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al Chat is up will read and try and copy and paste into here
What can we say about Al? Obviously an underestimated player, Al more than held his own in the group, all the while maintaining his integrity and good ole' fashion work ethic. At least this nice guy didn't finish dead last. We chatted it up with Al about his last days in the game, his direct, no-nonsense approach, and the long-term ramifications of roaming Switzerland in women's lingerie.
Was your time in the game worth having to wear the women's lingerie, and what happened when you got home?
I caught a lot of flack here in the warehouse, as I expected. The guys had a lot of fun with it. The owner of my company actually took a picture of the TV screen with his digital camera, and printed out many, many pictures and hung them all over the place. I was on display for two weeks after that.
How did they choose you for the "Tiny Bubbles" room?
What they didn't show was after the card game was over, and Bill had been escorted from the room, Anderson placed three envelopes in front of us and said we all had to choose an envelope. I deferred to the ladies, and said I would take whatever remained. We got our envelopes, and there was a number in each one of them. Heather had 1, Dorothy had 3, and I had 2. It was as simple as that.
What would you have done if you had been the Mole?
I would have loved to be The Mole. I would have relished it. I would have played the same way I did, gung-ho, 100%, but I would have been a little less careful about how I played, and made some other errors.
Did you get to sabotage anything intentionally?
No. Everything I did in the show were mistakes, honest mistakes. Like in the gladiator game, I was just trying to hard. I was so excited about that game, I just went out there and started banging away and got caught. I never tried to sabotage any game because I didn't want to. I didn't go into games with the intention of trying to convince the other players that I was the mole. I knew this was a game of observation, and I wasn't going to try and fool anyone, I was just going to play the game.
Everyone described you as "hilarious." What hilarious observations do you have about the other players?
I don't know! They say I'm funny? I appreciate that. Sometimes I can be funny, and sometimes I can be biting and sarcastic. Like with Katie, I gave her a bit of a hard time. It was all in good fun, but in retrospect, it was probably a little meaner than it should have been, and I apologized to her. I apologize publicly, as well. I don't know what was so funny. I guess because I made fun of Anderson.
In Kathryn Price's Mole Insider, Kathryn made the observation that because you stayed up all night you were exhausted, and maybe that affected your quiz-taking ability. Did it impact you?
It'll sound like a cop-out if I say yes, but to some degree it did. I had a game plan of what I wanted to do on the quiz, and maybe some of the things that happened throughout that game were exaggerated, and forced me to alter my gameplan just slightly. It was still my doing, so I don't want to make it sound like a cop-out, but I was a little beat. I was up for - by the time I got back to my hotel room it was 12:30 in the afternoon - I had been up for about 31 hours straight. I was wiped! Then I got about 3 hours of sleep, got up, did the interview, went back to the hotel, got an hour and a half of sleep, then it was up and off to dinner, so in about 38 hours, I only had about four and a half hours of sleep.
What was our strategy for the quiz that did you in?
Here's what happened. All three of the remaining players were on my list, which is funny, because after Elavia left, I was totally miffed. When she left, I went back to my journal, and all three of those players were suspicious, they were all Mole candidates. I was waiting for them to start dropping off and they didn't, I got down to the final four and was like "Oh, jeeze, I'm in a tight spot now," because I didn't place them in any order. So I did, I had a 1, 2 and 3, and I was going to go into the final quiz rolling the dice, 60/40 on my top 2. And the third player did some things that made me rethink that, it made me nervous enough where I spread it out among all three. I figured I could roll the dice one more time, and maybe someone else would be directed to the wrong person and I could slide in there. But it didn't work out.
Kathryn also mentioned that you were the most enthusiastic player from the beginning, but it was that enthusiasm that convinced the other players you were not the Mole. If you could go back, would you rethink that?
Not at all. As I stated earlier, my intentions were to win that game, and win it outright, without trying to do anything other than put as much money in that pot as possible and being as observant as possible, and gain as much information as I could. I wasn't going to do it by deception, or even with a coalition.
Were you aware of the Dorothy-Heather coalition, and do you think you were a victim of that coalition?
I did not know, and what a brilliant strategy by the two of them! To sit there when they are isolated from the other players and talk about getting together, it was beautiful. I never knew it was coming. Was I a victim of it? I don't know.
You mentioned Elavia was your pick a while back. So, do you think Elavia would have won, had she stayed in the game?
I can't say for certain. She would have knocked off a whole lot of players, that's for certain. Would she have won? The dynamics of the game could have changed. Peole suspected her, myself included. But that doesn't mean somebody else might have come up to show she's not the one. Who knows? She would have had a much better shot at winning, sure.
Could you really sleep through Bill's snoring?
I was the only one who could. Once in a while, it would wake me up a little bit, and I'd get out of bed and push him, he'd roll over, and that'd be the end of it. But it never really kept me up too late, probably because I'm a heavy snorer myself.
When you first met all of the other players, was there anyone you ruled out as the Mole immediately?
No. I thought they did a great job selecting the players. Everyone looked and acted so differently from one another, they were all just people you could have met at a party.
What was the most suspicious thing you saw during the game?
Elavia was definitely the one. It was so early on, and I thought the Mole had slipped up. I caught it, and didn't say anything to anyone. That was a lock for me. I was watching her like a hawk from there on out until she left the game. I had written it somewhere in my journal, then when we switched journals, I thought "Holy mackerel, there goes my great piece of information to Darwin." I'll take his word for it , but I thought I was the only one who caught it.Were you surprised that you were executed?
No. Like Bribs said last week, I just knew it. When the quiz was over, I just knew I was gone. I just didn't feel comfortable about it. Maybe the other players felt the same way, but I just knew in my heart of hearts that my time was up. I didn't have a good grasp of who I thought it was.
What were you looking for in the behavior of the other players, in your attempt to identify the Mole?
I was trying to speak to people on a personal level, and get to know who they are, so when they get into the game and screws up, you try to look at it as is that something that could be a part of their personality, or is that out of character for them to do something like that? And then you try and make a decision if that was genuine for them. Because their whole personality that they are laying out for you may be a lie from the start.
Let's talk about the Wine game. How drunk were you, really, and who was more drunk, you, Heather, or Anderson?
A lot of people say I was drunk, and I've read it on the internet, but I wasn't as drunk as people thought. I mean, it was wine. I like wine, I enjoy wine, but it takes a lot to get me drunk. We're not talking about beer steins, these were glasses. So I really wasn't that drunk. Anderson was LOADED. Anderson was definitely drunk. One of the things he said was "You have to talk these glasses, and put them down on the trable." I said, "Trable? You said Trable!" He said "No I didn't! Let's do that again."
What was your favorite game?
I was very fortunate in that I got to compete in a lot of cool stuff. Probably the Gladiator game, even though I went down fast. That was so disappointing. For the rest of the day, I was so disappointed that the psychiatrist who was traveling with us, Dr. Jeff, asked if I was alright. When would I have the chance to do that again?
In the Evader game, we very clearly see and hear Bill say he spotted Heather, but we see you standing there waiting. Did he say it and you just miss it, or did he never say it over the radio?
I missed it. He said it. Based on what I can tell, he said it on the radio. There was some conversation taking place on the radio about strategy, and how I was going to go after her. I was waiting for the word "Go." And it sounded like we were still talking about it, then all of a sudden, it was like, "Hey, get over here." And I said, "Who are you talking too?" because I just never heard it.
Why did Heather stop running? Could she have outrun you?
She was right in front of me, and just stopped and gave up. I think she was very frustrated at the whole - you know, Heather is a tense player as well, at least that's what she appears to be, and I think she just said "I can't get a break here." I think Heather is very athletic, but look at the size of my legs, I could run two steps to her one, because I'm so much taller than her. And it's like a maze, the place. She probably just would have run into a dead-end.
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