Proud Kiva Plug

I've reached a point where I have no idea how long it has been since I've posted a blog. This has gotten so bad that I didn't even check to see that I had comments awaiting action. So I apologize to Mike Garrett, who wanted advice about appearing on Jeopardy! I hope he had a great run on the show. According to the J-Archive, his episode(s) (which shot in mid-December), has (have) not yet run, so I can at least look forward to watching him compete.

And congratulations are in order for Amy Stephenson,  a fellow member of the Friends of Bob Harris lending group on Kiva, who had a three-day run on Jeopardy! earlier this month. She'll be contributing some of her earnings to our worth efforts when her check shows up late this spring. Thus far, our group has loaned over $1.5 million and Bob himself has loaned over $100,000.

Bob Harris himself is on the down-hill side of finishing his book about micro-loans called The First International Bank of Bob. I highly recommend his previous books Prisoner of Trebekistan and Who Hates Whom.  While I sometimes feel I've known Bob forever, we met only about four years ago. Before that I "knew" him from his many appearances on Jeopardy! as a regular contestant, a Tournament of Champions contestant and a contestant on two different special Jeopardy! championship series and from the radio commentaries he used to do for KNX radio that may have been syndicated around the country. Bob and I also both have degrees from Case Western Reserve University (his is an undergrad degree and mine is from the law school) but we were there about 10 years apart. Should he ever appear in your area to do a talk or a book signing, go.  He's very, very funny.

Because of Bob, I joined Kiva and talked about it when I appeared on the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions in 2010. I've made 80 loans so far, all of them to women who are trying to improve their lives and the lives of their families in something in excess of 30 countries. It's a great way to remind myself that I am helping to improve the world $25 at a time with money that can then be re-loaned upon repayment.  Feel free to join me.

Reruns

I wasn't home last night to see it myself, but Harlan Ellison called me to tell me I was on Jeopardy! reruns. If your local station does Jeopardy! reruns on the weekend, check next week.  I have no idea if they are running all five of my days of regular play or not, but if they are, I'll be on for the next four weekends.  I was disappointed when I seemed to be skipped over between the runs of two other people who were on the Tournament of Champions with me, but I wasn't the only one who got skipped.  I'm hoping that we'll see Col. Dave after my run.  And I'm also hoping that last year's Tournament of Champions gets its two week run during the weekday Jeopardy! reruns this summer.  Original episodes generally end this week or next.

The reason why we weren't home is that we decided to catch Green Lantern last night. Len had seen it already and I decided to give it a try despite the critical hashing because I liked what we saw up in San Diego.  Also, I wanted a chance to see one of Len's characters up on the screen, which he did not see when he went to the 3-D screening.  Sometimes, it just takes two sets of eyes, because Len did not see Walt Simonson in the Valhalla scene of Thor on his own either.

First of all, the movie is getting a bum rap.  It's quite entertaining and Ryan Reynolds is charming. It's not X-men: First Class, but few superhero films are.

We saw Galius Zed in one of the early GL Corps scenes peeking out from behind Hal Jordon, so you can pick up your GL Galius Zed action figure and help pay for Casa Wein-Valada. 

Moving--Again

Some of you may remember that we had no intention of moving back into our house after we had a fire in 2009.  Unfortunately, health matters brought a screeching halt to our attempts to find a house to purchase (and the one on which we made an offer fell into a black hole of pre-foreclosure hell.)  So, in March, we moved back into the rebuilt and somewhat reconfigured place Len's owned since before we met.  Lucky for us, my winnings on Jeopardy! and a royalty check for Lucius Fox's appearance in The Dark Knight meant we didn't have to put our place up for sale to have the down-payment for a bigger home--a real luxury these days.

Trying to find the right house for both of us took a bit of time, and closing on it has taken longer than we expected.  Escrow closed on August 20, but we discovered the previous occupants had left a mess behind.  The clean-up crew has worked tirelessly, the painter moved in for a week, the electrician had plenty to fix, and, without folks breathing down our necks to move into our house, we could take a relaxed and organized approach toward getting our stuff to the new place.  On Thursday, the movers will take our furniture to the new location. This is the back yard :

It's about four miles from where we currently live, and it's more than twice the square footage in both house and land.  It isn't big enough or zoned for Ace to live in the back yard, but I will also be several miles closer to him.

I'll finally have a big, eat-in kitchen with lots of counter space, a prep sink in the center island and a Viking cook-top with a grill.  The house has three fireplaces, a pool house with a 3/4 bath, a summer kitchen with built-in grill, refrigerator and sink (and disposal!)  The house has two enormous bathrooms with glass showers and separate whirlpool bath tubs, plus a small powder room off the laundry room.  There are four bedrooms, a large living room, something described as a formal dining room (but too small for what I'd consider a formal dining room table), a family room, and what must have been another small bedroom that's been converted to an enormous walk-in closet.  We're going to make the attached garage our library/workroom.  And, oh yeah, there's a wine cellar. 

If you know anyone who'd like to buy a cozy, completely renovated mid-century ranch house with a pool in Woodland Hills, California, walking distance to two Orange Line stops, one house away from the bike-path, a few blocks from Pierce College, and occupied for the past 24 years by famous comic book writer (and Wolverine and Swamp Thing creator) Len Wein, it will be on the market in a matter of weeks.

Jeopardy! 2010 Tournament of Champions, Continued

I had no idea that Jeopardy! promoted the players of the Tournament of Champions this extensively. Did study the Fortune 500 list, but it didn't come up in my game. The New York Times Science tie-in did.

Jeopardy! 2010 Tournament of Champions, Continued

This ad ran in today's New York Times. I figured I might make mention in the paper when my famous spousal unit passes away. I'm happy that I won't have to wait that long--and that I got there on my own. If you've got the paper, it's page C4. Tune in to Jeopardy! tonight to watch me play against Justin and Joey. Check your local listings for time and channel.

Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, Continued

Here is a photograph of the fifteen contestants you will see on the quarter-finals of the 2010 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions next week. And here is a link to a promotional video that is running on the Jeopardy! web site right now. I'm the last interviewee.

Tournaments of Champions

The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions starts running on May 10 and carries through until may 21. The first week is the quarter final rounds where three college champions and the twelve players who won the most games (down to those who won 4 games in the regular season) since the last time there was a ToC (which shot in January 2009 and ran in March 2009.)

My quarter-final game airs on Thursday, May 13, 2010. I understand that in some parts of the country, Jeopardy! is running at a different time than usual due to the sports play-offs. So check your local time and channel to watch.

I recommend watching all 10 days, because the players are just amazing competitors.

The Jeopardy! Celebrity Invitational for charity finals are running this week. I got to watch the final rounds being taped, and I really enjoyed myself. There's much less pressure sitting in the audience.

Jeopardy! Blog

My blog about my appearance on Jeopardy! is up on the Jeopardy! web site. The part which leads up to the games is accurate. The part about the actual games and who I played is not accurate. I had to write the blog within two weeks of my appearance, which was several weeks before the shows ran. I'm sorry to everyone whose name and game I got wrong. It was all a blur, and if I didn't watch the games on TV, I really wouldn't know what happened. I'm still not sure how I won Game 3. Note that I thought the crew was from NBC and doing a Dateline story, when it was from ABC for Nightline!

What a Week It Has Been

By now, you've probably heard that I am a four-time Jeopardy! champion. Some of you might also have seen me on the Nightline segment that ran on Friday night. If you didn't, and want to, here's a link to that bit of reporting.

Nightline spent the day I shot my five episodes of the game doing the story on the show. At the end of my fifth game, I was asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed, and, of course, I was. I'm looking at it as an added bonus of a good run on the show.

My tally hasn't been added to the Hall of Fame for $50,000+ players and my blog about my experience isn't up on the Jeopardy! site yet either. If you are interested in seeing the game boards I played, you can check them out at J-Archive, a really useful site run by fans of the show.

When my blog does go up, you will discover I am an unreliable narrator. The deadline for the blog was two weeks after I shot my episodes, so I had only my fuzzy brain for reference. I refer to my worthy opponents by wrong names, because I couldn't recall who played in which segment. I hereby apologize to each and every one of them. They were all lovely people and very smart.

I want to thank everyone who has wished me well during this experience. I've gotten lovely e-mail from total strangers and notes from folks with whom I now have the Jeopardy! experience in common. The notes are much appreciated.

So now I'm anxious to learn how Chris Rodriguez did on his next appearance, which won't run until November 16. I was glad for Chris that he got more than his long cross-country-by-train trip out of his appearance, and I hope to god he sprung for a sleeper car on his way back to Massachusetts. The cheap seats are not fun on a long-distance train ride, but a sleeper car is relaxing, as I experienced on my trip to New Mexico just a year ago.

Jeopardy, Part 2

I'm heading home to watch tonight's Jeopardy with another group of friends. Wherever you are, I hope you'll tune in to see what happens on my second appearance.

Jeopardy Promo

Here's the link to Jeopardy's "Home Town Howdees" with me making funny faces. Tune in and tell me what you think!

What Is Monday Night?

The answer is its the night when Christine Valada make an appearance on Jeopardy! I'll be a contestant on Monday, October 26. As soon as the Jeopardy! website puts up the "Hometown Howdees," I'll put up a link. Check your local listings for time and channel.

Catching Up

A Happy New Year to everyone. I've been out with the cold from hell. I've lost a week of riding and three days of work and five days of vacation time to it. Yuck.

Looming ahead is a five-day trip to San Francisco, starting next Thursday. We're staying at the Fairmont on Nob Hill. I hear it is really nice. I just wish the San Andreas fault wasn't grumbling away down here. When I step out in San Francisco, I always wonder "is today the day?" But I don't let that stop me from visiting my favorite city in the U.S.

My friend Lisa Klink is in Las Vegas competing in the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. The shows won't run until March and I'm sorry we couldn't accept her invitation to watch the shows being filmed. The first day of shooting was yesterday and the finals are tomorrow. If we had gone, we'd know the results. Now, we've got to wait until March to find out what happens. No fair asking because she's under a gag order until then.

Len and I actually missed an episode of Jeopardy! this week when the TiVo hiccupped. I don't think we've missed one in years. It is our mutual addiction. I spent one of my three days home from work re-reading Bob Harris' book, Prisoner of Trebekkestan. I recommend it. It's the story of his experiences on Jeopardy!, but a lot more. Bob attended Case Western Reserve University, where I went to law school, but was there at a different time than I. We met him through What's My Line? Live on Stage when he and Len were panelist together one night and it was an instant bond. He travels a lot and writes a terrific blog, which you can link to from the list on the right.

And the Final Jeopardy Answer Is...

I've probably mentioned before that we watch Jeopardy! religiously. Maybe even that I once relayed an entire episode by telephone, question by question, to Len, who was sitting in an airport lounge in L.A., waiting for a flight to London, while I was in Cleveland for law school.

We get a big kick out of Categories with People We Know. Or Categories That Len Created. Obviously, that's not what they are called on the show, but that's the effect for us.

Last night, the Final Jeopardy category was "Science Fiction," a Category Full of People We Both Know. After we both proclaimed we were betting our bank accounts, the house, the dogs, the horse, and my son, we speculated on just which of our friends would be the answer or the creator of the answer. The answer, roughly, was "These creatures were based on the effect rabbits had after they were introduced to Australia and reproduced uncontrollably."

We started laughing hysterically because we lead such strange and interesting lives. The question, of course, is "What are Tribbles?" Tribbles were created by the young David Gerrold for his Classic Star Trek episode, The Trouble with Tribbles.

The first time I photographed David was in 1973. In 1989, David introduced me to Len, saying he was someone I needed to photograph for my exhibit of science fiction professionals. The next day, as I prepared for the shoot, I said to Len "David said I should photograph you, but I'm at the point in this project where I'm shooting people whose work I don't know. So who the hell are you, anyway?" The rest, as they say, is history.

Two Kinds of Jeopardy!

Last night, we went to the Arc-light for a WGA screening of Eastern Promises, the fantastic thriller starring Viggo Mortensen. Writer Steven Knight was present for a Q&A, which was quite enlightening. Several members of the audience expressed a desire for a sequel but I would say please don't. There's really only two possible ways a sequel could end, and neither one of them would be happy. The story, acting, and directing was absolutely perfect and I don't need too much information; ambiguous is better. Despite the three incidents of graphic violence (which I could see coming and ducked for Len's arm-pit), one which included glimpses of Viggo's naughty bits (which I missed because of burying my head in Len's arm-pit), I whole-heartedly recommend this film.

When we got home, we turned to the Tivo-light recordings of Monday's Jeopardy! Len fast-forwarded through the contestant introductions and left the room. I looked up and thought, gee, that first contestant looks like someone at Gillian's party on Sunday. And, oh, she's got the same first name.

Then Len came back into the room and the woman answered a question and he said "gee, that looks like Lisa Klink." I said "that's what I thought." He said "wait just a minute" and backed up the recording to the beginning. Indeed, it was television writer Lisa Klink, who won on both Monday and Tuesday, despite missing the Final Jeopardy! question on Monday and at least one Double Jeopardy! question to which both I spent yelling at the TV the correct answers. Why is it that people never hear the answers when you shout them at the TV?

She shouldn't feel too bad. Len didn't know the answer to Final Jeopardy! was Katherine of Aragon either, which I recognized instantly. I always feel smug when none of the contestants gets Final Jeopardy! and I do.

I am still so annoyed that I didn't get on Jeopardy! after I made the call list two years ago because I had a friend working on Spider-man 3. I was happy that Becky had a job editing visual effects, but her tenuous connection to Sony disqualified me. Unfortunately, her job didn't end until my qualifying period was pretty much up. I'll have to test again when the opportunity arises.a

So I hope that Lisa continues her winning streak, which was probably shot months ago. Jeopardy! is one of the game shows which actually has WGA writers on it, so they probably aren't shooting right now.

Bonus Celebrity Guests

Sunday night's edition of What's My Line Live on Stage had a couple of unmasked celebrities as guests in addition to the appearance of Oscar nominee Robert Forster as Mystery Guest. The panelists this week were Teresa Ganzel, Jeopardy champ Bob Harris, Suzy Nakamura, and my darling husband, Len Wein, shown in the first photograph with host J. Keith van Straaten and Mr. Forster.

The other guests were Mallory Hood, aka Mallory Lewis, daughter of Shari Lewis; Dorian Harewood, not there as an actor, but there as a Blackjack expert; and a nice young woman named Rachael Newman, who washes birds which have been in oil-spills. They are all shown in the second photograph, along with Lamb Chop, Mr. Forster, J. Keith, and a duck.

After stumping the panel, Mallory performed with Lamb Chop, the puppet made famous by her mother. My childhood memories do not include Lamb Chop being a political commentator, but I understand Mallory does adult shows and children's shows with her now. We got a sample of the adult show. The third photograph is of Mallory and Lamb Chop singing a duet of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better," from, I think, Annie Get Your Gun. Isn't Mallory wearing a great dress and a fabulous pair of red shoes?


Much to our delight, Bob Harris joined us for the after-show gathering and it was like meeting a life-long friend.

I've been a Jeopardy addict since the show began in the 1960s and watching it is a religious ritual in our house. I tried out for the show around 1972, when it was still in New York, and I tried out again about 10 years ago. Last year, I passed the first on-line screening they did and went in for the live retest. I missed out on an opportunity to actually be on the show because, when they called, a friend of mine was working on effects for Spider-Man, a Sony production, and Sony owns the company that produces Jeopardy. Sniff. Len's too much of a coward to actually try out. He's convinced the board will be things like "Left Handed Nuns' Shoe Sizes" and "The History of Lint" if he actually makes it to the show. We're both really good in the living room, but I've got to say that getting the timing on the signaling device is really tough.

I doubt we have missed a single episode of Jeopardy in the entire time we've been married. When we were dating, while I was in law school in Cleveland, I relayed an entire episode by telephone to Len, who was sitting at LAX waiting to go to London. I think he was paying for the call, but I don't remember for sure.

In any case, Bob Harris is definitely a kindred spirit and we look forward to including him in our circle of friends. We certainly enjoyed his appearances on Jeopardy and he has done commentaries on KNX, the radio station we usually listen to in the car. He's also been a writer on CSI and he's written a number of books. You can check out his website here.

It will be back to the show again on Sunday. For more information check out the website here.

SwampThing

Of all my husband's characters, the one with which I identify most is Wolverine. The one which I think is or was closest to his own view of himself is SwampThing.

SwampThing was the $1000 answer in the D.C. Comics category on Jeopardy! last night. I think Swampy was the only non-golden age character in the five questions up there represented by five pieces of artwork--and two of the characters were from Batman (Dick Grayson and the Penguin.) Green Arrow and Plastic Man were the other two.

SwampThing could also have fit the category of words introduced in the 20th Century in the same round.