Not Quite So New!
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."
-- 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
|
“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
|
Main
|
Travel
|
|
Tuesday, 18 December 2007 |
As a lifelong fan of the crudely named and endlessly frustrating Cleveland Indians, I couldn't help but smile to see that folks in Colombia are also willing to turn fellow human beings into mascots for a team that never wins the title. Ladies and gentlemen, the last-place Cartagena Indians:
The kids reminded me of my own friends when we were that age. And Cleveland Stadium was about as well-kept back then, too. However, my friends and I never had our psyches gently pummeled quite like this:
Those are three beautiful Colombian children playing with Santa Claus. Right next to a sign twice as big as they are, urgently warning families to stop paying kidnappers.
Can you imagine growing up with that? What would that have done to how you feel about yourself and the world?
I don't even pretend to know the answer for myself. |
|
Who Hates Whom
|
|
Sunday, 16 December 2007 |
For a teeny paperback that came out over two months ago without any big-paper reviews even expected, a write-up in this week's Sunday Boston Globe was certainly a pleasant surprise:
"[I]ntriguingly informative... revelatory -- and wryly funny about some very serious subjects... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating reading... witty, horrific, and necessary..."
Holy crap. Think she liked it much?
If you want a copy (or ten, heck, it's the holidays!), here's the Amazon link.
Or just click on the giant flashing animated gif of the book at the top of the page. Subtle, I know.
Thanks! |
|
Travel
|
|
Friday, 14 December 2007 |
Traveling around South America for a couple of months. My Spanish still sucks, but estoy aprendiendo.
You know you're in Bogotá when the airport is filled with signs warning you not to mule.
It would be very sad for your family if you were a mule!
Interesting that the deterrent here isn't jail, violent reprisal, or any other punishment -- they're appealing to shame and family honor.
Not sure what that says about Colombian culture, but it's hard to imagine the US analog having any effect: Kids! If you got involved with drugs, your parents wouldn't like it.
Yeah. That would totally work.
Anyhow. Changing the subject.
Multiple studies have found that security in US airports is no better than before 9/11, so critics often decry various TSA measures as merely "security theater."
One wonders, then, what non-theatrical security might look like.
After having been through airport security in Colombia four times in the last week, I'm thinking I should share with the rest of the class. (Not saying they have things perfectly right, by any means. Just sharing what I saw.)
In recent years, Colombia has seen violence from FARC and ELN, the counter-revolutionary AUC, and multiple major drug organizations. Their airports don't double as political showpieces. They're potential targets in an area rife with active conflict for over four decades. And Colombia is hardly a rich country. They're clearly not in any position to screw around.
Just out of curiosity, let's compare the US and Colombian gauntlets.
WHAT THEY DIDN'T DO IN COLOMBIA (at least in my experience):
- You don't take off your shoes. They don't give a rat's ass about your shoes. They're going through the metal detector anyway.
- You don't take off your jacket. They don't give a rat's ass about your jacket. It's going through the metal detector anyway.
- You don't have to put all your fluids, emollients, and palliative goos into little 3-oz. containers. (Technically, the signs say that you do. But you don't. Nobody bats an eye.) If binary bombs were a real concern, I've just traveled across Colombia with enough shampoo and sunscreen to blow up Cali and Medellín combined. If you really get off on traveling with fluids, Colombia is a holiday paradise.
- You also don't always take your computer out of the bag. Two times out of four. But this was purely perfunctory. They don't seem to give a rat's ass about your computer, either.
WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DID IN COLOMBIA (at least in my experience):
- You will be surrounded at all times by heavily armed men. Fuck with Colombia, Colombia will fuck you right back. This message at least is clear.
- You will be metal-detected as the main event. First the big machine. Then the wand. Slowly. Seriously. About the speed of languorous foreplay, except surrounded by armed men and not remotely enjoyable. Then you turn around and get wanded again. Colombia looks for metal. If I ate a diet high in magnesium, I would be wary of traveling in Colombia. All your metal are belong to Colombia.
- You will be given a brisk full-body frisking by a cheerful but lethally armed soldier, in the company of half a dozen other lethally armed soldiers. By "frisking," I mean a procedure roughly halfway between high-speed shiatsu and a drive-thru prostate exam. If you like having your balls bounced casually by swarthy fellows trained to kill on command, a Colombian vacation is for you.
HOW LONG COLOMBIAN SECURITY TAKES:
In my four trips through, never more than three minutes tops, believe it or not. Twice it felt like I barely broke stride until the wand-o-rama.
Maybe I got lucky. And much of this is probably the result of lesser air traffic. Bogotá, for all its charms, isn't quite the air hub Atlanta and Chicago are. Go figure. Then again, Colombian airports also had fewer security lines -- never more than one or two operating, period. So I'm not sure how the size argument works out.
It's also possible that Colombian security is way more focused on drugs on the way out than weapons on the way in. I'm not sure how that necessarily changes anything, though. They sure as hell would have found anything strapped to my keister.
In any case, time and energy do seem to be saved by not wasting time on stupid shit. Colombia doesn't ask every single passenger in every single line to remove shoes, coat, laptop, and liquid goods, all while emptying pockets and juggling their smaller bags into various trays before slowing things down on the far side by undoing and reassembling all the nonsense they just did. Colombia doesn't try to prevent binary bombs that don't exist, nor do they worry about shoe bombs that could just as well be in your knickers.
Colombia (a) X-rays your stuff on a conveyor belt, (b) wands your ass until your fillings come loose, and then (c) asks you to hold still for about twenty seconds of vigorous manual contact that for ten dollars more ought to come with a happy ending.
Granted, there must be considerations I haven't realized. I'm sure there are. Consider this entry pre-disclaimed. I'm not saying Americans would willingly accept twenty seconds of rubber-gloved Kung Fu Grip in exchange for being allowed to pack a whole tube of Gleem. And I'm not saying the US should turn its airports into Colombian style armed camps. Hell no. Just pointing out what was.
That's the experience, anyway. Take from it what you will.
Meanwhile, he's another anti-mule sign posted in front of the McDonald's in the Bogotá airport food court.
And since you told your family you were a mule?(With, I believe, roughly the tone of "and how's that working out for you?") (And note again the emphasis on family shame, above all other deterrents.)
|
|
Pudu
|
|
Friday, 14 December 2007 |
I'll be in South America for about six or seven more weeks, so I don't know how often I'll be blogging. But I found this place while looking for a room in San Carlos de Bariloche later in the trip.
I like to think there are actual pudus trotting around the front desk. And maybe another pudu with a bellman's cap on, scratching at your luggage.
|
|
Travel
|
|
Wednesday, 12 December 2007 |
Greeting you at the Cartagena airport:
Colombia,
the only risk is wanting to stay.
Um... I'm not sure that means exactly what they intended it to mean.
Still, fascinating place so far.
True story: I asked a guy on a plane what he did for a living here. He said he was in agriculture, but he didn't get into specifics.
A little later he said it was really more of an import/export business.
That's when I found stuff to ask besides what he did for a living.
I'm not completely convinced coming to Colombia by myself was the shrewdest move I've ever made. But damn, beautiful country, friendly people. Cartagena is like a living museum. Put it on your life list.
|
|
Pudu
|
|
Friday, 07 December 2007 |
Travelling again, which is why the blog is not so much with the blogging of late. Hope this makes your Friday better. It certainly made my Wednesday nicer.
That's from a hill called Panecillo ("little loaf of bread") overlooking Quito, Ecuador. You're at almost twice the altitude of Denver, so the air is remarkably thin -- and when it's clear, my camera can't possibly do the colors here justice. (Altitude sickness, just from being here, can be a problem. Fortunately, I live in L.A., so I got over the need for a steady oxygen supply long ago.)
Yesterday, December 6, is the local equivalent of July 4th in the US. This particular year is Quito's 473rd anniversary. It's celebrated with a major festival lasting for several weeks. So major town squares and sometimes whole neighborhoods have been filled with dancing and singing and general merriment since I got here.
Highly recommended.
Plus, the whole downtown is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, filled with magnificent churches, convents, and assorted Spanish colonial stuff, all of it pretty damn gorgeous.
Here's how I've been treated since I got here: last night, I was one of thousands of people crushing together along a major avenue, awaiting the Parade of Sound and Light. Things were delayed, so this was rapidly turning into the Parade of Standing Around Freezing Two Miles in the Air While Surrounded by People With Much Stronger Lungs.
Pretty soon, I'm talking with a local named Paul. Mucho gusto. He introduces me to his wife. And his son. And another son, and two daughters. And some in-laws, I think, and maybe a couple of cousins. Frankly, I lost track. But they practically welcomed me into the family, just standing there on the street, helping me with my jagged Spanish and filling in the words when I couldn't find them.
A few minutes later, Paul asked if I had any friends in Quito. (I don't.) Then, before I could answer, and in all sincerity, he corrected himself: "besides us," he added.
Maybe you had to be there to know that he meant those words, already.
There's a thing that musicians do here after songs, at least during the Fiesta. They lead the crowd in a quick call-and-response: ¡Viva Quito! ¡Viva Ecuador!
So far, I have to agree.
|
|
Prisoner of Trebekistan
|
|
Monday, 03 December 2007 |
Haven't blogged in a while because I've been busy planning another trip, one I almost reconsidered. But got a reminder today that you gotta live while you're here.
Remember the two posts (first here, second here) about the insanely hard European Quizzing Championships? Where I grumbled happily about the Belgians and their otherworldly abilities?
Just found out that one of these Belgians has left us.
Lieven Van den Brande, top right corner with the beard, who seemed in perfect health to all, and finished second in the individual tournament, stepped out of the room quite suddenly today.
I only met him briefly, casually hanging out the same evening I took this picture of the full Belgian Armada, but he seemed like a very gentle and clearly brilliant fellow. Several of the people I met and liked very much at the tournament knew him well and are greatly saddened. I am sorry for their loss.
Life is so fucking short. Sure would be nice if it weren't. But it is.
Gonna go catch that plane now. Dammit.
|
|
Oz
|
|
Thursday, 29 November 2007 |
By making the lead singer from Midnight Oil...
... Australia's new Environment Minister.
Oz rocks. As an official matter of government policy, in fact.
I am so moving there one of these days. |
|
Stuff I like
|
|
Tuesday, 27 November 2007 |
Sixteen new Futurama episodes may be on the way to Comedy Central, but the first batch is also just out today on DVD as the Futurama movie Bender's Big Score. (This last and the frame grab both link to Amazon, if you're like me and you have to have it now.)
I haven't received mine yet, but the DVD reportedly also includes a full-length bonus episode of Everybody Loves Hypno-Toad.
How I ever lived without this I have no idea. |
|
Prisoner of Trebekistan
|
|
Tuesday, 27 November 2007 |
Friend of the blog Paul Paquet runs a combination PR and trivia-question-writing company in Ottawa that actually does a pretty nifty business. I had no idea the market for minutiae was so large.
His website hosts a weekly trivia quiz that Paul writes himself, and it's always a fun way to knock a few minutes off while procrastinating online. This week's quiz is loosely based on Who Hates Whom, a recent book of mine you may have seen subtly mentioned elsewhere on this site. Ahem.
I thank Paul for the thoughtful bit of pluggage. If you've got ten minutes and want to play, click on over.
One key caveat: the quiz also contains material not drawn from the book, and there are several places where the quiz phrases things in a way I wouldn't have chosen. Consider the entire quiz Paul's work, not mine. He deserves full credit for all any fun, reward, or outrage you may experience. Enjoy!
|
|
General horror
|
|
Sunday, 25 November 2007 |
The Sydney Morning Herald has reprinted this October Irish Times story about the incredible level of violence against women in the heavily populated eastern D.R. Congo:
For those who are apprehended, there is little impunity, thanks to antiquated gender laws. The attacks grow more numerous and sadistic by the day and the normalisation of sexual violence continues largely unabated. The article has details about the types of attacks, and frankly they're so dreadfully inhuman I'm not comfortable even quoting them here, in case some of you are eating or just breezing through. It's not the sort of thing to glance across casually. But I do urge you to take a minute, put down what you're doing, and click over and read.
Alternatively, there's the latest report from the International Rescue Committee:
“It was not uncommon to hear accounts of armed groups seizing young women from farms or water points and enslaving them and raping them for one to three months,” says [IRC D.R. Congo Gender Based Violence team coordinator Sarah] Mosely. “Now women in North Kivu talk to me more about gunmen breaking into their homes and brutally raping them in front of their families.”
She says the attacks have become so frequent that families in the north cross into Uganda at night to sleep in the forest. It’s safer than staying at home. The eastern D.R. Congo borders on Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, and the current horrorshow is a direct descendant of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1998-2003 Second Congo War (aka the African World War) which followed it. This Second Congo War, which at its height involved about two dozen factions from eight different countries, is almost certainly humankind's deadliest conflict worldwide since the end of World War II, with a death toll estimated by the International Rescue Committee at 3.8 million people as of early 2005.
Since the aftermath is still estimated to claim more than 1000 additional lives every single day (think malaria, malnutrition, dysentery, ongoing scattered violence, etc.), and about 1000 days have passed since the original estimate, at least four and perhaps more than five million Africans have died in less than ten years.
If you've barely or never heard of the Second Congo War, you are not alone. While the British and French press seem to have covered the topic in some depth, there's sparse mention in most U.S. newspaper archives. The Washington Post, whose coverage seems to have been much better than most, noted the entire war and its horrifying aftermath an average of about once every two and a half months, including the small passing mentions in the "World In Brief" bit on page A12.
Many Westerners have heard next to nothing about the violence in the D.R. Congo, despite the fact that even its aftermath is still deadlier on a daily basis than all other current wars on earth combined. (Hard to believe, but the math seems unavoidable.) Me, too, until recently; I only learned anything because I went looking, and that was only because I was getting paid last year to write a book about wars.
If you'd asked a year ago to name the most deadly conflict of our lifetimes, I might have guessed Vietnam. Most folks I've asked out of curiosity have guessed the same. But the Second Congo War surpassed its death toll in about half the time.) Ask what overseas conflict might merit more media coverage, and many Westerners may respond with Darfur. But the IRC estimated last year that Darfur's sparse coverage is still five times more than the D.R. Congo gets.
Ask where violence against women has reached crisis proportions, and you get all sorts of answers, ranging from Taliban-controlled areas to the unsolved murders in Juarez to people bringing up Natalee Holloway or whatever else they saw on CNN the night before.
As you read this, according to the IRC's local coordinator, whole families are night-communting to Uganda and sleeping in the woods just so their daughters won't be gang-raped for months on end.
Wonder when Nancy Grace will get around to those women. |
|
Pudu
|
|
Thursday, 22 November 2007 |
 In a moment of supreme holiday football-induced delirium, I got it in my head today that somewhere there must be a college called Pudu State, or at least that Pudu State gear would look kinda cool.
Curious, I went to the old CafePress store, which I haven't bothered with in a couple of years, and made up a logo for a sweatshirt for myself.
 Btw, if anyone asks, the team is called the Foraging Ungulates, and the school's official colors are ecru, buff, and khaki. Other teams in the conference include Duiker College, Muntjac University, Dik-Dik School of Cosmetology, and Klipspringer A&M.
And I may have eaten too much tryptophan today.
Still, there might be between five and fifty readers of this site who might want something similar as an odd impulse gift of their own, especially with the holiday shopping season bearing down on us all. So, what the heck — CafePress made it ridiculously easy to proliferate the idea across all sorts of interesting swag. Consider the idea shared.
While I was at it, I also tried out the old Robert Indiana tribute Pudu logo, which looks surprisingly cool on handbags, dog T-shirts, and other things I wouldn't have expected.
If anyone actually buys any of this stuff, I'll make a dollar or two on every sale, which I'll put toward this site's monthly upkeep.
I've also put a couple of the old products up, just in case somebody wants a 12-language office clock or a T-shirt that simply says "Impeach."
 Whether or not you click over to the CafePress store and show your alumni pride in the Foraging Ungulate Nation... happy post-Thanksgiving compulsory shopping trauma period, everybody.
PS -- CafePress has a banner ad they want sellers to run for the next few days, shouting about free shipping on orders over $75. But I hate giant banner ads, so here – click away if you like:
|
|
|
