Woof wrote: ↑Thu Jun 21, 2018 11:46 am
This has been hands-down the weirdest season of my 18 seasons in LL. I am in the running for a Maso, but thanks to a league-leading CAA and a career-low DE I am also flirting with relegation. I simply cannot buy a break. For instance, yesterday my opponent gets the Chinese dowager emperor but doesn't get the Apollo theater despite living in Brooklyn, thereby beating me 6(4)-5(4). Bah.
Well, if you're thinking geographically, NYC's Chinatown is closer to Brooklyn than Harlem is.
I'll speculate that your opponent answered "Cotton Club", which was the MCWA. That was my first thought until I realized that, wait, of course it's The Apollo.
I too went to the Cotton Club first, mostly because I'd walk past it twice daily when I lived within view of Grant's Tomb. Since it's best known as a speakeasy, though, I quickly refocused my gaze on that other 125th St institution.
I talked myself out of a right answer on Poem of the Body and lost another match! I got thrown by the Lana Del Rey song and thought body electric can't be right! grrr.
My LL season started with my deciding to be a Premier Member so I could try out a private rundle. After that came the server troubles and a couple of questions with glitches. The one with the scoring glitch didn't affect me; however, the one with three different versions during the match day decidedly did*. I was in a period of having an irregular schedule and made the mistake of doing MD7 shortly after it became available. Math is my strongest category, so, when I had no clue what the question wanted, I not only got that version of the clue wrong but also assigned defense based on the question being extremely obscure rather than "not the version that had been intended", to try to put it nicely.
I was already having a terrible season at that point in my C rundle and had figured out that I had no business in the Rundle in the Jundle, but it was too late to do anything about it. My desire to do LL at that point was at low ebb. The best thing I can say is that I did not forfeit, did not cheat, continued to do the best I could, and did not say anything publicly until now because I thought there was too high a probability that it would end up being something I'd regret. I did whine to Thorsten and I feel slightly bad about that, but, out of the things I felt like doing, it was a least of evils. Moral victory, yay?
Anyway, I finally got my second victory of the season in my C rundle on MD10 and things have normalized a bit. I'm still completely out of my depth in RitJ and will not wander into that particular deep end next season. I apologize for any wins I randomly collect this season. Honestly, no sarcasm or self-pity intended.
First-world problems, I realize. My main lesson learned is not to do LL until mid-morning if I can possibly avoid it. I have no problems with an occasional glitch if I have to use Advance Access, which is essentially a favor, but it's silly to be a beta-tester when it's easy enough to wait.
*For the record, on MD7 I tied in C and lost big in RitJ, and that would not have changed even if I had answered and defended based on Version 2 or 3 of the question. But I spent more than a week wishing that I were not obligated to slog through the rest of LL77 and regretting wasting Premier-level membership (nominal, I realize) for LL78-LL80. I'm mainly over it at this point, which is why I'm posting now.
I had a pretty successful week, but I did blow a golden chance to beat a smart person on Tuesday by blanking on "Citizens United". Granted, current events is my worst category but I have used "citizens united" as a search term for clearing out my email inbox. I also reversed the meanings of cryogenics and cryonics.
Proudest get on the week was scissors, which eventually suggested itself as a two-lever everyday object, after I first considered icetray, pliers, corkscrew, nutcracker, and hand-strengthening exercise thingie. My favorite get of the season is still piano makers, though there was no way at all I was getting semiconductor makers. I guessed aircraft there but not from having heard of any of those companies; I was simply aiming at a large target.
Another proud get that day was Gonzo, as I could not remember specifically who hit that gong, but I sensed it was someone less important than Kermit, Fozzie and Miss Piggy, but more important than most of the other players. Of course, it could hardly be Waldorf or Statler solo.
Perhaps "Dalai Lama" was a dumb guess on the "previous lives" question, but with Buddha himself being over 2500 years old, why dig into even older incarnations? I'd be more interested in knowing about who he has come back as since.
Lefty wrote: ↑Sat Jun 23, 2018 7:46 pmAnother proud get that day was Gonzo, as I could not remember specifically who hit that gong...
But you're the one with a Muppet avatar! (If I recall correctly, it's only a gong in the first season of "The Muppet Show" -- in subsequent seasons, Gonzo attempted to play a trumpet.)
I have Frank Spangenberg to thank for getting the Heidi Chronicles question. I remember after the final of the 10th Anniversary tournament (http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=156), Wendy Wasserstein sent a thank-you to Frank for remembering her and even invited him to dinner. So I remember that that was the play Wasserstein won the Pulitzer for.
Not many people can say they've lost four times on Jeopardy!.
teapot37 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 24, 2018 10:54 pm
I have Frank Spangenberg to thank for getting the Heidi Chronicles question. I remember after the final of the 10th Anniversary tournament (http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=156), Wendy Wasserstein sent a thank-you to Frank for remembering her and even invited him to dinner. So I remember that that was the play Wasserstein won the Pulitzer for.
That one kinda shocked me. I've never read the works, but I thought Wendy Wasserstein/Heidi Chronicles was much better-known than 1-in-5.
teapot37 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 24, 2018 10:54 pm
I have Frank Spangenberg to thank for getting the Heidi Chronicles question. I remember after the final of the 10th Anniversary tournament (http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=156), Wendy Wasserstein sent a thank-you to Frank for remembering her and even invited him to dinner. So I remember that that was the play Wasserstein won the Pulitzer for.
+1 although I was blanking on the title that I knew I knew from the event. It was only through a A-H alphabet search (my head only) that the title came to me. My reward? A 9(6)-9(6) tie as 3 in my rundle of 34 had that score and "lucky" me had to face one of them.
Edited to add: While trying to bring up the name I kept having Eve Ensler/The Vagina Monologues messing up my thinking.
I actually put Vagina as my answer. I had no idea and that was my best guess. I have no idea what the show is about and hoped it was about a woman named Vagina.
A little better than leaving it blank, but not much. At least I still won.
I got 4 out of the 5 hardest questions correct, missing only Joan of Arc, but only moneyed on Purdue. That dropped my percentile from 97 to 75. Moneying properly matters.
Coin flip came up wrong between Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Was only aware of the label "land-grant college" but had no idea what it meant. Waffled between Stanford and Cornell and picked Stanford. I think I still would have picked Stanford had I known what it meant. I was 100 years off on Joan of Arc, and chambord meant nothing to me. Unfortunately I moneyed two of my wrongs and ended in the 60th percentile.
Not many people can say they've lost four times on Jeopardy!.
I moneyed 3 wrong answers (Rutgers for Purdue, Darnay for Carton, Cherry for Raspberry) and missed Joan of Arc by 2 years (1410!), said Agnew instead of Rockefeller. No chance on the various Davids...
I ended up in the 24th percentile. Ugh. Sorry Magnolians, I was a long long way from helping.
boson wrote: ↑Mon Jun 25, 2018 9:49 pm
I moneyed 3 wrong answers (Rutgers for Purdue, Darnay for Carton, Cherry for Raspberry) and missed Joan of Arc by 2 years (1410!), said Agnew instead of Rockefeller. No chance on the various Davids...
I had your last two wrong ones as well (went with Miami for the college) and also said Agnew instead of Rockefeller.
teapot37 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 25, 2018 9:35 pm
Coin flip came up wrong between Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Was only aware of the label "land-grant college" but had no idea what it meant. Waffled between Stanford and Cornell and picked Stanford. I think I still would have picked Stanford had I known what it meant. I was 100 years off on Joan of Arc, and chambord meant nothing to me. Unfortunately I moneyed two of my wrongs and ended in the 60th percentile.
The Morrill Act of 1862 donated land to states and territories "for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts", so that narrowed it down to state schools. My final three were Auburn, Clemson*, and Purdue, and I went with Purdue (the home of the Golden Girl and the World's Largest Drum) because Indiana has a greater population than Alabama or South Carolina.
* Named for Thomas Green Clemson, who left most of his estate to found it. The bulk of Clemson's money came from his wife, who happened to be the daughter of John C. Calhoun.
teapot37 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 25, 2018 9:35 pmchambord meant nothing to me.
Well, I can make you a pretty mean French martini
RE: MD18, I desperately needed a win to keep out of the dreaded red zone, and 6(5) was good enough. It's probably just me, but I thought there was an edit to Q1 (Swiss federation) during the day?! It only made sense on second reading. MD18 was one of those days where I read the questions, panic, then come back later and get 5 right. I was happy to recall Tammany Hall, but it took some time. Like 82% of you, I got owned by the Latin poet question - looking for a name that sounds like a word meaning "light satire". No dice!
Won yesterday 4(4)-0(1) to maintain in the promotion zone from E to D in Magnolia. This season I feel like most questions I either know pretty much immediately or have no chance. Art and Lit are two of my worst categories, and I had no real guess on either of those yesterday but the other ones I barely had to think about (Canton took about 3 minutes of going through what states are known as around the world).
Even though I only got 5 questions right, I finished 2nd best in E level in Magnolia and in the 60% percentile overall as my 3 of my 4 correct moneys were on q's 9, 10, and 12 which were 3 of the 4 toughest. Chose poorly on using my 5th money on the India one (WAG of Mumbai), while if I'd moneyed my other WAG on arpeggio I would've have 45 more points.
