I Lost on Jeopardy

Actually, I never even got the chance to go on "Jeopardy." I was on "Win Ben Stein's Money" once, as I believe I've mentioned before, and I've always wanted to go on "Jeopardy," because I have a feeling I could majorly kick ass. Not even because I know so much trivia (although I am pretty good at "Jeopardy"), but because, having the experience of being on "Ben Stein," I know that I don't get nervous being on TV and that I'm fast with a game show buzzer.

The other day, my Dad e-mailed me to say that "Jeopardy" was having an online trivia test. Those scoring the highest would be contacted to show up for a live in-person interview and a follow-up test for a chance to actually be a contestant on the show. I was sold. I told my roommate Nathan, a regular game show nut, about it and he wanted in as well. (Nathan, you may recall, is my roommate with the obsession with "Family Feud." I wish they had "Roommate Feud." Nathan, Eugene and I would be pretty much unstoppabo'.)

Anyway, Nathan and I both sat at our computers at 8 pm, when the test was supposed to start, and nothing happened. There was this blue line across the screen, and that's it. 8:00 passed. The test officially began at 8:03, but nothing happened on my computer. Then 8:05, and still nothing. The blue line started to fill up a little - indicating that a program was loading - but very slowly. (It wasn't the Internet connection, either...I checked).

By the time the line filled up and I got to enter my name and password (around 8:07), a picture of Alex Trebek came up informing me that the test had started already, and I had missed my chance. What?

I'm thinking one of a few things happened. Here they are in order of likelihood.

(1) "Jeopardy" totally underestimated how many people from the Greater Los Angeles area would want to try the online test, and their server couldn't handle the traffic.

(2) The test only admitted a certain number of people, and then purposefully failed to connect anyone else.

(3) Somehow, they figured out my roommate and I were logging on from the same apartment and thought we might cheat and help one another with the answers.

Either way, I'm kind of pissed off. How am I supposed to randomly make $15,000 based on my knowledge of film trivia and State Capitals now?