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When I was in college I watched a lot of television. In fact, my college roommate has hidden camera video footage of me watching television, just mindlessly clicking away on the remote, barely even registering what it is I'm watching. (Although, his presentation is taken way out of context and a bit unfair. But I can laugh about it now. After all, I wasn't the one suffering for his art like he was.) And, to be perfectly honest, years later, much hasn't changed. I have finally learned to turn off the TV if I'm not going to actively watch it but I still watch it a lot. But now I'm getting off track.

I went to Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, IL. There's only one reason to mention that specifically, which I will get to in a minute. But really, I could just say that I went to a nameless college in the middle of a cornfield where I learned, 5 years later, that I really hadn't learned anything about getting by in the world. And, would you believe that I haven't been back since I graduated? It's true.

So, since my roommate and I had different class schedules, there would be times when I would come back to the apartment before he did. And sometimes I would do my homework but, more often than not, I would watch TV. Generally, there really wasn't much on, just a bunch of day-time talk shows, daytime "entertainment news" shows, and local news. So, I would be mindlessly flipping through channels. Until Jeopardy came on. I've always liked Jeopardy, even if I hardly knew most of the answers. It's entertaining, it's challenging - it's just fine quality programming. And, so, I'd come home and watch Jeopardy.

Now, one of the things about DeKalb is that you could receive the television signals from Rockford and Chicago. I know that doesn't really say much about DeKalb, but what can I say? That's pretty much what I took back from my 5 years in school. Get over it. (Actually, that's not true at all. In an effort to be humorous, I think my presentation of college is a bit out of context and rather unfair. Back to the story.)

If I remember correctly, the show would come on at 4:00 pm. from the Rockford station and then the Chicago broadcast would be at 4:30. I quickly discovered that it would be the exact same show. And so my cunning plan was hatched. My roommate got back from classes around 4:30, so he wasn't aware (and, surely, didn't care) about Jeopardy broadcast times. So, after watching the first show, I would try to remember as many correct answers as I could, and then when my roommate arrived, I would "decide" to watch Jeopardy (again). And, wouldn't you know it, I was just dominating that game! More importantly, my roommate was actually impressed. A-Ha! My cunning plan worked! And, so I told him the truth. I didn't stretch it out into weeks of amazement at my grand intellect. No, it was about 10 minutes of playing and then I told him the truth and we got on with our lives. And I can look back and laugh about it now and realize that, ultimately, Yes, it was silly and pointless but still fun.

So, that's my Jeopardy story. Silly and pointless. That is to say, the complete opposite of Bob Harris's book Prisoner of Trebekistan. That's right! An honest-to-God book review. Bet you never saw that coming!

I've known of Bob Harris for a while now because of his blog. As someone fascinated by politics, I tend to read a lot of political blogs. His site was linked to from another blog and, suddenly, I was hooked. There are all sorts of political blogs out there, each with their own unique niche; some focus on policy, some focus on the media, etc. And though I'm not doing it any justice, I guess, Bob's take is that of plain common sense. Ultimately coming down to "X is the sane and rational thing that decent people do. Let's do more of X." Also, there are pudus. The point is, I became a regular reader.

Another thing about Bob Harris is that he's pretty smart. Jeopardy-champion level smart. Literally. And, he went ahead and wrote a book all about his time on Jeopardy and all the bits of life that happened in and around and before and after that time.

I can tell you this:

1. I bought the book yesterday afternoon. I finished this afternoon.
2. There's at least one funny thing on damn near every single page.
   
3. On at least three occasions, I was actually holding my breath in anticipation and trying to read faster to see what will happen next.
4. On three occasions, I had to put the book down and walk away because of the tears welling up in my eyes. Once out of sadness, once out of joy and once for reasons that I can't quite articulate
5. I will never forget the works of E.M. Forster for as long as I live.
6. It's amazing what your brain can recall in under 12 seconds, whether it's obscure facts or all the ways your life isn't going the way you had hoped.
   

I don't know Bob Harris, or any of the people he writes about, but it sure felt like I did. And the fact that he can create this amazing roller coaster of a story and keep you reading and wanting more is a testament to how good this book is.

Update: Though this post is dated 5:00 pm, that's actually when I started writing it. It didn't get posted until a little before 10:00 pm. Afterwards, my wife and I watched Battlestar Galactica(!) and then went to bed. Lying there, she said to me:

Her: So, how was your little book about Alex Trebek?
Me: What? No. No no no.

So, just to make this clear, this is NOT a book about Jeopardy!. Ignore the title. Ignore half the pages in it (well, don't really. read them all). This is not a book about Jeopardy!. And to all those Amazon reviews who seem to think that all this is is a great study guide for being on Jeopardy!, I'm not even sure we read the same book!

No, It's actually about all the amazing, scary, exciting, unfair, mundane and triumphant moments in your life (and they're there, even if you're not aware of them). That's what this book is about. In Bob Harris's case, there just happened to be this game show...

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