SPOILER ALERT

If you don’t know how the final of the quiz show Grand Slam came out, and you’re planning on watching it later, avert your eyes!

Read no further!

Switch!

Congrats to our Trebekistan bud Ken Jennings for a truly awesome display against cartoonish supervillain Ogi Ogas in the Grand Slam final. Dude brought his A-game, and by the end, Ogi had not only been defeated, but transformed against his will, Bruce Banner-like, back into an ordinary human being, able to smile and converse and compliment others. Truly a comic-book-hero performance.

Ken’s a modest enough guy, incidentally, that his only blog post to date on the issue is genuine praise for Ogi, along with a call for the public to understand that he’s not a monster, he’s just a mad scientist gone astray. Pretty classy, you ask me.

Incidentally, Ken’s newest book, Ken Jennings’s Trivia Almanac: 7,777 Questions in 365 Days, will be available just in time for… the day after Christmas, according to Amazon. Hmm. Apparently the marketers at Villard aren’t as quick on the buzzer as Ken himself.

Anyhow, my congrats to the Brigham Thumb on that as well — I know a little about how much work getting a new book ready can be, although more on that shortly.

Speaking of Ken’s buzzer skills, if you missed it, we had the chance to do a joint book signing (Trebekistan meets Brainiac) a while back, followed later by an exhibition match between Ken and me and Ed Toutant from Millionaire.

If you’re wondering, Ed won, running away from Ken and me as if we weren’t even there. This surprised a few in the crowd, but not anyone who knows how good Ed is when he brings his A-game. (Incidentally, yes, Ed really is nine feet tall.)

When Ed was on Jeopardy!, he lost after only a couple of games. But 74-win Ken accepted his ambush trouncing from Ed that day with exactly the same grace he showed in winning Grand Slam this weekend.

Which is ultimately the thing I want to point to here — not how Ken won, but how Ken won. Anybody who uses this guy’s name as a shorthand just for braininess is missing a big chunk of what’s cool here.

Ken deserves a lot of congrats at this point. A lot of which don’t have a damn thing to do with quiz shows.

PS: Btw, I gotta admit, while I loved Grand Slam, I’ll confess: playing along at home, I felt kinda like a boxer who’d been passed over for a major bout. I coulda been a contendah! I coulda had class, Charlie! Oh well. Maybe next year.

SPOILER ALERT

If you don’t know how the final of the quiz show Grand Slam came out, and you’re planning on watching it later, avert your eyes!

Read no further!

Switch!

Congrats to our Trebekistan bud Ken Jennings for a truly awesome display against cartoonish supervillain Ogi Ogas in the Grand Slam final. Dude brought his A-game, and by the end, Ogi had not only been defeated, but transformed against his will, Bruce Banner-like, back into an ordinary human being, able to smile and converse and compliment others. Truly a comic-book-hero performance.

Ken’s a modest enough guy, incidentally, that his only blog post to date on the issue is genuine praise for Ogi, along with a call for the public to understand that he’s not a monster, he’s just a mad scientist gone astray. Pretty classy, you ask me.

Incidentally, Ken’s newest book, Ken Jennings’s Trivia Almanac: 7,777 Questions in 365 Days, will be available just in time for… the day after Christmas, according to Amazon. Hmm. Apparently the marketers at Villard aren’t as quick on the buzzer as Ken himself.

Anyhow, my congrats to the Brigham Thumb on that as well — I know a little about how much work getting a new book ready can be, although more on that shortly.

Speaking of Ken’s buzzer skills, if you missed it, we had the chance to do a joint book signing (Trebekistan meets Brainiac) a while back, followed later by an exhibition match between Ken and me and Ed Toutant from Millionaire.

If you’re wondering, Ed won, running away from Ken and me as if we weren’t even there. This surprised a few in the crowd, but not anyone who knows how good Ed is when he brings his A-game. (Incidentally, yes, Ed really is nine feet tall.)

When Ed was on Jeopardy!, he lost after only a couple of games. But 74-win Ken accepted his ambush trouncing from Ed that day with exactly the same grace he showed in winning Grand Slam this weekend.

Which is ultimately the thing I want to point to here — not how Ken won, but how Ken won. Anybody who uses this guy’s name as a shorthand just for braininess is missing a big chunk of what’s cool here.

Ken deserves a lot of congrats at this point. A lot of which don’t have a damn thing to do with quiz shows.

PS: Btw, I gotta admit, while I loved Grand Slam, I’ll confess: playing along at home, I felt kinda like a boxer who’d been passed over for a major bout. I coulda been a contendah! I coulda had class, Charlie! Oh well. Maybe next year.

Unbelievable week of sport ahead, personally, given the teams I cheer for. Whatever sport you look at — even Aussie Rules footy played with alpacas — it’s PUDUBALL on! 

Baseball is in its stretch run, and the Indians are 11-1 since the very day they figured out what to do with their batting order. They’ve also found a damn nice second baseman and second hitter in Cabrera. And they’re even in town this weekend.

The NFL begins its season this week, and the Browns will suck less this year. That’s no small thing.

The Rugby World Cup kicks in France, despite a last-minute media boycott. The host team will surprise, I think. But I’m picking New Zealand over the Boks in the final.

Aussie Rules enters its postseason, with my two favorite teams, the Swans and Weagles, both in good form. (Yes, I normally back Sydney teams, but a close buddy from Perth is now living in the US, and he’s an unhealthy influence.)

Even the Arses are kicking arses, despite losing Thierry Henry to Barcelona this year. Not playing this weekend, though, and thank goodness. My DVR would explode.

Oh — and the cricket Twenty20 World Cup starts in Johannesburg on Tuesday. (Go Oz! Like there’s any doubt.)

I could plotz. It’s like a big sweaty harmonic convergence or something. It’ll be weeks before I ever catch up with it all, but hey. Small world, too much fun here.

PS — almost forgot: Australia’s popular NRL starts its postseason this weekend, too. (Btw, NRL team names are to die for. Who wouldn’t cheer for the Parramatta Eels, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, or the Manly Sea Eagles?) Thing is, I don’t have a huge allegiance to any of these cross-country wrestling teams yet. I’ve watched a couple of Gold Coast games, curious to see how Mat Rogers from the Waratahs makes the transition to league, and I generally cheer for the Roosters, since I have happy memories of Aussie Stadium. Eh. Guess I’ll cheer for the upstart Rabbitohs this week, despite Russell Crowe’s looming presence and an offense which seems lately to consist of punching people in the face.  Somehow "Go ‘Tohs" should have more of a ring, though.

My buddy Scott Bateman has a deliciously deadpan sense of humor that just kills me. Lately, he has been having a straight-faced field day animating (and, in a truer sense, reanimating) offbeat bits of found audio.

One of his latest is this reinterpretation of "Magic Oranges From Spain," an ancient audio clip promoting the Iberian citrus crop, wherein the world "oranges" seems to take on entirely new meanings.

Scott sometimes re-uses various images from previous cartoons — including, in one of this one’s early scenes, me, from the Trebekistan clip to your right. So suddenly, I’m enjoying the clip, and then there I am, too, next to the giant nude man with the Magic Oranges. Odd, I must say. Wasn’t in my DayPlanner, but that’s life in the big city, I guess.

This is a bit like when somebody sent me that clip of a guy giving out Free Hugs in Australia, and I turned out to be in it, an event I barely remembered. Only, well, giant nude subway guy doesn’t get a hug. Even despite having Magic Oranges from Spain.

Lots more of Scott’s bent genius here. Don’t miss Andrew WK’s advice for the unbalanced Japanese guy who the plays the GHEE-tar here.

My buddy Scott Bateman has a deliciously deadpan sense of humor that just kills me. Lately, he has been having a straight-faced field day animating (and, in a truer sense, reanimating) offbeat bits of found audio.

One of his latest is this reinterpretation of "Magic Oranges From Spain," an ancient audio clip promoting the Iberian citrus crop, wherein the world "oranges" seems to take on entirely new meanings.

Scott sometimes re-uses various images from previous cartoons — including, in one of this one’s early scenes, me, from the Trebekistan clip to your right. So suddenly, I’m enjoying the clip, and then there I am, too, next to the giant nude man with the Magic Oranges. Odd, I must say. Wasn’t in my DayPlanner, but that’s life in the big city, I guess.

This is a bit like when somebody sent me that clip of a guy giving out Free Hugs in Australia, and I turned out to be in it, an event I barely remembered. Only, well, giant nude subway guy doesn’t get a hug. Even despite having Magic Oranges from Spain.

Lots more of Scott’s bent genius here. Don’t miss Andrew WK’s advice for the unbalanced Japanese guy who the plays the GHEE-tar here.