It’s been a few weeks—technically—since the last entry into Sometimes Weekly. These are the risks of building procrastination into the name of your website. But, here we are—new content! And, given that this is the first post of 2020, I’ve gone ahead and purchased the website SometimesYearly.com. Protect your brand, folks.
This is the first “addendum” to Sometimes Weekly, featuring three stories that aren’t quite long enough for their own post. Ideally, sprinkling in some addendum posts will help distract from the lack of regular content. In this week’s addendum: a forgotten magic trick, a contestant’s insurance form, and misplaced yuletide greetings.
The Four Year Card Trick
Let me start this story by saying: I have no memory of this. But, being trapped in an inevitable cycle of content generation, I assume my intention was to eventually write about it on Sometimes Weekly. So, here we are.
A few days ago, I received an email from my past self, written on December 15, 2016, which read:
In addition to the body text, the email also included a screenshot of that day’s New York Times, along with a group chat screenshot with this message from the aforementioned Jeremy.
So, here we are four years later, and I can now guess Jeremy’s card was the four of diamonds.
Ta-da.
Also, the whole President-elect thing was way too close! I mean, back in 2016, we knew things would get bad. Just not necessarily “imposing martial law and using the military to rerun a free and fair election” bad.
Anyway, after four years, I could finally tell Jeremy his card was the four of diamonds. His reaction?
Yeah, I feel the same way.
My Piece of Jeopardy! History
I’m a big fan of the podcast Omnibus Project hosted by Ken Jennings and John Roderick. On the podcast, Ken and John discuss strange and obscure topics in an attempt to preserve knowledge for future generations, assuming that our society will soon come to an end. It’s worth noting this podcast started pre-pandemic, so the end-of-the-world part is just a fun(?) coincidence.
As a fan of the podcast, I’m also a supporter on Patreon. One of the perks for supporting the show is receiving signed copies of show notes, like the one below from an episode on Patagonian Giants. If you haven’t listened to the episode, the notes look like random gibberish—see if you can spot where Ken Jennings wrote “DADDY ISSUES.”
Of course, when I received these show notes, I noticed that they were written on the back of an insurance form that had been partially filled out by Ken Jennings, around the time of the Jeopardy! GOAT tournament.
I posted the form on Twitter, and tagged Ken, who confirmed that it was in fact a half-filled insurance form for the Jeopardy! GOAT taping.
Ken would go on to win the Jeopardy! GOAT tournament, but now I’m wondering … was all of his paperwork in order? Did he have all his forms submitted? Because I’m starting to wonder if James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter would like to see what I got my hands on. This could be big.
#StopTheSteal #CountEveryLegalPoint #NotMyJeopardyGOAT
Happy Christmas
Somewhat regularly, I receive emails that are intended for British Nick Butler. That includes the time a member of parliament jokingly offered me a bribe and the time I tried to influence the dress code of a secret society. Well, a few days ago I received a Christmas card from a British filmmaker, Revel Guest. I don’t know who that is, so I don’t think she meant to send me a card.
There really isn’t much more to it than that.
So, from their family, to me by mistake, and now to you—have a very Happy Christmas.
