Slot machine feature crossword clue - New York Times ...

My mother passed away on May 19th of this year. She had never been very lucky as it pertains to personal health. Despite brushing twice a day her whole life, she had frequent infections in her teeth, causing several removals and eventually, she was stuck with dentures in her mid-thirties. She had persistent back pain starting at age 10, caused by a pinched nerve in her lower back. The doctors often told her that the inflammation would go down eventually and the pain would more or less subside. It never really did, flaring up pretty badly every few months. Little things like that added up to making my mom seem very fragile to me, despite the fact that she was one of the strongest people I've ever known.
Early onset Alzheimer's is what took my mother. She was only 55. Her mother only passed away late last year. My grandma was as strong as an ox, and despite her petite frame (which only shrank every time I saw her), she would not give up her fight for anything. She went with dignity, in hospice care, fairly lucid and ready for whatever was next. Being a farm girl from birth, she asked to be cremated and placed in a small bean pot that she had thrown picked beans into with her mom throughout her whole childhood. My mom took that bean pot home and left it on her mantle. I would visit her sometimes, and when we had the TV on, I would notice her eyes would drift to the pot and not come off it for several minutes. She would maybe tear up a little, but she wasn't one to cry in front of her boys.
I'm not certain how much you know about Alzheimer's, but I have learned a lot in the last few months. I learned the typical progression (from onset to death) takes between 3 and 11 years. Those who develop Alzheimer's earlier tend to end up on the lower end of that spectrum. I also learned that, as any degenerative condition does, Alzheimer's worsens over time, and is often mistaken for forgetfulness and clumsiness until it worsens significantly. And of course, I learned that you're under greater risk of developing Alzheimer's if there is some history of it in your family.
Which makes it all the stranger that my mom died of her condition only about 6 months after diagnosis. None of her immediate family had suffered from the disease. She went downhill fast, going from my sharp, witty, vivacious guardian angel to a rambling, moaning mess in almost no time flat. Because of her bad health luck, she became a worrywart. She felt a little "foggy" in the wake of her mother's death, so she decided to see a doctor for a little check-up. Just to know everything is okay.
She walked out of that clinic nervous that the tests she took would come back positive for the horror that would take her life in only half a year. She had no clue what was about to hit her.
I know it is the way of life for children to grieve their parents. That doesn't make it any easier to see your support system muttering on a hospital bed, kept going only by machines and her body's waning resolve against death. It was a horror beyond words; I know it is an all-too-real situation for many people, but when you live it, it's a surreal nightmare. I could hover on just that image of her slowly fading for a million more words, and it would never do the terrible, awful, stupidity of it any justice. It is just for me now; a personal horror I revisit whenever I close my eyes.
In the wake of everything, my brother took a lot of my mom's stuff. I don't begrudge him that. He was her first, and he shared in a lot of the best and worst parts of her life. He had a connection with her just a level beyond my own, and I am happy to know that he has reminders of those times with him now. He took the bean pot, now with two souls in it, plucked from the vine and happy to share a cozy space in the best of company.
I wasn't after much. Since my brother is so allergic, my wife and I took my mom's enormous Maine Coon, Bear. It wasn't a question of where Bear would end up. After my mom and dad split, she moved into an apartment on her own. My wife and I insisted she get some kind of company. She was adamant that she was "done with love" after two failed marriages, which is another casual horror with which too many people are familiar. After a couple months, she caved, and was lucky enough to find a gorgeous, sweet, heavenly creature like Bear at the Humane Society. It was his first day there, discarded by some monster because he had a track record of pretty poor health. My mom saw in his special needs a kindred spirit, and took him home immediately.
Bear have gotten on swimmingly in our home. My wife is an animal lover, and our other cat has grown fond of his new furry pals after some initial uneasiness. I have maybe caused the largest road block in his new adaptation. I can't give him all the love he deserves because I just see my mom every time I look at him.
Well, I suppose there's another reason, too.
The other thing I wanted was my mom's cell phone. In the days leading up to her death, my brother, myself, and our wives took shifts by her side. It was agonizing. Most of the time she was sleeping, and it was easy to zone out into your phone. I spent countless hours on Facebook, Reddit, doing NYT crosswords, you name it. It was easier to do that than remove the distraction and look at the reality of my mom's tortured existence. It was easier to do that than look forward at the near future and confront the thought that I sort of wished my mom would just go. It would be less painful for her to be gone.
During one of my shifts, I was watching some useless video on YouTube, just playing the distraction game like always. Suddenly, my mom sat up (as much as she could), and looked right at me. Sudden bouts of liveliness were common, but there was a directness to it that caught my attention. Her eyes were completely clear. I could have fooled myself into believing my mom was never sick in the first place, that she had just woken up from the nightmare we were living in. She said my name: "Matthew." This made my hair stand up. I had been a lot of people throughout the last few months, but rarely was I actually myself to her. I was torn between being elated that she knew me for now, and frightened that something so unusual was happening. "Matthew," she said. "There's proof on my phone, Matthew. There's proof just for you. There's only proof for you, Matthew." I know you may imagine a horror movie scene, with her voice rasping out, or an even, robotic monotone. But that's not how she sounded. She sounded like mom. She didn't sound like she wanted to menace me. If anything, it sounded like she was speaking with great care, almost concern.
And just like that, she settled back into her antiseptic, starch white sheets, and fell asleep.
I asked everyone else about this. No one had experienced anything like it. She could hardly form sentences anymore, let alone something that complex. I was left reeling for a while, but eventually, I just put it down to her condition. I wouldn't think about it again until after the funeral. After the grieving.
I got curious. It was as simple as that. I got curious like the idiot in a slasher movie who asks 'Who's there?' rather than just run away from the danger they were approaching. I had to know if my mom was just raving, or if she really knew what she was saying. I wasn't sure which reality I preferred.
My mom was a typical person in her fifties. Her phone had no lock on it. I opened it up and poked around a little. I wasn't honestly sure what to look for. I looked through the messages, briefly. It still felt wrong to be in there, but she hadn't sent a text message in many months. One of the last ones she sent was to me. It said "Love you!!!" Seeing that crushed me beyond measure. Fighting through the years, I navigated around in her documents and stuff. Nothing too special. Her settings let me know that her dumb slot machine games were where most of her battery usage came from. No surprises there. The next most usage came from her camera. I felt like an idiot for not thinking of that sooner. I chalked it up to the bizarre circumstances.
Opening her gallery, I was astonished to find dozens of short video clips. Most of them were from right before she had to leave her apartment. I could tell from the thumbnails that many of them featured a finger or thumb pressed firmly over the camera aperture. This little detail hit my heart with another pang; she was just a scared, lost woman trying desperately to communicate with the world somehow. I opened one of the videos with her finger as the star. I couldn't see anything in it, but I could hear my mom, speaking as directly as she did that day in the hospital. "This is for you, Matthew. Do you see it? Do you see how it changes? This is for you. Matthew, do you see it? Do you see how it changes?" And then it ended.
I was stunned. It was the same kind of thing she was saying on that horrible day. She had done the exact same thing before, by herself, with no one there to hear her. I scrolled away from that ugly block of videos, in an effort to shield myself from their existence. I discovered weeks and weeks of pictures that always seemed to come in pairs. They were taken moments or hours apart, but always from the exact same angle; a book sitting on her coffee table, a lit lamp, the blinds pulled halfway down her bedroom window. Invariably, they came in pairs, and invariably, they looked the exact same. Scrolling through weeks of these picture pairs calmed my heart rate down. It put everything back into perspective for me. I was scrolling through the steady deterioration of a human mind. Setting aside that it was my mom, this was an academic exercise, not some ominous omnibus. She could've pulled anybody's name out of her head, and I wouldn't have batted an eyelash. In a way, I felt selfish. I felt like I was trying to get some meaning out of my mother's decline that only I was entitled to. Like she left the last cogent parts of herself to invest into a message all for me. I felt childish and puny.
I scrolled back up to the block of videos. Steeling myself, I picked out the longest one. It began with my mom shakily steadying the camera. She walks around a corner of her apartment and into her bathroom. Bear lay on the bath mat in front of her shower, looking cool and disinterested and beautiful, like any cat would. "Look at him, Matthew. Matthew, do you see him?" My mom's voice comes out clear as a bell once again. She turns and walks out of the bathroom. The phone gets fumbled around a little as she closes the door behind herself. She walks with purpose back down the hallway, and turns into her bedroom. She approaches the bed and gently pushes down a ridge of blankets. As she pushes the blankets aside, Bear comes into view, sleeping in a curl on her bed. He looks at her, just as disinterested as ever, despite the fact that his presence in that exact location is an impossibility. "See him, Matthew. Matthew this is Bear. Matthew, do you see it?" She walks out of her bedroom, closing the door behind herself. This time, she trains the camera through the closing crack of the door, to focus on Bear, coolly coiled on her bed. She walks faster now back to her bathroom. She cracks the door just enough to poke her phone in. As the aperture blearily opens and closes, the shape of Bear comes into focus. Bear who is closed inside her bedroom. "Look at him, Matthew. Matthew, this is Bear. Bear is yours, Matthew. Matthew, do you see that Bear is yours? Do you understand, Matthew?"
The video ended as I chucked the phone across the room. I was weeping, my heart was racing, I was seeing stars. What had I just witnessed? How could any of that possibly have been real? I think I just curled up on my couch and cried for a while, trying but failing to look anywhere but at the phone that lay on the other end of the room.
After what felt like ages, I rolled myself off the couch and retrieved the phone. I opened it again and again, I scrolled quickly past the videos at the top. When I got to the pairs of pictures, I swear my heart stopped beating in my chest.
The pairs were different. The book on her coffee table was Of Mice and Men, but the second photo was of Cannery Row. The lamp is lit then not lit. The blinds are half-closed then fully open. None of this would have been all that surprising if I hadn't seen these photos earlier, and everything had matched. The pairs could have been identical (I could have sworn so!), and suddenly, they just weren't. They were an impossibility, just like Bear being in two places at once. I more or less blacked out in that moment, but I remember stuffing the phone in the trash. Deep down in the trash.
It's been a few days now since all of that happened. I'm still not really sure what to make of all of it. I haven't shared a bit of it with my wife, mostly due to embarrassment, I think. Honestly, it all just feels like a half-remembered bad dream. It has pretty rapidly faded from my memory, leaving only this vague, dark bruise on my past. I can't believe how quickly most of it has gone from my mind.
If you'll allow me a little joke, I guess I got my mom's memory.

Hi guys! Gumi have been releasing units at a rapid pace these past couple of weeks and as such, I'm woefully behind on my analyses. This means I don't have much time as I would like to dedicate full analyses to Miku and Luka.
Instead, since I would still like to give you guys information about these units, I'm going to do a quick and dirty summary of these units and how they function. It'll be akin to the synopses you'll find in my Batch Overviews, so no direct comparisons except for brief mentions but hopefully it'll still be information rich enough for you guys. :>
Hope that's okay!
BONUS: I have a Luka code to give away to the first person to answer a cryptic crossword-like riddle I'll post at the end of the analysis. Isn't that nice? :>
Goddess Hatsune Miku

• Lord Stats: 4939|1539|1439|1839
  
• Max Imp Bonuses: HP 500 ATK 140 DEF 260 REC 200
  
• LS: Fill BB gauge every turn and boost to BB gauge fill rate (BC fill 3BC/turn, BB gauge fill rate +25%)
  
• Hit Count: 9 (Drop check count 2/hit)
  
• BB: 27 hit multiple target Earth damage and fills BB gauge every turn for 3 turns for all allies (25BC to fill, BC fill 3BC/turn, damage modifier +190%)
  
• Being stuck at 5* really makes it difficult for Miku to compete with the 6* metagame. Mainly, it's her HP that holds her back, being sub-5k as a Lord makes it difficult for Miku to not be a liability in higher end content because her survivability drops drastically.
  
• Her other stats aren't impressive compared to 6* units either, but they're not going to be the hindrance that her HP is.
  
• As far as 5* units go, she's about in the average range for her stats.
  
• Her Leader skill is actually really excellent. It's a fantastic BB-spam leader skill and she'd be a top tier BB-spam leader if she was a bit stronger. However she's absolutely amazing for new players who can't really afford to run a 6* BB-spam leader.
  
• Her LS is also great for the Arena. In terms of pure BB filling ability, it's the strongest Arena leader skill in the game bar none. However by not having a damage augmenting component to her leader skill, she loses a lot of viability in her arena prowess since that first turn damage is almost if not more important than filling the BB-gauge by turn 2.
  
• Still a solid option if you're looking for a nice BB-spam leader for the Arena.
  
• Since she's a viable Arena unit, here's her Arena AI:
  
• Check 1: Use BB on random unit (60%)
  
• Check 2: Use BB on unit with highest ATK (20%)
  
• Check 3: Use normal attack on enemy with lowest HP (30%)
  
• Check 4: Use normal attack on random enemy (100%)
  
• So a pretty good set, the same as Lira's and Ophelia's. She can sit in any position on your Arena squad.
  
• Her drop check count is fine at 18 total for her normal attack, but it's not particularly noteworthy either.
  
• Her BB is pretty amazing for a 5* unit. I think Miku probably needs some credit since Serin got a mountain of praise for having a 16 hit MT BB and Miku absolutely destroys her at 27.
  
• Unfortunately, it's probably the climate of the metagame that has changed that Miku suffers from. Units are just much more powerful now than they were when Serin came out so Miku pales in comparison.
  
• However 27 drop checks is 27 drop checks, that's almost Luther level, in fact, negligibly close to Luther level BC generation (and if you factor in her buff, it's more than Luther generates by quite a bit). You lose a spark buff which hurts and you lose a LOT of damage since Luther's just way better in general, but as a poor man's Luther, Miku is solid.
  
• Her buff is pretty nice too, 3BC/turn isn't huge but given her hit count, it makes her a very potent unit for BC generation.
  
• And that's probably the best way to utilise Miku, a BC generation machine. Her stats are too low and she doesn't have an SBB damage modifier that would let her contribute anything significant damage wise, so she's a unit you can slot in to patch up BC generation issues or to boost your squad just enough that they can maintain infinite SBB.
  
• If you have Luthers, or Douglasses or even Michele batch units in surplus, you probably won't need Miku. Let's be honest. She's not a top tier unit by any means which is to be expected since she's free. But if you really need some BC generation on your team and you lack other options, Miku is fantastic filler.
  
• In summary, a poor man's BB spam leader and a poor man's LutheDouglas, but certainly a VERY GOOD poor man's unit.
  
• She's farmable, and her stats are problematic so on this rare occasion, I think it's worth farming for her ideal type if you can spare the time (and with energy at 1/3min you don't really have an excuse).
  
• Anima > Guardian > Lord > Breaker > Oracle.
  
• Anima gives her the greatest survivability at the least cost so I think if you're going to use her, definitely try for this type. Her drop rate is good and energy is not a rare resource at the moment. Guardian's good on her as well since no matter what, her damage output is going to be balls. However, if you're using her for the Arena, obviously go for Breaker. The other types should be fairly self-explanatory.
  

Duetto Megurine Luka

• Lord Stats: 4100|1350|1050|1450
  
• Max Imp bonuses: HP 400 ATK 160 DEF 160 REC 160
  
• LS: Boost to HC drop rate and HC effectiveness (HC drop rate +20%, HC effectiveness +50%)
  
• Hit Count: 8 (drop check count 2/hit)
  
• BB: 12 hit multiple target Dark damage and gradually restores HP to all allies for 3 turns (20BC to fill, damage modifier +150%)
  
• Being limited to 4* means that Luka is obviously not going to be a feature on any summoner's end game team unless they just really want to use her so I'm not going to be pretending she's viable later on in a summoner's career. She's clearly meant for someone who's just started the game.
  
• For a 4* unit, her stats are very solid. For a new player, Luka is most definitely going to be a very good unit to have around and will serve you well through the starting content.
  
• She's actually just really ideal for beginning players which I believe is intentional, she comes as a 4* unit, so she has really high stats compared to a lot of beginner units, she has a multiple target BB with a low fill cost that both does damage and gives a heal. Super ideal for beginners.
  
• Her heal values are: 780-880 + 0.1*REC per turn which is more than adequate for people who have just started the game.
  
• If you were lucky enough to grab her and you're new to the game please use her! She'll definitely serve you well for a long time and if you haven't managed to pull a rare summoned healer, she's very much a better alternative to the other farmable healers out there so she's going to be very valuable to you early on.
  
• Notably she's also dark's only non-pseudo healer, haha.
  
• Luka won't be on your squad forever though, I can almost guarantee that. Once you get a few rare summons under your belt and start evolving them past the 4* stage, you'll probably find that she starts to become a bit lacking and her heals are no longer adequate in justifying her position on your team. At that time, feel free to replace her as her usefulness has probably come to an end.
  
• She's certainly not suitable for high level content.
  
• Other than that, she's a nice little collector's unit. She seems like she might be quite rare unless a vortex is released so that's pretty cool too.
  
• Typing discussion for Luka is so stupid I won't even bother.
  

That's it guys, hope that was okay. I didn't want to delay my other analyses for too long but this should be plenty informative anyway. Let me know if there's other information you want and I'll try to accommodate.
BONUS LUKA CODE
I know you've all skipped everything until this point, you pieces of scum.
Anyway, I have a Luka code to give out and I thought we might as well make a quick game out of it. Only one winner, sorry! :<
Rules are simple, the first person to correctly answer the Brave Frontier related riddle (in the form of a cryptic crossword clue) I post below will win a Luka code. You only get one guess, if you get it wrong you're disqualified so make it a good one!

Here's the riddle:

'Seems like, the jumbled mail joined the start of the delivery man' (5)
Good luck everybody!
EDIT: And we have a winner! Congratulations to ivannnt. The answer was 'Dilma'.
Explanation: 'jumbled' mail = ilma 'joined the start of' 'delivery' = d. Together that makes Dilma who is a 'man'.
Link to past analyses

Verified? (This bot cannot verify AMAs just yet)
Date: 2014-04-04
Link to submission (Has self-text)

Questions	Answers
Do you ever find yourself accidentally introducing yourself as 74-time Jeopardy! winner Ken Jennings to people you meet? Does your wife call you 74-time Jeopardy winner Ken Jennings in bed? Have you ever considered legally changing your name to 74-time Jeopardy! winner Ken Jennings?	When I was first on in 2004, my son stopped calling me "Daddy" and started calling me "Ken Jennings," like the announcer on TV. Pretty damn adorable.
	But it's less adorable when people on the street do it. "Hey, Ken Jennings! Nice to meet you, Ken Jennings." Have you ever seen the Jim Jarmusch movie Coffee and Cigarettes where GZA and RZA keep calling Bill Murray "Billmurray"? I have been living that movie for a decade.
	Edited: fixed the movie title for your IMDb-ing convenience.
Out of curiosity do you listen to GZA or RZA or anyone else in the Wu-Tang clan? Because that would be really awesome.	WU-TANG FOREVER.
I too have first and last name syndrome, even my closest friends identify me by my first and last name. Will you be the celebrity spokesperson for the awareness campaign?	I think they got Charlie Brown already.
When you and Brad went against Watson it seems like either of you alone could have beaten him (it?). To me it looked like the two of you split the answers humans were good at and Watson got all the ones robots are good at. It's like you were George HW Bush, Watson was Bill Clinton, but Brad was Ross Perot. Thoughts on this assessment?	That's exactly right. It should have been one human against two Watsons. Or one human against 100 duck-sized Watsons.
What are your dream categories if you got to choose all six ?	HARD-TO-UNDERSTAND R.E.M. LYRICS.
	MARVEL COMICS OF THE MID-1980s.
	SEATTLE RESTAURANTS.
	TWITTER.
	CROSSWORD CLUES "Æ"
	THAT ONE PARKS AND REC EPISODE YOU'VE SEEN 4 TIMES ON A PLANE
Hey Ken, I think you're hilarious and always love reading your AMAs, such a huge fan. You've turned me into a trivia fanatic, I've even gotten my friends hooked on doing bar quizzes. My question: Will they ever put your epic Jeopardy run on DVD?	I can't think of anything that would sell better than 30+ hours of a game show from a decade ago where everyone knows the outcome of literally every game, burned into a dying physical media format. Guaranteed smash hit.
How do you pronounce the "!" in "Jeopardy!"?	In my case, it's pronounced, "Paid for my house."
Do you think the hoe/rake question was a deliberate set-up, or did the writers just not think it through very carefully?	Video.
	I never got to ask, because contestants are always kept carefully segregated from the writers. I'm assuming set-up, since if they do ANY play-testing at all, somebody probably would have said "hoe" at some point, just like I did.
	I'm still sort of annoyed that I didn't get credit.
If, during a conversation, someone makes a factual error, is it best to ignore it and move on or to correct them as politely as possible?	Yeah, there's a lot to recommend about the trivia-fan personality (endless curiosity, weird conversation) but the urge to constantly correct people is my least favorite of their tics.
What are your thoughts on Arthur Chu? Villain or just clever?	Media circlejerk. Arthur is a great player and didn't do anything that lots of other multi-day champions (Dave Madden, Roger Craig) hadn't done before.
Trebek said your record will likely stand "forever". Is he a time traveler, immortal, or some sort of reverse vampire?	I can only assume Alex has been visited by alternate-future versions of himself from the Legion of Super Trebeks, and somebody (Alek Trebekovich, the Trivia Tsar of Earth-Я? Robotrebek of 60,000 AD?) spilled the beans.
Hey Ken! Do you happen to play QuizUp? If so, what is your win/loss ratio like and how many games have you played?	I am a pretty solid QuizUp player, and no you can't have my username. I reviewed it for NPR a few months ago.
	There is some category I literally never win and I can't figure out why. "Name the Painter" or something like that. It's my personal white whale. Every so often, I play that like 5 times in a row, go 0-for-5, and then I'm like, f that, okay, James Bond Movies here we go.
Ken, What aspect of Mormon culture do like the most? And the least?	Great question. I love the community-building angle of Mormonism. When Joseph Smith talked about "building Zion," he didn't just mean trying to make people nicer to each other. He was actually drawing street plans and starting businesses. Zion for him was a real place, like Zion in The Matrix (but without the raves I am guessing). Let's be honest, that didn't turn out so great for him, but the legacy of that today is that Mormon congregations and communities are still incredibly tightly knit. There's no professional clergy, so everybody pitches in. If somebody's out of work or in the hospital or whatever, people mobilize. Small-town America stuff, the kind you thought didn't exist anymore.
	The down side of that tightly knit community, though, is that it can become insular. Mormons tend to see the outside world as the enemy: scary, ominous, doomed. "The World" is shorthand for any bad news you can think of. I'm a pretty optimistic guy by nature and have a hard time seeing the world that way. A key Mormon tenet is that all people are literally brothers and sisters. If that's true, we should be out in the world doing good, not building this bunker mentality you sometimes see.
To me, the community aspect of Mormonism has always been one of the most terrifying. I like the anonymity I get by living in a city. I would never want to live in a small town, where everyone knows each other's business.	Ha, there are plenty of Mormon introverts. It's more like, you can keep your head down all you want, but if it ever hits the fan, like 100s of people have your back.
How do you memorize the trivia and facts you've learned over the years? PS I love your books and following you on Twitter. Thanks for the laughs!	Think about how easy it is to remember a fact when you're interested in the subject. You don't have to actively study lyrics of songs you like or names of players on your favorite team or characters on your TV show (unless it's Game of Thrones, I guess). That stuff just sticks. We are wired to remember stuff effortlessly...if we want to. So for better or for worse, it's mostly a question of motivation. If you can convince yourself that a subject is interesting, facts will start to stay. That's my theory anyway.
Is there a question you're sick of answering, but defeatedly answer anyway out of sheer, irrepressable Mormon politeness? EDIT: Also, is there a question you've been dying to answer, but are never asked?	Did you lose on purpose? Yes, dummy. I had a job where I was making like $70K an hour and I was like, meh, this is only ok, what if instead I just quit?
Did anyone actually answer all seven of the My Little Pony questions correctly from this week's Tuesday Trivia/April Fool's Joke?	Yes but they are all registered sex offenders. :(
	(Context: I do a weekly email trivia quiz on my website and there was a fake April Fools quiz this week. Sign up in the left sidebar here.)
What did you guys actually talk about when you were on stage when the credits were rolling?	I think I've said this before here, but it's the world's most awkward social dynamic. Two of you are shell-shocked and pissed-off, one of you has just realized they're going to have to go back and do it all again in ten minutes, and one of you is a crotchety quiz show host who just wants to get home before the Lakers game starts.
	Typically Alex talks about the Final Jeopardy clue, whether he thought it was easy or hard or what. But he doesn't care. As soon as the stage manager says "We're clear," he disappears in a puff of smoke to change into a different Perry Ellis suit.
Do you know the names of the eight-year-olds who made your fancy sweater, Ken?	Ha, that audible gasp you can hear from the audience in that game is mostly me I think. That's the most awkward Jeopardy contestant interview I've ever seen...and that's saying something.
	Tom is a bit more of an alpha frat-boy type than most Jeopardy champs--or at least likes to appear that way--but he seems like a good guy in person. I think that conversation got away from him a bit.
What's your favorite Muppet?	Rowlf the dog. Rowlf seems like the classic "you-could-have-a-beer-with" Muppet. The anti-Elmo.
What's your favorite Jeopardy category?	Anything where Trebek gets to rap
What's an obscure piece of trivia about you?	I first learned the word "penis" on May 19, 1980 when a neighbor kid told me "Mt. St. Helens blew its penis yesterday!"
After taping an episode, have you and the players ever gotten together, gone to a bar, and completely destroyed everyone else at trivia?	Ha, this actually happened after the Decades tournament. Everybody hit O'Brien's in Santa Monica and just laid waste to it Mother of Dragons style. Sadly I had dinner plans elsewhere.
Was it weird going back to the Jeopardy! set now that you are a minor celebrity? Did you feel that the other contestants treated you differently?	For reasons legal and otherwise, the ethos that underpins Jeopardy is that the contestants are all exactly equal, interchangeable cogs in the machine. Every so often, a contestant will be unusually memorable and it's weird how the format and the fans kick against that. Arthur Chu becomes a villain and what's his crime? Choosing the clues in an order you don't normally see? Come on.
	I guess I'm now one of those guys that violates the Jeopardy aesthetic of forgettability, but it works out okay. For the most part, the mood backstage was "Hope I don't have to play him!" We still hung out and chatted pretty normally. I did feel like I had more to lose than anybody else. If some dude named Arjun shows up on Jeopardy and loses, well, big deal, on any given night 2/3 of the players lose. Nobody's even going to notice. But if I lose, annoying drive-time DJs have something to talk about.
Ken! How did Alex feel about this picture?	Everybody gets a quick portrait with Trebek. Usually people don't fool around, but another "Decades" player, Stephanie Jass, had fake mustaches for her and Alex to wear, which I thought was a pretty funny idea. So I decided to get a selfie and Alex played along.
	Props to him for doing duckface.
Have you spent all of your winnings yet?	The "TREBEK" grill on my teeth wasn't cheap. Those are real diamonds.
Can you remember any moment growing up when you realized how much you love trivia/learning? For example: a time you stated a very specific fact to a friend and got a weird look, like "How do you know that?"	Hahaha, I tried to check out an atlas once from the library when I was like five and my mom and the librarian had to explain that you couldn't check them out, they were for reference. I thought they were for pleasure reading, because I was a pretty @#$%ing weird five-year-old. Normally you have to do a lot of homeschooling to turn out a kid that weird, I just got lucky I guess.
Have you ever taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test (personality test)? If so, what is your type?	I am a PBNJ.
	Full results here.
How do you watch Jeopardy? If you know the question/answer, do you say it out loud around family? Do you keep track of your score?	I can't really watch at home anymore, nowadays every time I hear the music or Trebek's stentorian Canadian tones, the adrenaline spikes, like it's game day all over again. BACK IN 'NAM.
	Being a Jeopardy contestant for 6 months is great but it sort of ruins the game for you as a viewer.
The Battle of the Decades has featured some truly strange interactions between Alex and the contestants. How, after almost 100 "chit chat" segments, do you still manage to be interesting and not weird in those 15 seconds?	Uh, you are remembering selectively. Some of them I'm sure were pretty weird.
	One time Alex, without warning, was like, "I'm tired of asking you stuff. Is there anything you want to ask me?" Talk about the hot seat. I was finally like, "What did you have for breakfast this morning, Alex?"
	True story: he said, "Diet Pepsi and a Baby Ruth." Breakfast of champions!
Have you taken up H&R Block on their free taxes for life offer?	I have! But it's all part of a plan to gradually work my way into their system and bring it down from the inside. I play the long game, and I never forgive.
On the 'game show host' topic: Does Mr Trebek have potential wrong answers in advance? He often seems to have great insight into an incorrect association. Edit: fixed punctuation.	No, he's just smart. When he's like "Ah, no you were thinking of the 100 Years War, not the 30 Years War," he actually knows all that stuff.
Ken, big fan here!	Congrats on your win! Parade magazine still runs my "Kennections" trivia puzzle twice a week. I cleverly put my name in the title so they can't fire me without finding a replacement Ken, ha ha ha! I'm safe unless Ken Jeong has a catastrophic post-Hangover career dip.
I own all of your books and two of them were actually signed by you after I sent in my own Kennections puzzle to Parade and it got chosen, so thanks for that! It's actually one of my proudest achievements.	As for the Smurfs: we know from episode 5.35 ("Smurfette's Rose") that Smurfs have red blood. (You probably already suspected this from their red tongues and occasional purple blushes.) So let's assume that they have hemoglobin-based blood like mammals. Cyanosis (bluing of the skin) in humans is much, much less noticeable in more heavily pigmented skin. Since we already know that, whatever the blue pigment is in Smurf skin, it masks capillary blood pretty well, I think their skin color wouldn't change at all.
My question for you: What color would a Smurf turn if you choked it?	TL/DR: A choked Smurf would still look perfectly smurfy.
If you could have any 3 historical figures, alive or dead, to play in your ultimate jeopardy game, who would you choose? Assume we could find a fair set of questions for them.	Anne Frank vs Hitler. So satisfying for the home viewer. I don't care who the third player is. Wolf Blitzer.
Anne frank would likely lose though. The nazis stopped her education fairly young and I really wouldn't want to watch hitler beat a young Jewish woman at jeopardy.	Pretty sure you guys are all overestimating Hitler's Jeopardy skills but who can say. Now I know what I would do with a time machine...
Do you think you could ever host jeopardy or any game show in that matter?	"Game show host" is such a punchline of a profession that nobody realizes how hard it actually is. Sure, Trebek has all the answers in front of him, but he still has a harder job than the contestants. He has to run the game for the three contestants and the home audience. Like a baseball game where one guy has to umpire all the bases AND call the game, both play-by-play AND color.
	Just because Howie Mandel has been carefully retrained in government labs for years to be able to host a game show doesn't mean that it's easy. I don't know if I have the chops. But I'd love a shot.
Do you feel like you have a good enough Pillsbury Doughboy impression to take over for Alex?	I'm still having flashbacks to that.
Just wanted to say you're one of my favorite people on twitter. Where do you come up with all of your jokes?	They're all from Sinbad's original run on Star Search. Can't believe nobody has picked up on this yet.
Besides the obvious, what do you think is the main difference between a winner and a loser on Jeopardy?	Every night, you have three people who can recall shit quickly. Essentially the only thing the contestant tryout is designed to measure is Recalling Shit Quickly.
is the game really as simple as recalling shit quickly?	In my experience, it comes down to who is loose and having fun. I saw a lot of people come into Jeopardy obsessed with the outcome (how much will I win?) rather than the experience. And it's an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience. The best players are the ones who are just trying to have a good time. They're relaxed and play better.
Do you have a favorite way that you wrote your name while on the show?	I think I once wrote KEN made out of dozens of little KENs, but that was really stretching the limits of 90's-era lightpad technology as artistic medium.
	One time I wrote my name upside-down; I got asked to redo it because NO FUN ALLOWED ON JEOPARDY FOLKS.
What does Alex Trebek smell like?	Knowledge. And Old Spice.
Ken, is there anything you would recommend for me to do if I want to go on Jeopardy and beat your record? 'Cause I plan on it, bro.	Fun fact: no one who calls people "bro" has ever won a game on Jeopardy. (Except that sweatshop guy Tom from two nights ago.)
Hi, Ken! On March 28th, you tweeted an apology for breaking up Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin. How did you dismantle the marriage of such a power couple, Ken? Which celebrity relationship will you be breaking up next? Possibly related: is Dan Savage a good kisser? What about Alex Trebek?	This is apropos of nothing but I totally had a dream last night that I was in a car with Blythe Danner (Gwyneth's mom) and she seemed not to know about the breakup. I didn't know how to tell her. Thanks for taking this trip with me into the darker reaches of my psyche.
finally, the question on every Jeopardy fan’s mind: what the fuck was up with the sweatshop guy?	I have never kissed Alex but I bet he knows what he's doing. How great would it be if Alex just started kissing all the women on the show every night, like Richard Dawson used to.
How did you feel about not telling everyone about your winning streak on Jeopardy! as it happened, as the episodes are recorded and aired later?	I totally recommend this. If your friends and family all know the outcome, the show itself is totally anticlimactic. If you keep your mouth shut, they'll be on the edge of their seats.
	It was tricky in my case, because I kept having to fly down to LA half a dozen times before my shows started airing. People would call me on my cell phone and I'd have to pretend to be at work when I was really driving down the 405 to Sony studios. Plus it's hard to borrow 74 different neckties from friends without telling them what you need them for.
What is your favorite board game? Trivial Pursuit is not an acceptable answer to this question.	What is that game where if you don't get all the tiles on the board in time, it explodes and vomits little yellow Tetris pieces all over your kitchen table? Do they still have that?
	Anyway, that, I still have stress nightmares about it.
What was going on in your head when you saw the "our friend Watson category? PS: My schools band was mentioned in the music category last night.	I thought Watson would be reading the clues, like sometimes they have Neil Patrick Harris or Ken Burns or whoever. I was much happier to learn it was just about people NAMED Watson. Because screw Watson the computer.
Hey Ken! I'd first like to thank you for turning me from an occasional viewer of Jeopardy! into the obsessive fan I've been for the past decade. I've got a few questions for you... • In the Battle of the Decades this year, you're competing on equal footing with everyone else (i.e. no instant byes to the finals) for the first time since your original run 10 years ago. In January's taping for this week's shows, how did that fact affect your attitude going into it and the pressure you faced, with the possibility of getting knocked out in the first round?	I actually preferred it. Getting slotted into the last round of that 2005 tournament was a mixed blessing at best. Everyone else had been playing hard for weeks; I was coming straight out of training camp.
• In the past you used to write and edit academic questions for NAQT and staff at some of their national championship tournaments. Is this something you still do (or plan to do), or is that more or less behind you ever since you've progressed to greater things?	I still edit some questions (movies, theology, can't remember what else) for NAQT. That used to be my one trivia-writing outlet, but of course, now I have the books and a bunch of other stuff.
What's your favourite memory behind the scenes of Jeopardy?	After my final game, Trebek came back onstage in his shirtsleeves (which NEVER happens, I didn't even know he had arms) just to say goodbye. He was a little choked up and I was so touched. I'd been wondering for a long time if I was starting to piss him off by sticking around so long, like a guest that won't go home.
Any consideration on taking over for Letterman?	No way, Jerry Seinfeld will just stab you in the back. Or so I learned from season 3 of Louie. By the way, how great was David Lynch in that?
Do you go to any local trivia nights where you live and if you do, how much does everyone hate you?	So far everyone is too intimidated by my partner.
Who is the worst possible replacement for Alex Trebek?	O.J.
Hi Mr, Jennings! My mother got me a book about you, but I have yet to get around to reading it, is it any good? I think you wrote it.	It is very good, according the barn full of Bangalore college students that I had write it.
Hi Ken. I just wanted to say that I totally jerked it while watching your Battle of the Decades episode last night. Does this make me weird?	It's only a half-hour show but if you're in your twenties or younger you can probably still go for the True Daily Double. Good luck!
When did you first learn to speak with the dead? Is this a skill you can use with anyone passed, or just Breitbart?	I just assume that in the eternities, anyone can learn to become less of an embarrassment. Even Andrew Breitbart.
Ken, huge fan. My ex-gf got me your knowledge for everyday book and it happens to be signed by you but made out to Jeff, not my name. Don't know why Jeff would of gotten rid of it, but would you scratch his name out and put mine in if I mailed it to you?	Sure, send with SASE to Ken-Jennings.com PO Box 55744 Shoreline, WA 98155.
What subject do you want to learn more about?	I was just reading the other day about this big rubber boom in the early 20th century where all these little Amazon towns, Sloth-Taint, Brazil or whatever, suddenly became world-class metropolises with billions of New Money dollars pouring in, like Dubai in the jungle. (Then synthetics were invented and the whole thing immediately collapsed.) What the hell? I had no idea, that sounds awesome. Let's all go learn more about that.
Hi Ken. When you answered questions on "Battle" last night, it seemed like you strained to remember a few of the answers after you buzzed in. Do you actually need to try hard to remember the answers, or do you just stall a little bit to pretend the question is hard so you're not completely steamrolling the other contestants?	No, I think most good Jeopardy players buzz in often on some "HEY I KNOW THIS" reflex, knowing that they'll have 5 seconds to rummage around for the answer. That happened last night with "What are drupes?" Suddenly the word just appeared, as I was about to say something else.
	Other times you have an answer ready, but if you have a few seconds to double-check it against the clue again, why not take your time?
	On Daily Doubles, honestly, you sometimes build suspense. More fun for the home viewer, more heartbreaking for the other players.
In your opinion is most of being smart just having a really good memory/recall?	No, but they're more closely linked than you would think given the stereotype of the fact-filled Mensa type who never seems to have a job. There seems to be a feedback loop thing where people with good analytical skills remember facts better, and a better master of facts means you can synthesize them into good decisions and become a better, more analytical thinker. And the more things in your head, the more combinations you can make between them, and that's the seed of creativity.
KEN I HOPE I'M NOT TOO LATE! Favorite thing about Seattle? Favorite music right now? of all time? Favorite quote?	Going to see Neutral Milk Hotel tonight! So excited.
I am interested in this as well. It seems that (and it may be availability bias working) as people grow more intellectual they begin to see less of a need for God. Do you still identify as a Mormon?	I think there is plenty of evidence correlating education with lack of religiosity, though it's hard to say which way the causation lies.
	From what I remember, Mormons actually buck the trend here. Among people who identify as Mormons, education seems to increase their religious observance.
What is your favorite useless fact?	Koala fingerprints are indistinguishable from human ones.
Here's a question sorta from left field… First celebrity crush?	Ha, that's a great question. Kate Jackson.
Ken, would you ever do an ama in /LatterDaySaints?	Why can't those people get off their rameumptoms and come over here to /iama?
As an intellectual and a parent, care to share your thoughts on public education and/or Common Core?	Big big believer in public education, big big charter school skeptic. Don't feel sure enough about Common Core to know yet.
If you had to convert the Dalai Lama to Mormonism, what would you say to him?	Gunga galunga, gunga, gunga-lagunga.
Who was your best human opponent and why is it Fred Norris?	Damn Fred is unstoppable. You cannot beat him, you can only hope to tie him and get Howard to order a rematch!
What is your favourite Beatles album?	I have three: Revolver, Revolver, and Revolver.
You killed it with that $8000+ bet on the Daily Double in round 2 last night. You could tell the other two were like "fuck guess I'm playing for second now".	More players should bet big on Daily Doubles. I was looking at some numbers a while ago and my career DD percentage is like 85%. Most other good players probably hover around there too. On the other hand, my Final Jeopardy conversion is surprisingly low, like 50-60%.
	So why try to put a game away on a hard question when you could put it away on a much easier one? Last night's Daily Double was in a books category (thumbs up) in one of the "easy" rows of the board (another thumbs up). It takes cojones but you gotta go big there.
I was on last year, and after I won (the correct answer for Final was Barbra Streisand) I told Alex that a kid in junior high used to tease me that I looked like Barbra Streisand. Alex leaned close and said "you should mail him a dollar and tell him to buy himself a Coke."	I want to collect a bunch of these Trebek credits conversation stories and publish them in book form. They are like Zen koans.
This AMA would be a lot better everyone phrased their questions in the form of an answer.	What are donuts and fresh fruit?
"These types of food were offered back stage to Jeopardy contestants."	You also get a chit for lunch in the studio commissary if you haven't already lost by lunchtime.
Last night you threw the clicker down with authority at the end of Double Jeopardy. No question here, just wanted you to know that I loved the move.	I was just putting it back in its holder! Although a full-on mic drop would be pretty funny.

Last updated: 2014-04-08 13:34 UTC
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