A first for 'Jeopardy!': What is a three-way tie for first place?

Let's disregard the fact that three way ties HAVE happened before on Jeopardy! (Think, everybody bets the farm and misses FJ, and they all go home losers.) This was simply the first three way tie of winners.



This quote caught my eye:
AP article

The show contacted a mathematician who calculated the odds of such a three-way tie happening - one in 25 million.

Hmmmm. I wonder how he came up with those odds? A frequentist maximum likelihood approach would go something like this: Observed ties for first place / Total Number of Episodes.
1 / 4000 or so? The ML odds would then be 1 in 4000.

1 in 25 million ? Then (1-1/25000000)^4000 gives 99.98% chance it won't happen after 4000 independent trials.

Jeopardy is clearly non-random and the people aren't dice thrown in the air. Ties happen a lot and it's definitely not a 1 in 25 million chance.

We could devise models of average contestant behavior, look at frequency of two way ties, etc. but that would be way beyond the scope of this blog post.

Innovative Juggler, Greg Kennedy

This guy, Greg Kennedy, is an IJ, innovative juggler:


Juggling without gravity - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

Blog roundup March 12th 2007, Chimps, Megamachines, Art, Hats, and Drafts

Some random blogs I've been perusing:
The Dark Lodger opines about the Senegalese Chimp Emerging Market for High Tech Industry

Seve Jobs of Apple has announced the new 40gb istick to be released to the chimp market next week. Not be outdone in the news, MicroSoft has released a statement that win-stick 2.0 has a security update and all older win-sticks versions must be rebooted prior to "power jabbing." Wii has also announced a verson of the wireless wii-stick. The barkless version is still in beta testing due to unintentional release.

Notes From the Megamachine has been resurrected at Wordpress (formerly at Blogger) Will the technate be constructed in the 07? Tune in to find out!

The Confidence Artist weighs in with his 65 artist field

. No Michelangelo? For shame!
Be sure to check out his STOOPID HAT ROUNDUP. YEAH, BABY! Micky Free is not a girl, aight?!

And last, but not adsensely least:
reports on the NFL combine and NFL draft

Rokk on have a great Ides of March!

Wretched Hives of Scum and Villainy, part 2.

For Part 1 of Wretched Hives of Scum and Villainy, go here.

Nevada can be an interesting place for the naive. When Kyle's parents visited, they drove around and did the touristy things. Upon passing a sign for the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, Kyle's mom exclaimed "Oh, how cute! They raise bunnies!"

"Uhhh, no mom. That's a brothel."

I would like to note that we did not visit any brothels, so the peanut gallery can STFU now.

On Thursday, Kyle and I went in to Reno to run some errands. We ended up being comped the buffet at the Peppermill, which is the gayest casino(and by extension the gayest building interior) I've ever seen. You're greeted by purple and rainbow carpets once you get into the parking lot lobby. Further in, there's neon purple and rainbow everywhere. It's a better epilepsy inducer than Pokemon ever was.

The buffet itself was interesting mostly for its variety- sections for carveries, salads, Mexican, Asian, and dessert. The prime rib was nothing to write home about(why do people insist on cooking prime rib to medium well? Blasphemy.), and the salads were okay, but the thing that blew my mind was the wonton soup. The wontons themselves weren't bad- actual pork, green onion, etc. However, the soup was otherwise identical to the chicken noodle soup over in the next tureen, sans noodles.

The dessert section was interesting in that a lot of desserts _looked_ good but really weren't. The only thing that was actually good were the visually unimpressive chocolate chip cookies. I got this little circular cheesecake thing which tasted pretty bad. So I told Kyle that hey, maybe I could make it look like I ate more of it by breaking it up into pieces. This did not have the intended effect, as the cheesecake somehow expanded in volume when I left a wreckage of cheesecake smear all over my plates. Oh well.

Unfortunately, it is still pretty cold(comparatively) around here. Otherwise, Kyle and I would go golfing. This has the potential to be a real disaster, as neither of us have ever golfed before. I've hit some balls and been to a driving range, but Kyle hasn't even swung a club before. The plan was to go see if we can get maybe 6 holes in within the time it usually takes people to get 18. And not to flip the golf cart.

For Part 3 of Wretched Hives of Scum and Villainy, click here.

Wretched Hives of Scum and Villainy, part 1

So, a few days ago, I flew out to Nevada to meet up with my old roommate Kyle. Kyle, the guy who got me into professional gambling(though he insists it was the other way around, which eventually points the finger back at Roger), found a casino with really exploitable video poker and slots. So exploitable that he was willing to pay me to fly out and play on his money for a percentage of the take.

My first thought upon landing in Reno was "dude, this place is fucked up." It was probably the presence of the slots zombies within 30 feet of the gate. We then drove through more of downtown Reno before getting out on the freeways to get to his house in Sparks.. Prostitution is legal outside the city limits in Nevada. This appears to have had a deterimental effect on the quality of the actual street talent inside. You see these 50-year old women attempting to hide their wrinkles with enough makeup to put an ice skater to shame, wearing tight clothing which makes it painfully obvious that whatever perked 30 years ago just don't got it anymore. It was funny in the same way that watching a locomotive crash into a gasoline refinery is funny.

There's a "promotion creep" phenomenon along the lines of the software industry's "feature creep". First there was video poker. Then someone comes up with Bonus Poker. I mean, bonus! That's gotta be better, right? So of course, we end up with Double Bonus Poker and Super Aces. But wait! We can get even better! We can have Double Double Bonus Poker! So now the machines we can play include Super Double Double Bonus, Triple Double Bonus Plus, and Super Aces Bonus. It's worse than shaving razor promotions. They may as well come up with Super Triple Double Bonus NOW WITH FREE WHORES Poker.

Finally, there are the local patrons. There has to be some way to remake this into a modern-day Bret Harte/Nathanael West story, something between The Outcasts of Poker Flat and The Day of the Locust, about the kind of man who comes to northern Nevada to die. There was this humongous fat guy in one of the Nugget restaurants yesterday, and we overheard him having a conversation with his dinnermate. The dude was eating this triple-decker bacon chili cheeseburger. He also ordered it with two little tubs of mayonnaise and ranch dressing. After dumping those on his burger, he asked for more so he could dip the burger and the fries. All this while telling his friend about the angioplasty that he had last month. Hot damn, people don't learn too fast in this town. Kyle and I have started to refer to him as Angioplasty Man.

More later. There's an astoundingly gay neon-lighted casino to hit.


For Part 2 of Wretched Hives of Scum and Villainy, click here.

Never Forget When The Mooninites Attacked America

So awesome. This country cracks me up (when it doesn't make me cry {like that Native American when he sees all the trash}).

Ok, I'm an idiot

In my earlier post about Greg Oden and the Andrews Sisters, I apparently searched the imdb for "Andrew Sisters" instead of "Andrews Sisters." This led to only getting four results instead of the 38 you get when the S is added.

And there are a bunch of cool movies in this list, although Drei D and Repo Man are missing.

Anyway, I'm just glad this blog is under-read (and under-fed), otherwise I wouldn't have been able to discover my own mistake.

Here's the list of potential movies he was watching. Which do you think it was?

Here are the soundtracks containing andrews sisters

1. "Lone Gunmen, The" (2001) {The Lying Game (#1.11)}

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
2. 1941 (1979)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
3. American Splendor (2003)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
4. Being Julia (2004)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
5. Buck Privates (1941)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
6. Carol for Another Christmas (1964) (TV)

Recreated by Andrews Sisters, The
7. Chain of Fools (2000)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
8. Christmas Story, A (1983)

Performed by Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters, The
9. Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The (2005)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
10. Execution of Private Slovik, The (1974) (TV)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
11. F.I.S.T (1978)

Performed by Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters, The
12. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Performed by Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters, The
13. Give Out, Sisters (1942)

Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
14. Harlem Nights (1989)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
15. Hollywood Canteen (1944)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
16. How's About It (1943)

Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
17. In Dreams (1999)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
18. Jakob the Liar (1999)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
19. Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, The (1998)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
20. Lolita (1997)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
21. Lust och fägring stor (1995)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The with Vic Schoen and His Orchestra
22. Make Mine Music (1946)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
23. Man Who Drove with Mandela, The (1998)

Performed by Danny Kaye and Andrews Sisters, The
24. Maria's Lovers (1984)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
25. Melody Time (1948)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
26. Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
27. Murder in the First (1995)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
28. My Dog Skip (2000)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
29. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)

Performed by Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters, The
30. Polar Express, The (2004)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
Performed by Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters, The
31. Private Buckaroo (1942)

Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
Sung by Dick Foran and Andrews Sisters, The
32. Radio Days (1987)

Performed by Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters, The
33. Ritz, The (1976)

Performed by Andrews Sisters
34. Road to Rio (1947)

Performed by Bing Crosby, Andrews Sisters, The
35. Screen Snapshots Series 21, No. 1 (1941)

Sung by Andrews Sisters, The
36. Swingtime Johnny (1943)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
37. Wah-Wah (2005)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
38. Zacharia Farted (1998)

Performed by Andrews Sisters, The
Performed by Andrews Sisters, The

Greg Oden and The Andrews Sisters

UPDATE: I'm an idiot, Andrews Sisters has four esses!

---

Ok, so I'm minding my own business on Friday and reading this AP article about Greg Oden.

I love how they throw in off the cuff quotes now and then and this one, where Oden is discussing his history of music course, caught my eye:

"The crazy thing is, I go to movies a lot. And now that I've had that class, it's like every movie has an old song. I'm sitting there watching a movie and I'm like, 'THAT'S the Andrews Sisters from 1951!"'

Most people, including me, read this and laugh. Not a toothy mouth gaping Simpsonsesque laugh, but a nice chuckle nonetheless as we find it mildly amusing that an amazing baller would really care about 56 year old pop songs by girl bands (and the Andrew Sisters were the Spice Girls of the 30s and 40s, believe me).



Well, I laughed, but yearned for more knowledge, just what song and movie was he describing? And I know you're curious too, so I'll tell you what I've come up with.

A search search on imdb, yields:
Here are the soundtracks containing andrew sisters

1. Drei D (1988)
Bing Crosby and The Andrew Sisters

2. Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, The (1998)
Performed by the Andrew Sisters

3. Repo Man (1984)
The Andrew Sisters

4. Zacharia Farted (1998)
Performed by The Andrew Sisters

1. Hmmmmm. Was he watching Drei D, a German, part black and white, film directed by Sönke Wortmann that only gets 6.5 out of 10 stars? prolly not.

2. How about the The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, a documentary on the first great Jewish hitter? Definite possibility, although, documentaries aren't really what I think of when people say "movies."

3. Directed by Mike Rohl, Zacharia Farted is described as a road movie and its tagline is

"In search of a name, a ghost, and adventure (locksmith). They found themselves."

I'll let that speak for itself (blogga).

It was written by an actor who plays the lead, Colin Cunningham. I think the most interesting thing about this guy is the weird morph thing he does with all his headshots on his website. Very bizarre. He looks really familiar, in that "Hey, I'm an actor and I always wear a goatee or Van Dyck, so sue me." sort of way.

So, to sum up, I think the most interesting about Zacharia Farted is the past tense verb in its name. (I find that farting makes me giggle.)

Wait, wait! This just in: Zacharia Farted won the Audience Favourite award at the Victoria Independent Film & Video Festival in 1999. Can't argue with that.

4. How about Repo Man, probably Emilio Estevez's finest moment? I like to imagine Oden also yelling out "Hey this is Suicidal Tendencies from 1983!" as Institutionalized(youtube) is played. Or "This is the Burning Sensations covering Jonathan Richman's "Pablo Picasso!" (youtube)
This has got to be it. Don't you think?

Just imagine if needed a real Repo Man, I can think of another OSU star, he can turn to .

Well, if you're at the Final Four and you get the chance, can you ask Greg for me which movie it was?

Thanks.