Law Students

how you know

By Andrea

One of my favorite books, Bob Harris's Prisoner of Trebekistan, has a lot of funny, self-deprecating stories about how Bob managed to know some random factoid because of a silly event in his life, as opposed to learning it in a class somewhere. He makes this seem like a lesser, luckier way to learn, contrasting the "Ivy League Serial Killer" type of trivia star with a guy like himself.

But clearly, it's not such a bad way to learn. Nobody knows how you know something, only that you know it. I was thinking about this since I got last night's Final Jeopardy not because I know history trivia, which I'm actually terrible at, but because I've seen Frida. Then today I was reading a quiz in Ken Jennings's trivia almanac, and it asked what road in London had a famous antiques market, and I don't know anything about England or antiques. But I instantly thought, "Portobello Rooooad, Portobello Rooooad, Street where the riches of ages are stowed!" Which is a song from the kids' movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which I haven't seen for years and couldn't tell you the plot of.

Being a generally curious person with a good memory will take you very far in life. And if you happen to stumble across a quiz show set, all the better.

Speaking of which: In the last couple days we've learned that Theo from Dan's second game got paid. Wait, it hasn't been 120 days, right? The investigation kicked into high gear: Katy from game 5 also got paid! And just in case they were taking longer with champions, he checked one more buddy: Heather from games 2 and 3 got paid! IT'S COMING!!

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on April 08, 2008 (boomark / email).