Hair, football, and game shows with exclamation points: A weekend in review

I need a haircut. That’s the main thing on my mind right now. My hair is seriously out of control. It hasn’t been this long since freshman year of high school probably. It hangs down far enough in the front that if I don’t push it to the side, it’s in front of my eyes. My hair always tends to be crazy after I sleep but it’s especially bad when it’s long. This morning I would have been about eight feet tall if you measured from the top of my hair to my toes.

So this weekend was not really so great. Didn’t really do much of anything on Friday or Saturday, except for some homework. Doing homework again really sucks, by the way.

Yesterday afternoon were the two events I was most interested in all weekend and, typically, they overlapped. The Broncos game started at 1, but I had to be at the Phoenician at 2:30 for tryouts for Jeopardy! In retrospect, I’m thankful I had the audition to save me from the agony that watching that game likely would have induced. Then again, I’m thinking maybe I jinxed the boys in predominantly orange by shaving on Saturday morning. I shaved so I would look presentable for Jeopardy! (we were supposed to dress as we would if we were appearing on the show). I hadn’t shaved for a good two weeks, though, and I was getting pretty hairy. As you in the audience are likely unaware, let me explain that Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer, who apparently thinks he’s a hockey player, had grown himself a nice “playoff beard” over the past several weeks. When I let the chin scruff take over, many people at work joked that it was my own playoff beard. I was even warned not to save it, lest it doom the Broncos. I shaved. The Broncos got whupped. Yet further confirmation that the universe is governed by my grooming habits.

But not the Jeopardy! universe, apparently.

Over the summer Diana and I took to TIVO-ing (sorry, digitally recording) Jeopardy! and then watching them the next day when I came home for my lunch break. I guess it was then that I signed up online for contestant recruitment. I don’t recall now if there was any kind of test I had to pass at that point or not – maybe they just assume anyone who really doubts their aptitude wouldn’t risk embarrassing themselves by trying out. So this weekend the Jeopardy! folks were here doing testing at the Phoenician. Basically, at 2:30 I walked into a ballroom with probably 70-100 other people (and we were the third group of the day) and we all talked briefly, answered some practice questions and finally settled in for the test. I understand that if you try out in California at the studio the whole thing is computerized but not so on the road. The questions are computerized but everyone in the room got a sheet of paper with 50 blank spaces on it. The questions went by very quickly; I think they said we only had 8 seconds per question, which is typical for the show I guess. You didn’t have to write it out in a question or anything, just get down enough info to answer the question. It was pretty typical Jeopardy, in other words some questions were easy because it was a category I know well, other questions were difficult but I was able to guess and a few just had me completely stumped. We all handed in our papers and two people went out in the hall to grade them. They’re pretty secretive about what it takes to pass. They claim there’s a pre-determined “passing number” based on how many people they need. But for all I know they only took the highest-scoring five (only five people from our group passed). If you pass, you stay on in the room for a while, play a mock game and talk to the producers. Basically, they’re trying to see who’s most likely to not freak out if they actually do end up on television. If all that goes well, they put your name in a file and they may or may not call to ask you to come to LA sometimes within the next year. Even if they call you, there’s no guarantee you’ll get to be on the show.

That’s all just for your info, though, because I didn’t pass the test. They jokingly tell you to just tell all your friends that you only missed the cut by one question, but actually they don’t reveal how well or poorly you did at all and they don’t reveal the scores of those who passed, either. If you don’t pass, they encourage you to try again, though not until a year has passed.

I will probably try again if they come back to Phoenix. Unlike people who were there yesterday from Denver, Texas, and New Mexico, I can’t imagine traveling to do this kind of thing. But it was still actually fun and challenging and I didn’t feel completely stupid. Also, I was probably the youngest person in the room. I’m not sure if that indicates that we do in fact get smarter with age or just that the older you get the more history questions are things that occurred in your lifetime.

Anyway, you won’t be seeing me on Jeopardy! any time this year. But you might be seeing me writing with my very own Jeopardy! pen. I guess it wasn’t a loss, after all.