The detailed account

So .... sorry to keep you in suspense but I had very limited blogging capacity yesterday after getting about 2 hours of sleep the night before and having a very long day!!!

So the big annoucnement is that my brother Daniel was the one who got chosen to be a contestant yesterday. It was awesome and we were TOTALLY freaking out the whole time.

Luckily, the studio didn't make us sign any confidentiality notices, but we promised Dan that we would keep the results under wraps so he can watch with his friends at school and the results can be a surprise! What I can tell you is that he was in the first 4 contestants called down and that he at least made it to contestants row.

The show will air on Wednesday, April 9th on CBS and it looks like they also post to CBS.com if you miss it. I'll be sure to remind you.

Here are a few photos that we were able to snatch during the day - cameras weren't allowed in the studio so we got what we could:

Waiting in line outside the CBS studio - we got there around 4am and were about 30th in line:


We waited in the first line until about 6am when they gave us #'s based on our arrival order and let us go until 7:45am. The sun didn't come up until about 7 so it was a cold dark morning but luckily we made friends in line and brought snacks, travel Scrabble, etc.:


After we returned to the studio at 7:45, they replaced our arrival numbers with priority numbers:


After those, we got about 30 minutes off again. We just walked a couple of blocks to keep ourselves awake and accidentally stumbled into this. You know you're jealous:


Then we went back to the studio for the longest stretch of waiting - it was about 8:30-12:00. We were definitely getting antsy by the end!! We did receive our much coveted nametags during this time!


So then, after all of that we were interviewed by the producer in groups of 12. It was just one guy who literally walked down the row and asked each person "Hi, Mary. Where do you live? What do you do?" And that was it. I stood up on the bench that we were standing behind and danced throughout my answers - I definitely wanted to take a risk and stand out! Apparently that helps the person to your left get chosen! After Adam answered his questions, he looked at us and asked, are all of you guys together? I heard a rumor that they like to get groups with personality so they get a good reaction from the contestant's friends in the audience. Don't know if that's true but I like to at least think that my poor dancing played a small piece in the decision. I've heard mixed reports about how contestants are chosen but after the experience, I'm totally convinced that it is 100% based on the 10 second producer interview, and your behavior in line, your interaction with the pages, etc. have nothing to do with it.

After about another hour of waiting, we were finally ushered into the studio for the 1:00 taping. Yes, it's much smaller than it looks on tv and I seriously felt like we were in the 60's with draped multi-color fabric and have you ever noticed the beads hanging down around the studio with flowers, shapes, sparkles - all very 60's! It was bizarre.

We did get AWESOME seats!! We were seated in order of our ticket # which was based on order of arrival so we were in the 3rd row back in the very center so I'm sure you will be able to see Adam and I during the shots of the contestants bidding.

They encourage audience participation and it's really tough to hear what all is being said on stage, particularly when Rich is making announcements. When they announce the contestants names, they have to hold up posters with the names written because you can't even hear - it's crazy! Dan got to take his poster with him:


So, be sure to watch/Tivo/DVR on April 9th to see what happened. It was crazy fun and I don't even think I realized how much I yelled but my throat was really sore when we left!!

Thanks to everyone for the great t-shirt ideas! Adam and I both used some of yours.

Lauren and Andrew suggested making a replica of the wheel - throughout the day I saw people pointing and smiling at my shirt so I think it was a hit!!:


And Adam used Whitney's idea of "Plinko or Bust":


Thanks for the help! Apparently Big Orange and white are the way to go!