Vijay Balse, the leader of the first of two games in the final round of Jeopardy!‘s 2010 Tournament of Champions last night said in his mini-interview with Alex Trebeck last night that it took him six tryouts over a period of sixteen years to finally get picked to compete. So far I’ve only tried out four times including my first attempt about this time of the year in 1996 while I was in Los Angeles visiting my brother and proofing the first (and only) edition of my book on Shockwave, so perhaps there’s still time.
Last week I got an email from Ken Jennings — the winningist person in Jeopardy! history — in response to something I’d sent him. That’s gotta be a good omen, right? I mean, if you’re inclined to believe in omens.