There was one point a few years ago when I had the TV on in the living room while I was making dinner in the kitchen. I wasn’t paying overly much attention, but when Alex started asking questions, I started answering them, because I can’t resist. I was really, super, amazingly impressing myself, because I was nailing every. single. question! Through both rounds! It was awesome!
And then when Final Jeopardy came around, I went into the living room to watch and realized I had been awesomely nailing the kiddie tournament questions.
They really ought to have made the IBM challenge a 3-game, week long thing.
Would have balanced out the advantage Watson had from the first game while Ken and Brad worked out how he ticked, and had room for a lot more talking about how he worked. (Probably not enough for them to win, but it would at least have let them give him a real challenge on the third game, at least.)
Also, would’ve meant they didn’t need to round out the week with an abbreviated kid’s tourney.
If you can’t get enough of Ken Jennings, check out his appearance on “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader.” He rocked it, choosing not to attempt the final all-or-nothing question and settle for a half million(which let him recapture his highest total winnings record from Brad after losing the ultimate tournament of champions) and his wife and kid were in the audience. But the backstory he tells on his blog is where the real comedy is. Watch the show then read his blog entry about it.