Velociworld

Denying Stefan: A Crime in 5 Parts

If you're like me (and that is very doubtful) you enjoy barking questions at Trebek of an evening, while enjoying a repast of veal saltimbocca, or Boy-Chef-Ardee ravioluses. And so it was tonight (the meal was a homemade tostada marsala, if you must know).

Stefan is a true Jeopardy! champion: a young, blond stoner kid with a jones for the knowledges and an obvious hankering for the sweet bud. Heading into tonight's game he'd won $65,000 this week, a three-time champion. Stefan's real job? Video game tester. I fucking kid you not. Claims he's not even good at it. The kid is just awesome.

So Stefan begins to cold smoke the competition tonight in very impressive fashion. I can run a board one night and yet get skunked in an entire category the next. Not Stefan: even as I struggled in a rare off night, baffled by evil and esoteric answers, he was ripping off shit you've never heard of. He was kicking so much ass I began to suspect a set up in the making for our boy, given the mobbed up tendencies of the quiz show triads.

Sure enough, at Final Jeopardy! Stefan has $21,000, even after losing huge on some big time Daily Double gambling. His opponents have $200 each. Got that? That both have $200. That's how badly Stefan had run the table on them. No pool hustler alive could have put on that kind of a beat down in the final game.

Here's the set up: the final category is Food, so of course the lad bets ginormous, as we later learn. $20,065, to be precise. He still wins, of course, but these asshole producers are tired of paying him the fat coin, so they sandbag the poor fucker.

The Final Jeopardy! answer? A cheese that was created in 1892, and named after a popular singing quartet, or some shit. The question? What is Liederkranz, Alex?

Now excuse me, Alex, but that is a fucking bullshit Final Jeopardy! It's not that the cheese is that obscure (I'd guessed Limburger, which it's based on). It's the goddamn clue that's so obscure. Research Liederkranz and see if you see anything about a popular New York quartet. Doesn't exist.

They set that boy up. And I liked Stefan. What's not to like about a fucking stoner with a head packed full of shit like HAL 9000? He didn't care, of course. He still has $66,000 and change, and will compete tomorrow.

I encourage everyone to watch Jeopardy! tomorrow, and see if they neck fuck my boy again. I say the fix is in. His competition will be two home sewing matrons, and the categories will be Treadling, What's Bobbin'?, That Crazy Singer Family, Quilting 'B's, and Patterns by Butterick.

And memo to Stef: If you're not sure who the mark is, you're probably the mark.