TVSquad

Studying was never my strong-suit. I always got by in college on my looks; that would explain why I was a C-student. Come to think of it, planning isn't either. Neither is getting enough REM sleep, keeping a clean house or (as you can see by my picture) sticking to a regular skin care regime.

So when it came to preparing for my Jeopardy! test, the same substandard habits applied. I could have started cracking the books at least a month ago when I first heard the website was holding online contestant tests at the Jeopardy! website. It just seemed like a huge mountain of knowledge to tame in one sitting. Plus, I had about 15 Tales from the Darkside episodes that my TiVo had taped and were about to go to waste.

So when it came time to crack the books and cram in as much information as my brain could hold, I not only had to make up for lost time.

I had to make up for a lifetime of lost information. I had to relearn all of those things I never thought could be used outside of a stuffy, oppressive, Catholic high school classroom. And this time, there would be no nuns threatening to rap my knuckles if I failed to get a Daily Double this time.

I followed Jeopardy! champion Bob Harris' advice: review what you know. Then five minutes later...

It turns out the stuff I thought I knew I either didn't know or couldn't recall in a manner fast enough for an audience of 11 million people. Everyone who watches shows like Jeopardy! or plays trivia games tries to shout out the answers and think that they could know enough to get by with a win every now and then. But if you actually sat down and kept track of your score, you would be ashamed to be a member of the human race. No wonder those Jeopardy! Challenge calculators sold so poorly and ended up being thrown through so many TV screens.

Bob recommended a ton of books, but I only had one of them: The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. It's filled with facts and figures about every major artistic, historic, political and fictional person, place or thing since the dawn of time. It's a book that holds knowledge every man should possess and at least be familiar with if they truly want to call themselves a member of God's universe. I kept my copy in a box in the attic. Luck was on my side because it turned out to the perfect book to prepare for anything Jeopardy!. It's as if someone gathered all of the facts I didn't pay attention to in every classroom I've ever been in and put them in one book.

Then to figure out what I should review, I came up with an ingenious little plan. I recorded a bunch of episodes on my TiVo, then played along with a notepad and knocked off the questions I got right under each category. Bob said the test consisted of questions in the bottom two row ranges, so I figured if I could crack those, then I wouldn't have to do much studying. Here are the actual results of my first practice test...



Note the large "I suck!" in the lower right bottom of the screen. If I didn't want to suck as much, I had a lot of work to do.

Several practice tests later, I figured out the subjects that needed the most reviewing and started going through he dictionary until my eyes couldn't take it anymore. I went back and played the game along with the show and even went through some practice tests I found on the Jeopardy! message board. The more I studied and tested myself, the less tired I got and the more I found myself wanting to prepare. It almost became an addiction. Bob described the same addiction in his book Prisoner of Trebekistan; the world around you melts away and all you can focus on is reaching your goal no matter what the cost. It's a kind of runner's high, except you get to eat Cheetos while you're tripping.

I would sit at work and run through the facts and clues I missed in my head and tried to put them into picture situations so they could be easily remembered. I kept the dictionary next to my bed, on the arm of the sofa, next to my office desk and even on the tank above my toilet. If my shower caddy was big enough to hold it, I probably would have gotten a custom made poncho to go with it.

Other deadlines were still barreling towards me. I had to do four comedy sketches for a theater in Columbus, a Super Bowl feature in time for review and I desperately needed a shower, but they all got put on the back burner so I could go over my "potent potables," "sharp things" and "words that end in -ious." If I had a kid, this moment probably would end up in a therapist's file somewhere in the distant future.

By the time the test came, I was racing through checking my answers on one last practice test and found I had my highest score yet, 29 out of 50, which is just six away from passing the real thing. I don't know if my endeavor was enough to get a passing grade and frankly, I don't care. It felt good to have improved my brain in some small way, but it felt even better to go back to my normal life where a lack of showering is a sign that my life is in motion.