One Step Closer. Today I had my much anticipated Wheel of Fortune audition. Here's how it went down.

After getting a little lost, I arrived at the Palmer House at 10:50am, ten minutes early. The room was set up in a conference style and when everyone arrived there were 160 prospective players. According to the people in charge, this was out 3,000 and we were "chosen by the computer," whatever that means. So we all filled out a questionare that asked for all the vitals and then asked what makes us unique, what sports teams and players we like, our hobbies/awards/etc, and our favorite soaps. A somewhat random selection of questions, I think.

We started by simulating the game. We were basically all playing a computer game together. They called on everyone once and had us play the game with them spinning a mini-wheel. The first time around I missed the first letter and sat right down. "Crap," I thought. Luckily, they did a second round of names, probably of people who didn't get to say much and seemed at all palatable. I did better this time and finished off a puzzle, which meant I got a price. A Wheel of Fortune baseball cap. After we finished this, they handed out a quiz that had a bunch of puzzles that had to be finished, like the final round of the game. We had five minutes to finish them and I got a little more than half. I was happy enough because it was tough. Finally, after 1.5 hours, we took a break as they graded the quiz and picked the next round of people.

In 20 minutes they came back and they called out about 30 names, and I had moved on. I started to get excited. There were 4 kids from UW, out of about 10 to start, and I had pretty reasonable odds. The big cheeses went ahead and took polaroid headshots of all of us right before we played the game again, but it was a much closer simulation. At the end they explained that 15 people and 2 standbys would be called for college week, filming next weekend. Also, they are filming Chicago week the day before and we could make that too. If we made it, they will call on Tuesday.

So things are looking pretty up, but nothing is even close to set in stone. Supposedly there is another round of auditions today. I won't really care if I don't make it because today was an experience in its own right. Still, if I do I will give Sajack a bear hug and Vanna a big wet kiss. Mmm....R-S-T-L-N-E.