What If...my questions for Ken Jennings

Around this time last year, I tried to swing an interview for my column at Quick Stop Entertainment with Mr. Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame. I read that his new book was going to be called Brainiac and he did mention that he was a fan of the comic book medium. So, I thought that getting an interview would have been a match made in 4-color heaven, or at the very least, a "no-brainer".

I wrote a few sample questions and sent an email to his domain address. Within a couple of days, I received word from his agent stating that he would be taking interview requests closer to his book release date. I acknowledged her email with a couple jokes and waited for my turn in line.


The release date came and went with no word. A week also ran past me like Tomlinson does the Raiders D. And you can see where I'm going with this (especially if you read the post title). After a few weeks, I began to realize that I was given the email equivalent of a blowoff.

I was going to trash the question since they were no longer relevant and no question likes to go unanswered. But I thought better about it. They're not naked light bulb, sweat your ass off questions. But they're not lame one either, at least in my opinion.

So, I will let you decide. Please let me know what you think. I'm not Ed Bradley. Hell, I'm not even James Lipton but I would like to think that I could carry a conversation with anyone.

Why write a book?

Other than the obvious, why pick Brainiac as the title?

Your blog gained some unnecessary flack about your revelation about the existence of the Trebeck 3000 humanoid. Were you surprised about how devoted the cult of Jeopardy are to its cybernetic leader?

Do you feel that your intelligence has been devalued at all due to the normal dumbing down that has become a part of the world's culture of celebrity?

I watched most of your historic run on Jeopardy and your knowledge of comics (both in strip and book form) came in pretty handy. What role do you think that reading comic books as a kid in the 70's in helping develop your intellect? (Follow-up question) For point of reference purposes, what was the last comic book that you read?

What were some of the perks that you never even thought that you'd get just from being on Jeopardy?

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Image of the Day for 08-28-07

Jim Carrey getting involved with the plight of Aung San Suu Kyi, an imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient in Burma. It is still shocking to hear of such inequities in today's "modern" world. Just listen to the message and then listen to your heart.

Link: US Campaign for Burma

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Rutgers player looking to cash in on name-calling

(AP Photo via ABC News)

Man, America's litigious culture and "I wanna get paid" attitude has reared its ugly head again. Kia Vaughn has hit Don Imus (both pictured above) with a civil law suit for defamation of character. According to her ambulance-chasing attorney, Richard Ancowitz, the reason for the suit is:

“This is about Kia Vaughn’s good name,” he said. “She would do anything to return to her life as a student and respected basketball player - a more simple life before Imus opened his mouth on April 4.”

Huh?! It's been over four months since this media frenzy, which led to Imus' firing (and deservedly so). But to say you need to be compensated because some radio idiot DJ hurt your rep by calling the team that you played on a name smacks of out-and-out greed. Puhlease. Try telling that to the real people who suffer through that same indignation on a daily basis, but have to work for a living, not Vaughn's lifestyle of hoops and books at a Division I college. What's really surprising about this suit is not the fact that it was filed, but that there hasn't been more of them. But rest assured, if Vaughn gets anything outta Imus, there will be.

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Read My Lips...

I am a big fan of Reality TV (in case one of my first posts concerned Chachi at 45 on VH-1 didn't hip you to that fact). It is like a sociology experiment that just happens to have a semi-cohesive threaded POV that's devised by network people who edit the hell out of millions of hours in the raw footage. However, the problem with Reality TV is that the talent pool here in America is running on empty.

There are so many different genres from the mate-quest show (The Bachelor, Joe Millionaire, and currently, the disturbed Rock of Love with the aging quite badly Bret Michaels) to the next great creator competition show (the Next Food Network Star and Design Star) and from the makeover show (Extreme Makeover and Made) to the generic "ultimate" endurance show (the originator of US Reality TV, Survivor, and Road Rules/Real World Challenge) that it's not too far off to think that I'm the only one who has not been on one reality show yet. It's getting to the point where the networks are turning to grade school kids for an influx of fresh blood (ABC's Kid Nation), which is eerily similar to the NBA drafting 18 year-olds but that's a comparison for another time.

Perfect examples of this drying out talent pool are Dick from Big Brother 8 and Rob from the aforementioned Design Star. Both men are over 35, self-important, and are loud and obnoxious which they mistakenly misdiagnose as them being "straight forward" and "telling it like it is". They value their opinions above all others and they espouse hate and discontent as their personal doctrine.



Now before you say they have something in common with a certain person that you may read occasionally (don't you dare!), this pair of wannabe alpha-males have something else in common. They both can butcher the exact same phrase but in different ways. Here's the phrase (from doubletongued.org):

Throw (someone) under the bus - to reject or betray (someone); to treat as a scapegoat; to put out of favor or at a disadvantage.

Ding-dong Dick used the phrase "sold you under the bus" a couple of weeks ago on BB8 while the irritating Rob used "throw me under the wheels" in tonight's Design Star episode. Huh? I thought that the whole purpose of that phrase was the visual of actually throwing someone under a bus. Obviously, Dick mashed up the phrase with another popular (albeit turn of the 20th century phrase) "sold you up the river". Kinda understandable but Rob's excuse? Don't got one here. I think that he's just somewhat slow and crazy to use the English language properly.

I hate being the grammar police because that would be like the inmates running the asylum. But please, people, read my lips. If you're gonna use a hip new phrase or colloquialism that people at work were throwing around to cover their asses ("wrap my brain around it" is the leader going into the clubhouse in mine), please practice it with family and close friends prior to using it. It does everyone involved a bit of good.

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Please wake up, Bob Ryan

I didn't have really much else to talk about today. That is until I came across this little "blog" by one of the best sports writers today, Bob Ryan. I'm sure that you might have heard of him as he shows up whenever ESPN needs a great pinch hitter on The Sports Reporters, Around the Horn, or PTI. Hell, he did so well with those show that NESN (that's New England Sports Network in non-acronym form) gave his own PTI-style show called The Globe 10.0. So, he knows his stuff.

But on this one post, I would have to give him an alarm clock so he can a real wake-up call. Here's what I mean (excerpt from the aforementioned "blog"):

For you young'uns, as well as impressionable elders, let me remind you what a proper Supporting Cast in the NBA really is.

What it isn't is the one the Celtics have at the present time. From roster spots 4 through 12, the Celtics are the most impotent team in the NBA. You must accept this, or else there is no chance of us having a decent conversation. The new trio of stars is a nice start.

A nice start. Period....

Mr. Ryan continues to laundry list the former bench players of the great Celtic teams of the 80s and early 90s. I would do so here but I hate being redundant for duplicity's sake.

The fact is that on principle, I do agree with his sentiment. There's no way that the Celtics, comprised the way they are now, would ever come close to resembling a complete and solid playoff team back then. However, he fails to factor into his playoff contender roster calculation a few variables that have transpired since those thrilling days of yesteryear:

• The age of the Salary Cap, which prohibits stockpiling undiscovered or underutilized role players for years until they were needed. Can't pay people for not contributing right away anymore.
  
• Not only one but two years of expansion, which diluted not only the game play but the player pool. Kinda hard to keep good players when there are more teams who can snatch them up by offering more money.
• The introduction of upside, which made GMs go after younger players who did not have the strong fundamentals down and more times than not needed on-the-job training to get those skils perfected. This shift towards "potential/upside" raw players versus "proven" winners has single-handedly killed the game to the point that the NBA had to establish an age-requirement just to prevent the GMs from putting it completely in the grave.

In the type of shape that the Eastern Conference is in, the Celtics do not have to be like they were in the 80s. Shoot, if LeBron and his band of unreknowns could make it to the NBA finals, it's not hard to imagine the Hydra-head of the Celtics getting there too. So, Bob (if I can call you that), please wake up and live in the now..

Wait a sec, since I can't be a young'un (3 weeks until 38th birthday people!), I must be one of those impressionable elders. Aww, crap...

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What I Miss - A Decent Comic Book Store

** The names have been changed since I don't want to remember them. **
** Plus, I don't want to give them any business based on my actions. **

As far as retail buying goes, the days of the local Mom & Pop stores are going the way of the cassette tape. It's a slow death and we, the consumers, are paying for it. Most of the times, it's not in the wallet that we get hit but in human terms. Those small stores were a part of the community where the owner never screwed over his customers for fear of retribution since everyone knew where he lived. Neighborhood shops were a great anchor for the community to gather around.

Now, big business has a toehold in most neighborhoods with their grocery stores, CD outlets and even pharmacies. And it's not just brick-and-mortar stores either. The escalating use of the Internet for shopping is changing where people shop. The sense of community as a purchasing identity has been replaced by individual households going towards the smell of saving the almighty dollar, and if you've looked at gas prices recently, that mindset is very understandable.

But the place where this spirit of community still thrives is in your local comic book store. The majority of them are small business owners and they have a vested interest in not only the products that they are selling but also in the reading habits of people who come into their store. A good experience in a comic book store will almost guarantee a return visit with the likelihood of a good size purchase. But what does a bad or even so-so experience return? Here's what happened to me in the past month.

A couple of months ago, I moved away from my neighborhood comic book store. I do not hide the fact that I am rather biased towards Big Planet Comics since I did work some weekends there for the past eight years. But I thought that there would be something equivalent in my new town.

So, after settling into my new house and job, I took a trip to one of the three local stores in the area, which I'll call "Android's Dungeon". As I walked into the store, I noticed that comics we lined up in bookshelves along the perimeter of the store space. They had a decent inventory of all forms of comics from manga to superhero hardcover collections. There was also a good selection of longboxes full of back issues. And there were small pockets of action figures interspersed between the trades. Not bad, so far.

Here's where it turns brutal. The back issues were located under these tables that were being used by customers who were sitting on the attached benches and were either painting their models or playing a card game like Magic: The Gathering while listening to the soft hits of the 70s, 80s, 90s and today.

I was confused. How did the owner expect someone (more than likely a new customer) to go through those longboxes looking to complete a series with a row of smelly kicks in their face? And plus, who would want those books after seeing the condition of those shoes other than someone with a very strong foot fetish? Also, it was almost impossible to browse the trades that were lined along the walls without knocking over the people sitting in these tables and benches based on the space that they took up.

This wasn't a comic book store; it was a gaming store in comic book store's clothing. Obviously, this was a bad trip and I didn't drop a dime on anything. So, after seeing what it actually was, I immediately decided that a return trip to "Android's Dungeon" was not in the cards, so to speak.

To wash that bad taste in my mouth, I decided to make a trip to one of the other two comic book store, which I will call "Three-D Comics".This store was packed with comic books. In fact, the store was setup with rows and rows of back issues with floor-to-ceiling bookcases of hardcovers, trades, and manga digests along the wall. There were even a couple rows for action figures. The selection for all of them was splendid. I was thinking that this may be the one. Then, I delved a little further. If it was going to win my cash for comic book purchases, it had to be a perfect fit.

First, the store is only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 11-7. Not too bad but what if I get a jones for a new trade on Monday? I've gotta wait until Thursday? Based on my impulse shopping habits, that's not going to happen. Then, I looked at the prices of the back issues. They were jacked up even higher than the Wizard pricing guide, which say all sorts of things that I do not even want to know about.

Finally, I talked to the fifty-ish woman who was jockeying the counter. I came to find out that she was the wife of the owner and she was not at all knowledgeable about comics at all. Not even a cursory interest. Huh? How can she recommend anything without even a smidge of comic book insight? As another customer tried to pay for something, she informed him that they only accepted cash and checks not plastic. What? Is this the 50's? How can anyone do business without accepting credit cards; especially when the items can get quite pricey? I just couldn't wrap my brain around that last one. So, another one bites the dust.

Based on these two stores, I'm not even going to that last store. Call it being gun-shy, if you will. I'm just no in the mood to have my heart broken again. Recently, I heard Tom Keifer sing so painfully that "You don't know what'cha got 'til it's gone." After going to these last two comic book stores, I finally came to the realization that I didn't know how good I really had it.

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