WSOPC: Prelude

It's Thursday night, and I just landed in Austin. I'm here with Leah and Micah Hart, and we're trying out for VH1's World Series of Pop Culture. For those of you who have no idea what that is, the WSOPC is a pop-culture trivia game show, on the aforementioned VH1. The first "season" aired last summer, and I was not only floored by how easy the questions were, but that I didn't have the foresight to try out, even though I knew about the tryouts well in advance and they held tryouts in Los Angeles.

This year, we didn't make that mistake. We decided back in December that we were going to form a team (teams are made up of three people) and see what we could do. At worst, we have a fun time together. At best, we win this competition (and $250,000). Our team name is "Ski Mississippi."

I was hoping they would come to LA the weekend of the LA tryouts, but Micah couldn't get out of Atlanta that weekend, so we decided to come to Austin. We had to submit an online application and fill out a short questionnaire, and we were in. Our appointment is at 5:00 tomorrow afternoon at a hotel in downtown Austin. We will each take a timed, written pop-culture test, and if we pass, we'll move immediately into interviews with their casting people. After testing/interviewing teams (I have NO idea how many teams are here) all day Friday and Saturday, they will call back eight teams on Saturday night to come back on Sunday and compete in the regional qualifier. The winner automatically advances to the finals, to be taped in New York in March.

I've been training pretty hard for the past few weeks, and by "training" I mean watching a lot of TV, reading a lot, and listening to a lot of music. So, basically, I've been doing next to nothing out of the ordinary for the past few weeks. I have been reading the game cards from Scene It and the Saturday Night Live edition of Trivial Pursuit, though, so I guess that counts. Anyway, we're here and we think we have a pretty good shot, because not too many people know as much worthless crap as we do.

I'll try to check in and post a few times over the course of the weekend, while the experience is fresh. Wish us luck.