Blurk is the sound the internet makes when it goes out. Now you know.

As you know, my primary goal in life is to get on Jeopardy!, and once a year, I take the Jeopardy! online test to further that goal.

For several years, when I wanted to do that, I had to drive down to my office and use my work computer to take the test, heading downtown at 8 at night (the test is always at night) and logging into my computer -- a 60 minute round-trip for a 12-minute test.

I did that, though, because our home internet service was so unreliable; it cut in and cut out and would do so without any warning whatsover, leading to major problems if you're taking an online test to fulfill your game-show destiny.

Here's what happened: I was taking the test, and I was acing it. I knew pretty much every answer that came along; it was like Jeopardy! had decided to lob me a softball. I was six or seven minutes into the test and thinking I'm not going to get a single one wrong, and then...

Blurk.

The Internet cut out. Halfway through the test! The test I was cruising through! I was this close to meeting Alex Trebek and showing up Ken Jennings with my own fantastic run of wins, and blurk! It was all gone, and I had to restart the connection and couldn't log back in. My best test ever, and nothing.

Ever since then, I haven't trusted our home internet service for anything important. Yeah, I'll use it for banking and blogging and paying bills and making sure I haven't been sued, but for the big stuff -- Jeopardy! tests -- I use my work computer.


If you're stuck with terrible or unreliable internet service, maybe you should change, too -- no, you can't use my office computer, but you can use wild blue satellite internet service. They've got a variety of different plans to help you break free of slow, unreliable internet services, and for a limited time activation and installation are totally free: You can get satellite internet with no money down, and low monthly rates that are less than you'd probably pay for other services. No dialing, no delays, no big bulky dish: just smoother, faster, more reliable internet access for you.