Wow. I made the big time. One lousy summary of the Not-So-Amazing Race and I get to take over the spotlight for the first marquee night of the Survivor season. On a Web site that people actually look at sometimes. Okay, so they’re people, like me, who apparently have no lives. It’s okay. I love you all. You, my fellow Blowhevians are, like my tribe on Survivor, like my fellow houseguests on Big Brother, my family. Well, okay, not quite like that, because I’m not out to take a bunch of money off of you or throw you off the island or out of the house or something. And you’re not nearly as dysfunctional as my actual family. But c’mon. You know what I mean. It’s just a game, right?

A housekeeping item. This is my 200th post. I've been around for a while, and some of you know me, some of you don’t. Those who know me realize that I am as desperate an attention whore as anyone here, even though I only post when I have something to say.

Blowhevians are my family, and I love you all. So Happy Birthday to me.

But I’m getting all gushy and stuff, so I have to start telling you about Survivor 5 now. Would that be okay with you? Good. Here we go.

Dateline: sometime during the monsoon season, somewhere in Thailand. It appears to be an idyllic place. It is quiet. It is pastoral. It is a village. There is water. We are having a lovely quiet village morning somewhere in the middle of nowhere (but apparently not quite nowhere enough), fishing for our fish, doing our colorful laundry, eking out our quiet but almost certainly not miserable lives.

Oh damn, here come some Americans. OMFG. That’s not bad enough. One of them is Jeff Probst. There goes the neighborhood. Maybe a sacrifice. Where's Kelly Wigglesworth? Jerry Manthey? No, really, we need something to distract this guy.

The Americans traipse through our village. One of them rides a skateboard. One of them, apparently of Asian heritage, bows to us slightly, clasping her hands in apparent tribute. What the fvck is she doing? And what’s that noise, the one that shatters our morning calm?

Oh. It’s Probst. He’s making the same speech he makes in every other village these damned Americans ruin with their cameras and their camps and their safari outfits and their…their…skateboards? This clown thinks he’s going to ride a skateboard on the beach? Can we evict him yet? Or execute him? Or whatever it is we do on this show?

Oh yes. Jiffy’s speech. Brak brak brak dangerous. Brak brak brak beautiful. Brak brak brak pirates (what do you mean, "used to be frequented by pirates?" We were promised the pirates were still there, dammit!). Brak brak brak snakes. Brak brak brak rain. Brak brak brak deadly. Brak brak brak 39 days, 16 moe-rons, one Vecepia. brak brak brak, brak brak brak, brak brak brak. Oh God, I’m watching it again. Every fvcking minute. Dangerous like cotton. Deadly like milk.

Cue theme. It’s a non-Occidental sorta version of the familiar chant. I liked the last one better. I am prepared to hate this season. And yet, I am warmed. I am tingly. Oh. Right. I need to pee. Good thing I’m not one of those poor bastiges floating in rafts in the pool in Big Brother back yard.

The new batch of media ho’s does the standard boat ride thingie. They arrive on the beach (it will always be a beach, forever and ever amen, after that complete waterless abortion that was Survivor Africa—and by the way, sports fans, this edition of Survivor appears, thus far, to be more reminiscent of that sad excuse for a Survivor season than any other, at least so far). Jiffy commands the men and women to sit separately on the beach. We have been promised, through weeks of promos, that something really different is going to happen, right now. We are convinced that this is bullsh!t. Okay, I’m convinced. Aren’t you?

Jiffy suggests an introductory thing. Y’know, name, age, occupation. Okay, he doesn’t suggest it, he commands it. I love his presence, don’t you? It makes me all warm and tingly. No, I don’t have to pee again. Jiffy does suggest that if telling the other ho’s anything about yourself would violate your vows of poverty, chastity and penitence, you should feel free to only share as little as you wish.

I’m thinking this could make for a pretty effing bleak 39 days. “No, I’m not telling you my name. My age? Feh. Nunya. And what’s it matter what I do? I’m here to play the game, man. Game on. Let’s play. We are family. But it’s a game, and we all know that, except for maybe Jason on Big Brother 3.”

Uhm, well, okay, a pretty bleak 3 to 6 days, because that’s all you’re gonna be hanging around if you’re trying that hard to fly under the radar.

The introductions are accompanied by snippets of footage of the ho’s representative of their non-ho lives. So let’s meet the ho’s:

Stephanie Dill is a firefighter/EMT from Fayetteville, Arkansas. She is 29. She’s pretty buff. She looks real cool in her turnout coat. I would happily objectify her. I asked; she will not rescue me from watching reality television.

Ghandia Johnson is 33 and is a legal secretary. She is portrayed in front of what appears to be the capitol dome in some anonymous state, because it would raise her above the radar to tell us where she is from. She is a tough cookie. She frightens me. There is absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that she is meant to remind us of Vecepia Towery. She is nothing like Vecepia Towery and she hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of winning the game.

Erin Collins is 26 and is a real estate agent in Austin, Texas. It appears that her life strategy revolves around two canteloupes affixed to the front of her torso. She is Princess Funbags v2.0. I would not objectify her with your uhm, object. In fact, merely contemplating the possibility of her objectification makes it burn when I pee. On the other hand, those funbags make me grunt and chant “ah-ta.” I am confused and ashamed.

Helen Glover is 47 and is a swimming instructor for the United States Navy. In the closeup shot of her introducing herself, she bears a disturbing resemblance to Margaret Hamilton. For those of you who are neither elderly nor obsessive-compulsive about useless trivia, Margaret played both the Wicked Witch of the West and some old bat named Cora in coffee commercials. We are not put in mind of objectification. That aircraft carrier behind her in the back-home shot looks pretty damned sexy, though.

Penny Ramsey is 27 and is from Plano Texas. She is in sales. Her back-home shot portrays her reclining in front of a statue of a reclining man. She is wearing a shirt/blouse tied under her breasts. She has brilliantly white teeth. A lesser man would conclude that perhaps she is not averse to the possibility of being objectified. I have certainly already reached that conclusion.

Shih Ann Huong is from New York City and she helps people find jobs. She appears to be Survivor’s first female contestant of Asian ethnic origin. She has no explanation for why I am still unemployed, and this causes me to be far too angry at her to consider objectification. I would be much happier if her given name were Shih It. Or maybe Shih Ite, for the more refined.

Jan Gentry is 53 years old and is a first-grade teacher. She does not appear to have the wherewithal to do much better than any of the other demographically selected older women who have appeared on previous seasons of Survivor. In fact, she appears to be a classic potential victim for Survivor ageism. Let’s whack the old bat and get back to arguing.

Tammy Vance is 27 years old and is a social worker. We have inside information on her, in that her father died during the filming of the show. We have no idea what this means, but it is a hard fact, and Blowhevians adore hard facts. So I’m reporting it. I have two hard facts to share with you during this excruciatingly awful, but gallingly necessary bit of exposition, and that was one of them. You got a problem with that?

Clay Jordan is 46 and he is from Monroe, Louisiana. He looks much, much older than 46. I am 42 years old, and Clay Jordan looks at least about 20 years older than me. And I am not an attractive or young-looking man. Clay Jordan is, for some reason, carrying a golf club.

Robb, who gives no last name but it’s out there somewhere on the informational part of this site, among other places, greets us with, “What’s up, y’all?” He is 23. He is from Scottsdale, Arizona. Like all truly imbecilic young male Survivor contestants, he is a bartender. He is wearing a knit cap pulled down over his ears on a gazillion-degree day on the coast of the Andaman Sea in July. He is, of course, the fvckwit who decided that a skateboard was a good luxury item. He appears to believe that piercing the space between his lower lip and his chin will get him laid. He is a complete mental defective and experienced Blowhevians will experience approximately 1.4 seconds of him before concluding that he has absolutely no chance in hell of remaining in the game until the merge. If his cooties and Silas’ cooties interbred, the rest of the world would be doomed.

Kenneth Stafford is 29 years old and is a New York City police officer. His back-home shot shows him standing before his police cruiser, lights flashing, parked in Battery Park, with the New York skyline in the background. He receives a round of applause from the assembled ho’s. He has biceps the size of my waist, which is not inconsiderable.

Brian is 34. He is a used-car salesman, about which he cracks a joke. I spoke earlier of hard facts, and we have some on Brian. His last name is Heyduk, or something close to that. He has starred in soft-core pornography films. It is no coincidence that his last name is pronounced “high-d!ck.” He has a carefully cultivated growth of beard. I have another hard fact about Mr. Brian the Porn Star. He used to be the quarterback for a high school up the street from me.

I do not like him in the store, I do not like him with a whore.
I do not like him, not a peep, I do not like him, he’s a creep.
I do not like him with a ball, I do not like him, not at all.

I could go on, but in deference to Seuss lovers on this board and everywhere else, I will continue with my greviously dull exposition.

John Raymond is a 40-year-old pastor from Slidell, Lousiana, continuing the trend of people in this game associated with extreme Southron-ness. Please don’t get me wrong. I am marginally Southron my own self (my home state was recently featured in a lengthy discussion on the Off-Topic forum about its supposedly dualistic nature; to my state’s detractors on both sides of the line which forms its northern border, I will say, simply:

University of Maryland, 2002 NCAA Men's Basketball Champions

Fvck Duke

Anyway, it’s just that there seems to be a touch of Southron overkill in our little nominally reality-based world lately. In a completely unrelated notion (no, really) John makes it clear very early that he is an a$$hole. His back-home shot features him in a dark, churchly looking suit, holding a large book of some sort, in front of…a lit set featuring a pair of bongo drums? What the fvcking fvck? What is he, a pastor in the First Church of Desi Arnaz?

Ted Rogers, Jr., is 37 and is from Durham, North Carolina. Educated persons will note that the geographic center of all evil in the omniverse is, in fact, within the city limits of Durham, North Carolina. However, Ted seems like a pretty nice guy. He has a shaved head. He is, to my delight, a software development manager. I used to be one of those, back when I had a job and I didn’t stay up all night writing stream-of-consciousness pap for reality-TV Web sites. I am magnetically drawn to Ted.

Jed is 25 , and is a dental student from Dallas, Texas. He is portrayed in an amphitheatre of horror where people in blue scrubs cut into the gums of screaming victims. Jed appears to be one of those bland young people. This could prove dangerous.

Jake Billingsley is 60 and is from Kenny, Texas, and is a land broker. I believe that this means that he ties young women named Nell to railroad tracks for no apparent reason.

Let’s add it up: There are 5 Texans, 2 Louisianans, an Arkansan, and one person I believe to be from Tennessee. Jan also appears to have some sort of southerly-type accent, too, although her homespace has not been identified here. The theory of geographic karmic balance has been shot all to hell for this edition of Survivor. And yet: a Southron will not win this game. See, my uncle’s lover’s nephew’s bondage slave was a cameraman for Survivor 5, and…

Okay, Jiffy tells us that elders are revered in Thailand. The big twist we’ve all been promised turns out to be that the two most geezerly ho’s—who are, conveniently, a man and a woman—will choose up sides, like this is a big old $1-million recess kickball game. That’s Jake and Jan, for those of you who nodded off during the introductions. They first select a Buff color. They are told that one color is sunrise, one is sunset, that one site has great shelter, the other great water. Jake chooses sunset and gets a purple Buff. Jan gets the red Buff.

Jeff tells Jake that his tribe name is Soup Jive, and tells Jan that her tribe name is Chewing Gum. They are directed to choose tribe members in a way that preserves gender balance. They make their selections by pointing and grunting. Jake chooses mostly young, buff-looking people. Jan chooses mostly older-looking people.

Sigh. So once, at band camp, we were in the savannah, and there was this fat redneck guy who wore a feather sticking out of his nekkid butt…

There are various confessionals of the ho’s whining about how it’s never been this way before, mewling about which team they wanted to be on, criticizing the poor confused old farts for their selections, and generally running down the whole process. The first confessional goes, pointedly, to John. Git yo’sef a nice deep whiff of that foreshadowing, campers. Ghandia trash-talks about how women are better than men. Wow, the foreshadowing is killing me.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Soup Jive consists of Jake, Stephanie, Ken, Penny, Jed, Shih Ann, Robb, and Princess Funbag v2.0.

Chewing Gum consists of Jan, Ted, Helen, John, Ghandia, Porn Boy, Tanya, and Clay.

Robb whines about not wanting to be picked by “the old lady.” Clay and Erin whine about being picked last. The other children give them noogies and wedgies and tell them their mothers wear army boots. Jake trashtalks about what terrible picks Jan made and proclaims the virtues of ath-uh-letic looking people with gleams in their eyes. Jake clearly expects some hot nights around the Soup Jive campfire. Ted trashtalks about how old age, wisdom, and treachery will inevitably defeat youth and vital bodily fluids. Have I mentioned that I really kinda like Ted?

Jiffy orders the contestants off his beach, with their meager provisions and whatnot. They clamber into boats. Soup Jive paddles its boat backwards. Robb rationalizes that the boat went faster backwards. John complains that his tribemates on Chewing Gum don’t know how to paddle a boat. The other Gummers whine about John being bossy.

Upon arrival at the beach, Shih Ite b!tches that the Soupies aren’t organized enough and didn’t get right to work. Princess Funbags v2.0 watches, rapt, as Ken performs the amazing task of climbing a tree. This is disturbing reminiscent of the touching and deep relationships between Da Robfadda and the original Princess Funbags, and between Gina and Hunter.

Jake talks about the youth, energy, and wildness of “his crew.” Jake is a leader in his own mind.

The gummers hug. Brian confesses that this is a business trip. Apparently he’s hoping to get on the same team as Princess Funbags v2.0. Ted sings “We Are Family.”

Commercials: James Brown sings “Sex Machine” to sell me Pontiacs in a commercial filled with subliminal messages that make me think of “The Parallax View” and make me want to kill a politician, when I should be thinking, “HUH! Get on up! Be on the scene! Like a sex machine!”, so damn Pontiac anyway, because what we should all be doing in life is taking it to the bridge; “Red Dragon,” the next Hannibal Lecter movie; J.C. Penney, which wants to sell me womens’ delicate ruffles and buttery soft suedes (excuse me, I need to take a short break); Chili’s; something that includes Barney the Freaking Dinosaur, and has no apparent object, which leads me to believe that someone didn’t do their target market research before spending them there ad bucks; "CSI Miami,” which is apparently a haven for actors who got sick of working for “NYPD Blue” and want to pursue a Scully and Mulder vibe; “Presidio Med,” which apparently stars Dana Delany, who is still on my Reserve List after all these years, and I think I’ll head down to the coffee shop to try to find her right now, because Lord knows I’m on her Reserve List too.

Back at the ranch, Chewing Gum finds a cave. This appears to be their shelter. The Gummers discover snake tracks. They start to worry about bats. For my part, I am bloody rooting for bats. Fess up. You are too. John asserts his leadership skills. The Gummers find crabs and other sea beasties.

Soup Jive parties on the beach at night. Stephanie strips nekkid. Shih Ann decides Stephanie is a hooah. Shih Ann’s verdict: “You will not see my ta-ta’s.” We love you, Shih Ann. Soup Jive builds a half-a$$ed shelter and goes to sleep like a nice little incestuous fambly.

The sun rises at Chewing Gum. Tanya becomes ill; the consensus is that she was dehydrated. This is hard to believe, since she pukes up what appears to be about a gallon of water.

Chewing Gum sets off to look for water. John makes his own way by climbing a rock chimney and setting off along the ridge line. The others are irked by his independence. This is a suspect conclusion, since they are apparently utterly unable to read their map, and the entire tribe ends up climbing rocks. Helen concludes that this just can’t be, that Jiffy can’t expect old people to climb rocks for water. John returns and saves the tribe by reading the map. It will be necessary for the tribe to take a boat or swim to get to their water supply. Tanya, who was sick, along with John, who is an a$$hole, and Helen, who is a by-God U.S. Navy swim instructor, ferchrissakes, take the boat. The others have to swim, because, as Helen confesses, “by that time, the water had come in…” and they couldn’t walk.

Let’s review that: Helen, a by-God U.S. Navy swim instructor, ferchrissakes, cannot come up with the words to describe high tide.

Okay, okay, they get there, they find a brackish pool, then they find the water tank that Mark Burnett thoughtfully buried for them several miles from their campsite. John plays a little joke, hiding the tank from the others, who arrive much later, Ghandia bitching that the others didn’t come out to get them in the boat. Ghandia is further unamused by John’s little joke (which Helen and Tanya readily agreed to). I don’t know why. You should always play cruel jokes on your tribemates on the second day of the game. Builds tribal unity and stuff.

Oh yeah. There’s another tribe. Their water, also supplied by His Eminence Mark Burnett, is only 100 yards from their campsite. They return to building a shelter. There is abundant bitching. Jed complains about the lack of food. Jed goes fishing. Robb complains that Jed is trying to obtain food. Robb complains that his hands are cut and Shih Ann (who he calls “sweetie” and “dude”) is going off for food. Robb is working hard to make friends. Shih Ann refers to herself as “the she devil.” Jake takes responsibility for the decision to send Shih Ite off for food while Robb bleeds to death chopping wood for shelter, and tells Robb so. It begins to rain. Soup Jive is miserable. They sit in the rain watching their unfinished shelter. Robb tells them he told them so.

Commercials: “The Four Feathers”, an extremely improbable film that will be savaged in newspaper reviews tomorrow; some chick singing “My Way” in aid of some company called Axa; Sears wants me to buy things this weekend; a skit portraying a lame date, which encourages me to eat a lot of cheap bad shrimp at Red Lobster; microwaveable Campbell’s soup, which I believe is every bit as unAmerican as zone defense; some colorized-looking 40s footage, accompanied by a guy singing “My Way” in aid of some company called Axa, which is clearly trying to make me dream of companies named Axa when I lay my weary head down tonight after completing this rant; OMFG, they’re doing another damn season of “The Not Particularly Amazing Race”; CBS wants me to watch a Bond movie that does not star Sean Connery and, therefore, cannot actually be a Bond movie; “CSI”; some other new CBS show; a commercial for John Edward’s show in local syndication.

John Edward is a really creepy guy. I mean, he is one of the scariest-looking people in all creation. He is pompous-looking, with a smug, creepy smirk. He talks to your dead relatives. I don’t mean your personal dead relatives, I mean peoples’ dead relatives. He does this on his television show, talks to peoples’ dead relatives. Now, I like some of my dead relatives. Some of them, not so much. I don’t want John Edward talking to any of my dead relatives, on television or off, ever. Just saying is all.

John Edward used to sell insurance, before he began talking to dead people on television. I am forced to wonder if the dead people ever ask him about their policies.

John Edward and his television show bother me. A lot.

More commercials: The weird Sprint guy; Earthlink; the syndicated version of “Who Wants to Kiss Regis Philbin’s Butt,” except it’s not Regis Philbin, it’s Meredith Viera, who had to have had a much better deal on “The View,” which is a show almost as scary as John Edward’s show even though they’re talking to presumptively living people; and My Local News. Which I trust. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy and glowful, even when I just went to the bathroom.

Soup Jive confesses that it hasn’t eaten. Then they go get their tree mail.

Yay! Tree mail! I get to write one of those cool poem-thingies!

A poor little boy was a-lying in bed
Unable to sleep cause of snot in his head
His mommy came over, looked down on his cot
And offered sandpaper to soak up his snot
He thought this weren't right for to take up his boogers
(The real commercial was coated in sugar)
But a long story short must be made of this thing
So she gave him some Puffs for his mucousy strings.

Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Like you didn’t know that was coming. Fools!

Okay, okay:

You’re cretinous morons
You still haven’t clued
You ain’t got no shelter
You ain’t got no food
You couldn’t find sh!t if you mined in your a$$
You're media ho's and you're all thoroughly crass
But astute application of brains and of brawn
May win you an idol while our viewers yawn

Or something like that.

OMFG. So, I paused the tape too long, and it stopped, and the Letterman show is on. Springsteen is the musical guest. Did you know that Sil from "The Sopranos" plays Little Stevie? Wow.

Robb trashtalks. We're stronger. We've got all the hot chicks (he actually says this). We're gonna kick their elderly a$$es.

Jiffy carefully explains to the assembled ho's that the challenge will, surprisingly, require brains and brawn and the ability to deal with the unexpected, like the ceaseless rain that has begun to fall in Southeast Asia during the monsoon season.

Jiffy proudly displays the immunity idol, which appears to be an object d'art looted from some local religious institution. Yes, I said proudly.

It's a boat race of sorts, requiring the tribes to race to little puzzle-solving stations and free a flag, and collect the flags and return to Jiffy to proudly display their flags and proudly grab their looted immunity idol.

Let's see. Jiffy has said on his media whoredom circuit that they completely redid the challenges. Nothing recycled.

Hmm. A race. Involving water. As the first immunity challenge. Nope, nothing recycled there.

Chewing Gum opens up a huge lead. Soup Jive looks miserable. They're getting their butts kicked by the old folk, even though they are young and strong and they're paddling the boat in the right direction. They decide to attempt a ramming action. It fails miserably.

The tribes both solve a rope maze thingie, the completion of which frees one of the flags they must collect. Chewing Gum is a bit faster, leading Jed to rub his forehead in disgust at the glaring stupidity of his Soup Jive teammate Penny, who solved the puzzle every bit as fast as her Chewing Gum opponent, completing the puzzle 30 seconds later only because her team arrived at the puzzle 30 seconds after the other boat. Y'know, when John's gone (gosh, I wonder when that will be?), I just might nominate Jed as the next official a$$hole. Except I can't, because Robb has that pretty much locked up, already being, unofficially, a pretty mordant a$$hole.

Chewing Gum beats Soup Jive to the next station by a good 200 yards. This station involves diving to free an underwater flag. Chewing Gum also has a healthy lead at the next station--Soup Jive is a full station behind. Ghandia proceeds to choke on the required puzzle. The brilliance that is Jed completely kicks her a$$, solving the puzzle that is used in the education of Thai kindergardeners. Soup Jive opens up a monstrously huge lead as the hapless Chewing Gum chokes immunity in the form of a lovely job of challenge-rigging by Our Lord and Savior Mark Burnett.

You see, the challenges are mostly actually brain stuff. One involves diving down underwater, so I suppose that's sorta physical, but every team can manage at least one person who can hold his or her breath for a bit. Soup Jive, however, is collectively as dumb as a box of hammers, and those who are individually a bit smarter were long ago shouted down and terrorized into admiring Robb's piercings.

Curses, foiled again. You know, it must really be hell to be MB.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Soup Jive exults at the manifest destiny of their awesome victory. Chewing Gum shoots glowering looks at Ghandia, who, while no Vecepia, apologizes and cunningly bursts into tears.

Commercials: Madonna sings something sappy for GM; the next Harry Potter movie, a commercial which features a lot of Harry, a little bit of Draco Malfoy, a cloying snippet of that cloyingly cute little Hermione, and absolutely no Ron Weasly; a Sprint commercial that creeped me out earlier in the evening, but still not as much as John Edward; J.C. Penney wants me to look at chix in tall boots and I need to take another short break here; some revolutionary makeup dealie, a mascara that expands and wraps itself around…your eyelashes; "BB3," on which Lisa was, stunningly, NOT evicted, Jason deeming it far better to take a chance on someone like Lisa winning HOH and taking with her to the final two a nasty, sly, cunning, trash-talking beeyotch who's offended everyone else in the game, rather than taking with her to the final two a quiet, nice, unassuming young guy who has offended no one, where do they GET these people?; CBS Monday, which consists of a large guy who plays Leah Remini's (Reserve List, baby) husband, some dumb show, and "Everybody Wants To Nail Raymond To A Cross and Watch Him Bleed Out"; "Robbery-Homicide Division," an innovative new CBS show about--get this--crimes and the police officers who solve them!; Hyundai; a really really weird Ikea commercial that made me want to go to Ikea tomorrow; and My Local News, which once again is making me feel warm and fuzzy, but not wet. Thank you, Jebus, for My Local News.

Okay, the tape just timed out again, leaving me watching The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, who is now indistinguishable from David Letterman 15 years ago. And the set of the show is the same as David Letterman's set 15 years ago. This spooks me.

Chewing Gum walks down the beach back to its home. Ghandia is weeping profusely. Everyone hugs her, comforting her. She is realistic, expecting to get pounded for her immunity challenge crime. There is much confessing. The focus on is John, who unsurprisingly advocates offing Ghandia (y'all aren't gonna make me burn a bush or something here, are you?). Helen, in another Wicked Witch of the West close-up, talks about offing Tanya, who has been The Poor Little Sick Girl. Footage is shown of Tanya wandering about, drinking water, showing off her nipple bra. Later (or earlier) in the same confessional, depending on the editing, Helen says that voting someone out is like voting someone out of your family. You know, the family you've been a member of for three days. Hey, it's just a game, right? You know what I'm saying.

The moment you've been suffering for: Tribal Council. It's a lovely contrived set, bathed tastefully in fire. Once again, MB has built a multi-fofillion dollar TC set that he'll have to tear down to satisfy local environmental regulations after the season ends.

Huh-huh. Fire. Huh-huh-huh.

Jiffy zones right in on the challenge, and spikes Ghandia with the "what the freak was wrong with YOU, dumba$$?" questions. Ghandia manfully accepts responsibility for screwing up the challenge. Jiffy spreads around a few more antagonistic, muckraking questions, before sending off the assembled ho's to vote. He throws John a question, allowing John to say, "This hasn't been hard. I'm still waiting for this to get hard." BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! I mean, y'all have known since Chewing Gum lost the challenge who's heading outta here butt first, right? Right?

Jiffy throws Mr. Brian the Porn Star, who is also waiting for it to get hard, a question about whether his profession (used-car salesman, wink-wink nudge-nudge) gives him an advantage in the game. Now, obviously, these people, stranded on this beach, need cars. But Brian the Porn Star has an inventory problem, so he's forced to go on a California surfer rant about how you shouldn't be shallow when you're engaging in simulated sex with soft-core porn starlets and how it's a beautiful thing and it's very important--very important--not to be shallow. Y'know, when you're engaging in simulated sex.

Haven't any of you people put a freaking bullet in me yet?

We vote. John is first. He solemnly picks up the Giant Buddhist Magic Marker of Fate and votes for Ghandia, sliding his vote smugly into the Large Vaguely Asian-Looking Ice Bucket of Fate and cruelly wishing her a nice vacation. DUH. Guess what? He's a pig. And an a$$hole. I almost wish he's not about to get struck by lightning because it's really turning into a fair amount of entertainment to very seriously dislike his guts.

A couple of voters later, Helen is shown voting for…CLAY???? WTF??? She explains that she thinks he's a rich bastige. Clearly, Helen is following the isolationist policies of our nation's forebears, because this vote is completely out of left field. MB shows one other person voting, that being Jan, who of course she votes for the a$$hole. Hmm. I wonder who's getting voted off. Don't you?

Brak brak brak, once the vote is counted, asked to leave immediately, Brak brak brak. Jiffy reads the votes as suspensefully as he can, given that there is one vote for Ghandia, one vote for Clay, and six votes for the a$$hole. A stunned-looking John is escorted from the set by deadly king cobras, reticulated pythons, and pirate ghosts left over from an episode of "Scooby Doo." Amazingly, Chewing Gum weeps profusely, with the exception of Ted, who obviously has some kind of handle on reality here.

Commercials: Radio Shack, except Shaquille O'Neal is doing the commercial, so it's Radio Shaq, get it?; "The Tux", which for some abstractly bizarre reason I want to see, despite the fact that it stars two people I dislike intensely; Buick, in a very bizarre flashback/ghost story motif thing; Home Despot; an odd mother-in-law cliché commercial for some new Lee khakis that allow you to just wipe off things like maple syrup and red wine without leaving a stain (prompting me to wonder whether the new dress code for Bill Clinton's interns will consist of Lee khakis, ba-dump-bump, thank you, I'll be playing here all week, please tip Kismet); the DVD of "Monsters Inc."; "The Late Show," which will feature Mike Myers and Bruce Springsteen, who will be accompanied on the guitar by Sil from "The Sopranos" as Little Stevie; an absolutely gawdawful looking new show from CBS called "Hack," apparently so named because it stars noted hack actor David Morse; and the Saturday encore presentation of "Survivor," which you are assigned to watch to validate all my obtuse references.

Previews of next week: Chewing Gum celebrates the eviction of the a$$hole by playing beach golf; Soup Jive can't find its buttocks with both hands; Helen and Jan get lost at sea, but not really, because Helen is still around to tell about it in a confessional. Durn shame, that there.

The Death Booth: John babbles and blames "alliances", then babbles some more, expressing surprise that such a humble and loveable jacka$$ as himself could possibly be zorched first. As he babbles, 6 of his 7 tribemates are shown voting him off the island. Or wherever we are.

Then Big Brother 3 came on and I don't remember anything else.

But, you see, I learned something today. I…uhm…hmm. Oh, yeah, I learned that Sil from "The Sopranos" plays Little Stevie in the E Street Band. Okay, okay, so I already knew that. Oh! I learned that it is possible for fake breastuses to be even larger than Sarah's. No, wait, I learned that on the Bashers thread the other day. Hmm….well….I learned that…okay, fine, I didn't learn squadoosh.

Thank you for reading.