Over the years I've gotten a lot more educated and can answer a lot of the questions. Sometimes I can get downright cocky about it. So this past week I did something I've always wanted to do.....I took the Jeopardy online test. Here's the bottom line. 50 questions, 15 seconds per question, no going back, no pausing. Here's what I learned. Holy crap, 15 seconds is a terribly short amount of time to read a question, process it, and type in the answer. Needless to say, in that 15 minute test, I became much less cocky about my base of knowledge. I'd say, on about half the questions I was completely clueless, like the kind of clueless where you can't even make a guess because you don't even know what the question is asking for (see Cliff Claven and "who are 3 people who have never been in my kitchen"). Out of the remaining questions, there were some that I was positive about, and a bunch that I couldn't get the correct answer in before my time ran out. All this being said, despite the failure, I'll definitely do it again. It takes 15 minutes, why not?
I've always had a suspicion that the categories on the show are selected somewhat randomly, but that there is some attempt to include categories that correspond to contestants' strengths. Assuming this is true, and I could expect categories like Marine Biology, NFL Teams, 80's Movies, and Southern Food, I would be rockin' it like Ken Jennings (Google him if you don't know). Unfortunately, it's much more likely that I'd be saddled with Ballet, 18th Century French Literature, Opera, and Icelandic History. Point is, you're not likely to see me on Jeopardy, ever. But I'm pretty good from my couch. Plus, it's pretty fun to try something different, even if it's a longshot. Good luck to all of you with your own personal longshots (whatever they happen to be) in 2012.
