Territorial Bloggings

Hah!

-ghp

TAR:12

• It’d probably be uncouth for me to observe that Kate & Pat got eliminated in the land of dikes… so let’s just say that the lesbians landed last in the land of levees…
• Ron & Christina emerged from the first episode as potential fan favorites. After episode two, only Christina remained as a favorite, while her control freak father was such an unrelenting pain in the ass that there’s not even a plausible way that it could be blamed on “editing”. Example: She found both marked bikes. All he did was bitch about things & contribute being a debilitating negative presence. And at the roadblock he couldn’t even bring himself to keep quiet when asked nicely & repeatedly. Christina’s a nice, smart, & sensible young woman – the type that any father would proud of; Ron, however, seems bound & determined to keep a cultural stereotype alive. It’s kind of hard to believe that he was a salesman. Unless he was a bad one. That could be believable.
• The Goths & The Sisters emerged as teams that I’m liking. The Goths because they just seem to be a great combination of supportive, nice, and just plain funny/entertaining. The sisters because they seem like they’re pretty nice and, well, I mean, just look at them…
• There’s a whole bunch of teams that I just don’t care all that much about one way or the other (pretty much all of the (non-Goth) “dating” teams, even though the girls are kinda cute), while there are two or three that could elevate to a more active level of annoyance/dislike — Nicolas & Donald just have an edge about them (beyond Donald’s getting down to his skivvies in the mud), the LA Blondes are just a bit too superficial for my tastes (although they did have a surprising toughness last night, even in the face of no facials), and Azaria really does seem like he could emerge as a younger version of Ron with how he sometimes treats Hendekea.
• In all, though, the best part of episode two is that the love letter got returned to sender!

The Next Great American Band

• I was neither shocked nor disappointed with the eliminations of The Muggs & Rocket. Dicko was dead-on accurate in observing that both bands fell victim to “death by lead singer,” The Muggs because they desperately need one who can sing to the level of their musicianship, and Rocket because their lead singer needs to take being a vocalist more seriously.
• I think that Tres Bien and Light of Doom should be the next bands eliminated, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Denver & The Mile High Orchestra found themselves gone next time.
• I think that Sixwire will win.
• I think that Franklin Bridge could win.
• I think that The Clark Brothers should win.

Survivor

• I’m glad that Jean-Robert’s delusional trip through the Orient is over…
• Folks like Courtney are usually only seen on The History Channel (concentration camps) or Discovery Health Channel (anorexics)…
• Amanda is setting herself up to be the clear & most deserving choice to win the whole shebang, as Todd looks to be making more enemies on the jury…
• James is emerging as a Rupert-esqe fan favorite. Despite his rough edges, there is something quite endearing & entertaining about him…
• I think that the dominant/power alliance will hold together long enough to ensure that either Peih-Gee or Erik will get the boot this week…

Question for a Monday: Why is it that contemplating realitytv is easier & more appealing than doing so with actual, you know, reality?

-ghp

Just a couple of quick bullet point observations & news…

• Some changes are afoot for AI7. There’s nothing earth shattering about letting the contestants who can play an instrument do so to accompany themselves, or about not having so many guest mentors, but it’s still good to see that they’re at least willing to tweak things a little bit…
• TAR:12 kicked off with its highest 1st episode ratings ever. That’s good to see, as it’s sad that CBS so often treats the classiest of all realitytv shows (and the one that actually brings home Emmys) a bit shabbily. Mayhaps now they won’t…
• I’m still getting a bead on all the teams. It’s both easy and hard to do so, given the formula that TAR producers follow in selecting stock characters (e.g., “best friends,” “siblings,” “gay couple,” “parent & child,” etc…). It’s easy because teams can be easily identified, but hard because individual personalities can change within the given types (e.g., TAR:12′s “blondes” are nowhere near as good as “my blondes” — Dustin & Kandace — from TAR:10 & TAR:AllStars).
• That said, after the first episode, I’m surprised that I’m favorably disposed towards the Goths (they have a good attitude and seem like nice people — should this surprise me? Probably not, but it still did…).
• I’m not surprised (at all) that I want the lesbian “clergy” to be off of my TV as quickly as possible (if not sooner). They offend me theologically, which shouldn’t be surprising. But even setting aside the theological baggage, they need to go if only because they uttered the horrific phrase, “TAR is a love letter to the world.” Gag.
• Survivor — S:15 is plugging along nicely. It’s not been the best season ever, but neither has it been the worst. It is, however, pretty obvious that either Todd or Amanda will win, unless one/both of them has a strategic meltdown of epic proportions.
• Most interesting, though, is the news that S:16 will be another all-star edition!
• And it looks as though they’ve learned from the mistakes of the first all-star edition, as the rumored participant list is limited to seasons 9-15 (i.e., no one who could’ve been in the first all-star edition, and includes no first or second place finishers. Both of these are very good decisions, IMO.

-ghp

Because I need something to write about (as I hate the thought of having less than one post per week…), here’s some news about Survivor:  Survivor China’s Cast Revealed

Yay… The fall TV season is just about here. At least I’ve got that going for me…

And Sabra winning SYTYCD was a good thing…

I’ve been trying to spend more time reading books lately, because reading books is better escapism than spending time online (i.e., writing/blogging)…

<*sigh*>

-ghp

[tags]

pop culture, realitytv, sytycd, survivor

[/tags]

Sure, all the blogging guides say you shouldn’t post something just to say that you haven’t been posting anything, but what’s the fun in running your own blog if you can’t do whatever you want whenever you want why-ever you want? I’m just saying…

Some more questions & answers…

Still watching TAR:AS? Yup. I’m rooting for Cha3 (aka Danny & Oswald) & my Blondes. I’m shocked & appalled that Schmirna is still in the race & prospering, as I would’ve much preferred my “villains” to be the Guidos or Teri & Ian. Cha3 & my Blondes more than make up for that, however, as they are both teams that are entertaining to watch & easy to root for, ’cause they are such strong racers with good personalities.

Still watching The Apprentice? Sure, although I really think that the show’s concept is played out. The changes made by The Donald for this go-around (LA, tent city, no Carolyn or George, winning PM as 2nd boardroom viceroy…) have not panned out. The showmance between Tim & Nicole was only vaguely interesting. And The Donald’s penchant for bending his own rules (ala this past week’s change from firing a team of 2 to firing 1 from each of the 2 bottom teams) is just annoying. After 6 seasons, The Donald’s oft capricious actions are not as entertainingly endearing as they once were.

Still watching Survivor? Of course. The current installment is certainly not the best/most interesting that they’ve ever broadcast, but it’s still fun to watch. I think they’d be better off if they stopped stunt-casting for some preconceived notions of “diversity” and focused on getting folks who love & want to play the game, though…

Still depressed? Eh. It’s up & down. It’s downright bizarre at times to be aware on a logical plane that I’m mired in a dysfunctional mindset, and to know that I should do something about it (even what I should do to fight/stop it…), but to be ultimately unable to just, you know, do it. It really adds to the whole mix & makes it snowball even more. As pretentious as it sounds, sometimes being too aware is just flat out worse than not being aware at all.

Surely church helps, no? Well, yes, ultimately. I do, however, feel very aware of Satan’s influence in trying to get me to dwell too much on the fact that I’m a hopeless sinner. I.e., focus on the fact that I cannot effect my own salvation, so why even try. The good thing is that, even at the worst, God is gracious enough to never leave me to my own devices – He always keeps that seed of faith alive in me so that I don’t totally succumb to the despair sowed by the enemy. So, even as it’s always a struggle, I’m fully safe & comforted in the knowledge that God will allow me to prevail through His grace.

How are the wife/kids? Good. A sizable part of what keeps me going is that I know that I have vocational responsibilities as husband/father. Even as I might despair at my ability to successfully execute those vocations, I know that I must keep trying, and that God will use even my feeble efforts for the good of my beloved family. I thank God every day for the blessing of my family and the fact that they love me even though I so often feel like a failure.

Getting things done? I’m trying to still get that properly systematized & implemented. I can see that the structure that GTD affords/encourages is something that will benefit me in the hopefully not-so-distant future. It’s tough, though, because keeping track of things doesn’t equal actually doing them. And there’s an awful lot that I don’t necessarily want/like to do. It sucks how life is like that…

Gonna keep blogging? Certainly. Even when I’m in a phase right now of wondering why I keep such close tabs on traffic/hits/readership stats. It’s a useful outlet for me, even though I can’t be quite as forthright as I sometimes want to be (for example, I try not to blog about work, because I’m a bit paranoid about there somehow being negative blowback from entries dealing with how I feel about work…). I struggle with the “why” of doing this sometimes, particularly WRT theology. I want to be useful/helpful, even as I also want to selfishly show how obviously smart & learned I am. The thing is, when I get too far into the selfish motivational side of things, I tend to worry about stats & I get easily frustrated. I don’t ever want to write something just because I think it’ll somehow get more people to read. Ultimately, I just want to write what interests me, and what I feel like writing, and then just be satisfied with what happens in terms of stats/traffic/readership. Oh yeah, and make big sis giggle…

That’s enough for now. Time to start preparing for tonight’s AI presentation of “Sanjy on the block”…

-ghp

If the blogosphere can’t be about random pop-culture gossip once in a while, well, then what’s the point, right?

I was reading WWE announcer Jim Ross’ latest blog entry (yeah, I like pro wrestling — what of it? ), an came across this little info nugget:

“After The Funker boarded his plane, I met Fairplay, who is a huge fan as many know and is preparing to compete in the Survivor All Stars this September.”

What now?

Another edition of All-Star Survivor?

Hrm… that could be interesting. Enough time has passed since the first one (Season for enough other personalities to have emerged so that we don’t get overwhelmed by Borneo & Outback vets — not to mention that they could do it without Romber (as much as I love them, I don’t want to see them do Survivor again!). We’re currently in Season 14, which would provide 6 full seasons worth of folks to be added into the mix. Heck, we wouldn’t even have to worry about seeing Stephenie & Bobby Jon again!

Seriously, though, if they do a better job of casting this time, I could see another All-Star version of Survivor being a very entertaining thing. I’d really like to see something where they get the “best folks who never made the jury” playing again, or maybe just making sure that it’s either all 1st/2nd/3rd place finishers, or no high-placing folks at all, so as to remove the jealousy/class-warfare card from the game.

There are a lot of possibilities, and it’d sure be fun to talk about it…

-ghp

For a double elimination episode, there really wasn’t a whole lot of excitement and/or intrigue. The challenge was fun, as hand-to-hand combat is always an interesting thing to watch play out. Candice and Cristina (and to a lesser extent, Ozzy) were the standouts, as they proved to be double-tough.

In terms of game strategy, there were only two significant plot lines IMO…

1) Cao Boi’s “Plan Voodoo” to smoke out the hidden individual immunity — This was, surprisingly, a very lucid piece of strategy. That he wasn’t able to pull it off because he misidentified the possible owners of the immunity is secondary (although confiding in the person who did/does hold the immunity was a blunder…). It was a nice little piece of strategy, and given slightly different circumstances, he might’ve actually been able to pull it off.

2) Aito, quite simply, blundered when they “kidnapped” Nate instead of Cristina. I was stunned that they didn’t act on the info that Cristina was the scapegoat & desired elimination. IMO, the smart play would’ve been to save her, and force the Raro core to eat one of its own. It’s further proof that even smart tribes/players do stupid things in this game. Boneheads…

That Cao Boi & Cristina were voted off was not a surprise. Cao Boi was just an annoying little dude — entertaining to a certain extent, but undoubtedly annoying to the larger group (as evidenced by his misguided attachment to the group immunity idol). Cristina’s elimination, otoh, doesn’t make as much sense. That she annoyed Adam & Jenny is just a silly reason for elimination at this stage of the game. Frankly, the women would’ve been better served if they had put their petty annoyances aside & tossed one of the guys (Adam, if I had my way). But Raro, I think it’s clear, is populated by idiots.

It’s also fascinating to see how, at least for some folks, the race card is still very much in play. Cao Boi’s worry about the power of the Caucasian tribe was interesting. I’m not sure how it’ll continue to play out, but I do think that at some point before the end of the game we will see it rear it’s head again.

-ghp

All things taken into account, this really wasn’t the most riveting of installments. Raro was generally stupid. Aito was generally competent. The producers threw some editing curves at us, or at least tried to do so in their largely predictable fashion.

Things started out according to form on Raro, in that the guys were pissed that the girls had actually, you know, used their numerical superiority to their advantage. Surprisingly, the guys reacted smartly by working hard & playing the socio-political game. The girls, however, almost hurt themselves by abruptly getting stuck on stupid, as they began to focus on getting rid of Cristina and forgetting that Parvati was being wishy-washy about committing to the whole girl-power strategy. If it were me, I’d have either gotten rid of another guy, or gotten rid of Parvati, so as to securely lock in the girl-power alliance. As it stands, however, Parvati could now just as easily jump over to the guys & get rid of the other girls. Dumb gameplay on the part of Jenny & Rebecca! It doesn’t matter if Cristina is annoyingly bossy, or if Stephannie is mentally checking out — they’re reliable alliance-mates who can be manipulated/led relatively easily. Parvati and the guys cannot. Unless they start winning some immunities, this will come back to haunt them.

As for Stephannie’s ouster, I can only say that it’s for the best, because she seems to genuinely nice and/or naive to be playing Survivor down to the bitter end. She obviously didn’t truly learn the lesson that last week’s near elimination should’ve taught her – i.e., keep your mouth shut & your feelings/fantasies to yourself! That said, I do think that Nate read way too much into the whole “mashed potatoes & gravy” comment. I took it more to mean that Stephannie was just acknowledging that she could easily be voted off and that, if it happened, she wouldn’t mind feeding her food craving. Not that it matters, though, because Nate did a pretty good job of taking a seed of weakness & sowing it into a crop of doubt…

Over on Aito, things were pretty much uneventful. I did feel sorry for Ozzy, though, because he seems to have hitched his wagon to the crazy horses of Cao Boi & Flissica, and that’s just not a good place to be. That threesome worked hard to get someone to go with them on their little expedition, but the others were rightfully wary of getting sucked into a vortex of lunacy. Yul did a great job of working to get Sundra locked into being the 5th vote that his alliance needs to stay firmly in power, although Sundra seems to be smart enough to see that her alternatives are kind of limited at the present time. Regarding the expedition, I can only say that I’m shocked by the lack of awareness on Ozzy’s part. Cao Boi & Flissica didn’t surprise me all that much, but Ozzy should’ve known better. It was truly an uncomfortable moment, and it made for great TV!

The immunity challenge turned out to be much more difficult than it looked, and it was nice to see Raro self-destruct at the last minute. Both tribes are dysfunctional, but Aito is a more appealing blending of the dysfunctional elements than is Raro.

Hopefully, things will pick up a bit next week…

-ghp

JP is dead to the game, and deservedly so — but more on that in a moment…

This started out to be a rather blah installment.

• Ozzy pouted & threatened to take his ball & go home
• Candice tried, and failed, to credibly act dumb in the face of Flissica having a reasonably cogent thought about why Raro saved Candice from Tribal Council
• The men of Raro preened & postured whilst the women worked & stewed — and the gods of Foreshadowing were invoked…
• Parvati continued to work her little-black-bikini spell on Nate
• JP acted as the alpha-male, and such behavior was noted by several of the girls
• Even the reward challenge was rather blah, although it hinted at the discord simmering just under the surface at Raro, with Aito winning reward & sending Adam off to Exile Island
• Cao Boi proved (and admitted) that he shouldn’t always listen to the mischievous little boi in his head, as doing so caused not insignificant upset to the poor mama & baby boobies (I did like seeing Jonathan’s honest emotions, though…)

While a bit overly complicated, the immunity challenge was fascinating in that it either hinted at, or laid bare many of the dynamics within both tribes. To wit:

• Raro’s young bucks aren’t as studly as they think
• JP got his doors blown off by Ozzy, who proved that he knows how to get his swim on! (and that JP ain’t the alpha he thought he was…)
• Flissica might not be smart, but she is tough
• Parvati doesn’t mind getting carried by the guys
• Cao Boi can’t help being a weird little dude – he’s gonna stand out no matter what, even though it might/probably will bite him before getting to the merge
• Aito seems to be a more solidly together tribal unit than does Raro

After Aito won immunity, however, is when things definitely picked up!

• Stephannie got stuck on stupid – you never, NEVER!, fess up to that kind of regret and/or responsibility (even if it’s true!)
• Nate quite coldly turned on one of his “Supremes”
• Jenny, Rebecca, & Cristina realized that the girls actually did have a numerical advantage over the guys!
• Stephannie got unstuck from stupid, got on board with Jenny, Rebecca, & Cristina, and did a nice job of working to get Brad on board in case Parvati flaked out
• Parvati’s “flirt to first” strategy got slightly rocked when confronted with the women’s rebellion, and she didn’t do much to solidify her standing with the other girls by hemming & hawing & asking for time to think
• Tribal Council was entertaining, as Probst bored in on a few interesting things, not the least of which was getting Becky to openly state JP’s “leadership” standing

In the end, it seems the only person not let in on the plot to dethrone JP was Nate. It will be very interesting to see just how he reacts, both to the tribe in general, and to Parvati in particular, as it would seem to indicate that she didn’t clue her ostensibly strongest ally in on the change in power…

-ghp

Let me go out on a very strong limb here — Jessica/Flica is the dumbest Survivor player EVER! Cao Boi is certainly a bizarre little man, but I don’t think he’s stupid. J/F, however, most certainly is. Last night she proved herself to be willfully ignorant of the hows & whys of playing Survivor. That she (and Cao Boi) ended up doing the right thing is almost irrelevant, given her conflicted confusion (and apparently permastoned state of mind) about proper gameplay.

I like what they did with the “twist” – both how they did the realignment, and the teams that resulted from it. It’s a bit too early to say exactly what will happen, in terms of interpersonal dynamics, although I think the new Aitu is shaping up to be a not-so-nice place for Ozzy. It would’ve been interesting to see whether or not Yul would’ve used the hidden immunity to save Becky had it become necessary – I think he would’ve, and I think it probably would’ve been a good use of it at this point in the game, as it would’ve helped solidify his alliance’s control of Aitu through to a merge.

Billy had to have hated watching Cece spill the beans to Candice re: the whole “love at first sight” debacle. At least now the embarrassment will subside until the post-finale reunion show…

The immunity challenge was kind of boring, as it was a basically the exact same challenge as was used during S:10-Palau (the only minor difference was the need to tackle rather than touch in order to win the challenge…).

Props to Nate for catching the octopus, but I’ve got to say that I wouldn’t have wanted to get anywhere near that bad boy — octopi give me the heebie-jeebies, unless they’re on the ice at JLA during the playoffs!

Parvatii is certainly very pretty, but I really don’t think that slutting her way to the final two is a strategy that will gain her the admiration of the jury, much less their votes. She may think she’s flirting, but she did not show any ability to be nearly that subtle — she’s about as subtle as she is ugly!

Let’s hope they keep it up next week…

-ghp