Puzzled, only not misled

[captainsblog]

I've commented here before, I'm sure, about my nearly lifelong love of all things Jeopardy!ish. From the late 60s, when I would go home for lunch from elementary school and would watch the original New York-based show while eating in front of the set (one of my teachers even got on once!), to working in the same AOL trivia rooms as one of their five-time undefeated champions, to getting caught up in Jenningsmania a few years back, and even as recently as last January, when I discovered a book about the show by yet another past champion titled Prisoner of Trebekistan. By far, though, the coolest connection is even more recent than that. It was during a game televised last March, when one player had a sizeable lead going into the final round and his two opponents were tied for second. One correctly questioned answer later, all three players were tied with $16,000 apiece, and all three got to keep the money and return for one more game. A dollar difference, and one or two of the players would have gone home empty-handed.

As they recounted it at the time, media sources made it out to be a lightning strike-like coincidence, one that had never happened in the long history of the show. That second part was true (unless you count the rare prior occasion where all three players wagered all their money and lost), but there was nothing coincidental about it.

How do I know this? I read it on LiveJournal, duh:

It was an intentional bet. I counted on Anders and Jamey betting rationally and wagering everything. I thought it would be really cool to be a part of Jeopardy history. I knew that meant I'd be playing seasoned opponents, but it didn't matter to me. I had already won a couple of games myself, and I thought it would be neat to share the money. (See my post about Jennifer from a couple of days; that's what the literary people call foreshadowing. :-)). Now there'll be a notation next to one of my games in the J! Archive. How cool is that?

But there have been other unexpected benefits. A schoolteacher present at the game came up to me and said I taught the kids a great lesson in sportsmanship and generosity. Cecil and I have become good friends with Anders and his wife Juneko, and Jamey and his wife Beth. Juneko made Beth and Cecil gorgeous glass pendants commemorating the tie, and she made a teddy bear for Ragnar out of felt. I just got a note from Anders asking what charity I'd like him to donate some of his money to.

Anders and Jamey are the players who the author of that helped into the record books through his creativity. Cecil is his own wife, and Ragnar, one of their kids. I know all this from reading him on my Flist ever since someone (mabfan, I think) mentioned that this true champion had a journal here.

squonk_npl is not among the most prolific posters here, but always among the most thoughtful, and today was no exception. The "npl" part of his name stands for the National Puzzlers League, and judging by one of his earlier posts from today, he and/or it are involved in the MIT Mystery Hunt, which takes place at MIT, oddly enough, on the weekend before Martin Luther King Day.

I did not participate in that effort, but he posted a puzzle earlier today for the benefit of anyone left from that Hunt who still had a functioning brain cell or two.  It's the second (as of now) of his entries from today (I'm linking by date rather than entry to prevent spoilage) and consisted of two parts. The harder part of the puzzle, you'd think, is the one I more-or-less won: translate eight essentially nonsensical phrases into four-word sentences with the number of letters in each word being supplied. My brain hurt severely for the effort, but I came up with all eight and, in so doing, "got" what all eight had in common.

So the second part of his puzzle should have been easy: simply to explain why he chose this particular puzzle for this particular day.  Somebody else figured that out. Brains are fragile things, especially one like mine which has been dropped on the floor so often.

If you're inclined to such madness, go click that last link and destroy what little is left of your mind. Or just stop by and read the writings of a pretty cool guy who's done far more good with his Mensa-like brain cells than I've ever managed to do :)

Comments

[meredith-mae.livejournal.com]

I had a high school teacher who tried out for Jeopardy! and always told people he lost a chance to get on the show by one question. Then *I* tried our about three years ago and they told us all to tell our friends that we missed it by one question! They never tell you your score, but you have to take a test, and after they collect them you go over all the answers as a group. We got to sit on the sound stage where the audience normally sits.

I was just telling my boyfriend about how I was a dork (wait, why is that in the past tense?) and was very active on my high school quiz bowl team. We even got to be on the Masterminds public access show on adelphia cable a few times. My grandmother loved watching. So much so that she would watch tournaments between, say, Kenmore West and Frontier, when my friends and I weren't even playing. She would also call all her friends and relatives when I was going to be on.