opusthepenguin wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:47 pm
In retrospect, referring to Van Buren as a Vice President when he also held the next spot up would be really weird in an FJ clue.
That occurred to me too, but it was really the fact that he was Dutch that steered me away from V.B. after he was the first named that popped into my head. So then I started casting about for German folk tales, and immediately came up with the Pied Piper of Hamelin. From there, the path to Hamlin was much less circuitous than Austin's upcoming road-trip.
LT: magnet school; top of the world; Roma Downey; rife/rifle; and Van Allen Belts. I don't normally post my Lach trash, but if I can't do it in a TOC semifinal, when can I?
Congrats to Austin on making the finals. It was tough to see Andrew implode on what was a winnable game for him. I know what he was trying to do with his DJ DD wager, and it would have looked brilliant if it succeeded; but as others have noted, you have to expect a bottom-box DD in a TOC semi to be hard. In fairness, I thought that one was
really hard. I would have needed at least a Chevrolet TOM to get to impala, and even then I might not have. Once Alex identified the creature as an impala, I did instantly know which capital they were going for. Anyway, immediately after the DD mix, Andrew had a $1,200 neg. Oddly, he then seemed to stop hunting for the other DD, and kept going to low-value clues for a while.
Props to Austin for consistently staying clam and not making bad guesses like he did in a lot of his regular-play games. (He only had 1 incorrect response tonight.) That allowed him to emerge with the lead after FJ over his opponents who made critical errors -- despite Austin failing to land on a single DD. And we all know Austin has a stellar FJ record, and this didn't seem like the type of FJ he would be likely to miss. Overall, Austin's performance tonight was the "float like a butterfly, sting like a butterfly" that Tim Aten was talking about in his interview segment last week.
(Austin had the lowest Coryat tonight
and the no DD's.) But he defeated 2 really good opponents, so more power to him.
ETA: request to MarkBarrett to poll the impala / Kampala DD.