What Is No, You Can’t Come Back Tomorrow?

Last Updated on: 31st October 2013, 09:17 am

I just watched Ken Jennings finally lose a Jeopardy game. Wow, what a run that guy had. Something like 74 days and 2 and a half million dollars. He did pretty well, but now it’s all over.

On 1 hand I’m sad to see him go because I really enjoyed watching him destroy people the way he did, consistently leading so convincingly that by the time Final Jeopardy came around they had no chance of beating him, and sometimes eliminating them from even participating in final altogether. But on the other I’m happy if for no other reason than that now I don’t have to listen to people bitch anymore about how he’s been around too long. Seriously, not much has made me happier today than knowing that soon all of these people will be forced to shut the hell up.

I actually heard somebody on a radio talk show a while back say that if Jennings was any kind of a man, when he won a million dollars he would have said that he’d done well but now it was time to give somebody else a turn. I can’t believe that somebody could make a statement like that with a straight face, it’s ridiculous. I would have loved to ask this woman if she could honestly say that if put in that position she would do the same thing, and then somehow force her to follow through on it. The truth is that very few if any of us at all would do that. If we were winning, there’s no way we’d just quit because some people might be getting sick of us and the other contestants might get sad. It’s a competition, and it’s a competition where big money is involved. Cashing it in and going home is an easy thing to do when you’re nowhere near the contest, but it gets quite a bit harder when the money you’re playing for is money that you get to take home.

Think of what Ken Jennings did as bettering life for himself and his family. He’s got 2 and a half million dollars in the bank that he didn’t have before, more money than most of us will ever have. Not only that, but now he has the potential to make even more money now that he’s a bit of a celebrity. Between TV appearances and speaking engagements this guy has it made, and I think that’s where a lot of the resentment and jealousy comes from. The average person has a hard time getting behind a guy who knows everything and makes his fortune playing game shows because guys like that are everything that most people aren’t but desperately want to be, smart, rich, famous and full of potential for future growth.

So congratulations Ken, you deserve it. Now can I borrow a few bucks?

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