Delve Into Lunacy

As you might have noticed I haven’t posted recently. Prior to stopping I was mainly only doing updates for episodes of reality shows and the Chiefs games and it was just too much. Plus, the newness of the blog wore off and I got bored and went back to my real passion…masturbation. So anyway, I’m no longer doing the episodic updates unless something happens that really chaps my ass and I just have to rant. I’ll try doing other types of posts more often however.

As a treat for all those that wake up each morning eagerly looking forward to not reading this blog I’ll give a quick update on the things I had been covering. No need to thank me, I know you don’t really appreciate it.

The Amazing Race: Family Edition
This season is worse than even I expected and for once I seem to be in the majority when it comes to bitching about something since all the TV writers are tearing this season a new one. The only good part of the show so far has been that the only African-American family on the show actually has the last name of Black and the immigrant Italian family that: live in New York City, have a husband in waste management and have a last name that is pronounced the same as a slang term for bribery. Excellent casting job TAR although I’m sure you could have fit a few more stereotypes into the line up had you really tried.

I also love how much material the Weavers, a team consisting of a widow and her three hood-rat children, give me with which to feed my endless hatred of them. This lady is trying to learn leadership by racing with her kids and in the first episode she nearly orphaned them by getting run over by an Amish buggy. That one really tickled my sadistic side since she’s a widow due to her husband walking onto a NASCAR track in the middle of a race three months before this show started filming. Oh how I love thee, sweet irony. Next week they get to do a challenge at a NASCAR track and it looks like the kids break down….should be a good show.

Survivor: Guatemala
So far it’s a pretty boring season as there isn’t any real drama yet. Even the abnormal team shuffle didn’t stir things up. Oh well, it’s still Survivor so it’s all good.

The Chiefs
Jesus Christ on a cracker this season is looking bad. I already thought the first two games were fluke wins and the last two games just seem to back that up. If you think any aspect of this team, from coaching on down, is looking good so far please leave a comment with your address so I can come over and extricate your head from your ass.

Well, that’s a wrap on another season and as much as I quit caring as soon as it was down to the final two I have to say I’m already missing it. I wish they would get rid of the audience for the finales but that seems to be the new black for reality shows so I doubt I’ll ever get that wish granted. Even with the audience there it was still much better than last year’s finale as far as production values go.

I thought it was really surprising how blatantly they had Julie try to get it across to the Friendship as to how disliked they were. I was expecting them to go the gumdrop smile route and acting like the season turned out wonderfully. So at least some of the drama that I was hoping for ended up being there.

As usual the Friendship folks were their usual selves. Eric acted like an ass the one time he got to talk as expected. Maggie acted like she had just witnessed someone stabbing a baby when Howie made his comments. Beau was flabbergasted that anyone could accuse Ivette of ever acting without integrity despite the people from his own group agreeing with the comments. April never could shut up and yet again her comments came back to bite her in the ass and her back-peddling just dug the hole deeper. Jen was in uber-bitch mode and actually took it to levels that I didn’t think she could possibly take it too.

Speaking of Jen, she was the one that was a huge fan of BB and brought April along with her when they needed to bring a partner. She always talked about how she was a good strategist and knew how to play the game. However, with the way she acted last night it was apparent she didn’t play the game with the slightest bit of strategy and instead really did just view it as a summer camp where she could try to be the popular kid. I especially liked her comments after Kayser said he wished she could think for herself. Immediately she replied with “I can think for myself”. At that point Julie started talking to send the show to commercials, but Jen kept yammering in the background and said “My team were the ones that decided to get rid of you.” Apparently she doesn’t realize the meaning of “think for yourself” since she admitted that she just followed what the team said to do.

I can’t finish off my posting on this season without a final rant about Ivette so here goes. Was it possible for Ivette to have been more of a sore loser immediately after Maggie was named the winner? They pulled the key and as soon as she saw Maggie’s name she got all frowny and stood up and started to walk off. Had Maggie not ran over to her and given her a hug I think she might have just walked right out of the house before she was supposed to. Then once they were out in the studio she kept acting the same way. I know it’s got to suck making it that far and then losing but she should have expected it. It was her friend that won yet it looked like she wouldn’t have even congratulated her if she hadn’t been forced to. What a self-centered bitch.

Wow, hopefully the family version of The Amazing Race starting next week is as awful as I’m expecting it to be or I won’t have much to bitch about now that BB is over with.

Well, the season premier has come and gone and as usual I got myself all worked up waiting for it despite the fact that all of the first episodes are kinda boring since you don’t really know the people yet. At least this season started off with a really good challenge. I guess Jeff wasn’t kidding when he was telling interviewers that this was the toughest season yet.

I’m kinda torn over whether I like them bringing back Stephenie and Bobby Jon or not. I think Stephenie is one of the best players the show has ever seen and I was really wishing she had won last season. However, I’m not big on giving folks a second chance at reality shows. To me it’s kind of like they had their shot and missed and that should be the end of it. I know they got stuck with a really shitty team the last go around so you could argue that they never really had a shot to begin with, but life isn’t always fair unfortunately. At least they didn’t take the spots of two other people that could have played since they were just added to the other sixteen, but it’s unfair for the newbies since these two are familiar with the game, the cameras, the going without food, etc. Plus the fun of reality shows is learning the new people each season and when folks return for a second time (be it the same show or a different one) it makes it tougher to figure out the other people since they always have so much of the spotlight on them.

Despite all that I’ll still root for Steph unless someone else really stands out. I’ll also probably root for Danni since she’s from KC even though she didn’t do a lot in the first episode. The only others that jumped out at me so far were the ones I think I’m going to dislike. The first is Rafe. Every time I see his name I think of Raffi and that’s just not good. Plus, the dumbass is a freakin’ wilderness guide yet he refuses to even help read the compass when they are lost because he’s scared it will make him look like a leader. You know at some point they’ll find out what he does for a living and hopefully remember his lack of help on that first challenge and send him packing. He’s also my first pick for being gay, which isn’t bad or anything, but it’s an ongoing thing each season to “guess the gays”.

The second one that jumped out was Brian. He didn’t get much screen time really, but the small amount he did he just came across as kinda creepy for some reason. Can’t really explain it. He’s my second pick for being gay and my pick for being the jackass that always talks about how much smarter he is than anyone else there.

The third standout was Morgan. Again, not a huge amount of screen time, but she already reminds me of Holly from Big Brother 5 except with just a slightly less high pitched voice. She’s my pick for being the dumb one that always takes a while to get what people are saying to her. She’s a frickin’ magician’s assistant for crying out loud so you know things haven’t exactly gone like she planned in life.

Regarding the guys on that one tribe all getting sick, the consensus seems to be that they were out drinking the night before in a celebration of their final night of freedom. Just seems odd that only those guys had any problems after completing the challenge. Everyone tried to justify it by saying the guys were carrying more at the beginning but the girls weren’t carrying much less so I’m not buying that. Plus it’s 24 hours and you simply don’t have an entire group of people get nailed that badly from over-exertion unless they were already somewhat dehydrated to begin with.

Jim was a good pick to get rid of I think. Between the combination of him being older and less able to do things to start with and then hurting his arm he was the weakest link on the team physically and it looks like it’s going to be one of those seasons that focuses more on the physical rather than mental aspect of the game. While on the subject of Jim I’m getting a little tired of firemen being cast on every reality show that’s occurred since 9/11. I like firemen as much as the next person, but it’s to the point where every show feels they have to have one every season and I get the impression some of them are being picked solely for that reason. Didn’t get to know Jim well enough to say if that was the case here, but him being on the show continued the trend.

I’m running behind on posting and the season finale starts in like an hour so I’ll keep this one fairly rant free. I normally don’t follow the postings about what is occurring on the live feeds since I prefer the being surprised by the episodes, but I accidentally saw the winners of rounds one and two of the final HoH in a comment following an Entertainment Weekly article. So I was at least happy going into the episode knowing that Janelle had already made it to round three. Unfortunately, she lost the final round. I’ll give Ivette credit for winning fair and square and she actually surprised me with the math questions since I never figured her as being bright enough to do basic addition problems.

There were two things that really jumped out at me in the episode. The first was when Ivette and Janelle were playing chess and talking about how Ivette could use the money she made a comment like “Man, if I won that money my family could finally get everything they’ve wanted.” Now it wasn’t surprising that she mentioned her family yet again, but for the first time her tone and comments suggested she was backing off her thing about them being “needy” and instead just saying they had stuff they could use the money on.

The other moment was when Julie was interviewing Janelle after her eviction and she said “Ivette has talked a lot about how much her family needs this money but you’re saying that by not taking you she’s pretty much guaranteed only second place. What do you think about her picking friends over……the money?” You could tell Julie wanted to say “…her family” but I guess she considered it to prejudicial.

I’m torn on who might win at this point. I have a feeling Janelle might flip and vote for Ivette since Ivette actually won a few things at the end versus Maggie who was just drug along since she was a friend. I think April and Jen will vote for Maggie. Beau is obviously going to vote for Ivette, although that would be hilarious if he was miffed about her shunning him the whole season and voted for Maggie out of spite. I’m pretty sure James will vote for Ivette as well due to the friendship they developed and since Maggie didn’t really play any better of a game. That leaves Howie and Rachel. If Janelle flips to Ivette will she convince them to do the same? Who knows, but I think the winner will hinge on their votes.

Since I can’t stand either person that’s left I don’t really care too much about who wins it. Hopefully either Julie or one of the folks that got booted early enough to not be sequestered will stir things up by finally revealing to the Friendship just how reviled they were by the viewers. I doubt it will happen but I’ll keep hoping anyway.

Janelle couldn’t have possibly spent her time as HoH any better. I expected drama from this episode and they provided it in spades. It is interesting that now that the Friendship is in a position where they don’t have a common enemy that they can try to toss into the line of fire their true colors show through. The folks watching the live feeds have been saying for weeks that the group is only a friendship in name considering how they treat each other, but it’s only now that those of us only watching the episodes finally get to see it.

What continues to baffle me is why Ivette burns bridges every time someone leaves the house or might potentially leave. She did it by over reacting with April and then she did it again with her little comment to Maggie later on. If you didn’t catch it Maggie made a comment to Ivette about how Ivette said she would take her to the final two. As a reply Ivette said something along the lines of “Yeah I did, but you haven’t heard me say that recently”. Who knows what she actually thought she was saying since I’m sure in her fantasy world she viewed it as something innocent, but Maggie seemed to have the same reaction to it that I did.

I know Ivette’s dumber than a bag of hammers but seriously, how stupid do she have to be to not realize that these people that are leaving will be voting as to whether she wins or loses if she makes it to the final two? The only thing I can think of is that once the jury started forming she figured it would be leaning the Friendship’s way and due to the fact that she “needs the money for her family” they would automatically make her the winner.

Continuing the theme of bitching about Ivette, the thing that is driving me completely nuts about her incessant whining about how much her family “needs the money” comes from the fact that I don’t think she understands the difference between “needing the money” compared to “being able to use the money”. I’m not saying they don’t possibly have money problems but when she says “need” she makes it sound like her family is literally starving to death while she’s on the show and if she doesn’t win then they will immediately perish upon the crowning of the winner. The kicker is that she says all this while wearing designer clothes that she brought into the house with her. Maybe I’m missing something, but if you can’t afford the basic staples in life, which to me would define needy, then you shouldn’t be able to afford name brand clothing as that’s far from being a necessity. She’s also talked numerous times about how much partying she does and in my experience partying costs a sizable amount of cash if you’re doing it very often.

As far as “being able to use the money” goes that would pretty much define anyone in the world that doesn’t view $500,000 as simply pocket change. I would venture to guess that everyone in that house would fall into that category. So what if she thinks April wanting to use the money for building a deck isn’t important, does that give more value to her desired use for the money (which she conveniently has never given specifics on)? Unless she is wanting to use the money to have her mouth permanently wired shut then I would say that it doesn’t since what is trivial or not is a personal opinion. If Ivette’s family truly needed money that badly and she actually gives a rat’s ass about it then she never would have gone on a show that would keep her from working for three months with no guarantee of getting paid anything for that time.

Anyway, moving on to the first round of the final HoH. I don’t typically read what is happening from folks that watch the live feeds since I prefer being surprised by the episodes, but I accidentally ran across a comment within a story today that mentioned that Ivette had won round one. This really surprised me since as expected it was a stamina challenge and I figured Janelle would take it without any problem. After they started spinning the thing my guess was that Maggie and Janelle would be the last two on it. Janelle had the height which would help in that but Maggie had the better strategy of walking sideways while it was moving slowly since that provides a wider center of gravity and therefore less of a chance of losing your balance. Here’s hoping Janelle can pull out a win in the next two rounds. If she doesn’t I would guess she’s going to be the final jury member.