Thursday, August 31, 2006

The Price is Right

The Price is Right

Dane Cook does a bit on the Dave Attel Insomniac Tour DVD about the Price is Right, and how it's the show that you watch whenever you're home sick from work, school, whatever....good stuff, I recommend it, especially the bit about how we all have our own theories about how the Big Wheel should be spun, and how it fills us with a self-righteous indignation anytime somebody spins the Big Wheel in a way other than how we would spin it.

Long time readers will remember a few rants I made on Price is Right when I was working third shift. Price is Right was like my Letterman. I'd get home from work, do whatever chores I needed to do during the morning, and then come home, watch Price is Right, and go to sleep.

Well, I'm working a lot of evenings here lately. So, as I'm sitting down to eat something in the late morning, I'm usually watching Price is Right.

And I've decided that Dane Cook's view on Price is pretty much dead on. I figured out that I'm watching mostly so that I can sneer at the people on screen.

Case in point: yesterday's edition featured the card game where you attempt to win a car, and your bid needs to come within a certain range of the actual price of the car. In the case of the lady playing the game, she needed to get a bid within $2,000 of the price of the car....

Okay, her initial bid is 12,000, and she draws cards until she gets her bid up in the range of 16,500 or so. And she stops. Meaning, to win the car, the car would have to be somewhere between 16,500 and 18,500 dollars.

It is with the utmost grace that I scream at my teevee: "You're a fuckin' moron."

Little did I know that I'd only seen the tip of the iceberg.

The actual price of the car (which I'd placed fairly correctly in the $21-22,000 range) was 21,600.

Okay. Here's the thing. The lady's bid was 16,500. And you can see a couple things in her eyes: Expectation, and absolute ignorance as to whether she's actually won the car or not.

She's not taken the mental moment to subtract 16,500 from 21,600, and then compare 5,100 to 2,000 to determine whether it is more or less.

Bob turns, and his tone of voice doesn't instantly convey the message that she's lost her game, and for a split second, she starts to get excited. This lady, for a split second, thinks she's won the car....

I vacillate from angry to sorry, back and forth, and back again. And then I turn off Price is Right, angry that they've put me into that quandary.

Anyway. I watched today, and laughed at the girl who couldn't comprehend the fact that all the contestants on Contestants' Row had overbid, and that they were being made to re-bed.

"I already bid," she said, indignant as hell. It was probalby my imagination, but I think Bob Barker paused for a second, while he pondered the ramifications of braining her with his microphone.

How much do you think Bob drinks?

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