Written Pyramids

I recently found a new time waster. Deadline is a facebook game that asks you to answer news questions as fast as possible, in multiple choice format.

The more quickly you get correct answers, the more points you get. And, in Who Wants To Be a Millionaire (remember that show?) style, you get "cheats" like 50/50 or "poll the audience." (I have no idea who "the audience" is). Sometimes some of the choices are ridiculous. One of the possible answers for "Why did Palestinians rush over the border into Egypt?" was "a reverse reenactment of the splitting of the Red Sea." Also, I have discovered that playing really late at night leads me to do stupid things like choose "John McCain" as the answer to "Who won the Democratic primary in South Carolina."

But what really gets me is the levels. As you get more points you get promoted. Here are the titles you can receive:

Paperboy -->Cub Reporter-->Blogger -->Foreign Correspondent -->News Anchor -->Editor -->Editor-in-Chief -->Media Mogul-->Mastermind-->Deadline Brainiac.

(As of writing this post, no one on facebook has reached the top level yet).

I get the paperboy to cub thing even though it's not realistic. But cub reporter to blogger? Or even weirder blogger to foreign correspondent? To television? And as recent news from the LATimes newsroom might indicate, I suspect there are very few EIC's who EVER want to become a media mogul.

But I like the game enough to suspend disbelief.

I'm working on getting promoted to news anchor.