twelvefootboy wrote:
Thanks for the insights, all youse guys. As a recreational watcher, I'm not going to get hardcore. A game like tonight's final of the College Tournament just reinforced that I'm going to go for enjoyment. I quit scoring halfway through so I could enjoy the game better. I'm not trying to emulate a game environment, but hope to catch some friendly categories and get 35 or 40 right someday.
I've been watching and scoring by using a grid on a spreadsheet and my laptop. However, the Forrest bouncers make it too distracting to follow the categories and dollar values. Ive mostly been trying to count right/wrong that I mentally "clicked" in, but sometimes the answer comes faster than my decision to clam or click. I'm mostly minding the right/wrong count and which categories I run or do well in, as well as FJ's. Very much like golf, I no longer need to play the ball down or score well to enjoy the game. I like to get a few pars and don't care about the double bogeys or the total.
I agree completely -- it's much more fun to yell at the TV screen, "C'mon you people, say XYZ" and thereby annoy the heck out of my wife (which is why she forced me to take the online test). I watch regularly, but very casually. The only time I buckled down and watched seriously with scorekeeping was in preparation.
But I did find an easy way to keep score on a previous contestant's blog. He/she recommended a grid like you described, but just a simple one on paper with six columns and five rows. Instead of keeping track of dollar amounts in each square or keeping a running total, he/she just put a + in square for a right answer, a - for an incorrect answer, and a 0 for a no-ring. Then, all you have to do is go down one row at a time -- 0s don't count, and cross off matching + and - as they cancel out. However many +s are left in a row, multiply by the row's value.
I used that for scorekeeping; made it easy to keep up with fast play and only took about 20-30 seconds to come up with a point total at the end of each round.
But Jeopardy! is entertainment, not a job. Like you, I watch for enjoyment. Sometimes doing a little extra makes it more enjoyable, sometimes not. I usually like keeping a scorebook while watching a baseball game, especially in person, but I don't always.
. (mission accomplished) The old thread had some great stories and was a good read. I'm still learning how to negotiate the HTML so I can quote pieces without stringing long threads, so I didn't attempt to thread this response.
