Adieu to Ken Jennings

IllogicalStudent writes "The Toronto Star is reporting that the episode of Jeopardy where Ken Jennings (a.k.a. 'The Jeopardy Guy') finally loses aired this evening. It came down to a 2-person finish (3rd had -2600 at the end of Double Jeopardy, and was eliminated) between Ken and opponent Nancy Zerg, with the final category being Business & Industry. Ken answered 'Fed Ex' to the question 'Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year,' when the correct answer was 'H&R Block.' Ken finished his record-streak with just over $2.5 Million."

To get the comments out of the way

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Thanks for telling me AFTER it aired! Now I missed it!

2. Thanks for spoiling! Now I know what happens!

A moment of silence...

[Bryan Gividen]

For our fallen nerd hero.

Geez, how about a Spoiler Warning?

[mad.frog]

Those of on the west coast haven't seen this episode yet.

Those of us on the West Coast with TiVo won't see it for hours yet.

Thanks, I've been following this for months, now you spoil it.

Pinheads.

Silly Ken

[Spatula Sam]

The correct incorrect answer is "Who is FedEx?"

Lost to whom?

[lawpoop]

Nancy Zerg?!

Fear the Swarm!

Zerg always has the end game

[CrazyJim0]

When you upgrade overlord speed and allow troop transport, the biggest imbalance in the game occurs.

Re:FedEx?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Does anyone else think he just got burned out and decided to be done?

Either that or his earpiece implant malfunctioned... ^_^

Re:Geez, how about a Spoiler Warning?

[Rufus211]

it was already spoiled one and a half months ago [slashdot.org]

Re:first post...first time..yippeee...

[Malevolyn]

Nice job at the first 3rd post ever.

OMIGOD!

[scaramush]

Ken was zerged!!! [urbandictionary.com]

(imagines Ken being swarmed by thousands of tiny Nancies....)

It's interesting to note...

[ath0mic]

that apparently Ken does his own taxes :)

Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd use UPS from now on if I were him.

OMG!

[RealProgrammer]

You've killed Kenny!

Re:It's interesting to note...

[Feyr]

hahaha no i don't think he does anymore :)

Re:A moment of silence...

[phaln]

The College Jeopardy winner wagered $1,337 in Final Jeopardy... seems more like the geek hero to me :)

20 bucks says

[jbltk]

Ken Jennings gets an endorsement deal with either FedEx or H&R Block. It's the American way!

Re:Lost to whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had actually submitted this article with the heading "Ken Jennings gets Zerg rushed"

Re:FedEx?

[eamonman]

Yeah, I mean if someone wants to claim that some mail company is lazy and slow (and hence only works 4 months in the year), at least attack the ones that seem slower. ;)

FedEx is IMO the fastest & most reliable of the FedEx/UPS/USPS gang. What was Ken thinking?

Re:A moment of silence...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

No, not nerdy enough, yet.

> between Ken and opponent Nancy Zerg

Looks like Jeopardy should've done the Zergling rush a little earlier this year.

Ahhhh, that's nerdlier.

Re:FedEx?

[Malevolyn]

DHL FO' LIFE! REC'ONIZE!

Re:Lost to whom?

[nebaz]

Nancy "Kerrigan" Zerg? Hmmm...

ultimate geek matchup

[Graymalkn]

That is the ultimate geek matchup: Ken Jennings vs the Zerg vs 2600.

Someone has to say it.

[nefele]

I, for one, welcome our new Zerg overlords.

Re:Good choice for a Slashdot interview?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except we'd have to do it in reverse. We'd select the top 10 answers, and he'd respond with the appropriate questions.

Re:Hey now

[quenda]

> Uh, EST and CST aren't most time zones. You've still got MST and PST, plus Alaska and Hawaii.

Note to Americans: there are just a few more zones than that.

Conspiracy Theory

[savagedome]

I think maybe Jerry Seinfeld paid him off for the publicity. Think about it. The DVDs just came out for the first three seasons which apparently are not the best of the lot. The fourth and the fifth seasons are the real juicy ones. They want to milk it as much as they can. So the whole Seinfeld cast is on Oprah. Jerry is all over the TV these days. What better way to generate publicity than to make sure that Ken Jennings loss show will be one of the highest watched Jeopardy shows. So, they make all those Seinfeld categories and offer Ken another million or two to go down. Now Ken also knows that he might not be able to keep his streak for long. A lot of 'nerds' must have realized that it is definitely a way to make money using their memory skills and they have surely gotten to reading/learning/memorizing things already. A couple of mil right away is always more appealing.

Yeah. Ken Jennings went down on Seinfeld's bribe.

Now I need to go get some beer ;0

Re:Hey now

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Greenwich Mean Time AND my surname is Jennings AND I've never seen Jeopardy. What the hell is going on?

Does he have to move out of Trebek's place now???

[eclectro]

As Trebek's common-law husband, Jennings has rights, doesn't he???

Re:OMG!

[RatBastard]

You bastards!

Re:Lost to whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Nancy Kerrigan is the one who got beaten.

Re:Said he's going to keep his job

[WIAKywbfatw]

Can you imagine the amount of doublethink that would be going on in the head of the average Slashdotter if it turned out that he's a VB programmer?

Picture the conclusion of the Darth Vader vs Luke Skywalker lightsabre battle in Empire Strikes Back with Ken Jennings in the role of Vader and the Slashdotter in the role of Luke, but instead of Vader telling Luke that he's his father, Jennings is telling the Slashdotter that he's a VB-only coder.

I don't know about you but I can practically hear the "No. No. That's not true! That's impossible!", etc, right now.

Re:A moment of silence...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. That guy really was a dork.

Re:Good choice for a Slashdot interview?

[Anonymous Coward]

...that he couldn't answer?

Re:A moment of silence...

[Anonymous Coward]

Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.

Re:A moment of silence...

[MP3Chuck]

I saw it ... I actually had to look away. It was a dark moment for nerds everywhere.

Re:OMG!

[JayBees]

You've been saving that up for months now, haven't you?

The other guy...

[Mr. Solidus]

who was that other guy that was playing? He had like -$3,200 I think... When I saw the scores I had to laugh at that... 14,000 10,000 -3,200 sorry but looking at that was funny...

Zerg?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

So he was.. zerg rushed?

keke
gg
thx
no re

Re:A moment of silence...

[Anonymous Coward]

That hurt, you insensitive clod

Re:FedEx?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ken missed two daily doubles (they were tough), plus the final jeapordy answer didn't come to him.

You have not been watching enough of the War [History] Channel if you thought the Patton question about Bastogne was tough.

Re:FedEx?

[JustOK]

ROUND NUMBER?? What could be a more round number than 22/7 million?

Re:A moment of silence...

[erink42]

He probably thought that was subtle. He's, sadly, one of the less-nerdy ECE/CS people here at CMU. I know he leaves his room at least once a week to go to quiz bowl practice, automatically making him more socially adept than many of his peers.

Re:Hey now

[Anonymous Coward]

note to foreigners... if you haven't picked up on America's apathy towards other countries by now then I'd give up :)

That's ok...

[isny]

Ken is smiling down from Slashdot spoiled TV heaven with the Lone Gunmen.

Re:To get the comments out of the way

[Your Pal Dave]

Please state these in the form of a question.

Re:A moment of silence...

[Alkaiser]

I was hoping he'd come back and lose and then Alex would be like, "Sorry to say this...but you wagered $1337 and lost, which now means, *holds up sign* 'j00 4r3 n0t 1337.'"

Either that or Alex would just look at him and say, "pwn3d".

Luckdebt

[Radical Rad]

That's 2.5 million before taxes. Uncle Sam will take about a third. Then Ken being the clean cut Mormon that he is will tithe 10% to the church. Then he will buy his mother a gold cadillac like Elvis did along with other assorted gift giving leaving him with a little over 1 million.

Then... if we believe that luck is distributed randomly throughout space and time; Ken has flipped the coin 75 times and it came up heads every time. Now he is in luckdebt. His current wife leaves him taking half of the million he has left. Fedex sues him for defamation and inciting labor unrest which burns up the rest of his winnings on attourney fees. Examination of video footage shows that Ken had a squarish hump in the back of his suit jacket ala George Bush in the first debate which prompts an FCC investigation into gameshow fixing leading to his becoming the most reviled man in America. Desperate for fifteen more minutes in the limelight, Ken drives to LA and mocks Gary Coleman with "Whatchoo talkin bout Willis?" until Gary loses his cool and bitch slaps him. The police refuse to file his complaint and the press ignores the incident leading to his complete mental breakdown and a six week bender on peppermint schnapps and cheap wine ending in Ken waking up signed to a one year merchant marine contract on a supertanker headed for the persian gulf. He jumps ship in Mumbai India and spends the next 5 years writing crappy vbscript for an offshoring firm and trying to save enough money to buy a forged birth certificate and plastic surgery so he can re-enter the U.S. under a fake name. Ken gets his wish at long last but is picked up by the Office of Homeland Security at the border and spends the rest of his life at Guantanamo Bay Cuba refusing to acknowledge his true identity but paradoxically answering everything in the form of a question.

Re:Lost to whom?

[c_wraith]

Kerrigan is a Zerg? Nooo!!! You've spoiled the game forever now...

Put some spoiler warnings in there next time.

Re:Ken and I were roomates

[9mm Censor]

Who would admit to being an editor at Toms Hardware?

Re:A moment of silence...

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw it ... I actually had to look away. It was a dark moment for nerds everywhere.

Luke: What is it Obi Wan?
Obi: I just felt a strange disturbance in the force... as though a single voice cried out, with a wrong answer on Jeopardy, with much money riding on the outcome.

Re:Hey now

[Anonymous Coward]

Easily how it is the thing you see, having been air on the track. The order on which written be in, clock; else. The beep is what.

Re:A moment of silence...

[Anonymous Coward]

He ride da short bus

Re:FedEx?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're in Jeopardy, Fed Ex is the answer

Yeah, the wrong one... :)

Re:A moment of silence...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

How about an "Answer Slashdot"-- we post the answers and he responds in the form of a ... well, you get it.

Re:A moment of silence...

[iocat]

But no dorks actually speak 1337 anymore. It's used exclusively to make fun of something that is no longer done by *anyone* -- except that most of the people ironically using 1337 would be unironically using 1337 if it were possible. So maybe by posing as an unironic 1337 speaker, or sp34k3r, he was actually taking the whole thing into a meta-irony that most people can only barely fathom.

Wh1ch 15 teh ub3r.

Re:Hey now

[Anonymous Coward]

Not after we're done with all of you!

Re:Thanks

[Zorilla]

They said that its rumoured that Ken Jennings might loose today.

What is an adjective, Alex?

Re:FedEx?

[Zorilla]

Lousy Smarch weather!

Re:FedEx?

[10e6Steve]

How about What is Good Humor? The ice cream vendor do the majority of their work in the summer or May-June-July-August and I think they wear a white collar shirt. I don't know if there are 70,000 of them. Anyone know?

Re:FedEx?

[Johnny5000]

(I loaded trucks in Indy for a year, and it's mundane enough that you actually read the labels sometimes).

That's funny... I always thought you guys passed the time playing soccer with the boxes.

Re:A moment of silence...

[MCraigW]

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