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How White and Nerdy Are You?
Must be because I haven't played D&D since 1983, and I don't know Javascript :-)
I swear this is the last Weird Al reference in this blog for at least the next two entries.
Mar. 31st, 2007
How White and Nerdy Are You?
Must be because I haven't played D&D since 1983, and I don't know Javascript :-)
I swear this is the last Weird Al reference in this blog for at least the next two entries.
Time to catch up on about three weeks worth of retrospective blogging... It's either that or work on my resume... :-)
"Paul is an experienced software engineer who has decided to remain as a corporate whore for a few more years, despite the fact that it makes his skin crawl..."
Anyway... In a somewhat related endeavor, a few Fridays ago - the sixteenth in fact, I did something which must seem very odd for someone who hasn't watched television since 2003...
I tried out for a game show...
Why, I hear you ask, did I lower my dignity for such a thing? I don't know - I guess because it sounds like easy money. I like making a spectacle of myself in public, and hey, I know a lot of useless crap.
So I found myself at 6.30PM at the channel nine studios in Richmond. Odd place - it's a suburban street one side and a huge studio on the other. A crappy, run down studio for the most part, I walked past a number of "production offices" in the carpark which were little more than little weather board shacks. Also walked past a lot of parking spots with the name of media whore's on 'em - B. Newton, E. Mcguire, S. Newman. Fuck, how do I even know who these people are?
They herded us into a big television studio, which had bits of some kind of set in it - looked pretty crappy in Real Life, whatever it was. About fifty of us sat in folding chairs, and answered a relatively straight-forward quiz. Which nation, along with its neighbor Rwanda, became in independent at the same time? (Burundi, although I forgot this at the time). Which teenager from the former Yugoslavia won the Australian open in some year (didn't know then, don't know now, also don't care :-) Plus a whole lot of questions I did actually know the answers to - but of course I can't remember them now.
There were about forty questions on the quiz. We marked each others, and those who got less than 27 had to leave. I got 33, the top score was 37. We all had our photo's taken and then took turns to stand up and say why we should be on the show. The lady running the thing said "Don't just say 'because I want to meet Lavinia'". I turned to the guy next to me and said - I'm not making this up - "Who is Lavinia?"
It took ages for my turn to come up, by which time I was hungry and grumpy. I've been in toastmasters for years - standing in front of people and talking to them doesn't scare me. Not sure if what I said made any sense - I talked about not having a television, how I was there because my grandmother watches the show - or at least she used to. Said I was a programmer by day and a comic book superhero by night etc. etc. Then I sat through some more of the same from other people - and got bored and left. So I'm on file. I might get called up at some point in the next two years, I might not. Could be weeks, could be never. Could I care less? Yes and no.
I should probably watch at least one episode of the show to find out what it's about. What's the Vault for example? What is a fame game? For that matter - who hosts the fucking show??? I had to look it up on the wikipedia, which wasn't particularly helpful.
Most of the other potential contestants seemed like a very dull suburban lot, lots of them had babies or were pregnant etc. There was one young woman who was kinda cool, had a pierced nose and a hoody on, I hope they chose her. And one large nerdy woman who hinted that she was gay who went by the unlikely name of "Sarah Jane Smith", for all you Dr. Who nerds. Everyone else just seems to blend together...!
I did notice one sub-set of people there - gameshow whores. There were at least five people who'd been on the show or its predecessors. Or other shows on other channels - a number of which I'd never heard of. What's "One Versus 100" for example? Anyway the woman running the thing didn't seem particularly surprised by this. I wonder what percentage of the population are like that - trying desperately to get on the air. Maybe I should, it's such a shitty annoying medium it would amuse me to see inside the belly of the beast...
Here endeth the lesson.
"Paul is an experienced software engineer who has decided to remain as a corporate whore for a few more years, despite the fact that it makes his skin crawl..."
Anyway... In a somewhat related endeavor, a few Fridays ago - the sixteenth in fact, I did something which must seem very odd for someone who hasn't watched television since 2003...
I tried out for a game show...
Why, I hear you ask, did I lower my dignity for such a thing? I don't know - I guess because it sounds like easy money. I like making a spectacle of myself in public, and hey, I know a lot of useless crap.
So I found myself at 6.30PM at the channel nine studios in Richmond. Odd place - it's a suburban street one side and a huge studio on the other. A crappy, run down studio for the most part, I walked past a number of "production offices" in the carpark which were little more than little weather board shacks. Also walked past a lot of parking spots with the name of media whore's on 'em - B. Newton, E. Mcguire, S. Newman. Fuck, how do I even know who these people are?
They herded us into a big television studio, which had bits of some kind of set in it - looked pretty crappy in Real Life, whatever it was. About fifty of us sat in folding chairs, and answered a relatively straight-forward quiz. Which nation, along with its neighbor Rwanda, became in independent at the same time? (Burundi, although I forgot this at the time). Which teenager from the former Yugoslavia won the Australian open in some year (didn't know then, don't know now, also don't care :-) Plus a whole lot of questions I did actually know the answers to - but of course I can't remember them now.
There were about forty questions on the quiz. We marked each others, and those who got less than 27 had to leave. I got 33, the top score was 37. We all had our photo's taken and then took turns to stand up and say why we should be on the show. The lady running the thing said "Don't just say 'because I want to meet Lavinia'". I turned to the guy next to me and said - I'm not making this up - "Who is Lavinia?"
It took ages for my turn to come up, by which time I was hungry and grumpy. I've been in toastmasters for years - standing in front of people and talking to them doesn't scare me. Not sure if what I said made any sense - I talked about not having a television, how I was there because my grandmother watches the show - or at least she used to. Said I was a programmer by day and a comic book superhero by night etc. etc. Then I sat through some more of the same from other people - and got bored and left. So I'm on file. I might get called up at some point in the next two years, I might not. Could be weeks, could be never. Could I care less? Yes and no.
I should probably watch at least one episode of the show to find out what it's about. What's the Vault for example? What is a fame game? For that matter - who hosts the fucking show??? I had to look it up on the wikipedia, which wasn't particularly helpful.
Most of the other potential contestants seemed like a very dull suburban lot, lots of them had babies or were pregnant etc. There was one young woman who was kinda cool, had a pierced nose and a hoody on, I hope they chose her. And one large nerdy woman who hinted that she was gay who went by the unlikely name of "Sarah Jane Smith", for all you Dr. Who nerds. Everyone else just seems to blend together...!
I did notice one sub-set of people there - gameshow whores. There were at least five people who'd been on the show or its predecessors. Or other shows on other channels - a number of which I'd never heard of. What's "One Versus 100" for example? Anyway the woman running the thing didn't seem particularly surprised by this. I wonder what percentage of the population are like that - trying desperately to get on the air. Maybe I should, it's such a shitty annoying medium it would amuse me to see inside the belly of the beast...
Here endeth the lesson.
