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Un-Broke: The Cribs Edition

I don't know if this is going to be good or not, but I'm definitely going to be watching. Isn't that right Professor Puggleface? Friday, May 29th at 9p ET on ABC

More awesome stop animation

Survivor: Tocantins, Episode 12 Recap

Coach needs his own theme song. "And then there's Coach!" He had so many one-liners this episode I should have written them down (more gold with his belief that his alliance is the bestest alliance ever just because he gave it a name). Any time he mentions the words "integrity", "warrior" or "honesty" you can see his brain working triple overtime trying to help him ignore the fact that his actions and his words have nothing to do with each other. I know he believes himself, that is what makes him so entertaining. But boy I'm glad he isn't my next-door neighbor.

I don't even know what to say about the fact that his visiting loved one is...his assistant coach. What they coach together is never mentioned (chiropracty perhaps?), and I'm not sure I'd want to know anyway. It is absolutely something you'd expect, but at the same time I have to admit it made me a little sad for him too. That is, until he bragged to his assistant coach "Did you know they call me the Dragon Slayer?". Um, Coach, no one calls you the Dragon Slayer. You call yourself the Dragon Slayer. There is a BIG difference, not that you would ever understand something like nuance.

While Stephen is arguably the brains behind his alliance (I say arguably only because it hasn't taken much brains to outwit Timbira), he has been a disaster at each and every challenge. So I give him props for his win here, especially because he came from so far behind.

I don't know what to say about Debbie. Stephen keeps saying that he thinks she is a clever player who is "playing hard", but I never saw that. I think his compliments come from a place of paranoia more than anything else, so he is giving her way too much credit for her scrambling. Debbie went home not because her scheming was anything unusual, but only because the boys got paranoid about her somehow doing, I don't know, something. She seems like a terribly nice lady, and other than her ridiculousness with Sierra over the last few weeks, I think she played the best game she was able, and as usual I appreciated her high-road farewell speech. Also I bet she gets a terrific makeover for the final show. But while I was sort of hoping for Coach to go, I wasn't sad for it to be her either. As long as Coach goes next. I mean, I love him, I really do, but the relentlessness of his ego is wearing me down, and I just can't tolerate a Dragon Slayer speech in the finals.

Side note - my Dad was here this week and watched American Idol with us. The rock week theme was pretty hard for him to get over. "I like two kinds of music", he says, "Country, and Western." Still, he watched, and thought Danny would go home. I thought the scream was awesome, in a bad way, but not as awesome as Paula slutting it up with a bunch of young boys. I mean, Paula is like my mom, so that was just disturbing. Good for you Paula, but next time remember that at this point in your career, you should be thinking more Marie Osmond than Cher.

Benny Lava...(WITH LYRICS) Halarious

Some of the translations are a little "R" rated, but it is still just funny. I bet I could spend hours on YouTube watching these things.

Survivor: Tocantins, Episode 11 Recap

Lame. I mean, clearly the audience has been manipulated to like Sierra more than the people who are all there (all of whom seem to totally hate her, which says something), but still, all I want in life is the opposite of what Coach wants. I LOVE watching him be denied those reward challenges. So, no offense Debby, but I was totally rooting for you to be booted, just because it would have stung Lying Liar Coach. (Do you think he will ever admit that he lied, or has he already convinced himself that he didn't?) I also thought it was a dumb strategic move, you always want to break up alliances before you worry about a solo player WHOM EVERYONE HATES. But then it looks like Debby turns against Coach next week, so obviously the Coach/Debby thing isn't what we've been led to believe anyway.

The one thing I will give Coach credit for is not freaking out about Tyson. I expected a freak out. If I were Tyson I might be a little hurt by their indifference, but I assume playing it cool was a strategic decision that must really hurt. It sucks eating crow, but it was the right decision to make.

Favorite moment of the episode: Coach winning immunity. Not because he won, I hate watching him win anything. But I love that winning a pinball challenge, in his eyes, makes him a Dragonslayer. (Then later to JT "Did you hear me say Dragonslayer?!" He is such a child.) His ridiculous ego gives me such joy (at his expense).

I am curious why Taj voted for Debby, that was a very curious break in the ranks. Erinn voting for Stephen could prove very shrewd. Early in the episode she promised Sierra she wouldn't vote for her, but knowing Debby might get some votes probably couldn't vote for her either. As long as Stephen knew beforehand and doesn't get paranoid about it, it is nice way to cull some favor from Sierra assuming, as I'm assuming, that Erinn has a great shot at getting to the finals. I really don't see her winning, but still, every vote you take away from someone else is a good thing.

So I'm thinking this is going to come down to Stephen, Taj, and Erinn. Coach and Debby will go next, depending on how soon Stephen turns against JT.

And I can barely whistle

How exactly do you figure out you can do this? Must drive his parents crazy.

Watching Susan Boyle

I could write a long post on the cultural significance of how we enjoy watching someone else experience something we have already experienced, but I'm sure its been done by someone smarter than me. Still, interesting.

Survivor: Tocantins, Episode 10 Recap

Wow. I thought this was going to be a boring episode, watching everyone slowly torture Sierra to death. I had high hopes for her winning immunity, just because I wanted to know what the others would do in that case, but stinking Debbie had to ruin that dream.

I hate Cartman-I-mean-Coach. But then he says things like "I can bench 300 lbs and Brendan was saying the other day that maybe he couldn't" and then I love him all over again. Because he is a joke, and though he totally doesn't realize it (and never will) the joke is on him. My second favorite moment was when Jeff asked him at tribal that if he was really so concerned with taking all the warriors to the end, then why did he vote off Brendan? And Coach had no real answer, but just blabbered on about being victorious or whatever. It doesn't really matter, except to illustrate that the way Coach views his world is only halfway based on the world the rest of us live in. He believes what he says, the end. But I was openly pleased that he missed out on yet another reward challenge. HA!

I should be more upset about Tyson getting booted, because he was really my choice to win. He acts the bastard, but mostly because (I think) he understands what it takes to get screen time. Even his speech at the end he was totally gracious, understanding that it was a game. His only flaw was that he was mean to Sierra. He thought he had her, and he got cocky and was disrespectful to her, which I just don't like. So watching his cocky smile disappear gave me great pleasure. HA!

I don't hate Sierra as much as everyone else seems to. But I'm afraid there aren't that many people that I LIKE left either. People have moments of greatness, but then seem to fade. I don't know what Taj is thinking these past few weeks, she has been pretty invisible. It seems Stephen and JT are running the show, but even they somehow seem like second-tier level players compared to other seasons. Oh well. I imagine Coach or Sierra will go next week, depending on who is the most annoying around camp.

But one question: when will people learn, that when you enter the merge with numbers, you CANNOT get over confident, you MUST wipe out the other tribe before turning on your own. Otherwise you doom yourself to failure. It seems to me that Erinn, of all people, is the only one with a prayer of seeing the final four. (Or farther, depending on how tight JT and Stephen and Taj really are, because she is a safety net at final tribal for not getting any votes.)

I can't wait to see how Coach reacts to his assistant Coach getting axed right under his nose. Deliciousness is coming, I can smell it.

PS - Yay for Allison not getting booted on Idol. Whew! I like everyone, but Matt should go next.

Do as I say, not as I do

Besides just the basic human decency required to admit that torture is, you know, bad, here is yet another example of the incredibly frustrating double-speak the pro-torture crowd likes to employ, by way of a Presidential Proclamation issued by President Bush in 2003.

The highlight:

The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture

The italics are mine. The mortifying disgust and horror are also mine.

Oh My God, I Am Linking To Fox News

I never thought I would post a link from a Fox "News" program, but here goes.



I am amazed and hugely saddened by this debate over torture. It makes me so angry because it seems like such a no-brainer to me, and for anyone to defend such an evil thing simply for partisanship is, well, staggering. Whether it works or not (and I would say that it doesn't) is totally irrelevant. IRRELEVANT. It is an act of evil, period, the end. I've been to the S-21 Torture prison in Cambodia, and decades later you can still feel the evil that was done there. One of the few survivors was a painter, and there is a prominently displayed painting he made of a person being waterboarded. When I was there nine years ago, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was clearly torture.

I believe our actions set a precedent, and no matter how badly Peggy Noonan wants to "just walk on by" and not pay any attention, I don't believe we have the luxury of ignoring the fact that this happened under our watch just because dealing with it might be uncomfortable and hard. And I'm not talking about Lynndie England. But we have to clean this mess up in no uncertain terms before we can move on and get it behind us.

This is America. We are better than that. And props to Shep Smith for breaking the partisanship line and saying it.

Survivor: Tocantins, Episode 9 Recap

Coach is a buffoon. I suppose this was the episode when the scales tipped a little though, and instead of loving to hate him, I actually started to get annoyed by him. The problem was that, while I was all set to root for Brendan, whom I think is nice if boring, but then he said something like "If I can get JT to win then it will feel like I won." Uh, what? I'm suddenly getting mad at the camera crew for never capturing JT on film working his voodoo magic that makes everyone around him fall madly in love with him. I mean, he seems nice and all, but it isn't like he is Susan Boyle or something. So then I'm stuck rooting for Brendan as the anti-Coach, but not because I specifically want Brendan to stay either. I think this show has gotten too soft on the quitters, if I were Jeff I'd throw Brendan's torch down after a comment like that.

I still think Coach and all his shenanigans are funny, but I just can't ignore the arrogance any longer. His tall tale about almost getting eaten in the Amazon was, well, I don't know what it was. Maybe he is just the worst story-teller in the world. Or maybe he is like Cartman and with an extra-size ego actually believes his schtick. Also, I want to give him a boot to the head every time he calls himself a dragonslayer. Peter MacNicol made a better dragonslayer than he does. Seriously.

Anyway, thanks to the editing, I was sure Coach was leaving, just for the satisfaction of it all. And I'm still ticked off that he didn't, because that is the way Hollywood is supposed to work, with me getting satisfaction watching villains getting their deserved due. Now we'll have to endure him gloating, which is so terrible that I'm actually feeling sorry for Sierra. Sierra!

My only solace was the realization, afterwards, that JT had just, in fact, won the game. We'll see what they say next week, but going into the vote I figured it was much smarter for Taj, Stephen and JT to stick with Brendan and Sierra, because in the end they would be three against two and could do what they wanted. (Or four against two if they kept Erinn, which they could do easily.) But now I'm thinking, the got rid of Brendan because it was easy to do. But now that they've split up the other team, they are totally in control, whatever Coach might think. They could string Coach along and vote out Sierra next week if they wanted to, and still have the numbers to vote out Coach and Tyson next. And I see no reason why they won't. For someone who was in imminent danger for so long, Erinn sure has done well for herself.

I loved the rope challenge, almost as much as I loved Coach not winning the rafting challenge. I also love winners, and Tyson is making an impression.

I will forever wish Brendan had outwitted Coach, rather than the other way around. And why didn't Brendan, when he stood up to leave, just hand the idol to Sierra? That would have been awesome, and would have saved her for at least one week.

Spring Break

I know I haven't been blogging so much lately. Call it part of my overall winter hibernation. I suspect as the weather gets better and I find myself outdoors more often, I'll have more to say.

For the moment, the good news is that we are going on vacation today! Flying to Las Vegas to see family, where we will borrow a couple of nephews and drive them down to Disneyland. The best part is that my entire family, minus one brother-in-law, will be in Vegas, at least for one night. That doesn't happen very often, so I hope we can get pictures! (I'm sure Mom is planning something.)

So I gotta go finish packing, then we are going to try and figure out this bus to Dulles thing. We were going to drive, but then thought, I'd rather take the bus and use the $100 it would have cost to park on Disney swag. :)

Pics to come.

Animals are awesome