But still a great gift! Get some holiday shopping done early! Order yours now!
"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... unlike his buzzer skills, his comic timing never fails"
-- The Wall Street Journal
"Pulls you in like a good sports story"
-- The New York Times Book Review
"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"
-- New York Newsday
"A surprisingly touching memoir"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"Hugely funny"
-- Mental Floss
"Like Jeopardy! itself, it covers a lot of ground and in snappy and informative fashion"
-- Associated Press
"Down to earth and entertaining, even for non-Jeopardy! fans"
-- The New York Daily News
"A very funny writer... the book works like gangbusters."
-- Ken Jennings, 74-time Jeopardy! winner, holder of numerous other Jeopardy! records
"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."
-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."
-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life
"Eccentric, energetic, and engaging"
-- Publishers Weekly
"The perfect gift for any Jeopardy! fan... I was thoroughly entertained"
-- USA Today, "Pop Candy"
"Surprisingly compelling... a funny and in-depth look at what it takes to win"
-- Long Island Press
"Wise, honest, and very funny... I wish I'd written it. Then again, I wish I'd won $127,000 and his-and-hers Camaros on Jeopardy!, too."
-- Jeff Greenstein, writer/producer, Desperate Housewives, Will & Grace, Friends
"Cleverly executed... solid entertainment"
-- Kirkus Reviews
"Answer: A hilarious, engaging and highly entertaining book. Question: What is Prisoner of Trebekistan? (All right... that was sort of a lame Jeopardy! joke. But what can I say? It's a great book.)"
-- Paul Feig, creator of Freaks and Geeks, author of Superstud and Kick Me
"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."
-- Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game
"Prisoner of Trebekistan is funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"
-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All
"If you don't buy this book -- this funny, learned, charming, and surprisingly moving book -- I will make it burst into flames in your hands."
-- Arthur Phillips, author of Prague and The Egyptologist
"A keeper for anyone who's even remotely a fan of Jeopardy!"
-- TVSquad.com
"If you enjoy... self-aware, geeky good humor, this could actually be your favorite book of the year."
"Hilarious... a true treat for all Jeopardy! fans."
-- Strand Bookstore
"Everything you'd hope for... surprisingly compelling... deftly woven together... this sweet, fascinating book is a great read."
-- Book-blog.com
"If super-intelligent space aliens invaded our planet and demanded to interview one member of our species to ascertain whether or not we human beings were logical, bright, kind, and entertaining enough to be allowed to continue, I would nominate, with all my powers of persuasion, Bob Harris."
-- Emo Philips, comedian
"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew that Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."
-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history
“Revelatory... wryly funny about some very serious subjects... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”
— Boston Globe
“Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”
— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs
"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."
— New York Observer
“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”
— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Not sure of any details yet exactly, but next weekend includes both (a) the Game Show Congress, which I usually enjoy as a wonderfully geeky event akin to a Renaissance Faire with less fashion sense but a better knowledge of history, and (b) a promotional thing for the new GSN (formerly the Game Show Network) program Grand Slam, which I'm not a part of, but have several friends competing in, all of whom I will cheer for.
The Utah Computah himself should be around for at least some of this, and there's some chatter about a joint book signing or even maybe a quizzy thing happening. Not sure what yet, to be honest. I'm out of town all week and booked up to the neck, so you might also want to watch Ken's blog or the GSC site for further info. I'll update here if I get a chance, of course.
Btw, if you liked Prisoner of Trebekistan and haven't picked up Brainiac yet, do. It's what Trebekistan might be if written by a guy who actually, um, knew stuff and won a lot more.
Finally, I should add that the UK version of Grand Slam rocks, and I assume the US version will as well when it debuts. Take all the big winners from other quiz shows and pit them in a tournament of single-elimination, one-on-one games requiring math, wordplay, general knowledge, and general balls under pressure. Here's a clip of the UK version to see what Ken and Bradzilla and some other friends of Trebekistan have just put themselves through for your upcoming basic cable amusement:
WARNING: The following photo contains intense adorability. Observe at your own risk.
On the left, a tiny duiker, the stackable South African ungulate.
In the middle, a trained professional capable of withstanding high levels of cuteness.
On the right, an even tinier baby duiker. Ankle high. The neutron bomb of cute.
Once you regain consciousness, just remember: you were warned.
This picture (and others which are coming shortly) only exists because of the kindness of some nice folks at the Los Angeles Zoo who have recently taken a shine to this site's weekly pudublogging. In fact, last weekend, the entire puduland braintrust was given a remarkable VIP tour of the whole place, complete with a well-informed docent explaining all sorts of magnificent things about which animal puts what unexpected thing in some unimaginable orifice for unanticipated reasons, making it all sound so utterly cool. I have rarely been so entertained and delighted.
This was an amazingly wonderful day. Many thanks to Suzanne, Nancy, and Joleen.
Incidentally, if you live in SoCal and haven't been to the zoo lately, go. Take the kids. Want to help save the world? Teach young people to appreciate wildlife and the environment. Plus, it's fun as heck.
The pudus are sort of in the back to the right. The nursery, where you'll find baby whoknowswhats, is in the front to the right. The baby duiker is probably still there if you hurry.
PS -- I should also add that I've had a fabulous run of fortune lately, and there are lots of other people I need to thank profusely -- folks with the L.A. Dodgers, in NY publishing, and doing several varieties of Hollywood thingies. I'm traveling and visiting family at the moment, but there will be much gratitude here asap.
The Romney family finally had to pull over when the poor thing couldn't take it anymore and started peeing, thus obscuring the view out the back window.
The original Boston Globe story actually lauds him over the tale -- for pulling over (such leadership!) -- once the urine started to pour down the windows, a response they term "emotion-free crisis management."
Yes, but which emotionless imbecile created the crisis to begin with, displayed no remorse in the aftermath, and is still enough of a lunatic that his own campaign considers it something to boast about to the press?
We already have one of these guys in the White House, thanks.
The pageant of Dada continues!
I guess this is what his campaign means by "True Strength for America's Future" -- the strength to clean your own dog's urine off of your own car.
Since the Irish Setter Roof-Mounting system failed, I was thinking maybe you guys could rig up some sort of catapult...
This week, another entry courtesy the unbelievably cool private tour given Team Pudu by the Los Angeles Zoodu: the exceedingly rare (in fact, it's classified as "Completely Imaginary") English Zebudu:
The Zebudu is a cross between a horse, a pedestrian walkway, two pudus, and a UPC scanner. Sometimes there is another Zebudu involved, but not always.
You really don't want to know the mechanics of mating, but it should not be attempted at rush hour. Also, everyone always winds up on the other side of the road, with no idea how they got there.
Fortunately, the upside comes when you try to buy a Zebudu in a convenience store. Through a miracle of nature, the stripes are already encoded to come up as "Zebudu" in most checkout systems. (Unless the store has recently upgraded to Vista. Then all bets are off, and the store probably has bigger problems anyway. I hear that Microsoft's next OS upgrade will even ship with a small fire extinguisher, just in case.)
The only real question, then, is how to get your Zebudu up onto the checkout counter in the first place. The ancient Greeks developed several acceptable techniques involving the five basic machines, and Archimedes was fond of floating his Zebudu up onto the counter, which offered the side benefit of a gentle cleansing action. The only shortcoming, for the Greeks, was needing to wait another 2000 years for the laser to be invented, a puzzle they only recently got around.
Fortunately, modern zoologists have discovered a much simpler approach: just put another Zebudu on the other side of the cash register, a horse in the pedestrian crossing, and two pudus across the street. Ten minutes later, there will be a receipt in your hand, a Zebudu in your car, and two confused-looking pudus riding a horse into the sunset, holding hands and looking for something to eat.
Didn't mean to let the site go slack for so long, but life got busy on me. I'm sure you survived. Meanwhile, much fun cooking here.
However, now that I'm briefly home again, I must first head to the dentist, because the other day a poppy seed challenged one of my molars to a duel, the molar accepted, and the poppy seed promptly kicked the molar's ass. So I'm down several minor tooth chunks and an aggravated tongue, actually, although that didn't stop me from some weekend goofiness I'll write about later today while the novocaine dissipates.
Said goofiness made me feel like a pudu among giraffes for a little while. And, handily enough, when the L.A. Zoo's docent was leading Team Pudu around the facility (see below), I got a shot which may or may not have depicted that very thing, shown at right.
The pudu would have been just slightly out of frame.
A small festival of gratitude and contentment will likely begin occupying this page for a while. I know the world is a nigh-hopeless mess, yes -- I just wrote another book about that, if fact -- but kindnesses should be acknowledge, and there have been many in my own life lately.
It's not like she's still gaining name recognition, as are most of the other candidates. The public have had 15 years to make up their mind. And Hillary's "favorable" number is only 39 percent.
Um... anyone who lived in the US in the last 15 years should already know this. It's not exactly a revelation. I explained why on the day she announced. Which in my mind was little more than pointing out, I dunno, the sky is blue. Just the way things are.
How disliked is Clinton (fairly or not)? Every single other major candidate has net-positive name recognition. Giuliani is +28. Thompson is +24. Bloomberg is +22. Obama is +20. Edwards is +18. McCain is +16. Even the Dog Torturer is +8.
Hillary is at -3.
Granted, Clinton's $27 million in fundraising this quarter will buy her a lot of headway in distracting the media from the her quantifiable unpopularity. The tent won't fold. But it is what it is.
The Yankees aren't so good this year even with Clemens, Pixar is pretty good with the animation, Hillary probably can't win, and puppies are cute.
Game shows, in my life, are a bit like the mob was to Al Pacino in Godfather III -- I can try to get out, but they keep dragging me back in. Although in this case, I couldn't be happier about it.
My buddy J. Keith van Straaten, stand-up comic and former host of Comedy Central's Beat the Geeks, occasionally mounts a live stage version of What's My Line? that I'd highly recommend anyway as one of L.A.'s hidden treasures. It's completely sincere -- nothing ironic, nothing in quotes, just the actual game played with live music, real guests with strange occupations, and genuine mystery celebrities, exactly as if you're attending a taping of a show that never went off the air. I've been a few times, just to hang out, and it's a blast.
This week, they must be short of celebrity panelists, because J. Keith has asked me to sit in. So if any readers in the L.A. area are curious to see what I look like while asking "can I assume it involves an animal or a vegetable?" in a dark suit, drop by Acme in this Sunday at 8 pm.
The show's entertainment value should be bigger than a breadbox.
Cheney's office is now going to have to claim executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena.
This right after Cheney's office declared that, contrary to 218 years of US constitutional history, his office is not part of the executive branch.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the last six and a half years would make a lot more sense if the GOP were actually performing a sophisticated Dada art exhibition.
This Cheney character would actually be pretty tolerable if he weren't actually real. You could just say, OK, I see what they're doing here -- this is clearly modeled on the fictional Bob Rumson from Aaron Sorkin's The American President. Then give him two drunk driving convictions, a lesbian daughter, and a wife who writes soft-core erotica, just so everyone knows the reactionary moralizing is all just a put-on. Then give him five Vietnam deferments and a continuing income from Halliburton so absolutely no one can find him credible on defense issues. Oh, and get his office involved in the outing of a covert CIA employee involved with monitoring the proliferation of WMDs in the mideast, and then have him claim national security as his keynote issue.
If suddenly Cheney just pulled off the rubber mask, and it was actually Mike Myers underneath, just screwing around, OK, then it would all make more sense.
But that day surely must be getting close. Apparently they've decided to make increasingly insane claims, some of them bordering on self-contradictory, just so maybe the country will finally catch on and say, "hey now, wait -- this is all a put-on, isn't it?"
Incidentally, the Washington Post has just done an excellent four-part series on what Rumson, er, Cheney here has been up to and how. Highly recommended.
So now Dick Cheney is back in the executive branch. Until he decides he isn't again. He's like Schrödinger's Cat, and Congress can't open the box.
Ceci n'est pas une Vice President.
While we're at it, here are a few other things Dick Cheney is and/or is not:
A half-human gill-breather, allergic to sunlight, and hellbent on global domination
Able to dematerialize at will, reassembling his atoms at an undisclosed location
Bionic, with a titanium heart encased in cesium which cannot be stopped by anything short of atomic blast
A fun guy around firearms and beer
Careful to mark and catalog even his own bowel movements as Top Secret
Able to connect to the Internet simply by raising his hand and shouting, "Cheney online!"
Affected by international standards of law, human rights, and basic human decency
Staring right this second at a wall map of Iran, holding a giant red crayon, with spittle accumulating in the corners of his mouth
Overwhelmed with guilt and despair, as any sane human being might be
Don't be surprised if one day they all show up one day wearing mime outfits, just so more people would get it.
How much would you bid (all proceeds to charity) to spend some quality face time with Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and all things good and wondrous? If you'll be in San Diego for ComiCon, you've got a couple of weeks to mull.
Incidentally, I'm not sure I've ever said publicly how invaluable Joss's work has been for me, particularly in learning not to flinch or go defensively ironic in writing about Big Stuff like love and death, trying to not just intellectually but emotionally honest, even when those emotions are completely unexpected. To the extent that Trebekistan works in the hard parts, a lot of credit goes to the good airs of Whedonia. And then of course I was blown away when he actually blurbed the thing.
However, now that I'm briefly home again, I must first head to the dentist, because the other day a poppy seed challenged one of my molars to a duel, the molar accepted, and the poppy seed promptly kicked the molar's ass. So I'm down several minor tooth chunks and an aggravated tongue, actually, although that didn't stop me from some weekend goofiness I'll write about later today while the novocaine dissipates.
My buddy 
This Cheney character would actually be pretty tolerable if he weren't actually real. You could just say, OK, I see what they're doing here -- this is clearly modeled on the fictional Bob Rumson from Aaron Sorkin's 
Ceci n'est pas une Vice President.