I'll take "Quoted Quotables" for $1000, Alex

Some of the quotables from today's Jeopardy! taping that I can remember (to be added to as I remember more):

Johnny Gilbert: The [raffle] is our way of thanking you for giving us your money--I mean, applause, for these last couple of shows.

Johnny: Alex Trebek will come crashing through that glass wall in the back there...it's a messy process, but we like to entertain you all.

Alex (during first break of first show): How many of you are still with us from this morning?

(some, including the contestants, raise their hands)

Alex (looking at contestants): Well, DUH!

Audience member: What do you like to do when you're not hosting Jeopardy!?

Alex: When I'm not filming Jeopardy!...I like to drink.

(audience laughter)

Alex: Diet Pepsi. (goes on)

My friend sitting next to me (while Alex is talking): WOOOOO DIET PEPSI!

Me: Do you ever get sick of the Jeopardy! think music?

Alex: Do I ever get sick of the Jeopardy! think music...no, I don't, I mentally block it out.

Audience member: Um--

Alex: Don't start a sentence with "um"!

Alex (after first break of second show, with Dracula accent): I feel as though I have seen some of you before.

(Johnny does a pickup of a contestant intro)

Said contestant, Raynell: (whispers) Thank you!

Alex: What'd he say the first time?

Raynell: Rah-nell. Should be Ray-nell.

Alex (in mock disgust): What's wrong with Rah-nell?

Audience member: How much of the Jeopardy! material do you personally know?

Alex: Oh, only about 96 percent.

(audience laughs)

Alex: (pats nose) Is it...yeah, it's getting longer.

Audience member: Have you ever met Pat Sajak and Vanna White?

Alex: Oh yes. Have you?

Audience member: No.

Alex: You haven't? Well, that makes me one-up on you, doesn't it?

(Outside studio, after taping. Alex is walking to his truck in jeans and a jacket.)

Alex: Now don't laugh!

Me: I've seen you in those kinds of clothes before, don't worry.

...He obviously forgot that I was a contestant seven years ago. But I wasn't expecting him to remember.

What is Deja Vu?

So I went to a taping of Jeopardy! today. And boy, were there a ton of memories from the last time I was there...seven years ago. Lots of "hey, that wasn't there the last time I was here..." Most notably, of course, was a giant poster of Alex and the Jeopardy! logo hanging outside the studio. As we passed through security I caught a glimpse of the Wheel of Fortune audience holding area, and inside I noticed a tribute poster to the late announcer, Charlie O'Donnell. Said something along the lines of, "The Wheel will keep turning, but the voice is forever silent." Rest his soul, Charlie O.

But anyway, back to Jeopardy!. The door to the green room, of course, still sits right in front of the door to the studio. Alex's podium from the old set, for whatever reason, sits right by said door. It appears they've turned part of the studio into a kind of museum of Jeopardy! history. Right across from Alex's old podium is a 3x3 bank of monitors playing various moments from Jeopardy!'s history. We were ushered in too quickly for me to take a good look at it, though I did notice some footage from the Art Fleming days being shown. And then there was a hallway between the green room entrance and the audience bleachers that I don't remember seeing before. Looked to have more press release photos and the like, though I couldn't get a good look at it.

We're ushered to our seats and I get a view of the new set. I remembered the set being smaller than it looks on TV, thanks to tricky camera angles and whatnot, but good grief, this set is TINY. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. To the left of the board are the cameras that catch the contestants, as well as a monitor where the video clues are displayed. Though this was a free-standing monitor and not one embedded into the wall like the old set was...looked a little sloppy back there. Anyway, above those are the score displays that the contestants see so they can track their scores throughout the game. They've changed them to LEDs instead of the clunky and noisy vane displays that bothered me throughout my appearance.

As it turns out, we're watching the last of the quarterfinal matches for the 2011 Teen Tournament. While I won't spoil any outcomes, I will say this: Trebek read a lot of answers, and contestants gave a lot of questions. Although since they are Teen matches, I won't get to brag to my roommates that I actually know all these answers when the shows air in February...since they probably also know them!

Sarah and Kelly from the Clue Crew were in attendance for this show, while Jimmy was, according to Alex, "at the bar across the street." Kelly corrected him and said something about a wedding that I didn't quite pick up.

I'll put together a list of quotables from this taping in another entry, but a few things that stuck out: Alex and Johnny are still as hilarious as I remember them from 7 years ago, and I actually spurred on Johnny's story about him flubbing a word during a cold commercial read for the original Price is Right with Bill Cullen. Alex messed up a couple of clues, but considering he only messed up 2 out of 122 he read for the afternoon, that's pretty damn good. Besides, it was pretty neat to watch the pro mess up every now and again.

Even better? I saw the man himself walk out of the studio to his truck, complete with golf cart security escort. He and I made eye contact, upon which he said "Now don't laugh!" (He was in a jacket and jeans at the time.) Reminded me of my very first encounter with him, when he threatened us with a banana. Luckily this time he was unarmed.

It's been a while.

Yes, I know this is my first post here in about two months. There's a reason for that.

Inspiration has been tough to come by, for one. That's the biggest thing. And when it does come, it comes at the weirdest (and often times most inconvenient) moments. Like now. As of the nanosecond this sentence was written, I am sitting in my print newswriting class, waiting for technical issues to resolve themselves.

I promised some of my Breakthrough compatriots a podcast after the program ended. So far, that hasn't even happened. I've recorded the text, sure. But I haven't dropped the quotes in there yet, and I haven't touched the recording in...oh, I don't know, two months?

That, and I've been up to a lot lately. I've been meaning to put up a set report from my visit to "Let's Make a Deal" last month, but haven't quite done that yet. Of course, the thought only occurred to me as I typed that sentence. So there.

Even worse, I have this horrible habit of starting to write things and finishing them much, much later. Call it lack of inspiration, call it laziness, call it whatever you want. But I don't like it. Any suggestions?

GSC: Week One Discussions

Over at my floor blog I am now publishing a weekly Game Show Challenge that my floormates (will hopefully) play, and this is their outlet to discuss the questions from that week.

'09-'10 denizens of BK4: discuss away.

Reflection on Summer

This is the last night in my own room for a long time.

But at least I won't be as sappy as I was last summer about it, now that I know what it's like. And besides, this summer was crazy good:

--I got a job, made a little money. I won't be flat broke when I go back to school. (Don't ask me to touch that check from that other little thing I did last January...that's for something bigger and better.)

--I made a difference in some kids' lives. As cliché as this sounds, it's probably true--teaching Korean, even though I myself am still learning, was a way to expose some kids to a culture they would otherwise not be exposed to. And even I learned something about myself in the process--although I may have seemed like a crotchety 42 year-old man with no soul, I still was deeply passionate about getting my point across.

--Made new friends, but kept the old. Well, a few of the old, in any event.

--I wrote my first good poem in a long while. (It was posted here, if you look back a couple of entries.) And I'm learning my first new classical piano piece in a long time...it's coming along alarmingly well, though we'll see when school starts.

--I could be good in the kitchen...if I only got off my lazy ass to get in the kitchen.

Most importantly to me, though...

--I saw people whom I haven't seen in years. No, this doesn't mean reconnecting over Facebook (though that's a nice surprise in and of itself, depending on who it is). I mean actual, face-to-face, heart-to-heart interaction. Yeah, I know, strange concept in this day and age, isn't it? There's something about actual physical contact, or sight, or whatever that emails definitely don't have, that Facebook tries to poorly replicate, that even pictures can't capture, but face-to-face, in-person encounters do. One person I saw, we were close friends when I used to live in Denver many, many, many, many years ago. We hadn't seen each other in FIFTEEN YEARS. Another person, I had kept in touch with lo these last two years. We hadn't seen each other for that amount of time, but it was a special reconnection for me. I just hate this impersonal barrier electronic communication sometimes raises--there are so many different vocal inflections that are lost over written text in an email. (Which is why I wanted to do podcasts to go along with my blog entries, but...that worked out really well, didn't it?)

But in short, it's been a wonderful, wonderful summer. Now I hope my brain isn't totally dysfunctional when I return to school.

BTNOLA, Come on Down!

Some photos from my recent game show short course at my summer job, where we played "The Price is Right" to wrap up the summer.

What pressure! What excitement!

Here's a happy contestant.

Playing a pricing game (for you PIR diehards out there, this was Money Game)

"Spinning" the Big Wheel

All lined up and raring to go in Contestants' Row!

In 140 Characters or Less:

I will never understand the appeal of #Twitter. #FB's status update gimmick can only go so far before it becomes repetitive. @Reader: Do yo

(Sorry, character limit cut me off.)

No, I'm not dead...

...just really, really busy, 'tis all. Haven't had much time to blog lately, and even then when I actually sit down to blog I don't have much inspiration. But I've got something good coming up in the next week--the first of the podcasts is in the works and coming soon! So stay tuned for that.

In the meantime:

--Mini-reunions are fun. Especially when they're totally unplanned until, literally, 8 or 9 hours beforehand.

--Getting inspiration to write is hard. Partially because (and this segues into my next point)...

--Finding time is even harder. We are such busy people in the world these days that we don't get to have little bits of time to ourselves.

--Podcasts are a pain to put together, I'm now remembering. Though the finished product is well worth it.

--More to come in the coming weeks...keep checking back!

Therapy, in 88 Keys

Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and Chopin

Are more than likely rolling in their graves

As I lay out the melodies by hand

A rocky road, my hands make way to pave.

Come forth, dear fingers, play what's on the page,

And calm thy soul with music to attend

To days where grief strikes in this day and age,

These painful hours, the music strives to end.

One strong chord here, the pain begins to ease

The angsty strife cloud parteth for the sun.

One triad there, my frustration doth cease,

The piece concludes, the therapy is done.

As fingers mine doth burn with my resolve

Frustration hence my ears doth now absolve.

Emotional Release

Let me get this out of the way right now.

I'm not one for crying buckets. I've felt depressed as hell, sure, but through the worst of it all not a single tear leaked out of my eye. I went something like four straight years without shedding a tear, once.

Well, stop the presses, here's some breaking news.

I actually cried, dammit. I cried, at my job, over something that happened six years ago and that still shakes me to the core today.

My summer job involves teaching middle school students, for the uninitiated. Each morning we have a little something called "Morning Inspiration", and a different person each day is responsible for bringing something in that inspires them to be who they are, to teach the way they do. At first I had thought about bringing in Taylor Mali's poem Miracle Workers, which I thought seemed like a reasonable choice--the man's a poet and a teacher, and we the teachers are supposed to work miracles for these kids. But what emotional impact did it have on me?

The short (and correct) answer: none at all.

Then my mind flitted to that Korean saying I have posted in my classroom, "Ha myeon dwen da" (you can accomplish anything). I threw that out soon after, remembering how much my tae kwon do instructor used that phrase (and subsequently how irritating it got for me).

But then it hit me like a ton of bricks--the little voice in my head smacked me and shouted, "Hey, stupid, your grandpa wrote a freakin' book. Surely that counts for something!"

Sure as hell does.

The book, which was originally written in Korean, is titled (roughly translated) to "Do You Know What it Means to Fight For My Country?" It tells of my grandfather's experiences joining the Korean army at the age of 19, as well as actually fighting in the Korean War in the early '50s against impossible odds. I still can't read it, since I don't know enough Korean, but this is what my dad tells me.

But what inspired me so much about this book was this last bit: he fought, won, and lived to tell the tale 50 years later against impossible odds. My class is a pretty impossible group to manage--to teach some of them anything at all would be a pretty tall order. And my little blurb was that, if HE could triumph against impossible odds, so could we.

And then the floodgates opened.

This book was published only two months after my grandfather passed away 6 years ago on July 4, 2004.

Since that day, I've graduated high school, completed my first year of college, been in an a cappella group, played an incredibly difficult piano piece, performed in a couple of plays, and made a few thousand on another game show. I've also grown by half a foot and gone from a soprano to a bass in a couple of years.

Six years have passed, and all these things have happened. My grandfather was not present for a single one of them.

And it was all because of a fucking bike accident.

Sure, I cried a river at the funeral. But after that I never cried at all, not for four years straight. The time I finally snapped was at an acting camp--I suppose we were all being overdramatic about things, but knowing that I wouldn't be back to some amazing place ever again saddened me deeply. Grandpa got no tears from me for a long time. At least, until today.

Some people say they've "had a good cry" when they emerge from the bathroom, eyes puffy and nose clogged. For that time in between my crying spells--let's call it my "tear drought"--I could never understand how a crying session could be "good."

It's an emotional release. I've had many pent-up emotions over the years--times I wished I was able to cry, but never did--that my tears from today finally flushed out. It was these moments, these moments where others were crying when I wasn't, that made me feel less human. Was I just a stonefaced sonuvabitch who couldn't care less about your fucking problems and sob stories? Did I need the Tin Man to sell me a damn heart?

Well, no. At least I can make it rain, and let the plants grow in its wake.

And they call this Iron Chef?

I've become a bit of a foodie over the years, and I've only got one program to thank for that. In the Food Network's glory days, they played a bunch of good shows: Emeril Live, Good Eats, some program with Mario Batali, and then...this one.

It's the original Japanese version of "Iron Chef". Instead of doing things a normal fifth-grader at the time would (which, at this point, I still don't know what a normal fifth-grader would do), I religiously watched Iron Chef at--I think it was 10 pm on weekends? Somethin' like that--I remember it came on late (for a fifth-grader) at the time.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, here's how it works:

"Both the Iron Chef and challenger have one hour to tackle the theme ingredient of the day; using all their senses, skills, creativity--they're to prepare artistic dishes never tasted before."

These dishes, then, are judged accordingly by a panel of discerning tongues, and the winner will receive the people's ovation and fame forever. No word on whatever happens to the loser, although some have returned for grudge matches on occasion.

A new version of Iron Chef debuted in the UK this past month, which is heavily derivative of the highly successful Iron Chef America that's been running strong since 2004. But to call this version "Iron Chef" is like calling Korean and Japanese the same language. It's really not.

At its very core, Iron Chef UK (as it's called across the pond) is still the same as its predecessors: an Iron Chef takes on a challenging chef, both of whom need to use a certain "theme ingredient" in each of their dishes. But here's where it differs the most (and, frankly, where it becomes difficult to follow): instead of just one challenger, the Iron Chef takes on a team of four. Each of these four prepares one dish each--two starters, two mains--while the Iron Chef makes all four in the same amount of time. In addition, the starters are judged halfway through the battle, leaving the mains for the end.

Rather than being judged on the meal as a whole, as is the case with the Japanese Iron Chef and its American counterpart, the chefs are evaluated dish-by-dish. This actually isn't a bad idea when the challengers are working as a team, because then you know exactly who to point the finger at when you lose. On the other hand, when it is a Friday Final (more on that in a minute), it's a terrible idea--one dish could, theoretically, take you completely down. At least if all your dishes are judged in one cohesive unit, you have a little less to lose if you totally screw up one dish.

That's not all: the team of challengers are also competing against each other. The chef who scores the highest on his or her dish is awarded a "Dish of the Day" star. After four battles, the one who has the most stars takes on the strongest Iron Chef from that week one-on-one for a £1,000 prize in what's called a "Friday Final". As of this writing, only one challenger has beaten an Iron Chef for the money.

Now here comes my little rant about it. The presentation, for which both the American and Japanese incarnations have become famous, is surprisingly lacking for a program that calls itself "Iron Chef". Kitchen Stadium UK is even more dark and uninviting than the American Stadium is, and the layout is...well, I would've said excessive, but as I think of it more it works better with their format. I was about to say, "They don't need that third kitchen," but actually, yeah they do...two for the challengers, one for the Iron Chef.

While we're on the subject of the format, I don't like it. It's not entirely clear how much time they actually have, and even though they make time calls, they're very inconsistent about it. In the premiere episode, the only time call I ever heard was the one saying that five minutes were gone. In another, they only counted down the last minute. How much time do the chefs actually have? The world may never know...

In addition, the judging presentation is rather sloppy. There are only two judges, and they both are standing (standing, mind you) at the table with announcer Olly Smith and the chef under the microscope. It's a little distracting, for one, to have them judge the starters while the battle isn't exactly over. And two, they both pick off the same plate! I don't know about you reading now, but something about that rubs me the wrong way. Usually the Chairman tastes along with them, but he's nowhere to be found until the end of the show! Isn't HE the one who is in pursuit of these new artistic creations? It's logical that he should be there, right?

A lot of the appeal of the original Iron Chef was seeing the qualifications of the challenger, what made him worthy to take on an Iron Chef, who was always hyped up as somewhat of a culinary god. Sometimes it even provided some relevant (and sometimes even hilarious) backstory--any battle involving Toshiro Kandagawa comes to mind here. But here on Iron Chef UK, the challengers' last names aren't even mentioned. The most biographical information we ever get out of them is a small little audio clip that plays at the very beginning, and even that doesn't reveal much. For all we know, these could be any old so-called chefs the talent coordinators pulled off the streets! So I'm not really compelled to root for any of the challengers.

As for the Iron Chefs, I will admit that they all look badass. I'm particularly afraid of Martin Blunos if only because of his shaggy long hair and his crazy mustache and beard. (Although when you later find out that he's the only Iron Chef that has lost, the intimidation factor goes down a bit.) So we've got, if we go by the original system of calling them "Iron Chef (nationality)"...

--Iron Chef Indian, Sanjay Dwivedi

--Iron Chef British, Tom Aikens

--Iron Chef Korean, Judy Joo

--Iron Chef Russian (/Latvian?), Martin Blunos

An interesting mix, to say the least. Two European, two Asian, as was the case on Iron Chef Japan. Of note--Judy Joo is only the second woman to hold the position of Iron Chef anywhere in the world. I wonder how she'd fare against Cat Cora, in the original format...

Olly Smith and Nick Nairn are your British equivalents of Fukui and Hattori from the Japanese show. Actually, Olly takes on a role hybridizing Fukui and Ohta, which I think gets a little distracting--not to mention he actually goes into the kitchen and interrogates! Not even Kevin Brauch does that. Olly in general hams things up way too much, to a point where it becomes too painful to listen to him. The Chairman's supposed to be the ham, not the announcer.

And speaking of the Chairman (one Eizo Tomita), he's terrible. At first I thought Mark Dacascos (the Chairman on Iron Chef America) was cringe-worthy, but now he's gotten to a point where his reveals are almost as hilarious as Chairman Kaga's. Chairman Tomita, on the other hand, lacks the punch that is necessary to present the program. His ingredient reveals sometimes make absolutely no sense (Battle Pork), are laughably bad (Battles Chicken and Squid), or are even offensive (Battle Cheese).

In short, consider yourself lucky if you haven't been subjected to this trainwreck that doesn't deserve the name of "Iron Chef". It's certainly an hour of your life you'll want, but never get, back.

A la línea de las cifras...

...¡baja, y atínale al precio!

For those who know me well, this is already an established fact, but for those of you who are new to my little universe, I am an obsessive game show fan. Kinda tough not to be, considering I grew up watching Jeopardy! and Wheel (Price here and there). I've even been on Jeopardy! and Price and have won a considerable amount between the two shows.

I recently discovered that Mexico rebooted its version of "The Price is Right" last month. The original version lasted from 1997 to 2001 with popular TV host Marco Antonio Regíl, who could quite easily be the Mexican Bob Barker.

The new version came back last month--Marco is back (and still as damned good of a host as ever), the set is (a little too) flashy, and the contestants are still crazy. I thought American contestants were about to snap poor ol' Barker in half--they've got nothing on these Mexican contestants. They've mauled Marco so much, even wrestling him to the floor on occasion. And I mean to the floor--flat on his back on the floor. Of course, Barker's now 86 and Marco's...what, half that?

Now that I've seen full episodes on YouTube, I am hooked. Of course, the only gripe I have is the new way the Showcase (or, as they call it, "El Gran Paquete") is done, but that's still a minor gripe for an otherwise fantastic show. The energy is high, the prizes (while considerably cheaper than those on the American show) are very much sought-after, and the talent is amazing. There's nothing more thrilling than hearing Julio César Palomera belt out that a contestant can win "¡UN AUUUUUUTOOOOOOOO!" or "HASTA CIEN MIL PESOS JUGANDO PLINKO!"

There aren't that many foreign game shows that I like--my list is limited exclusively to UK Deal or No Deal, Japanese Millionaire, Russian and Hong Kong Russian Roulette, and--now--Atínale al Precio.

Drew Carey, you'd better watch your back.

Look out, Internet!

Now I'm not just a regular contributor to my floor blog anymore, I have my own blog with which to plague the Internet with my thoughts!

What spurred this, anyway? Down the line, I figure, since I've done podcasts, if I'm in a podcastin' mood I want a place to house them all in case my hard drive goes haywire. (Let's not forget that the podcasts I've done so far haven't been made available at all.) And I might as well put what skills I remember from my web design class last semester to good use, while I'm at it...

Anyway, you can expect to hear my voice somewhere down the line (once I find the time and a nice, quiet room to record in). Who knows, maybe you'll see some other surprises along the way! For now I've gotta pack...just two days left before I have to move out of my dorm! (End of the year kinda snuck up on me, but whatever, I'll take it.)

Who? WOO, that's who.