Contestant Search Update

Success!

I passed the fifty question test and am now a part of the contestant pool for the show. This will be active for the next eighteen months.

Here's how it ran down in San Diego.

1,000 took the 10 question test.
82 passed that and took the 50 question test.
12 passed that and played a mockup game, and gave an interview to the production staff.

In a lot of ways, just getting this far is absolutely cool. I've gone through to pretty intensive selection processes before, it always feels good when you go through to the next phase.

The only phase left to conquer is the show itself. If selected, I will be signing a confidentiality agreement so I won't be able to post anything but the date(s) of my show appearence as they come.

No inside skinny until well after the fact. Rest assured though, I'll be keeping notes if it happens.

I also know that 2/3s of the contestants every day lose and go home. The vast majority of them play one game, lose, and go home.

A friend asked me the very valid question "Why is this important to you?"

The money would be cool. This hasn't been the best financial year. I haven't been bleeding cash and net worth like I did the first three years I was sober, but the combination of the television writer's strike, leaving the jingle game to concentrate on making truffles, losses in investment portfolio, losses (mostly paper and mostly in profit margain) on property, it just comes down to I'm going to be using red ink on my P&L this year. Not the first time this has happened, hell, it's not even the worst.

More than the money though, I relish a chance to meet the best and compete. That's the motivation.

If I go on the show and win I can say to the next person who says "You think you're so smart. . ."

"Actually, there are a lot of other folks who think I'm pretty goddamned smart too."