I'll take Game Show Inquiries for 600...

You know, I was watching Wheel of Fortune the other day (and if you try to deny the greatness of "The Wheel" and, by extension, Pat Sajak, well sir, you're just not fooling anybody). Anyway, this chick won one trip to Greece and another trip to Jamaica* and it made me wonder if they put any restrictions and/or limitations on those trips. Like, how long do you have to take advantage of said trips? 1 year? 2? Maybe they make you leave for the trips as soon as the show is over. And maybe if you win multiple trips then you're forced to "serve" them in succession with no time at home in between. I don't know.

Also, here's a Jeopardy question that I've had for a long time. Contestants obviously have to give their reply in the form of a question, but do the questions have to be appropriate to the clue? For instance, today's Final Jeopardy "answer" was "Though he was already emperor of one country, Franz Joseph was crowned in this city June 8, 1867." And the correct response was "What is Budapest?" But, could I have gotten credit with something along the lines of "How is Budapest?" I'd like to go on Jeopardy and give a bunch of wrong-sounding questions. "Why is an envelope?" "Where is prime rib?" "Who is the earlobe?" Maybe I will someday. I could probably find the rule on Wikipedia or something, but if I knew the answer then I couldn't pose the question. And that's no good.

*actual locations may have varied

Rodeo queens, you say?

For those of you who might like to know, here's a list of the locations that I could be assigned to around Christmas:

• Brighton, CO
  
• Trinidad, CO
  
• Grand Junction, CO
  
• Casper, WY
  
• Rock Springs, WY
  
• Worland, WY
  
• Gillette, WY
  
• Sheridan, WY
  
• Farmington, NM
  
• Dunphy, NV
  
• Vernal, UT
  
• Williston, ND
  

And as a visual aid, here's all the locations mapped out, if anyone wants to make a particularly pointless and wicked road trip. (It takes a good while to load the whole thing.)

For "Phase II" of this whole training business, I've got to spend a month at one of these locations. Last Thursday, I found out that I'll be spending that time in Rock Springs, which I've heard is one of the lamer locations. In a bit of spooky coincidence, that same day my TiVo recorded an episode of A&E's City Confidential about a 1978 murder in Rock Springs. It definitely looks like a pretty sweet place.



(And I don't know why Dish Network mistook the show for Child Stars II: Growing Up Hollywood.)