First off, congrats to James Quintong for winning last night on Jeopardy!. It was, as he termed it, a war of attrition, evidenced by his locking up the win going into Final Jeopardy - with $4200. He's said that tonight's game will be more entertaining. Just hope it's another win.

Finishing what I started earlier in the week, there is very little that can be said for the state quarter class of 2008:

Oklahoma - I'm not particularly crazy about this design, but I think I like the idea behind it.

New Mexico - here are two very different takes for the Land of Enchantment. Hot air ballooning and nuclear warfare? Where do I get my moving van?

Ideas that come to mind: the symbol from the state flag (a cop-out, but at least something to fall back on), a kachina or other symbol of the native American population, some sort of Roswell-inspired alien design (can't we have at least one fun state quarter?).

Hawaii - out of the several designs here, I think number 14 is most striking, though I'm not sure how (or even if) they could get that same effect on a coin. Number 2 is pretty good if you want to go in a non-native direction. A spoof of the usual reverse side using a nene goose and native plants rather than olive branches would be interesting.

Arizona and Alaska - no designs for either of them on the site I keep linking to, and I can't find much out there elsewhere. This article has a good slide show of suggested images, though I'd have to say if it's a barometer of the social climate in Arizona, perhaps it's best that my lone "visit" there was a walk across the Hoover Dam from Nevada.

Arizona might have the toughest problem of any state, though: how do you get it's most obvious icon - the Grand Canyon - on a coin?

There's pretty much nothing for Alaska out there. But they've got a good site for their coin commission, if nothing else. I'd like to nominate the Iditarod as subject material, though getting a sled dog team on a coin may be tough.