Jeopardy! or...Shakespeare sucks

Well, after 10 years, I finally did it: I tried again to get on "Jeopardy!".


The last time I tried, I didn't get on, but I did get invited by them to appear on Inquizition, the Sci Fi Channel's version of "Jeopardy!". Why does the internet say that Inquizition was on the Game Show Network? Hmph. Whatever. Bottom line is that I won first place, there, and used the money to go birding in Canada, eh.

My friends saw that episode, but I never did.

Back then, the way you tried out for "Jeopardy!" was to show up in person at the Sony Paramount Studio in Culver City, and take the written test. I wore a suit & tie.
Now they have this thing called the internet, so the way to try to get on Jeopardy is to take their on-line test. Knowing that I had to park my ass in a chair, and seriously study because of today's deadline was good. I needed that kind of pressure.

What I studied to get onto "Jeopardy!"

1. United States capitals

2. Canadian Capitals

3. the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, & Lithuania. Oh, and you need to know their capital cities.

4. British monarchs: you need to know the difference between Edward VIIth and Edward the VIIIth.

5. Henry VIIIth's wives: (a) their names, (b) who lost their heads, (c) who he divorced, (c) who died horizontally.

6. the Great Lakes

7. United Stats presidents

8. the Civil War

9. the War of the Roses (the Lancasters vs the Yorks)

10. Shakespeare


Oh shit, Shakespeare.

Here's the deal: the people who run "Jeopardy!" looooove Shakespeare's plays. If you don't know the plots and characters of all of his his plays, don't bother to audition. Period. All of them. Period.
So tonight, despite the fact that I have been studying Shakespeare's plays, they got me with Banquo. Shit, they nailed me.

I hate Shakespeare

Okay, here's the deal: the Tragedies? Good stuff. Hamlet? Strong shit. Did my uncle kill my dad so that he can become king, and sleep with my mom? Is my mom in on it? Amazing.  But the comedies? Gag me with a thesaurus. Shakespeare's comedies are way the hell too complicated.
And contrived.
And confusing.
Shakespeare was so lazy that he just used the same names over and over again in various plays, and these characters were not the same character. He's got guys named Antonio and Bassianus and Bassiano all over the damn place.

So...did I get onto "Jeopardy!"? Honestly, I have no idea. I don't feel too good about my score. But then again, when I took my board exam in Nuclear Medicine, I was worried that I had failed, and I got 94%.

They don't tell you your score. I just sat there, staring at my computer screen, and their web site informed me that nobody ever gets told their score, and that even if I got a passing grade, I would have to get selected randomly among those who passed the test, then drive in to Culver City for a written test, an on-camera fake Jeopardy game, and an interview to make sure I don't come across on camera like a pervert with a criminal record.

Chattanooga, day 5: Tornado Day

Well, things aren't working out as I expected.

I'm trying to go home to L.A., but I'm not doing do a very good job.
Tornados within Hamilton County (the greater Chattanooga area) closed the airport.
We had to go back to the hotel that we had checked out of, this morning, and get new rooms.

So I took a 4 mile walk while black clouds gathered overhead.  There aren't all that many Confederate flags around, these days.  And that's a good thing.
Actually, Tennessee has been rather cosmopolitan and sophisticated.  I have a couple of ideas as to why:
1) According to Wikipedia, 20% of Tennesssee's residents are from outside The South.
2) Whenever you get any group of people isolated from the outside, world, things get ugly.  Modern Southerners travel the country, and the world, and bring new ideas and viewpoints home.  The South isn't the same place it was in the 1980s when I was in the Army, down here. 

The only Cardinals I saw, today.

By the time I was getting close to my hotel, the lightning was shooting sideways, with one bolt that struck the ground not too far away.  This lady with her 2 little girls in the car offered me a ride to safety.  I thanked her, and asked how much further it was to my hotel.  She insisted that I hop in.  Her two kids sat in the back of what was some sort of over-sized American car from the 80s.  They were like my kids: one was the friendly, outgoing one, while the other eyed me suspiciously.  I explained to them that I was really unhappy about not being home in L.A. tonight, since it's my son's birthday.

So I hopped out of the car, and walked into the lobby.  I told Rebecca, the porter, that I had just walked the 4 miles I had planned with her.  She indignantly drawled, "No, ya'll didna!  Ya'll just got outtava cah!"

My eyes bulged, and I stuttered, "No! Really!  I...er...just..."

Chattanooga, day 4

Thursday Morning

Class is killing me.  It's killing all of us.  Flying 2,000 miles east, and taking a hard class while our bodies deal with the 3 hour difference between the Pacific Time Zone and Eastern Time (why isn't it called the Atlantic Time Zone???) is too much.

Blue Jay

Once again, these guys do not occur in California (except for that one vagrant that showed up in Chico, this winter)!

female Red-bellied Woodpecker

Look!  They actually have red bellies!

After class, Marty Paige picked me up.  On the way to his house in the countryside we passed the Volkswagen factory, where they make the Passat.

The Wild Turkeys wanted nothing to do with me.

Neither did the Black Vulture that disappeared over the hill.

Marty was amused by the wimpy recording of Barred Owl on my cell phone, so he got his wife Janet to play Barred Owl calls on their boom box.

While they cranked up the stereo, the Field Sparrow in his yard was another lifebird.  Also seen: Northern Cardinals, Eastern Bluebirds, Common Grackles, White-throated Sparrows, Red-winged Blackbirds, Mourning Doves, and Carolina Chickadees.

Wow!  Barred Owl!

Very cool.

Now the only North American owl that I haven't seen is the Northern Hawk Owl.  Shhh!  Don't tell my wife!

Tennessee, day 3

Classroom Humor

Doc explains and explains and explains...

...until Glenn flashes his gold Rolex at us.

Why is this man smiling?

Ignore the fact that I am holding my M-4 improperly. I did that on purpose for this picture.

Because that's damn funny!

After class, I walked down Prater Road, and crossed over the border into Lakeview, Chickamauga County, Georgia.


Georgia.

The Peach State.

Where Leland B. Haraszthy M.D. was born.

Who?

Leland and I went to SOTE together in the 1980s, back when the Communists were still in power in Hungary.  Leland's dad was both a medical doctor and a Baptist minister.  Needless to say, Leland has all kinds of hangups about women, booze, and tobacco.  He is a very unhappy man.
Leland stopped talking to me 10 years ago after he wrote an email that was really bad.  He's really into astronomy, so he wrote me an email about how Mars is at its closest that it's been in the 6,000 year history of Earth.  I fired back an indignant reply that if he's a medical doctor who is licensed to treat human beings, I can't believe that he's so ignorant of basic science that he believes all of that fundamentalist baloney where they think that Genesis is a factual history of the world i.e. the world was created in 6 days.
Leland hasn't spoken to me, since.
I'm sorry that I lost him as a friend, but if you can't tell a friend that you disagree with their belief system, then there's a problem.

Tennessee day 2

Notice the writing in the Cherokee language.

This cemetery is in a town called Brainerd that got gobbled up by the expansion of Chattanooga.  Now the cemetery is surrounded by asphalt.  It is in the middle of a gigantic parking lot for the shopping center and office complex.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

They are annoyingly uncooperative.  This is as close as I could get.  I chased her in circles around the cemetery.

Gravestone of Chief John Ross' grandmother.

This is what the Brainerd Cemetery looks like from all sides.

Tuesday afternoon

Chester Frost State Park

Marty Paige picked me up after class, and took me to Chester Frost State Park, where I got 2 new life birds: Red-headed Woodpecker, and Eastern Towhee.  Other birds seen here:

Great Blue Herons

Cooper's Hawk

Pied-billed Grebes

Buffleheads

Mallards

Ring-necked Ducks

Canada Geese

Ring-billed Gulls

Belted Kingfisher

Red-bellied Woodpeckers

Downy Woodpecker

Tufted Titmouses

Northern Mockingbirds

Northern Cardinals

Eastern Bluebirds

Cedar Waxwings

PineWarbler

Common Grackles

Blue Jays

American Crows

Red-winged Blackbirds

White-throated Sparrows

White-breasted Nuthatch

Carolina Chickadees

Carolina Wrens

House Finches

Chattanooga, Tennessee: day 1

So far, Tennessee has been disappointing: I have yet to see anyone in overalls, or hear banjo music.

Hm...I'm not the first Omega fan in Chattanooga!

Well, that landing in Chicago was interesting.  Now I know whay they call it The Windy City.  I didn't know that the Boeing 757 was designed to land sideways.

"We're safe.  I've locked the trunk. Tom can't get out!"

I was supposed to get up early, today, and bird the back streets behind the hotel before we went to class, but my alarm clock never went off, and my boss woke me up at 07:30 (!). During our lunch break I found two life birds in the parking lot behind Popeye's Fried Chicken: a Carolina Wren (they seem larger, and longer-billed than our Bewick's Wrens) and Carolina Chickadee (beautiful colors).

Carolina Chickadee, Poecile carolinensis

A very nice lady named Carol Fegarido picked me up, and took me to her backyard feeders,

where I photographed House Finches, Chipping Sparrows, Cardinals, more Carolina Chickadees,

Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis 

White-breasted Nuthatches, Slate-colored i.e. Dark-eyed Juncos (our common Junco in California is the Oregon Junco), Downy Woodpeckers, and another lifebird: Brown-headed Nuthatch.

Seen, but not photographed were Red-bellied Woodpeckers and lots of Robins.

Pine Warbler

We then went to Standifer Gap Marsh, where I heard--but did not see--Eastern Meadowlarks. They don't sound like the Eastern Meadowlarks in Arizona (the lillianae that may or may not eventually get slpit off into a separate species one day). There were Brown-headed Cowbirds, Red-winged Blackbirds, and a couple of Canada Geese, but no Rusty Blackbirds or Common Grackles.

Then at dusk her friend Susan drove us to Camp Jordan where they saw an American Woodcock while I was staring in the wrong direction.

It was darker than this when the Woodcock flew over the field, and landed in the forest.

That area is around 1 mile on foot from my hotel, so I plan on walking over there, tomorrow afternoon, unless it is raining. I am going to use your info to look for Eastern Towhees, tomorrow, before the rain arrives (the TV weatherman says maybe light rain around 7:00 p.m.)

American Red Squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus

These guys are native to the eastern U.S.  They have a relative in the Mountain West called the Douglas Squirrel

Tanagers in Gonzales Park, Compton

Hi there! 

 I'm a Summer Tanager spending the winter in L.A.!

No pictures, please!  I am but a humble Hepatic Tanager.



By April, I'll be a pretty boy!

...And I'll still look like this.  Oh, bother.