Hello dear reader. Today I want to talk about Jeopardy! and Wikipedia … plus a robot vacuum army, the Afroman trial, and how ICE sucks.

I’m finally working on my 2025 song/record list. It’ll be out soon. Here are a couple of my very favorite songs that will appear on that playlist.

Josaleigh Pollett - “Radio Player”

Dead Billionaires - “Busted Sideview Mirror”

Scarlet Street - “THE STORM IS HERE”

Pretty Bitter - “Thrill Eater”

Equipment - “espresso lemonade”

Jawdropped - “Star”

First Day Back - “Sure, Ok”

Perennial - “All Day and All of the Night”

130ish great songs from last year, coming soon!

News flash!

Royer Perez-Jimenez was 19 years old. He died by suicide this week while being held at an ICE concentration camp in Florida. RIP. He is the 13th person to die in ICE custody this year and the 42nd under President Trump. Abolish and prosecute every DHS employee, now.

An immigration judge (who by the way are not real judges!) has ordered 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his family to be removed.

President Pudding For Brains was asked last week about Iran hitting us back, and about how many Iranian sleeper cells there are in the US. This is his response, word for word: “A lot of people came in under Biden with his stupid open borders but we know where most of them are, we’ve got our eye on all of them, I think.”

So what he is saying: YES there are Iranian sleeper cells in our country who intend to do us harm. YES we know where they are. NO we are not doing anything about them. We’re too busy going after 5-year-old kids and grandmas who are here legally and have been for 50 years. Just batshit insanity as usual.

Sammy Azdoufal is a normal guy. He just wanted to use his PS5 controller as a remote for his new DJI Romo vacuum. It sounded fun. Sure. He didn’t realize it but he was about to command an army. He just wanted a clean place, and all of a sudden he was controlling 7,000 of them all around the world.

Every detail about the Afroman trial is incredible. Long story short: the cops raided his house, he made fun of them on social media with songs and videos, they cried about it and sued him. He won!

This paragraph from the piece is beautiful:
“The verdict ended a three-day trial that captivated social media with outlandish moments from the courtroom, including Afroman mounting a colorful defense from the witness stand in a flamboyant American flag suit; one of the deputies crying repeatedly as a video insulting her played for more than 10 minutes; and a testy exchange in which Afroman’s lawyer asked another deputy if his wife was cheating on him.”

Dad corner

Daycare posts probably ten pics a day of my girl hanging out, playing, etc. I love it so much. The daycare app saying “a new photo has been posted” is the best notification I get on my phone every day. Yesterday they sent us a short video.

She’s chilling. Clapping. Sitting. She leans forward. Someone calls her name. She looks. She smiles. Yes her smile is the greatest thing in the world but something about this short clip made me melt. I got so jealous that every day she goes somewhere and does her own little thing and I can’t see it all. I just want to spend every second with her. But I know that’s not realistic, so I’m glad she has somewhere safe and fun to go every day in between the time I get with her.

What is… dominance?

Jamie Ding, Jeopardy! legend

We may have a super champion on our hands, folks. Meet Jamie Ding. Tuesday night, he threw down a legendary performance that has vaulted him into the conversation with the all-time greats. He also runs an Instagram page with his sister all about General Tso’s Chicken and loves the color orange.

His first game was a runaway. His second game was a runaway. Both very impressive. But game three, Tuesday night, history was made.

Ding posted the highest single game Coryat score ever. The guy whose record he broke was also on the stage, because he hosts the show.

For those who aren’t deep in the Jeopardy lore, Coryat (named after 1996 two day champion Karl Coryat) is a way to track success during the first two rounds of the game. How it works: a player gets credit for a correct response and loses money if they answer incorrectly, just like in the game. (An $800 clue can win or lose you $800.) The difference is that a correct Daily Double earns the player the original amount of the clue, not their wager. An incorrect response does not count against them because they were forced to answer; the clue was just for them, they didn’t have to buzz in. (An $800 Daily Double clue can earn you $800 or zero. You cannot lose money. Your wager is irrelevant.)

Ding scored a Coryat score of $42,400, crushing the previous record of $39,200.

The top 10 Coryat scores of all time, via thejeopardyfan.com:

There are 30 clues per round in the first two rounds, and one Final Jeopardy clue, so 61 in all. Ding responded correctly to 44 clues before Final Jeopardy, tied for the second best game ever. (James Holzhauer did it twice in 2019, Jennings did it once in 2004.) He dominated the buzzer and knew his shit.

Including Final Jeopardy, Jennings held the record at 45, achieved on July 20, 2004. He missed Final that day, while Ding got it correct here, so they are now tied for that record. Impressive stuff. 

Jamie Ding has already put himself in the record books. How far can he climb? I won’t be surprised if he gets to double digit wins.

He also set some records for the current season (42) of the show:
- 24 correct responses in a single round
- 44 correct responses (excluding FJ)
- $48,800 after Double Jeopardy
- $51,234 final score

RECENT POSTS!

Wiki wiki wiki pedia

This Wikipedia game is very Crit-coded. I love randomness and I love pack opening mechanics. The “cards” feature more things I love: maps, places, animals, landmarks, and so many amazing names.

I love Jeopardy when I know the content but I also love reminders that there is so, so much more out there than you could ever learn in ten lifetimes. Shoutout to all the other kids who grew up leafing through encyclopedias and reading everything they could get their hands on!

This new web-based game has already reached Magic (the Gathering) levels of me going on and on excitedly and my wife, a very loving and patient person, saying “I’m glad you’re having fun but I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” I am glad she puts up with me. Sometimes I’m watching MtG games on YouTube and she’ll hear a random string of words like “I’m going to Rhythm for the Cub, go double Ouroboroid, and swing for lethal next turn as long as they don’t have a wrath or Sheltered by Ghosts.” She’ll just look over and go “sure, some of those are words.” But she does drop “GGs!” at random times and it always makes me laugh.

Anyways! I’m having a blast sifting through all these cards, learning and laughing.

Here are some of the cards I got so far.

Cool names: Mrs. Piss, Pain fitzJohn, John More Dick Peddie, Bernard Bernard, Charles Coward, Alexandria Hoo Hoos, Tommy Thomas (sheriff), Slush Puppie Place, Christopher Crommett, Sir Giles Goosecap, Andre Punt, Gerald Portal, Redžep Redžepovski, Bashshit.

Other stuff: ontology, sex trafficking, booby trap, anal gland, striped rocksnail, cue (theatrical), Cape Codder (cocktail), list of incidents of civil unrest in the United States, chub (gay slang), Quentin Tarantino’s unrealized projects, Animorphs, interrogation, taste, 149 (number), list of former Trump administration officials who endorsed Kamala Harris, problem of two emperors, list of elevation extremes by country, state capture, yacht rock, and kink.com.

I even got two related to the MBTA: Wonderland station and end of the red line.

Here are some cards that I would be truly delighted to pull:

Pokémon (or any specific Pokémon)
Any emo band (or album)
Portmanteau
Twin Peaks
Mookie Betts
Roman Anthony
Dr. Robert Ballard
Shirley Temple (beverage)
Shirley Temple (human)
Giant squid
Carrie Coon
Jenny Lewis
Fermi paradox
My hometown
Grimace

The battling part of the game isn’t that exciting to me, but it is funny to see what cards are super powerful. Rarity doesn’t always correspond to power which is interesting. MLK Jr is insane, he’s 80-0 so far. (Battles take about one second.) Other particularly strong cards I’ve pulled: ontology, racism in association football, PlayStation (console), NFL Pro Bowl, Queen discography, Coachella.