March somethingth, 2007: Sometime before I started writing this blog, I took the Jeopardy contestant test online. It consisted of 50 questions. I had about 30 seconds to answer each question by typing in the answer. The exercise was nervewracking, but I thought I answered at least 40 questions correctly. The website said there would be a drawing among those with enough correct answers.
I hadn't heard back in several weeks, so I thought that a) I didn't answer enough questions correctly, or b) I lost out in the drawing. To my shock and delight, I received an e-mail from the show today inviting me to an audition in Houston on Tuesday, May 1. After striding briskly (I don't run any more) into the kitchen to tell my family, I went back to my computer to accept the invitation just 47 hours before their 48 hour deadline. According to the Jeopardy website, the Houston audition will consist of: 1) Being tested with a new, different 50-question test, 2) Playing a "mock version" of JEOPARDY! to assess your game-playing skills, 3) A short personality interview. Passing the audition puts a potential contestant in a pool to appear on the show within one year, but doesn't guarantee an appearance.
April 16: My study regimen proceeds in fits and jerks. I printed a few lists from the Internet (Presidents, countries, states, lakes and rivers, Academy Award winners, etc.) and ordered two almanacs, which arrived today. They are dauntingly thick, but relevant. I read about US history (up through aboaut 1776) and found a list of U.S. Supreme Court Justices (a recent "WWTBaM?" question asked which President had not nominated a Supreme Court justice (choices were Coolidge, Hoover, Ford and Carter)). One of the almanacs identified this fact directly (Carter). I imagine that almanacs are an important source for "WWTBaM?" writers.
I also started working through a huge list of units of measure from a website posted by the University of North Carolina. I'm up to B. Hopefully they'll quiz me on the ones in the front of the alphabet. Did you know that a "blink" is an official unit of time equal to 0.864 seconds (one one hundred thousandth of a day)? It is also known as a metric second. A barleycorn is 1/3 of an inch. It's an Old English unit based on the typical length of a barleycorn seed. The English length units are built up from barleycorns (3 per inch; 12 inches per foot; etc.). A bovate is an Old English unit of land area equal to about 15 acres. It's the amount of land that could be farmed with one ox (a bovine creature; hence bovate).
One side of me says if you haven't learned it in 50 years, you're not gonna cram it in now. The other side says "study!" You might pick up that odd fact that makes the difference. As with much of my life, I walk the middle ground, studying, but not fanatically.
April 30 early a.m. The Jeopardy audition is coming up on Tuesday. I should be asleep but sleep has been an unpredictable habit lately--2 hours one night; 10 the next, then a nap. A 2-hour nap between 2:30 and 4:30 on Sunday afternoon appears to be keeping me up now. I've picked up the studying pace, but still am hoping that 50+ years of facts collected in my head will do the trick (I never got past "b" studying units of measure). Reading the almanacs has been interesting, however. I decided to start a new running post (Daily D-Gest) with doses of facts from history, birthdays, and news that doesn't quite make up a post of its own. We're planning to leave town at about 3 p.m. and eat crawfish on the way, trying to arrive in Houston after rush hour traffic subsides and before it gets too late. May 2: I'm back from the Jeopardy audition. It was a very long day, probably too long, but 12 hours of sleep last night helped my recovery.
The audition went very well, but I won't know if I've been chosen for the show until the phone rings (or doesn't) sometime in the next 12 months. I got at least four wrong out of 50 on the written test (and maybe five if they don't accept "loll" rather than "wallow" as something that pigs do in the mud (the category was "first and last letter the same", so at least I met that criteria)). In the "mock game", I showed good "button skills" and spoke up with good energy and enthusiasm. I only missed one question about a French movie from 1973 ("Day For Night"), which I mistook for a Swedish movie (a guess, I'm afraid, though now I remember the movie being directed by Frenchman Francois Truffaut; "Day for Night" just sounded Swedish, with their midnight suns and all). I also did well in the postgame interview segment where I talked about the 10,000 games of online Scrabble that I've played. The moderator asked if I'd ever met any online opponents in person, so I got to tell the story of meeting a senior citizen online tormenter of mine from Toronto, only to learn that she was rated 300-400 points below me by the NSA.
The Jeopardy crew was auditioning two groups of about 25 each in Houston after spending a day in Dallas doing the same thing. I'm sure there are other audition sites. They need 400 contestants for a year, but they didn't say how many would be in the pool. The 400 will be chosen at random from those names that are put in the pool based on the live audition.
The whole experience was a blast, albeit it a tiring one. I hope I didn't suck up too much with my comment about "fulfilling a lifelong dream" and telling them what a great job they do choosing contestants (they do--the players I've seen this year have all been very smart--winning comes down to getting categories you know and working the signaling device (the button)).
Sorry I don't have any pictures--I took my camera and then left it in the car. The Westin Oaks hotel in the Galleria isn't that exciting, and the audition was tucked well in the back, apparently to discourage groupies and walk-ins, since it was an invitation-only event. I don't think you're missing much. I doubt they'd have let me photograph in the "inner sanctum" of the game room.
I'll post again if and when Jeopardy! calls.
