I hate to start this entry on a low note, but regrettably, I’m unable to provide pictures of the contestants today. I don’t know why but my phone freezes up when I try to send them to my e-mail. And I tried more than three times. I’ll try again tomorrow. But their names: Michael Tvaruzka, Jesse Tow, and one-time champ Joey Falco.
Jesse blogs about Doritos. That’s right! I don’t like Doritos but I like bloggers and I like originality. He didn’t give his URL either. Happily, I found his blog by searching for him on Twitter. Not so happily, I don’t see where you can leave comments.
I was sweeping I Got to First Base when Michael skipped the last clue and went to Kissing. I did wind up sweeping the former.
Joey found the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round. It was the first of three true Daily Doubles in today’s episode! All three came early in their rounds, as you might expect. Joey would’ve been silly not to make it a true Daily Double for this first one. He had 1600 while Jesse had 400 and Michael 800. The category was Beggars Can’t Be Boozers, and this was the clue: “This film director & winery owner is said to have kept the empty bottle of a $24,000 1941 Cabernet atop his refrigerator.” Does anyone know how someone could arrive at the correct response from this clue? Joey got it right.
There were 7 clues left when Mr. Trebek gave the one-minute warning! I was sweeping Bow Ties Are Cool when the round ended with the last clue covered. Don’t you hate that? You think that’s bad: In the Double Jeopardy round, Mr. Trebek gave the warning with…wait for it…11 clues left, and 5 were left covered. At the end of the Jeopardy round, Michael had 4000, Jesse had 2400, and Joey had 5200.
The Double Jeopardy round was a rocky one for me with only 10 correct responses. Of course, I’d like to think I’d have gotten the last 5 that we didn’t see! I’d never heard of a “movie prologue;” have you? Where do they come from?
Jesse got the first three clues of the round right before finding the Daily Double in Mapmaking. He, as mentioned, wisely wagered all of his 4800 on this clue, read by Jimmy, in the same category: “Greenland is much smaller than South America, but scale is distorted on this type of map, named for a 16th century Fleming. So the farther away from the equator you get, the larger the distortion.” This was an instaget for me and Jesse.
Our third true Daily Double came courtesy of Joey. The category was Movie Prologues. He had 5600 while Jesse still had 9600 and Michael had 4400. Good move on Joey’s part wagering it all, with those scores, the fact it was still early in the round, and the fact it was an 800 clue! And here it is: “The winter of 180 A.D., Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ twelve-year campaign against the Barbarian tribes in Germania.” I didn’t get it, but Joey did. I haven’t seen the movie.
I got these triple-stumpers today:
In Kissing: “In a novel he says, ‘None of the fools you’ve known have kissed you like this…your precious Charles…or your stupid Ashley.'”
In Houston, You Have a Problem: “In 1937 Texas created this ‘control district’ to combat a disaster that wreaked havoc in 1929 & 1935.”
In Royal Women: “After dating an elephant trainer & traveling with his circus, this Monaco royal married an acrobat.”
At the end of the round, Michael had 7600, Jesse had 9200, and Joey had 13200. The Final Jeopardy category was Classic Children’s Books. This was the clue: “A. Cavaticus, the scientific name of the barn spider, inspired the middle initial & last name of a character in this book.” All three contestants got it right, and so did I.
Jesse overtook poor Michael by one dollar. It must’ve felt as bad as when Michael’s date left him for the musician they’d gone to see, especially considering he moved into third place on a painful neg on the last clue of the round. This was the clue, in “M”iscellany (sorry, no picture): “As a student, this Asian leader was convicted of murdering his father’s rival in an election.” If you could see the picture you’d know that it wasn’t “Mao,” which was Michael’s response.
The wagers of the two trailing didn’t matter (at least for the win) since Joey wagered enough to beat Jesse even if Jesse doubled, as long as Joey got it right. So we’ll see him tomorrow!
My Coryat today was 18800.
Starting today, each time I blog on an episode I’m going to include a link to that episode’s thread on the message boards.
Recent Coryats:
Originally 11-24-05: 14600 (Disappointing, but less so when I see that the last time I played this one, my score was 12400.)
4-3-12: 18000
(For some reason, my local station aired the 3-30 episode on Monday. So I don’t have a 4-2 Coryat.)
Tried true, three times
