Last Jennings item

But for the next few months, he plans to spend lots of time at home, where he will continue to read obsessively, speed through crossword puzzles and do most of the things he has always done. Except, of course, his own taxes. “H & R Block got hold of me and they’ve offered me free financial services for life,” he said, grinning as if he had just nailed a question on medieval horticulture. “So that I never forget their name again.”

From article about his loss in The New York Times

More Ken Jennings

From “The TV Column” in Tuesday’s Washington Post, which discusses today’s Jeopardy!:

Interestingly, however, Jennings is scheduled to be a guest on tonight’s “Late Show With David Letterman,” which airs on CBS, which is owned by Viacom, which also owns King World.

And, in another of those incredible coincidences, “Nightline” — which airs on ABC, many of whose stations carry “Jeopardy!” — will this very night devote its entire broadcast to that show. ABC News correspondent Judy Muller will interview Jennings and show creator Merv Griffin, a “Nightline” rep told The Washington Post’s TV Team, while emphasizing that the show is about “a day in the life of ‘Jeopardy!,’ ” as opposed to, say, a show about Ken Jennings losing. Because they want to make sure we get word to you that Jennings is on “Nightline” tonight, but they don’t want to be accused of letting the cat out of the bag about Jennings losing. I’m just guessing here that the “Nightline” folks do not even realize the episode is going to air during the November sweeps.

Link via Kottke, who has updated his info.

Pickup game

An interesting essay from The New York Times Magazine on kids and sports. It begins:

Last summer, in the bright, buggy late-afternoon heat of an Atlanta playground, a few Druid Hills High School baseball players taught a bunch of little kids how to play the game.

My 16-year-old son, Lee Samuel, ran a baseball clinic with his teammates Andre Mastrogiacomo and Matt and Palmer Hudson. Here’s what the teenagers didn’t require of their players: tryouts; advance registrations; birth certificates; assignments to teams by age, sex and skill level; uniforms or team names; parent volunteers; snack schedules; and commuting to fields in distant counties in search of the appropriate level of competition.

Here’s what the players didn’t miss: almost none of the above. (Uniforms are pretty cool.)

The name game

Julia Roberts’ new twins, Hazel and Phinnaeus, cause Paul Farhi concern in The Washington Post:

Celebrity baby names these days are very . . . different. We say this not to pass judgment, but to point out one more way celebrities are not like the rest of us.

The list keeps growing. Demi Moore and Bruce Willis are the parents of Rumer Glenn, Scout LaRue and Tallulah Belle. Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay singer Chris Martin recently begat Apple. Sylvester Stallone sired Sage Moonblood and Sistine Rose. Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette are the proud parents of Coco. Singer Erykah Badu — herself on the celebrity all-name team — has a child named Puma. John Travolta and Kelly Preston named their boy Jett. Christie Brinkley’s youngest is a girl named Sailor. The late rock star Michael Hutchence named his daughter Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. Long-ago rock star Bob Geldof calls daughter Fifi Trixabelle to dinner. Soccer star David Beckham and Victoria “Posh Spice” Adams’s brood includes Brooklyn, Romeo and a soon-to-be wee one who reportedly may be dubbed San Miguel. Supermodel Claudia Schiffer has a girl named Clementine, as does Cybill Shepherd. Rob Morrow, of “Northern Exposure” quasi-fame, dubbed his baby Tu, as in Tu Morrow.

We’d mention that Michael Jackson named one of his children Prince Michael, but this seems like the least Out There thing about Michael Jackson.

Link via dangerousmeta.

Ken Jennings Day

Today’s Jeopardy! is reportedly the show where Ken Jennings loses. Kottke had the audio of the decisive moment but he reports that Sony asked him to remove it.

The Final Jeopardy answer that does Ken in —

Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white collar employees work only four months a year.

Best line of the day, so far

“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”

Mark Twain

It’s the birthday

… of Dick Clark. America’s oldest teenager is 75.

… of David Mamet. The playwright is 57.

And it was on this date in 1835 that Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born.

He’s best known to us today for his novels about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, but in his own lifetime his best-selling books were his travel books such as Roughing It (1872), A Tramp Abroad (1880), and Life on the Mississippi (1883).

The Writer’s Almanac has much more.