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It's Friday of the first week in a two-week tournament! Love it! First, the scores from Wednesday and Thursday this week:
Kyle Kahan 15800 Ellen Eichner 19601 Folake Dosu 8700 Me 19602
Tim Relihan 14800 (University of Nebraska student!) Steph Gagelin 13999 Marshall Flores 15601 Me 22400
Now for today's contestants:
From left to right; Amanda J. Ray, Katie Singh, Sam Spaulding (who I think looks like Hans from earlier this week!)
Amanda found the first Daily Double somewhat early, that is, before the first commercial break. She had 1400, Katie had 2000, Sam had 600, and I had 4000. The category was "P"roduce. Amanda had an embarrassing moment after missing this one: "Augusta National Golf Club is on land once used to grow Belle and Thurber types of these."* She guessed the same thing I did, but then when Mr. Trebek said something like, "Georgia is famous for...," she said, "Peanuts," but that still wasn't the right answer!I got these triple-stumpers in the Jeopardy round. Did you guys know them? This one in Back in the 90s was read by Katie Couric: "One of the greatest outpourings of emotion I've ever witnessed was on September 6, 1997, when I co-anchored coverage of this event from London."*
At the end of the Jeopardy round, Sam led with 7000. Amanda had 1600, Katie had 3000, and I had 8000.
Poor Katie got the first Daily Double, in Music and Dance. She had 5400, and she wagered 3000 to tie with Amanda for second place. This was the clue: "The lowest A on the piano has a frequency of 27.5 hertz; as it's one octave higher, the next A up has this frequency."* Okay, who knew this, seriously? Katie didn't, and neither did I.
Time for two triple-stumpers in the Double Jeopardy round. This one, in 2- or 11-Letter Words: "Used chiefly in law, it means, 'in the manner of;' it's seen a lot in e-mails, too."* And in Continental Settings: "'The Quiet American.'"* (This one was a bit of a guess for me.)
Sam found the second Daily Double with one clue left after it. The category was Medieval Jobs. Sam was well-positioned with 15000, while his two opponents both had 7200. This was the clue: "Bowyers made bows; these workers made the arrows."* Sam got it right, and added 1000 to his score. It's not a lot, but I probably wouldn't have wagered that much. He had a lock on the game. There was, of course, one clue left, but he still could've kept his lock from being at risk. As it turns out, Sam got the last clue right, too. So he had 18000 while his opponents had 7200. I had 23400.
The Final Jeopardy category was Documents. This was the clue: "It says, 'The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations."* This was easy, I think. All three contestants got it right. I didn't understand Amanda's wager (7199) or Katie's (5000). In Amanda's case, why would you keep a dollar? You can't catch Sam. A dollar wouldn't make a difference in the wild-card race, but still...? As for Katie, why wouldn't she risk everything? 2200 is obviously not enough to get a wild-card spot in the event that she loses, so why not risk it all? Sam risked 3500, which I don't get, either. He was going to advance to the semifinals no matter what his score was. In any case, he still advances to next week's semifinals.
*peaches, Princess Diana's funeral, boar, Irish Sea, 55, re, Asia, fletchers, the Declaration of Independence
7 comments:
I have a background in playing piano, and I had absolutely no clue on the octave question. My fiance knew it instantly. I asked him today whether he knew it through music (he's mainly a bass player but dabbles with other stringed instruments and piano) or math (he's a PhD student in that). After a lot of thought, he said he thinks he knew from physics somewhere in the past, and mentioned the well-tempered scale (http://www.jimloy.com/physics/scale.htm). I had of course heard of Bach's The Well-Tempered Klavier, but had no idea what that had to do with anything.
Anddddd, he just interrupted me to tell me he thinks he has figured out how he really knew - it has to do with playing a harmonic on a guitar or bass - you touch the string in the middle and it will play an octave higher because the string will vibrate at double the rate. (Forgive me if that's not precisely right, I'm trying to type it from what he said.)
So as I suspected, it had to do with the fact that he's played an instrument that you tune yourself/has modifications you can make to the actual tones.
Dear Jeanie,
I'm just a kid Jeanie... don't make it hard for me please. Take off that new link. It's a bad word and that makes me want to say that at school and get me in trouble. You're just wanting to make this bad...... so still, if it was a movie I would rate it PG. Just make your blog a good blog with no bad words in it and I can still read it.
If I see one of them, I will report it and then you will be done for. Anyway because you did it you'll owe me an apology for making that. Please be good and make your blog good so I won't have to use any of these words you're using with my friends or else quit your blog at the end of the year. When I see them anywhere it makes me scared and makes me say them with my friends. You owe me restitution!
But another thing, when I was little on Mother's day we went to Yard House for a Mother's Day breakfast and after that we stopped at Barnes and Noble Bookstores. Then my mom was showing me to the kids books but I was looking at the other shelves and one of them was a Jeopardy book. I was going like "I want the Jeopardy book!" But my mom said, "No Peter, that's for older people." Then I threw a big fit and then we got it for $11.99. It was great. Thanks, and please do what I told you to do. Sincerely, your best friend Peter
Peter! For the record, the bad word itself is not on my site. I don't use it on this blog or when I'm speaking. I don't like that it's on the other person's site, but the rest of the site is funny and relevant to this blog. I think you'd do well to give the above comment to the author of THAT blog. Instead, I will do it for you and remove the link until the word is gone. Who knows, maybe my comment to them will make a difference.
Thanks for the story about the Jeopardy! book. Do you remember what it was?
Ursula, thank you for the explanation.
Hey! This is Sam from Jeopardy! just wanted to pop in and explain my wager. Going into FJ, the girls were tied at 7200, with me at 18000. The girls could, at max, double up to 14400, and I bet 3500. So even if I missed it and the girls both doubled, the final scores would be 14400, 14400, 14500, giving me the win and the guaranteed semifinal spot. Unnecessary, but cmon, nobody wants to risk $0 on FJ if they don't have to, right? Plus, breaking $20,000 looks so satisfying on TV, I had to try it!
Thanks, Sam! Good luck this week.
Okay, Peter - So I told the author of the "Look at This Jeopardy Contestant" blog about your comment, and I told him how I felt, too. To his credit, he responded promptly. My comment and his response are available on his blog. He told me I could either repost his response here or link to it, but the post itself has an f-bomb in it, AND he is declining to remove the f-bomb from the title of the blog. Hopefully this will make everyone happy: Here's a link to the J! message boards, which has a link to the site in question for those who want to see it. Okay? Please keep your comments coming. http://boards.sonypictures.com/boards//showthread.php?t=48267