Back at the end of July, on the last day of Jeopardy!'s 24th season, local contestant Emily Thorsley dethroned a five-day champion and took the crown. And she's technically had it since then, because Jeopardy! has been running reruns and special tournaments during the summer break. This evening, however, season 25 begins, and we get to find out if Thorsley can turn her win into a streak. Having played pub trivia against her many......

First things first: You can win a free pitcher of beer. All you have to do: be the first person to email us (james at seattlest dot com) with the correct answer to this question: Who was defeated by Jean Godden in 2003 and by Ken Jennings in 2004? Oh, you also have to show up tonight at the Old Pequliar. And while you're there, you might as well play the quiz. Details: Trivia starts......

After winning $3,022,700 from Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings could've retired to a Seattle suburb to roll around in piles of dollar bills. Instead, he became America's answer to Ben Schott, wroting about trivia: a book its history, a regular column in Mental_Floss, a popular weekly trivia quiz, and most recently a hu-frickin'-mungous collection of questions, the Trivia Almanac. In short, he's got the career we've secretly wished we could have since we were nine years......

In 2004, Ken Jennings redefined success on Jeopardy!, banking over $2,500,000 as he won 74 games. Those of us who get paid in bar credit know it's hard to make a living through trivia, but Jennings has done it. He turned his obligatory cash-in-on-your-15-minutes book, Brainiac, into something much better and broader, an examination of trivia history and culture. He also moved from Utah to the Seattle area. That, and Brainiac's paperback release tomorrow, gave......

Tell him there's about a 1 in 6 chance he'll appear on Jeopardy! in the next couple of years. He'll obsessively check his phone messages the whole time. That's right: we passed the recent in-person Jeopardy! audition held in Seattle, which means we're officially in the applicant pool. 400 contestants appear in a season, the applicant pool is 2000-2500 people--voila! One in six. What next? The waiting game. Oh, and studying like a mofo. Ken......

"I hate 'guessing' trivia," a friend of ours said yesterday. "I don't care if we don't know the answer. But there has to be at least a nonzero chance that some applied consideration will get the team within spitting distance of it." He was speaking about another quiz he'd been to, but by the end of the quiz at Fremont's George & Dragon pub we were chuckling wryly at his foresight. Applied consideration left......

-- Peter Bagge talks sports complexes. -- "Best Media-Affiliated Sports Blog" two years running? Congrats, Seahawks Insider. -- 100 years after Seattle took the city over, Wallingford transplant Archie McPhee urges you to free Ballard. -- This was no boat accident. -- Can Rainier Avenue drivers be scared straight -- by billboards? -- JetBlue, Expedia. Expedia, JetBlue. -- Ken Jennings discovers the saddest sentence on Wikipedia.......

--Lt. Watada's court martial ended in mistrial today. --Capitol Hill Seattle Blog got outed by the "MSM" recently. --Watch in amazement as this hand fiddles with the Sonics. Meanwhile a NASCAR track will appear as if by magic. --Historylink's President, historian Walt Crowley, is losing his voice to cancer. --The Sightline Institute links to a few articles on the metro Kyoto participants. --Ken Jennings explores the overlap between aviation and scatology. --Biznik's name gets......

It's the end of an era. Check out the standings list below and you'll see "Hüsker Don't," as you might expect -- but you'll see them in third place. Ever-renamed team State of the Onion played Nancy Zerg to HD's Ken Jennings, as did comeback kids Thaiku Hookers, who took second place. Of course, Tiger Woods doesn't win every golf tournament; just because Hüsker Don't is mortal doesn't mean they're pushovers. It was a raucous......

Best thing we learned at last night's quiz: Gabriel Garcia Marquez looks like "Agatha Christie on a bad day." The Old Pequliar's own version of Ken Jennings, Hüsker Don't, returned to the playing field last night and promptly (well, in two hours) won by 7 points over Who'll Stop the Crane? Seattlest is currently in negotiations to produce Win Hüsker Don't's Money -- stay tuned. Oh, and where are the video games? Round 8, people,......

--We know the Weekly is cutting its editorial staff, but this is ridiculous. --Tuesday's election through the eyes of a poll watcher. --Tuesday's election through the eyes of a librarian. --Tuesday's election through the eyes of 18 bajillion pundits, via PoP. --We have some very important information concerning this link, unfortunately we are forbidden from ever revealing it. --Not everyone is onboard (ugh) with turning the rail corridor into a recreational bike trail, it seems.......

A: What Ken Jennings writes when he autographs copies of Brainiac. Other things we learned at Town Hall last night, at the opening of Seattle Follies' fourth season: Goldy (of horsesass.org) cannot pronounce Ichiro without help from the audience. (His initial effort sounded something like "icky-row.") Ken Jennings can pull off an uncanny vocal impression of Popeye. Steve Scher of KUOW's Weekday resembles a svelter Harold Ramis. Scher is a good choice if you need......

Want to flaunt your cerebellum? Head to the Old Pequliar in Ballard tonight. Seattlest's trivia night starts at 8:00 sharp, with Seattlest James hosting. You can have up to 5 people on your team, and it costs just $5/team to play. Winner takes home the bulk of the pot -- $100 for the last few weeks, with second and third place teams taking home less money, and last place taking home swag. Want to......

Dylan at Seattle Metblogs is almost as triviacentric as we are -- he's started a new series, "The Knowledge," asking 10 Seattle-related trivia (or esoterica) questions each week or so. This week: People. Below are ten people. Please explain why they are (in)famous or (un)important in Seattle. 1. Bertha Knight Landes 2. Al Bianchi 3. Jason Sprinkle 4. Edward Carlson 5. Frances Farmer 6. Fred Sander 7. Donna Walter 8. Bernie Morris 9. Robin Sherwood......

Game show contestants get tons of ass. In fact, it's a scientific fact that if you appear on any game show you will get laid within 48 hours. Now, before you head off to L.A. to get in on this sweet, sweet action, you should hone your skills at Seattlest's Quiz Night. (Oh, sorry, we mean game show-playing skills.) 8pm at the Old Pequliar in Ballard. It’s five dollars per team to play, there are......