And so an era ends....

OK, it's a short and relatively insignificant era, but tonight Ken Jennings' Jeopardy! Reign of Terror came to a rather ignominious end, with a wrong answer to a preposterously easy question: "Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year." He was defeated by realtor (that's for you, Lynn!) Nancy Zerg, who came away from slaying Goliath with a paltry $14,001 in beating a guy who averaged $34,063.51 per game.



This is no real secret; speculation has been running for days, and Kottke.org had an audio file of Jennings' defeat up yesterday, though they got nailed by Sony's attorneys and had to take it down.



Still, for all that I'd stopped watching once I'd heard the spoiler that Jennings lost once he hit around $2.5 million in winnings, I can't help but have a sense that the world is just a bit more drab today without the "How high can he go?" speculation of Jenningsmania.



Somehow I don't think Mr. Jennings is going to go away any time soon. The only question is what products and services he's going to endorse. I suspect that both Federal Express and H&R Block will be among his suitors.