Tuesday, April 25, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[John Boy]

FJ took about 3 seconds to process--date, numbers, etc--and it was an instaget. Being from Houston helped.

Or in my case, having been alive and paying attention when the space program was launched.

There may not be much advantage to being "of a certain age," but FJ clues such as this are certainly one.

[John Boy]

Ruling: Original 7 Astronauts?

Could be iffy. I followed the space program "back in the day" like every other grade-schooler in America -- I got up at 4 a.m. to watch Shepard's launch while I was in third grade. My memories include "the astronauts," "the seven astronauts," and "the Mercury seven," but I don't remember them being called "original" until there was a second group named (which became "the New Nine," most of whom flew on Gemini and Apollo)." It's sort of akin to World War I not being identified as such until there was a second world war. They were known as the Mercury Seven almost immediately, but weren't termed "original" until they needed to be differentiated from another cohort.

A google search for "original seven astronauts" provides a link to a Wikipedia article titled "Mercury Seven."

The Wikipedia article does include the line, "They are also referred to as the Original Seven or Astronaut Group 1." However, there's no reference source provided for the appellation.

The search also returns a Dec 2016 article on phys.org after Glenn's death, which reverses the order of the nomenclature: "This crew of military aviators, known as the Original Seven, or "Mercury 7,..."

However, I couldn't find anything contemporaneous with the Life article referenced in the clue. Would love to see the actual article to see if and how the group was named.

I'm thinking that "Original Seven" by itself would be more likely negged than accepted. But -- phrasing it as "Original Seven Astronauts" as you did MIGHT tip the scales, unless the clue's magazine article specifically tagged them with "Mercury Seven." Hard to read the minds of the judges.

All of this has me wondering if they might have accepted "We Seven," the title of the group autobiography they wrote (or had ghosted for them?), I actually read that as a kid. Great stuff for the era.

[AFRET CMS]

Could be iffy. I followed the space program "back in the day" like every other grade-schooler in America -- I got up at 4 a.m. to watch Shepard's launch while I was in third grade. My memories include "the astronauts," "the seven astronauts," and "the Mercury seven," but I don't remember them being called "original" until there was a second group named (which became "the New Nine," most of whom flew on Gemini and Apollo)." It's sort of akin to World War I not being identified as such until there was a second world war. They were known as the Mercury Seven almost immediately, but weren't termed "original" until they needed to be differentiated from another cohort.

A favourite fact of mine: the term "First World War" was first used in ... September 1914, when said war was just a few months old.

I'd heard of that, but didn't know the source. Thanks for the reference.

Just to be appropriately pedantic among the Jeopardistas, though, I would submit there may be a difference between "First World War" as a description and "World War I" as a name. For instance, George H.W. Bush was "the first president named Bush," but didn't have "Bush I" as a nickname until after W. was elected. Interestingly though, that seems a modern convention; the media sometimes discusses Bush I and Bush II but I don't ever remember seeing Adams I and Adams II used.

In royal lineage, Victoria was the first Victoria and Elizabeth I was the first Elizabeth, but I don't think Victoria is ever called Victoria I and Elizabeth I didn't become so until Elizabeth II came along.

But it's a fine distinction, interesting only to nit-pickers. But WWI truly was the first global conflict.

[seaborgium]

Anyone go for Pharaoh Hound on the "royal" Egyptian dog clue? That was serious negbait.

"Egyptian dog" is Pavlovian for Saluki. (The Pharaoh Hound, which I first heard of in your post, has not been found to have any genetic link to Egypt.)

Yes, but it's called the Pharaoh Hound. I'd say that makes it negbait for that clue.

Actually it was my wife that said Pharaoh Hound. I clammed.

A clue isn't negbait just because some of its words steer you wrong. To think Pharaoh Hound was a correct response you'd have to either think it was named after an ancient Arabian city or (more likely) ignore everything after the closing quotation marks.

[davey]

I was born in the year of the clue, had a (moderate) interest in the space program. read The Right Stuff book and saw The Right Stuff movie (one of my favorites of its era), recently saw Hidden Figures, aced the other astronaut-related recent FJ - and I still didn't grasp this one. If NASA floated in my head, I swatted it away as a creature of the next decade. Sometimes you're not on the writers' wavelength. Rendezvous with Destiny strikes me as ominous, something you'd say after something bad hasn't been avoided, not at the outset....So I went with the Hollywood 10, some of them about to emerge from the blacklist in '59...

[morbeedo]

J! contestants should step on the stage knowing a basic timeline and order of space exploration events to avoid this kind of clue going 0/3.

Strange that two of the players knew the general area where to go with the clue, but did not have the right stuff to close the deal. Meike is on the AARP side of things, so at least the bare bones of 1969 for Apollo 11 should have kept her away from that error.

Got to space exploration right away and immediately thought FML! I don't know jack about the space race! Will def try and remedy this gap if I ever get the call.

Dardanelles? Hmm, gotta look that one up. All I could come up with was, eh, 'D'osphorus

Great game by all. Congrats to Alan on pulling out another win! Amazing how quickly he lost his buzzer mojo though

[harrumph]

Three worthy players in this game, a shame that only one can win.

[Elijah Baley]

Dardanelles? Hmm, gotta look that one up. All I could come up with was, eh, 'D'osphorus

Check out the movie Gallipoli sometime. Great tragic story, well acted and directed (Peter Weir), beautifully shot, etc.

[alietr]

Great game by all. Congrats to Alan on pulling out another win! Amazing how quickly he lost his buzzer mojo though

I was imagining Alan saying to himself, "I'm getting beat on the buzzer by her?!?"

Meike was a trip-and-a-half. And played darned well. I'll bet Maggie was just bowled over by her.

[Vowela]

Was this question just YEKIOYD? It seems most of the people who got it right in this thread instagot it, but otherwise, I still can't find a good way to get space travel from the clue. Space travel/astronomy is one of my stronger categories, but I still can't figure out how I was supposed to figure out that the clue had anything to do with space travel in the first place. It's not an easy category when you aren't even aware that is the category, I mean. Am I missing something?

[John Boy]

Was this question just YEKIOYD? It seems most of the people who got it right in this thread instagot it, but otherwise, I still can't find a good way to get space travel from the clue. Space travel/astronomy is one of my stronger categories, but I still can't figure out how I was supposed to figure out that the clue had anything to do with space travel in the first place. It's not an easy category when you aren't even aware that is the category, I mean. Am I missing something?

Sputnik...1957...first man-made satellite

Explorer I...1958...first American artificial satellite

Late 50s-early 60s...start of the space race, complete with fins on automobiles and JFK's promise to put a man on the moon and the establishment of NASA and the naming of the Mercury astronauts.

I don't know how anyone could possibly KNOW this clue as in YEKIOYD, as in, "Yeah, I remember reading that Time article in my doctor's waiting room one day." But the time line and mention of "destiny" in the article might very well lead you to space. It led two of these contestants to think of space even though they clearly didn't know the exact right answer. So there's that.

[badgerfellow]

Great game by all. Congrats to Alan on pulling out another win! Amazing how quickly he lost his buzzer mojo though

I was imagining Alan saying to himself, "I'm getting beat on the buzzer by her?!?"

Yeah, something like that: https://twitter.com/Technomonk3000/stat ... 1175684096

[twelvefootboy]

Was this question just YEKIOYD? It seems most of the people who got it right in this thread instagot it, but otherwise, I still can't find a good way to get space travel from the clue. Space travel/astronomy is one of my stronger categories, but I still can't figure out how I was supposed to figure out that the clue had anything to do with space travel in the first place. It's not an easy category when you aren't even aware that is the category, I mean. Am I missing something?

Not YEKIOYD imho. Maybe for the instagets, but I barely recovered from trying to think of baby boomer candidates to get to the space race. Maybe partly because I think of the entire program as being "in this deh-CADE" per the JFK speech. So I knew it well, but almost whiffed. Of course maybe that just makes me a YIKIBIS (yes i know it but i'm stupid).

I'm not attuned to the Pavlov's that often get described here. Poets don't lead me to states, and years don't usually seduce me because I'm afraid of being sidetracked.

[silverscreentest]

Was this question just YEKIOYD? It seems most of the people who got it right in this thread instagot it, but otherwise, I still can't find a good way to get space travel from the clue. Space travel/astronomy is one of my stronger categories, but I still can't figure out how I was supposed to figure out that the clue had anything to do with space travel in the first place. It's not an easy category when you aren't even aware that is the category, I mean. Am I missing something?

Rendezvous, which was in the clue, is a word I associate 90% of the time with space travel. Maybe the other 10% of the time with illicit love affairs. Do you ever use this word instead of meeting or appointment?

[Bamaman]

I wouldn't call this YEKIOYD. Unless you memorize old magazine covers, you aren't going to know who was on the cover of Time in 1959. I was able to puzzle it out by the year, knowing it was around the time the space program began and the first astronauts had a numerical name.

[DBear]

thought FJ had something to do with space, but no way was I going to connect it to the Mercury 7.

[alietr]

Great game by all. Congrats to Alan on pulling out another win! Amazing how quickly he lost his buzzer mojo though

I was imagining Alan saying to himself, "I'm getting beat on the buzzer by her?!?"

Yeah, something like that: https://twitter.com/Technomonk3000/stat ... 1175684096

That's pretty darn funny.

[davey]

I wouldn't call this YEKIOYD. Unless you memorize old magazine covers, you aren't going to know who was on the cover of Time in 1959. I was able to puzzle it out by the year, knowing it was around the time the space program began and the first astronauts had a numerical name.

For the record, the clue referenced an article. The cover of the April 20, 1959 issue of Time was devoted to someone who still makes news...!

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0 ... 20,00.html
That Rendezvous title is typical Time grandiosity - would have been better saved until they actually did something. After all, at the beginning they trained just to be "spam in a can"...

[opusthepenguin]

I forgot to mention that they really botched the clue that referenced "this anesthetic" and what they wanted was "epidural". An epidural can be used to ADMINISTER an anesthetic or many other sorts of drugs. But it's no more an anesthetic than a hypodermic needle is.

[morbeedo]

Dardanelles? Hmm, gotta look that one up. All I could come up with was, eh, 'D'osphorus

Check out the movie Gallipoli sometime. Great tragic story, well acted and directed (Peter Weir), beautifully shot, etc.

Thanks for the recommendation! I've requested the DVD from the library. And wow!

Spoiler

nice precall for Wednesday's game