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Actual Books
Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics,
Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™
“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”
-- Boston Globe
"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.”
-- John Hodgman,
author, The Areas of My Expertise and correspondent for The Daily Show
"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"
-- The Wall Street Journal
"A surprisingly touching memoir"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"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
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Home  Book Blog
Prisoner of Trebekistan
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 While I'm thinking of Trebekistan today, a reminder:
Nineteen-game winner David Madden is still out there hiking the length of the entire east coast -- from Maine's border with Canada all the way to Key West -- while raising money for Fisher House, a top-rated non-profit that provides nearby lodging so that loved ones can be nearby while wounded military veterans undergo extended treatment for war-related injuries.
Last David checked in, he was strolling along a detour through Amish country. Sounds like an amazing trip. If you'd like to see what such a hike looks like, David's way-cool photo albums from the walk so far are here, here, and here.
Wherever we stand on the political spectrum, I hope this is something every American can support.
I hope you'll join me in chipping in, if you have one minute right now, plus a couple of dollars you'd like to share.
Thanks!
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If you've read Prisoner of Trebekistan, Lyn Payne is:
(a) the fellow contestant upon whose shoulder I put my head when I survived the first round of the 1998 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions while suffering from a lousy fever,
(b) the fierce competitor who pushed me into the "Compleat Angler" Final Jeopardy moment in the semis,
(c) a real sweetheart, and
(d) going to be on Millionaire tomorrow (and possibly, I think, the next day if she does well).
I hope she won the whole giant kaboodle. Will be watching. Go Lyn!
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If you've read Prisoner of Trebekistan, you may remember my final nemesis, Michael Daunt, winner of the Jeopardy! 1997 International Tournament of Champions, at one time arguably the best player in the world.
Michael was the last (of several) players to beat me over the years, but he's a great, funny, brilliant guy, and we've stayed in fairly frequent touch ever since. Turns out he and some friends are just in the formative stages of launching a new online magazine called Quiblit, itself host to a series of ten other blogs (roll over "Hosted Blogs" for a list), none of which are nearly so hard to spell.
Worth a look. In a quick glance, "Man Bites Blog" looks particularly promising.
One warning: when Quiblit's writers all refer to Thanksgiving as something that just happened, they're not time-warped, they're Canadian. The only time-warping involved entails living in a country where wars aren't rushed into, health care and education are truly considered public issues of real import, and the environment is more than just a place to get and put junk.
I'm hoping that's ten years in America's future. Not part of some distant imaginary 1970s past.
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WhichBudget.com is a searchable destination-by-destination database of 116 budget airlines serving 874 airports in 124 countries. Warning: this site may get you so excited you can't sit still.
Want to find a cheap flight from, say, Vancouver to Hawaii in November? WhichBudget points you to WestJet, where you can do the round trip for about $500 before taxes. (Checking Travelocity, similar non-stops on the major airlines were already sold out for my randomly-chosen dates, although you could beat the fare if you were willing to route through Chicago.)
How about, I dunno, Los Angeles to Timbuktu? This took a little poking around and a bit of past experience, but in ten minutes I found connections on Point Afrique between the Malian city of Mopti and Paris, which you can skate to from Los Angeles via Ireland's Aer Lingus. (Once in Mopti, most folks take the slow boat up the river to Timbuktu.) Total airfare, with a little planning: roughly $1500, round trip, before taxes. To Timbuktu.
My guess is you're more likely to go to Hawaii. But just saying.
PS: if you're concerned about the safety record of airlines you may not be familiar with -- or, y'know, the whole zipping along seven miles up at 600 mph in a tin box thing anyway -- AirSafe.com has the lowdown on whose tin boxes tend to go up and down as intended. |
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I am so happy and proud to know this guy.
My good Trebekistan buddy David Madden, holder of the second-longest consecutive-game win streak in the history of Jeopardy!, is hiking the entire east coast of the U.S. -- from Edmundston, New Brunswick just over the Canadian border all the way to Key West -- while raising money for Fisher House, which provides temporary hospital-adjacent housing for families of wounded soldiers.
When I tell you over and over that Trebekistan is filled with incredibly cool people, this is what I mean.
And whatever you think of the war -- and David and I think along pretty similar lines -- there are now thousands of fellow Americans who were put in harm's way as a result, and they and their families have to pull together now and find a way to get through it. This is a pretty amazing (for David) and easy (for us) way to help.
He's got a blog up and running now, plus a couple of cool photo albums, if you'd like to see what it's like to walk 3000 miles for charity.
Toss in a penny a mile, and that's thirty bucks. Or throw in two pennies. Or three. Donations are tax-deductible and Fisher House gets absolutely top ratings from charity watchdogs.
Bright guy, David. Also, and more importantly, good.
Let's do some good now, too.
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