Jeopardy!

I am reading Ken Jennings's book, "Brainiac". KJ is the all-time Jeopardy champ who won 74 games straight in his first run and is the second-highest all-time highest game show earner (around $6m). He's also the current host.

It turns out, KJ is just as likeable as an author as he seems to be on the show, and very witty. It's an easy and very enjoyable read. Something that stands out:

Following some game show scandals in the past (the subject of the Redford movie "Quiz Show"), Jeopardy! is extremely sensitive about keeping the playing field level and also not divulging goings on prior to the public showing. Shows are taped once a week on Tuesdays, five episodes back to back.

KJ lives in Utah (he's a computer programmer) and had to travel to LA regularly for tapings. Thus a challenge arose: how to explain his weekly trips to LA during his 3.5 month run? It is implied that he had to tell his boss, who cooperated, but for everyone else he had to make up stories.

KJ also comments separately that during the cringe-worthy mini-interview segment of each episode, toward the end of his run, he started making stuff up for lack of anything more clever to say.

By the way, in case you don't know, this is the question that finally took KJ down: "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white collar employees work only 4 months per year". I think I could feasibly have gotten it right. He must have been having an off day.