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This Is Jeopardy!
(Read about the first half of my tape day in my previous post.) I smiled when Ken read the categories for the Jeopardy! round: WATER EVERYWHERE, BESTSELLING FICTION, EAT LIKE A BRIT, MOVIE TITLE ROLES, U.S. FESTIVALS, IT’S FROM THE… Continue reading
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Going on the Alex Trebek Stage
On January 6, 2025, I booked a flight to Los Angeles for my January 27 Jeopardy! taping. I gave myself a few extra days to adjust to the time difference and squeeze in the sightseeing I’d skipped on my last… Continue reading
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Buzzers and Blazers: How I Prepared for Jeopardy
When most people get The Call from Jeopardy!, they spend the next six weeks cramming. They memorize Best Picture winners, potent potable ingredients, and presidential terms. This may, at best, net you a few extra thousand dollars. To even get… Continue reading
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The Weird World of Competitive Quizzing
After my failure on Millionaire, I immersed myself in my career. Five years later, hoping to rekindle my love of trivia, I joined a pub quiz meetup in New York. There, the leader tried to explain women’s breasts and the… Continue reading
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Is That Your Final Answer?
Read part one of my Who Wants to Be a Millionaire saga here. “Welcome to Millionaire!” Meredith Vieira said. “At just twenty-three-years-old, today’s contestant grew up on Millionaire and is now living a dream by being here today. From Harrisburg,… Continue reading
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Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Me)
I was living the millennial dream in summer 2011: having graduated college without a job, I moved back to my parents’ house in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. By day, I waited tables at Applebee’s. By night, I belted out “Me and Bobby… Continue reading
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On Game Shows, Part I: Brain Busters
Why would you go on television and subject yourself to armchair contestants who mock your ignorance of English monarchs? What quixotic souls spend their free time combing through the infinite body of human knowledge, driven by the desire to know… Continue reading
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On Journals, Part III: Tales of a Teenage Model
By high school, I had migrated to an online journal. Although it largely served as a platform for my terrible, Sylvia Plath-inspired poetry, my Xanga also recorded the momentous occasions of my life in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Perhaps most memorably, I… Continue reading
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On Journals, Part II: The Story of the Stairs
As I grew older, I wrote in my journal sporadically, documenting the most anguished periods of my life. On July 12, 2002, I scrawled in desperate handwriting, “My home is now a monopoly. That means one person or company controls… Continue reading
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On Journals, Part I: The Great Book Theft
I have never been able to keep a journal. Over the years, I have opened the blank pages of books bound in leather, decorated in faux gold leaf, or patterned in the kind of iridescent paisley marketed at teenage girls… Continue reading
Kristen VanBloggin’ 