Jeopardy! Online Test
You, too, could be on your way to becoming a Jeopardy! contestant! Take the preliminary online test next week and perhaps you’ll be blogging about J! auditions in the near future. Do it!
I’m in!
… in the contestant pool for Jeopardy! anyway.
I’m currently snacking on a delicious and nutritious lunch of Turkey and Cheese Snackables, Cherry Coke, and Knott’s Berry Farm Strawberry Shortbread Cookies because I didn’t have time to get a proper lunch on my way back from the Jeopardy! audition. Anyway, I’m in high spirits, as I’m now officially entered into the contestant pool, which means that at any point within the next year of so, I may be called up to participate in the show. I’m not guaranteed an actual callback, but I’ve passed all the preliminary requirements for eligibility, which is much better than the result of the first tryout I attended a few years ago when I couldn’t pass the original 50-question test.
Notes on The Office
I kind of went on extended ramble about Jeopardy! and have about 200 other things about which I’ve wanted to write. (Damn you, grammar, and your intolerance for ending sentences with a preposition; look how awkward you make my sentences!)
Anyway, I’m going to plagiarize from myself – I posted bits of the following on the ATNW board in a discussion about the US and UK versions of the Office. As an office drone myself, the conceit of the series obviously hits close to home, er, work. I love both versions, for different reasons, kind of like having fraternal twin children, except one died in its prime and one’s just starting to live up to the other’s shadow. There’s your morbid simile of the day, hope I’ve filled your quota.
Here as plomised
In one of the few funny That 70’s Show moments I’ve seen or cared to remember, Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) tries to circumvent Jackie’s demand that he quit modeling underwear by saying “I plomise to quit,” as a sort of verbal crossing of the fingers. I don’t know why this childish buffoonery was amusing, or why I mention it now, except I said I’d elaborate on some topics, and now here I am. I’m nothing if not a fulfiller of obligations.
This post gets better soon, I plomise.
This (pause) iiiis (pause) JEOPARDY! (+ other TV topics)
I’m a bit pressed for time, but I keep meaning to post about some of the TV programs I’ve been watching lately, so I’ll just slap some names on here and I’ll go into more detail later:
- The Sopranos
- The Dog Whisperer
- The Office
- The Amazing Race
- Real World/Road Rules Gauntlet II
- Jeopardy!
Regarding Jeopardy! (love that exclamation point, by the way) – I did want to mention that I will be auditioning/trying out for Jeopardy! on Wednesday. I passed the preliminary 50-question quiz and will be undergoing a mock round of Jeopardy!, and an interview to determine my suitability for TV. Exciting, eh? I’m wracking my brain trying to come up with interesting, TV-friendly anecdotes, but either I’m a lot more boring than I thought, or the most interesting moments in my life have come while drunk, naked, or both – moments I’m rather reluctant to share with a national TV audience. Maybe I’ll post some potential anecdotes when I follow up on this later…
Headline goes here
I feel a little bit like the boy who cries wolf every time I update this blog and slap on a headline above each new post - not because I lie and spread fabrications, but because I don’t really think most of my ramblings merit headlines. Sorry, folks, no original news to be had here. I’m just a slave to blog conventions.
Anyway, I’ve been listening to archived Ricky Gervais radio shows while wearing headphones here in my cubicle at work, and I’ve caught myself starting to think with an English accent from time to time. More accurately, I’ve started to hear Ricky Gervais or Stephen Merchant in my head, pronouncing my thoughts in their distinctly British way. I’ve also adopted some Britishisms - only in my head though, because I don’t think I could pull off using ‘daft’ and ‘brilliant’ and ‘innit’ in everyday conversation without a well-practiced English accent.
Apropos of nothing that I’ve just discussed, spending >8 hours in a cubicle has attuned my hearing to differentiate the approaching footsteps of my boss from others. I don’t know if it’s his lumbering gait that’s a tell-tale sign, but it’s a handy skill that provides me that split-second to tab away from my browser and into a productive looking spreadsheet or application. I suppose it’s a vestigial instinct from when our ancestors had to listen for approaching predators; now I imagine you imagining me cocking my head like a prairie dog and sniffing the air. Yes, that’s how we survive in cubiclezovakia.
Oh, you kooky Dutch
“AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – The camera focuses on two gay men kissing in a park. Later, a topless woman emerges from the sea and walks onto a crowded beach. For would-be immigrants to the Netherlands, this film is a test of their readiness to participate in the liberal Dutch culture.”
You can read the rest of the AP article here. It’s a pretty radical step from the Immigration minister; what’s interesting is that “EU nationals, asylum-seekers and skilled workers who earn more than $54,000 per year will not be required to take the 30-minute computerized exam. Also, citizens of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and Switzerland are exempt.” Basically, the rich and the white need not sully themselves with silly entrance requirements. Curious.
Internet Pinball
I’ve been at work for about 2 hours. Let me show you a glimpse of the path my nimble little fingers have forged through the internet so far:
- Gmail
- WaMu (banking)
- Yahoo! News
- MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A Mexican couple were recovering separately after a marital spat got out of control and saw them firing guns, throwing knives and hurling homemade bombs…
- A Natalie Portman profile
- An Andrew Kantor article from USA Today diffusing the growing outcry over MySpace as just another in a long line of online “ills” that technophobes hyperventilate about - a valid criticism, I thought. One point that Kantor fails to acknowledge in his main argument – that online problems only mirror real-life and any purported evil magnified by the Internet is obviously found offline - is the impact the Internet has had in enabling such easy access to a wide range of material, both good and bad. However, I wholeheartedly agree with his message that it isn’t the medium or the information accessible through the medium that is the problem; it’s what people do with it.
- From the Kantor article, I went on to browse through USA Today’s Tech section, where PostSecret was today’s main story; apparently it was voted as the best American blog of 2006, according to the Bloggies.
- Then, of course, I had to browse through some of the other blogs nominated (past and present) and I suspect this will keep me busy for a while, as there are a lot of interesting blogs out there in the blogosphere, and the Bloggies have done me a solid by pointing me in the right direction.
- No wonder one of the most popular blogs is called boing boing; you just bounce around on the internet from one place to another.
So, that’s how you procrastinate long enough to not actually do any work before your first break hits. And you people wonder what I do with my time.
Pinball Mecca
Urgent, breaking news: I just learned of the existence of the Pinball Museum in Las Vegas. Housing over 180 working machines (with models from the 50’s to the late 90’s), the Pinball Museum is open to the public, and you can play all the working models. Rest assured, dear reader, Hazelina and I will be making a pilgrimage in the near future.
A selection of stories from today’s Los Angeles Times
Chaos Reigns at a Model School - Upon reading this headline, the first image that came to mind was of a bunch of junior Zoolanders and Hansels run amuck, a bit of anarchy at fashion school. Alas, the story is actually about the troubles at a new charter high school in L.A. that was supposed to alleviate overcrowding in neighborhood schools and provide a fresh curriculum to its students; apparently administrators did not foresee that the students would forge their own curriculum including such popular classes as ”How to Deal Meth in Class,” “How to Conceal a Gun,” and “Race Riots 101.” I am for educational reform, so it’s disheartening to hear about such good intentions gone awry.
Plastic Surgery Gone South - Like birds migrating for the winter, the new trend in plastic surgery is to go south; according to this article, “in a quest to look younger, feel prettier and have better sex, women are turning to genital plastic surgery. And the look many want is that of a porn star.” That women are voluntarily electing for such seemingly unnecessary procedures raises numerous issues about body image, feminism, medical responsibility, and changing cultural attitudes, most of which are addressed by the article. It’s strangely appropriate that it’d be reported by an L.A. newspaper, but the author points out that the trend has spread into middle America. Interestingly, the article makes no mention of any similar trends among men, nor make any mention of circumcision, a long-accepted form of genital plastic surgery for males, if you think about it.
And finally, for anyone who’s ever played a version of the paranoia-inducing game of Dorm Assassins, the “murder fantasy contest” can now be played with 200 friendly, and not-so-friendly, strangers (provided you live in N.Y., S.F., or L.A.). As fun as stalking people with a squirt gun sounds, some people just get way way into it. People who played with their dorms know what I’m talking about; heck, you might have been that guy.
