10.01.2025

I also enjoy Jeopardy! Once I wanted to be on the show. Back when I was writing trivia questions and hosting games every week I was pretty sharp with the recall. I hoarded references materials. I was sure if I got on the show I would smoke the competition. I recognized contestants on the street and in bars in Chicago. When Ken Jennings was on his historic run (74 wins, not even closely contested some twenty years later) I put on a blue blazer and a cardboard cutout of the front of the contestant podium from the show, attached with suspenders, with the name 'KEN' written on a blue background with however many dollars he'd won at that point and wore that to work at a brewery. I should mention this was Halloween. Almost immediately I had to take that off in order to do my job, which involved a lot of darting from side to side and nimble dancing around my coworkers in the pursuit of glasses and pitchers for which to serve the patrons their lagers and ales. This was 2004 and I had my hair parted and slicked over like him. Without the placard in front nobody knew who I was supposed to be. A couple people guessed John Edwards. John Edwards. Can you imagine dressing up as John Edwards? The only thing I remember about John Edwards is this happening to me when I was dressed as Ken Jennings. If there were a Jeopardy clue about John Edwards I wouldn't even ring in.