Just for fun... your ideal board

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Karawan
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Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by Karawan »

When I told friends about my upcoming Jeopardy! appearance I got a lot of messages along the lines of "Good luck! I hope they have a periodic table category!" My friends know me well, and they know that there are certain subjects that I'm particularly passionate about or have a ridiculously detailed body of knowledge. I also have a friend who recounted shouting "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the TV when Mark got to that Gone With the Wind question before me. She knew that was "my" pet question about one of my favorite books of all time!

So it got me thinking. If you were going to appear on the show (or if you already have and could go back again), what would your ideal clue board look like? What categories would you want to see? What would you hope to avoid? It's okay if it's heavily weighted toward a particular content area. This is "your" ideal board.

Mine would be:
1. Wives of Henry VIII (a long-standing passion of mine, but I'd take anything else about royalty or U.S. Presidents and First Ladies)
2. Something French (be it language, geography, cuisine, art....)
3. Any of the following science options: periodic table/elements, rocks & minerals, anything else geology-related, the solar system, anatomy
4. One of those Scrabble-esque categories with words that contain certain letters, or a certain number of letters
5. Literature (Renaissance/early modern and 19th century are my favorites)
6. Greco-Roman or possibly Egyptian mythology

TV/movie questions would be banned, as would any sports questions not concerning soccer, figure skating, or gymnastics. Also, no "potent potables" or anything else about alcoholic beverages.

How about you?
BigDaddyJ
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by BigDaddyJ »

Actually, Karawan, your board doesn't look too bad for me. +1 for skipping the TV/movie and sports questions.

I think mine would be something like this:

1. One of the hard sciences (chem, physics, biology, etc.)
2. U.S. Presidents by year of election
3. Star Trek (the only exception to my no-TV rule - also allowable are Stargate, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica)
4. Business/economics/finance
5. Computers/Technology/Engineering
6. Math - one of those raw mental math categories. The DD would be in this category, and I would go TDD without hesitation.
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--Pete
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by --Pete »

Hi,
Karawan wrote: ... what would your ideal clue board look like? ...
Ideal board?

1. Science
2. Scientists
3. Mathematics
4. Mathematicians
5. Inventions
6. Inventors

Now that would exhaust all sides of my knowledge ;)

My hammerhouses are sports and pop culture.

Since I just do this for fun (no hope, ability, or desire to get on the show), all is good.

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Vanya
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by Vanya »

1. Do Svidanya, Vanya (Russian culture, language, history)
2. Are you experienced? (Rock 'n Roll icons)
3. Steinbeck in Salinas
4. TCM's The Essentials (Classic Movies)
5. Never Ending category (Bob Dylan)
6. To Infinity, and Beyond! (Mathematics concepts, history)
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StevenH
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by StevenH »

Great thread topic!

My dream board:
-Literature (any kind except for contemporary)
-Geography (any kind)
-American History
-Classical Music
-Art and Artists
-Current NBA
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debramc
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by debramc »

1. German literature, especially Kafka and post-WWII short stories
2. TV science fiction, especially Star Trek TOS and TNG, Babylon V, Firefly
3. Medical/veterinary terminology/diseases and disorders
4. North American and European birds
5. Anything about cats
6. Before & After meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail (I just thought of this and it's probably impractical, but at auditions I'm usually the only one who actually likes before & after, and I can quote much of the movie, so, it seems like fun!)
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jeff6286
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by jeff6286 »

Borrowing a couple of categories already mentioned on others' ideal boards:

1. Seinfeld

2. U.S. Presidents by year of election (from BigDaddyJ)

3. The World Series

4. One of those Scrabble-esque categories with words that contain certain letters, or a certain number of letters (from Karawan)

5. Fast Food

6. Math - one of those raw mental math categories. The DD would be in this category, and I would go TDD without hesitation.
(from BigDaddyJ)

And the Final Jeopardy category...Star Wars!
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Volante
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by Volante »

debramc wrote: 6. Before & After meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail (I just thought of this and it's probably impractical, but at auditions I'm usually the only one who actually likes before & after, and I can quote much of the movie, so, it seems like fun!)
better idea! i'll give the clues and put them here. I'll have to get home first to actually make decent clues for them though.
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pinkfreud
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by pinkfreud »

My dream board:

1. Shakespeare
2. Opera
3. Star Trek
4. English History
5. Medicine
6. Monty Python

My nightmare board:

1. Sports
2. TV Sitcoms
3. Fine Cuisine
4. Movie Westerns
5. Rap Music
6. Grammy Awards
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dhkendall
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by dhkendall »

Definitely no sports categories, that's for darn sure. I don't like US university categories much, mainly because I'm disadvantaged from my Yankee friends.

My strengths are:

- Geography - wide open here: world capitals, cities, maps, flags, you could even shoehorn anthems into that (although i really don't know what discipline they would fall under (geography? history? music?) and I'm a leading expert on the subject!)
- the Bible
- Canada
- wordplay - even if the category is "S"PORTS, I find I do much better in it when I'm given the wordplay constriction. God bless the man who came up with the wordplay idea on the show!
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mennoknight
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by mennoknight »

1. Canada
2. Depeche Mode
3. Hockey
4. Some sort of Anagram
5. ALF: The show
6. More Hockey
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NJCondon
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by NJCondon »

I'm going to try to mix up the categories to get something at least vaguely resembling a realistic board; my true Clavin board would basically be nothing but science and math.

1. Shakespeare on Film
2. Heavy Metal (music)
3. Heavy Metals (chemical elements)
4. Tolkein's Middle Earth
5. I Saw It on the Food Network
6. SAT Vocabulary

Shakespeare and movies are both in my wheelhouse, and the combination most certainly is. I may not know everything about heavy metal music, but I suspect I know vastly more than the writers would anticipate from a typical contestant. I know I sucked it up on the goofy version of an elements category that popped up in one of my episodes, but given my education, I'm going to chalk that up as an abberation. I've read "The Silmarillion" twice (and LoTR about every third or fourth year since I was 12), so I suspect that my commitment to Tolkein is more than sufficient for the Middle Earth category. Food Network is my default guilty pleasure TV, and watching it for a decade is why food categories are so solidly in my wheelhouse. As for the last category, well, I used to do SAT analogies for fun back in high school...

My anti-Clavin board would look more like this:

1. Living Artists
2. 2011 Top 40 Hits
3. African Geography
3. Plays and Playwrights
5. The NBA
6. Obscure Biblical Characters

I might stumble upon a few clues to which I could respond in these categories, but luck would need to be with me to get even 10 clues correct from my sofa.
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barandall800
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by barandall800 »

Unlike a few of you, my ideal board would be pretty pop-culture heavy. Let me see if I can come up with a set of categories I'd love (I'm also going to try to come up with a somewhat realistic board, as Nick did...otherwise this would just be all music, most likely).

1. Jazz Music (Vocal Jazz would be even better)
2. The 2010 Oscars
3. Presidential Facts
4. The Grammy Awards
5. World and/or U.S. Capitals
6. Utah (or Arizona)

I also wouldn't mind a Civil War category...I reluctantly spent a year learning about it in AcDec when I was a junior in high school. (This after I had complained about learning about it for only 5 days when taking a summer school American History class... :) ) Canadian Musicians would be a great one too. And I'm sure there are many others. (ETA: Wordplay would most certainly be welcome.)

Any board too heavy with Science, Art, sports (though I definitely have my moments with sports knowledge lately), and/or more obscure literature would probably have me sunk.
Last edited by barandall800 on Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jepkid97
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by jepkid97 »

My Clavin:

US Geography
Modern Sitcoms
Mobile Technology
The Elements
Mathematical Terms
Greek Mythology

My Anti-Clavin:

Opera
The Bible
Classic European Literature
Composers
Art and Artists
Anything Read by Oprah

EDIT: In The News replaced with Greek Mythology (How did I forget that one?)
EDIT 2: Since few people would enjoy Before, During, and After, I have replaced it with my true nightmare - Oprah.
Last edited by jepkid97 on Wed Aug 03, 2011 10:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
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BobF
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by BobF »

BigDaddyJ wrote: 2. U.S. Presidents by year of election
True story. My 7-year old son used to be able to tell you every president and their year of inauguration. I've got a one-minute recording of him in my cell phone reciting each president's name and their inauguration year.
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nserven
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by nserven »

This reminds me of Douglas Coupland’s novel Microserfs, which introduces its characters by way of what their dream Jeopardy! boards would be.

Dream Board:

Baseball
American Literature
Word Origins
State Capitals
French New Wave Cinema
Math

(Any of these can be switched out with a wordplay category.)


Nightmare Board:

Opera (or Ballet)
Mythology (or Bible)
Physics
Science Fiction
Royalty
Military History
NJCondon
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by NJCondon »

jepkid97 wrote:Before, During, and After
Hardly fair, jepkid; that one's on everyone's anti-Clavin board by default.
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alietr
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by alietr »

jepkid97 wrote: Before, During, and After
For a second there, I thought it said Before, During, and Alietr.
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Volante
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by Volante »

NJCondon wrote:
jepkid97 wrote:Before, During, and After
Hardly fair, jepkid; that one's on everyone's anti-Clavin board by default.
What, not a fan of an Earl Warren Burger with fries? It's deeeelish!
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Re: Just for fun... your ideal board

Post by Vanya »

alietr wrote:
jepkid97 wrote: Before, During, and After
For a second there, I thought it said Before, During, and Alietr.
That's what she said.
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