Code Breaker

In the end, Ben Affleck didn’t have much pull. By the time ABC canceled his Push, Nevada Oct. 28, only 4 million viewers were tuning in. (Time slot rival CSI was drawing 29 million.) There was at least one person watching closely: New Jersey book editor Mark Nakamoto, 24, solved the show’s $1 million puzzle by dialing a number that he gleaned from clues built into the plot. (He beat some 10,000 other callers to the punch pad.) But even Nakamoto stumbled on the game by accident. ”I actually tuned in the first night because I thought it was The Runner,” he says, referring to that other failed interactive-contest show (which never aired) from Affleck and Matt Damon’s Live Planet. Can Nakamoto — who watched each episode twice and spent an hour online and on the phone to piece together the number — deduce why Affleck would marry twice-divorced J. Lo? ”Ah, they’re just two crazy kids in love.” Wow, he is good.