You’re welcome, but I just became a team member a few weeks ago, I’m definitely standing on the shoulders of giants who did a hell of a lot of work to make the page look good, even when trained monkeys like me are let loose in the innards to enter episodes.
Second place gets $2000 and third place gets $1000.
Gila: Congratulations!
I used to get the Andie Macdowell thing a lot, but less in the last few years. I’d guess that it’s partly because she’s less prominent, but probably mostly because I cover my hair for religious reasons since I got married (that was a wig, folks, although it closely resembles my real hair) and people don’t really see any resemblance when I’m wearing a scarf, without big dark curly hair. Alanis Morisette is a new one. One of the Jeopardy makeup ladies kept insisting that I looked like Jennifer Connelly, which I don’t see at all.
I had no right to win. I was upset about not getting the altruism thing, which I certainly should have known, and was totally sure at that point that I was out. I was purely betting for second place, and (as you saw) was totally shocked to have won. I have terrible, terrible buzzer abilities, so while I knew way more than I was able to get in on, I had very little to show for it. Oddly, I’ve known my whole life I’d be on Jeopardy (it was Fate), and that I’d be horrible at the buzzer. Lo, it was so, on both counts.
I haven’t actually seen the show as yet. As mentioned above, I’m Sabbath observant and without a TV; we’re going to my parents’ tomorrow to watch it with them, on their DVR.
I am very impressed by the patience of the people who post to J-Archive. Who was inspired to create it, and how did they get transcripts or tapes of every single episode from the many seasons which predated the Web?
Thanks for all the congratulations!
One other thing - other than notfrommensa, did anybody know the FJ? I’ve given the clue to many family and friends since the taping in early December, and nobody’s known it, including a friend who’s getting a PhD in political science. I knew it, oddly enough, because the fact that it was removed from the Cabinet was in the ‘How to Get on Jeopardy and Win’ book I mentioned above, although he puts the date (incorrectly) as 1970. As I sat there and studied the book for lack of anything better to study, I was thinking, ‘this is stupid, nothing in here will ever come up, they’ve probably banned every fact in here from the show for all time.’ Then, there it was.
If I hadn’t known it pretty quickly, I wouldn’t have had time to write ‘IS THE POSTMASTER GENERAL’ in reasonably legible block capitals (they tell you to write ‘WHAT’ or ‘WHO’ as the case may be, before FJ starts). It took about 20 seconds.
I didn’t know it right off the bat, but worked it out within a few seconds based on a) Benjamin Franklin and b) the Post Office becoming the Postal Service. I kinda doubt that I would have had time to write a legible answer, though (especially since legibility is a problem for me under the best of circumstances).
ETA: Yes, you did have a right to win. The scores said so.
I hate to say it, but I got your Final Jeopardy immediately. My dog is my witness.
I did get the Final Jeopardy response – but with a mere 2 seconds to go. Not enough time for me to scrawl “is PM-gen?”
Congratulations GilaB!
ObBump: GilaB appears tonight as Returning Champion, whose one-day cash winnings total more than I ever got.
Just saw the last half of todays episode.
GilaB came in second. You didn’t strike me as a sports fan, but you are appeared confident that you got FJ correct.
Good final jeopardy question. going into it, I thought my chance of getting it correct was about 90%. Finally thought of the right answer, but almost too late.
i remembered to tune in.
Nice work Gila! I see Julia Roberts and not Andie McDowell.
Nice job!
Johnny Gilbert snickers as he introduces me, which I thought was a little mean, honestly.
notfrommensa, I grew up watching football and hockey, something that seems to surprise people upon meeting me. I would describe myself as more ‘a Giants fan’ than ‘a football fan,’ as I don’t notice or care about what’s going on in the rest of the league, but for something that recent, I could remember it easily. If the events in question had taken place more than a few years ago, I wouldn’t have recalled it, but I knew I had it after about a second’s thought. I didn’t bet it all (the standard betting advice for someone in my position, with exactly half what the leader has) because ‘Sports Cities’ could be Australian Rugby, or English Premier League, or something about which I know absolutely nada. Afterwards, when Alex came over to shake the new winner’s hand, he said that he’d have said it’s a male-skewing question, but that I obviously disproved that notion.
beatlejuice, Julia Roberts is a new one, but thanks! The makeup ladies did a great job, too. My mother (who is not completely objective on the subject of my appearance) thinks that Alex was functionally ‘negging’ me (a hitting-on-women technique involving going over to a woman you find attractive and subtly insulting her, such that she will want to get back on your good side) in saying slightly snide stuff to the pretty girl, but I think that’s just his persona.
To be honest, while Friday night’s red sweater was better for TV, I performed much better in the game I lost on Monday. Such is life, I suppose.
As Alex implied, the other two guys had even less money than you did on Friday. 
Sorry about the loss; going five-time winner would have been awesome, I’m sure. The three of you looked pretty evenly matched tonight - it could have gone any way, it looked to me.
I thought so, too, and that always makes for a better game. Did anyone see the celebrity game the other day where Pat Sajak wiped the floor with his two opponents? It was Elizabeth Perkins and someone else I forget. It was brutal.
It was Doug Savant - the J-Archive version is here. I didn’t see it, but from the archive, it looks like Elizabeth Perkins actually did quite well, until she lost everything in FJ.
I just replayed the opening and the contestant interviews. GilaB, I found Johnny and Alex a little condescending. I did like your blind date story. I think you looked a lot more confident in todays episode and I really liked your outfit today.
WRT the story, my problem with the blind date wasn’t so much the Mutter Museum, which I might have enjoyed with the right company. It was that I was being quasi-forced on a date with a completely socially inept person with whom I could find no comfortable topic of conversation, for which I had to drive several hours to boot. I used it because on top of making you submit five anecdotes (Friday’s Barbary apes story was an anecdote), they make you answer three of ten ‘leading questions,’ one of which is about your worst date ever. That was my worst date more for the pairing than the location, but the location is true, and funnier.
Listen, Gila had me with that whole phsyiological epidemiological botanist thing! IIRC: that Alex isn’t ever behind the lectern answering questions. He has no right to be condescending.
Gila, what is it that you chat about during the end credits? It looks very engaging.
Gila: One of my husband’s college roommates took a first date to an autopsy. Which he was conducting. They’re married now.
I think Sajak went easy on the other contestants. Almost all of the questions were simple, but after a while he was laying back a little to give them the opportunity, and even then they couldn’t do it. But I don’t think Sajak will match up to Andy Richter.