Guess who's gonna get her 15 minutes and win some scratch, or at least some turtle wax?

ME! ME!! ME!!!

OK, maybe not...but I am one step closer to the dream, which I discovered when I received this email on Tuesday:

Congratulations! You have been selected for a follow-up appointment at an upcoming Jeopardy! contestant search for the Chicago area, exclusively for those who successfully passed the online test. This is the next step in becoming a Jeopardy! contestant. We have reserved the following appointment for you:

When: Friday, August 3rd Time: 9:00am

Where: Chicago, IL



And blah, blah, blah legal legalitty-cakes..the upshot is that my ass is trying out for Jeopardy on August 3rd, bitches!!

I have since found out a little more about how this all works. Apparently, back in the dark ages, to get on Jeopardy you had to apply to any one of a number of regional tryouts they had each year, or travel on your own dime to LA to get into one of their more frequent tryouts. Then, if you were randomly selected to audition, you would go there and take a 50-question test. If you "passed" (and they never have revealed what their bar for passing is, but anecdotal evidence seems to suggest it's around 35 out of 50 or better), they would have you play a mock game and interview you, and then put you in their contestant pool. Now apparently, being in the "contestant pool" still means you have only a 1 in 6 to 1 in 10 shot at actually getting called to tape show.

However, in these enlightened internet times, they now do a 50 question online test about once a year, and so the way the process now works is out of those folks who "pass" this test, they'll randomly select about 20% of them to move onto the next stage, which is the stage I've been selected for. At my audition, apparently, they will still give us another 50 question test, but everyone will still get to play the mock game and interview no matter what you score on the in-person exam (I guess the theory being that if you passed the online test you must be at least somewhat decent at the game). However, much like how the online test worked, you won't know shit about how you did or if they're interested unless they call you later to tape a game, or not, and apparently it does seem to be true that you have anywhere from a 1/6 to 1/10 chance of actually getting called to be on the show after this audition.

But come on, people. I've got to be cuter than like 85% of the people trying out, right? I've never been one to be overconfident in my looks, but I've gotta believe that in the crowd of nerdy folks who tried out for Jeopardy on the internet, I'm gonna be a Kobe beef steak in a sea of 75/25 ground chuck. In that crowd only, mind. Put me up against the average populace and I'm eye-of-round at best.

Of course, when I took the initial online test Joe was standing behind me and feeding me some answers, but almost all of the questions were ones that both of us knew. There were a few that I knew alone, and a few that he knew alone, but I think I can still do decently enough on my own as long as I bone up on my wesk subjects: history, geography, the Bible, art history, opera---your asses are mine. Just see what this crazy bitch can do with a mission and nothing but free time from now until August 3rd.

Top Chef-apalooza!

So, here I am all bummed because I don't have a steady diet of at least somewhat quality reality shows to get me through the summer months. For a while I deluded myself into thinking that On the Lot might do the trick, seeing as how it was produced by Spielberg and Mark Burnett, fer chrissakes. Forgive me for thinking that the best reality show producer and a top American movie director might be able to competently produce a reality show about movies. Apparently, I was wrong, and they collectively don't know shit from apple butter about what makes a competition-based reality show about movies fun to watch. I mean, this show should have not only been my summer holdover, it should have been sweet sweet TV crack based on the pedigree alone, but....not so much. I mean, I'll still watch the shit, but that's only because I literally am the easiest sell ever when it comes to competitive reality shows, and right now its only competition are shows about celebrities racing cars and people I don't know dancing. It's weird, but I can not get into any of the "dancing" reality shows. And this coming from a devotee of Shear Genius, a show about hairstylists, for crying out loud. The reason I think that's strange is that I actually did take dance lessons for many years, so of all of the competition type shows out there, you would think that's the one I would cotton to most. It's not as if I can sing, or model, or live on an island full of snakes or bugs, or design dresses, or style hair, or cook, after all. But the one thing I can kind of, sort of do? Psshh, I have no use for you. (Although I am kind of, sort of funny, and I do somewhat enjoy Last Comic Standing, so maybe there's just no rhyme or reason at all.)

Anyhoo's, so if any of y'all aren't yet peeping out Top
Chef, I must say that you're doing yourself a disservice. Not only will you learn shitloads about fancy-pants cooking and ingredients, (case in point? Apparently there exists an animal called a geoduck, which is pronounced like gooey-duck, and which isn't a duck at all, but a fucking big ass phallic clam), you can also revel in the freakshow that is professional chefs letting it all hang out to sometimes disasterous but always fascinating affect. Just think back to all of the freakshows you waited tables and bartended with, and imagine all of that shit being filmed for posterity. Entertaining, non? And if you never worked in a restaurant, think about the friends of yours who did, and what they are like, and then imagine what kind of person not only chooses to work in a restaurant for a living, but consents to go on a reality show about it. So give Top Chefa look-see. It's the only decent reality TV on so far this summer!

Heather's Book Club

I read a whole lot people, so if you like the books, here are some of the more recent ones I've read that deserve more eyeballs:

We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver: Holy ballsacks, Batman. Talk about your one-two punch with these treasures. The first one will kick you in your fucking solar plexus then leave you prone on the floor crying for your best friend, as you will have learned to have ambiguous feelings about your mama. Hands down, the most disturbing book I have ever read. Don't let the slow pace fool you. Stick with it if you like books that leave you on your knees with snot running out of your nose. And scared to sleep.

The second one was the most brilliant meditation on romantic love that I've ever read. I can't even be cutesy or ironic about it, y'all, And I fucking hate when people use the words "meditation on" to describe a book or a film, but I feel they're warranted here. In short, Lionel Shriver (a chick, by the way) is my new favorite author, bar none...although I looked up her earlier work, and it seemed kind of boring, so start with these two. And again, stick with them, as neither novel really gets going until further in. If you're not at least moved, we're not friends.

For any mystery fans in the house, peep out Laura Lippman. She has a detective series, but I'm more about her stand-alone novels,
What the Dead Know, Every Secret Thing, and the one I'm currently in the middle of, To the Power of Three. They're fast moving, have believable characters you care about, and the mystery holds up.

If you're a dude who only wants to read shit that fellow dudes wrote, Stephen White also has some good thriller-ish novels that won't change your life but won't bore you either. I particularly recommend Kill Me.

Finally, there's some book with physics in the title written by a chick named Marisha Pessl (might have misspelled the first name, but I'm sure the last name is correct, so google it). Great fucking book, particulary for any A Secret History fans in the motherfucking house. Can I get a what? what? for Donna Tartt up in here? (because her Little Friend was unfairly maligned and also awesome, in my opinion). If the word "physics" threw you, be aware that it's about a quirky high school chick who's daddy's got a secret, and not about math or anything like that.

I know I said finally up there, but for people who don't like novels, there's a memoir called Candy Girl that's all about a "nice" girl's foray into the stripping/sex industry that I finished in one night. Now that should please absolutely everyone.

See bitches? I told you I was an irresponsible, flighty Gemini

For the three of you who care, I decided to update this bitch, because it had fo' sho fallen by the "things I take up that I think I'm going to care about in a week, but am really going to just be entertained by for a few days and then forget about" wayside. So, forthwith, a few musings on the happs in entertainment that most caught my eye in the last few months, otherwise known mainly as "the outcome of shitty reality shows":

America's Next Top Model: see, I'm all proud of myself with this one because last season, when Jaslene was a mere "also-ran", I was all like, "Why aren't they choosing the Janice Dickinson doppleganger? She's the most model-y". So I picked the girl most likely to be roundly ignored by the fashion world at large right out of the gate, yo! I will say that I did dearly love Natasha, but she seemed to get stumpier and stumpier, and more straw-haired to boot, as the competition rolled on. And I really thought Renee was a more hot-looking Jodie Foster, and she'll always have me at, "Last year, I had a baby and I thought my life was OVER," but a model? Feh.

American Idol: Sigh. Back in my early AI viewing days, I could pretty much count on being pleased by the result. Kelly, ROOO-Ben, Fanty? I felt them all. Lately, I seem to root for the scruffy underdog who's going to "change the face of American Idol", only to have my dreams dashed when the pretty pageant princess or spastic freakshow sashays off with the title instead. That said, I really, really liked Jordin's "I Who Have Nothing" for being so dramatic and queer and tremulously pretty, and I dig her America Ferrara crossed with Sarah Ramirez (spelling? You know, Callie on Grey's Anatomy) good looks, so I ain't mad at her at all. I just wanted my little beatboxing, argyle-sweater wearing, poor man's Morrissey sounding wonder to take it, if only so I could finally convince Jenner Gibbs to watch Idol, since from what I know of her tastes, he seemed like her dream man.

The Amazing Race: So...y'all know I went to New York for the Amazing Race Con thrown by TWOP, right? Why? Well, I was trying to win back the title of "World's Biggest Nerd" that I'd previously lost to Sandor Lehoscky back in the third grade when he started crying like a bitch cuz I beat him at Math Relay on the chalkboard. I'd go into details, but anyone who cares has already seen the pictures.

More to come...and I'll try to be quicker about it than three months later.