Alex Trebec and me
I am showing my age when I tell you that I first saw the game show Jeopardy in the early '60's. Yes, I am relying on an increasingly shaky memory for some of these facts, so bear with me if I disremember any of them, but until very recently, I considered Art Fleming to be the real Jeopardy host.
Well, I know I'm not the only one who felt this way. After all, Weird Al Yankovich did his parody of "Our love's in Jeopardy" (I lost on Jeopardy), and he mentioned the aforementioned Mr. Fleming in this song and even had Don Pardo reprise his role as the show's original announcer. But the truth of the matter is, this game show that reversed the idea of question and answer was only on for a few years with Art Fleming. It's second incarnation, by way of comparison, is going on 30, or something like that.
Still, in a lot of ways, I don't think it lives up to the first version of the show. And the one thing that has always left me more up in the air than any other thing was the way the current show has always been so damned tight-fisted. From the start, the only player who got any money was the winner. Those who came in second and third got some stupid door prizes, a modern day version of a set of soon-to-be-defunct encyclopedias and a lousy version of the home game. Much later, much too late, in fact, and still many dollars short, these mangy prizes gave way to $3000 for second place and $1000 for third place.
I watched an interview Tom Snyder, he of Tomorrow fame, did with Art Fleming some time back and he, to0, mentioned his distaste for this practice. Give 'em what they earned, he intoned. I agree. One ridiculous aspect of this way of doing business is the times that the winner of a game could walk away from it with less money than the 2nd and 3rd place contestants. And this has happened. If no one knows the final Jeopardy answer, and everyone puts up a hefty wager, suppose that 3rd place has $50. left, 2nd place $75, and the winner $101. In this instance, the winner gets $101, 2nd place gets $3000, and 3rd $1000. Weird, huh?
Then there is Alex's snide attitude. It has to be exactly correct, even when they know what you meant and knew that you were correct. "Oh, I am so sorry, you added an s to that response, so I am going to have to rule you incorrect!" Hawg poopy! Or, a contestant gives what is counted as a correct response, and 5, 10 minutes later, Alex intones, "Our judges have reviewed the tape and found that you (added an unnecessary syllable or whatever) so we're going to have to deduct $X from your score." Again-Hawg poopy! If you can't rule it wrong right away, then eat it, chump. Don't come back in a few minutes later and take these people's money. No more instant replays.
I even believe at times that this thing is straight out of the '50's game show scandal. On one show, I saw a woman give a question to an answer that made no sense whatsoever, a complete non sequitur, and two answers later, an answer came up that required that exact question. I've always wondered if this contestant wasn't a real-life version of Lucille Ball when she and Ricky on an "I Love Lucy" episode were contestants on a game show. Lucy tried to cheat but got the wrong answers to the questions for that version of the show and every response was hilarioulsy incorrect. I mean, suppose this contestant just disremembered the order in which the "right questions" that she was given were to be given. Food for thought.
And the there is that whole Ken Jennings thing. Ken Jennings came along almost immediately after Jeopardy dropped the five show limit for winners. This was also after the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" craze. Ken couldn't be beat. He knew everything. And Alex and the Jeopardy people were livid with the so-called easy questions people were answering to get the big money on Millionaire. Kenny, the avowed Mormon, even went through categories on drinking and questioned answers a teetotaler should never have known.
Okay, I'll grant that maybe someone could be good enough to go, what was it, 74 games in a row before tasting defeat? But why has it been that since this superhuman accomplishment, no one else has gone even 10 games, have they? Second place was probably the Walsh guy who went maybe 8 games before he got beat. And that Ultimate Tournament of Champions that allowed Jeopardy to say it holds the record for the most money won on a game show? Kenny didn't get it. That record amount went to Brad Rutter. In the 2 game showdown, he crapped out. Also crapped out on 1 against 100, and admitted he was passed over for Millionaire.
Still, with all that, and if this goes to court and the Judge asks me, no, I ain't saying the game is fixed. I'm just saying some stuff. Still, like most home viewers, I watch it every night, and I dream of being on the show. I even kept my score one night as a former winner suggested, and while I was unsure if I should deduct the scores for the answers I couldn't question but didn't try, I still had over $42,000 owing to a honking, or whacking great (Britspeak) all-in bet on Final Jeopardy, and just because I knew it would piss Alex off, I added an s to my final question, and I didn't even penalize myself.
Oh, and, on the 26th of January, 2010, once again I took the on-line exam. 50 questions, 15 seconds for a response, for a total of 12 and one half minutes of total terror. But I answered a lot of the questions correctly, (yeah, here it is done in the correct order) though one asked for the name of the animals that are predominant in Australia, and marsupials slipped my poor ol' mind until five minutes after the quiz had ended.
Still I had fun. On one question that asked for the name of a male author, I put down "Joe Mama", which was handy, because a couple of questions later, an actress's name was called for, and I responded "Angie Daddy".
Deep in my heart, I don't think I'll get a call from the show. Its okay, I am an arm-chair Jeopardy contestant, and I am safer here. I can call Alex creative names when he makes one of those stupid rulings that unfairly penalizes a contestant, and he can't get at me.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Bloggin' the Cats
Let me now proudly say that I am an alumnus of the University of Kentucky. Yes, I do like to brag about this, not that my alma mater has as much reason to return the favor. But I am working on this. Stay tuned to the station for occasional updates.
I am nothing if not an unlucky fellow. Like most of my fellow Kentuckians, I succumbed to one of my basest desires when I decided to go to U. K. That is to say, I wanted to watch the men's team play basketball at that site we from the Bluegrass State consider to be the world capital of BB, Rupp Arena. What's not to like about this scenario?
Not only was there Rupp, there was also Memorial, that classic example of a college gym. It was here that the great ones played BB for UK. The first team I ever paid any attention to was the one that featured number 44, Dan Issel, as its star performer. Dan'l and company introduced me to the idea of seeing U K ranked highly and competing fiercely.
In fact, this was sort of the middle of the era that was dominated by UCLA, the great John Wooden, Bill Walton, Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the best NBA star ever, in my humble opinion), and a whole ensemble of greats, but Issel and U K managed to be ranked N. 1 for a large part of that season. Sadly, that old upset bug got 'em in the end, as Jacksonville, a school that featured a pair of seven-footers-one of which was Artis Gilmore, who would be Issel's team mate on the now defunct Kentucky Colonels of the now equally defunct American Basketball Association-beat the Cats in the finals of their regional that year. This was also the year I learned how depressed a U K fan can be when the team doesn't live up to expectations.
Back to what would be the future, my enrollment period at U K. The would be Eddie Sutton's last year. Eric Manual was still on campus but was no longer allowed to play on the team. That was sad. The investigation into the men's team was fully involved, much like a house fire. That was even sadder. And U K was losing a lot of games. This would be the first losing season since 1919 (this was 1989, so that would make it seventy years, huh?) This was the saddest part of all.
Well, at least you could get tickets to the games. Not that many fans really wanted them. I worked at the Convenient Food Mart next door to Tolly Ho to help buy an occasional prime rib dinner from Alley Oops, and a night on the town at Two Keys or the U Club. On one occasion while at work, with not much going on, me and my boss and a couple of customers were discussing the state of affairs in Downtown Lexington. One customer mentioned crime, and the second one suggested that it was wise to consider what you displayed in the dash of any parked vehicle. He had, he went on, parked on Main a week or so earlier, and had inadvertently left a couple of U K tickets in plain sight. Sure enough, upon his return, he found that someone had broken the passenger side window and had left two more U K tickets on the dash.
Okay, so that was the worst of my three years at U K. The very next year would be Rick Pitino's first year. This offered the one thing that was missing from Eddie's last year, and that was excitement. Yeah, there was the Massacre at Kansas, when Pitino insisted on the run and gun and was outgunned by about fifty points. But the next year, the last time U K played the Jayhawks in a regular season game, we saw U K return the favor. This game, very close in the second half, turned into a blowout after Pitino called a time out, and the Cats went on a 19-2 run. How much fun was that?!? And we helped. We (the fans) made all the noise we could and we were overjoyed everytime a Jayhawk turned the ball over when hit by a relentless press.
And I got to see one of my favorite SEC and NBA players, Shaq Daddy, in person, being guarded by U K's BMOC, Jamal Mashburn. Good times. Good times. But one of my favorite games was in Pitino's first year, against Denny Crum's Cardinals. Their BMOC was Felton Spencer, a future NBA-er, (I saw John Pelfry, from Paintsville and the 15th region, my home region, really sky against him a couple of times) and the Cards were heavily favored. But the U K faithful were out en masse. So en masse that, during half time, it was all I could do to make a pit stop, get a refill for the bladder in the form of a large Coke, and the game was already underway when I got back to my seat. Final score as I recall was Cards 64, Cats 60. This time the moral victory was something to be savored.
Come to think of it, maybe I wasn't as unlucky as I might have thought at the time. More on this topic at odd intervals.
I am nothing if not an unlucky fellow. Like most of my fellow Kentuckians, I succumbed to one of my basest desires when I decided to go to U. K. That is to say, I wanted to watch the men's team play basketball at that site we from the Bluegrass State consider to be the world capital of BB, Rupp Arena. What's not to like about this scenario?
Not only was there Rupp, there was also Memorial, that classic example of a college gym. It was here that the great ones played BB for UK. The first team I ever paid any attention to was the one that featured number 44, Dan Issel, as its star performer. Dan'l and company introduced me to the idea of seeing U K ranked highly and competing fiercely.
In fact, this was sort of the middle of the era that was dominated by UCLA, the great John Wooden, Bill Walton, Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the best NBA star ever, in my humble opinion), and a whole ensemble of greats, but Issel and U K managed to be ranked N. 1 for a large part of that season. Sadly, that old upset bug got 'em in the end, as Jacksonville, a school that featured a pair of seven-footers-one of which was Artis Gilmore, who would be Issel's team mate on the now defunct Kentucky Colonels of the now equally defunct American Basketball Association-beat the Cats in the finals of their regional that year. This was also the year I learned how depressed a U K fan can be when the team doesn't live up to expectations.
Back to what would be the future, my enrollment period at U K. The would be Eddie Sutton's last year. Eric Manual was still on campus but was no longer allowed to play on the team. That was sad. The investigation into the men's team was fully involved, much like a house fire. That was even sadder. And U K was losing a lot of games. This would be the first losing season since 1919 (this was 1989, so that would make it seventy years, huh?) This was the saddest part of all.
Well, at least you could get tickets to the games. Not that many fans really wanted them. I worked at the Convenient Food Mart next door to Tolly Ho to help buy an occasional prime rib dinner from Alley Oops, and a night on the town at Two Keys or the U Club. On one occasion while at work, with not much going on, me and my boss and a couple of customers were discussing the state of affairs in Downtown Lexington. One customer mentioned crime, and the second one suggested that it was wise to consider what you displayed in the dash of any parked vehicle. He had, he went on, parked on Main a week or so earlier, and had inadvertently left a couple of U K tickets in plain sight. Sure enough, upon his return, he found that someone had broken the passenger side window and had left two more U K tickets on the dash.
Okay, so that was the worst of my three years at U K. The very next year would be Rick Pitino's first year. This offered the one thing that was missing from Eddie's last year, and that was excitement. Yeah, there was the Massacre at Kansas, when Pitino insisted on the run and gun and was outgunned by about fifty points. But the next year, the last time U K played the Jayhawks in a regular season game, we saw U K return the favor. This game, very close in the second half, turned into a blowout after Pitino called a time out, and the Cats went on a 19-2 run. How much fun was that?!? And we helped. We (the fans) made all the noise we could and we were overjoyed everytime a Jayhawk turned the ball over when hit by a relentless press.
And I got to see one of my favorite SEC and NBA players, Shaq Daddy, in person, being guarded by U K's BMOC, Jamal Mashburn. Good times. Good times. But one of my favorite games was in Pitino's first year, against Denny Crum's Cardinals. Their BMOC was Felton Spencer, a future NBA-er, (I saw John Pelfry, from Paintsville and the 15th region, my home region, really sky against him a couple of times) and the Cards were heavily favored. But the U K faithful were out en masse. So en masse that, during half time, it was all I could do to make a pit stop, get a refill for the bladder in the form of a large Coke, and the game was already underway when I got back to my seat. Final score as I recall was Cards 64, Cats 60. This time the moral victory was something to be savored.
Come to think of it, maybe I wasn't as unlucky as I might have thought at the time. More on this topic at odd intervals.
Portrait of the old man as a blogger
First of all, let me apologize for my column’s absence from last week’s paper. I take full responsibility for this and I hereby vow to do my best to see that this doesn’t happen again.
Because of the regrettable lapse, I have become a blogger. And on my newly created blog is that missing column. If anyone would like to see what they missed, let me direct them to http://edispilfehtmorf.blogspot.com/, and they can read all about it. In fact, I will henceforth be posting my weekly column on this blog, along with various other musings that occur to me on occasion.
Notice one thing, that seemingly meaningless jumble of letters between the two backslashes and the period before blogspot.com is the name of my column spelled backwards.
I would like to say that I am a genius for having thought of reversing “From the Flip Side”. It does seem sort of apropos, considering the image evoked by the title, doesn’t it? But the facts of the matter are: One, I had to look up the word “genius” in order to spell it correctly; and two, the name “From the Flip Side” had already been taken, no doubt by one of my legion of fans. LOL (laugh out loud), as computer users are sometimes known to utter.
Okay, the real truth of the matter is this, I probably am the reason that name was taken. In filling in the blanks in the initial phase of creating this no-doubt-soon-to-be-widely-read blog, I was asked what I wanted to name it. Of course I went with “From the Flip Side”. Why mess with success, huh?
Having given my blog that name, though, meant that that it could not now be used in the URL. The URL, or uniform resource locator, is, in effect, your Internet address, sort an electronic P O Box. It has two parts, does the URL, the protocol identifier and the resource name. This came, by the way, courtesy of a handy web site called http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/URL.html. It has a much better way of telling you what I have just stumbled over, so if you really want to know what I just said, visit this site.
Upon reaching http://edispilfehtmorf.blogspot.com/ the astute reader will soon realize that anyone can become a blogger, as there, on the same page as my missing column, is a connection to www.blogger.com. By clicking on this, you are given instructions as how, you, the ordinary, everyday computer user, can join the literally uncountable number of people who have become bloggers.
This site has been put up by Google, one of the better known Internet entities. Google is well-known as one of the more successful search engines, and has even beat Bill Gates and MSN at this game.
Because of this success, it has even produced a web browser that is a competitor for Internet Explorer, called Google Chrome. I do use its services for my blog, but I am content with Internet Explorer (IE) 7, and I have even resisted, thus far, at any rate, MSN’s entreaties to upgrade to IE 8.
What the heck, I guess I am just an old-fashioned type, which is easily evidenced by my very late entry into the wide and wild world of blogging
Because of the regrettable lapse, I have become a blogger. And on my newly created blog is that missing column. If anyone would like to see what they missed, let me direct them to http://edispilfehtmorf.blogspot.com/, and they can read all about it. In fact, I will henceforth be posting my weekly column on this blog, along with various other musings that occur to me on occasion.
Notice one thing, that seemingly meaningless jumble of letters between the two backslashes and the period before blogspot.com is the name of my column spelled backwards.
I would like to say that I am a genius for having thought of reversing “From the Flip Side”. It does seem sort of apropos, considering the image evoked by the title, doesn’t it? But the facts of the matter are: One, I had to look up the word “genius” in order to spell it correctly; and two, the name “From the Flip Side” had already been taken, no doubt by one of my legion of fans. LOL (laugh out loud), as computer users are sometimes known to utter.
Okay, the real truth of the matter is this, I probably am the reason that name was taken. In filling in the blanks in the initial phase of creating this no-doubt-soon-to-be-widely-read blog, I was asked what I wanted to name it. Of course I went with “From the Flip Side”. Why mess with success, huh?
Having given my blog that name, though, meant that that it could not now be used in the URL. The URL, or uniform resource locator, is, in effect, your Internet address, sort an electronic P O Box. It has two parts, does the URL, the protocol identifier and the resource name. This came, by the way, courtesy of a handy web site called http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/URL.html. It has a much better way of telling you what I have just stumbled over, so if you really want to know what I just said, visit this site.
Upon reaching http://edispilfehtmorf.blogspot.com/ the astute reader will soon realize that anyone can become a blogger, as there, on the same page as my missing column, is a connection to www.blogger.com. By clicking on this, you are given instructions as how, you, the ordinary, everyday computer user, can join the literally uncountable number of people who have become bloggers.
This site has been put up by Google, one of the better known Internet entities. Google is well-known as one of the more successful search engines, and has even beat Bill Gates and MSN at this game.
Because of this success, it has even produced a web browser that is a competitor for Internet Explorer, called Google Chrome. I do use its services for my blog, but I am content with Internet Explorer (IE) 7, and I have even resisted, thus far, at any rate, MSN’s entreaties to upgrade to IE 8.
What the heck, I guess I am just an old-fashioned type, which is easily evidenced by my very late entry into the wide and wild world of blogging
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Post Mortem of a P R Campaign
Sometimes, to get at the heart of the matter, you have to dig a little to uncover all relevant facts. Such is the case with Massey Energy and its latest PR campaign. In it, Massey’s spokesman solemnly proclaims “Massey Energy – we work here and we give here because we live here, too.”
This gives the impression that Massey and its workers exist in an egalitarian paradise, where everyone gives and get equally. Take the idea of fair pay, for instance. In April of 2009, CEO Don Blankenship announced a pay cut for all Massey employees of six percent. To make sure that everyone shared in the pain, Mr. Blankenship and all Massey executives took a ten percent hit on their not insubstantial salaries. Since his base salary is around one million a year, that was a $100,000 pay cut. Yep, there he is, leading by example.
Except that Mr. Blankenship’s salary is a very small part of his pay package. In an on-line article from the Washington Examiner dated 01/07/10, it was reported that “Coal producer Massey Energy Co. is upping Chief Executive Don Blankenship's already substantial compensation package.” Turns out those “cash and stock performance bonuses” are what really make Mr. Blankenship the highest paid CEO of any coal producer, and the article notes that his could be substantially higher in 2010. The “performance bonus” that was $900,000 in 2009 could reach $1,500.000 this year. All this ought to go a long way toward easing the pain of the ten percent pay cut.
Then there is the implication in the statement “we live here, too” that seems to imply Massey would never do anything to hurt this area’s environment, because it would hurt them as well. Any idea to the contrary is spread by those “Treehugging extremists and self-serving politicians”. I would suppose that all those people whose wells were polluted by Rawl Sales in Mingo County would be included in these groups.
Okay, so some contaminants showed up in their drinking water. Why should a little mercury or arsenic or other various pollutants that coal slurry contains stain a company’s reputation? Massey eventually made good on it, didn’t they? And didn’t that nice judge give the majority of plaintiffs in this suit up to five minutes to decide whether or not to accept Massey’s offer? Move along, please. Nothing to see here.
No, of course Massey would never harm the environment, no matter what a worthless organization like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) might say. (This opinion was expressed by WV State Senator Truman Chafin.) You’d think that a company willing to take such a tough stance in public would never kowtow to such a group.
You’d be wrong. In 2008, Massey acknowledged to the EPA that it had violated the Clean Water Act (see above) more than 4, 500 times. Amazing. Would Massey and Mr. Blankenship admit to so many gross violations if they had never committed them? The severity of their admitted conduct, after all, resulted in the largest fine ever levied against any coal producer. It only cost $20,000,000 to settle up.
Well, I guess that’s why Massey and Mr. Blankenship have all that money, to spend on a big PR campaign. Kind of like kitty litter for coal corporations, ain’t it?
This gives the impression that Massey and its workers exist in an egalitarian paradise, where everyone gives and get equally. Take the idea of fair pay, for instance. In April of 2009, CEO Don Blankenship announced a pay cut for all Massey employees of six percent. To make sure that everyone shared in the pain, Mr. Blankenship and all Massey executives took a ten percent hit on their not insubstantial salaries. Since his base salary is around one million a year, that was a $100,000 pay cut. Yep, there he is, leading by example.
Except that Mr. Blankenship’s salary is a very small part of his pay package. In an on-line article from the Washington Examiner dated 01/07/10, it was reported that “Coal producer Massey Energy Co. is upping Chief Executive Don Blankenship's already substantial compensation package.” Turns out those “cash and stock performance bonuses” are what really make Mr. Blankenship the highest paid CEO of any coal producer, and the article notes that his could be substantially higher in 2010. The “performance bonus” that was $900,000 in 2009 could reach $1,500.000 this year. All this ought to go a long way toward easing the pain of the ten percent pay cut.
Then there is the implication in the statement “we live here, too” that seems to imply Massey would never do anything to hurt this area’s environment, because it would hurt them as well. Any idea to the contrary is spread by those “Treehugging extremists and self-serving politicians”. I would suppose that all those people whose wells were polluted by Rawl Sales in Mingo County would be included in these groups.
Okay, so some contaminants showed up in their drinking water. Why should a little mercury or arsenic or other various pollutants that coal slurry contains stain a company’s reputation? Massey eventually made good on it, didn’t they? And didn’t that nice judge give the majority of plaintiffs in this suit up to five minutes to decide whether or not to accept Massey’s offer? Move along, please. Nothing to see here.
No, of course Massey would never harm the environment, no matter what a worthless organization like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) might say. (This opinion was expressed by WV State Senator Truman Chafin.) You’d think that a company willing to take such a tough stance in public would never kowtow to such a group.
You’d be wrong. In 2008, Massey acknowledged to the EPA that it had violated the Clean Water Act (see above) more than 4, 500 times. Amazing. Would Massey and Mr. Blankenship admit to so many gross violations if they had never committed them? The severity of their admitted conduct, after all, resulted in the largest fine ever levied against any coal producer. It only cost $20,000,000 to settle up.
Well, I guess that’s why Massey and Mr. Blankenship have all that money, to spend on a big PR campaign. Kind of like kitty litter for coal corporations, ain’t it?
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