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Talent Quest, Round Two Voting!

Finally! Round Two of the Public Radio Talent Quest is now ready for your listening pleasure. There were three challenges: we had one story intro to write and record, one page of copy we had to read live with no prep, and then a “word association,” in which they gave us a word or phrase and we literally just took a deep breath and started talking. Mine is a bit babbly — it’s the first challenge I did, and I had just been rushed into the studio and was really not comfortable in front of the mic yet. By the time I left the place I was having a good time, though, talking and joking around with the engineer recording me and the PRX folks on the phone line.

All in all it was a great experience. It’d be nice to make it to Round 3 and hopefully improve even more. I guess we’ll see! Click here to go directly to my entry, and from there you can check out the other people as well, all of whom are pretty great.
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And also, it’s only been a day but we already have our first YouTube video responses in the Mr. Wizard Moment of Science Contest! The adorable and talented Mr. Chris Pirillo tells us all about hydroponics:

And then this hilarious video from Razela demonstrating a neat trick with some scissors and an ordinary piece of paper:

Keep those videos coming, folks!

While you’re spending time at YouTube, why not check out this hilarious video of two guys putting The Secret to the ultimate test? (Found at onegoodmove, my favorite place to go for great skeptic-oriented videos.)

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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11 Comments

  1. Believe and you shall receive a bike from an old pedophile. Hmmm.

    There's a write up about the Secret in the latest Skeptic magazine, and as you can imagine no quarter was given to those fluffy lunatics.

    Parillo's video was a little dry, I thought. Razela seemed to exude more of Mr. Wizard's childlike enthusiasm. And no, it has nothing to do with what she did at about 1:55! That was just lagniappe, as we say on the bayou.;)

    And of course I gave Rebecca 5 stars on her talent quest entry. Not only because I adore and admire her, but because her entry was actually very good! :) (I meant to ask on the first round: Do you have a slight lisp, or a pierced tongue?)

  2. I don't think rebecca either has a lisp OR a pierced tongue?

    But she does get sauced up every now and then, so who knows …

  3. Um, yeah, no lisp or pierced tongue that I know of! I have noticed that the sound on my digital camera is muddled and sounds a bit lispy (that's what I recorded the Blasphemy Challenge with), and that's why I used the headset + iSight on my new MacBook to record the Mr. Wizard call for videos.

    Now I'm wondering if I DO have a lisp and never noticed, ha ha…

  4. OK, since I'm not in the US, I am unable to register and vote for you rebecca (as I have no state or zip-code).

    Anyway, it sounds pretty good. Although you sound sooo nervous in the word association assignment.

  5. I don't know if it qualifies as using "common household items" (maybe if you live in a somewhat eccentric household) but this has to be the greatest thing I'll see today, and I'd love to get a video of it in action:

    EMP for shopping carts, by "Orthonormal Basis of Evil".

  6. Rebecca said,

    June 28, 2007 at 9:41 am

    Um, yeah, no lisp or pierced tongue that I know of!

    Well, now I feel really bad! It's just that you remind me of a couple of friends who have pierced tongues. There's a very slight "sh" sound to your s's. I am apparently the only one who notices, so obviously it's nothing to worry about.

    exarch,

    You can use Louisiana (LA) zip code 70001 or 70094 or Indiana (IN) zip code 46514. I'm sure they won't check. :)

  7. Chris should stick to eating shuttles! A neat doodad…it appears it might be popular with the High Times crowd. Paper-girl had zip.

    Rebecca, I signed in, listened to, and voted on all the PR entries (I hadn't read the rules before or what the awards were!). Didn't leave any comments though. I saw afterwards that someone said not to vote 3 stars, which I doled out to three people. It's clear in my mind who the next three eliminations should be (not that anyone is horrible), so I'm curious what the judges will think. Are the judges paying attention to comments anywhere?

    You should definitely make it to the next round. Your live copy was one of the strongest – many others' intonation and emphasis was too off, imo. On the impromptu, though you may think you babbled, at least a memorable message came across. I didn't think anyone's impromptu speech was spectacular, though Glynn Washington might want to go into books-on-tapes readings – he was very animated. Chris de Ville got 5 stars from me also – that's a voice I could listen to and he was pretty solid all-around.

    Good luck with the next round!

  8. exarch, you should have done what I always do when I need to register at a site that requires a US zip code. Use the one zip code that is widely known outside the US – that is if you watched TV in the early 90's: 90210 :)

    I listened to all the finalists and voted. Rebecca, I think you have a real good shot at winning the whole thing.

  9. Yeah, I know of 90210. But I think it's too obvious. Especially if your email address ends in a 2 character country code.

    I'll try again tonight …

  10. Well, I'm pretty sure I voted for you. I'm using Safari and whenever I clicked on the fifth star it looked like it stuck, but then when I moved my mouse to somewhere else on the page it looked like the stars vanished. I tried using Explorer but it wouldn't open the page.

    Good luck.

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