People from glass trailer parks should not throw stones.

Team purple needed a leader & they chose Shambo. Hee hee. Now, I missed the lead-up to the vote for Shambo. I was on the phone with our realtor who was talking on and on about what makes a good bourbon. What I do know is that the purple team dudes want Shambo to think she's in control of something and that they think she's important. Smart move. As Danger Dave noted, the only problem could be that, 'she's so dim, she might blow the whole thing if we tell her too much." Hee. And THEN... my favourite quote of the whole show. Kelly. Kelly and the other mean girls (Laura & Monica) are mad, mad, mad that Shambo is leader. Kelly says (and it loses something without the southern accent), "It's like Shambo's from a trailer park and now she drives a JAGWIRE, but she's still from a trailer park." Right. Let's talk about how trailer park it sounds when you can't even pronounce the word 'jaguar'. Honestly, that's one of my hugest pet peeves in life. Jagwire. It's right up there with sam-wich and real-a-tor. Ugh.

So after I stopped shivering from the jagwire comment... there was a reward challenge, which team purple won. Shambo had to pick a person from her team who would stay behind with the other team. She chose Laura. Her reason? Seemed pretty well thought out. Because she needed to keep the men strong for challenges and she wasn't going for a third time. Fair enough, non? Well, the girls were M-A-D. Daggers were coming out of Laura's eyes. But then, Sham can't leave well enough alone and has to keep going on about how she thinks she made the right choice to Monica. Shut. Up. Shambo. She's one of those people you really want to like, but she makes it really hard and you just can't.

Oh yeah, the other funny part was when Shambo sat out during the challenge, she had to appoint someone else to be leader. She says Erik and immediately gets elbowed by Dave, who corrects her, "NO! NO! NO! BRETT!" Which made me laugh for two reasons. 1) Shambo is SO not the leader. And 2) even Brett's own teammates don't know who he is. Right?

While Laura was at team yellow, Russell started working his sweet magic. Tells Laura that they should have a secret alliance & they should be final two. Hee. Soooo funny. He is very clever. He finds out one thing from Laura (she's a Christian) and hops on it. Something about how they should stick together. He's probably Jewish... or at any rate you know he's lying.... which makes it funny that he's lying about religion. Hee.

So then the immunity challenge. The funny part here is that they are out on the water in outrigger canoes. Two people have to fish puzzle pieces out of the water. Shambo is yelling 'encouragement' to Danger Dave, who keeps telling her to shut the hell up. Ha! And it's like she doesn't hear him. She just keeps at it. "Come on Dave! You can do it! Oh, you've got it! Way to go!" Etc. Etc. And he just keeps on telling her to be quiet. Then during the puzzle portion, the yellow team fell apart thanks to Jaison... who has no puzzle building ability apparently. Purple won. Yellow had to go to Tribal again & will be down to 4 people! Sad!

Looked like it was between Jaison and Liz. Russell talked about how Jaison just gave up during the puzzle, but then said that he trusted Jaison where he didn't trust Liz. That's when you knew it would be Liz. Russell doesn't keep around people he doesn't trust & can't manipulate. And it's working brilliantly. Have you noticed how no one EVER mentions Russell as someone to vote off? Nope. He's everyone's friend. They love him. And so should you. He will win. Possible threat from Erik or Danger Dave... Thoughts?

Next week - MERGE!

Minus One Russell

First both teams were going to Tribal and one was voting... then both teams are going and both are voting, then no one was sending anyone home... what the? And poor poor Master T/Russell. Did you feel a bit sorry for him? I found him super irritating right up until last night... then I found him irritating, but kind of endearing at the same time. He tried so hard to stay... he worked so hard.... but he has to stay strong for his family... sniff, sniff.... Come on, don't lie. You felt a little bad for him too.

OK... so what else was interesting? The challenge was to decide which team would get to eat pizza while listening in on the other team's Tribal Council. Fun, right? And it was a good challenge too. One person was inside a giant ball which was rolled through a course by two tribemates who were blindfolded. Then the ball person had to direct the blindfolded people to do a puzzle. Team yellow was ahead. They thought they'd win it. Then Russell.

Russell (Master T) was one of the blindfolded folks. He's looking all tired, sorta not doing all that well. Then boom - he's out! Like literally his head is on the side of the puzzle and his body is limp. Medics are called. He comes to for a bit, then blacks out with his EYES OPEN! Crazy to watch. Jeff later says it's "the scariest moment he's had in 19 seasons of hosting the show." No doubt. Yikes! So the medics determine that his heart rate/blood pressure is way too low & he's not returning to the game. Cue tears. Dang! That would suck.

So everyone goes back to camp figuring that both teams are going to Tribal and voting someone out. Team yellow figures they can't catch a break. Jaison once again looks like he's going to crack. Russell (other Russell) is the only one who isn't miserable from the rain... he sees it as weakening his opponents (true) and better for him (true). At team yellow it looks like it's going to be either Liz or Natalie going home.

Over at purple, it's a cat fight between the mean girls (Laura, Monica & Kelly) vs. Shambo. Well, really it's just Monica vs. Shambo. Monica's got her panties in a knot because Shambo voted for her once, so is holding a huge grudge... plus just hates Shambo. So, instead of possibly pulling Shambo into a girl alliance, the stupid girls push her away.... right over to the men, who also have four people and need a fifth. How convenient. The men want to vote off the weakest person at challenges - Monica. As far as I'm concerned and even though I have her in the pool, Monica is stupid and deserves the boot. Sheesh.

However, as it turned out, no one got the boot because Master T had already had to leave the game. So Monica and Liz/Natalie are safe for another episode. I think now would be a fun time for an early merge. There's huge rivalry between the men on the tribes & I'd like to see them all try to vie for supremacy.... Or will they all pull that whole 'men-on-the-same-team' thing and be best buds once the merge happens? Thoughts?

Next week it appears Russell somehow makes an alliance with Laura. Final two! Hee hee. I totally wonder if that's going to ever get back to Russell - that he's made 'final two' alliances with almost everyone there! Hee. If not, pretty much sure Russell should win.

And still.... Brett? Who? Really?

Minus One Blonde

Sorry for such a late blog. Friday just got away from me....

Sooooo.... let's see what I can remember. Will try to give you the important parts. Here's what you need to know:

1. THE FOOD CHALLENGE! Hurrah! I was quite happy they brought back the food challenge. It's always fun to throw a bit of Fear Factor into Survivor, non? You knew Ashley was going to be a problem when she bragged to the camera, "I'll pretty much try anything." Well, missy, have you watched the show before? There's a pretty big difference between trying anything, and chugging a pint glass full of barely blended up sea snail guts and water. Anyways, she lost it (literally) and the purple team won. They got a bunch of steaks & sausages & stuff to BBQ. Then we got to see Master T trying to light the fire & Danger Dave getting super annoyed with him because he couldn't do it. As Danger said to us later, I can't believe how many people go on Survivor & don't know how to start a fire!! Seriously. A bit of an ego-match of sorts ensued with Danger & Master... this will be a problem later on. Is Master T annoying the heck out of you?

2. Russell & Liz. So Liz mentions to Russell that she's pretty sure he's got the immunity idol. He says no, and she pushes him on it asking why he's lying to her. Bad idea, Liz. Now Russell's got it out for Liz and you can bet that if a) it hadn't been raining and b) Ashley wasn't such a massive turd at the challenges... Liz would have been the one to go home. Liz better hope for a merge sooner than later. Russell's knocking the smart ones out who figure out his nonsense.

3. Ashley was a massive turd at challenges. Sorry, but it's true. Don't lie - you thought so too. She messed up the food challenge and then didn't do anything in the immunity challenge either. The challenge was to throw coconuts into a net that was being held up by the other team. Ashley couldn't get a single coconut in the net. Liz was holding the net for their team and held out longer than Russell. She was a star! They lost, but there was no way you could say Liz didn't hold her own. Ashley on the other hand... turd.

4. The rain. It rained and rained and rained. And when I say rain, I mean monsoon-like pouring rain. No rest. No reprieve. What the heck happened to Shambo's hands? She's got some sort of trench-foot type thing going on... on her hands! Jaison's in bad shape too. Jury's out on whether or not he's just going to quit. Thoughts? Anyways, it's miserable out & all the teams can do is to huddle in their shelters. So that means no strategizing or going off with other teammates... nothing to be done. Poor Russell looked so sad that he couldn't work his Russell magic. Team yellow just had to go and vote how they felt.

5. Oh yeah... Shambo. So when purple team won reward, they had to send someone to the other camp. That person wouldn't get reward. They sent Shambo. She was MAD! "I needed that protein!" Like no one else did or something.... People can't get along with others & then wonder why they're sent away? And as Master T put it... "That's for losing the chicken." Fair enough, your honour. So Shambo goes over to annoy team yellow & promptly reads them all the immunity clues & digs through that tree again. Hee hee. The look on Russell's face was delightful.

6. Back to the vote. So it was Ashley, naturally. Everyone voted for her... even her BFF Natalie, who earlier said something about them being like sisters. Hee. As far as I'm concerned, it's one less blonde to keep track of. Now just two interchangeable blondes to figure out... And I'm still baffled by Brett. Dude apparently has no personality, as he's never given more than one line per episode and it's always pretty generic... I'm hoping he becomes interesting soon.

This week it looks like medics show up again, which means we'll likely lost another 2 survivors in one go. Any guesses on who goes?

Score: Chickens 1, Lazy Girl 0

A delightful episode. Were you pro-Yasmin or anti-Yasmin? Me? Anti, for sure. She had one of the best, worst strategies ever: "If I don't do anything around camp, I won't make any mistakes, and no one will come after me." Really? Yeah... that didn't work. Instead, everyone just thought she was a lazy ass. So what if she did better than Monica at the challenge? At least Monica obviously has some people skills, which Yasmin clearly lacks. I couldn't wait for the speech at the end where we KNEW she'd go on about how she knows she's better than all of those people and screw them anyways.... I don't want a million dollars if I can't be true to myself, blah, blah, blah. People really have to stop teaching their kids that they're entitled to whatever they want just because they're "confident"... or maybe it's Oprah's fault? Or Maury.... Thoughts? You still have to work hard & be nice to people, right? Oh, the other thing I love is that Yasmin is now joining BEN, who was voted off last week. That should be a fun reunion. Where's the footage of that? Hugs all around, I'm sure.

I digress. Back to the show.... there were lots and lots of fun things that happened. Like the reward challenge where 3 people from each team show up and there's no one there to tell them what to do. Did Jeff sleep in? I hope so. So they run for the chickens (the reward) and the other box... which ends up being the instructions to the game. Then someone has to yell at Shambo to put down the chickens she's got by the neck. Hee. Team purple won on the last throw (it was a bocce-type game where you have to throw a ball closest to the middle....) and won the chickens. It was Danger Dave acutally, though you never see his team give him the full credit back at camp. I am totally in love with Danger Dave and his skullet. You?

Then Shambo, claiming to be a "country girl" takes charge of the chickens. She clucks at them constantly, telling us that you have to make the chickens "trust you" before they will lay eggs for you. Say it with me.... Really? I'm pretty sure they'll just lay eggs if you feed them, give them water and leave them the heck alone. Anyways, so Shambo loses a chicken the very next day. Funny to watch everyone give chase as Shambo says, "I didn't know they could fly!" and "At least I produced us an egg first..." Ummm... the chicken did that. Not Shambo. Then everyone just gave up on getting the chicken back, making Erik's head just about blow off.

Speaking of Erik... we finally got to hear from him a little. He used the clues Shambo had for the immunity idol at the other camp & figured he'd see if they were the same at his camp. Clever, non? So after he checked like, 35 trees... he found it and exclaimed, "I KNEW it would be in that tree!" Hee. You've got to admire the very few people who are actually playing this game. There's a lot of dead weight this season.

Hmmmm... what else? Like I mentioned earlier, the purple team finally lost a challenge. It wasn't much to write home about, just that Monica was the weakest one. And I don't think she sucked, she was just slower than the rest of them. It was good to see the yellow team win one for once. Also, that means we don't have to listen to Russell (much) for one episode. Though he did make a "last-two" alliance with Natalie, who he figures he can more easily beat than Jaison (true) with whom he also has a "last-two" alliance. Hee. Speaking of Jaison, he's getting pretty whiney, non? What's with the "I didn't sign up for this" talk? YES YOU DID! It's called Survivor. It pretty much sucks every time... rainy.... cold.... people don't sleep.... I don't know, I get this from ummmm... WATCHING THE SHOW! He actually said it was the "worst decision he's made in his whole life." Sigh.... I sure hope he sucks it up soon. Big lawyer-baby.

So there were two camps at team purple.... team Monica and team Yasmin. Master T and most of the men were on team Yasmin. They want someone who's strong in challenges. Fair enough. Master T went on to say that he's the leader and if people don't do what he wants, he'd have to kick some ass or something like that. Really? You? The others were team Monica, wanting someone they like more and who does more work around camp. Also fair. In the end, niceness won out over pouty entitlement. And not that Monica's really that nice.... 'cause the girls mean-girled Yasmin pretty hard. But Yasmin sort of deserved it. The only time I've liked her even a little was when she wore her heels to Tribal last night & told Jeff it's 'cause she wanted to look nice for him. Cute, but too late. I can't stand you, sorry.

Finally, there are 2 blonde girls who seem, at least at this point, to be completely interchangeable. Natalie and Kelly. Thank goodness they're at least on two different teams so we can know them as purple blonde and yellow blonde. I sure hope one of them goes before the merge or I'll be so confused. Also, I'm surprised that Brett got to speak last night at Tribal Council. We have literally heard NOTHING from the guy until then. And even then, I don't remember what he had to say. He's so far under the radar, he's cloaked. Full on Klingon warship.

And why the heck don't they want to vote off Shambo? She loses chickens, she's annoying, she's kind of stupid... and the hair..... Just sayin'. Shambo also figures she's "got a following" at the other camp. One of my favourite quotes of the night. Who are you, the Grateful Dead? Goes to show, you can lose a chicken and Yasmin is still more annoying. People totally forget each season that it's a show about people skills, and that whole "I don't care if you like me or not" attitude just isn't going to work. It's also going to get Shambo voted off in due course. Trust.

Now they're all going to die!

Finally I know who a couple more of the Survivors are... Natalie! Finally saw her, though still might confuse her with Kelly? Not sure. Found out there was someone named Laura (who?) and Monica... and my upcoming new favourite, Danger Dave. I can't wait to hear more from Danger Dave. Will he become Danger Dave, Dragonslayer? I hope so.

So did you LOVE seeing Ben get the boot? I mean, maybe not if you had him in the pool & all, but really, he was awful. I liked the part where he told the girls not to even bother trying to start a fire using the flint because they are just not strong enough and their hands are too small. Really? Then he tells us that, "Without me, these people will die." No they won't, Ben. I've seen way dumber people on other Survivor seasons start fires just fine. Girls too. Ben hates women. Ugh.

Over at team purple, everyone is getting along.... for now. Shambo is starting to feel even more on the outs, though, as she watches her team do yoga to start the day instead of doing chores at camp. Later she gets to go over to team yellow & she gushes over them, telling them how awful the purples are. I like where she says, "These people are closer to my age - they relate to me more." Then a shot of her talking to Liz (33), Ashley (22), Mick (33) and someone else I can't remember, but was clearly in their 20's. The teams are the same; Shambo just hates hers.
I'm fairly sure Shambo's hair is also getting larger every episode. Oh yeah, and did any of you catch where Shambo wedged half of herself into that tree looking for the immunity idol? Everyone else milling around talking while you see Shambo's legs sticking out of the tree at the bottom of your screen. Hee. Subtle.

The challenge was nothing to write home about (or blog about) except to say that it had more take-downs, just this time in the water. I'm thinking of labelling this season of Survivor the WWF season. Thoughts? Waiting for Russell to slam someone over the head with a chair...

Team purple won (again), got immunity, and were able to choose from comfort items (blankets, pillows, towels) or useful items (tarp, knife, etc.) Master T chose comfort to "take care of his ladies." On one hand, I admired his thinking - that "if you keep the women happy, the whole team will be happy." There's some serious truth to this. But then he opened his mouth at camp and started going on about how he had to take care of the women, blah, blah, blah. Sit down, Ben, I mean Russell. They're fine. Also, I'm thinking on another level that Master T himself is loving the comfort. Yes? And he made no fans amongst the men. Danger Dave was not happy. (Note: Just looked up Danger Dave to see if I could find out why he's called Danger. No luck. Dude has a degree in opera (!!!) and teaches fitness & nutrition. Ooooh. Sounds dangerous.)

Right... so yellow's back at tribal. Which naturally brings us to Russell. Russell (who also hates women) has it out for Ashley. Tells Ben early on in what he calls "planting a Russell seed" (ewww), that Ashley was the one who was trying to vote Ben out last time. For a while it looks like it's working, but then Jai-SAHN steps in. In a move that's at once noble and stupid, tells everyone that it's basically him or Ben. That if Ben isn't voted out, he's leaving. Yikes, sweater-vest, that could have backfired on you completely! Ben is a racist. Ben was mean to Yasmin, calling her "ghetto trash" which we all know wasn't that far off the mark, but you don't SAY that! So Ben & Jaison end up getting in a huge fight at Tribal. Poor Natalie is stuck in the middle & looks frightened. It was awesome. Ben got voted out.

Which brings me to my final point... that Russell is still hateful yet still brilliant. He is indeed causing chaos around him, he's making his whole team fight with each other, but not with him. He's not doing anything to help win challenges, 'cause he doesn't want to win - he wants to vote people out. But he's not making it LOOK like he's not doing anything. He's showing the appropriate people that he has the idol, gaining their trust & noting that the idol is "a tool". So smart. He is really the only one who's really playing the game. And like you, I can't decide if I love him or hate him. Such fun!