Attempt #2

My loyal readers (or those familiar with archival post search) will remember this post, in which I outlined my plan of action toward getting on Jeopardy. Although I think I did reasonably well on the test, they never called, which stank.

I didn't think much else about it until I saw a guy from Lexington on the show a month or two ago. He worked for the Herald-Leader and wrote a few columns detailing the more technical aspects of his appearance. Like me, his first contact with the show was via the online test. But what he said about his "callback" really caught my attention: he had almost missed it thanks to his spam filter. His e-mail identified the invitation to come to a real-life audition as junk and was ready to delete it until he noticed it at the last minute. So they didn't call him after all, they e-mailed him.

Now I'm not saying that I missed my invitation. The selection process is, after all, largely random, and I have heard of people indeed being called on the telephone. But, thanks to the wonders of caller ID and the dogged tenacity of those infernal telemarketers, I never answer my phone unless I recognize who it is. And until a few months ago my Hotmail account was set to automatically delete e-mails it interpreted as spam.

Needless to say, I have now amended my junk mail filtering process and check it regularly for things I might actually want. And as luck would have it, Jeopardy has another online test scheduled for tonight that I've been eyeing with an enlightened mind ever since I read those Herald-Leader stories.

So here we go for Jeopardy Attempt Mark Two. They limit you to one a year. Updates to follow...