Note to self, since I am socially inept, stay away from Mutter Museum.
I tried to go to the Mutter Museum with a woman I had been dating for some time, but we couldn’t find it until just a few minutes before closing. I asked her to marry me on that trip to Philadelphia, under the famous Maxfield Parrish Dream Garden mosaic, and she said no. But I don’t think I can blame the Mutter Museum.
I did finally get to the Mutter in 2008. Interesting place, but smaller than I expected.
After my first game, Alex came over and was saying, “Well, it just goes to show you that you really never know until FJ,” which was followed by a brief discussion of how betting on the show is such an art. I think he then asked me how I knew the FJ, and was surprised to hear it was in that book I mentioned above. There must have been other stuff, but I don’t really remember it.
After my second game, Alex came over to the three of us (we are standing on tape marks on the floor, BTW, for all that it looks like a casual cluster), and before he said anything, I asked, “Does anybody ever not talk about the game that just happened?” He said we could talk about whatever we wanted, but I was just curious, and didn’t have any further topic in mind, so we all stood awkwardly for a second. Then the guy who won said, “So how was your Thanksgiving?” (the show filmed Tuesday Dec. 1), and we talked about his son coming home from Fordham for the holiday, said son’s difficulties registering for classes for the upcoming semester, and the national trend of universities cutting back on class offerings this year during the economic downturn.
Neither seems all that scintillating now that I type them out, but I was in what I think of as ‘Interview Mode,’ where I’m super-engaged, very chatty, and overall ‘up.’
After my taping, I gave Alex a lapel pin with the logo of the Smithsonian Institution, which was my employer at the time. He asked, Will this get me in free? When I said no, he seemed a little peeved and walked off before I could explain that there is no charge for any of the Smithsonian museums.
:rolleyes:
I’ve tried to figure out whether the condescension thing is a persona or just his personality, and my guess is the latter. But I don’t think I’ll ever be sure.
I’ve been feeling a little bummed 'cause I didn’t get any of the crucial Final Jeopardies in this thread. But on the show tonight, I got it and none of the contestants did. That feels a little better.
Wow. I always thought there was some high level conversation about the most obscure questions and not “how was your Thanksgiving.” Pretty funny!
When I was on the show, Alex made a LOT of off-camera remarks about how much he likes to drink. Did he do the same while your groups were being taped?
I was in the second group taped that day. It sounds as though you were in the fifth - and last - group. Did it make the tension even worse?
If I were to guess, I would say that Alex prefers Scotch rocks.
No mentions of drinking. During commercial breaks, he will take questions from the audience (“Do you think you’ll ever grow a mustache again?” “Not while I’m still on TV.” “How much longer do you think you’ll be doing this?” “As long as I have tuitions to pay.” [He has a daughter in a private high school, apparently]) and tell bad jokes, none of which I can recall any more.
I was in tapings four and five, which was OK. I’d really been hoping to be one of the two folks in our batch who didn’t tape until the next day, so that I could go into it on SOME sleep (I’d had about three hours the night before, and was pretty fried), but no such luck. (Anna Tschetter, who won on yesterday’s show, ended up being one of that pair, as was a very nice guy named James whose show hasn’t aired yet.) I think I’d have been even more freaked out, if such a thing were possible, if I’d been on the first taping. More to the point, I would have had to face Jason Zollinger, the returning champion who won a total of six games before being knocked off by Ted Ahern, whom I in turn beat on an American history FJ question. Jason seemed to have excellent American history knowledge, and there’s no way I would have had that dark horse win. In the practice rounds, Ted had seemed very, very fast on the buzzer, and before his first game, I was really, really hoping he’d be the one to finally beat Jason, which he did.
beatlejuice, maybe some more sophisticated folk have higher level conversations than we did, but nope, it really did come down to that. So much for the Glamor of Television!
Yes, I was in the first taping on Tuesday, and I’d been hoping to be in a later game after Jason had been defeated. It seemed like it might have been easier to defeat a first-time winner than a four day champ (although depending upon who that first time winner was, it might not have been).
After my game, Alex started a discussion with Fideleon about the military. Jason and I were pretty much left out. The more I thought about it, the more rude that seemed to be. When they started bemoaning the (apparent) fact that the Marines had no service academy, I pointed out that a Marine commission was an option at the USNA (hey, I didn’t want to stand around like a bump on a log). They both seemed sort of dismissive of that situation; Fideleon (former Marine) especially seemed a bit disdainful.
Congratulations and welcome to the Club GilaB. Good wager in FJ- surprised how many times the 3rd place contestant does not meke the correct wager.
To be honest, I was gunning for second place, at best. It never occurred to me that both of the others might get it wrong, as they were both very knowledgeable guys.