Jeopardy: Game Two!

Part of an ongoing series. Written before this episode aired.
Contains spoilers of tonight's episode.

My second Hometown Howdy, less thought-out than the previous game's, will not be shown on the Jeopardy website:
"Hey Twin Cities, this is Fred Beukema from Minneapolis. Let's see if I can make it a twin win as the returning champion on Jeopardy."

Kinda dumb. Ken Jennings is lucky they only had to record one Howdy back in his day.

I remember less about my show with Mark and Sonia than my first. I don't think I could name for you any categories or questions from this game, except the Final Jeopardy, which I misremembered as being from the previous game. I'm sure when I see this one on TV, it'll all come rushing back. The image I do remember from this episode is of being in a buzzer battle with Sonia, and being happily surprised when the red lights on the backside of my lectern would light up.

I hadn't really dealt with my bunched right sock during the break, so once again, my toes went numb on and off throughout the game.

And once again, I was lucky to get myself into a lock game going into FJ. Today's response (again, pictured) wasn't as immediate as the previous one. My first instinct was to wonder if there was some Pope from the era in question who had actually spoken out about indulgences. That didn't sound right, and the obvious answer popped out of the soup between my ears.

Holy cow: now I was a two time Jeopardy champion! This was beyond any expectations I had for myself when I went out to the show, and it was a lot of fun.

Now it was lunchtime, and the remaining contestants were cheerfully competitive. They had come up with a nickname for me (“The Hammer”) and jokingly (?) took out contracts with each other to take me down. We were sequestered with the contestant coordinators in the Sony canteen for lunch, which was delicious. The grill had a lot of options, made to order. My turkey burger was delicious, but I wasn't really hungry. We chatted about where we were from, our jobs, stories we'd heard from previous contestants, and about our phobias. Several claustropobes and acrophobes in the group, if I remember correctly. I mentioned I'd been working on some water tower projects, which have the unique distinction of having tight, enclosed spaces sitting at the top of 100ft+ drops. Yeesh.

Peter, Meg, Heather and John, the remaining contestants, had all seemed particularly formidable in the rehearsals, and this was reinforced by our brief after-lunch practice. My adrenaline was starting to wane and I was losing on the buzzer more often. Upon our return to the green room, I learned the last show of the day would be against Meg and Peter, who had learned that morning that they had a mutual friend. Heather and John would be back the next day, along with a new batch of contestants.

In the meantime, I prepared myself for what I expected to be a rough game.

Next Jeopardy blog, to be published after Friday's game: Game Three!