There are no bad owners, only bad dogs

2004-12-08

5 + 7 + 5 = ?

Every so often, I don't feel like the dumbest person on the planet. That's why I like tv. TV likes showing dumb people and some of them make me look abso-fucking-lutely brilliant.

Weird British game show: It's basically a trivia show, but the twist is that people get to hear the questions then decide if they want to trade an answer with someone else. So, there are always four questions in a set. Say you know the answer to 3 questions, but not the fourth. So you choose someone to trade with, you give them one of your 3 correct answers in return for the answer you didn't know which hopefully they do know. If everyone is honest and fair-dealing, you both end up with four correct answers. Of course, no one is honest and fair-dealing, so people are always trying to screw each other by trading a wrong answer for a correct one, thereby planting an incorrect answer in someone else's set of responses and keeping all of the money for him- or herself.

As a concept it's interesting, but the contestants don't seem to be able to find their way home from their own driveway.

So last night's finale: One contestant had made it to the final round. If he got all 4 questions right, he won �7000. Questions:
1. Who played the lead role in The Bourne Supremacy?
2. Who said "Ich bin ein Berliner" in 196X?
3. Can't remember.
4. What form of Japanes poetry contains only 14 syllables? (By the way, I know that this number is incorrect, but that detail didn't make a difference to the plant life who were playing the game.)

OK, I wasn't sure about all of them, but I was rock solid on #4. The dude answered all of the questions:
1. Matt Damon
2. JFK
3. ?
4. Kabuki

So, since he got one wrong, he could ask another player for help and split his winnings with that player. He chose. Her answer to #4: Wasabi.

Another player, another split. Now if someone gets #4 right, they each get 1/3 of �7000. The next answer to #4: Some combination of nonsense syllables.

One more round: Now we're down to 1/4 of the money. The answer to #4: Ode.

Really.

Last chance for any money at all. Fifth try. Down to �1400 per person, still not bad. His response to #4: Soliloquy.

They all went home with empty pockets. I felt like a brainiac.

Then I fell asleep reading Catch-22. I have to say, on the third try, it gets a little better. Thank god I never had to read this for school. It would have been Monarch Notes for me.

So overall, yesterday was a good day: I felt smart, I won a battle with accounting over an expense report they didn't want to pay, and I discovered that I'm not quite as poor as I thought I was. Plus, my boss is so delighted with herself for preventing me from going to Hawaii that she seems to like me now. I guess all of the other torture didn't quite do it for her -- it took deprivation of sunlight and fresh fruit for her to bond with me. Maybe for her Christmas gift I can get sick or hurt myself!

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