Carpe Datum

Falling Back

Well, so much for my hopes for the Rangers after last week's record-setting comeback against Detroit. Since then, they've been hitting below the Mendoza line as a team. This poor hitting combined with their continuing lack of taking walks, means that the offense is sputtering as I feared it would. The pitching is also coming back to reality, with the young pitchers starting to mix in some poor outings and Chan Ho continuing to suck.

The Rangers are now falling back to the pack, and it is possible the Angels (who are currently 3.5 games ahead of them) well do the same thanks to the injury to their offensive stud, Troy Glaus, who is out for the season. I don't know much about the Angels, though. They seem to have a lot of injuries, but maybe they've got some good replacements. My hope is that the Rangers can stabilize and end up 10-15 games over .500, which could be enough to win the division. I'm not optimistic, though, because I think the last couple of weeks (in which they are about 5-7) is closer to their true ability than the first month of the season.

Meanwhile, in another effort to avoid more depressing news about the war and all the stupidity involved in it, I'm trying to get on "Millionaire" again. I've found that the show is actually watchable if you have it on DVR, because you can fast forward through all the chit-chat and then hit "play" as soon as you see the floodlights drop toward the stage. Then it is just an interesting half-hour trivia show instead of an hour full of groans at Regis trying to get to know the contestants. I think if I were in one of those fastest-finger seats and Regis had one of his 10-minute conversations about hamsters with a guy on the hot seat, pissing away my chances to win some money, I might do something regrettable.

Anyway, to qualify, you call their toll-free number during the several hours at night it is available. They take your birthdate and part of your social security number so they know you are unique and aren't entering multiple times, then they ask five questions. Each question, they make you put four things in order. For example, they might ask you to put words from the title of a TV show in order (1-King, 2-Queens, 3-Of, 4-The), and you have 10-seconds to punch in 4-1-3-2 to advance to the next question. They get harder as you go on, though, and I haven't gotten to the end of the five questions yet (they do a lot of "rank these famous people in order by their birthdate, starting with the most recent" or "list these cities in order from North to South").

Long ago when I tried out for the show, I actually got to the end of the list a couple of times. When you do that, they put you in a pool with everyone else who got them all right, and you have a small chance of getting a callback for a second elimination round (but I'm not sure how that works). After that, you can get on the show. It's fun to try out, and I have had no problem getting through. I'd probably be horrible if I actually got on the show, because I have such incredible stage fright.

I have decided, though, that if I do make it, I want a phone-a-friend who has a fast, reliable internet connection and a Google search ready. I've experimented a little with the on-line game, and I can use Google to find about 80-90% of answers to questions I don't know. Last night was the last night to try, though, so I guess I'll have to wait a while to test my theory.

Posted by Observer at May 19, 2004 09:16 AM