Sunday, October 10, 2004
More About Da Busy Day
SAT = so-so. Verbal was hard. Math wasn't so bad.
For those of you who don't know, Willy Maldonado (if that's how you spell it) is the host of a weekend game show/talk show here in El Salvador, and he goes to my church. This Saturday they were taping a special 3-hour episode and episodes for next week. He invited all of Seguidores to go be in the audience. So at 1:00, I did.
I stayed until around 7:30. It was so much fun! Everyone was going crazy! We were jumping up and down, cheering for our contestants, dancing to the special guests' music, etc. It was wild. The first "game" I saw, was the "montura". Basically, Willy chooses 5 people from the audience and they have to sit on this saddle which is on top of a long tube. They have to use a rope to pull themselves to the other side of the tube without falling off into the soft confetti stuff that's on the sides. If they make it to the middle, they win $50. If they make it all the way...$300! Anyways, nobody made it all the way, but this guy I know named Josecito made it to the center, so he won some moolah.
The other game I saw was called "Diga la Palabra" (Say the Word). This camera guy named Boris would pan over the entire audience, and focus on the person who was the most enthusiastic. Then that person would get to play the game. Basically, Willy would give them a "clue word", and they'd have to guess the "secret word". If they didn't guess it, someone else would be chosen later in the show to try. They'd get another clue, but the prize money would decrease by $50 (it started at $300 and went to $100). The first time, a guy guessed it after only one clue and won the three hundred! It was the first time to happen in the history of the show, and it's been on for more than a decade! It was so cool. The second time we played that game (for next week's episode), nobody guessed it. Bummer.
Also, throughout the show, people get to go up and spin this wheel (it's a direct rip-off of The Price is Right), either for winning a game or being the most enthusiastic audience member, etc. In the show for next week, this guy from Seguidores spun a 95. Then this girl who doesn't go to Seguidores tied. And at the veeeery end of the show, he spun and got 100! And this was the same guy who had won the $300 for Diga La Palabra. In total, he got $900!
I really wanted to participate. I was jumping up and down and screaming and dancing for 7 hours. But alas, they're racist or something and didn't choose me. But I show up in the audience a lot...I really stand out, considering I'm this lonely gringo jumping up and down in the middle of everyone else. This one guy really close to me got chosen, and you can see my arms waving in front of him in the shot. Hehe. At least I (sorta) got my 15 minutes of fame.
The whole point of this was so the church could gain money to pay to put air conditioning in the kids' room that was just added to the back of the church. The AC will cost $1400. The participants who went on Fin de Semana were not going to give 10% of their winnings to the church, and keep 90% of themselves. They were going to do it vice versa! 90% of the winnings (and some people gave all of it) went to Seguidores! Yay! That's so cool. The grand total the church received was around $2800!
On to the other big event of yesterday: the party. It was ok. We had to dress up, so I put baby powder in my hair and went as Vincent from Collateral. It turned out pretty good. But Souwa and Patty and Carlos didn't go! After a while, it kinda got boring. Once the whole "wow your costume is cool" and "let's talk for a while" factor wore off, there wasn't much to do. My feet hurt from jumping up and down so much already, so I didn't dance much.
Interesting detail: the guys drank. The girls smoked. I don't think I saw any of the opposite. I was expecting there to be drinking, but seeing the girls smoke was surprising. Listen, girls, that's unattractive and a major turn-off. Don't whine about not having a boyfriend if you've got smoke and harmful chemicals coming out of your mouth when you're not in school.
*sigh* I can't upload pictures of things. There's a program that will let people do it, but it's not working for me! Why not?! Every time I try to post a picture to my blog I get this message that says there's an "embedded error". Weird. I hate my computer. First the Firewire and now this.
Now it's Sunday and I'm not doing anything. All I have to work on is an oral presentation for Tuesday that I have to record, and I don't have a tape to record it on. So I wrote a plan, and I'll do it tomorrow. For now, it's time to just chill.
Quote of Da Moment:
"Basically my wife was immature. I'd be in my bath and she'd come in and sink my boats."
--Woody Allen
For those of you who don't know, Willy Maldonado (if that's how you spell it) is the host of a weekend game show/talk show here in El Salvador, and he goes to my church. This Saturday they were taping a special 3-hour episode and episodes for next week. He invited all of Seguidores to go be in the audience. So at 1:00, I did.
I stayed until around 7:30. It was so much fun! Everyone was going crazy! We were jumping up and down, cheering for our contestants, dancing to the special guests' music, etc. It was wild. The first "game" I saw, was the "montura". Basically, Willy chooses 5 people from the audience and they have to sit on this saddle which is on top of a long tube. They have to use a rope to pull themselves to the other side of the tube without falling off into the soft confetti stuff that's on the sides. If they make it to the middle, they win $50. If they make it all the way...$300! Anyways, nobody made it all the way, but this guy I know named Josecito made it to the center, so he won some moolah.
The other game I saw was called "Diga la Palabra" (Say the Word). This camera guy named Boris would pan over the entire audience, and focus on the person who was the most enthusiastic. Then that person would get to play the game. Basically, Willy would give them a "clue word", and they'd have to guess the "secret word". If they didn't guess it, someone else would be chosen later in the show to try. They'd get another clue, but the prize money would decrease by $50 (it started at $300 and went to $100). The first time, a guy guessed it after only one clue and won the three hundred! It was the first time to happen in the history of the show, and it's been on for more than a decade! It was so cool. The second time we played that game (for next week's episode), nobody guessed it. Bummer.
Also, throughout the show, people get to go up and spin this wheel (it's a direct rip-off of The Price is Right), either for winning a game or being the most enthusiastic audience member, etc. In the show for next week, this guy from Seguidores spun a 95. Then this girl who doesn't go to Seguidores tied. And at the veeeery end of the show, he spun and got 100! And this was the same guy who had won the $300 for Diga La Palabra. In total, he got $900!
I really wanted to participate. I was jumping up and down and screaming and dancing for 7 hours. But alas, they're racist or something and didn't choose me. But I show up in the audience a lot...I really stand out, considering I'm this lonely gringo jumping up and down in the middle of everyone else. This one guy really close to me got chosen, and you can see my arms waving in front of him in the shot. Hehe. At least I (sorta) got my 15 minutes of fame.
The whole point of this was so the church could gain money to pay to put air conditioning in the kids' room that was just added to the back of the church. The AC will cost $1400. The participants who went on Fin de Semana were not going to give 10% of their winnings to the church, and keep 90% of themselves. They were going to do it vice versa! 90% of the winnings (and some people gave all of it) went to Seguidores! Yay! That's so cool. The grand total the church received was around $2800!
On to the other big event of yesterday: the party. It was ok. We had to dress up, so I put baby powder in my hair and went as Vincent from Collateral. It turned out pretty good. But Souwa and Patty and Carlos didn't go! After a while, it kinda got boring. Once the whole "wow your costume is cool" and "let's talk for a while" factor wore off, there wasn't much to do. My feet hurt from jumping up and down so much already, so I didn't dance much.
Interesting detail: the guys drank. The girls smoked. I don't think I saw any of the opposite. I was expecting there to be drinking, but seeing the girls smoke was surprising. Listen, girls, that's unattractive and a major turn-off. Don't whine about not having a boyfriend if you've got smoke and harmful chemicals coming out of your mouth when you're not in school.
*sigh* I can't upload pictures of things. There's a program that will let people do it, but it's not working for me! Why not?! Every time I try to post a picture to my blog I get this message that says there's an "embedded error". Weird. I hate my computer. First the Firewire and now this.
Now it's Sunday and I'm not doing anything. All I have to work on is an oral presentation for Tuesday that I have to record, and I don't have a tape to record it on. So I wrote a plan, and I'll do it tomorrow. For now, it's time to just chill.
Quote of Da Moment:
"Basically my wife was immature. I'd be in my bath and she'd come in and sink my boats."
--Woody Allen
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 10/10/2004 05:05:00 PM 
