Bright, beautiful day in NYC, got a free parking spot on the street, saving a few shekels. An auspicious start to the day.
The famous Maggie indeed! She's what I imagine Texas Guinan was like in her saloon. She can make even the biggest dullard sound interesting during the interview!
The 50 question test went well, I thought. Although it's funny reading Judy's post since I too blanked out on an author's name. (I'm wondering if it's the same one. We were told that we're not allowed to discuss questions/answers on this particular test since it sounds like they're using it more than once) I was able to make a small note of the clue on the answer line and go back to it two questions later when the author's name came to me.
Quite a group in my session. 18 all told. 2 doctors, a couple of lawyers (one of whom writes crossword puzzles for the NY Times when he's not doing anything else). A $250K Regis BAM winner. ( didn't catch his name, but he told us the question he bailed out on: When Hannibal crossed the Alps, where was he headed? The answer was Syracuse, but he elected to walk at that point. Some astute BAM person here will probably know this gentleman's name)
There was also a law student who was blind. When we played the mock game Maggie shrieked "BEEP!" when the "go" lights came on so he would know when to buzz in. There was another guy whose job title was, I kid you not, Asylum Officer. ("Do you recognize any of us?", asked Maggie) It turns out he was a federal employee who interviewed people entering the US seeking political asylum.
I think I did well on the test, which apparently has the most weight in the whole selection process. The mock game was OK, I dutifully went right on to the next selection without being prompted as I was supposed to each time, and my buzzer technique seemed to be working.
The interview portion was interesting, because they never really (at least in my case) looked at the 5 things that we had written down beforehand. I actually wrote all 5 of them down in the hotel lobby when I arrived about 45 minutes before the process today. I just couldn't decide what to say until the last minute for some reason. Instead Maggie focused on my prior game show experience, commenting "I see you were on History IQ, all I remember about that show is that it was hard". I don't know if she was talking about the questions or the premise of the show. She then asked about my appearance on "To Tell The Truth", which was in (I think) 1973. I had to go through the whole story about being an impostor, which thankfully I remembered pretty well.
I met some really nice people today though. Outside the room before Maggie came out to get us, I struck up a conversation with 3 folks who turned out to be a woman who was there for the test and her parents who came along for the ride from NJ. They were very nice people and I thought she did well in the auditions, I hope she makes it.
All in all, I have a pretty good feeling about how it went.
But we shall see.
