127 hours and a minute

Minute To Win It is taking its Nielsen lumps lately, but the show did garner a bit of publicity with Aron Ralston's appearance this week. Aron's the guy who survived the harrowing wilderness experience, including the self-amputation of his right arm, which formed the basis for the Oscar-nominated film, 127 Hours.

He enjoyed his time on Minute To Win It a lot more. In fact, he took home 125 Grand for an enviro group called Wilderness Workshop. Guy Fieri commented that the group was probably doing backflips as a result. In my long ago youth, I might have done a backflip if I won that much.

This story out of Aspen recounts Aron's Minute adventures minutely (sorry). Some prominent cheerleaders urged him on, including the actor who played him in 127 Hours. Aron finally bombed on a ping pong ball challenge. Those little rascals can be tricky.

The final line of the story says Aron doesn't even have a television set in his Boulder home. Sadly, not a very large percentage of TV's in other people's homes were tuned to his exploits on the show.