Back when the connection from my brain to my mouse and keyboard  was faster, I always took the online Jeopardy! entrance test when it came up. I think I usually passed, but they don’t tell you unless you’re selected for an audition, and I never was.

To me, the contestant-interview part of the program has  always been tedious; some people even fast-forward it. I resolved not to be fast-forwarded, and to have the required “Five interesting facts about me for Alex” ready well in advance.

They were:

  • Three-day winner with wife on 1961 Merv Griffin’s Play Your Hunch
  • Convinced my grandmother not to throw the cat out the window
  • Wrote worst poem ever for poetry contest, still got Honorable Mention
  • Played daily at abandoned US Radium plant, now one of NJ’s worst Superfund sites
  • Captained a sailboat at age 12 by reading a how-to book

For extra credit,

  • Had my picture in Ebony magazine
  • Coined the term technoboner