September By the time I flew to Los Angeles the day before taping I was heartily sick of skim-studying, and I figured at this point nothing new was going to soak into my brain. So even though I brought along my study flashcards, once I left the house for Pearson International I never looked at …
Category Archive: Cool Stuff
Dec
31
Dec
29
Support Staff
As far as I was concerned, my job during all of this excitement was to assist Laura in packing her brain with information it didn’t already have. Not quite a coach, nor a pit crew or a secretary… but more or less an amalgam of all of them. I was involved as possible in Laura’s …
Dec
27
Studying
August–September After booking my flights and hotel (the latter with a nice Sony corporate discount), the next four weeks were a blur of boning up on my weak areas. Studying for Jeopardy! is bizarre; it’s not remotely like studying for an exam because the topics are so wide-ranging and yet surface-level; a knowledge pool that’s …
Dec
24
The Call
August In my office in front of the computer. Jon had been back from overnight camp for about half a week and was still a happy, Chatty Cathy, sitting beside me at his computer. The phone rang and I picked it up. I didn’t quite make out what the guy on the other line was …
Dec
23
Audition
June The Jeopardy! auditions are held once a year in five US cities, for a week. Mine was on a Thursday morning in June, one of three sessions that day. The auditions took place in a small, plain conference room in a swishy midtown hotel. A battered little foam-core sign on an easel outside the …
Dec
21
Online Fun & Games
February I never used to watch Jeopardy! much. It was just that game show hosted by that genial Canadian guy with the silly moustache. However, ever since Jon discovered a few years ago that he liked game shows (mainly because of the sound effects, music and the host’s “ooohhh” when someone gets a question wrong), …
Dec
15
The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair
…aka The Royal Winter Fair, aka The Royal. After missing it due to one person or another being sick both weeks last year, Jon anticipated that he wanted to go even before Halloween came! My farming ancestors (including all of my great-uncles on my Mom’s side, and my great-grandparents on the Cook side) would be …