I got the call from Million Second Quiz.

[PYLdude]

Go Christian! Do us tri staters proud!

[clemon79]

Very true. I\'m just pointing out that this might be a flaw in the format, since neither option seems really preferable.

[Matt Ottinger]

in the short term, I\'m a bit more concerned that a huge part of this \"event\" was being able to watch it take place, and that\'s not happening.  We\'d probably have a much better sense of what\'s going on if we could see what\'s going on.  

[TLEberle]

A timer on the show\'s webpage says we\'ve missed about 33,000 seconds already.

[Joe Mello]

A timer on the show\'s webpage says we\'ve missed about 33,000 seconds already.

Based on what\'s been said, that sounds about right.

[Darnits]

I got an email saying I have a chance to meet the casting directors for the show and try out as a \"walk on\" candidate.


Anyone know what the try out entails?

[colonial]

One thing that has been confusing about MSQ, as Matt O. noted, is when the show actually \"launches.\"  I have the show app and, for a few weeks, it had a countdown clock that timed the premiere to this morning around 8am ET or so.  This past Saturday, the clock changed to 8pm ET on Monday, when MSQ premieres on TV. 

 

I was also under the impression that online players could compete 24/7 with the live show to compete for a slot, but now that doesn\'t seem to be the case -- it appears the only shot is during the nightly NBC telecast.  The lack of an online broadcast (I clicked on the live link both on the phone and the laptop today, and all I got were ads for Subway and \"The Michael J. Fox Show\") isn\'t helping matters -- for a show promising \"24/7 access\" to the games, having it conk out a few minutes after launch is terrible PR.

 

I\'ve also heard some complaints from the online community regarding contestant selection.  Obviously, MSQ needs a lot of contestants (I\'ve heard anything from 800-3000 people could play), but some are complaining that the show is depending too heavily on local \"walk-ins\" who reached the magic number on the online game and did a brief phone interview and ignoring those who went through several levels of a traditional auditioning process (open calls, Skype interviews, numerous applications, etc.).  I have no clue if this is true or not (it could just be \"grumbling for the point of grumbling\"), but it\'s out there.

 

JD

 

(To be open and honest with you all, I did a Skype audition with the show back in July.  Knew it was a longshot, but I wanted to see how auditioning via Skype worked.)

[BrandonFG]

Congrats Christian...go get \'em!

 

I\'ve talked to a few friends who have actually played the app, and we all agree it\'s quite fun and addictive. For anyone who\'s been able to watch online, is the question difficulty comparable to the online game? I\'ve probably averaged about a 100-120, and the app says I have a 70% accuracy rate, but the questions aren\'t necessarily 3rd-tier Millionaire level.

 

/Not bragging or anything

//19-5 record

[Matt Ottinger]

The lack of an online broadcast (I clicked on the live link both on the phone and the laptop today, and all I got were ads for Subway and \"The Michael J. Fox Show\") isn\'t helping matters -- for a show promising \"24/7 access\" to the games, having it conk out a few minutes after launch is terrible PR.

 

I still can\'t find anything official from the show about why we can\'t watch the bouts take place.  The people handling their https://twitter.com/millionseconds\'>Twitter feed are trying to get us excited about the games we can\'t watch (apparently \"Wayne\" and \"Andrew\" are doing well), but as far as I can tell there isn\'t even an online scoreboard to tell us how the live players are doing.  Plus the Twitter feed is clogged with a bunch of silly celebrity plugs.  There are some still pictures that don\'t really tell us anything, and at least one https://twitter.com/MillionSeconds/status/377058558032240640/photo/1\'>pretty significant name in trivia is getting annoyed.  I really hope a lot of this is explained tonight.

[TLEberle]

You probably won\'t like him when he\'s angry.

[Matt Ottinger]

http://buzzerblog.com/\'>Alex is similarly perturbed.

 

(No, not Trebek.)

[DoorNumberFour]

I\'m sitting in a holding room with MacBooks and Subway sandwiches everywhere, and I have no idea what the hell is going on.

[weaklink75]

This is sounding more and more like a train wreck by the second- I suspect they didn\'t want to start the livestream until after the first episode aired (which isn\'t new- people have been complaining for years that Big Brother actually puts the contestants in the house about a week before the livestream starts so they have footage for the first TV episode, and as a result as we miss a lot of early strategy). They really didn\'t nail down how the bouts were going to work until close to airtime, and the way they apparently will work means the four people in Winner\'s Row at the end probably will only end up in the low six-figures at best (unless someone goes on a very big run)- thus they\'ve supposedly added a $2 million bonus at the end of the series. I\'ve just got a bad feeling about this...especially if the ratings don\'t start off well.

[TLEberle]

and the way they apparently will work means the four people in Winner\'s Row at the end probably will only end up in the low six-figures at best (unless someone goes on a very big run)

To win $100,000 someone would have to hold onto the money chair for three hours or so. That is a lot of concentrating. To become a millionaire would take about 30 hours. I don\'t know who was advertising six-figure payouts or that if players didn\'t win big jackpots that the whole effort would be a fiasco, but I can imagine that there are ways to bungle what\'s a huge operation.

[Matt Ottinger]

I was wrong about one thing.  There is a board that appears to list the four current high scores for the live game here:

 

http://www.nbc.com/million-second-quiz#/winners_row\'>http://www.nbc.com/million-second-quiz#/winners_row

 

Sure enough, as was inferred from the Twitter feed, \"Andrew\" and \"Wayne\" are our leaders so far. 

 

Still nothing about why we\'re not able to watch.