WWTBAM Bored

Cale Scheinbaum
Astoria, NY

Some people want to win a million dollars so they can buy their first home; some want to travel the world. Today's contestant wants to buy a sheep. Cale's passion is making things from scratch. To knit a sweater you have to buy yarn and that's not really start to finish. He wants to raise a sheep, shear it, make the yarn and then knit it into a sweater. It's not a perfect plan (he lives in Queens) but some extra money might help grease the wheels. Maybe he could buy the house next door and knock it down, make a solid gold sheep corral and feed it caviar. Cale is three questions away from Round 2, with $47,100 in his bank and his ATA and a JTQ still available.

Topic Tree (randomized):
Lucille Ball
Store Slogan
Miracle Fruit
Carrie Underwood
Exercise Class
Baby Science
Iceland Crimefighters
Buyer Beware
Mottos
????

Question #8 (Miracle Fruit):
After eating it, the "flavor tripping" West African berry called "miracle fruit" reportedly tricks your taste buds into thinking what?
A - sour foods are sweet
B - sweet foods are sour
C - bitter foods are chalky
D - mild foods are spicy

Cale remembers reading about this - it made the rounds of the New York food scene a couple years ago.

Spoiler

Answer: A (sour foods are sweet)
Value: $15,000
Bank: $62,100

Cale gives Bruce, in the relationship seat, a high five. Bruce is the one who convinced Cale to go to the show and take the test.

Question #9 (Store Slogan):
Perhaps inspired by the store's slogan "More saving. More doing," in 2013 a South Carolina couple was arrested for "doing it" in what hardware store?
A - Macy's
B - The Home Depot
C - The Cheesecake Factory
D - Yankee Candle

"Only one of these is a hardware store," Cale says.

Spoiler

Answer: B (The Home Depot)
Value: $1,000
Bank: $63,100

Question #10 (Lucille Ball):
Before she became a sitcom star, Lucille Ball had an illustrious modeling career using what fake name that she took from a racetrack?
A - Diane Belmont
B - Helene Arlington
C - Betty Fairmount
D - Maryanne Churchill

Cale says that Belmont and Churchill are racetracks, but this is a question that you either know or you don't and he doesn't, so he decides to jump the question.

Spoiler

Answer: A (Diane Belmont)
Value: $500
Bank: $63,100 (unchanged)

CLASSIC MILLIONAIRE:

$100K - From 1776 to 2013, how many calendar years in the history of the U.S. are numbers that are perfect square numbers?
A - 0
B - 2
C - 5
D - 10

Cale says that given enough time he could figure this out. He starts out with 40*40 and then begins doing the math. His calculations lead him to

Spoiler

B

but

before he makes that his final answer he wants to make sure. Cedric jokes that Cale was "kind of Rain Man-y".

Spoiler

Answer: B (2)

commercial break

Cale is a financial analyst so he's good with math. Cale's sheep will live in luxury - maybe like Kobe sheep.

$250K - Sounding like it could refer to just about anything in the store, what IKEA product is sold under the name "Produkt"?
A - a nightstand
B - a plate
C - a chair
D - a milk frother

Cale says this is a good time to "call in that lifeline". He figures some of the audience members might have been to IKEA recently.

Ask the Audience results

A - 21%
B - 22%
C - 26%
D - 31%

Cale just doesn't know. He thinks he can see it and may have made a joke about it, but he can't do it and decides to walk away.

Spoiler

Answer: D (a milk frother)

Cale leaves with $100,000.

Just before the commercial break it's announced that next week is Movie Week.

commercial break

Question #8 (Miracle Fruit):
After eating it, the "flavor tripping" West African berry called "miracle fruit" reportedly tricks your taste buds into thinking what?
A - sour foods are sweet
B - sweet foods are sour
C - bitter foods are chalky
D - mild foods are spicy

Cale remembers reading about this - it made the rounds of the New York food scene a couple years ago.

Spoiler

Answer: A (sour foods are sweet)
Value: $15,000
Bank: $62,100

JTQ 1

Question #10 (Lucille Ball):
Before she became a sitcom star, Lucille Ball had an illustrious modeling career using what fake name that she took from a racetrack?
A - Diane Belmont
B - Helene Arlington
C - Betty Fairmount
D - Maryanne Churchill

Cale says that Belmont and Churchill are racetracks, but this is a question that you either know or you don't and he doesn't, so he decides to jump the question.

Spoiler

Answer: A (Diane Belmont)
Value: $500
Bank: $63,100 (unchanged)

My guess would be Belmont, but I would never go for it. JTQ 2

$100K - From 1776 to 2013, how many calendar years in the history of the U.S. are numbers that are perfect square numbers?
A - 0
B - 2
C - 5
D - 10

Cale says that given enough time he could figure this out. He starts out with 40*40 and then begins doing the math. His calculations lead him to

Spoiler

B

but

before he makes that his final answer he wants to make sure. Cedric jokes that Cale was "kind of Rain Man-y".

Spoiler

Answer: B (2)

Oh good grief. Ok, 40*40 = 1600. Nope, too early. 41*41 = 1681. 42*42 = 1764. 43*43 = 1849. Whew! That's one. 44*44 = 1936. Two! 45 * 45 will be way too big.

$250K - Sounding like it could refer to just about anything in the store, what IKEA product is sold under the name "Produkt"?
A - a nightstand
B - a plate
C - a chair
D - a milk frother

Cale says this is a good time to "call in that lifeline." He figures some of the audience members might have been to IKEA recently.

Ask the Audience results

A - 21%
B - 22%
C - 26%
D - 31%

Cale just doesn't know. He thinks he can see it and may have made a joke about it, but he can't do it and decides to walk away.

Spoiler

Answer: D (a milk frother)

ATA and leave. I would have taken a good enough spike, but this was just too close to 25-25-25-25 for me.

It was just so good to see that guy do that calc on the air. As opposed to the many, many players in recent years for whom dividing by 2 (or whatever) is so much of a strain they jump the question.


Could I have done this calc? In my head? Yeah, but no way that fast, unless he was edited, & it didn't look like he was.


And of course Cedric then has to tell us all that he's in some kind of financial job. After making the "Rain Man" jokes. Rain Man would have gotten the answer instantly, of course.

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:$100K - From 1776 to 2013, how many calendar years in the history of the U.S. are numbers that are perfect square numbers?
A - 0
B - 2
C - 5
D - 10

Cale says that given enough time he could figure this out. He starts out with 40*40 and then begins doing the math. His calculations lead him to

Spoiler

B

but

before he makes that his final answer he wants to make sure. Cedric jokes that Cale was "kind of Rain Man-y".

Spoiler

Answer: B (2)

Bravo to Cale, for taking what TPTB probably considered perfect WWOQ material and doing the math. You should have made Cedric stand there and wait--telling his Rain Man jokes all the time, no doubt--while you completed the calculations to determine the two squares.

And damn TPTB and their secret time limits. If they ask a question which requires long and difficult calculations, that's what they should expect!

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:CLASSIC MILLIONAIRE:

$100K - From 1776 to 2013, how many calendar years in the history of the U.S. are numbers that are perfect square numbers?
A - 0
B - 2
C - 5
D - 10

Cale says that given enough time he could figure this out. He starts out with 40*40 and then begins doing the math. His calculations lead him to

Spoiler

B

but

before he makes that his final answer he wants to make sure. Cedric jokes that Cale was "kind of Rain Man-y".

Spoiler

Answer: B (2)

I didn't see this episode, but if he calculated these quickly, he may have used binomial multiplication (as follows):

(a + b) x (a + b) = a² + 2ab + b²

Setting a = 40 gives 1600 + 80b + b²

Incrementing b from 0 to n (when the result is too big) gives:

1600 + 0 + 0 = 1600
1600 + 80 + 1 = 1681
1600 + 160 + 4 = 1764
1600 + 240 + 9 = 1849
1600 + 320 + 16 = 1936
1600 + 400 + 25 = 2025

Estonut wrote:

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:CLASSIC MILLIONAIRE:

$100K - From 1776 to 2013, how many calendar years in the history of the U.S. are numbers that are perfect square numbers?
A - 0
B - 2
C - 5
D - 10

Cale says that given enough time he could figure this out. He starts out with 40*40 and then begins doing the math. His calculations lead him to

Spoiler

B

but

before he makes that his final answer he wants to make sure. Cedric jokes that Cale was "kind of Rain Man-y".

Spoiler

Answer: B (2)

I didn't see this episode, but if he calculated these quickly, he may have used binomial multiplication (as follows):

(a + b) x (a + b) = a² + 2ab + b²

Setting a = 40 gives 1600 + 80b + b²

Incrementing b from 0 to n (when the result is too big) gives:

1600 + 0 + 0 = 1600
1600 + 80 + 1 = 1681
1600 + 160 + 4 = 1764
1600 + 240 + 9 = 1849
1600 + 320 + 16 = 1936
1600 + 400 + 25 = 2025

He didn't actually calculate which years were the perfect squares. Instead, he bracketed the answers, by calculating 40 squared (too small) and 45 squared (too large) and then deducting from the choices that the only one of those that make sense was "2".

Very clever, I thought.