Over the last few years, I’ve consumed a lot of the small subgenre of online writing that is Jeopardy! contestant narratives. Josh Fruhlinger, the writer of the indispensable Comics Curmudgeon blog, observes in his own writeup, “There seems to be some kind of rule that if you go on Jeopardy, you write about it on the Internet.”  Thank goodness for that; I might never have ended up on the show at all except that when I got serious about trying to get on, I wanted, like any other nerd, to read about the experience before having it.  Now I’ve had it, so, if you want to, you can read about mine.

I’m going to do this in a series of short (I think) blog posts leading up to the beginning of the 2017 Teachers Tournament, a month from now, and running through the tournament itself, May 8-19.  I won’t be able to talk about game specifics until after the tournament games air, but it feels as if I have plenty to talk about before then.  My family, friends, and colleagues could certainly tell you that I had a lot to say about the experience of preparing for the show long before I ever got to the studio.  In fact, some of them might be enjoying the respite from Jeopardy! prep talk that has ensued since I got back from taping.  (The ones who attended the taping, however, get to hear me rehashing the experience, something that probably won’t stop for a while.)

So, please, follow along.