Hi subscribers! I’ve gotten a higher volume of new subscribers in the last couple days, which is probably a second-order effect from Alex Jacob appearing on Jeopardy, people going to his School of Trivia, and then finding me from there in his recommendations. If you made it, welcome!
I do at some point plan to return to posting summaries more regularly and making your click of the Subscribe button mean something. I backed off of posting as much during the airing of episodes that taped during writers’ strike last year, as I was working through my thoughts on that. Additionally, the structure and episode counts of those tournaments did not work well with a regular structure of posting. And additionally-additionally, I have been thinking about whether or not I want to be on Substack as a platform at all.
And then I got diagnosed with cancer. Please do not worry (much)! I was diagnosed in November and had a successful surgery to remove the tumor in my colon in January. I am now considered in remission. There are reoccurrence concerns, so I am undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy treatment. (This just means post-initial-treatment, for risk reduction for the future, as opposed to starting the treatment of an active tumor.) These treatments leave me tired, cold sensitive, and many other things for large chunks of time, and I have a limited amount of energy and a limited amount of time my hands will tolerate being in open air sometimes. Naturally, my priority when I can type and think goes to my actual work that pays me and provides me with the health insurance that covers these treatments in the first place. Those times are pretty miserable for me, but the balance is that I get one week out of every three where I’m not taking any medications and during that week I feel amazing. Better than I have since at least last summer. It’s a great promise for what it’ll be like when I’m done with treatment. I still spend most of the time feeling somewhere between vaguely and totally awful, but during the good week (which is right now) I can be reminded of why I’m doing it.
And fortunately for my ongoing interest in Jeopardy! statistics, j-ometry.com is in a suitable state where I only need a couple minutes each day and a handful of manual commands to get new stats into it, and I can even do it with gloves on while I’m in bed. This may not sound exciting, but during the first couple days after each injection any small activity being possible is a bit of a win. Please continue checking there for updates. New game data goes up sometime after 8pm Pacific (that’s when the box scores are released) on whatever schedule I can manage. Almost always before midnight Pacific.
My treatments will last until sometime between May and August, and there will probably not be regular text posting before those conclude. If that ends up being here, you’ll see it. And if not, I’ll make sure to post where that’s going so you can follow there. In the meantime, thanks for your interest and thanks for enjoying the show.
Oh, and if there are things that seem wrong with your digestive or excretory systems, talk with your doctor. Cancers are on the rise in younger patients. I’m 41. Regular screening wouldn’t have started for another few years because I’m not statistically supposed to have this cancer yet. But it still happened, and it’s happening to other younger people. Making an appointment with my doctor when I did meant that this cancer was found right as it was breaking through to become stage 3. Taking it seriously and getting checked literally saved my life.
🙌
Wishing you a full and speedy recovery!