Hot Dog Halves

Ever play Anchorman?

It's a brutal, relentless, unforgiving drinking game...and it's a hell of a lot of fun. Of course, it's been nearly twenty years since I've last played, but there's good reason for that...

Right out of college, sixteen of my closest friends rented a couple houseboats for a relaxing, fun-filled, blow-off-some-steam five-day vacation on Lake Shasta. We stocked up on food, sun tan lotion, cards...and beer. The first four days were wonderful: sitting around campfires, floating and swimming in the lake, barbecuing up dogs and burgers...everyone getting along, everyone laughing, everyone enjoying themselves.

But on the morning of the fourth day, someone realized that we had barely made a dent out of the clearly overly-optimistic supply of beer that had been purchased. This was unacceptable. That morning we sat around discussing what could be done to fix this serious problem.

"So what?" someone chimed in, "What's the big deal about bringing a bunch of extra beer home?"

This person clearly was never going to be invited back again.

But I knew there was only one solution. "No problem," I calmly stated to the group, "...Anchorman."

The faces looking back at me said it all: confusion, agreement, trepidation, elation...and pure, unadulterated fear.

Immediately, half the group declined to participate; but we only needed six people to play. One by one, six people raised their hands: they were "in."

In Anchorman, you take a large cup, fill it with two beers, and split six people into two teams of three. There are three quarters: one team starts by trying to bounce a quarter into the full cup. If they make it, the next person on their team goes. If they miss it, the other team goes. The team that makes the third quarter in wins, the person on that team that made it is "in control", and the other team must now drink the full cup of beer.

But wait, it's not quite that easy.

The person in control picks the order of drinking, including the final person to drink, or the "anchorman." The first two people that go can drink as much - or as little - as they want, but no matter what happens, the anchorman MUST finish whatever is left by the time it gets to them.

I'm sure you can see where this is going...

Of course, in the beginning of the game there is always noble camaraderie, team pride and complete, proactive support for each other. The first two people drinking will many times finish the entire cup before it even gets to the anchorman, resulting in high fives, pay-it-forward gratitude, and relief.

But this doesn't last long.

After a few straight losses, inevitably the first two drinkers will apologize, take a single sip, and pass the cup along. Suddenly, the anchorman is faced with having to finish 22 ounces all by themselves. And then one of the first two drinkers is decreed anchorman, and it's payback time. And the cycle repeats itself again, and again, and again.

Now look, I'm not going to get into the gory details of an episode that I'm not proud to pass along to my kids; we've all been down a similar path one way or another, and (hopefully) we've all learned from it. In the end, I'm very happy to say, I was fine. That, however, was not the case for four of the remaining five other players.

One forcefully fed trout off the side of the boat, one cradled a large salad bowl for hours - deep in dry heaving hell, one falling face down and unmoving in the reeds along the shore where two of us pulled her out in the nick of time...it was not pretty.

But one guy - a large guy with a seemingly endless chasm of beer-guzzling ability - seemed to be...OK. He had been cocky during the game, talking trash and then backing it up with insane displays of drinking prowess. He seemed invincible...and when the salad bowl girl went down hard, his booming laugh could be heard from far away.

After all the "excitement" had waned around two in the morning, five of us found ourselves on shore sitting around the campfire, trying to get our minds around everything that had so crazily occurred that evening. Suddenly, in the midst of the soft conversation, our big friend with the seemingly inhuman ability to imbibe who had been falling asleep with his chin on his chest, sat up straight and projectile vomited the six to eight hot dogs he had eaten immediately after the game had ended.

They stacked in a pile at his feet, sounding like wet fish flopping on a cold linoleum floor.

Shocked, startled and disgusted, we were suddenly aware that the amorphous mound of ketchup and mustard tinged half-eaten bun and hot dog goo was exactly that: half eaten. He had - literally - bit the dogs in half and swallowed them without further chewing. You could actually see the pinched end casing and bite marked hot dog halves poking out of the mess.

This was violence personified.

But in the offensive and all-consuming silence surrounding us in the immediate aftermath of this apocalypse, one sound, slowing building, filled the air.

"Heh-heh. Heh. Heh. Heh-heh. Heh. Heh-heh. Heh. Heh..."

We turned, and there, slumped in a lawn chair behind us, was salad bowl girl, hating life, but suddenly laughing like Beavis dying a slow, painful death - a pitiful, revengeful, vitriolic, evil snicker, perfectly encapsulating the horrifying joy she felt at watching Hot Dog Halv (or just "Halv" for short - his nickname forever after) take his licks and sink even lower than she was.

Friends, Parvati is Halv.

I know many of you are going to disagree with me here, but hear me out...

Was her double immunity idol play one of the most amazing things to ever occur in twenty seasons of Survivor? Undoubtedly, yes.

Was it a brilliant move to give the Villain tribe a definitive numbers advantage? Seemingly, yes.

Was it fun to actually watch as JT's preschool-aged brain attempted to grasp that he had suddenly entered the sad ranks of one of the dumbest Survivor moves ever made coming back to bite him? Outstandingly, yes.

But - give all credit to Probst who called Parvati on it just before the vote - all it was, was Parvati taking care of Parvati and ensuring the spotlight shined on her...for the moment.

Do you really think Sandra and Jerri are going to pledge their everlasting loyalty to Parvati because of this?

No, no, no, one thousand times no.

This is a game, and most of these people do seem to understand it. Now, had Parvati approached Jerri and Sandra before the vote and shared with them her idea, attempting to get them to on board with a trusted alliance...it might be a different story.

But she didn't do that. And not only was it a surprise to Jerri and Sandra, but do you really think Russell is going to be OK with Parvati making decisions outside of his influence?

A million times no.

Jerri and Sandra, while thankful to survive another day, will - rightfully - think that Parvati was saving Parvati's ass, and using them to do it. They were tools, pawns, game pieces; they didn't ask to be saved, and they won't feel indebted. And they shouldn't. Because had the need for Parvati to backstab them and vote them off in order to keep her viable be needed, they'd have been gone in a heartbeat.

Sandra needs to stop being so afraid to talk with the Heroes; what's wrong with openly aligning with them when your old tribe has you last in their pecking order?

And Russell? How will he EVER trust Parvati from here on in? He gave her his idol to implement his strategy. I can't envision an existence in which Russell would be OK with the ends justifying the means when the means haven't come directly from his immense ego.

No, this is all going to implode in the next couple weeks. Parvati blew it up for this episode, but she showed her hand too early. She spent her wad. She coughed up her hot dog halves.

Entertaining? Yes. But hot dog halves aren't a strategy, they're gut reaction resulting in a lifetime of ridicule and a one-time, snapshot memory.

I predict Parvati will go the way of those mustard-laden halves from long ago: consumed by vile, scavenging creatures in the dark of night.

I'm betting that Russell is a big fan of hot dogs...

Until next week,

PB

No Thanks for the Memories

When I was five years old I knew some important things: how to play Mousetrap, who would win in a fight between Spiderman and Aquaman, how to make clam chowder come out of my nose...the important things.

One thing I was sadly bereft of, however, was everything else.

Sadly, that didn't stop me from blindly following directions...

In 1973 my family flew from New Jersey to Los Angeles to spend the holidays with my grandparents. Upon arrival at the airport and amidst the expected shouts, hugs and smiles, Bob Hope and a couple of his entourage walked past us. Of course, I knew about as much of Bob Hope as I did of the Pythagorean Theorem (which was perhaps somewhat surprising considering my Math Nazi kindergarden teacher...); he was simply a face in the crowd to me.

My grandma, however, immediately noticed. "Look!" she excitedly remarked, "There's Bob Hope!"

My parents and grandpa were all sufficiently impressed. My brother, Mike, and I, however, couldn't care less. We were more interested in the fact that we were now standing within the same relative space and breathing the same air as the infamous Disneyland...

The adults were abuzz, whispering to each other and watching Mr. Hope stand about twenty yards away with his group when suddenly the adults stopped all conversation and looked directly at Mike and I.

I may not have known much, but I knew we were about to be guinea pigs.

My grandma piped up, "Boys, go shake his hand!"

Mike and I looked at each other, "...Uh, whose hand?"

"Bob Hope!" she forcefully replied, "That's Bob Hope right there! He's a very famous star!"

Mike was nonplussed; he was having none of it. But I was perhaps a little more adventurous, and weighed the shy and embarrassed factors with the "gain the love and attention of my parents and grandparents" factor.

I was leaning toward giving it a go, but before I could officially decide, suddenly my grandma had taken my hand and was quickly dragging me over to Mr. Hope where she definitively deposited me two feet behind him and then gave me a little shove. Bob had his back to me and was talking with two other gentlemen; I turned around one last time to the anonymous comfort of my family, took a breath and faced him again.

"Excuse me, Mr. Hope?" I squeaked to the back of his slacks. Bob turned his head in mid-sentence and, surprised to find me there, stopped and looked down at me with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. I went in for the kill, "...Can I shake your hand?"

The world stopped - it seemed that all noise, all conversation throughout the airport stopped at that moment in baited anticipation of his response. ...But we didn't have to wait, it came instantly.

"Sorry kid, I'm in a hurry," he spat at me as he turned back around and started walking off with the other guys.

I stood there with my arm extended, not fully computing what had just happened (and, let's be fair, not really caring either...I was mostly relieved that it was all over), as sound returned to the airport and life began moving again.

But, oh, it so was not over.

The next thing I knew my 70 year old grandma was literally running past me, instantly catching up to Bob, grabbing his arm and whirling him around to face her.

"How DARE you!" she angrily admonished him. "This little, innocent child simply wants to shake your hand,  to acknowledge that you mean something to him and that he appreciates it, and you simply toss him aside like a piece of garbage?!"

Bob, mouth gaping, was absolutely stunned.

But my grandma wasn't done, "You march right back over there, shake his hand, SMILE, and tell him 'thank you.' Right now." She stood there, hands on her hips, with a huge, disappointed frown on her face.

Color rushed into Bob's face - I could see it ten yards away. He dropped his eyes, took a breath, and meekly replied, "You're right, I'm sorry." Then he walked over to me, held his hand out and said, "I'm sorry little boy, that was very rude of me. I'd be honored to shake your hand." He smiled widely.

Now I was stunned.

My grandma was all powerful.

I think I wanted to shake her hand instead of this random guy... But I shook it because it was important to my grandma and I knew it would make her happy. Bob mussed my hair, turned around and looked at my grandma for approval.

Arms now crossed, she gave him the once over. "OK," she paroled him, "Thank you. Nice job."

I was reminded of how much of a tool I was during this experience as I watched last night's fiasco on Survivor. As Probst previewed last week, "In perhaps the dumbest Survivor move in the history of the show..." ...you knew it was going to be major.

But what happened wasn't satisfying by any regard; instead, it was cringe-worthy, an embarrassment to the nth degree.

Look, I'm not going to bag on JT for thinking of the move to secretly give Russell the immunity idol; remember, not one of these people have seen a single episode of Russell's evilness from last season (they were filming this season while last season was being aired). And the "Villain" label has clearly been diluted via the inclusion of Courtney, Sandra and Danielle. So, I do understand the concept of trying to make a "bold move."

But, geez - my five year old brain could have written a better letter than JT wrote. Hell, I was surprised that he didn't dot his "i's" with hearts. It was soul-sappingly horrendous. "Destroy this after you read it..."?!?!

And yet, the bigger sin was the rest of the Heroes blindly following JT's lead on the whole scheme. Give Amanda just a small smidge of credit: at least she considered that this might be a bad idea. Regardless, the rest of them not only went along with it, willingly handing over their tribe's testicles without a thought to the spectrum of consequences, but then basking in their assumed post-coital glow, convinced of how great they were.

No matter how much you hate Russell, you HAVE to be routing for him. He is a force, and, perhaps more importantly, every other person remaining sucks.

All I could think about as Rupert cackled with glee was how much this tribe needed my grandma to walk in out of the jungle, hands on her hips, and start yelling at them to GET THEIR GODDAMN HEADS IN THE GAME.

Sheesh.

Either that, or we'll be singing, "(No) Thanks for the Memories" to the hero tribe very shortly...

Until next week,

PB

The Testicle Magellan

Every night before bed I read to my girls. We've gone through all the kids classics over the years, a slew of newer, highly acclaimed books, and a long string of standards: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Lord of the Rings, Where the Red Fern Grows... It's great fun reacquainting myself with these stories while I get to watch my kids experience them for the first time.

But "storytime", I was initially surprised to find out, isn't just about the literature.

Storytime tends to represent the winding down of the day, the decompression...the coming of the full circle. As such, it tends to bring out bizarre, hilarious, sometimes emotional and always entertaining episodes from the kids. Some of this is released physically (moving, drawing, picking the nose), some verbally (asking questions, making noises), and some, perhaps unsurprisingly...flatulently.

And some not just from the girls...

For example, once a week my parents watch my kids and my new nephew, Adam - now 1 1/2. A few months back, as McKenna and I were waiting for Reese to finish brushing her teeth so we could get started reading, McKenna was a bundle of energy. She was rolling around on the bed, doing somersaults, and suddenly jumped up into a football crouch and said, "DAD! Guess what?!"

Sometimes you just know something good is going to happen.

She was savoring this and wanted to make sure I understood the importance of what she was about to disclose... "Did you know that Adam...has...TESTICLES?!?!?!"

Tremendous!

"Well, honey, I have to admit that I suspected as much...but that's quite a discovery! You're like the Magellan of testicles!"

But she wasn't done yet, and turned pensive. "Dad...did you have testicles when you were a baby?"

Tremendous squared.

"As a matter of fact, you might not believe this, but yes I did...and, brace yourself, I still have them now!!!"

Her mind was blown. "Can I see them?"

"Well..." I wasn't sure how to begin... "I'm not really in the habit of whipping out my testicles on demand," I started. "Tell you what, the next time you catch me walking around after a shower - feel free take a look."

She contemplated this soft denial. "OK."

These types of interactions are, clearly, priceless, and storytime seems to provide the perfect environment for it all to develop.

A few years back as the three of us laid there cuddling after we were finished reading, I was surprised to get the huge question out of left field, "Dad, how are babies made?" I tangibly felt the weight of my children's adolescent development on my shoulders as I excitedly formulated my response. This was a great opportunity to build my kids' trust, to be totally open, honest and educational, to describe a totally natural life moment in factual terms within a society that tended to put ridiculous tabboos on it all - I could help shape their healthy perspectives, give them a solid foundation to build upon, definitively lead them down the path of healthy relationships and positive self image. The importance of it all made me both excited and nervous...

I spent the next five minutes answering their question with honesty, facts and respect. As I wound it up, I couldn't help thinking how great this was, how perfect my response had been, how this was a moment they might remember for the rest of their lives - I had hit a home run.

The dark room was quiet for a good ten seconds after I finished, and I knew they were twisting and turning all this information around in their little minds - amazed at it all and empowered to conquer the world from this moment on. I couldn't wait to hear what they had to say...and finally, McKenna was the first to pipe up.

"Dad?"

"Yes, hon?"

"...I ate a bubble today!"

I was learning that my kids and I weren't always on the same wavelength...and that my wavelength wasn't always the one I should expect that we be on...

This became perfectly clear one night as we were in the midst of Huckleberry Finn. An incredible book - obviously - but somewhat difficult for young kids to understand what's going on at all times...especially with regards to the underlying social themes. It required a lot of sidebar explanations, and we had established a process that whenever either they were confused or had a question, they wouldn't just interrupt me, they would tap me on the arm and as soon as I finished the paragraph I would stop and let them ask their question.

Huck Finn also has a lot of very funny/crazy dialect that Mark Twain wrote phonetically, and I always did my best to act it out. The girls always wanted to see what a particular crazy sound or word looked like on the page, and would stop me to have me point it out for them. Of course, there are times when I'm stopping after every paragraph, but in the end it's a great way for us all to stay involved in the story together.

In the midst of the scene in which Huck fakes his own death, the garlic pasta I had earlier in the evening was working its magic and I couldn't help but let one blast under the covers. About five seconds later, McKenna tapped me on the arm and I finished up the paragraph - doing my best to act out Jim's crazy speech and make the girls laugh.

"What's up babe?" I asked her.

"Can you show me where it says that?" she asked very seriously. "I want to see what it looks like."

"What part?" I had just went though a whole string of weird sounds and didn't know what she was referring to.

"The part where it says, 'Pfffffffffffffffffftt!" she mimicked my fart, looking at me 100% seriously.

I have to admit, I was touched that she thought I was good enough to read from more than one orifice.

But the point is this: sometimes things are inexplicable. Nonsensical. A meaningless blip of time that simply needs to be put in the past (however funny it may be...).

You see, last night's Survivor episode was like reading from multiple orifices. It was inane nonsense. Voting Coach out before Courtney, but with the drama of Russell exploding at Danielle for trying to be smartly strategic, and then having Russell and Parvati split the vote 4-3 at Tribal Council?

Baffling. Ridiculous. Inexplicable. Just plain dumb.

The Villains have now voted off their three strongest men: Rob, Tyson and Coach...and NOW they start talking about trying to keep the tribe potentially strong? Idiots. I don't understand their idiocy, I don't understand their vote, and to be honest, I don't want to. I just want to move on and forget about it.

There's no answer to seek here. There's no representation of this massive fart written on the script. It will simply dissipate into thin air with a stale, sour stench that nobody wants to or should remember.

So please, don't tap me on the arm and ask me what it all means...

Until next week,

PB

Monsoon Money Shot

It was 12:45am on the buzzing Khao San Road in Bangkok, Thailand, when we instructed the the taxi driver to let us out – we were only a ten-minute walk from our hotel and wanted to enjoy the bustling night life.

I handed the driver a wad of Thai Bath (local currency), helped Paige out, and closed the back door. As the taxi took off, I impulsively patted my back pocket: no wallet.

Oh shit, I left it in the car.

Fifty yards ahead of us, the taxi’s brake lights came on as he slowed and then turned left.

I started running.

I ran at breakneck speed, dodging drunk partiers and rickshaws, made the turn onto a bigger street and realized that the taxi could have only gone one way: around to the left. Except, now there were more cars whizzing by and I couldn’t tell one set of brake lights rushing away from me from the next. I ran another half mile as the roadway slowly curved left and ran in front of a main bus stop area…I was trying my hardest not to get freaked, but it wasn’t working. This was the wallet I’d purchased back in Zimbabwe and loved; this was the wallet I’d stashed special stamps and weird currency notes in; this was the wallet with 5,000 Bath ($150), $60 U.S. cash, Visa and American Express cards.

I freaked out.

As I came up to the streetlight-lit bus stop about a half a mile away, I realized that if he hadn’t stopped here to pick up another passenger, I was totally screwed. He would be gone into the Bangkok night, in a city the size of Los Angeles, where I would have about as much a chance finding him as running into Charo in our hotel lobby.

I ran completely panicked past the stop and to the taxi stand directly adjacent: there were no taxis waiting. I stopped, panting and scared, and slumped my shoulders in defeat. A couple minutes later Paige came jogging up behind me. “Well..?”

“Gone. No dice. I suck.” Really, used in any combination, these three statements were extremely appropriate right then. “I feel so helpless right now…is there anything we can do?”

Paige was skeptical. “It’s gone.”

Dejected, we started walking back the way we came with cars whooshing past us. I was getting more depressed by the second. When we made it back to Khao San Road, we both suddenly remembered that just a half block up ahead was a tourist information booth…but it was now 1:30. Futilely we walked past the window…and the lights were actually on. We walked up, cupped our hands and peered in: someone was off in the corner with their back turned to us. I pounded on the glass, barely attempting to restrain my frenzied emotions. The guy jumped and came over.

“Are you open?” I asked.

“Yes, until 2:00.”

I explained what had happened without taking a breath. The info guy waited until I was done, “Do you have a taxi ID number?”

“No.”

“How about the name of the taxi company?”

“…No.”

“License plate?”

My blank stare was his answer. I halfheartedly offered, “I know it was a blue car..” but this was meaningless. Taxis in Bangkok were just like regular cars, every color of the car manufacturers’ rainbow, except they had a light-up sign on top.

The guy was apologetic, “Look, it doesn’t look good. But one thing you can do is file a police report and if they get a call that it was found they’ll at least know how to contact you.”

“Would the taxi company contact the police if they find the wallet?”

The guy looked at me like I was a naïve little child. He was right. That baby was loaded with cash. Still, my ingrained optimism was telling me that there was a, granted, very remote chance that the driver would be honest and turn the thing in. On top of that, months ago I had foreseen such an occurrence and had placed a piece of paper in the slot where an I.D. card goes explaining where to send the thing if it was found. Although the loss of money was a major hit and stung to the core, I could live with it as long as I got that wallet back. I had grown attached to that thing, and had filled it with some of the only mementos I’d kept from the road.

“Where’s the police station?” I asked. Paige looked at me out of the corner of her eye. The guy gave me directions; it was a couple miles away. We thanked him and turned around, “Do you mind if we went over there and filed the report right now?” I asked Paige. Maybe a passenger would find it and turn it over, maybe the driver would end his shift and clean the car out…or maybe someone would discover it, take the cash and credit cards and toss the rest in the garbage. Still, if there was even the smallest hint of a chance, I wanted to make sure we were prepared. The last thing I wanted was for someone to try to contact us and we were too late to contact the police.

Paige saw the look of desperation in my eyes and gave in. The station was back out the way we’d just come, then another 20-30 minute walk. I say “walk” because obviously we had no money anymore...

We trudged along in the still darkness out past the bus stop where we’d turned around before, and then onward into the quiet night.

Five minutes later, the monsoon hit.

Within a matter of milliseconds, rain was coming down so hard we couldn’t see two feet in front of us and literally had to cup our hands around our mouths to even breathe properly. We had no jackets or umbrellas and were walking down empty streets after 2am, heading towards a location that we really didn’t know how to find. The epitome of traveling.

We were sopping, and there didn’t appear to be anywhere we could temporarily shelter ourselves…until we saw a telephone booth nearby. We bolted over and locked ourselves inside – wet to the bone, water running freely from our heads, and instantly steaming up the inside glass with the humidity. This was not good. Plus, now we were all turned around. We stayed that way for a couple minutes, then realized something very important: we couldn’t get any wetter than we currently were, and the rain storm could
potentially last for hours. Plus, we could barely breathe in that small space.

We opened the door and emerged back out into the insane downpour, trying not to let our sopping clothes and bodies annoy us, although my wet and foggy glasses were throwing that strategy right down the toilet. Confused, pissed off, and scared, we took a turn and headed down another completely empty street, convinced we were going the right direction.

Then it dead-ended.

We stood there in disbelief at our bad fortune, and yet, on some weird level it was all OK because even this was part of the overall adventure that we’d signed up for when we’d left the U.S.

“Oh my god,” Paige muttered over the roar of the downpour on the street, trees and buildings around us, “what is that guy doing over there?!”

I looked across the street (a difficult notion through my impenetrable glasses and the sheer wall of rain) where, teetering on the edge of the sidewalk, a nasty looking guy was facing us with his pants down around his knees, jerking off.

Surely, this was one thing that we didn’t sign up for.

I grabbed Paige’s hand and we bolted out of there, fully expecting the guy to come chasing after us with his pulsing hard-on slapping against his rain-soaked legs.

We turned the corner in a run and moved onwards, soon finding another street and moving quickly forward, randomly just moving to feel safe. And when we thought that we were surely in the middle of nowhere, suddenly we saw the police station kitty-corner to where we were standing.

We raced across the intersection and burst through the doors looking to the lady behind the counter as if
we had just emerged, fully clothed, from a swimming pool. Dripping freely and out of breath, we explained why we were there and the lady handed over a roll of paper towels. This was a joke; it was
like trying to dry a wet sheepdog with a tissue.

Around 3am, shivering and still sopping wet, we’d filed the report, talked with everyone in the office, and realized that we’d done all we could do. Wait wait...one more thing...

"By the way," I mentioned to the lady at the desk, "I think we were also being chased by a naked guy not too far away...playing with himself..."

"Yeah, and?" she replied.

'Nuff said. It was time to head back to the hotel.

Finally we were back in our lobby, and immediately called Visa and Amex on the pay phone downstairs to cancel the cards. Next, we slip-slid upstairs where we stripped clean and hung our clothes up to at least lose enough wetness to match the amount of humidity in the air…

We sat on the edge of our bed attempting to get our minds around this turn of events: go with the flow, bask in the here and now, move on. We’d incurred a small loss; we had to find a way to make this a big gain in our resilience.

3:45am; Paige was beat and instantly fell asleep after a thorough toweling, but my mind was still racing and I didn’t feel sleepy at all. I dug into my wet shorts on the windowsill and found the Tom Petty album I'd purchased earlier that evening wrapped in its plastic bag, figuring that music would help me calm down and relax. I popped the CD into our player and lay down with my eyes closed as the first song came on and I began to lose myself in the chords. Ahh, at long last, this was definitely helping.

Ten seconds later, the player made a strange grinding noise and conked out. Broken.

Tremendous.

Obviously this all parallels the path the Survivor Villains went down in the latest episode: shortsighted decisions inevitably leading to sure destruction. A monsoon of negativity and selfishness. One guy in particular (Russell) gratifying himself openly to the wanton disregard of all others.

Good for Russell, bad for the tribe.

Of course, it's all good for us too...this is solid TV. Mano a mano between the two evil leaders, the Wicked Bitch of the Least (Parvati) on one side, and the Wicked Stick Figure of the Anorexics (Courtney) on the other.

By the way, what was Rob thinking aligning with Courtney and Sandra? Talk about picking the wrong alliance. You really have to give it to Russell for taking control of his destiny and ensuring his survival; Rob was purely reactive, and it was too little, too late.

You could be annoyed at Coach for his shrunken testicles at Tribal Council and his refusal to vote for either Rob or Russell (inevitably leading to Rob's demise), but consider this. Rob's past deception is well known: lying to whomever he can to get further in the game. Russell, on the other hand, has carte blanche with this group: nobody has had the opportunity to see his evil ways. In the end, Coach chose (insert soaring romantic theme song here) his "fair maiden," Jerry. And in the end, Coach proved  he is simply a tool, unwilling to play the game, unwilling to pick a side, afraid of his shadow and ultimately afraid to play any role whatsoever other than "passive bystander."

Rob: you deserved to go. Russell: you deserved to stay. Coach: you deserved to be called a little man...but you can take solace that it wasn't Jerry that told you that...

In the end, Russell proved what Paige and I had learned on that fateful night in Bangkok: when you encounter a derelict with no concept of societal rules jerking himself off in a monsoon, stay away...there's no stopping him.

Fear is a powerful emotion, especially when it's perpetrated by a freak solely focused on his own demented gratification.

The only question is...did Russell execute his money shot too early...?

Until next week,

PB