Episode 218

So many things about Jeopardy annoy me. For example, all of the contestants. Another example: Alex Trebek. Within the Alex Trebek category, it annoys me how he is the only person who could sound pretentious simply reading category titles, how he pronounces the word genre as if it were a French word that had not been commonly adopted into the English language, and how he tells contestants that they would have know the answer "if only you had been to [fill in wannabe-world-traveler location here] recently."

What really get me the most though -- and this is a tough contest because it all makes me so mad -- are the absolutely ridiculous stories the contestants tell after the first commercial break when they are introducing themselves. It usually goes something like this:

Alex: So, I see here that you one time encountered a sticky situation on vacation...?

Annoying contestant: Yes, I was on vacation with my family and we rented a boat, but after we docked it at a remote island, we realized we didn't know how to turn it back on. So we were stuck for a while.

Alex: Well, you'll never make that mistake again...

Have you ever read anything more horrifically boring in your life? I'm not sure what exactly is going on behind the scenes at Jeopardy but it seems like they give all the contestants a form to fill out that just says: "Please list here the five most uninteresting things that have ever happened to you" and then they choose the least relatable of all the stories. Add in a dose of Alex Trebek trying to deliver some wit and... there you have it.