Mike O'Connell

If you were watching Jeopardy! last night or the night before you were treated to something unusual.

Ken Jennings in the middle.

First, Monday…

Re-airing an episode that was originally broadcast on June 2, 2004, Jeopardy! went old school, showing the first time Jennings appeared on the show. Appeared human too, missing questions and betting only $2,000 on a Daily Double.

I think the most amusing scene was Ken’s contestant interview. Rather than telling a story about his wife or kids or anything silly like that, he took time to thank the anonymous strangers who had rescued him along a Nevada highway some unknown time ago.

If that had been the only time he’d appeared on the show it would have been a pretty weak story. Good thing for Ken he had 75 more times to chat with Alex about, well, Jesus, by the time they were done they were like old friends weren’t they?

Last night  Jeopardy! pulled one from the vaults as well, this time going back only a few months to its million-dollar “Greatest of All-Time” challenge.

Ken, though positioned in the middle, looked like the Ken Jennings we know.

Damn that guy’s good at Jeopardy!

Funny, before a month ago or so I assumed the people of this world (myself included) were just moving toward more and more physical isolation from one another. We walk around with our eyes glued to our phones, we text people sitting across the room, and we conduct business without ever speaking to a human being.

Yet when we’re faced with actual isolation (“social distancing” is what we’re calling it–in case I’m reading this years from now), there’s a definite backlash.

Good, I guess. No?

We’re not in the Twilight Zone or a Bradbury novel just yet. All those years we were running home from work just so we could get to our screens and connect online… looks a lot different now that we don’t get to do the go-to-work-first part doesn’t it? Amazingly I miss that part, and I don’t think I’m alone.

Well, some day we can go back to just fantasizing about a world without going to work.

Thank God for 30-year-old sports highlights to watch on Sunday nights, even those interspersed with 21st-century melodrama. The Last Dance gives 30-somethings (and up) a chance to relive their youth and actually see some competition that’s not a prerecorded singing contest.

Too bad most people I associate with think Michael Jordan is the bad guy from Black Panther.

They say any port in a storm, but sometimes the port ends up being really awesome.

In the sportsless world known as April 2020 there is The Last Dance, a 10-part documentary chronicling the Michael Jordan era Chicago Bulls. The sports franchise of my youth.

Last night I watched the first two episodes. (They’re being released two at a time.) In a word… they’re great, and one wonders why it took 22 years to get this thing together. Honestly, though, I think the subject matter—basketball is but a mere subplot—is one I can appreciate more at age 37 than at 15.

Ratings, naturally, are through the roof. What the heck else ya gonna watch to get your sports fix? Games you already know the result of? (Wait, that’s exactly what this is!)

Give me parts 3-10 pronto!

This is blog post number 1,000 at mikeoconnelljr.com.

I’d always planned a bigger celebration than this.

Well, nobody feels too much like celebrating these days.

Party’s on hold, I guess, like many things in the world now.

Some day. Some day.