I lost on Jeopardy, ba-by...

I got back from a quick trip to LA this week...

Ed called me the other day to tell me he was going to be on Jeopardy, and that none of his other friends would be able to come. So, taking a quick look at the schedule, I decided to skip out of town for 2 days and see him on the show.

Southwest is magical: on 24 hours notice, I got a round-trip ticket to LA for $29 each way. That is a thing of beauty. Ed and I agreed to share a hotel room, and I got a rental car from Advantage for $14/day.

All these arrangements went down Sunday night, which means all day Monday I was slammed, seeing people back-to-back-to-back until it was time to race out of the office in a desperate attempt to get to the airport on time. As veterans of this blog know, desperate attempts by me to get to the airport on time pretty much always end well; it's the times where I try to be responsible that inevitably lead to disaster. And sure enough, with some hyper-aggressive driving on the 101, a little bit of shuttle karma, and a short line at security, I managed to make the flight a full 20 minutes before takeoff. Another job well done.

I spent the 55 minute flight to LA trying to solve a Rubik's Cube. Earlier that day I gave an interview to a prospective tutor named Leyan Lo, who until 2006 was the world record holder in Rubik's Cube solving, at 11.13 seconds. He had me mix up a cube for him, and then had me time him. It took him just over 16 seconds, and I have to tell you, it was amazing to watch. He then proceeded to teach me how to solve it, and presented me at the end of the interview with some instructions for how to do it. It was huge fun to solve it there with him, but I wanted to see if I could retain the knowledge long enough to do it again on my own later.

The verdict: nope.

My dance teacher (perhaps somewhat ironically named Gaye) always used to say that you had to learn something 5 times before you really learned it. How to solve a Rubik's Cube appears to follow that rule. Even with the written instructions I got bogged down.

That said, he gave a great math and physics interview, so he's almost certainly coming on board.

Anyway, in short order we landed in LA, and the girl next to me, who had been with some amusement watching me flail even with step-by-step instructions in front of my face, wished me luck. I headed out to find the shuttle to Advantage.

Now, Advantage rent-a-car is like the opposite of Advantage Testing; Advantage rent-a-car appears to be the cheapest option out there, with a service level to match. I realized after waiting a while that because it's a very small operation, the shuttle might only come when they were actually expecting someone, which meant waiting another 20 minutes, and I hadn't remembered to write down the number of the place, only the reservation number. So I hit upon a Brilliant Idea.

My Brilliant Idea was this: rental car places are all located in pretty much the same area, so why bother waiting for the Advantage shuttle? I could just jump the next major car rental shuttle, and then just spot for the Advantage lot.

So, 10 seconds later I jumped the Hertz shuttle, and off we went. As we passed through a light, I saw a sign that indicated that Alamo and Advantage were up the road. So, when we pulled into Hertz, I got out and started walking.

And walking.

And walking.

And walking.

It turns out that LAX is bordered by a pretty large, slowly decaying, totally-deserted-at-night industrial area, which is sprinkled here and there with car rental companies. Not, it turns out, especially adjacent to each other.

Ed called me on the phone as I was walking through a little urban meadow of broken concrete and shattered crack vials, and asked what the hell was taking so long, because he was starving. I informed him that (a) I was starving too because I hadn't actually had time to eat that day, and in fact had last had a meal over 24 hours previously, and (b) was trying to focus on finding the goddamned car rental place.

At that point, I was saved by... wait for it... the Advantage shuttle. Not that it picked me up or anything, but I saw it go whizzing by, probably on its way back from the airport, where it failed to find me in this universe but presumably *did* find me in some of the other multitudes of universes in which I did smart, normal-people things like sit down and fucking wait 20 minutes, or, you know, write down the car rental phone number or something. I saw the shuttle disappear down a little side street.

I ran after it, and got to the corner just in time to see it distantly turning right. So I headed down that street for quite some time, and then eventually stumbled upon Advantage car rental.

Like I said, it's a small rental company, and probably doesn't get a lot of business at 9pm on a Monday night, so there were only 2 people working, and each one was helping someone. I was excited since there was no one ahead of me in line, figuring that that would imply a very short time until I was once again on the road in LA.

But, I guess when you're stuck at work on a Monday night, and there aren't many customers, your incentive is to go ve-e-e-e-e-e-ry slowly, as a means of alleviating the boredom. It took a solid 15 minutes before one of the 2 guys finished, and who knows how long they'd been helping these people before I showed up.

But I did finally get my little Hyundai Elantra, which made me nostalgic for Julio, my Hyundai Elantra with the stupid little spoiler that I had from 1995-2003, before trading it to Plaid for a pile of used science fiction books so his kid would have a car to drive. After all, I had just moved to NYC, and knew I wouldn't be needing a car for the foreseeable. I got in this newer, less charactered Elantra and headed for the Radisson in Culver City.

Once there, Ed and I greeted each as we are wont to do:

Me: "Yo dude, good to see you!"

Ed: "Yo dawg, what's up?"

Me: "Dude, I'm really fucking hungry. Let's get out of here and get some food."

Ed: "Me too. But first I have to finish dealing with my clothes here."

Me: "WHAT? You couldn't have fucking done that during the SIX HOURS you've already been here? Can't this wait?"

Ed: "Fuck you. Listen, I don't iron. What I do is hang my clothes in the bathroom and turn on the shower, and let the steam take care of most of the wrinkles. So I did that tonight. But then my brother called and I was on the phone with him for an hour and forgot that my clothes were in the bathroom getting steamed. I just got off the phone with him 2 minutes before you got here. Here, feel this shirt."

I feel the shirt. It is very, very, VERY damp.

Me: "Dude, you are fucking retarded."

Ed: "Hey- why don't you shut the fuck up and let me finish dealing with this, huh? How 'bout that?"

There are some days where I feel that, if Ed and I hadn't each become high-end tutors, we'd instead have become Vincent and Jules (John Travolta and Samuel Jackson) from Pulp Fiction.

So I waited for Ed, and then we headed off to Tito's Tacos. Mmmmmmm, Tito's. I don't know what Tito is doing there, but he makes the best damned taco-stand tacos on earth, bar none. We had a long leisurely dinner and played catch up, and then headed back to the hotel.

The next morning, Ed had to be on a 730am shuttle, so he had his wake-up call set for 530am. Now, for me there is no significant difference between the time it takes for me to get ready for a special event, and the time it takes for me to get ready normally. Basically the entire difference can be attributed to (1) putting on shoes that actually have laces and therefore need to be tied, and (2) tying a tie. So all that tying of stuff adds up to about 2 extra minutes tops.

For Ed, there is no significant difference between the time it takes him to get ready for a special event, and the time it would take a really really neurotic woman to get ready for the same event. I'm not sure why that is- I mean, he's not putting on makeup or anything. At least, I don't think he is; if he is, it isn't making him any prettier. The 2 hours of time he allotted was supposed to allow for him to have a leisurely breakfast, but he ended up only having time to grab coffee to go. Again, I'm not sure why that is- I had my head under my pillow, trying vainly to sleep through all his pimping and preening.

As a contestant guest, I was supposed to be at the studio at 1030am. So, I got out of bed around 1010, was out the door at 1020, and arrived at the Sony lot at 1030. Fortunately, the intake process for all the guests and just random people who wanted to be in the studio audience took long enough for me to park the car and join in. They made us buddy up with someone for the long walk through the forest of sound stages, and I wound up talking to the new husband of one of the contestants. They were also from NYC, and he was a biochemistry Ph.D., so I spent the walk trying to recruit him into Advantage.

Once in the studio, the guy who announces for Jeopardy explained how the day would go for us. They film 3 shows in the morning, take a mandatory 1-hr lunch break, and then film 2 more shows. So, an entire week of Jeopardy happens in 1 day. Alex Trabek simply goes backstage and changes suits in the break between shows, and then also comes out and takes questions from the audience. That's the stuff I remember being told. Now, Ed swears that he was told by the Jeopardy folks that we, the contestant guests, were ALSO told not to look at, try to communicate with, or otherwise acknowledge the future contestants, who sit in the section next to us while they await their turn up on the stage, on the grounds that the Jeopardy folks need to ensure that there's not even a snowball's chance of any cheating occurring.

I guess, in retrospect, that would explain why, when the contestants filed in and starting sitting down in the section next to us, and I started waving, flashing 2 thumbs up, and smiling encouragingly at Ed, all the other contestant guests seemed oddly restrained, and Ed seemed, well, sheepish.

Ah well. I, uh, may have drifted in and out a little bit during that spiel at the beginning. And following directions has never been one of my core competencies anyway.

I brought some ACTs with me to work on, anticipating that there would be a lot of down time. But actually, there surprisingly wasn't. But I also used the paper I brought with me to keep score of how many answers I knew all throughout the day, just to see if I had any chance as a contestant myself. Basically, it broke down like this:

science/geography/vocabulary: 5/5
history/literature/current events: 2/5 - 4/5
fine art/music/sports: 1/5 - 2/5
anything with movies, TV, or celebrities: 0/5

And with that last one, that's 0/5 *every* *time*. And it's not like I was guessing wrong, and then saying "oh right, I should have known that!" I mean, the questions get read, and I have blank, Homer Simpson stare. Then the answer is announced, and I *still* have blank, Homer Simpson stare. The answers didn't mean anything more to me than the questions.

Game 1 started with a male returning champion, and a woman originally from upstate NY who now lived in LA and was a patent attorney, and someone else challenging. LA woman managed to knock off the champion in a relatively well-contested match.

Then, 2 members from the contestant pool were chosen at random to come up and take the stage to challenge LA woman in Game 2. No Ed though, and no Roopa, who was the wife of biochem dude. Interestingly, as I had bonded with her husband, I could see that Roopa and Ed were sitting next to each other and had apparently bonded as well.

LA woman, whose house had burned down a couple months before in one of the SoCal fires, dispatched both those challengers pretty handily. 2 more contestants were chosen at random for Game 3. Still no Ed and no Roopa.

Game 3 was marginally better contested, but still ended in a pretty convincing victory for LA woman. Now it was time for lunch. Contestants were kept sequestered in the dining area for Jeopardy staff, while we were told to walk off the lot and forage. So I found some Japanese food in a minimall across the street, and came back to discover that I was apparently late (they made me leave my cell ph in the car so I had no way of keeping time, but was *sure* I hadn't been gone that long), and so I had to run across the Sony lot by myself. Fortunately, I remembered the way back and got to the studio just as they were closing the doors.

Which was good, because Ed was up for Game 4, along with a woman from South Dakota somewhere. Ed and LA woman went at each other like heavyweight fighters, leaving Dakota girl in the dust. They went into Final Jeopardy tied at $9600 apiece, with Dakota girl in a distant 3rd at $2400. The category was "Pulitzer Prize for Drama".

Uh oh.

Right away, I knew this was going to be trouble. Ed's not a big drama buff, and had it been me up there, I would have bet $0 and hoped that LA woman got it wrong, simply because I would estimate my probability of getting a Final Jeopardy question in a category like that correct to be less than 1%.

Ed, however, true to his nature, went balls-out and bet it all. And... got it wrong. Meanwhile, both the women got it right, and so he finished 3rd. LA woman won again. It was an exciting game though, and it will air on 10/29. Ed was the most entertaining contestant that day by far though, so I recommend watching it even though you know the final outcome overall.

After the game, Ed came back out to sit next to me. Roopa was one of the 2 called up to battle with LA woman next in Game 5. We watched her finish 3rd also, while a dude from New Bedford knocked off LA woman. Then the day was done, so we headed out, back to the hotel...

Ed: "I need to be drinking. Now. Make it happen."

Me: "OK, I'm on it."

So we dropped off stuff at the hotel and headed down to Santa Monica. I took us to Yankee Doodles on the promenade, because I always enjoyed drinking there back in the days when I was in advertising and was expected to go to events in bars to schmooze with buyers.

So we drank and played pool for a couple hours before going to dinner at Father's Office on Montana with our friends Scholzeey and Allegra, who work in the LA Advantage office, and whom we have known since they joined the NYC Advantage office in 2004. They are a lot of fun, and we talked well into the night. It was good that they were there, because the entire night up until that point had been Ed lamenting the fact that knowing just one more question was the difference between having $1000, and having $19,200 and the pride of being a Jeopardy champion. He can be a little obsessive, and so I was glad we were able to at least mostly get his mind off of it.

I woke up the next morning with a headache that I recognized as being the thing I always end up with after a night of drinking with Ed. He and I had booked our flights out that evening, in case he had won a few games in a row, so we had a whole day in LA to kill. We didn't end up getting out of the hotel until noon, and so after a hearty anti-hangover breakfast, we went down to State beach and spent a couple hours laying out. It was so nice to just lay out on the sand. Then we hit the Beverly Center, and then Versailles for some Cuban food.

Of course, this story can't end without my noting that true to form, we spent too long at dinner, and wound up having to race through west LA to drop off the rental and get to LAX in time for our flights. But, with some aggressive driving and a short line at security, we both made it. So I wished Ed goodbye, and thanked him for a most entertaining couple days...

Me: "Dude, it was great seeing you! And thanks for another interesting story..."

Ed: "You know what would have made it an even more interesting story? Winning 19 thousand dollars. FUCK! fuckfuckfuck."

Me: "Dude, seriously, you've got to stop that."

Ed: "Dude, I'm over it. I'm fucking over it. Don't worry about it."

Riiiiiight.