Transcript 09/14/09 Alan Carver (carryover)

[Snaxx]

I don't pretend to be an expert on Henry James.

We know you are instead the expert on Bill James. [Rimshot]


.

[silvercamaro]

I don't pretend to be an expert on Henry James.

We know you are instead the expert on Bill James. [Rimshot]


.

Henry James' brother was William James, the psychologist. That was a silent mental distraction to me when Bill James came up in my question. At the time, somebody here said "I picked baseball because Bill James didn't sound like the name a college professor or business professional would use." To me, somebody might call himself Bill simply not to be confused with the older, more famous William.

[Appa23]

I'm not sure what Alan's PAF situation was/whether he had a Googler available. He may have remedied this by the time he filmed for SyndiBAM, but in the green room before my show's taping, he told us that he had only 1 PAF on call, a radio personality from Seattle, because there was no one else he knew who he both trusted enough to use as a PAF and who was able to make themselves available for the (admittedly onerous) PAF waiting game.

The answer that you seek was in one of Marley's linked articles:

Q: Who were your lifelines?

A: The first person was my best friend, but he was not able to be there for the second taping, so I had my supervisor do it. ... He volunteered to do it. I needed somebody really good at sports. My best friend, Derek, is not good at trivia, but he can look up anything on the Internet. He is just as fast as anybody else.

[frogman042]

Under the new rules, are carryover contestants allowed to switch PaF's available for the original taping day but not the carryover day, and vice-versa? The rules talk about providing photos, signed consents, etc in advance so there was time for this guy if allowed. However, it would be tough for someone who carries over consecutive days unless they come with two separate lists. If it is not allowed, he is stuck with whomever he chose on August 6 even if that person can't be by the phone on September 2.





.

That was my case - one of my PAF's was only available for my original tape day and another was only available for my carry-over date (the other 2 PAF's were available for both days). What I did - after clearing this with my handlers was submit in advance my main PAF's, when it became clear I would be on on carry-over day - at the end of the original tape day I provided them with my carry-over PAF photo and details. So, carrying over should not be a problem as long as you have planned for it and gotten the paper work completed. Given that Alan had a couple of weeks in between, I can't believe that he would have been forced to lock into is initial PAF list.

[Appa23]

It is interesting that perhaps the two biggest schadenfreude moments for the American franchise were delivered by one ROF group.

(I was not watching during Walhal's appearance, so I can not compare it.)

[supportivemom]

I know for the Friday taping he did not have any PAF. The nine were told that they would be allowed to change PAF for the taping on Friday, little did they know that they had to notify the producers before they left the studio on Wednesday. So a lot of the nine did not have 3 PAF for the friday taping. Two days of land line commitment in the same week is a lot to ask. Alan stated that he was unsure if he would be able to find 3 for the Sept 6 taping.

[Jeemie]

It is interesting that perhaps the two biggest schadenfreude moments for the American franchise were delivered by one ROF group.

(I was not watching during Walhal's appearance, so I can not compare it.)

I took no pleasure from either Ken's or Alan's misfortune.

[Snaxx]

It is interesting that perhaps the two biggest schadenfreude moments for the American franchise were delivered by one ROF group.

(I was not watching during Walhal's appearance, so I can not compare it.)

I took no pleasure from either Ken's or Alan's misfortune.

Ditto here. Though I was hesitant like 'Do I really want Ken to win the million?' and was pulling for him to leave with 500K.

IIRC Walhal looked like just another contestant to the average viewer who did not read or post to message boards.



.

[ulysses5019]

Under the new rules, are carryover contestants allowed to switch PaF's available for the original taping day but not the carryover day, and vice-versa? The rules talk about providing photos, signed consents, etc in advance so there was time for this guy if allowed. However, it would be tough for someone who carries over consecutive days unless they come with two separate lists. If it is not allowed, he is stuck with whomever he chose on August 6 even if that person can't be by the phone on September 2.





.

That was my case - one of my PAF's was only available for my original tape day and another was only available for my carry-over date (the other 2 PAF's were available for both days). What I did - after clearing this with my handlers was submit in advance my main PAF's, when it became clear I would be on on carry-over day - at the end of the original tape day I provided them with my carry-over PAF photo and details. So, carrying over should not be a problem as long as you have planned for it and gotten the paper work completed. Given that Alan had a couple of weeks in between, I can't believe that he would have been forced to lock into is initial PAF list.

That's what I'm doing with Seeker of Truth's taping. I cannot do his first possible tape date This Friday) but I can do his carryover date the following week. He sent in the info to the show about the two sets of PAFs.

[Estonut]

Looks like Alan will be going back to his day job...

[silvercamaro]

Looks like Alan will be going back to his day job...

Great find, Esto. If I'd seen the original presentation on the air, I might not have thought it was all that funny, but in the context of this thread, it's superb.

[earendel]

Alan Carver
Federal Way, WA
Quality inspector

Meredith introduces today’s ATE, Ali Wentworth, regular on the “Oprah Winfrey Show”, writer and actress.

Well that's not good news.

Meredith says this is the first time she has seen any real emotion out of Alan since he’s been here.
Alan begins to tear up.
Meredith gets up and hugs him.

Alan says that he and his wife Gloria were worried about the $25K question. The $25K question on the syndicated show seemed significantly harder then the previous question. This one was not as hard as he was expecting.

One thing to like about Alan is that he is definitely a student of the game, unlike so many.

$100K Author Henry James famously remarked that “the two most beautiful words in the English language” are what?
A. Summer afternoon
B. Outdoor café
C. Complete silence
D. Babbling brook

ATE (38)

Ali: Believe it or not, I’m literate. I’m going to completely guess and say complete silence, but that’s a guess.
Alan: That was my thinking as well.
Ali: Wow. We should have dated way back when.
Alan: I’m considerably older than you are.
Ali: Oh, you’re sweet.

Alan goes with Ali and makes complete silence his final answer.
Alan leaves with $25K.

Spoiler

A. Summer afternoon (38)

<*Sigh*> I don't know how to react to this. Alan should have listened to Ali and gone with another lifeline; but by the same token that is what he was leaning toward (and honestly, that's what my choice would have been). It's a fairly easy Google, I suspect, so a PAF call would definitely be in order. Indeed I'd have gone there first, rather than with the expert.

[MarleysGh0st]

I'm not sure what Alan's PAF situation was/whether he had a Googler available. He may have remedied this by the time he filmed for SyndiBAM, but in the green room before my show's taping, he told us that he had only 1 PAF on call, a radio personality from Seattle, because there was no one else he knew who he both trusted enough to use as a PAF and who was able to make themselves available for the (admittedly onerous) PAF waiting game.

If he's been so devoted to the quest for the $1 million, I'm surprised he never found his way to the Bored. He'd have found his PAFs here.

I wonder how many dedicated fans of the game are out there who think they're the only one?

[Jeemie]

I'm not sure what Alan's PAF situation was/whether he had a Googler available. He may have remedied this by the time he filmed for SyndiBAM, but in the green room before my show's taping, he told us that he had only 1 PAF on call, a radio personality from Seattle, because there was no one else he knew who he both trusted enough to use as a PAF and who was able to make themselves available for the (admittedly onerous) PAF waiting game.

If he's been so devoted to the quest for the $1 million, I'm surprised he never found his way to the Bored. He'd have found his PAFs here.

I wonder how many dedicated fans of the game are out there who think they're the only one?

Maybe he thought he didn't need any.

After all, he knows everything.

[mcd1400de]

Maybe he thought he didn't need any.

After all, he knows everything.

In a way, I wonder if that approach -- the single-minded certainty that you are GOING TO WIN THE MILLION DOLLARS -- didn't directly lead to his downfall. (And for that matter, Fresca's, too.)

The idea behind positive affirmation is to focus only on the final goal, to prevent thoughts of any result other than the desired from entering your mind... similiar to the "failure is not an option" mind-set from Apollo 13, perhaps. If you expect only positive things, supposedly that's all that can happen. But such certainty can lead you to feel "bullet-proof", when in fact you aren't, and never are.

The feeling I got watching both Alan and Ken was that if they truly believed they were right, then in their minds they couldn't possibly be wrong. Hence that sense of "entitlement" that some have mentioned -- as well as their initial reactions of disbelief, as if they literally could not conceive of such a thing. And Ali's guessing the same choice that Alan was already thinking merely reinforced his belief that he must be right.

It isn't what you don't know...

[ulysses5019]

Maybe he thought he didn't need any.

After all, he knows everything.

In a way, I wonder if that approach -- the single-minded certainty that you are GOING TO WIN THE MILLION DOLLARS -- didn't directly lead to his downfall. (And for that matter, Fresca's, too.)

The idea behind positive affirmation is to focus only on the final goal, to prevent thoughts of any result other than the desired from entering your mind... similiar to the "failure is not an option" mind-set from Apollo 13, perhaps. If you expect only positive things, supposedly that's all that can happen. But such certainty can lead you to feel "bullet-proof", when in fact you aren't, and never are.

The feeling I got watching both Alan and Ken was that if they truly believed they were right, then in their minds they couldn't possibly be wrong. Hence that sense of "entitlement" that some have mentioned -- as well as their initial reactions of disbelief, as if they literally could not conceive of such a thing. And Ali's guessing the same choice that Alan was already thinking merely reinforced his belief that he must be right.

It isn't what you don't know...

Is it knowing what you don't know?

[frogman042]

...SNIP...

It isn't what you don't know...

I don't know about that.

[Bob Juch]

Photo of Alan ten years ago:

Spoiler

[Jeemie]

In a way, I wonder if that approach -- the single-minded certainty that you are GOING TO WIN THE MILLION DOLLARS -- didn't directly lead to his downfall. (And for that matter, Fresca's, too.)

I don't think Ken Basin is in the same league as Alan Carver when it came to being "overly confident".

I don't think Ken felt "bullet-proof" at all- his sense of confidence on the $1 MM question was totally different, and had a different source, than Alan's.

Certainly I never got the sense that Ken ever felt he was smarter than every other contestant that ever appeared on the show, nor indeed even the smartest person in his circle of friends.

[MarleysGh0st]

His answer also seemed a logical guess.

How do you figure that it's a logical guess?

And if he's going to guess, use the DD then.

The two most beautiful words in the English language are complete silence, in other words no words at all. Sounded witty and worthwhile to me.

That logic didn't occur to me. What did occur to me was that Alan might have been evaluating those choices from a nerdy (i.e., not highly sociable) viewpoint. Complete silence might sound attractive to one who doesn't mix well with people. (Confession: this is why that choice caught my attention, too.)

I have no idea about Henry James' sociability, but, in retrospect, it would probably be a better bet that summer would be a beautiful word to an Englishman and that a writer might not be a morning person, so afternoon is a more agreeable time; ergo, what better time than a summer afternoon?

[Southpaw Fanny]

Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Perhaps he thought he would look foolish taking some time on a question after he'd spat out the answer on the other ones, but not slowing down and taking a few seconds to really think about it was foolhardy at best.

I don't think he was even paying any attention to what the expert was saying, so he probably filtered out her "complete guess" and "just a guess" comments because her guess lined up with his guess. He didn't even bother to engage her in a conversation, like why did she guess that one, what was her thought process?

The schadenfreude didn't taste as good as I'd anticipated, but not because he didn't get the money. The way he just sat there and withdrew into himself makes me think that this might have been his whole world for the last nine years. It was his way to validate himself and show all the people who have marginalized him for being a geek or social misfit that he was indeed superior to them. He's probably been insufferable about it "you just wait, all I need is chance to get on that show and I'm going to win a million dollars, so there!" and now he has to go back and face all the people he's been crowing to about his intellectual superiority all these years.

And I think that might have had something to do with his breaking down after getting the 25k question. It was probably his worst fear: to pull a walhal after all his posturing for nine years and be the butt of everybody's jokes. Because it wouldn't even occur to him that people might be sympathetic and supportive, since he wouldn't be that way if the situation was reversed.

I doubt his wife is going to be very supportive, either. She was a piece of work and probably one of the main forces that have been telling him that he's worthless. The only (thankfully) sentence she got out was 'WE are here to take your money" (or whatever, but she used WE), making me think that she will blame him for HER failing to win a million dollars.

[Jeemie]

Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Perhaps he thought he would look foolish taking some time on a question after he'd spat out the answer on the other ones, but not slowing down and taking a few seconds to really think about it was foolhardy at best.

I don't think he was even paying any attention to what the expert was saying, so he probably filtered out her "complete guess" and "just a guess" comments because her guess lined up with his guess. He didn't even bother to engage her in a conversation, like why did she guess that one, what was her thought process?

The schadenfreude didn't taste as good as I'd anticipated, but not because he didn't get the money. The way he just sat there and withdrew into himself makes me think that this might have been his whole world for the last nine years. It was his way to validate himself and show all the people who have marginalized him for being a geek or social misfit that he was indeed superior to them. He's probably been insufferable about it "you just wait, all I need is chance to get on that show and I'm going to win a million dollars, so there!" and now he has to go back and face all the people he's been crowing to about his intellectual superiority all these years.

And I think that might have had something to do with his breaking down after getting the 25k question. It was probably his worst fear: to pull a walhal after all his posturing for nine years and be the butt of everybody's jokes. Because it wouldn't even occur to him that people might be sympathetic and supportive, since he wouldn't be that way if the situation was reversed.

I doubt his wife is going to be very supportive, either. She was a piece of work and probably one of the main forces that have been telling him that he's worthless. The only (thankfully) sentence she got out was 'WE are here to take your money" (or whatever, but she used WE), making me think that she will blame him for HER failing to win a million dollars.

The way things are going so far this season, he's a good bet to have another shot at a million dollars.

But anyhow, he COULDN'T have done any of those things (slow down, engage the expert). Because it was just him against the show.

Everything that happened fit.

Refusal to engage Meredith. Except for him being a major Star Trek fan and that he met his wife accidentally, we learned nothing else about him or his wife (this was one of the things that also annoyed me regarding his emotional breakdown at $25K. I was on the edge of my seat when he started to cry- I was truly expecting a remarkable story that would have revealed something about this man's life. When 'we worried the $25K would be hard' was all we got for the reason for his emotional response, that was it for me).

Refusal to engage the expert.

Refusal to engage the audience.

Refusal to trust more than one or two people as his PAFs (you can't tell me his attitude didn't contribute to this).

I got the idea that they were all just "tools"- he would deign to "use these tools" if he had to, but only to achieve HIS goal. After that, his "tools" were to be dropped- no sharing in HIS glory, thank you very much.

What was worse, this was the one thing that made him "interesting" as a contestant (without it, there was nothing even remotely compelling about him)...and it was the very thing that led to his downfall.

This has been an eye-opener for me, personally.

Eight years ago, I was Alan.

Totally obsessed with the damn show, and needing to get on to prove to everyone that I would go all the way. And not afraid to tell anyone and everyone that.

Essentially taking eight years off from trying to get on it (actually, pretty much ignoring it for eight years) was probably the best thing I could have done to get over that.

Now I have other motivations for wanting to be on...hopefully better ones.

[Weyoun]

Who is walhal?

[Weyoun]

Also, is psychoanalyzing this guy based on 15 minutes of tape really necessary?

[earendel]

Who is walhal?

I'm sure lb or someone else can tell the story better, but walhal was a member of the Bored community back in the day. He used to boast about how well he would do on the show and disparage others' appearances. When he got his chance he missed the $16K question and ended up with $1K. He returned to the Bored to post a "regrets" message and hasn't been heard from since.