Next month, I'll be attending the UNITY Convention in DC (hopefully I'll get to see a bunch of DC-based people while I'm in town as well). One of the highlights is the AAJA Scholarship Banquet, which recently announced its special guests. I think you can guess who I'm most excited to see.

One milllllllion dollars!
As mentioned before, here's the article my friend Rodney wrote in the AJC about the Ken Jennings phenomenon. It actually looks a lot better in the paper because the article included a graphic of six of the Final Jeopardy clues during his run. And as for his breaking the $1 million mark -- it was a tad anticlimactic since he got the question wrong (although I got it right sitting at home) -- but entering Final Jeopardy with $46,000 is absolutely ridiculous.

This now means I know of three people with quizbowl connections who have broken $1 million on game shows. And to think, I was kidding around on my Weakest Link application that I wanted to use the money I might've won on creating a program that helped feed contestants to different game shows -- I guess we've already had it to begin with.

Speaking of Weakest Link, BBC America is now showing the British version of the game. There was a share of British-centric questions (what county or country some lesser-known landmarks are located, some British TV shows, a few rugby and cricket rules questions), but there also was a surprising abundance of U.S. geography and movie questions. It will still be a challenge for any American playing along, but you'd be surprised how well you could do.

VH1: Only shame, no points
Thanks to their Big Kahuna Summer, I've actually had VH1 subject me to both seasons of the Surreal Life in less than 24 hours and draw me in to whatever Rachael Harris, Michael Ian Black and Hal Sparks have to say about 90210, Gerardo and Bugle Boy Jeans. Grrrreat.

I can't believe VH1 is now picking up the next edition of the Surreal Life and in the process is bringing in Jordan Knight, Flava Flav, Brigitte Nielsen, Ryan Starr and Dave Coulier. There's a bit too much of "Who is that again?" for this edition to match the previous two, which had enough kitsch-star power to move it along.

As for I Love the '90s, I'll have more of a review once I watch more than just the 1991 episode I saw after Ken Jennings appeared on Letterman. But I will say that it's nice that they're doing the music compilations for the shows, but I want the DVDs, damn it. For goodness sake, Murder She Wrote, Knight Rider, Sliders and The Munsters are all heading to DVD. When will Davis Rules, The Charmings, Out of this World and Marblehead Manor head to the shiny discs?

I really do like the Home Run Derby, but I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed for most of this year, despite the great outbursts by Lance Berkman and Miguel Tejada in the second round -- and providing many of the very casual fans to ask whodat?

Berkman had the home crowd behind him, and it really helped that he hit his homers in bunches. In fact, that's when the home run derby becomes fun -- when someone pulls off a streak of four or five in a row and the crowd gets fired up. It's not as exhilarating when someone does a string of "out-homer-out-homer-homer-out-out." There's not much of a groove going on. (To an extent, that would sum up Tejada's first round, as well as Barry Bonds' and Rafael Palmeiro's rounds.) This is where you get to see both sides of the 10-out format instead of the 10-swing style. And honestly, to make a game of it, I'd love to see it redone in the style of the old Home Run Derby show, although that would take too long. (The offseason version that's filmed in Las Vegas isn't all that compelling, though.)

At least they opened the roof for the later rounds. It gave a little more perspective as to how far the homers actually went from righties. Hitting the glass wall doesn't say a whole lot when it's probably closer in than Tal's Hill. But clear the train tracks and it feels like you've hit a bomb. Also, I'm surprised no one cleared the hill in center field during the derby. Even though most of the homers are pull jobs, there's usually one or two dead center moon shots that take out a scoreboard or mascot.

What also killed some of the momentum of this year's derby was all the interviews with the 500-homer club. While it was great to hear what they had to say (as well as keep Chris Berman relatively quiet), it was hard to get into many of the hitters. Miguel Tejada's record round took place while Reggie Jackson hogged the spotlight in his interview. Only when Tejada was getting close to double digits did they start paying attention to him. It was a nice idea in theory, but it seemed way too distracting. At least most of the 500-homer guys they interviewed had slightly better on-air presence than those amazingly awkward interviews during the old Home Run Derby.
"So, Mickey, he sure got a hold of one, didn't he?" "Yup."

Damn you, Trebek
It's about time I mentioned Ken Jenning's amazing run on Jeopardy!. I'm thinking about writing something at work about him, but for now, I'm just feeding information to a friend working on an article on the run. In the midst of my research, I came across this page, which chronicles every contestant, answer, etc. from each game of the season. You can re-live all of Ken's wins (and in the case of my friend, can find all of the vanquished from the Atlanta area). It's an impressive site, and yet amazingly disturbing at the same time to find someone doing a play-by-play of every game for nearly a year.

It's good to see Ken doing well, although I've never met him. I thought for a while I played him at the ABD back in 2000, but I'm doubting that now because it took place on a Sunday. Oh well. Still, it's good to see yet another of the quizbowl world doing well on game shows. Right now, I'd like to see a team of Ken, Brian Weikle and Mark Dawson at a tournament as Team Jeopardy! (we'll stick with three because it's like a regular episode of the show; otherwise, there'd been a long list

I'm amazed by how well he's playing, even though I think I could keep up with him for good stretches of time before getting smoked. I'm even answering with the same cadences and/or goofiness. After a while, all you look for is how much he'll take home at the end of the day.

One of the good things about the run is that I'm getting my brain more tuned up for a game show run -- Jeopardy! is on at 4:30 here in Atlanta, perfect time for me to watch and then head out to work. Many people like Jake Johannsen have rediscovered the show just to watch Ken keep going. However, you've still got to wonder how some of the past champions might've done with an extended run.

Update: Thanks to Phil (in the comments), I finally got my confirmation that I actually played Ken four years ago at the ABD -- with my team beating his. I guess that makes for a little more fodder for whatever Jeopardy! story I eventually decide to whip up.

When in Rome
Forgot to mention one thing I did like about Napoleon Dynamite was the use of this song leading into the closing credits.

This just in
When in Rome is also a mangled piece of language featured in Anchorman, which was funny for what it was -- a 90-minute SNL-type sketch with its share of funny moments and poor attempts at humor, not to mention a bunch of excuses to throw in '70s music. (However, I think Matt Damon still beats this cast for the best movie rendition of "Afternoon Delight.")

It does work as a satire of the news business, showing what many of us (including those in the business) perceive local TV news to be, although Salon topped that recently by showing current-day examples of the often lamebrained pomposity of the business.

Steve Carrell's somewhat retarded weatherman is possibly a better example of the business than even Will Ferrell's Ron Burgundy. (And to complete the circle, Christina Applegate has graduated from the infamous weatherbunny on Married with Children to the anchor chair, although everyone is still going after her.)

The one thing that both amused and disturbed me was having the current inner circle of male comedic actors (dubbed the Frat Pack by some) decided to converge all at once. Vince Vaughn shows up earlier in the movie, but then all of a sudden there's Luke Wilson (OK, let's complete the Old School connections). Jack Black makes a short appearance, and Tim Robbins hams it up as a PBS news reporter (since John Cusack isn't going to be here, we've finished the High Fidelity string). And since we've got Black, Vaughn, Ferrell and Wilson brother in one movie, obviously Ben Stiller was going to show up -- as a Spanish news reporter. I'm surprised Stiller didn't try to bring in Owen Wilson or Christine Taylor, but then again, it's not really his movie and he's used them already this year.

It was still good fun, given my reasonably low expectations of the movie. I suppose it's sometimes good to know what you're getting into -- you can have a so-so time and still feel satisfied and "stay classy."

Yes, I'll be watching Anchorman at my earliest convenience, but I was also fascinated that the movie also decided to use Friendster profiles to help advertise the film. As if I needed more connections to people through the most tenuous of means -- I'm amused to the connections to people thanks to having "John Kerry" as a "friend."

Speaking of reviews, check out the Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game.

Dude, where's my Asians?
That might be the best way to describe Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, which I saw in a press screening that had as many security guards and movie reps as people actually attending. Oh well, it fit into my schedule better than the big shindig with the stars the next night. That lack of an audience probably didn't help me try to find as many funny bit as I would in a full theater.

Nonetheless, the film really does seem as, this review notes, a rewrite of Dude, Where's My Car? -- not a surprise because it's the same director at work here. Except instead of Stifler and Kelso, you get (as the ads note) the Asian guy from the American Pie movies and the Indian guy from Van Wilder -- and some typical Asian stereotypes, sorta: one's an up-and-coming analyst, the other aced his MCATs and is applying to med school. But they both like to get baked, and with a case of the munchies, they're trying to find White Castle.

From there, the journey goes through all sorts of wackiness up and down New Jersey in search of the famed burgers. No Zartan or space aliens this time, but there is a tripped-out Doogie Howser, a stop-off at Princeton, an encounter with a boil-filled redneck (they exist in NJ?) and his hot wife, plus Anthony Anderson (who you can recognize) and Jamie Kennedy (who you really can't), plus Finch and Van Wilder (to help support their previous supporting players). It's all silly and goofy, and yes, it probably works better if you're high, but it's funny nonetheless.

However, being a New Jersey native, and with the action taking place in the Garden State (but of course filmed mostly in Canada), trying to figure out the geography of the movie would encourage you to toke up. So as not to spoil the movie even more than I already have, I'll hold off on posting the map until the movie officially comes out. But in the meantime, here's a list of White Castles the guys couldn't find.

One of the stranger things about the movie was how much I could've had flashbacks to college since Kumar looks a lot like my freshman year roommate Sanjay. But I don't look like John Cho, and the stoners were the guys next door to us. However, a White Castle run could've been in the cards -- there were a few in Chicago. So much for reality.

More movie capsules, since it seems that's what I do in between watching Wimbledon matches while at the gym:

Fahrenheit 9/11: It was well-made and entertaining, although you have to be skeptical of both Moore's assertions and the criticisms/rebuttals. The truth is somewhere in the middle, but definitely not in what has been offered. No one ever said he was trying to be even-handed, although the second half of the film (about Lila Lipscomb and Flint) worked much better if only because there seemed to be more relevance instead of the angry Michael Moore who appeared to be proving what he said at the Oscars was right. What's odd is that my politics are drifting left, but I have more issues with Moore now, compared to the Roger & Me/TV Nation days, when I was a bit more to the right.

Control Room: If you're looking for a "real" documentary, concerning the war, then this is for you. It's not as slick as F9/11, but it's engrossing and entertaining without having to involve the filmmakers. What you take from the film is that Al Jazeera is no "evil mouthpiece" as many paint it. It caters to a certain audience, but there's great care in trying to report the news fairly, which can be harder than many think. One telling scene in the film was the senior producer lambasting a producer for booking an interview with an American commentator who ripped U.S. policy, instead of looking for a more "balanced" guest.

Napoleon Dynamite: And now for something completely different. A movie about a high school nerd sorta making good? Of course I'm there. However, I wanted to like the film a lot more than I really did. John Heder absolutely nailed the role of the mouth-breathing nerd, but much of the supporting cast seemed to much like caricatures and while I don't mind meandering plots, this one wandered around even more than I'd like. There were plenty of funny scenes, but there was something missing that I can't necessarily put my finger on.


Speaking of Wimbledon, for Q rating purposes, the Serena-Sharapova final was the one everyone wanted to see. Of course, I got slightly confused after that match when I saw the early previews for Wimbledon, the movie, because there was another willowy blonde, only it was Kirsten Dunst instead of Sharapova.

And for the first time in a long time, I actually cared about women's golf because of Jennifer Rosales of the Philippines via USC had the lead in the U.S. Open before stumbling badly in the final round. Oh well, time for me to stop caring for a while other than to think, "Michelle Wie is just 14?"

Just a couple of things while I'm thinking of it ...
-- Well, blog fever has now infected our site. I've got a few thoughts about it that I'll keep off here for now.

-- Sometimes you have to watch a movie in a reasonably crowded theater to get the full effect, and that's how I felt about Dodgeball. You need a bunch of people laughing at some of the silly stuff, and then it all connects from there -- especially when some of the cameos come up.

Couple of other Dodgeball notes: Does Christine Taylor now only work with Ben Stiller? I know they're married and all, but I thought I remember hearing a joke when the two were on Curb Your Enthusiasm that Ben accepted the job so her wife could have some work. And who knew he could milk the Warren Cheswick character for an entire movie?

For those of you looking for more on Last Comic Standing, Jim Norton has blogged about his elimination from the show.

Back in blog
OK, time to dust off the blogging hat and get back to business. (No real reason for the hiatus -- just didn't feel like doing it for a bit.)

Went to see a handful of movies during the hiatus:
-- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: I thought it was a very well done film on its own merits, having never read the books. That might be an advantage to me since I'm not looking out for what's missing or comparing Cuaron's storytelling to Rowling's, etc., etc.

-- Saved!: At times it felt like a Christian-school version of Mean Girls (although Mandy Moore is hilarious as the queen bitch), but in all, it was a well-acted and funny satire. I've been a fan of Jena Malone's for a while, and she's solid again, but I was surprised by Macaulay Culkin's performance -- even if he looks like a taller of version of his Home Alone persona. I also came to the realization how much Heather Matarazzo looks like one of my friends.

-- Imelda: I caught it as part of the Atlanta Film Festival, although it wasn't one of the hottest tickets in town. It was a decent documentary, which was part a profile/history of Imelda and part a history lesson of the Marcos' rise and fall. I was surprised by the access that Imelda granted, and she was rather candid with some of her controversial views, although she also came off as a kook at times with some of her "new age" philosophies. And yes, there were shoes involved, including a trip to the shoe museum. As a history lesson, it was pretty straightforward, and as a profile, you got to see a lot of her personal side. But in the end, the film played it down the middle as to whether she was corrupted by power or she was what she was.

Other observations:
-- While watching this old episode of SNL on the NBC All-Night feed, one of the backup musicians for Mariah Carey was this dawg.
-- I'm still thrown off by seeing Bill Clement doing commercials for mosquito spray.
-- Were the Last Comic Standing producers compelled to show Brett Butler and Drew Carey get pissed off because they could or because they had to since word of their blowup had been swirling ever since the show taped. While I'll still watch the show, it's disappointing that they've turned the show more into Big Brother than American Idol and thus picked the housemates as much on building conflict than actual talent.
-- I guess I can be an SI jinx as well, at least in an opposite way. That was going through my mind when I went to this game with a surprising amount of Royals fans around me, besides the one who joined me for the afternoon.

It seems strange to think that Beavis and Butt-head feels really dated while I'm watching it on MTV2, even though it really has inspired today's kids, whether they know it or not. However, I thought it was all to fitting that this compilation was being advertised during the show, given the time frame, although this collection might've been more appropriate.

Ha-ha!
OK, so Durst, Santorelli and Cotter were all eliminated in the semifinals of Last Comic Standing, while Norton and Sue Costello, who had a short-lived Fox sitcom about six years ago, advanced. But for the most part, it seemed like there was a lot of fresh if somewhat experienced blood that advanced to the finals. It did seem like the first group of semifinalists was full of very experienced folks, while many of the more interesting characters (but not necessarily talented or experienced) were in the second group. At this point, a lot of the folks run together, which may or may not be a good thing. Besides Durst and Santorelli, we're without the stripper, the Siamese Dream-era Billy Corgan lookalike and a really funny, young East Asian kid (although the Iranian kid who passed up med school for comedy did advance).

The credits mentioned it briefly, but I wonder how they really dealt with the fact that two of the judges, Colin Quinn and Rich Vos, know a few of the folks from Tough Crowd. We probably won't have as much of the familiarity of the contestants in the next round, but there are already rumblings that Brett Butler and Drew Carey were upset with the eventual choices to join the house and that their input was largely ignored.

Who's laughing now?
So another season of Last Comic Standing has started, and I can't help but think that for as much as this is an American Idol for comedians, why am I recognizing a number of the contestants from when standup was all over TV?

Last year's winner, Dat Phan (who I met briefly last year before he performed at the AAJA convention), was a relative unknown, as was runner-up Ralphie May. While there were seasoned vets like Dave Mordal and Rich Vos, I wasn't that familiar with them.

This year, among those who have advanced to the semifinals include Will Durst, who I've seen do standup since the now-departed Ronald Reagan was president. He's even done an HBO One Night Stand back in the day, and he even got back on the radar briefly during one of the first runs of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? when, as a phone-a-friend, blew the $500,000 question. I like his stuff, but what in the world is he doing on the show?

Other veteran comics with plenty of TV experience who have advanced to the semifinals include Tom Cotter, Frank Santorelli (looking much bigger than when I'd see him on the old Short Attention Span Theater on Comedy Central) and Jim Norton, the short, almost bald comic on
Tough Crowd. In fact, if you've appeared on that show, it means you have at least a little cachet in the business, right?

While it's not really the same thing (since AI has stipulations on being "real" amateurs), this setup is somewhat like bringing Edie Brickell, Meredith Brooks or Montell Jordan to compete on AI for a chance to revive their careers.

I won't argue that the added exposure helped out even the veterans -- a bunch of the comics did an AI-like tour of comedy clubs after the show, but in the end, most of them are still doing decent work in the clubs and Colin Quinn's show, which probably wouldn't have been much different with or without the show. Still, I guess it's not a bad idea of getting more season vets on the show, given how bad and unprepared some of the comics featured in the early cutdowns were. (And then there was Buck Star, who appeared at all eight tryouts -- LA, SF, Dallas, New York, Boston, Nashville, Chicago and Tampa, finally getting one callback on the last stop in Tampa, only to be denied a chance at the semifinals. He had potential but definitely wasn't there yet.)

I'll keep watching if I'm around for it, but I won't feel so empty if I miss it. Besides, Comedy Central is doing the quick reruns of it a few days later.

If you need another reason to feel old, VH-1 Classic has officially entered the '90s with a block featuring Blind Melon ("Tones of Home" -- i.e. the video that's not "No Rain"), Alice In Chains ("Them Bones") and Pearl Jam ("Jeremy"). And it looks like the day before, they did Bell Biv Devoe ("Poison"), Duran Duran ("Ordinary World"), The Cranberries ("Dreams"), Matthew Sweet ("Girlfriend"). I guess it's a good way to get people prepared for I Love the '90s, but are videos from the early '90s "classic" yet?

D-U-M-B-A-S-S
Both Mike and Craig have interesting commentary on yesterday's National Spelling Bee and how it's lost a lot of relevancy despite its live coverage on ESPN (which even the French Open couldn't get).

Competitions like the spelling bee as well as many of the academic competitions that many of the people on the blogroll are part of have seen their difficulties rise exponentially in recent years. In a way, it seems like a rather organic process, but not necessarily a good one.

In either case, there's a rather fixed knowledge base, and back in the day, there was a certain baseline of difficulty developed that seemed fair at the time. Over time, though, the words or clues used would start feeling a bit overused. So to shake things up and make things seem more interesting (at least for organizers and hard-core players), the only way to go was dig deeper into that knowledge base and in effect ratcheting up the difficulty. There isn't enough "new" stuff added to the knowledge base over the years to keep the difficulty the same without repeating what's been asked before.

In the bee's case, you plumb further and further into bigger and bigger dictionaries to find more and more obscure words. In quizbowl's case (at least the types of competitions I'm used to seeing), you dig into deeper and more advanced texts to find more and more obscure clues and/or answers.

The unfortunate side effect is that some of these competitions get so hard that you can only watch these things in awe without even trying to find out how this stuff should be relevant. It becomes like a brainier version of Fear Factor. Honestly, what is the difference between watching some kid pass out, get up and spell a word that'll be used in .0005 percent of people's vocabularies and some guy or girl pass out while trying to eat 100 cockroaches in a minute?

In some ways, it mimics the evolution of today's athlete. As the accomplishments get more and more impressive, the types of athletes who can perform them become less diverse. NFL lineman have to be 300 pounds to succeed. Baseball pitchers don't have to be Randy Johnson's height, but they have to be in the 6-2, 6-3 range at least. The average 40 time, vertical leap, etc. of today's athlete is often superior to just 15-20 years ago. There are more advance training methods to get that way, just as there are more advanced and sophisticated ways and resources to train for a spelling bee.

Maybe it's only fitting that ESPN covered the Spelling Bee live and included it on SportsCenter. It's just another way to marvel at ridiculous feats that supposedly seem easy to the competitors but in no way can the average schmoe even fathom of doing.

Garden party
I guess I've known about it for a while, but New Jersey does have a strange mythology unlike any other place, currently embodied by The Sopranos but also created by a number of sources besides Bruce Springsteen. What's intriguing is that Jersey is often considered such a low-brow type of place, yet it's not hard to find fellow Garden Staters no matter where I go (or at least find people at least familiar with where I grew up). But I guess we all just escaped to everywhere else.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I was part of the clusterf*** at Hartsfield-Jackson when flying up to Chicago on Tuesday morning. It's ridiculous when the line for security winds outside. I'm surprised I'm not in any of the photos in the story.

The sad part is that I knew this was going to happen, given that it happened a few weeks ago and that even the local news was predicting it the night before. I left earlier than usual and I got to the airport about 7:50 a.m. for a 9:40 a.m. flight. I got to the gate about 9:15 a.m. It's not good when the people allegedly helping you out keep directing you to the wrong line.

Look, when a bunch of people in a row are carrying small bags, there's a good chance that they've checked in and are trying to find security. Don't direct me in the same direction with the folks with four giant suitcases, OK?

While I got there early, my co-worker who was joining me on the flight didn't realize this was going to happen. Thankfully our flight was delayed for about 30 minutes, or else he would've missed the flight as he got to the gate about 9:45.

Atlanta's setup just asks for trouble -- 18 checkpoints for the entire friggin' airport all in one place. It's a bottleneck waiting to happen. Oddly enough, it seemed like the line was moving reasonably quickly once I figured out where to pick up the line, but just trying to figure that out cost me about 10-20 minutes.

I'm in Chicago for a couple of days, and I get another chance to see a Cubs game, this time the Astros are in town (and probably at the hotel I'm staying at). So, with the wealth of starting pitching on both sides, what matchup do I get?

Brandon Duckworth vs. Glendon Rusch.

Thankfully, there was lots of beer involved to keep us away from grasping the sheer inanity of the game, which included the game-winning hit from Mike Lamb, also known as the official acquired stopgap at third base for the Yankees after Aaron Boone got hurt and before they got that A-Rod guy.