Thursday, May 29, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[bengland]

Man, if only Zachoran was here for this.

[cosmos]

The current A.P. story says Julia's publicity photo on the set with Alex is from January. Are the shows really being aired that many months behind? I know the tournament was mixed in there too so are we in March yet?

[dhkendall]

The current A.P. story says Julia's publicity photo on the set with Alex is from January. Are the shows really being aired that many months behind? I know the tournament was mixed in there too so are we in March yet?

I usually assume a three month lag, January's not that much more than three months ago

[Pigeon]

FJ! was easy if you know what a bromeliad is, if not it''s pretty difficult.

I agree. I got FJ right away while my husband said, "It would really help if I knew what a bromeliad was." I saw lots of bromeliads on an eco-tourism trip to Costa Rica in grad school, so I realized a pineapple looked just like one. But if you don't know what it is, well... that makes it tricky.

I hate presidential categories, and they come up all the time. But I just hate them because I have an awful memory for that type of thing. I guess I need to spend more time studying my kid's US Presidents placemat.

[MarkBarrett]

Hammer: To even out things from my post in the Wednesday thread, congrats on running the Classic Country Drinking Songs and solving the FJ! clue. You are probably in rare company with that doubleton.

********

I guess Julia does not know classic Honeymooners?



The writers went 1/2 using shows airing at taping The Mentalist and The Crazy Ones for bubble renewed and bubble cancelled.

My luck ran out on the FJ! clue after guessing banana and almond correctly in previous ones. Tonight I mentally considered pineapple, pomegranate, and tomato for being fruit oddballs. With time almost out I wrote the shortest one and as soon as I did it I thought, "Nightshade. I've seen that before." Oh, well. I should have given more consideration to commercial instead of looking for a weirdo.

Even if Matt played a better game Julia could have bet more on her DDs if needed. His errors may have given Julia the lock, but she was still going to win the game.

Puerto Rico, Mata Hari, and Shoshone were three I would like to see Julia get, but as has been pointed out no champ gets everything.

[This Is Kirk!]

FJ! was easy if you know what a bromeliad is, if not it''s pretty difficult.

Agreed. Fun fact about pineapples is you can cut off the leafy part at the top, root it and grow a pineapple. I always thought that was pretty cool.

[Kid Charlemagne]

FJ! was easy if you know what a bromeliad is, if not it''s pretty difficult.

I agree. I got FJ right away while my husband said, "It would really help if I knew what a bromeliad was." I saw lots of bromeliads on an eco-tourism trip to Costa Rica in grad school, so I realized a pineapple looked just like one. But if you don't know what it is, well... that makes it tricky.

I hate presidential categories, and they come up all the time. But I just hate them because I have an awful memory for that type of thing. I guess I need to spend more time studying my kid's US Presidents placemat.

Was able to figure it out just in the nick of time as a fruit that had no obvious close relatives I could think of. Could I have written it out in time? Not sure.

This was another fairly impressive win. Her recent games have felt a little stronger than some of the ones mid-run; she's being challenged more now and is showing some savvy that seemed absent early on.

[skygilbert]

"Commonwealth" is pretty Pavlovian for Puerto Rico--even used as an example of that kind of clue in Coryat's Jeopardy essay. That's a bad triple-stumper for them to leave on the table.

[anotherclue]

The current A.P. story says Julia's publicity photo on the set with Alex is from January. Are the shows really being aired that many months behind? I know the tournament was mixed in there too so are we in March yet?

I think the current week's episodes were taped February 11.

[OrangeSAM]

Fruit
It's the only commerciallly important edible fruit of the Bromeliad family.

A couple of trips to the Dole Plantation on Oahu helped here.

Feifei Jiang: $5,000-$3,000=$2,000

She wrote "FeiFei", FYI.

[Woof]

Yes, Matt was definitely hurt by those negs after his strong start, which made me realize that one of Julia's great strengths as a player is that she doesn't beat herself. She stays clam when she isn't reasonably sure of an answer and doesn't take risks on her wagers. It may not be exciting play, but it's a formula for success when combined with her buzzer speed. Good boards for me tonight, with a normal amount of Lach trash. Instaget of instagets for FJ, but if you don't know what a bromeliad is or where bromelain comes from, you're in deep trouble.

[Dr. J]

I've had bromeliads as houseplants before; it just took me a sec to remember where I'd heard the word before and picture the leaves.

Fun fact: if you cut off the top of a pineapple and replant it to grow a new bottom, when you harvest it, you'll find a small sponge and snail living inside it.

[Tygor]

avoiding losing on a relatively easy FJ.

How was FJ "relatively easy"?

We watched it in a group of 3 and all three wrote the correct response. Small sample size and all that, but after the show one person was an instaget because she knew what a bromeliad was, but the wife and I both guessed a fruit that wasn't like anything else you could buy at the store. Melons, peaches, apples, pears...PINEAPPLES!

I actually almost guessed kiwi, but seemed too similar to the fruit above. Dates I could see as a good guess.

[Volante]

Who decides whether a fruit is "commercially important" or not?

The fact it's sold as a fruit commonly? Name another bromeliad sold in the produce aisle.

avoiding losing on a relatively easy FJ.

How was FJ "relatively easy"?

TPH got it right.

That proves the opposite. TPH also got Taylor Swift.

FJ! was easy if you know what a bromeliad is, if not it''s pretty difficult.

Seconded. I figured it'd be a very unique fruit, but if you don't come up with pineapple early on it's worse than trying to go through every state.
I went with tomato figuring other members of that family were either poisonous or not fruit. (Turns out the family also includes potatoes, eggplants and chili peppers )

[mdude04]

Reading about everyone here getting FJ wrong makes me feel smarter than I have for a long time

My thought process was that it would have to be a very unique fruit, maybe even dangerous-looking, with the assumption that anything else related to it would also be weird and more likely to be largely inedible. That thought process led me to pineapple right away (what's the weirdest-looking popular fruit you can think of?). Was I at all correct in that line of thinking or did I just have a case of dumb luck?

[opusthepenguin]

I ruled out a few possibilities by remembering this Robert Frost poem:

• The rose is a rose,
  And was always a rose.
  But the theory now goes
  That the apple's a rose,
  And the pear is, and so's
  The plum, I suppose.
  The dear only knows
  What will next prove a rose.
  You, of course, are a rose -
  But were always a rose.

Apples, pears, and plums are all members of the Rosaceae family, along with the rose.

Like others, I ruled out banana because plantain.

That left way too many possibilities. Thought about dates, but ended up going with cherries. Turns out cherries are part of the Prunus family. I'm starting to hate that family.

[seaborgium]

I guessed fig. I'm still 100% on getting FJs right that Julia did, though, and now I'm 17/19 for her run.

[DHicton]

I love these horticulture FJs!! Bring 'em on. I'd much rather have whole categories of any kind of biology than almost anything presidential.

"You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

… speaking of Dorothy Parker quotes.

Also, it was neat how one of the presidential nominee responses was "Dole", and FJ was "pineapple".

[jeffwolfe]

Bromelain is in meat tenderizer, which I know comes from pineapple because I saw "from pineapple" once on a packet of fajita seasoning/meat tenderizer. Instaget.

are u a person

Right? Can't remember Babe Ruth, but remembers seeing bromelain once on a packet of meat tenderizer and it sticks with him.

We've gone over this before. The more fun something is to say, the more likely I am to recall it.

Ruth can be fun to say if you know the "Maybe I should have said DiMaggio?" joke.

[JeopRDFan]

Was Matt allowed to change a wrong resonse or did I misunderstand the request to be more specific?

I got mixed up in suffixes when there were no hyphens after nost and neur, was thinking to myself those are not words, because node in the nodule clue is a word. Then no rebound after nostalgia was negged so maybe others were wondering about hyphens?

Hieroglyphics are a specific type of pictographs, aren't they?

Wondered about that response change myself. No idea on FJ, so I just guessed banana (bromeliad?! wha-what?!). Congrats to Julia on her 19th win!! Tough going early on with both challengers quick on the buzzer, but she managed to surge in DJ. Hope her reign continues.