Brain Drain

Be it a result of ageing, watching too many VH1 clips shows, or a consistent upswing in alcohol intake over the years, I am afraid that I am getting dumber. Not that I do dumb shit, I mean I do but that has always been a character trait, but rather I think I may be losing my vast reserve of wholly useless knowledge. I don't know how you determine something like that or how practically appreciable it really is but, well, I don't think I am as good at Jeopardy as I once was.

You see, I used to watch a lot of Jeopardy. A lot. In high school I watched just about everyday, which was a bit of a problem only because I would have to flip back and forth between that and reruns of Star Trek: TNG. Obviously sex, outside of self-abuse, was pretty much a non-option for me during my pimply youth -- which is surprsing given how handsome I looked in my marching band uniform...according to my mom. Anyway, I could kick fucking ass on that show. I would sit in my room shouting out answers in the form of a question (in retrospect this explains so much) and I had a very high percentage. Especially when the high school challenge was on because let's be honest, those questions are always cake.

My senior year of high school during the beginning of my epic tenure at the local Blockbuster, I worked with a girl who actually went on the Jeopardy High School Challenge that year. She was your typical type-A overachiever; going to Penn, no personality, uppity, had never seen Star Wars, not good at common sense tasks, etc. I had watched the entire tournament that year and she made it to the final rounds. Now playing at home, I was doing phenomenally well. I even recall batting 1.000 during one of the episodes. (No revisionist history at work here.) So, Ms. Hot Shit makes it to Final Jeopardy of the final round and blows it. She could have won the whole damn thing but she couldn't recall the name of the epic poem that represents the largest example of Old English text -- which I of course knew: What is Beowulf. Damn I am awesome. Now this all went down months before she started working at the 'Buster, my 'Buster, so when she showed up for her first day I knew exactly who she was and like any New Fish in The Yard I needed to put her in her place. The withering stare I got when I greeted her with one word, Beowulf, was absolutely priceless.

But I digress, we are talking about ME here. Why is it that I believe I am dumbing down? Because I have taken to watching Jeopardy on the regular again (perhaps because my sex life of late resembles that of its secondary school self) but my skills are weak. I've gone soft. I'm hanging in there but my dominant years are gone, like an old ballplayer with bad knees. Shit, last night I only got two (!) questions right in the "Hawaii" category which is at least a little bit pathetic. This is a crisis. If I don't have my useless trivia knowledge, what do I have left? If I can't beat people at stupid fact-based board games, how will I justify my solipsisitic sense of superiority? If I can't kick ass on Jeopardy, what will I do from 7:30 until 8pm? (Another Seinfeld rerun?)

Unacceptable. I am going back into training. It is time to renew my subscription to The Economist. I will daily memorize dictionary.com's Word of the Day, randomly surf Wikipedia for at least 20 minutes, read at least 40 pages of whatever book I am in to, and do 1,000 pushups. I am taking the online Jeopardy challenge at the end of the month!