These are a few of my favorite things

     Yesterday I mentioned it had been kind of a hard week.  Today I was up at 2:30 a.m., took a nap at 1 p.m., and slept til 8:30 p.m.  I could've slept longer, I think, but I got up when I realized I did not have to stand up anymore while playing Jeopardy!  And here I am.
     Today's contestants:

Brendan Graham

Bruce Vale

Emily Kelly

     Mr. Trebek said he is often asked what he and the contestants talk about after each episode.  I'm being asked that more and more, myself!  Apparently peops think Brendan doesn't smile much.  I didn't notice.  Anyway it's nowhere near as bad as this guy who had every reason to smile.
     I was surprised there were clues two days in a row that had something to do with a trip I took to Europe last summer.  This time it was in Visiting the City: "Take the 'Sound of Music' tour or visit the Hagenauer House, once home to the Mozart family."  My family and I didn't take the tour, as we thought we could cover more ground in less time and for less money!  We did visit Mozart's home, but I didn't know that was the name!  I hope you don't mind a few more pictures.  By the way, these were taken by my dad and little sister:

   

View on the way to the abbey featured in The Sound of Music

     The last clue before the first break was a triple-stumper I picked up, in Lesser-Known Scientists: "Joseph Lagrange insisted on 10 as the basic unit when standardizing French weights and measures, creating this system.  I wound up sweeping the category.
     Emily rang in first plenty, but she had plenty of negs.  I had my share, too, including two in the 200 row! At least I didn't ring in with no hope of coming up with the correct response.
     The Daily Double was the last clue in the round.  Emily found it in Pants.  She had 1400, Brendan had 1000, and Bruce had 5200.  Emily wagered it all, which I'd have done too.  This was the clue: "Tight-fitting pants patterned after those worn by bullfighters aren't usually called matador pants, but these."  Believe it or not I saw a bullfight in Madrid on that same trip last summer.  I was very happy to get this clue right, but it had nothing to do with me having been to a bullfight!  Emily got this one wrong.

   
   











     Emily found the first Daily Double sort of late in the round, when there were only clues from two categories remaining.  She had 6400, Bruce had 6800, and Brendan had 11800.  She wagered 5400 on this clue in 1940s American Lit: "This 1946 novel about a southern politician takes its title from the 'Humpty Dumpty' nursery rhyme."  She and I got it right.
     Now, I don't know what Emily was thinking.  The other Daily Double was obviously going to be in the other category left, but she continued in the same one, seemingly oblivious.  By chance, she did get the other Daily Double, the last clue in the round.  She had 14600, Brendan had 11800, and Bruce had 8400.  Emily wagered a weird 2799, I guess to be one dollar ahead of Brendan had she missed.  And that's what happened.  The category was First in War, and this was the clue: "The 1940 invasion of Norway saw the first combat use of these troops, the German Fallschirmjager."  Still another reference to Europe, and again my being there didn't contribute to me getting this right, which I proudly did.  (I got all three Daily Doubles right today!)
     The Final Jeopardy category was Word and Phrase Origins.  This was the clue: "After living in Honduras, O. Henry coined this term for a small country dependent on a single export."  Would you believe I made it to "banana" but still couldn't come up with the correct response?  Emily and Bruce missed it, too.  Bruce lost 3402 of his 8400.  Emily lost 11000 of her 11801.  Brendan added 8401 to his 11800, making him a two-time champ.
     Tonight, I'm gonna at least start There Will Be Blood.  I notice it's 3 1/2 hours long!  Probably plenty of commercials.
     My Coryat today was 23200.  A couple of recent Coryats:
originally 10-5-05: 25000
originally 10-6-05: 13800

See it now

     I think I'm gonna break a record today for number of pictures in a post!  (Of this blog, anyway.)  First, here are recent Coryats:
1-19-12: 14800
1-20-12: 22600
1-23-12: 24600
1-24-12: 25800
1-25-12: 25600
originally 12-23-05: 18200
originally 12-26-05: 18600
originally 12-27-05: 30800 (Where did that come from?)
     Believe it or not, I actually blogged about some of these reruns back when this blog was brand-new.  I've included links to those posts.
originally 9-28-05: 10600
originally 9-29-05 (I can't resist: That's my birthday!): 17000  (See my original post on this episode here.)
originally 9-30-05: 18200 (Original post here.)
originally 10-3-05: 20400 (Original post here.)
     Today's contestants:

Brendan Graham
(His intro was so long I thought that might cut the round short!)

Taylor Cope

Rhonda Hammons
(A former video store  owner. It makes me wonder what she does now!)

   
     I like Taylor's hair and also his name.  His hair looks thick.  I got my hair done today myself, and it was such a treat after a hard week:

     

     I told my hair person about my upcoming appearance on Jeopardy! and also about my blog, so maybe she'll see this!  She did my hair just before I left to tape the show, and she didn't know that today.  In fact that was the first time I went to her.

     Today was my smokin'-est day in quite a while.  I didn't miss any until...wait for it...the 22nd clue.  This is the first clue I didn't get right, in USS Iwo Jima: "The Iwo Jima's motto, 'Uncommon Valor,' comes from this commander of the Pacific fleet in World War II, who said, 'For those who fought in Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue."

   
   











     There were some questionable calls I'll throw out there to see if you object to my counting them!:

• In Famous Firsts: "Frank McNamara created this first multipurpose charge card in 1950 after finding his wallet missing at a restaurant." (I said "Diners Card" while they accepted "Diners Club" from Rhonda.)
• Also in Famous Firsts: "On July 28, 1933 Western Union operator Lucille Lipps delivered the first one of these to Rudy Vallee on his birthday." (I said "telegram," which I doubt would've been accepted but I'd have added "singing" if prompted.)
• In Retronyms: "It's what the white rabbit consulted when Alice heard him remark that he would be late."  (I said "watch" while they accepted "pocket watch" from Brendan.)
• In Sounds Like a Language: "I'm fluent in this, the type of Islamic worshippers seen here in the specific garb of his order." (I said "dervish," and they accepted "whirling dervish."

     If all the iffy stuff is counted right, I swept Famous Firsts, Appliances, Sports by Movie, and Sounds Like a Language.
     Rhonda found the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round, just the second clue.  ("Way too early," as Mr. Trebek said.  I don't know about you but I get sick of him saying that!)  The category was Famous Firsts.  Rhonda wagered 1000 on this clue: "In March 1841 the U.S. Senate experienced its first continuous one of these; it lasted 6 days."  She got it right.
     I was sweeping Appliances and didn't want a break, but it came.  Taylor had 2400, Rhonda had 4600, and a very nervous-looking Brendan had 1200.  (By the way, I looked for Brendan on Twitter and apparently he graduated from high school the same year I did.  He looks older than me for sure, sorry!)  At the end of the round, Taylor had 5600, Rhonda had 6200, and Brendan had 3800.
     Now for Double Jeopardy.  I was excited because there was a category about Bavaria, which I saw up close and personal this past summer.  I'm not generally one to appreciate Mother Nature, but the beauty in Europe will just bring you to your knees.  There's too much to include here, unless you tell me you want to see more.

Oktoberfest

I insisted my Dad take a bunch of pictures here, and now I'm very glad I did!

   











   

This is the BMW headquarters. I desperately wanted this picture because this place is so cool: There is a brand new car in every single window from the bottom of the building to the top. You can't tell in this picture, though. We were driving by and it was our only chance!

     The contestants went to Bavaria first!  I was mad when I had this one right in my head but changed my mind: "In the 1870s this composer built a theater, Festspielhaus, in Bayreuth to perform his operas." That's the only one I missed in the category, luckily.  The last clue in the category was the Daily Double.  Brendan found it.  He had 7400, Taylor had 6000, and Rhonda had 6200.  Brendan wagered 2600 on this clue: "Every 10 years the villagers of Oberammergau stage about 100 performances of this type of Easter drama."  He got it right.
     I got these triple-stumpers in Double Jeopardy:

• In Sounds Like a Language: "I get by in this, a verb meaning to reduce someone to a state of dire want."
• In Authors' Rhyme Time: "Ian's migratory rodents."
• In A Real Rhodes Scholar: "This cable TV newswoman received a doctorate in politics from Oxford."

     Brendan found the next Daily Double after skipping down to the 2000 clue in A Real Rhodes Scholar.  He had 12400, Taylor had 11600, and Rhonda had 5800.  Brendan made "the same wager" (which really wasn't), 2400, on this clue: "This Arkansas senator for whom an international scholarship is named was a Rhodes scholar."  He got it right.  At the end of the round, he had 14800, Taylor had 11600, and Rhonda had 5800.  The Final Jeopardy category was Health Matters, which I don't think really fits this clue: "This term for sudden severe head pain that typically lasts only a few minutes was trademarked by 7-Eleven in 1994."  This was super-easy, and all three contestants got it right, too.  Rhonda added 2800.  Taylor added 8401, and Brendan added 11601, making him the new champ.  See him tomorrow!

Culture Flub, but saved by Dub

     I'm still visiting my friend in the hospital.  She'll probably get out tomorrow but I have to go home tonight anyway.  I bring this up because I didn't have the benefit of pausing the show or even watching it over again to take better notes.  And I'm not as lucky today - the episode is not on the archive as of this writing.  Plus we were interrupted once when a nurse's aide came in, but I'm giving myself credit for the clue because I know I'd have gotten it.  ("diapers")
     By the way, I'd planned to take the online test tonight just for fun.  I have my netbook here, but unfortunately it said the screen resolution was too small.  I tried to fix that but it was as high as it could go.  I will probably play from the Jeopardy! message boards eventually.  If you took any of the tests this week, how did it go?
     Today's contestants were software engineer Zach May (sound familiar?), Debra McGuire, and 1-time champ Amy Stephenson.  Debra really seemed to struggle today, but she led with 2200 when she found the Daily Double in Of Milk.  I'd been sweeping the category but she and I both missed this one, and she lost everything.  I'd have wagered it all, too.  Amy had 200 and Zach, seemingly a cool dude, had 800.  Later, in Double Jeopardy, poor Debra not only went into the hole on a 2000 clue, but Amy picked it up.  By the way, my friend Robert tells me Debra is an archivist on j-archive.com!  I feel really bad knowing that.
     Zach started to build a lead after that Daily Double.  At the first break, he had 3600 while Amy had 1400 and Debra had 0.  At the end of the round, he had 7400 while Debra had 1200 and Amy had 3000.
     I was a little surprised that a Daily Double was in a pop culture category.  (That was the category's name.)  Amy found it.  She had 11400, poor Debra had 400, and Zach had 8200.  NNo one - me, my mother, anyone on Twitter - could remember the clue, but a Twitter friend, DubCmusic, got it to me with a little time to spare: The correct response was Jimmy Dean.  Amy and I got it right!  The only one I didn't get in that category was that "Once Upon a Time" at 800, which still confounds me.
     By the way, my uncle's here, and I asked him if by chance he watched today's episode and could tell me what that Daily Double was about.  (This is the same uncle who said it was "one for the ages" when he found out I'm going to be on the show.)  He hadn't watched today's episode, but he suggests I write a monthly "seat-of-the-pants" blog entry, kinda like this one.  He thinks I would get a lot of feedback on those.  Not a bad idea!
     And speaking of ideas, this is a little off the subject but this uncle and I saw the movie "Wordplay" in the theater when it first came out in 2006.  He and I agreed at that time to someday go to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament together.  I've gone, in 2010, but he has not.  I asked him just now and he says he knows he cannot go.  "Even a year from now?" I said.  Anyway, I figure why not ask here if anyone wants to tackle this with me?
     Zach found the next Daily Double in Old Virginia, which was the only category remaining at that time.  He went straight for the 1200 clue.  He and I got this wrong.  Actually he answered so quickly I didn't have a chance to formulate a response.  They wanted to know where the capital of Virginia moved from Jamestown, and he said "Richmond."  They wanted "Williamsburg."  He lost 3400 of his 13800.  Amy had 17200 and Debra had 1600.  I didn't get any right in this category.  Debra got a couple because she moved up to 4400 by the end of the round.  Amy got one because she had 17600, and Zach still had 10400.
     Like yesterday, today's New York Times had an ad with today's Final Jeopardy category (Fathers and Sons).  I took note this time, and guess what - the clue was the one from the show, too.  So I'd read it already when it was revealed on TV, but I'd gotten it right when I read it this morning anyway.  (The correct response wasn't there.)  Mr. Trebek emphasized that Debra was in a distant third (totally unnecessary, of course).  She got it right, though!  I thought this was a very easy final but Zach and Amy got it wrong.  Amy didn't wager enough to lose the match.  She will be back tomorrow.
     My Coryat today was 15200.  I got more right than usual and I swept two categories (The Land and Historic Dates), but I had 8 negs. 
     My Coryat for this GSN rerun was 12400. I had 6 negs and just 9 right in Double Jeopardy! I had 19 right and no negs in the Jeopardy round.
     Last but not least, I chatted with David Madden this morning. He suggested I let you know that there are around 60 regional high school history bowls scheduled over the next 3 months, including 7 this Saturday. Here's the list.