pushing, no rushing.  You get your sick beats, the answer on the screen right in front of you just like it is on your TV at home, and ample time to collect your thoughts and get your question written down.

I like Final Jeopardy!  Every day I try to learn something new.  When I coached the freshman fooseball I would always ask my kids what they learned today.  They HATED it (I think 14 and 15 year old boys hate everything.  I did..).  But after a couple of weeks most of them would come to practice ready for my question.  So whether they actually learned something or were just conditioned by me to be able to spit out some useless fact which could then be stripped from their mind post-practice...I do not know.  I like to think I helped, though. 

If anyone thinks they know the question to tonight's Final Jeopardy! answer: let's hear them.  This isn't a real quiz, and if you don't know then whenever I post next I'll try to remember to give you the question if no one's posted it already.  And when it is posted, by me or otherwise, that can be YOUR learned bit of knowledge for the day.  Cheers (I'm a giver, really..).

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