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.

Bah! Humbug!

NewMexiKen is listening to Christmas music this evening trying to get into the holiday mood.

Of course, my preferred holiday mood is to be somewhat crankier than Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Finally, some HDTV that’s worth watching

Fred Kaplan likes what he sees on VOOM:

VOOM offers 37 high-definition channels—four times as many as any other single satellite or cable company. Its competitors both offer HBO, Showtime, ESPN, and Discovery Theater in high-definition. VOOM has all of those, plus an additional HBO HD channel, an additional Showtime HD channel, two Starz HD channels, two Cinemax HD channels, and HD versions of The Movie Channel, Bravo, and Encore. It also has 21 unique HD channels, including 10 movie channels, two concert channels, and separate channels for news, world sports, extreme sports, fashion, and classic cartoons.

A different Tiger

From Morning Briefing:

A Detroit ballplayer was once heckled so mercilessly that he went into the stands and beat a fan senseless, reported Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune. The fan was an amputee.

The ballplayer was Ty Cobb, who played for the Tigers, and the incident happened 92 years ago.

Added Downey: “It happened in New York, by the way, not in Detroit.”

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site …

was established on this date in 1999. According to the National Park Service:

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site is one of the nation’s newest national park areas. It was created to illustrate the history and significance of the Cold War, the arms race, and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development. The National Park Service is currently involved in the planning process to determine the future of this site. We encourage you to contact us with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

Minuteman Missile NHS consists of two significant cold War sites, a Launch Control Facility (Delta-01) and a missile silo complex (Delta-09). The facilities represent the only remaining intact components of a nuclear missile field that consisted of 150 Minuteman II missiles, 15 launch control centers, and covered over 13,500 square miles of southwestern South Dakota.

To Know Me, Know My IPod

New York Times writer John Schwartz acquires a colleague’s iPod and wonders at the invasion of privacy.

So eavesdropping on Ken’s iPod worried me. I have read about people randomly plugging in to each others’ iPods to figure out what songs are in their friends’ heads, or even in the heads of strangers. (They call it “podjacking.”) But this was a mind meld.

What if I hated Ken’s taste? Would I lose respect for him? I’m not talking about the Paula Abdul songs; we’re all entitled to our guilty pleasures. But what if it was all bubblegum, or deeply dull? It would be like opening his closet and finding Star Trek uniforms. I fretted.

But I fretted wrong. Moments of serendipity thrilled me; I was driving with my teenage daughter, listening to the iPod through the car stereo, when the Beatles’ “Yesterday” began to play. It’s a song that is nearly dead to me after so many thousands of repetitions. But when it finished, the machine skipped to a version of the song I had never heard, by Ray Charles. He sang with all the pain and heart that the twentysomething Paul McCartney could not have known, and I listened with tears in my eyes.

It’s an interesting essay.

Too smart for his own good

The oldest of The Sweeties, Mack, who won’t be four for a couple more weeks, asked his mother yesterday, “Is Santa fake?”

He’s obviously intelligent, already doing the analysis necessary to reach this conclusion.

Of course, if he was really smart he’d have kept his beliefs under wraps for a few more years.

Bump on the noggin

According to a report in The New York Times soccer headgear has become an issue.

The founder of a San Diego-based company called Full90 said he had sold 100,000 pieces of headgear. The headgear resembles an enlarged headband, weighs less than 2 ounces, and covers the forehead, temples and occipital bone in back of the head. The device is made of shock-absorbing foam situated between an outer layer of Lycra and an inner layer of sweat-absorbing polypropylene. Several models are available for $24 to $39.

Full90 does not claim that its headgear prevents concussions. But the company does say the headgear can reduce, by up to 50 percent, the peak impact forces that occur during typical collisions when a player’s head strikes another head, the ground, an elbow or a goal post.

The headgear debate is occurring at a time when some studies indicate that concussions occur in soccer at a rate similar to the rate in football.

Apparently there is a great deal of resistance to the headgear in some quarters, in part for fear people will realize soccer is dangerous and the soccer moms will stop signing up their little darlings. (The article points out that concussions are almost non-existent among players under 12. It’s the older, bigger players who could gain from the protection.)

The resistance is also similar to that which took place when baseball and other sports introduced helmets. NewMexiKen attended a game between the Kansas City Athletics and the Detroit Tigers in the mid-1950s. Vic Power came to the plate without a helmet (it was optional then). He made a show of declining it. After a close, inside pitch he made an ever greater show of going to the dugout and returning with a helmet on.

Milestone

According to a report in The New York Times, Ontario is about to pass Michigan as the state or province in North America producing the most vehicles. Ontario 2.7 million; Michigan 2.6 million.

Hard to think of Toronto as Motown.

Worth waiting

That may soon change as a glut of liquid crystal display flat-panel televisions, called L.C.D.’s, enter the market, a result of a boom in new factories. According to several manufacturers and analysts, the prices for L.C.D. flat-panel TV’s will drop in the new year, falling by as much as 30 percent by the end of 2005. The prices of plasma flat-panel TV’s are also expected to fall significantly.

From a report in The New York Times

It’s the birthday

… of Barry Gordy. The founder of Motown is 75.

… of S. Epatha Merkerson. Lt. Van Buren is 52.

… of Jon Stewart. The Daily Show star is 42.

Supposed I-A playoff

Hypothetical 16-team bracket using 11 conference champions and 5 wild cards. Conference champions based on current best record if not yet decided. Wildcards based on Sagarin’s current overall rating, as is seeding.

USC (Pac 10) vs, North Texas (Sun Belt)
Louisville (Conference USA) vs. Miami

Utah (Mountain West) vs. Michigan (Big 10)
Texas vs. LSU

California vs. West Virginia (Big East)
Auburn (SEC) vs. Georgia

Boise State (WAC) vs. Virginia Tech (ACC)
Oklahoma (Big 12) vs. Miami-Ohio (Mid-American)

Some interesting games and some interesting likely second round match-ups. Of course, if this was done like basketball, by a committee, there would no doubt be more finesse and finagling.

Think of the drama as we waited for next Sunday and pairings to be announced on TV. Who’d be on the bubble, etc., etc.

Alas.

Meanwhile, where the college presidents aren’t jerks — a football championship decided by (imagine) playoffs

The first round of the I-AA 16-team football playoff style tournament has been completed. Eight teams moved to the second round December 4th &mdash

Sam Houston State @ Eastern Washington
New Hampshire @ Montana
Delaware @ William & Mary
James Madison @ Furman

The championship game is in Chattanooga December 17.

(There are 117 I-A schools and 122 I-AA schools.)

Things I think about

Wouldn’t it be great if Chris Berman and Dick Vitale got in a big argument at the ESPN holiday party and punched each other out?

Glad I live at 6,000 feet

Map of southern Florida projecting the coastline if sea levels rise 20 feet, as scientists suggest could happen if the Greenland ice sheet melts.

Link via Michael Froomkin.

Strength of schedule

Jeff Sagarin’s top ten Strength of Schedule (as of November 28):

1. Oregon State
2. Texas A&M
3. North Carolina
4. Arizona State
5. Arizona
6. Washington
7. Stanford
8. Baylor
9. BYU
10. USC

End of Jennings’ run on Jeopardy

As noted here sometime ago, Ken Jennings finally loses on Jeaopary! in the show that airs Tuesday (November 30). The Final Jeopardy answer that defeats him:

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

Answer in comments.

Thanks to Kottke for all this. He has an audio recording of the actual moment.

[When posted here in September the answer omitted "seasonal" and the number was 17,000 rather than 70,000.]

Celebrate American Indian Heritage Month

The National Museum of the American Indian has a wonderfully attractive entry page.

The NewMexiKen masthead

No one has ever asked but I’ll tell you anyway. The photos in the masthead were all taken by NewMexiKen. Seven of the eight are from National Parks; the sunset is from my front courtyard (taken in November 2002).

From left to right — Great Sand Dunes, New Mexico sunset, Grand Canyon, Saguaro, Yellowstone, Arches, Crater Lake and Bryce.

Happy Birthday Charles M. Schulz

Born on this date in 1922. He died in February 2000, the night before his last Sunday strip appeared.

Man says fish stick has Jesus’ face

First loaves (the grilled cheese sandwich), now fishes:

KINGSTON, Ontario - An eastern Ontario man is hoping to make a bit of money by auctioning a fish stick he says looks like Jesus.

Fred Whan, who has kept the fish stick in his freezer since burning it at dinner a year ago, decided Tuesday that it was time to thaw it out so he could sell it on eBay.

A Florida woman recently sold a decade-old grilled cheese sandwich with the toasty visage of what’s purported to be the Virgin Mary for $28,000, according to the eBay Web site.

From Canadian Press via AZCentral. Click image to enlarge.

How fast can you count?

Play 12MANY and see.

How to Kill a Mockingbird

A silly but amusing 21st century school book review of To Kill a Mockingbird (sorta). [Video]

[Update: This is actually way too long to be worth it, but I'll leave the link here in case time is of no value to you.]

Rolling Stone 500

Rolling Stone has published a new list of the 500 “greatest rock & roll songs of all time.” All 500 are listed with a discussion of each (ranging from lengthy to a sentence). There is a sound clip for most songs and a link to purchase many for just 79 cents each (from RealPlayer).

At the moment, NewMexiKen has 358 of the 500 on the iPod.

Hand at position 10 or 2

A recent study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests that drivers who use hands-free cellphone adapters are actually no safer behind the wheel than drivers who hold the phone with one hand and steer with the other.

From a report in The New York Times.

Hail to the Chief

Presidential succession:

• Vice President Richard Cheney
• Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert
• President pro tempore of the Senate Ted Stevens
• Secretary of State Colin Powell Condoleezza Rice
• Secretary of the Treasury John Snow
• Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
• Attorney General John Ashcroft Alberto R. Gonzales

There’s gold in them thar hills

Gold hit $450 an ounce yesterday, its highest in more than 16 years.

In case you were wondering

Seven years after they won a civil lawsuit, relatives of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman have collected almost none of the $33.5 million in damages awarded.

Read article in the Los Angeles Times.

Do you think the real killer took all of OJ’s money, too?

The year we had two Thanksgivings

On Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 1939, Franklin Roosevelt carved the turkey at the annual Thanksgiving Dinner at Warm Springs, Georgia, and wished all Americans across the country a Happy Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, his greeting went unanswered in some states; many Americans were not observing Thanksgiving on the same day as the President. Instead, they were waiting to carve their turkeys on the following Thursday because November 30th in many states was the official Thanksgiving Day. Two Thanksgivings? Why were Americans celebrating a national holiday on two different days?

At the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, Thanksgiving was not a fixed holiday; it was up to the President to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation to announce what date the holiday would fall on. However, Thanksgiving was always the last Thursday in November because that was the day President Abraham Lincoln observed the holiday when he declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. Franklin Roosevelt continued that tradition, but he soon found that tradition was difficult to keep in extreme circumstances such as the Great Depression. His first Thanksgiving in office, 1933, fell on November 30th, the last day of the month, because November had five Thursdays that year. Since statistics showed that most people did not do their Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving, business leaders feared they would lose money, especially during the Depression, because there were only 24 shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. They asked Franklin Roosevelt to make Thanksgiving one week earlier. President Roosevelt ignored those concerns in 1933, but when Thanksgiving once again threatened to fall on the last day of November in 1939, FDR reconsidered the request and moved the date of Thanksgiving up one week. Thanksgiving 1939 would be held, President Roosevelt proclaimed, on November 23rd and not November 30th.

Read the rest of this entry.

Thanksgiving Day

Courtesy The Writer’s Almanac:

On this day, the fourth Thursday in November, Thanksgiving Day, Americans express gratitude for their good fortune. The American Thanksgiving tradition originated with the Pilgrims. As early as 1621, the Puritan colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts set aside a day of thanks for a bountiful harvest. On October 3, 1789, President George Washington proclaimed the 26th of that November the first national Thanksgiving Day under the Constitution.

On October 3, 1863, in the wake of victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln decided to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation declaring the last Thursday in November national Thanksgiving Day. In 1941 Congress made it official.

On Thanksgiving Day in 1876, The American Intercollegiate Football Association held its first championship game. The sport resembled something of a cross between rugby and modern-day football, but the tradition of playing football on Thanksgiving Day developed with the evolution of the sport itself.

The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was in 1924. In the 1920’s many of Macy’s department store employees were first-generation immigrants. Proud of their new American heritage, they wanted to celebrate the holiday with the type of festival they loved in Europe. The employees marched from 145 Street down to 34th Street dressed as clowns, sheiks, knights and cowboys. There were floats, professional bands and 25 live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. With an audience of over a quarter of a million people, the parade was a success.

Large helium balloons first appeared in 1927 with Felix the Cat. It became tradition to release the balloons after the parade. The balloons would float for days and the lucky finder could claim a reward at Macy’s. In 1933, a student pilot stalled her engine over Jamaica Bay trying to snag a cat balloon, and two tugboats in the East River tore apart a dachshund balloon. After a few more close calls, the practice of releasing the balloons came to an end.

How to Set the Table, and Why: The Short Course

From The New York Times of a year ago (full article may be purchased) —

Traditionally, of course, a proper table is covered with a cloth. Tablecloths originated in Rome and represented wealth and dignity during the Medieval period. Damascus in Syria produced the best cloths, called damask, like my family heirloom. Centuries ago, several tablecloths were laid one on top of another, each to be removed after a course. This practice is still followed today in some cultures, in North Africa, for example. Then in early 18th century England, very fine wood tables were meant to be shown off, so doilies, named for D’Oyley, a London draper who is said to have invented them, came into use. These in turn became place mats.

On to the plates. The plate is the flat dinner plate, which evolved from wooden trenchers, which were in turn preceded by slabs of stale bread.

The plate is then flanked by knife and tablespoon on the right and usually two forks on the left. Utensils are placed to make picking them up and using them efficient and simple. The knife should be turned so the blade edge is on the left, next to the plate, a consideration dating from when knives were razor sharp. The forks, a larger dinner fork and a smaller salad fork, are placed in order of use from the outside in. In France the forks and spoons are usually turned so the tines and bowls face down.

Thanksgiving Rules Revised

Funny stuff from last year in The New Yorker. Among the rules —

5. In-laws must now be accorded full human status. Their chairs must face the dinner table, and they must be offered a choice of dark or white meat.

7. When you are handed a family scrapbook or photo album, you must keep such article in your possession for at least a hundred and twenty seconds before passing it to the next person. You may not ask if your hundred and twenty seconds are up.

9. Reminiscences that touch upon parental favoritism, unpaid personal loans, and arrests of blood relations’ children are discouraged.

Barter

Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road. As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride.

With a word or two of thanks, the woman got in the car. After resuming the journey and a bit of small talk, the Navajo woman noticed a brown bag on the seat next to Sally.

“What’s in the bag?” asked the old woman.

Sally looked down at the brown bag and said, “It’s a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband.”

The Navajo woman was silent for a moment, and then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder said, “Good trade.”

Thanks to Debby.

Beats having a speed bump

An Oregon man who got tired of speeders racing past his house planted a faux sheriff’s cruiser in his yard to encourage motorists to ease off the gas pedal. Rick Pyburn’s plywood cop car façade seems to be doing the trick. “Once I placed that on the highway, it was amazing,” he said. “The traffic immediately slowed down.” Pyburn said lead-footed (and cold-hearted) drivers had become dangerous, running over five of his chickens. “People hit ‘em and just keep on going,” he said. The county sheriff’s office said it doesn’t mind the crime-fighting help, and the entrepreneurial Pyburn says he plans to market an upgraded model made of a waterproof composite.

Wired News Furthermore

But, of course, this begs the main question: Why were Pyburn’s chickens crossing the road?