July 03, 2006

Blessedly back to my nerd roots

I realize that it has been a woefully long time since I last posted about anything nerdy, which apparently is the whole reason for having this blog in the first place. Allow me to rectify that by commenting on the King of All Nerd Blogs, Confessions of a Trivial Mind, the blog written by Ken "Personification of the Nerd Dream Life" Jennings. For those of you with an active social life, Ken Jennings was the pop culture Jeopardy! phenom (yep, that's "pop culture" and "Jeopardy!" in the same phrase) who was the first to make good use of a rules change stating that champions could stay on the show long after the previous five-game limit. Ken went on to win app. $2.5 MILLION dollars (please note the cliched pinky inflection in MILLION), averaging about $34,000 per episode.

So, in yet another way to use trivia to create financial gain (which makes, by my count, two possibilities in the entire universe), he's a writing a book about the history of trivia, titled Brainiac, and is making sure that you can find the link to his book by shamelessly providing the link at any chance that he gets. Who knows -- maybe that type of marketing will catch on.

I admire and envy Ken for many reasons, but mostly because for the past year or so he has lived the life I would love to live -- travel around the country to learn more about the lives of trivia buffs. As an avid and admitted trivia buff (to the extent that houseguests and Meagan run in fear whenever I mention breaking out the Trivial Pursuit board), as well as an aspiring writer hoping to take this hobby to the next level at some point in the future, this is the perfect hybrid of two things that I rather enjoy. In the book, he meets the writers of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, witnesses college quiz bowl competitions, and goes in-depth into what apprently is a surprisingly deep trivial universe.

I would love to have written this book, but really, there's probably not anyone better than Ken to write it. Not only is he the world's best known trivia buff, but he also seems to be extraordinarily likable, not coming off as full-of-himself or even overly awkward on camera as other long-running Jeopardy! champions typically were after his reign. I'd still love to do something along the lines of this book, but examining high school Quiz Bowl teams. I can actually see myself interviewing coaches from public, private, and home-schooled teams to see the different takes on what the team should be, as well as digging deeper into nationally recognized powerhouses like Irmo, SC. It think would end up being a lot like Spellbound, only with acne, teenage angst, and Dungeons & Dragons. Ah, yes -- those were the days.

But, until I win those millions of dollars on a game show, I'll keep writing in here. The fun thing is, though, that I've been noticed by a premier source of nerd-dom -- video game marketing!! That's right; in the next few weeks, right here in this very blog, I'll be reviewing Capcom's newest compilation release, Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, which brings back college ladder tournament memories just writing the title, and I haven't even received the game yet. We'll make this a nerd-blog yet!

In other news, Meagan and I have ventured into one of the last remaining grown-up realms -- home ownership! We closed on a house on the west side of town, closer to work for both of us, along with a big yard for our four-legged monster. We've taken pictures and will post them (along with details of how the home improvement is going) in later posts. We're lucky that we've got a month to move all of our stuff thanks to our apartment lease not being up until the end of this month, but that just gives us the chance to spend more money (i.e. better furniture and new carpet, both of which we'll be looking for in the next few days).

But for now, enjoy reading about Ken, his book, and upcoming additions to this blog. Hope your week is as an enjoyable (if less hectic) than ours promises to be!

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