Prior to Monday, there was only one time I had to absolutely watch Jeopardy! That was when my old college roommate finished in second place. But that was before 30-year-old BYU grad Ken Jennings made headlines by steamrolling 56 straight opponents in 28 games to rack up nearly $1 million in winnings. I had to see what the fuss was about.

Let's preface this by saying I've seen some ass-kickings in my day. I was 11 when Walter Mondale took Minnesota and no other state in the 1984 presidential election. I saw King Kong Bundy squash Special Delivery Jones in nine seconds at the original Wrestlemania. And I almost remember taking down eight Gray's Papaya hot dogs on my 30th birthday. But I never saw anything like Jennings on Monday.

Here's how it went down:

• Jennings correctly answered the first 14 questions on the board, banking $8,000 before a female sacrificial lamb won $1,000 for identifying the Rubik's snake.

• He actually missed a $400 question I knew, incorrectly guessing the Preakness as the oldest stage in horse racing's Triple Crown, which began in New York. The answer was the Belmont Stakes. Moron.

•. At one point, he had $21,500 while the others were at minus $1,600 and minus $300.

• When told he was the only player in positive numbers, he said, "That's cool." This was like Manny Ramirez standing at home plate after launching a home run off a Little League pitcher.

• In Final Jeopardy, which had as much effect on the game's outcome as did the weather in Kalamazoo, Jennings increased his bank to $52,000, tying his own single-show record.

One interesting aspect of the run is that Jeopardy! tapes a lot of shows at once and well in advance. So plenty of people know when and how Jennings will run into the Buster Douglas of trivia. My guess is that someone's gonna have to stay close and take huge risks on the Double Jeopardy questions, but we'll see.

The secret to Jennings' success? "Most people at home don't know how important the timing on the buzzer is," he said. Yeah, it took me like 10 minutes to figure that out 15 years ago. Did you know that to hit home runs in baseball, you should also hit the ball really hard?

Other Ken Jennings Links:

• Q: 'Jeopardy' Champ; A: Who is Utahn Ken Jennings? — The Salt Lake Tribune profiles the Murray software engineer.

• Recordbreakers: Thom McKee of Tic Tac Dough — Jennings is still quite short of the 43-game record held by McKee in the late 1970s.

• Am I Annoying or Not? Ken Jennings — Only 38% find him annoying. That's not bad for a guy who's both a brainiac and a bully.

• O.K., Alex, Smart Nerds for $1 Million — The New York Times on the game show that refuses to dumb down to the lowest common denominator.