J-Archive Milestone

Congratulations to the folks over at the Jeopardy Archive on reaching the 90,000 clue mark. And that on the night a fellow Charter Archivist, Brendan Pimper, goes down on a strategically-unsound wager.

Fortunately for the show, Brendan's wager overshadowed an spectacularly bad FJ clue:

LITERARY FIGURES: Bono, Jim Sheridan & Liam Neeson were featured in a 2004 documentary honoring the 150th anniversary of the birth of this man.

Now, unless you happen to know that Oscar Wilde was born in 1854 AND that G. B. Shaw (1856), William Butler Yeats (1865), and James Joyce (1882) weren't, what is there in this clue that separates Wilde as the clear choice? The movie?

So much for the writing Emmy this year.

SILT -- 3/28

SILT:

• Rome fell to the Allies in 1944, not 43.
• The Jazz Singer came out in 1927, not 1929.
• Amundsen reached the South Pole in 1911, not 1917.
• There is a rite involving witches which use a bell, book, and candle.
• More yiddish -- a Jewish wedding canopy is called a chuppah.
• Sinatra won an Oscar for From Here to Eternity.
• Nancy, Ava, Mia, and Barbara are Sinatra wives.
• The runners in Blade Runner were called replicants.
• Battle Bots is Conedy Central's answer to Robot Wars.
• Robby the Robot appeared in Forbidden Planet and The Invisible Boy.
• W. B. Yeats wrote the poem "Easter, 1916."
• Victoria Woodhull ran for President in 1872.
• A nix is a water spirit.
• Gerald Ford represented Grand Rapids, Michigan in Congress.
• Carel Fabritius was Rembrandt's most prominent pupil.
• Rembrandt was also known for self-portraits.

Look up:

• More about Rembrandt.
• English words from the Yiddish.
• A biography of Sinatra.
• The whole "Bell, Book, and Candle" deal.

Weakness Exposed -- Rat Pack trivia, Visual recognition of artistic style, Yiddish.

SILT from the Calendar

From the desk calendar:

• Faulkner wrote "A Rose for Emily."
• Pan is the moon of Saturn closest to the planet
• Pan played the pipe.
• Elmore Leonard wrote Hombre.
• Memorial Day was originally set on May 30.
• Stevie Wonder had a hit with "Happy Birthday." Now that is talent.
• King Arthur was in The Gododdin and Daughter of Tintagel.
• Moose and elk are basically the same.
• Janus had two faces.

SILT -- March 26

Stuff I learned:

• Director John Carpenter also composed the scores to "The Thing," "Halloween," and "The Fog."
• That famous picture of the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square celebrated V-J Day, not V-E Day.
• No one knows which Johannes is the namesake of Johannesburg, South Africa.
• The chariot pulled in a harness race is called a "sulky."
• Emerial Lagasse is from the Boston area.
• Paul Prudhomme is the Pavlovian response for cajun chef.
• Irma Rombauer wrote The Joy of Cooking.
• Martin Yan wrote The Joy of Wokking.
• Italian chef Giacca de Laurentiis is the granddaughter of film producer Dino.
• "A Horse with No Name" was a hit by America.
• Brasil 66 sang "Mas Que Nada" and "One Note Samba."
• "No More Words" and "The Metro" were by Berlin.
• Asia sang "Heat of the Moment."
• A nebulizer turns asthma medicine into a mist.
• The bulb syringes we used to use on the girls' noses when the were babies are called "irrigation syringes."
• Abe Fortas resigned from the Supreme Court in 1969 because of a financial scandal.
• Jacob Riis was a socially-conscious photographer.
• Lillian Helman wrote Watch on the Rhine and The Children's Hour. I should really know that by now.

Look up:

• Pictures from V-E Day celebrations, especially in New York.
• The connection between Crosby, Stills & Nash and the city of Marrakesh.
• The movies of Dino de Laurentiis.
• Balfour's Declaration

Weakness exposed -- Pop Music, Famous Chefs. Look for a list of "Exposed" categories to appear here sometime soon.

Atlantic Sun Men's Recap

In other fora, I have commented about what I though would happen this year. Here's how it turned out:

First the misses: Campbell, ETSU, and Jacksonville.

In January, I pegged Campbell as the fourth-best team, a likely conference semifinalst and a tough out. I didn't think they could sustain their pace for 3 days, but their style is tough to defend. 1.05 points per possession was the best in the league during pre-conference. I guessed they would go 11-7, giving them a look at a top-3 seed. I missed their conference record by 3 games and their seed line by 2.

ETSU played a really tough schedule out of conference, including a pasting at Vanderbilt. Their schedule made them look worse than they actually were. My guess on them was 12-6, second place. Swap the 6 and the 2 and make them regular season champs. Imagine -- in a guard oriented league that shoots 3's with no conscience at all, the team with the best defense would win. Who knew?

Jacksonville looked breathtakingly average in November and December. They played an average pace, shot average free throws, and were slightly below-average defensively. I guessed they would go 8-10 and bow out of the tourney on the first day. Try 11-7 and a 3-seed. They did lose day 1, but that was to that dangerous Campbell team above. Coming off an abysmal 2006, that's remarkable.

A couple of bragging notes: I picked Belmont as conference champs and guessed their record within 1 game. Not that that is too surprising, but I like to be right. I guessed Lipscomb's record within half a game (I couldn't decide between 11 and 12 wins, so I gave them 11 1/2). I also pegged Mercer as a dangerous 5-seed.

The conference awards were severely jacked up. Jonathan Rodriguez of Campbell was far and away the best player this year, but his team finished 6th. In this league, defense and rebounding are very important and significantly undervalued by voters. If I had a ballot, my first-team would be Rodriguez (F-CAM), Shadeen Aaron (G-MERC), Courtney Pigram (G-ETSU), Jesse Kimbrough (G-JAX), and Calvin Henry (F-MERC). I know, I know, I've got 3 guards on there, but this is a guard league. Second team would be Brad Knuckles (F-ETSU), Shawn Stegall (F-KENN), Ronnell Wooton (G-KENN), Eddie Ard (G-LIP), and Boomer Herndon (C-BELM).

Sorry kids, but James Florence (G-MERC) was not first-team-all-conference good. Good, but not that good. He scored a lot, but he shot a lot too. And his defense could use some work. Fortunately he's a freshman and isn't going anywhere for a while, so he has a good chance to get better.

You'll notice the lack of Belmont presence on this list. And that might be the secret of their success. They've got so many interchangeable parts that if each player does his job, everybody wins. They remind me a lot of the 1980 Olympic hockey team that way. That and they have no business on the same floor with the Big Boys.

Enjoy the off-season. I'll update other sports as events warrant.

SILT -- 3/22

More SILT from yesterday:

• North Korea is north of Japan. I thought it was south.
• A pogrom is an attack on Jews. The word derives from the Russian word for "destruction."
• Babe Ruth once coached first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Things to look up:

• The history of pogroms.

Jeopardy has had several diabolical coin-flip clues lately. Rumor has it there's a new writer in the crew. I hope so, because clues like this reek of inexperience.

Re: today's show -- I was 51-4 going into the last category, about Hal Prince. I finished 52-8. Still a good day, but what might have been . . .

ETSU Guard Transfers

Back-up guard Dante Williams has been granted a release from ETSU. He plans to transfer somewhere closer to his Michigan home.

Read the story here.

Williams averaged 3 points and 9 minutes per game. He saw action in 18 games.

Stuff I Learned Today

• To remove an appendix, first make a McBurney's incision.
• The first disease known to be caused by a bacterium was anthrax.
• The Tugela waterfalls in South Africa are over 2600 feet tall.
• A guy named Pissarro was a famouos impressionist painter.

Look into:

• Who was this McBurney, anyway?
• Who was Pissarro?
• Was there ever a guy named Tom Collins?

Fun category I'd like to write someday: "People From -Stan"

Welcome to My World

Hello Internet.

This is the infancy of what may turn out to be a good idea. Or not. Nobody really knows yet.

I have a bunch of pipe dreams about what might happen in this space. We'll see how many of them come to fruition.

I don't really have anything to say yet, but I promise to let you know when I do.

-Ben Wiles
AKA DadofTwins