And blogging will be the first thing to suffer as I get lost in a world of riddles and trivia...just when I finally got back on track with posting.
Four years ago my mom and I participated in a trivia contest of sorts. We had four months to solve and submit our answers to fifty questions that were mind boggling to say the least. In most cases, hours and hours of research were required to solve a single riddle and answer the question. And it totally consumed us.
I would say about ten questions were easily solved, twenty weren't too difficult but still required research, another ten were tough but solvable after days of discussion and research, and the final ten were next to impossible. Of those last ten, there were three that we absolutely guessed at...and obviously we guessed wrong since we didn't win the million. I would give my right arm to know what those answers were, but the answers were never released. Talk about a kick in the ass.
I found out a few weeks ago that the company has finally decided to do another contest (I am not posting the name because I don't want every search engine on the web pinging my blog). Same basic concept, only this time they have gone high tech and changed the format. Instead of providing a book with all fifty questions and giving us months to solve them, they are releasing only five questions a week for ten weeks. The questions will be revealed on their website at midnight each Monday, and you only have until the following Sunday to submit your answers electronically to them before the next set of questions are released. Ouch.
I understand the reasoning behind the new format. For one, in the last contest, so many forums popped on online where people spent months discussing the answers and comparing notes. I'm sure they will exist this time too, but it will be a whole different ballgame with only one week to solve each of the ten sets of five clues. It will definitely curb some of the cheating. Also, having to score hand written entries was no easy task I'm sure. Especially since the rules clearly state that errors in spelling and/or punctuation make an answer incorrect.
I have no clue how many entries they received last time around, but I'm sure it was much less than the number of teams who initially signed up for the contest. It was easy to get discouraged by the level of difficulty and many probably dropped out of the race. Not everyone has the time needed to research the answers in depth. Last contest, I had tons of time. This time, not so much.
My mom and I spent hours on end discussing the possibilities and deciding who would research what, both in person and through a multitude of phone calls each day. My evenings after work were almost solely dedicated to research along with the weekends. I even had some time at work back then to read a bit.
Now I have a super demanding job...and Punky. I'm tired and sleep deprived the way it is, and it's about to get a whole lot worse. I won't have the luxury of free evenings and weekends this time around; my only opportunity for research will be however long I can manage to stay awake every night and during Punky's naps on the weekend. I don't know how I'm going to pull it off; if the questions are anything like last time, I'm screwed.
Why even bother doing it? We've waited four years for them to have another one and there's no way we can pass and not even give it a shot. Even though it was incredibly intense, we had so much fun doing it. It was an amazing feeling when we finally came up with an answer after days of research. I was at work when I received the email about the new contest. I was so excited that I couldn't resist jumping around my office like a little kid at Christmas.
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