I began my second game, the last game to be taped that day, happy that I had won once and aware that I should be satisfied with that outcome. Of course, once you win once, you start thinking “Hey, I like this, I can keep this up,” and you don’t want to the feeling to end. I didn’t hold out much hope, though, as my opponents KC and Nick, the last two folks left in the pool, were two of the people I had scoped out, in the unscientific and often completely wrong way you do, as two of the tougher people in the group. I was right; they both clobbered me throughout the game, and I spent most of my time in last place. Throughout the whole game, I felt outgunned on the signaling device, and out of my element on a lot of the categories.

Here’s me already in the red and guessing incorrectly on a question I shouldn’t have buzzed in on:

Alex asked me about photobooths this time, but I never really had a chance to mention Photobooth.net; he went right for the proposal story, which was great.

Here’s me talking to him about photobooths, and for some reason forgetting that I could put the buzzer down while we were chatting. Note to self: there are no questions in the contestant chat segment.

And here’s me guessing (and getting extremely lucky) on a Daily Double. If there was a Pope John Paul II, then there must have been a Pope John Paul I, right?

After a few mistakes and a lot of missed opportunities thanks to slow buzzer reaction times, I came on a little stronger in the last few categories, thanks in part to Dad’s law career – “deposition,” “of counsel” – but still couldn’t make up enough ground to get back into the game.

By the time Final Jeopardy came around, I felt really out of it, though in watching it tonight, I wasn’t that far behind. When the category came up “Biographers,” I didn’t feel very strong and could only think of a few well-known biographers off the top of my head. Not much in the way of “precalls,” as they call it. I figured I’d play it safe and make a low, venusian wager that would help me out in the event none of us got it right. If either one of my opponents got the answer right, there wasn’t any way I could win anyway, so if I didn’t know it, the Triple Stumper was my best bet.

When the answer was revealed and our thirty seconds began, I was sure I had no idea, and hoped neither of them did, either. They were looking for George Washington’s first biographer, essentially, with the clue that he was a religious man. I couldn’t think of any religious men of the Revolutionary War era, much less Washington’s first biographer, even though I had read a New Yorker piece describing the history of biographies of George Washington a few months before. I wrote down the one religious figure I could think of from before, say, the 19th Century (Cotton Mather—thanks, Mr. Crawford, 11th grade English!) knowing it was completely wrong.

Turns out everyone got it wrong, and as the answers and wagers were revealed after mine, I had a feeling that I’d stolen it.

Here’s my “I probably shouldn’t have won this but I’ll take it” face:

The name “Parson Weems” rang only the faintest of bells when Alex revealed the answer, but from now on, I’ll always remember it—heck, I’d name my dog after him at this point. It wasn’t a lot of money, but I won, and I had now done it by a both a lock game and a comeback, and I’d get to return again. I’d have to wait ten days, though, ten days in which I’d be the reigning Jeopardy! champion but couldn’t tell anyone about it. Fine with me.

My boss was kind enough to set up a screening of tonight’s episode in our theater at work: me in HD, projected on a 42-foot screen. It was a little odd, watching myself like that, but it was nice to be able to have colleagues from work eat and drink all of the leftover food and beer from the night before, and see this game as a group.

Here’s the game cataloged on J!-Archive.

For the time being, the show is on YouTube. The shows are no longer on YouTube.