April 11, 2014 recap

Worse than CORNER CURIO CABINET, actually.

I dunno. No matter what puzzle, the rule is always the same: say exactly what's on the board and how it's supposed to be said.

I'm a bit surprised, since that version ran all of five weeks (25 episodes) and the wedge was only present in Round 1.

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But you have to agree it's more accurate than saying he was going to win the million outright. The mechanics of journalistic writing don't allow for the full description of the wedge's effect in the lead paragraph. That's where you catch someone's attention, after all, and I think someone's going to pay more attention to "someone lost their chance at a million dollars" instead of "someone could've played for a million, but he didn't solve the puzzle in which he claimed the wedge, so it's utterly meaningless."

Plus the second way, while it is technically accurate, is mechanically clunky and hard to read, but that's another discussion for another thread.

Now I'll give you the fact that everyone leaves off the rest of the hoops to get to the million, but that would take an entire paragraph to explain. Which wouldn't take much, but I think an article like that is meant to elicit a reaction along the lines of "ZOMG HE'S SO STOOPID" or "LOL" or "OMGMILLIONBUX" more than anything else. When you're laughing at someone else's failures, aren't the other extenuating details irrelevant?

Besides, they WERE correct that he lost out on the 1/2 Car, the trip, and all that cash he left on the table. If they truly didn't do their research, they wouldn't have even caught that. So I would caution anyone reading this to keep this in mind before making accusations that the media "didn't do their research." Did they do *enough* research? Maybe not, but it's not like they didn't do any.

I mean, yeah, he didn't lock the wedge in, but he made it to the bonus round in the end. Arguably, he lost his chance at playing for a million dollars when he botched the pronunciation of "Achilles."

This is the last I'm going to say on this whole matter.

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Is there any previews to this somewhere besides the view count on youtube going up or are you speculating?

^ Apparently the weekend edition of ABC World News reported it, according to a tweet I just read. So that means we can expect it to be on Good Morning America tomorrow complete with likely MDW misinformation or misleading followed by a circle of anchors ranting at the show and their producers. Yay. -_-


And I also got this gem of a comment reply on Reddit after explaining how the million really works...


...This is exactly why I made that comic. And what can you write on a wedge with such tiny space? Surely there's no room to put "MILLION DOLLAR BONUS ROUND" or something, as much as I would like to see that.

I didn't get up until 8am today, but my mother told me that GMA did talk about Julian. They had a poll and apparently 70% (edit: thanks for the video Mario, 75%) thought Wheel should've given him the puzzle.

Yup. So if a contestant fills in the puzzle "CAT & DOG" and the person says "COT AND DAG", they officially win. So says the will of the people. Because, you know, screw 40 years of rules when a million dollars are at stake.

It's clear people think this is BigJon's Wheel Of Fortune where they can give away a million dollars on a whim, but it's okay because the Vault hasn't been won in 45 days so it's up to $1.2 million and it's anyone's game!

About that video, the anchors should know better than to say that they should've given him the chance at the million. You all work in television. You should know how budget works. For shame.

I also like how, when describing how the next contestant solved the Achilles puzzle, he said "Another contestant quickly chiming in." Like she had an effing choice? "Um, Pat, can I spin the wheel once more before I solve, just to make sure."

And Julian, once you say anything after "I think I made a mistake..." makes you wrong.

I think he was nervous. Earlier this week a contestant almost duded out because she didn't remember either the book Of Mice and Men or the fact that John Stienbeck wrote it. So it isn't a surprise that another contestant didn't know how to pronounce Achilles. When it came to the 2nd missolve, he had just picked up the 2nd half car tag. Even though the category was Person, he had car on his mind. By the time of the third missolve he was just so frazzled anyway, why not guess anything.

The thing that gripes me the most isn't the MDW confusion; it's the people saying give it to him and don't take into account the fact there's two other contestants trying to get to the bonus round as much as Julian is and deserve a fair shot with the rules being applied to everyone.

Pat appeared on a radio show today and of course was asked about this. He basically says everything that we've been saying, plus noting how the MDW is not literally $1M (which also fooled the host). Very well said regarding everything, especially about how you can't give in to "Give it to him!".


cbsfwbam.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/hour-1-money-101-4-14-14.mp3