Be Careful of Your TV Choices

Being too knowledgeable isn't a good thing when watching shows like "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". Some of the answers are simply annoying. Many are inaccurate. Some are just down-right wrong.  It's clear that, instead of looking for correct/accurate answers, they're looking for the answers most likely to be given by the class of contestants their show draws.

Ugh. Makes me want to smack a bitch.

Not All Ounces Are Created Equal

So, today, I was telecommuting. I was working on a "how to use NetApp Fibrechannel Storage With RedHat Multipathing" document. As I usually do when telecommuting, I had the TV on to make background noise. At one point, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire came on.

As far as gameshows go, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is not the most horrible of the bunch. Certainly, it's far better than the ferret-level intelligence required for Wheel of Fortune and less trailer parkish than Let's Make a Deal. Still, the show's a dumbed-down version of the same show that came from England.

Even dumbed-down, there's certain standards that one really should maintain. I mean, if you're going to ask a question - I don't care how hard or easy it is - you should expect a correct answer. More, the answer that you're asking for should be correct.

Today, I had the pain of seeing really poor writing and fact-checking at play. The question asked was something along the lines of, "If a man weighs 150lbs and gold's market price is $1000 an ounce, how much would the man be worth if he were composed entirely of gold?" The answer they wanted (and got) from the contestant was $2.4Mn. Now, that answer would be correct, if gold were measured in the same units that body weight is measured in. However, that is simply not the case. Gold is measured in troy ounces (ozt.). Body weight is measured in avoirdupois ounces (oz.). Ok, typically body weight (in the US) is measured in "pounds" but, that's neither here nor there - it's the underlying conversions that are material to this question.

A quick search shows that, one pound of body weight equates to 16 avoirdupois ounces (or 16oz). Whereas, one pound of body weight equates to roughly 14.583 troy ounces (or, 14.583ozt). That means that the 150lb man would be 2400oz. and 2187.5ozt. (or thereabouts). As previously established, gold is measured in ozt, not oz. Therefore, the calculation should have been $1000/ozt * 2187.5ozt to get a value of $2.187Mn, not the $2.4Mn that was offered as an answer option.

Grr... Sloppy (and, yes, I didn't worry about the significance of my numbers when I placed decimals and did my rounding - sue me).

Halloween on Price Is Right

So, today was this year's "Halloween" episode of Price Is Right. Drew and the rest of the cast dressed up like the cast from Wizard of Oz.

Now, if I recall, correctly, Price Is Right shoots it's episodes several days or weeks before actually broadcasting them (much like all the late-night shows are shot in the mid-afternoon or early evening). This means that, if they want audience members and/or contestants to be in costume, people have to be dressed up not on Halloween.

I know that Price Is Right sells advanced tickets, but, I imagine there's a lot that are sold "at the door". And, that aside, more than a few people in the audience are people who are non-local and are just taking the opportunity to get on TV while on vacation (thus, probably haven't packed costumes with them).

For the tickets sold in advance, they could print on the tickets "Halloween broadcast: please dress up". However, I don't think that's the case and, even if it was, probably wouldn't result in a great number of people dressing up at any rate.

Judging by the costumes, I'd say that most, if not all, of the costumes are show-issued. It looks like women who are cute and fairly petitely or slenderly built are given the option of wearing costume store tart-ware (sexy-cop, sexy-firegirl, sexy-nurse, etc.). The rest of the people are given Halloween-themed Price Is Right T-shirts, offered makeup and/or accessories. Given the number of non-svelte Price Is Right audience members, the makeup, t-shirt and/or (non body size-specific) accessories are the most flexible way to get the largest number of people "in theme".

Speaking of "non-svelte"... At the end of the show, they gave everyone a 5lb. Hershey's Chocolate chocolate bar. I wonder how many of the recipients already had "the diuhbeetus"?