The San Diego Home Blog

Today I have to dispense with a couple of laundry list items, so this will be a real estate-free post. Steve’s latest “Better Know a Neighborhood” installment will have to sit in the queue for one more day as a result. For those who have been anxiously awaiting his feature on the Scripps Ranch neighborhood of Scripps Highlands, I will ask you to chill a little longer.

I had a date with my now-18-year-old daughter and Drew Carey yesterday which took me out of cell phone and computer commission. I returned to one of those silly “meme” games that sweep the Internet every second Tuesday and, much to my chagrin, was tagged twice. The rules: Share seven things about yourself, and tag seven people. As my latest random act of kindness, I will skip the tagging part. As a bonus prize, I will rewrite rule number one, as I am not really all that interesting, and instead answer the burning, non-real estate question on everyone’s mind - How did our day (day = an eternity in h-e-double hockey sticks) in Hollywood to see a taping of The Price is Right go?

In seven-point meme fashion, here is the rundown:

1. Tickets do not guarantee admission. Making the determination as to when one should start lining up on Fairfax Boulevard outside the CBS studio is a turkey-shoot at best. We stayed overnight in Beverly Hills (our room had a dead-on view of the Fendi store, which is as close as we will ever get to their product line), and opted for the 3:30 AM wake-up call.

2. We arrived coffee-less to take our place on the sidewalk outside the CBS compound at 5:00 AM. It was pouring down rain. We secured arrival numbers 36 and 37. Arrival number one had arrived at midnight and spent the night covered in a giant Hefty bag. He clearly needed to win something to pay for his much-needed therapy. Oh, and it was cold - not Lambeau Field cold, but see-your-breath cold.

3. At 6:30, they allowed us into the parking lot where we spent the next six hours sitting on cold benches outside of the building. At least it was under cover. They sold coffee. We were happy.

4. We met a lot of nice people during our tour of duty. We were especially fond of Number 34 and Number 35. They were dairy farmers from Buffalo who had flown to California with the express intent of coming to the taping. They, too, needed therapy. It was their second such junket, the first (sadly) failing to result in a contestant spot on the show. On second thought, it is really too late for them.

5. As we entered the studio at 12:30 for a 1:00 taping, a very trendy looking producer man had each of us pause briefly for a ten second “interview.” The interview came after an against-the-wall photo op for each would be contestant (numbering 325), presumably to confirm that we didn’t have arms growing out of our ears. The interview, we think, was to further confirm that we didn’t drool when we spoke or suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome.

6. My daughter, Becky, who turned 18 last Thursday (the minimum age for the show), was the first to get called to “Come On Down!”, which was a good thing as she has no concept of the value of money or of the manufacturers’ suggested retail prices of random inanimate objects. In fact, we were at a distinct disadvantage, as she had raided the hotel mini-bar the previous evening. We feared the following scenario:

Drew Carey: Our next item up for bid is Gummy Bears!
Becky: $27!

On her fourth try, she made it up on stage. With much help from her mother in the audience, who was flailing her arms in lunatic fashion, she nailed it. The cold medicine and the bleach were indeed both $6.29. She won a 7 day trip to New Orleans and $1,000 worth of luggage.

7. Becky made it to the Showcase Showdown. The first Showcase sucked (it always does), so she passed and, as luck would have it, she had to guess the price of a package including a juke box (cool), a trip to the Bahamas (very cool), and a … pop-up Trailer? Not even I am clued in to the fine art of trailer pricing ($25,000). She did not win the Showcase, but we figure the other girl kind of lost too. She now has to pay taxes on an ugly sectional sofa, a home security system and carpeting. Becky got to hug Drew Carey multiple times, and she got her 15-minutes of fame. Priceless.

There you have it. Her show airs on March 4th. Now, back to work.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 10:16 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.