The final season of AMC’s cult TV series “Breaking Bad” returns later this month with many questions to be answered and fates revealed. Amid the anticipation, Eli Szasz, co-founder of Santa Monica marketing firm Spark 6 and a super fan of the show, has managed to turn all the waiting into a game.
Szasz, 42, along with Spark 6’s other co-founder, Chad Alderson, and a colleague in New York¸ developed an online “Breaking Bad” game, “Betting Bad.” The game asks players to make guesses on how the final season will play out.
How many significant characters will die in the final eight episodes? Will the show’s meth-making anti-hero Walter White see his lung cancer return? And will White’s federal agent brother-in-law bring him down?
There are more than 50 different elements a player can bet on, with the more challenging bets worth more points.
The prize for the winner? Nothing more than the plumb knowledge he or she is very good at predicting the outcomes of serialized TV dramas.
More than 3,000 people have submitted ballots so far, but the biggest honor for Szasz has been getting a shout-out from “Breaking Bad” writer-producer Peter Gould, who tweeted that the game was a great idea.
“That was awesome,” Szasz said. “Though it’s been a running joke that if someone that’s a writer from the show ever played, they could crush this.”
Next Trip Up in the Air
Janice Cimbalo has been experimenting with modes of transportation.
Her unusual interest began about 18 months ago, when she travelled to San Diego to take a ride in the Farmers Zeppelin, a helium-powered airship often mistaken for a blimp that has, in the last year, ceased flight operations. A few months later, Cimbalo, 48, senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. in El Segundo, rode a train from Los Angeles to Chicago, just for fun.
Recently, she had a more extreme experience: She went skydiving. She said she did it not because she’s an adrenaline junkie but because she likes to have alternative experiences.
“I was kind of scared,” she said. “I’m not afraid of heights, but the idea of jumping out of a plane sounded terrifying.”
She jumped from 10,000 feet above the Channel Islands, strapped to an instructor who guided her while she did flips in free fall for 45 seconds, activated the parachute, then landed softly on her feet eight minutes later.
“It was amazingly beautiful,” she said.
The positive experience only heightened her interest in odd forms of mobility. Next month, she’s adding something new to her list: paragliding off the coast of Malibu.
“I’ll be strapped to a man who will be strapped to a giant fan,” she said. “We’ll glide 500 feet over land and then out over the ocean.”
Staff reporters Tom Dotan and Bethany Firnhaber contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
