If you've read much of our journal, by now you know we are big Jeopardy! fans and watch it almost every single time it's on. We even know that the exclamation point after the word is part of it's trademark, so needs to be included whenever someone uses the name of this game show. Well, since we've been sledding so much lately AND watching Jeopardy!, we thought this would be a good time to tell you our secrets for being the beary bestest Jeopardy! players of all times, even beating Ken Jennings five out of every six times he played.

But, before we get started, we have an annoucement to make--Terrel Owens, the receiver for our Eagles who hurt his upper ankle and wasn't likely to make it back even for the Super Bowl, has announced that he is playing in the Super Bowl! Now, his doctors say he's not ready, so we have to wait until Andy Reid decides if we play Owens with the good possibility of destroying his future in football, or go against his player's wishes. The only way we will ever know which should have happened, unless he does play in the game. Personlly, although we really feel badly that he has been hurt, we still wouldn't let him play in the Super Bowl unless his doctor says it OK. We'd rather have him around for a few more years, and, if they are as good as they seem this year when next year comes along, TO can win the Super Bowl next year!

Anyway, back to Jeopardy! Now, we really, really get into this game, so we keep track of our points every night. (Mommy has created her own scoring sheet that works for six game and has a little cheat sheet on the right side, so she can tally the higher points without remembering the math. If we get the answer right, she puts a tick mark right of the score amount, and, on those rare moments, when we get it wrong, she puts a tick mark on the left. Then, after the round is over, during the commericials, she counts up both sides, then subtract the left from the right for the final score for that round.) Now, for each answer, any one of us can guess, and, since there are nine stuffed animals plus Mommy and Daddy, if any of us guess the question right, it counts.

And, of course, we don't have to be the first to click in, since, well, we're just too good! And, for Double Jeopardy answers, we make the same bet each time -- "The usual, Alex" -- which is "all of it," if we get it right and "none of it," if we get it wrong. And, to make it fair, Teddy always gets to do the "The usual, Alex," during the first round, I get to say it first in the second round, and the rest of our family takes turns for the third round. And, when we announce it just right, we all give that announcer a rousing round of applause and high fives! Now, if the Double Jeopardy isn't the last box, Mommy draws a line down the right side so she knows how many tick marks she had, and can calculate it all after the round. She then continues to put tick marks on the right side of that line too. And, if another one comes up, she does the same thing. It gets complcated but she's smart.

Now, some times Mommy and Daddy are eating early, and dinner is served right before or during Jeopardy! In those cases, Teddy uses his magical and just-the-right-size-for-Teddy-Bears calculator and does the calculating while Daddy and Mommy question with their mouths full, or just grunt that they knew it as they eat. (We try not to say this around Mommy too much, but Teddy is better at calculating, then Mommy. When Mommy calculates, by the end of the game, we have anywhere between $10,000 to $250,000 depending on if it's a game with kids or grown ups. When Teddy calculates, we have $8-12 billion dollars!) And, as you have probably guessed by now, we treat the final Jeopardy! quesion like the Double Jeopardy! questions and bid, "The usual, Alex!"

Now, since we always win (we think we always beat Ken Jennings too, but Mommy always did the calculating, so, THEY don't think we always win), after we quickly come up with the final question, we've created our beary own Jeopardy! song that matches the music. It goes like this:

We're the champions, this is true,
Just because we're sooooooo much smarter then you!
We're the champions, this is why,
Because we are much smarter guys.
We're the champions, this is true,
Just because we're soooo smarter then you!
We're the champions, this is why,
Because we are much smart-er guys. Boom boom!

And, as Alex finds out what everyone else guessed, we sing, We Are The Champions by Queen!

Each win, Mommy likes to put a big star  over her tally sheet section, and we like to see sheets with six stars on it! She also likes to save the sheets, so she can look back and keep track of how well we've done for a while, or, if there is a tournament, how many more days before the tournament is over. Kids' tournaments, even college kids, are usually easy, unless they have catagories about the modern music scene, or kid's shows, since we don't like this modern music or have cable. And, if it is a Tournament of Champions, we find them beary hard even though we still win), because we don't know artists, authors, Shakespeare or opera beary well. We can sill beat them, but we look forward to those games being over, except that we like to root for our favorite persin to win it all. (We're looking forward to the next Tournament of Champions, because ever since Ken Jennings left, they haven't had any repeat Champions last passed five games, and we want Ken to have some challenage. Yeah, we saw that he didn't know everything, and often guessed wrong, so he's not even close to perfect, bit he needs some competition!

So, now you know what we mean when we say that we always win at Jeopardy! and really, really, really lke that show!