I have a Jeopardy audition tomorrow. When you get an invitation to audition, they include an “information sheet” that you have to fill out, with five blank spaces to write interesting facts about you so they have something to ask you about when they do the mini-interviews during the mock game (and also so they can pick interesting people to actually call to be on the show).
I’ve been sitting here for half an hour with the paper blank because I can’t think of anything interesting about myself to write down. I am SO freakin’ boring!
Yeah, I’ve often thought that if I ever made it on to Jeopardy!, I probably couldn’t come up with five interesting stories or factoids about myself. And of course now there is no five-time champ limit. What the heck did Ken Jennings talk about towards the end of his run?
I had the hardest damned time with that. My mom called all her friends to think of stuff, and we finally came up with a pretty good five, but yeah, I kind of felt the same way. How boring am I, seriously, that I can’t think of five interesting things about myself?
My advice to people wanting to go on the show has always been, “pick up a wacky hobby now.” At the time I was on the show, I was a tap-dancing puzzle editor who was also the author of the first scholarly study of Jonestown.
jayjay, honey – can you come up with some kind of statistical twist to your knitting? Like, “I’ve knit 473 pairs of socks!”
Also, what about the rabbit – any cute stories there?
Any ridiculous celebrity sighting/run-in you’ve had? (“I ran into Will Farrell, who mistook me for Burt Reynolds, and we had a ‘Celebrity Jeopardy’ moment.”)
What about going on a vacation and had something very out of the ordinary happen? (“I was backpacking Europe, and bought a train ticket to Barcelona. When I woke up, I was in Barcelona, Sicily!”)
Do you volunteer anywhere? (“I’ve volunteered for ‘Dress for Success’ for three years, providing over 500 suits for interviews for the less-fortunate.”)
You could go to any city in the U.S., and several around the world, and have a dinner thrown in your honor. (You may want to omit the term “dopefest”.)
Do you live in fear of the day you all have to cross a river with a small rowboat?
Good luck. I thought I came up with a pretty good five for my interview.
Near death experiences?
Unusual collection?
“Worst Nightmare” that came true? You know, I’ve always dreaded that xxxxxx would happen and this is what happened when it did…
Psychic experience?
No hobby at all?
Teach a class in anything?
Six degrees of Kevin Bacon? Come on, I’m convinced EVERYONE on the planet is six degrees from him… I’m a nobody and I’m 3 or 4 degrees–a couple of different ways actually.
Interesting job?
Well, when you’re done making up things for Jayjay, could you come up with one or two for me, please? I think I have three, but they’re going to take some pretty good wording to sound anything but stupid. He can have the first ones, though, since I don’t need them until Saturday. I have been thinking about them for a month or more now, and I still don’t have five.
I’m hoping a roomful of UFOs (UnFinished Objects) will sound better than, “I start things and just don’t get them done.”
You can’t be any more boring then some lady a few years ago whose bit was that she had a cat with a pretty good sense of timing. (it apparently jumped up on the table a lot) Her second Boring Bit was that she enjoyed writing letters back and fourth to people about the most inane stuff ever.
Since that contestant, I have added " They’re so boring they don’t even have a cat with a pretty good sense of timing" to my lexicon.
There was a lady in the Tournament of Champions who had evidently in one of her initial appearances told that she had redecorated her house and then realized she’d accidentally done it matching her cat. Then on the ToC she said she’d gotten hundreds of letters from people with houses matching cats.
How do I apply?