Editor-in-Chief Brian “Wake me when it’s Happy Hour” Holladay asked me to write about my “JEOPARDY!” experience, and I assured him that I’d cover it in my column. He then explained that he wanted actual facts about the experience, not the made-up nonsense I usually submit. I objected that reality was boring, and that facts were hard, and that I preferred to just make stuff up, as my professors can testify. He explained the whole “editor-in-chief” concept again, and I agreed. In a way. 

Here, in no particular order, are 10 true things about my “JEOPARDY!” experience and 10 things that are, at most, only partly true. 

– In addition to the $40,600 I won on game one, I won the second-place prize for game two:  a hot-oil massage from Johnny Gilbert, the voice guy who says “This is ‘JEOPARDY!’” before each show. He has incredible hands. 

– Losing the second show worked out well. If I had won, I’d have had to fly back to L.A. the next week. I didn’t relish telling OCS that I needed to drop an interview I had with the SEC to appear on a game show, especially since I couldn’t tell them I was the returning champion. I still wish I’d won, though. 

– I have to pay not just federal and NC taxes on the money, but CA taxes as well. Plus, after he heard I won, my brother charged me $18,400 for room and board for the two days I was out there. My net will be about enoughto buy an iPod Shuffle. 

– Preparation would have helped. Some people cram for appearances on Jeopardy like it’s the LSATs. They read encyclopedias. They go over lists of presidents, Oscar winners and state flowers. In the green room, I saw one contestant reading through the World Almanac. I did none of that. I agree with Donald Rumsfeld – you to go to “JEOPARDY!” with the brain you have, not the brain you want.  

– After each show, they re-tape it in Spanish for the Mexican market. You have to say “ÀQue es?” or “ÀQuien es?” for each question, and you have to wear a big sombrero. 

– I never saw uber-champion Ken Jennings play before I went on. I flew out on Monday and stayed with my brother Paul (he was on “JEOPARDY!” in the late ’90s, but lost his first game to a guy with unnatural buzzer speed). Paul’s family invited me to watch Ken on that night’s broadcast, but, perhaps superstitiously, I passed. When I arrived at the studio the next day, I found out Ken had lost his 74th game the day before. The returning champ was a doctor from Florida (who had done his residency at Duke Hospital – we chatted about Durham a little before the taping). 

– Alex is a robot. 

– It’s just like orientation week. “JEOPARDY!” tapes a week’s worth of shows in one day, so they have 10 challengers on hand, all getting made up, practicing their interview segment with a staffer, and generally trying to be nice to people they hope to beat up on national TV. All of the other contestants seemed smart, but there was a guy there from the University of Baltimore School of Law. I didn’t mind losing to a software engineer, but a law student from Baltimore?  He lost on the show that taped just before mine. I was hugely relieved. 

– The show taped in September, so I had to keep the results secret for three months. That was almost as hard as not telling people that JP Davis used to be a woman. Oops. 

– I admit to at least one “neener neener neener” moment. Somewhere around the middle of my 2L year, when it became apparent that no private law firm on Earth would ever hire me, I began to feel bad. Clearly, I wasn’t what Jenner and Block was looking for. Nor Gibson, Dunn, not Irell and Manella. It’s depressing, and for the fat kid who was always picked last for softball in middle-school gym, disturbingly familiar. I may still be Persona Non Grata to the Vault 100, but they can kiss my ass – I belong to a more exclusive club now. Plus, I made more in half an hour than you big-firm krill made all summer.  Neener, neener, neener.   

– I’ve corresponded with a few of my fellow contestants since the show, but all they ever say to me is “die, jerkface, die.”  They’re still mad about my hogging the fruit plate in the green room.  And the flashing incident. 

– No, I don’t know what Alex is really like. Contestants don’t meet him except during the taping, so you saw what I saw. For the record, he seemed polite and professional. What do we talk about over the closing credits? Anything you want to. I think we talked about L.A. traffic.  

– When you’re on “JEOPARDY!” once, you can never be on again – under the same name. So if you know any homeless people whose identity is ripe for theft and who wouldn’t put up much of a struggle against a man armed with a baseball bat, let me know. 

– It really is “all a blur.”  The clues come up, lights flash, buzzers click, more lights flash, and all of a sudden you’re saying “Who is Aethelred the Unready?” When I watched the broadcast, I saw myself answering clues I didn’t remember from the taping. 

– The studio is on the Sony lot. After the taping, you can walk around at will, steal props, sign things on people’s desks, stalk the stars, whatever. It’s your day. I green-lighted a Seth Green vehicle about a bicycle courier who’s confused with a mobster, but I hear the director later backed out. 

– I was famous for, like, three days. I walked into the McDonald’s on Hillsborough Road for my breakfast one day during finals. As the guy behind the counter is bagging my sausage biscuit, he pauses, then asks “Were you the guy on ‘JEOPARDY!’?” I say I was, that I hope he enjoyed the show, then grab my biscuit and go. It’s as famous as I’ll ever be. 

– The real reason I went on the show was to promote my web site, www.muskratnews.com. But they wouldn’t allow me to mention it on the air, citing “FCC rules against promoting crappy satire.” 

– TV lies. I got two main comments about my appearance from people who saw me. Some said I looked very relaxed and confident. Others said I came across as arrogant. All I can say is I was sweating so hard the poor makeup lady had to mop me down during every commercial break. I felt like Albert Brooks in “Broadcast News.” And as for arrogant, well, bite me. 

– I swear to God this was the first time in my life I’ve worn makeup. But now there’s no going back. 

– I must be crazy. Each contestant has to tape a few words for a promo the local station can use, and mine was “I’m skipping my law school classes to be here. Was that a good idea?”  And then Alex asked if I was intimidated by my younger classmates, and I basically said you ought to be intimidated by me. I swear it just popped out. But boy would those two things look bad if I hadn’t won at least one game.