So I'm going to head off to an open call for The Weakest Link at the Sony Metreon in about an hour. Judging by the 4 or so different ways that I heard about this, I'm guessing half the Bay Area knows and there should be between 2000 and 20000 people there.

why am I going? Well first, it's fun. Ernie's going to be there, along with Ken and possibly Min Jung. I need to get out and shopping anyhow. I have lots to prepare for my trip.

But another reason is just the numbers. Okay, this is scary, but ever since I took a crash course in Econ in high school, this is the way I think: There will be, say, 8,000 people there trying out for what I will conservatively guess will be 20 spots for next season's shows. That leaves a 20/8000, or 1/400 chance of getting onto the show from this call. Now once on the show, only 1 of the 8 people will actually win anything, so make that 1/400 * 1/8, or roughly 1 out of every 3200 people trying out will actually win a game. The prize money is typically anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000 so let's say $70,000. Therefore the opportunity cost of going to the tryout is the material gain divided by the probability of that gain, so $70,000/3200, or around $21. I'm happy to have someone pay me $21 for me to spend a few hours hanging out with friends and taking pictures, therefore it's not a bad idea to go.

Of course reading this, the whole point of this post seems to be that I'm such a geek that I have a higher chance of getting on the show, therefore throwing all this math into the drink. Ah well. What else would I be doing on a Saturday morning?