She has that kind of intensity that can easily go in either a positive or negative direction. Sometimes she seemed exasperated with the clues - just because you guessed Yorkshire for Kent doesn't mean it was an unreasonable question! But I think I still want her to win anyway.

The titular text seemed a bit overly long and detailed to me (although maybe that was the point). It was also interesting that Rebecca's expectations for a future relationship included revealing to Josh that she moved to West Covina for him - that would be (belatedly) honest, I guess, but not very bright.

I don't know how I feel about this. Some of these made me chuckle, but I think some other commenters are much too sanguine in their belief that Watterson would not react negatively to them.

I actually suspect that that was the reason why they did it. XXXVIII (for example - I think that set the record for length) looks much more impressive than 38. L looks no better than 50, so (I guess they thought) why not go with 50?

Tiebreaker 1: Score at the end of Double Jeopardy.

I think we need an "After Our Time dept." for some of the College Tournament clues. I wondered if I had an "I know it from the A.V. Club" moment with "Jake and ____" (Could it be Finn?), but no, it it was a different Jake (Jake and Amir, whoever they might be).

Belated (and slightly oversimplified) reply: Guest inherited his father's peerage in the mid-1990s and I believe actually took his seat and was sworn as a Lord (which some lords used to never bother to do) - but I never heard of his taking any role in British poltics after that. Then Tony Blair kicked out all the…

If you watch the very good American Experience documentary on the Scopes Trial, they have some real songs that are even better than this (including one that is actually called "You Can't Make a Monkey Out of Me").

I don't think that the headline's use of the word "struggles" is meant to insinuate that Swarns really cannot tell fantasy from reality - it is more in the sense of "She struggles to make sense of what happened." Blevins mostly agree with you on what she is saying - this is Great, Job Internet, not Terrible Job,…

Politicians are not nerds. They are, as Bob Greene noted in one of his rare insightful moments, the people who used to be on the student council.

Is that affair thing a documented fact? I guess I have not been keeping up with secrets that have leaked out since the trial - I never heard that claim before.

Not guilty of the crime of murder.

My Latin class - yes, supposedly the most erudite class there is, although there were quite a few people who were in over their heads - successfully pressured the teacher to put it on at the exact time the verdict was supposed to be announced, even though she insisted that there would be all kinds of delays and she…

Sometimes things (like boroughs and Great Lakes) come in fives. I am so used to categories of that kind that they do not bother me. Maybe they hoped that someone would be in an Arthur Chu-ish mood and start at the bottom.

The canned laughter was also re-used (or rather pre-used, since Troy came first) for the Troy McClure clue, I guess to placate Simpsons fans upset by the Triple Stumper.

People still believe in the one-drop rule (even if no longer with negative connotations). I am sure that somewhere there is a mixed white/Asian actress who could have played the role, but those who complained about this seemed to think that a full-blooded Asian was preferable to a full-blooded white.

The one on this list that sticks out for me is Rudolph Valentino, whose entire career was based on his "exotic" appearance. To be an Italian (or a "Latin" as he was often called) was to be on the borderline of whiteness, although it is true that an Italian actor was still white enough to be promoted as a sex symbol,…

I wouldn't exactly call that fact common knowledge or blame anyone for not knowing it, but I think it is relatively well-known enough that they were maybe taking a chance that someone might just know the answer without much of a clue or hint.

Unless you were already a senior, they should have reserved you a spot in the next one (and in a regular game if you were a senior).

Bogart also went crazy in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which was several years earlier, so it was not unprecedented.