CalJunket

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Ken Jennings: American Hero

In case you regularly choose to spend your 7:00pm-7:30pm weekday timeslot watching last night's The Daily Show, or doing something stupid like studying or feeding the poor, then you probably haven't seen network television's newest sensation: 22-time Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings of Murray, Utah. He's uh-maze-ing. The man usually goes into Final Jeopardy! with more than twice the moneys of his nearest opponent, and in his score plus two victories he's acrued $737,720. (He added $40k to his total tonight. The Final Jeopardy! category was "Fruit.")

Why this man isn't a national hero making headline news in all the major newspapers is a mystery to me. Not only does he have more information in his brain than most anyone I've seen on the show, he's got a good sense of humor and amiable, humble demeanor to boot. Tonight Alex asked him something to the effect of, What about winning this many times has affected your life, to which Ken responded something like, I'm changing my mind about the Bush tax cuts. Zing!

What's more, he has a website where he lists his 10 favorite movies for every year since 1931, with less complete lists for 1921-30. He's got some sappy entries, but some really great ones too, such as "The Station Agent" and "MST3K: The Movie."

Anyhow, I'm going to be in Southern California until Monday night, and consequently without internet access for a long weekend. Keep the Bay Area warm for me while I'm gone.



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