BobHarris.com

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"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."

-- The Stranger

"Highly entertaining... laugh-out-loud, absurdist funny... hilarious"

-- Akron Beacon-Journal

"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

Books I'm Getting

Now available from the Crown Publishing Group, the kind folks who gave you Prisoner of Trebekistan!

Who Hates Whom:

Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“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

Order now from Amazon—and pick up Prisoner of Trebekistan at the same time and save a few nickels.

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Main

Less is more

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Site updates
Monday, 17 March 2008
For anyone wondering why this blog has bogged a bit: • I'm crazy busy these days with multiple projects that (a) I enjoy, and (b) require large volumes of time and creative energy. This is fun, but it does push blogging way down on my priority list, while keeping my head out of the distraction-of-the-day timesuck on which blogs tend to thrive. I could conceivably write about the work, but between respect for privacy and enforceable non-disclosure clauses, it's mostly stuff I shouldn't write about here anyway. • There's also rapidly diminishing necessity. In the distant past of five years ago, there weren't 700 (if not 70,000) other blogs already posting most of the political stuff I'd post anyway. Now there are, often written by knowledgeable people who can devote ten times the hours that I can. There are also a lot more aggregators like Reddit, Digg, etc. to make accessing new and interesting stuff easy. There are even meta-aggregators like Popurls.com to simplify scanning these in one stop. The Jim Cramer post just under this one is a good example. Worth a look, kinda sad and amusing, maybe has a point, but I'm guessing you'd probably see it a dozen other places in your normal surfing routine anyway. • I do, however, occasionally have real original stuff to share, and that's what I should probably move this space toward -- first-hand experiences from what is admittedly a mildly odd life. The vagaries of Colombian airport security, tips on how and why to throw baby Icelandic puffins overhand into the ocean, and photos of confrontations with giant manta rays all still seem worth a minute here and there. So those are what I'll concentrate on. Less is more. And with my schedule these days, it's also the most. Thanks always for stopping by.

Win some, lose some

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General Incompetence
Monday, 17 March 2008
Jim Cramer, CNBC's resident random noise generator, last Tuesday, when Bear Stearns was at about $63 a share: Five days later, J.P. Morgan announced a deal to buy the company for $2 a share. This afternoon it's trading for just under five bucks.

Friday Pudublogging: Leap Day Edition

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Pudu
Friday, 29 February 2008
How do pudus celebrate Leap Day? By leaping forward and taking a piece of apple out of your hand, obviously. Photo taken at Fauna Andina, smack dab in the Valdivian rain forest, about 300 miles south of Santiago, Chile. When we get the PayPal thing up to support their preservation efforts, I hope you'll chip in vigorously. The pudus will thank you for it.

What would you rather be asked to do by a candidate? "Learn More"... or "Submit"?

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Voting & Debates
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
This is absolutely no big deal. But sometimes little details can be telling. And there's a tiny but obvious difference between the front pages of the Obama and Clinton websites that seems almost emblematic of how the campaigns are increasingly perceived. What makes you feel more respected, really -- being asked to "Learn More"... ... or to "Submit"? Just saying.

Robert Harris Wins $275 Million Lottery

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High Weirdness
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Weird when it's your own name in a news story -- for a nanosecond, there's this moment of hey, did I forget something...? Then, oh, wait, reality, right.

Change You Can Believe In (and Blame On Remarkable Mood Swings)

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Voting & Debates
Monday, 25 February 2008
"I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored." -- Hillary Clinton, in Texas, 2/21/08 "Shame on you, Barack Obama!" -- Hillary Clinton, in Ohio, less than 48 hours later Wow. That was fast. Maybe Hillary should be Ralph Nader's running mate -- a ticket with two smart, hard-working progressives, both of whom might be globally respected if they just weren't so hell-bent on destroying their own reputations.

Pricetag to the US for Iraq and Afghanistan?

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The War On Tara
Monday, 25 February 2008
According to a Nobel Prize winner in Economics: $3 trillion. And counting. And, he adds, this is probably on the low side.

Neuroscientists: We Think With Our Whole Bodies

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Prisoner of Trebekistan
Monday, 25 February 2008
I touched on some of this in Trebekistan, in the bits about encoding information so that it could be retrieved in competitive conditions. But the more scientists learn, the cooler this stuff gets.

This Repeating American Life

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Prisoner of Trebekistan
Saturday, 09 February 2008
Just a heads-up: last year's "Quiz Show" episode of Ira Glass's This American Life is repeating this week, including a very brief chat with yours truly in the wake of Prisoner of Trebekistan. It's a free listen on the TAL website this week. Next week, Ira takes an inside look at the writers of The Onion. Now that's an episode I'm looking forward to.

Congrats to Colin, one of the Two Old Goats

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Stuff I like
Friday, 08 February 2008
Webmaster of this site and all-around good Canadian guy Colin is also pretty darn fine musician, and one of the pleasures of having his friendship the last few years has been the occasional mp3 of his latest noodlings from the home studio, often coming not long after the arrival of some new technical doohickey that reflanges the hemostat or hypertunes the gonkulator. In any case, the tunes are always a good listen. Colin has recently joined forces with fellow singer-songwriter Charlie Burton to form an actual band thingy, self-deprecatingly called Two Old Goats ("their bleat can't be beat!"). He mailed me a CD shortly before I left for Ecuador in December, and I wound up listening to it while writing or hanging out in airports at least a half-dozen times. (It's precisely the sort of music you'd expect goodhearted Canadians to write to bring happiness to other goodhearted Canadians. You'll probably clear the irony out of your system just by listening.) Now it turns out that the Goats tune "Waiting For the Light" has reached the Top 50 on CBC Radio 3. My congrats to both Colin and Charlie, and I'm sure there's more where that came from. Meanwhile, thanks to the CBC, you can hear some Goat music yourself here. Although one warning: if you get the phrase "island standard time" caught in your head, it may not come out until Easter. And you can buy the CD here. (Just look for the big button that says "Get our CD -- Buy Now.") Enjoy.

Walker soon to be released on US DVD

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Stuff I like
Friday, 08 February 2008
I've written about this film before, but I'll say this again: when director Alex Cox made his 1987 film Walker, it was a courageous and darkly funny commentary on US policy in Nicaragua. More than 20 years later, it's now a courageous and darkly funny commentary on US policy in Iraq. The only question: in 20 years, which country about which it will be a darkly funny commentary concerning US policy therein? (OK, you try writing that sentence more elegantly. I can't get it quite right.) Anywho, Walker. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll invade a smaller country to enchance your own power while fully convincing yourself you're only doing it for the good of the locals. Click here or on the pic for Amazon.

What it looks like when a president is held accountable for crimes

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El Sur
Friday, 08 February 2008
From Peru: FujimoriOnTrial.org.

Friday pudublogging: Not all pudus are camera shy

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Pudu
Friday, 08 February 2008
Pudu working it for the camera at Fernando's Hideaway in Chile: Pudu not shy. PS -- What I call "Fernando's Hideaway" here is actually Fauna Andina, a private reserve that cares for vulnerable and endangered local species in rural Chile. The guy who runs the place, Fernando, may know more about pudus than anyone alive, and one of his favorite hobbies is caring for his tiny flock. (Some were previously mistakenly taken in as pets, which doesn't work; some have been found injured; and others are the offspring of Fernando's prior pudus.) I'm gonna try to set up a PayPal thing where people who appreciate the pudu can chip in a buck or two to help Fernando keep his pudus healthy and happy. Thanks!

New Poll: Obama more likely to win in November

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Voting & Debates
Friday, 08 February 2008
Clinton v McCain: 46-46 tossup. Obama v McCain: Obama wins, 48-41. I mention this under the assumption that the Democrats actually intend to, y'know, win.

Maybe 25-30 Percent of Any Population is Wack

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