The three members of the Truffle Shuffles have finally found a way to tap into all the "useless knowledge" they've gathered in the last 30 years. They are contestants on the second season of VH1's "2007 World Series of Pop Culture," which begins today at 9 p.m.

and continues next week in a two-week string of contests. Two of the group's members, Dominick Muzio, 32, and his brother John-Paul, 30, live in Port Charlotte. They are competing with their longtime friend, Farrell Kellner, 30, who lives in Boca Raton.

"We're just a crew of degenerates," Kellner said during a comical 20-minute telephone conference call to discuss their appearance on the show. They're first scheduled to appear on Wednesday's episode. The series, hosted by Pat Kiernan, pits two three-member teams against each other in several rounds of competition about a range of cultural subjects.

One player from each team competes in a six-question round. The loser is eliminated until a team has no members left. Tie rounds are broken by having contestants run through lists of such things as Academy Award-nominated animated pictures or characters on "Lost" until one contestant misses.

Melissa DePaul, a woman from Sarasota, is competing with two other friends from Florida on the team called "They're Real and They're Spectacular." That team's first appearance is Thursday. Sounding a lot like a morning radio team, the Truffles talk on top of each other and poke fun at themselves.

They have also picked up vast amounts of knowledge about music, movies, TV and other subjects that may be useful on the show and help them win the $250,000 grand prize. "We were trying to find a way to act as stupid as possible and get on TV for it," Dominick said. His brother, who is known as J.

P., said their participation is really about "30 years of being complete losers and not having any friends other than the people on TV. We're actually three of the coolest guys on the face of the earth, but we like to bring ourselves down to the lowest common denominator.

" The VH1 series grew out of Entertainment Weekly magazine's annual Pop Culture Quiz, which tests readers on a wide range of subjects. "It's difficult if you don't know something, but it's easy if you know it," said Kellner. After seeing an ad for the show in the magazine, Kellner said they realized "It's just a show that we wouldn't have to study for.

" The group filled out an application in the winter and were invited to a regional test in Orlando. Well, they didn't just fill out the application. "They said it was the most ridiculous application they had ever seen," Dominick said.

That's because the Truffles decided not to answer the questions the way everyone else might. "A million people would fill out the questions as technical and boring as possible. We wanted to stand out," Kellner said.

Although they felt confident about their knowledge of cultural trivia, they were surprised at the regional test. "It was extremely difficult," Dominick said. "Only two teams passed that initial test.

From one of the earlier testing groups, we heard people crying about how it was unfair, and we thought we may have wasted three hours driving here." Although they didn't win the regional contest, they were one of a number of teams chosen for wild-card slots. "Even though we lost in the regionals, they saw something in us," Kellner said.

disagreed on the reason: "It was my nude photos of the hot fudge sundae." The contest, taped in New York in March, "was definitely easier than what we experienced in Orlando," J.P.

The three men didn't do a lot of preparing, although J.P. said "from what I hear, you could study Wikipedia and do pretty well.

" The biggest challenge for the three of them was deciding which team member would take on the questions in each round because no team member can compete two rounds in a row (unless there's no one else left). "Dominick would do the movie categories, I'd do the music categories and J.P.

would do the TV categories," Kellner said. But even if one is stronger in a particular category, that doesn't mean he is going to know more than his teammates. "It's the luck of the draw.

"There were categories I would have been better at but you didn't know that at the time." said they "were all pretty well-rounded. All our strengths are kind of equal.

" The three guys met in elementary school in Staten Island, N.Y. Dominick, who works in a furniture store and does stand-up comedy, moved to Port Charlotte about three years ago, and J.

P., who currently works for a cable company, followed. Kellner moved to Boca Raton last year before he got married.

He describes himself as retired until he gets himself focused on a screenwriting career. He has worked in radio and as a private investigator. They had fun on the show and clearly don't mind the attention.

"There were 14 teams, and it was just great to play," J.P. The three members of the Truffle Shuffles have finally found a way to tap into all the "useless knowledge" they've gathered in the last 30 years.