JayRo's Musings

My new favourite spokesperson

2011-12-29T14:04:00.002-05:00

Not to make light of this, but the spokesperson for the Agglomeration de Longueuil police department is kinda awesome

“The initial call was that two men had gone to Duhamel’s home,” David said. “They rang the doorbell, and when he opened the door they beat him up and they stole goods from his house. So conspiracy would be setting this up or planning the event. There’s four people in this event, so somebody at some point planned this.”

I'm glad to hear that there have been arrests in this case and that they have recovered part of Duhamel's property. But the spokesperson explaining why it was a conspiracy made the story.

(BTW, check out the 2+2 thread on this story for a story about a thread started earlier in the year warning Duhamel about the ex that was arrested, and Le Journal de Montreal to show how dumb one of the arrested apparently was.)

In lieu of those promised Survivor thoughts...

2011-12-26T20:31:00.002-05:00

I present to you possibly the dumbest gameshow contestants ever.

Survivor: South Pacific Final Episode Live Thoughts

2011-12-14T21:12:00.028-05:00

"I think I'm just not made to play this game"
- Brandon after getting voted out

(I really wasn't going to do a live blog, but the fact that at Redemption Island you don't get a poem when you get tree mail annoyed me for some reason. Like RI was an after thought or something.)

- Coach hates it when people bullshit him. But hey, when he bullshits Brandon, it's all good.

- Sophie seems to think that Albert looks poorly after not giving up the immunity necklace to Brandon. OTOH, I think he'd look poorly if he did give up the necklace, so take immunity and run.

- Congrats to the challenge people for remembering that Ozzy is kinda good at this holding on to a pole challenge.

- The symbolism of Brandon dropping off while Ozzy is at the top of the pole is kinda telling.

- While I'm here, quick thoughts on the remaining players' chances of winning:

Rick: In theory he would have a chance, but the fact that he has gotten virtually no screen time or confessional time would mean that the editors have done something inconceivable and made the winner invisible. I don't like to rely on editing tells to determine how a season goes, but this is one that I take seriously.

Albert: He has very little chance, unless he's up against Coach and Rick. Even then, he is reliant on the jury being pissed at Coach (which I don't think they are), and them respecting Albert (again, I don't know that I see it.) On the bright side, soon he will be posting freely on 2+2 and that will make things more interesting.

Sophie: She seems to think she's a lock if she goes against somebody who isn't Ozzy. I don't see it. She certainly is the most likely to be able to explain herself at final tribal, but I don't get what her argument is going to be at the final tribal. Is she really going to try to portray herself as being Coach's follower? Or is she going to explain that she was in on the decisions with Coach, but he made final call, and she just manipulated him? I don't see the jury seeing it that way at all.

Ozzy: Win, and you are in. It's as simple as that. I think he has all of Savaii unless he messes it up at final tribal.

Coach: The prohibitive favourite. Unless he messes up final tribal, he should be able to win, because he hasn't really upset the Savaii members that much.

- Coach immediately tries to get in Ozzy's good greaces, which is great, but he doesn't see to understand that Ozzy can see through it, and everybody else might actually see it as a problem that he is talking to the enemy.

- A great variation on the tile tower stacking. Throwing in having to balance the tower is great.

- Sophie shows a lot of desperation with her anger at Albert not picking up her tiles for her. Not a good sign.

- Ozzy wins, of course. Best of luck, Upolu.

- Hmmm, Coach thinks that Rick is the one who should go? Albert is thinking of voting out Sophie? Might Ozzy's plan to cause issues amongst the other four actually work?

- Wow, Ozzy pulls out the fact that Coach promised Ozzy to take him to final tribal. That might just do it and flip Albert to the final four.

- Rick takes the biggest shot by pitching to stay around to OZZY, which is actually genius.

- DID OZZY JUST DESTROY SOPHIE IN AN ARGUMENT?

- Wait, Sophie might be hitting back with "I've grown" argument. TIME TO VOTE HER OUT!

- Coach keeps the idol, which of course makes sense. He knows he doesn't have to use it.

- Albert just blew his game. Coach might have as well.

- Sophie has to be the one who gets voted out next. Even ahead of Ozzy.

- Wow, Ozzy uses Amanda Kimmel as the reason he blew up Coach's game. Well done sir.

- And now Ozzy says to make Albert and Sophie should have to make fire to get to final tribal? Brilliant way to play to Coach's sense of honour.

- This final immunity challenge looks insane.

- I guess it's a variation on the standard multiple station challenge, but still, it looks like it would be crazy.

- Well, Ozzy's out.

- Wait, maybe not.

- Nope, he's out.

- And Sophie wins immunity and final tribal.

- I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be that satisfied with her winning the game either.

- Just to clarify that last thought, she's a better version of Natalie White, who cried in a tribal council to essentially nullify Coach's gameplay argument. Her 3 immunity challenge wins are pretty impressive, don't get me wrong, but beyond that it goes back to what I said prior - what is her argument to winning? That she isn't Coach? But Coach hasn't been that offensive.

- Great confessional from Ozzy, with him saying that something tells him Coach is going to change his mind, then the other three cheering Sophie's win.

- Man, Ozzy is kinda good at making his pitch with Coach. I doubt it will do any good though.

- Coach made the right decision. I just don't know that it mattered any longer.

- The Sophie/Coach vs. Albert dynamic is kinda interesting. I don't know that it will mean anything, but it's the twist that has been there for a while.

- Nice drop of higher power by Albert. And him making it about a social experiment and an experience is strong.

- Sophie tries to play the outwit card. I think she kinda failed.

- Coach shouldn't try to play the compassion card. But his opening statements weren't horrible, and showed some proper self reflection.

- Oddly enough, Sophie presented herself as who she is, but might have had the worst presentation. Which is shocking.

- Okay Jim, time for your amazing question!

- Ozzy dropped a bomb on the final three by saying that nobody wants

- Jim's question: Why shouldn't the other two win or be there? Albert gets first crack and Jim warns him that if he starts out with a compliment of the other two, it's throwing away his vote. So Albert compliments Jim by saying he loves how Jim is approaching the game. Ozzy cracks up.

- Apparently Albert gets the only crack at it.

- Dawn asks what Sophie's game was, and Sophie plays the girl power card while identifying Coach as a little girl.

- Rick asks Coach if he wants to say anything to Rick, and Coach apologizes. He yells at Albert about using the god thing to get Brandon to give him the immunity necklace.

- Brandon won't let Albert play the "I didn't know you were going home, but I expected you were going to" card, and makes him look terrible to the jury. Enjoy third place Albert.

- And then Whitney goes on about hating everybody. Sophie says she will change.

- Edna tries to swing things to Coach's side by preaching that religion is the oldest way to manipulate people.

- Sophie blows up the Immunity Idol story!

- The Cochran gives Coach a chance to explain himself, and Coach gives the greatest speech of all time. Sophie then throws herself to be Coach's strategist after Coach claims to not be a great strategist, which isn't going to help her cause. Just let Coach admit he did horible things and make the jurty try to decide if his admitting it is good enough. When you interject yourself to that speech to try to score points, you confirm that you are a petulant little child and more importantly, you look like the used car salesman that you claimed not to be.

- Final summary of the performance? I think Coach beats Sophie 5-4, though I could see Sophie winning 5-4 with Brandon being the deciding vote.

- You know the Coach Wade vote was Cochran.

- Yup, still not satisfied with Sophie winning. But it's not like there was a perfect choice.

- So it's confirmed that if Coach did vote Sophie out instead of Rick, either he or Ozzy would have won. Well, his mistake.

- Well, that's it. I'll be back tomorrow to discuss this season more, and eventually my season rankings and winner ranking will show up as well.

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 12 Power Rankings

2011-12-01T08:00:00.001-05:00

Regret

8. Cochran (Last week: 8)

This is how the biggest Survivor fan goes out? Begging for another three days because it's his birthday and he feels that he is owed something by Upolu. Somehow, it is a fitting end for a character that seems to have so much potential.

Touched by the Hand of God

7. Ozzy (Last week: 7)

Bold prediction time: If Ozzy is allowed to get to final tribal council, he has the game locked up. (cf. Fabio)

Blue Monday

6. Edna (Last week: 5)

Edna's only chance to win is if she pulls off an incredible move or to become a challenge beast. If she does that, she will win.

(Since she won't do that, it's a matter of when she is going to get eliminated. With any luck, she will continue to drop bombs into the alliance of five to set up dissention in the ranks.)

Confusion

5. Rick (Last week: 6)

I don't believe that Rick knew what was going on behind the scenes until tribal council. And I get a feeling that he doesn't care either - he's willing to ride along until he makes it to final three or he is in trouble. But if he gives us a set up like "That's why they call him Prince Albert" again, I don't really care.

Shellshock

4. Brandon (Last week: 4)

Brandon's performances at triball council are always noteworthy, if only because he feels a need to be completely honest with everybody. It makes for pure entertainment as people see their plans get revealed to the world, and the awkward situations that it creates. But if you are looking at it from a gameplay perspective, Brandon is just turrble.

Temptation

3. Albert (Last week: 3)

One constant we have seen is Albert looking to make a move, only to then take a step back when it's clear that the move is not going to work. At some point this will come back to haunt him, and he will have to parry attacks coming from all sides.

State of the Nation

2. Sophie (Last week: 2)

Sophie certainly is confident. Her performance at Tribal Council showed an unflapability which can only come from a comfort in where you perceive your game stands. That will serve her well when the inevitable conflict arises.

True Faith

1. Coach (Last week: 1)

I am still amazed that Coach has been able to hold control over his tribe for so long, even after everybody has seen what Boston Rob did last season. You get the impression that Albert wants to make a move on Coach, but Albert knows that if he does and fails, then it's Albert's game who is going to end.

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 12 Thoughts

2011-11-30T21:45:00.002-05:00

For all of the expectations coming into this season, the one that was most turned on it's head was Coach failing again. No one expected Coach to turn into an inspirational leader who nobody wanted to turn on. And yet, here we are.

Coach's position can not be overstated here - this episode saw him be in a leadership position and somehow also end up being the swing vote between his current alliance and a new alliance of Albert, Cochran and Edna. The risk that he faced was destroying his end game.

On one hand, Coach could continue with his current alliance. It is the safe play by far. However, it also eliminates two players who are highly desireable to be sitting with you in the end of the game. And it also pisses off two people who have been blatently told they are going to be voted out 6 and 7, and they are not going to have a chance to make a change.

On the other hand, Coach could flip and create a final four alliance with Albert, Cochran and Edna. This sets up an obvious play of voting out Albert at 4, and getting the almost dream final three with Edna and Cochran. (The only better final three would involve Cochran and Brandon.)

Ultimately, Coach stuck with his alliance for one reason: To flip on his alliance could be death to his chances to win. If he flips, he would have pissed off 4 jury members (the members of Upolu that he sent to the jury.) His only chance would be to win over the 5 Savaii members on the jury, and that might have been a difficult sell. So it was better for him to stick with the plan and not risk cutting himself off from 4 potential votes.

Blindsides and alliance switching might be more exciting for us viewers, but it isn't always in the best interests of the players.

Survivor: South Pacific Final 7 (10) Power Rankings

2011-11-28T21:43:00.002-05:00

With the home stretch upon us, it's time to set up the remaining players for their chances of winning the game.

Long road ahead

10. Whitney
9. Dawn

It's tough when you are on Redemption Island, and you know that your only chance to win this game is to basically win out, and your first challenge is against one of the greatest challenge competitors in the history of Survivor. If they can get back into the game and somehow work their way into the final three, they will win. But those chances are very long.

Sorry, you still stand no chance

8. Cochran

I've already given my thoughts on Cochran's switch too many times to count. But after another 4 vote outs, it is obvious that Cochran can not win this game. Savaii are still pissed at him, and barring the other two members of the final three literally urinating on them during final tribal, Cochran can not win.

(And that's why his decision to not go to rocks was so infuriating. But it's not worth rehashing that argument.)

The absolute wild card

7. Ozzy

His path is the same as Whitney and Dawn's, with one difference - he's done it before at Cook Islands. This is obviously the scenario that Mark Burnett et al were imagining when they came up with Redemption Island and allowing Rob to return. We'll see if it will play out how they imagined it when they came up with this infernal twist.

Following Brett's path

6. Rick

How exactly does a Texan with a mustache like that get lost in the shuffle? I mean, his only contribution to this season is this:

It makes for a great gif, but not a winning season.

De-fault!

5. Edna

She is only ranked this high because there is a chance she can make the final three, and might not have upset that many people on the jury. Those votes have to land somewhere, and why not land on the inoffensive woman who was carried.

Do not consider this an endorsement

4. Brandon

He ranks this high because he's going to the final three. I doubt he's going to win, but his redemption story could bring in the votes.

(Really, I'm stretching here, but there is a definite divide between the true contenders and the pretenders.)

Overthinking things

3. Albert

The first true contender to win, Albert has done a good job in bringing attention to his attempts to change the game. And even failing at those attempts don't mean anything; heck, it won Sandra the game. But at the same time it has the attention of his tribemates, who might not appreciate somebody rocking the Upolu boat. If Cochran doesn't go this tribal council, there is a good chance it will be Albert. But if he does stay, his efforts to change the game might actually bear out a positive effect, and win him the game.

The silent assassin

2. Sophie

If she is allowed to make the final tribal council, she will win. She hasn't actively pissed anybody off, she has played a pretty strong strategic game, and she has won individual immunity at least twice. So the question is how will she be eliminated?

Don't call me Benjamin, call me champ

1. Coach

Coach has set himself up to be in the final three with many different pairings. And in many of them, he's set up to be the good guy of the final three, the person that everybody else will feel they have to argue against, instead of making their own positive arguments. Realistically, if he makes the final three the only way he loses is if he brings back Coach 1.0 for final tribal.

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 10 Thoughts

2011-11-16T23:30:00.000-05:00

I don't have too much to say abou this episode. Standard Pagonging continued, and now things get interesting. In theory, Cochran should be next to go, but this is probably the best opportunity to switch up the game.

What we are likely going to see is a game of chicken between Albert and Coach, with both daring the other to make the first move against the other. Albert is in a worse position since he can't directly strike against Coach, but needs to convince Coach that Coach the actual target to get the hidden immunity idol played.

With that said, there is also the chance that the six stay together and then split at five, setting up a final three alliance. Or the bottom two team up with the returning Redemption Island and force another rock situation and possibly somebody to flip to stay alive. No matter what ends up happening though, this is where Survivor nerds start to get excited.

(BTW, kudos to the producers for summarizing the Pagonging into two episodes. I realize that wasn't the intent with this episode; they were hoping that the last Savaii member would win immunity and force Upolu to scramble and show cracks in their alliance. But this is a satisfactory secondary result.)

* * *

What intrigued me most about this episode was Ozzy's statement that he was in the best position possible for him. And you know what? He's right.

The one thing about Redemption Island is that it is a boon for a strong challenge competitor. If you get sent there, you will be facing a narrower field with the competition getting progressively easier as you go along. When you get back into the game, you only have to win 3 immunity challenges in a row (or find out where everybody else stands and arrange some sort of flip.) And if you make it to final immunity, you have an easy story to sell a jury - that you outlasted and outplayed everybody in challenges. Combine that with a jury that has probably been screwed by the other people at final tribal, and you have an easy march to victory.

There's another reason why this helps Ozzy, though it's one that he will never admit to. By being at Redemption Island, it prevents Ozzy from trying to play a strategic game.

The only thing that Ozzy has gotten right in this game is that Cochran needed to be voted out. Beyond that, Ozzy was wrong to trust Cochran, wrong to trust Keith, wrong to have himself voted out and just wrong about most everything. Keeping him from playing the strategic game means that he can't make any more poor decisions; he can just concentrate on what he does well. Specifically, he can concentrate on feeding himself, and winning competitions. And who knows? Maybe Ozzy can pull a Fabio and win his way to a Survivor victory.

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 9 Thoughts

2011-11-09T20:52:00.003-05:00

When this season began, one of the major questions that everybody had was how would Brandon Hantz's play compare to his uncles. After 9 episodes, we now have a similarity between the two. Unfortunately for Brandon, the similarity is one that is fatal to his attempts to win the game.

When Russell first played the game, he was by far the best strategic mind in the game, and easily was the best strategic player. To this day, many people (myself included) believe he should have won Survivor: Samoa.

However, Russell had a horrendous social game. It wasn't enough for him to beat the other players. Instead, he had to remind those who he beat that he had beaten them, and outsmarted them. He also had to treat everybody who was against him as though they were garbage, and make that obvious as well. He made it uncomfortable to live in the camp, and thus difficult for people to want to vote him to win the game. In the end, this ended up biting him in the ass.

Brandon seemed to be playing a different game than his uncle. He wasn't a successful manipulative player, but he chose to eventually play with honesty, instead of deception. He favoured tribal unity than splintering the tribe so he can advance his own agenda. And most importantly, he seemed to favour not insulting others.

But this episode, we saw another side of Brandon. One that decided to laugh and insult Savaii, so that he can protect and stand up for his new friend Cochran. While this could almost be seen as admirable (wanting to defend a friend against the perceived bullies), it is also death to his chances to win a final tribal vote.

One of the things you need to be aware of when playing Survivor is how others perceive you. Most of the time, this is to make sure you know where you stand in the game and whether you need to scramble or make a move to improve your lot. But it is also important to know who you are perceived because these are the people who are going to decide whether you win or lose. You need to know if you need to mend fences, or if you need to possibly change your approach to them.

But even if you know where you stand, it won't matter if you do nothing to change that perception. Much like his uncle prior to him, Brandon seems to be revelling in tormenting the Savaii tribe while he has the advantage. And just like his uncle prior, Brandon will end up losing the game because he can't control himself when he has the advantage. More importantly, Brandon doesn't seem to comprehend how much damage he is doing to his chances to win the game.

So congratulations to Brandon and Cochran on making the final three. You would think both would be aware of how Russell Hantz blew two shots at $1 million, but instead they continue to make the same mistakes.

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 8 Power Rankings

2011-11-03T08:00:00.001-04:00

(Quick rankings this week.)

12. Keith (Last rank: 2)
11. Cochran (Last rank: 11)
10. Rick (Last rank: 9)
9. Ozzy (Last rank: 6)
8. Jim (Last rank: 1)
7. Whitney (Last rank: 3)
6. Dawn (Last rank: 7)
5. Brandon (Last rank: 12)
4. Edna (Last rank: 10)
3. Coach (Last rank: 8)
2. Sophie (Last rank: 4)
1. Albert (Last rank: 5)

Survivor South Pacific Episode 8 Thoughts

2011-11-02T21:03:00.003-04:00

My friend Gary and I have disagreed on Cochran's abilities as a player. Gary has felt that he is going to be a great player, while I don't see this at all. After this week, I think I've been proven correct. Cochran joined Survivor Africa's Brandon in the "most unnecessary move that will only piss off your own tribe and possibly end up getting you voted out next" group.

I understand where Cochran was coming from; why should he help a tribe that has continually pissed on him and treated him as an afterthough? He knows he is at the bottom of his tribe as well, so he needs to do something to improve his spot. Flipping on his tribe is so very tempting.

It's also the worst possible move he could make.

Let's look at what Cochran's move did:

Removed him from a 1/7 chance of being eliminated. This is the only positive of his move; he made sure that he would not be going to Redemption Island this tribal council. At the same time, it was a 1/7 chance. It wasn't a guarantee that he would get the boot.

Alienated his tribe. This is a big one, but it is not insurmountable. Presumably he would be able to jump to Upolu and join with them. With that said...

Jumped Cochran from being 6 in an alliance of 6 (and 3 in a sub-alliance of 3), to being 7 in an alliance of 7. You never want to move back in alliances - being 5th in an alliance of 5 is better than 6th in an alliance of 7. So just by numbers, Cochran worsened his position. It wouldn't be too hard for Savaii to approach Upolu and say "Let's just vote Cochran out this week; you still have the edge, it would help harmony around camp, and it would throw us a bone." Upolu can see him as being expendable, then vote him out.

Made himself look to be untrustworthy. This one is pretty simple - Cochran has shown that he is willing to turn on his own tribe, and didn't even immediately switch sides to Upolu, so why would somebody trust him?

Cochran threw away 5 jury votes. This is the big one. By turning on his tribe, he essentially guaranteed that he will not be getting jury votes from Savaii. They know he did not play the game too much at Savaii, and that he did nothing but save himself after the merge. Combine that with him screwing Savaii over and how do you think they are going to react to him?

In short, Cochran saved himself in the immediate, weakened his short and medium turn position, probably increased his chances of making it to Final Tribal Council and virtually killed his chances of winning the game. Not a bad day's work of destroying your game.

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 7 Thoughts

2011-10-27T00:15:00.001-04:00

Random thoughts scattered throughout the show...

The overestimation of Christine as a threat

First, let me say that this week's Redemption Island duel was probably the best one that they've done. Granted, that is damning with faint praise, but it was actually intriguing and not that obvious.

With that said, let's not pretend that Christine is some kind of threat here. She was won games of bean bag toss, shuffleboard and balancing idols. These are not your normal individual immunity challenges. Let's not mistake it for the real thing.

Also, Mikayla might have been a threat to win a challenge, but anybody else? Are you really betting on PapaBear, Stacey or Semhar on winning an individual challenge?

Christine has had a great run, but let's not put her in a position where she's a top player or anything.

What is with Survivor choosing bad movies for cross-promotion?

Last year was Gulliver's Travels, this year is Jack and Jill. A note for movie exectuives: do not cross promote on Survivor.

(BTW, good thing it wasn't Footloose - that would have been awkward for Whitney since she has a single on the soundtrack.)

Ozzy's dumb plan

Thinking Christine might go back to Upolu after being voted out is some major unawareness of what is going on. Last week Christine is giving Rick the finger. She has seen all of the outsiders get voted out of her tribe. Why would she want to go back to Upolu instead of helping Savaii for revenge? Not to mention the theory that the merge is coming is not guaranteed.

(BTW, what is with Ozzy and dumb Survivor moves? His first time around saw him throw a challenge for no good reason just to get rid of Billy Garcia. Fans vs. Favorites had him leaving an immunity idol in his pocket while getting voted out. And this time has him wanting to get voted out. I hope he doesn't play again, because I don't know how he tops this.)

Ozzy's meltdown

If Ozzy was willing to be voted out to save his tribe, that went out of the window after Cochran seemingly blew a challenge by himself. Super competitive Ozzie has returned, and with that he brought back the desire to have the strongest members on the tribe. Which means Cochran has to go.

Cochran's self denial of being "redeemed"

Cochran is smart. Getting voted out is never a smart plan, even if you still have a chance of coming back into the game. Even still, he should accept what his tribe is saying. They are trying to support him and build his confidence, which is something that he has definitely been lacking. That he refuses to accept this is his own problem.

Why doesn't he accept this rah-rah speech? Part of it is because he doesn't want to get voted out, without question. But another issue is that he has fluked out of getting voted out each other time Savaii has gone to Redemption Island. He seems to be under the impression each time Tribal Council comes along that it is him who is going to get voted out, then doesn't do anything about it. He has always been saved by somebody else, and doesn't have the feeling that he has done anything to further his game. Redemption Island might have actually been better for him, to make him think that he can be an actual relevant player, instead of an incidental player while others actually play the game.

Ozzy's dumb plan, redux

But wait! Ozzy had a dream, y'all, and it's his time for redemption. He even compares it to his gut feeling about not playing the hidden immunity idol during Fans vs. Favorites, as though that is a positive thing. To compound his stupid plan, ozzy seems to think that it would be a good idea to paint Cochran as the villain, and somehow plant him in the other tribe as a double agent. What the hell are you thinking? And then, just to put a cherry on top, you give Cochran the idol? What in the sweet blue hell are you thinking?

I could list the many different ways that this is the dumbest thing move that Ozzy has ever made, but it would be redundant. If there are Survivor gods out there, it's pretty obvious that Ozzy is going to lose, and Cochran is going to screw over Savaii with the hidden immunity idol. But at the same time, the Survivor gods like a good redemption story as well. Maybe it's time for Ozzy to come out looking good from one of his silly plans.

At least this season has been interesting.

(Programming note: Due to my vacation, no power rankings this week - if there were going to be any major changes from last week, it would be Savaii dropping, while Upolu rising.)

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 6 Power Rankings

2011-10-20T01:00:00.000-04:00

I don't know how you do it

14. Christine (Last Rank: 15)

Who knew that Christine would end up being the Matt of this season? I mean, she's only going to end up coming back into the game in an okay position if Upolu and Savaii are close numbers. But at the same time, she's still an easy out for both teams should they desire.

13. Mikayla (Last Rank: 6)

I still don't understand how she's on Redemption Island - that Rick could not see that Edna's only value is to Coach is disappointing. Loyalty is important - however, loyalty to the fringes of your alliance is futile.

Feeling a bit warm under your seat?

12. Brandon (Last Rank: 14)

I can't criticize Brandon's game play any more; it is awful, but we all know it's awful. He's playing the game his way, which is fine. Just don't expect him to have a coherent strategy.

11. Cochran (Last Rank: 12)

Cochran better hope that Jim can save him from getting voted out if Savaii loses another challenge.

10. Edna (Last Rank: 11)

Edna is the next to go if Brandon doesn't. Period.

9. Rick (Last Rank: 9)

As I mentioned above, voting out of loyalty to a non-core member of your alliance is just dumb.

8. Coach (Last Rank: 10)

The bad Coach showed up this episode. The one that was bossy, controlling and transparent in his intentions. This is going to kill any chance he has to win his game.

7. Dawn (Last Rank: 12)

Her story is ultimately going to stop her from being able to win the game. Nobody is going to want to bring her to the end.

6. Ozzy (Last Rank: 4)

Ozzy caved far too soon on the free agent angle. He could have played it to not be voted out next tribal without using his idol. But that would have involved him having to think of a bit more subtle strategy.

5. Albert (Last Rank: 5)

Albert is in an awkward spot - he is second in command to Coach, but his name is out there as a target. If he makes it to the end, he has to somehow show that he was running the show, not Coach. That is a giant mountain to climb.

4. Sophie (Last Rank: 8)

The biggest jump - she is perfectly positioned right now in multiple ways. She can be the "safe" vote in a final tribal council where everybody hatest eh other competitors. She can orchestrate a mutiny if she feels it necessary. She has a lot of options, many of which she does not need to explore for a while.

3. Whitney (Last Rank: 2)
2. Keithe (Last Rank: 1)

The power couple needs to worry about the Jim/Cochran/Dawn alliance making a move to break them up. There is a chance that Savaii will try to break up that couple just before any potential merge.

1. Jim (Last Rank: 7)

Welcome back Jim. Your shifting of alliances has left you running the show. So long as it doesn't go to your head, you could ride this very far.

Who knew old home movies could be so cool

2011-10-17T19:48:00.003-04:00

Getting ready for a trip to Vegas, and on a Message board I frequent these videos were posted. They're of the strip circa 1987 and 1993...

In this second video, take particular note of the Stardust. That it ended up being imploded and not kept around is a shame.

This video is great for the look at the current MGM Grand's initial interior

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 5 Live Thoughts

2011-10-12T20:12:00.007-04:00

While I understand why Coach is concerned about being fingered as the leader of his tribe, I'm not sure why everybody else on his tribe was so concerned about this being revealed. I get Albert being angry about being put out as a ringleader, but why is everybody concerned about Coach being revealed? If anything, it's an advantage to have somebody else being the target - it gives you an opportunity to play and improve your situation!

I AM FLIP-FLOPPING ON ELYSE! FLIP-FLOPPING! Following Ozzy's lead, mocking Cochran? Not good for your situation.

I AM FLIP-FLOPPING ON OZZY! Get rid of yoru right hand man pre-merge? WTF? Jim rightly jumps on this as a selling point for Keith to get rid of Elyse (though why not just vote Ozzy out?)

I actually like Albert's move to share it with Sophie and Coach - both are likely to reciprocate his trust, and it further solidifies their alliance.

And hey, how about the new idol rules working like they wanted?

Oh god, they're now referring to Cochran as Cochran on the names at the bottom of the screen.

Ozzy does make a point about fishing taking a lot of someone. With that said, Cochran is also right to say not to too cocky Ozzy.

What is up with Jim's open mouth chewing pantomime?

I have no clue what the best strategy would be to get as much meat off the pig. Small bites and fill up your mouth?

Oh god the in basket camera shot is the most horrifici thing I have seen on Survivor?

Wait, why couldn't Ozzy carry the entire pig with him?

I should have seen that result coming - with Jeff's build up about how these tribes are the closest matched ever, a win by 2 oz, makes sense.

And who really would want to eat the meat that had been transported to the basket?

Every time I think things are in place, Cochran starts opening his mouth about getting oral herpes from that challenge. Come on Cochran, get yoru head in the game. Stop saying stupid things.

Jim worked Keith, uh, not so strong. Then Keith comes up with the other issue - is causing Ozzy to not trust them worth splitting up Elyse and Ozzy?

More importantly, why can't they vote Cochran, then vote Elyse afterwards? This feels like a play that should come closer to the merge.

Cochran making light of the injuries is not good. Then Jeff nails him with the constant Cochran narrative and obsessing point. Not a good time for the Cochran rally.

I'm shocked tha Jim of all people is the one with the awareness to know that voting somebody out, even if strategic, hurts.

I'm predicting Cochran gets voted out 4-3.

("Coch-train"? How did that make it to air?)

Well Keith, you and Whitney are now the power couple with a brilliant play. Elyse getting voted out 3-2-2 is madness.

When you have to sell something...

2011-10-10T10:28:00.003-04:00

Alan Hirsch has a piece on FrumForum about the accuracy of Moneyball. Since he's written a book that was critical of Moneyball (writing a critique of a book 10 years after it's focus to say it did not work in recent years - how does that teach us anything of what happened when it was applied?) In it he brings out all of the usual tired canards about how Moneyball failed - Jeremy Brown failed so Billy Beane couldn't draft, the A's success was driven by the top three starters Beane inherited, etc. But Hirsch took another usual line a bit too far:

One exception, the Minnesota Twins, has succeeded for the better part of two decades while explicitly disavowing the tactics trumpeted by Moneyball.

While I'm sure he chose the two decades time range to include the 1991 World Series champions, it doesn't help the argument too much. Here's the yearly record for the Twins from 1991 to 2000:

1991: 95-67 (win World Series)
1992: 90-72
1993: 71-91
1994: 53-60
1995: 56-88
1996: 78-84
1997: 68-94
1998: 70-92
1999: 63-97
2000: 69-93

What's also lost in this is that in 1991, the Twins signed Jack Morris as a free agent, acting decidely as not a small market team. Using the Twins as a proxy to show that the "old fashioned way" of constructing a team works is a normal reaction; pointing to the 90s as an example of this is just baffling.

(The Twins would not make the playoffs again until 2002, which is the focus of the Moneyball movie and book. That year the Athletics tied for the best record in the American League.)

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 4 Power Rankings

2011-10-06T08:00:00.001-04:00

Reunited for one night

16. Stacey (Last week: 14)
15. Christine (Last week: 16)

I have to admit to being impressed with both Christine and Stacey this week. Stacey's recognition that her best way of not being voted out was to make somebody else the target was smart; her choosing of Brandon to feed bad information to was genius.

Christine has turned out to be a great competitor in these duels. I don't know that she'll be able to keep it up, but she has proved to be better in them than I thought.

In a bit of a predicament

14. Brandon (Last week: 15)

I feel bad for Brandon. The more we learn about him, the more it becomes obvious that he should have never played the game in the first place. He obviously has issues that he needs to work through, some of which specifically come from his uncle's appearances on Survivor. I'm sure that at the time it seemed like a good idea for him to play, and he was caught up in the Russell fever. But as the time goes on it is more difficult for him to play, and for us as viewers to continue to watch. For everybody's well being, it's probably best if he gets voted out soon.

13. Dawn (Last week: 13)
12. John (Last week: 12)

They are showing signs of friskiness, having some sort of working agreement with Jim. But I fear it is too little, too late. Congrats to Dawn for winning the immunity challenge though; there is a chance that she has moved ahead of Cochran in the pecking order.

Everybody else

11. Edna (Last week: 11)
10. Coach (Last week: 10)

Just when you thought the old Coach was gone, he pulls a stunt like he did after the votes were counted. You thought that Stacey, the easily annoyed person who was just voted out of your tribe, would appreciate a group hug Coach? Wow.

9. Rick (Last week: 9)

Congrats to Rick for getting to say something in this episode, even if it was just that Albert snores.

8. Sophie (Last week: 8)

7. Jim (Last week: 5)

Jim falls this week, but if he pulls off the alliance switch, he will shoot up the ranks again.

6. Mikayla (Last week: 7)
5. Albert (Last week: 6)

Yay for inertia!

4. Ozzy (Last week: 4)

Precariously holding on to a decent spot, Ozzy is showing signs of not being Boston Rob. He is losing Jim, and has Keith and Whitney wary of the game he is playing. He needs to commit to being the puppet master, or just let somebody else take the lead on his alliance. He is lookng incredibly shifty right now.

3. Elyse (Last week: 2)

Survivor is a delicate balance at times. If you do not converse with someone on a frequent basis, you are pegged as an outsider and become a target; if you talk too much to someone, you are put into an alliance with them and then become a target. Elyse is in a second boat, and might not be aware she is in that boat.

2. Whitney (Last week: 3)
1. Keith (Last week: 1)

Keith and Whitney are in the driver seat. They have information that the rest of the tribe does not, and they are being wooed by both sides of a divide. The key is that they need to make the best decision for them going forward. I suspenct it would be to go with Ozzy and Elyse, as they would be equals in that alliance, and Ozzy would still be the main target of the other tribe. Either way, their decision will have a lasting impact ont he game.

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 4 Thoughts

2011-10-05T21:32:00.002-04:00

The Cochran/Jim/Dawn alliance should count themselves lucky that Savaii won immunity this week. If they tried to go through with their plan to get rid of Elyse, it would have went down in flames and left Jim to scramble to save face.

It's a good move for Jim to be thinking about his place in the "3+2" alliance. He knows that somebody is going to be outside of a core group of four, and he can see that it's him. So he wants to turn his problem into an advantage, and he sees his chance to turn the game on it's head in the outsiders. The outsiders (Dawn and Cochran) naturally welcome this opportunity.

Just one thing: Where is the 4th vote coming from?

We can safely eliminate Elyse as a fourth vote. We can also eliminate Ozzy, since his actions are what made Dawn want to turn in the first place. That leaves Keith and Whitney as possible targets.

Both Keith and Whitney have reasons to strike against Ozzy, as they know he has a hidden immunity idol. But why would they strike against Elyse?

Just as importanly, how can they be approached to flip? Jim couldn't approach them unless he is fully committed to making Cochran and Dawn his main alliance and then dealing with the consequences. So strike him. If Cochran and/or Dawn approach them in a situation where Savaii was going to tribal council, it would come across as a desperate attempt to save themselves for another day, and would probably be laughed off.

But now, with Savaii having immunity, they can attempt to sway Whitney and Keith to swing to their side and have it seem less desperate. They have a few days to make a better effort to convince the two, and can point out things going on between Elyse and Ozzy. Heck, that could lead to the vote bouncing to Ozzy getting voted out.

Jim's key is that he can not be involved in any of the swaying of Keith and Whitney, or else Keith and Whitney could go back to Ozzy and Elyse to get Jim out of the game and solidify their alliance with Ozzy and Elyse.

The key to making a big move isn't actually making it, it's know when the time is right. For Jim/Cochran and Dawn, the time isn't right.

Survivor: South Pacific Week 3 Power Rankings

2011-09-29T08:00:00.001-04:00

On an island all alone

17. ~~Mark~~Papa Bear (Last week: 12)

Remember the heady days when everybody loved Papa Bear? Lose a challenge or two and that love goes away quickly.

You can run, but you can't hide

16. Christine (Last week: 17)

She's probably going to last another week, but somebody better than Papa Bear or Semhar will becoming to Redemption Island soon enough, and that will be the end to her time on Survivor.

Still keep an eye out

15. Brandon (Last week: 15)

I can't think of anybody having a more disasterous 3 days without being voted out. Making your alliance distrust you, having a meltdown in front of the entire tribe, and revealing that you are related to one fo the most distrusted players of all time? All that was missing was an injury that could keep Brandon in the game, but prevent him from being effective in any challenge.

14. Stacey (Last week: 16)
13. Dawn (Last week: 13)

12. John (Last week: 14)

John moves up this week because he dodged getting voted out again, and we're reaching a point where a 5 alliance could splinter. He could be a swing vote.

11. Edna (Last week: 11)
10. Coach (Last week: 10)

9. Rick (Last week: 8)
8. Sophie (Last week: 9)

Sophie and Rick flip because Sophie seems to be more of a confidant for Coach, while Rick remains as invisible as possible for a man with as impressive of a mustache as he possesses.

7. Mikayla (Last week: 7)

Here's her chance to get into the Coach alliance - Brandon has given her an easy entry.

6. Albert (Last week: 6)

5. Jim (Last week: 2)

The shake up begins! Jim slides because he definitely seems to be on the fringe of the 3+2 alliance. His voting for Cochran instead of Papa Bear could be due to a vote split that we weren't privy to, but if it isn't, Jim is in a lot of trouble.

4. Ozzy (Last week: 1)

It's tough to move Ozzy down, but he didn't look that good in the challenge, and people are starting to get the blindside thought in their head now that they know he has the hidden immunity idol. Somebody (Cochran) is going to decide that they need to make a bold move, and that will end up being the death of Ozzy.

3. Whitney (Last week: 4)
2. Elyse (Last week: 3)
1. Keith (Last week: 5)

Keith seems to have his own alliance with Whitney, and tangentally with Elyse. He has Ozzy's trust, but also knows his biggest secret and can act on it whenever he wants. It's surprising, but at the same time Dawn and Jim might have been telling the truth - the alliances could be fluid.

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 3 Thoughts

2011-09-29T00:30:00.000-04:00

Today I'm going to riff off of some the quotes from this episode, and hopefully cover the bigger events and stories to come out of it. To begin:

- "I don't know what happened at tribal. I think my tribe was not ready for someone who wanted to play the game right out of the box."
and
- "I don't think Coach liked me at all"
and
- "He's a big fat pain in the ass"
and
- "He's had it out for me from the beginning and he was going to do whatever it to took to take me out. And he succeeded."

Then later:

- "Coach Wade, you know, he didn't like me from the beginning. I just articulated what everybody else was saying."

Christine, your self awareness is unbelievable. You acknowledge that Coach might have been gunning for you because you immediately declared him to be the enemy, but try to put the blame on everybody else for your actions. Much later on at tribal council, Cochran laid out the other part of Christine's game that was poor:

- "I just think you have to weigh the pros and cons of searching for the idol. It makes you look very suspicious and it makes you look like you don't trust everyone else on your tribe. It's all about fostering a culture of trust in the tribe, and searching for an individual immunity idol is not necessarily the best way to avoid the chopping block."

Christine doesn't get it. It's not her tribe that was the problem, IT WAS HER! The single most important thing you can do in the first days of the game is not alienate yourself from the tribe. She did that even before the tribe was fully formed, and continued to do it while the tribe was starting to get together as a team. That's why she's at Redemption Island, and if she doesn't come to the necessary conclusion, she's out once she gets back into the game.

- "I'm hoping that I'll pull a Matt and pull a run here and get back in."

The irony is that Christine doesn't remember that Matt came back to immediately alienate himself from his tribe and get voted out again.

- "There isn't anything that I wouldn't do for this man/I would even take off my clothes and give him a private show to the tune of his soul..."

Does Semhar only have one spoken word piece?

- "Semhar, your adventure has come to the end. It's time to go."

Only included because this might be the new Jeff Probst catch phrase.

- "I came into this game not wanting to be like my Uncle Russell and his reputation he has of being a villain on Survivor. I wanted to be a hero, I wanted to be someone you could look up to. I'm guilty, completely guilty of the way that I acted and I reap what I sow."

- "I don't want to lie any more. I don't want to play games any more with these people."
- "I really wanted to take off my shirt really bad."

- "You say you don't want to lie, but you keep on doing it. I think it's an easy out for him. You do something bad 'Guys I told you that's not me.'"
- "So maybe he's trying to cover his tracks before he makes them. But I don't trust him. I think he's a sneak. I don't understand what's his problem with me."

- "I'm Brandon Hantz. I love God. I love Jesus Christ and I shouldn't be ashamed that I'm a different person than my uncle."

The Brandon No Last Name saga motored on, with Brandon admitting to everybody that he's Russell Hantz's nephew. It was accepted better than I thought, though it has definitely has his tribe on edge. It probably shouldn't have been said, as it has given his tribe an excuse to vote him out.

- "A mistake in my opinion. But he needed to get it off his chest and you know, that shows Brandon's age a little bit. He lets things get to him and weigh him down."

Coach hits at the heart of the matter, which is preventing Brandon from succeeding at the game. His inability to get shrug things off ends up hurting him in the game of Survivor. The conflict that Brandon feels whenever he makes any sort of move that isn't pure and honourable will end up being the end of his game. I don't know that it is completely dependent on his age though; his faith also plays a part in this conflict.

- "...I think Keith and I have a brother type thing going on. There's gotta be a certain point I have to trust somebody with the knowledge that I have the idol. And who better than Keith?"
- "I just think he's going to be a strong ally, and as far as I know he's extremely trustworthy."

A note to all future Survivor players: The whole point of a hidden immunity idol is that IT IS SECRET! OTHERS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU HAVE IT!

- "Ozzy found it."
"You sure?"
"Yup."
"100% positive?"
"Yup."
"He told you?"
"Yup."
"[explicitive]"
"Yup."
"I'm kinda surprised he told you."
"He has to tell me. Because he has a lot of power."
"Right."

- "So I told Whitney because I wanted her to trust me just in case something happens down the line when I needed the numbers if I thought Ozzy might be making a move."

- "We've got to be careful about it because he doesn't know that I told you."

And now we have the side effect of telling somebody you have an idol - they can tell more people. A Whitney/Keith sub-alliance is interesting, especially if they bring Elyse in. It certainly puts Ozzy in an awkward position.

- "Why don't you like me?"
"Because of this. The attitude."

- "Before me doing anything people didn't trust you. It's not just me."

- "As a Christian, I am supposed to be meek, I'm supposed to turn the other cheek."
- "But I'm telling you as a man I wanted you out of this game. Very bad. But when she walked up to me the way she did, I was very upset. But what I'm trying to explain to her because she's wondering why I want to vote her out. You might want to look around and see who's really loyal and who's really not. Because it sounds like to me, you don't have really much of an alliance. Period. Anybody else have anything to say?"

Brandon's meltdown continues. Apparently being meek like a Christian means that you passive aggressively attack somebody who you disagree with (in this case, Mikayla, who was driven to tears.)

- "I think Brandon is really torn right now between following whatever crazy religious beliefs he has and yet at the same time he inherently in his bloodline is a devious jerk."

Sophie summarizes Brandon's predicament pretty well.

- "It's a different kind of aggression than Russell had, but it's an aggression none the less."

Then Coach one ups her with a fair comparison to Russell.

- "Ozzy's lost his boat, opening the door for Upolu."

Jeff comments on Ozzy's mess up at the challenge, which ultimately ended up losing his tribe the challenge. That leads us to...

- "We're going to tribal council tonight and we've got to vote somebody off and that means cutting people who aren't really that good at challenges."
- "It's basically between Papa Bear and Cochran."

Are we sure that Ozzy is that good at challenges? Even the challenge that he won wasn't necessarily him winning it - he had the help of his tribe as well. This could end up being a Boston Rob situation, only without the puzzle solving skills. In which case, Ozzy is an a lot of trouble.

- "Are you nervous about tonight? Do you have butterflies in your stomach?"
"I think I have gas."

An amusing exchange between Cochran and Papa Bear.

- "If I go tonight then you go tomorrow. If you go tonight then I go tomorrow."

- "We are up [explicitive]'s creek."

Papa Bear is already deciding to go it alone, instead of trying to rally support to his side. It's not horrible strategy since there's two other targets available. At the same time, it doesn't help the underlying problem of him being on the outside looking in.

- "I know a lot of people view [Redemption Island] as a chance to get back in the game. I view it as a chance for, you know, extended failure and just more depression. So I might do some last minute scrambling. The problem is that I already have this reputation as the nervous neurotic scrambler. If I resurrect that before another tribal council I think it's going to hurt me. (sigh) I so want to go home."

Cochran understands the predicament that he's in, which is great. If he's learned that it probably helps to play things a bit more low key, it will help his game in the long run.

(BTW, I don't buy his "want to go home" crack as anything more than a lament for how tough the game is. He's a Survivor geek; he knows that quitters are essentially pariahs.)

- "I'm going to the shelter and Papa Bear goes into a dead sprint from the woods to the water. And Papa Bear doesn't spring. Ever. And so I'm like 'Did you all just see that?'"

- "The best thing I can do is make them think I have an idol, play them and hopefully they will vote for John. I'm going to play it like I found it. I'm not going to show them."

Somebody needs to tell Papa Bear that the fake idol trick never works; inevitably somebody has already found the idol to prove you wrong, or they can easily figure out that you are acting the role of having the idol.

(Even though it seems like everybody is trying to tell everybody else they have the idol, everybody assumes that people are going to be secretive and cagey about whether they have the idol. Call it the Hidden Idol Paradox.)

- "I don't need to worry about it because I'm in the three. You need to worry about it because you're going to be in the five."

I don't get Papa Bear's point is here - is he talking about a hidden immunity idol.

- "It's a tool. Playing an idol at this level is really only getting you three more days. But that's what Survivor is all about - surviving from day to day."

Jim gets the idea about how best to use an immunity idol. He also seems to be paranoid about the idol being used, hence why he was the only one to vote for Papa Bear. But why did Papa Bear vote for Jim instead of Cochran, who would seem to be next in line to be voted out? Hopefully somebody explores this during Papa Bear's exit interview.

Today's wacky web story

2011-09-28T19:38:00.002-04:00

Batman Villains Pyschoanalyzed by Mental Health Experts

UFC 135 Thoughts

2011-09-25T15:15:00.000-04:00

After UFC 133, I was wondering if the Rashad Evans/Tito Ortiz fight really taught us anything. My theory was that Rashad beating a quick-returning Tito Ortiz really didn't show us anything - Rashad is assumed to be a much better fighter than Ortiz, Ortiz was just returning after 4 weeks from his previous fight, and Ortiz was only fighting after 2 1/2 weeks notice. We would have learned more if Rashad did not finish Ortiz. But my pal GG of Fight Game Blog responded in a tweet saying "Rashad could give Jones a little more trouble than I originally thought."

After tonight I get what he means.

I mentioned in my preview post that Jon Jones really hadn't been tested by competition as of yet. Tonight did not really change that. While Rampage Jackson might be the toughest opponent that Jon Jones has faced, it really wasn't a difficult fight for him. Jackson has a definitive style (straight ahead striking, preferably from up close) that you can counter; he's not going to bring a varied game plan at all. With Jones being in the Greg Jackson camp, bringing a straightforward, one tone style to a Jon Jones fight is an easy way to lose.

What Rashad Evans brings to a table is a style that is difficult to imitate. Much like Jones, Evans' strikes come at you from unusual angles and levels. Evans is also a very good wrestler; Jones will also have to worry about the threat of being taken down. These are two things that Jones has never had to deal with in any other fight. For him to deal with one would be interesting; to deal with two in the same fight will likely produce the definitive statement on how good Jon Jones is.
***
Tonight also saw what seems to be the end of Matt Hughes' career. Age has forced a changing of the guard; instead of Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture and Matt Hughes, the faces of the UFC are Georges St. Pierre, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva and Brock Lesnar.

What stays constant though is the UFC brand. The brilliance of Dana White and the Fertitta brothers was their decision to push UFC ahead of individual fighters, and to take advantage of the UFC name to equate MMA with UFC. When people talk about fighting, it is normally referred to as Ultimate Fighting or UFC. MMA is not mentioned by the general sports media.

This equality allowed UFC to build a monopoly of sorts, and to own the market. It also lets them weather losing their old stars, and create new stars.
***
My predictions ended up being 8-2, putting my record for the year at 78-40-2. My theoretical wagers ended up winning me $29.50 (thanks Mark Hunt!), putting my winnings for the year at $103.30.

UFC 135 Predictions

2011-09-24T14:00:00.000-04:00

Preliminary bouts (Facebook):

Ricardo Romero over James Te-Huna

Wager: $10 on Ricardo Romero at 2.35 odds to win $27

Takeya Mizugaki over Cole Escovedo
Junior Assuncao over Eddie Yagin

Wager: $10 on Junior Assuncao at 2.20 odds to win $22

Preliminary bouts (Spike):

Tim Boetch over Nick Ring

Aaron Riley over Tony Ferguson

Call this a hunch pick - Ferguson probably should win, but Riley is a difficult and unique opponent.

Main card:

Nate Diaz over Takanori Gomi
Travis Browne over Rob Broughton

Mark Hunt over Ben Rothwell

This is officially the dumbest prediction I have ever made. But Ryan Fredrick explains the logic behind the pick well. Basically, if you take Hunt down, you will win. However, Rothwell is essentially the heavyweight version of Yoshihiro Akiyama. Rothwell refuses to use his greatest strength - his wresting - to win. So Hunt will probably end up with another knockout victory.

As I said, the dumbest prediction I have ever made.

Wager: $10 on Mark Hunt to win at 3.75 odds to return $37.50

Josh Koscheck over Matt Hughes

Diego Sanchez has to be angry that he had to pull out of this fight. For whatever reason, the Hughes name still holds a lot of value as a name on a resume, even though he is no longer an elite fighter, or even at the level just lower than that. And with the Diaz/GSP fiasco giving Carlos Condit the next title shot, there was an outside chance that Sanchez could have gotten the next title shot.

Instead, Koscheck returns from the hellacious beating GSP laid on him to instead get to face Hughes and prove that he is at that level behind GSP. Koscheck is very low on the list of title contenders thanks to his poor performance against GSP, but should GSP lose the title or the other contenders fail, he is in a spot where he can get the title shot.

I expect Koscheck to win, and to stop the fight by knockout.

Lightheavyweight Title: Jon Jones over Quentin "Rampage" Jackson

Ryan Pike has a great piece on how the Lightheavyweight division is truly the division of death. The title has changed hands in every title fight since Rampage Jackson unified the UFC and Pride LHW titles, save the first Machida/Rua fight where most people felt that the champion lost the fight.

But this time is supposed to be different; Jon Jones legitimately feels like a phenom. How somebody is going to beat him is really unknown, mostly because Jones has looked like a dominant fighter in every fight we have seen him in. What gets lost in this is that Jones has only fought one top 10 fighter in Shogun Rua, and really hasn't been tested in any way. We don't know how he will react to being hit by a hard strike, nor do we know how he will react to being put in a position to defend against a submission.

Rampage Jackson is not going to test Jones' submission defenses, but he can test Jones' ability to take a shot. I think he will throw some bombs early on, but Jones will weather it and wait for Jackson to tire before taking over the fight. I don't know if Jones will finish the fight, but he will win the fight.

Survivor: South Pacific Week 2 Power Rankings

2011-09-22T08:00:00.002-04:00

Well, somebody has to win

18. Semhar (Last week: 18)

I have to give credit where it's due - coming up with a poem on the spot like Semhar did takes a fair bit of creativity and smarts. Kudos to her for that.

(This is where somebody points ou that it was a poem that she had already written.)

17. Christine (Last week: 17)

On more piece of lack of awareness on Christine's part: you don't need to wake up Semhar to announce your presence.

Watch your back. Your front too.

16. Stacey (Last week: 13)

The only thing that Stacey now has going for her is the knowledge that she is the next target. That desperation might make her play harder and get her out of her predicament. Or it might make her look for the hidden immunity idol and miss it, even though it is staring her in the face.

15. Brandon (Last week: 15)

Short of being sent to Redemption Island, I don't know how this episode could have gone any worse for Brandon.

14. John (Last week: 16)
13. Dawn (Last week: 14)

John and Dawn are in the same boat, having been identified as being week the first time they went to tribal council. Normally, this would mean that you would have to find your own alliance to protect you. But in this case, the alpha males have teamed together for their own greater good. Barring some sort of miracle, these two are the next ones to go.

12. ~~Mark~~Papa Bear (Last week: 7)

Through no real fault of his own, Mark gets dropped significantly. He probably stands the best chance of creating his own alliance to face Ozzy/Jim/Keith head on, but there's a good chance that he will end up being blindsided by his getting voted out.

11. Edna (Last week: 10)

Just too wishy-washy and unable to tell the simplest of lies to cover her own tracks. She easily could have name dropped Mikayla to Christine and Stacey and saved herself from being not trusted.

10. Coach (Last week: 13)

Coach knows Brandon's secret; howhe uses that knowledge could make or break his game this season.

9. Sophie (Last week: 9)
8. Rick (Last week: 8)

7. Mikayla (Last week: 6)

Mikayla is in an interesting spot, as she is going to be kept for being the strongest woman, but she has somebody gunning for her. She should be able to play this into replacing Brandon in the Coach alliance (aside: how does this not have a name yet?) She just needs to point out that Brandon is not the most stable of players, while she can be trusted to vote the right way and not rock the boat. I just don't know if she is going to make that connection or not.

6. Albert (Last week: 5)

Albert's standing up for Coach at tribal council was somewhat interesting in that it was a targetted attack against Christine and Stacey. I liked seeing the fire, and I think it will end up being a footnote in the season, but I hope that it was a rare occurance for Albert. If not, it could be a much shorter stay than expected.

5. Keith (Last week: 11)

Join a power alliance of three, jump up the list. Pretty simple.

4. Whitney (Last week: 4)
3. Elyse (Last week: 3)

Might actually be in a better position in their alliance, as being the odd people out makes it easier to flip if it becomes necessary.

2. Jim (Last week: 2)

I wasn't sure if Jim was going to go down the Marty path and make it his mission to get Ozzy out of the game. Jim obviously understands Ozzy's value to the tribe and himself as a human shield to absorb votes when things get to a merge. What Jim needs to make sure is that he doesn't get caught up in thinking he's leading his alliance; if he does, then hubris will strike with all its fury.

1. Ozzy (Last week: 1)

Between setting up an alliance of people who are willing to accept him as a fellow player, and his finding of a hidden immunity idol, Ozzy is playing a Boston Rob-lite game so far. So I'm sure that next week I'll end up writing something aobut how their games are dissimiliar.

BTW, wasn't the point of hiding clues to find the immunity idol to make it even more difficult to find the actual idol? How does Ozzy of all people find it so quickly?

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 2 Thoughts

2011-09-22T01:45:00.001-04:00

One of the most underrated characteristics for a Survivor player to have is awareness. Being aware of where you stand in your tribe is incredibly important obviously, but having the self-awareness to know what your weaknesses are and how to minimize them is. This episode we saw players struggle with awareness to the point of it hurting their games.

Brandon wants to play the game with integrity and honesty. His problem is that he had to come into the game by playing with deception, to not reveal that he is Russell Hantz's nephew. His inability to acknowledge that there are times when you have to be deceptive has severely hindered his game - he could easily be sacrificed should it become necessary, especially if the tribe goes on a long losing streak. As well, he still seems unhealthily obsessed with voting out Mikayla. We haven't gotten a good reason for this yet, but the implication seems to be that Brandon does not trust himself to stay faithful to his wife. He seems perfectly unaware that the rest of the tribe is looking at him oddly. If he's unable to come to grips with these major issues, he will end up with a short time on Survivor.

John had a better episode this week, but he's still in the same boat as last week. He talks too much, and seems incapable of stopping it. Unlike the others, John seems to understand that this is a definite weakness and something that he needs to control, but he has not changed yet. If he follows with his change in his work ethic around camp, he should be in a better spot. Then again, he seems to be unknowingly on the outs with the dominant alliance on his tribe, so any demonstrated self-control might not matter.

Christine wasn't lacking self-awareness this episode, but she seemed to be blindsided by the fact that she was the target to be voted out. She lacked the awareness right off the bat to know that calling out another player before even meeting them was a mistake, and that searching for an immunity idol instead of trying to form bonds with her tribe would only serve to further isolate her from the rest of the tribe.

To go even further, she lacked the awareness to know that when there is a group of 5 or 6 people talking at once, and they stop talking once you appear, THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU! And that goes double when somebody involved in the conversation comes over to you and can't even look you in the eye, let alone give you a straight answer. Heck, she and Stacey seemed to lack the awareness of where each other was thinking of voting, with Stacey inexplicably voting for Edna (whose name had never come up in voting discussion) instead of Mikayla (who they at least knew somebody was targetting.)

Awareness does work the other way as well - Ozzy's observation that there was a rock way up high in a tree led him to the hidden immunity idol. As well, his and Keith's instincts were correct to attempt to work with Jim; they didn't even need to propose it, as Jim was kick to ask them to work with him. This also lets them lead Jim to believe that he is actually running the show, while they can work behind the scenes to actually control everything.

Knowing where everybody stands in the game of Survivor is a key to being able to win the game. At a minimum, you must know where you stand. But not only that, you must know yourself - your strengths and weaknesses, what might help you to advance your game, and what might hurt your game. Today was just another example of why awareness is so important in Survivor.

Quick NFL Week 2 Picks

2011-09-18T08:00:00.003-04:00

Buffalo (-3) over Oakland
Detroit (-8) over Kansas City
Baltimore (-6) over Tennessee
Cleveland (-2.5) over Indianapolis
Minnesota (-3) over Tampa Bay
Chicago (+7) over New Orleans
New York Jets (-9.5) over Jacksonville
Pittsburgh (-14.5) over Seattle
Washington (-3.5) over Arizona
Green Bay (-10) over Carolina
San Francisco (+3) over Dallas
Cincinatti (+4) over Denver
Houston (-3) over Miami
San Diego (+7) over New England
Philadelphia (-2.5) over Atlanta
St. Louis (+6) over New York Giants

Bonus Survivor Pick: Pittsburgh

(Last week I was 6-8-2 and my Survivor pick won.)

Survivor: South Pacific Week 1 Power Rankings

2011-09-15T08:00:00.002-04:00

If you end up surviving one RI Duel, I'll be shocked

18. Semhar (Last week: 16)

There is something to be said for stepping up and saying that you can do something in a competition. The key is that you need to actually succeed in what you do. Semhar did not in any way, and if her getting tired by throwing flipping coconuts, she will not survive the Duel.

Don't get too comfortable

17. Christine (Last week: 17)

Playing the game way too fast is an easy way to get voted out early. By looking for the immunity idol instead of forming bonds with her tribe, Christine put a huge target on her back. Throw in that she said that stupid thing in the start about Coach being a "temporary player" and she is in a lot of trouble. She needs to either have her tribe put together an immunity streak to let her actions slide, or to quickly make up for her very poor start.

(BTW, if Chris can be derived from your name, you seem to be drawn to the idea to find an idol immediately.)

16. John (Last week: 12)

Another way to become a target? Talk way too much. John performed poorly in the challenge, was self-conscious around the tribe and talked about how poor he performed. He needs to start lying low and contributing to the tribe.

In all honesty, you would think that somebody who has watched every Survivor episode would know this. John apparently did not learn this.

15. Brandon (Last week: 15)

Brandon is doing everything right, but in having to hide his tattoos, he seems like he is acting shady. That is not going to endear him to his tribe, an could make him an early target. And should his tattoos or secret be found out? It's all over for him.

14. Dawn (Last week: 8)

Breaking down and crying in the early going is yet another way to not endear yourself to your tribe. If John does step up, somebody else is going to have to be the target. And barring a Holly like comeback, Dawn is in a lot trouble.

The Rest

13. Coach (Last week: 14)

I still have Coach low because he is prone to doing stupid things, and it is early. With that said Coach has actually started out well, putting together a seemingly solid alliance and toning down his personality. So I wouldn't be surprised if he kept moving up the rankings as we moved on.

12. Stacey (Last week: 18)

Moved up here simply thanks to her in ability to see the clue right in front of her face, and then calling herself out for it.

11. Keith (Last week: 13)

10. Edna (Last week: 10)
9. Sophie (Last week: 11)

Sophie leaps ahead of Edna because Sophie seems to be in an alliance with Coach, while Edna does not. With that said, Edna was the first to help Coach and treat him like an actual player. It will be interesting to see if this turns into anything later on, with Coach forced to make a choice.

8. Rick (Last week: 9)

7. ~~Mark~~Papa Bear (Last week: 7)

Papa Bear has done a great job of integrating himself into the tribe, and to make himself a lovable character. It's going to be more difficult to vote him out.

6. Mikayla (Last week: 6)
5. Albert (Last week: 5)
4. Whitney (Last week: 4)
3. Elyse (Last week: 2)

2. Jim (Last week: 1)

Jim has the right attitude to play the game. He did stumble though. He shouldn't have expressed himself quite as strong has he did against Semhar. Being vocal so early on is something that people are going to remember. There's plenty of time for him to make people forget this, but he needs to be more aware of what he's saying when he talks.

1. Ozzy (Last week: 3)

This is probably a premature ranking for Ozzy, but he seems to be in a great position. He has a tribe that loves him and he still seems to have his gift for performance in challenges. The question is whether this will last as we get closer to the merge. Right now, I am banking on it continuing for the long run.

Survivor: South Pacific Episode 1 Live Blog

2011-09-14T19:53:00.019-04:00

Yup, Survivor is back and so is the live blog!

- Our opening montage of everybody coming in, starting with Ozzy and Coach.
- Coach wants to prove that he win with honour and integrity. Good luck with that sir.
- Ozzy says he didn't ahve the best strategy, but was the best in challenges, which is true.
- The newbies having to row in on a boat is kinda funny.
- That they are wearing "everyday" clothes seems set up though.
- Brandon has the same speech pattern as Russell.

- Whitney gets first billing after the two returning players. Coincidence, or do they think she has fame to trade on?

- Ah the glee of the people playing the game for the first time.
- Edna telling Brandon "I hope it's not Russell" almost seems set up.
- Oh man, does Brandon sound like Russell. And the tattoos!
- The enthusiasm over Coach's arrival is electrifying!

- Christine saying the returning players are "temporary players" was not a good start to the game.
- 5 seconds in and already I hate John.
- And admitting that you are a fanboy? Not the best spot.
- Somebody needs to tell Ozzy that what he did to break his egg wasn't cool.
- Christine needs to hide her disdain a lot better.
- Redemption Island works the same way as before.

- First challenge?
- Hero challenge? Nice twist.
- I don't remember Ozzy being that good at puzzles. Then again, neither was Coach.
- Naturally, Ozzy leads.
- Was Coach trying to dig to China?
- And as I remember, neither was very good at puzzles. Then again, the whole blue team seems to be bad at puzzles.
- Coach fails yet again.
- "There's no way I would ahve been able to do that, well, I might have, but we would have been here all day." Ozzy, I was betting on it.
- The Coach/Edna combination could be incredibly fun.
- Edna helping Coach could just be a kind act, but it could be interpreted poorly by the rest of her tribe.
- Wow, does Ozzy seem to be getting the Boston Rob treatment. With that said, there's no way he's going to control the rest of the game like Rob did.

- Fun juxtaposition of John being honest about his career (Harvard Law Student), while Whitney kinda lies about what she does.
- Ozzy, do you remember what happened with Amanda? Romances will kill your game.
- John is playing the awkward nerd, which is not good. The tribe is accepting him now, which is okay. But when it comes time to vote somebody out? First target.

- Coach's speech was the upmost in awkward "I'm not a threat, I'm not strategic." "I'm sorry we lost, but what I liked about it was that it felt like a team effort."
- What is with women named Christine or Kristina alienating their tribe by searching for the immunity idol?

- Jim claiming to be a science teacher is okay, so long as he can keep up the charade.
- Um, Dawn is right about worrying for the shelter, but expressing it when it seems like everybody else

- Brandon being identified as "Russell Hantz's Nephew" edges out Mikayla being identified as "Lingerie Football Player".
- Look at Brandon dropping the Delilah references towards Mikayla.
- But he isn't comfortable with Mikayla flaunting herself?
- Oh, he's afraid that he could stray from his wife. I guess we have one of our main storylines for the next little bit.

- Coach's speech about winning immunity
- Look at Coach trying to get an alliance together.

- Dawn is getting the "you are going to get voted out first" edit. Not a good thing.
- Mark is going to try to support Dawn. Meanwhile, Jedi Master Ozzy will actually carry her along.
- I might be wrong on Ozzy not being able to pull off the Rob game from last year.

- Ash toothpaste? That is crazy.
- Ozzy finally decides it is time to build a shelter, to make sure the tribe is strong. That is a great way to frame this.
- John needing advice on how to crack a coconut with a machete is not good.

- Brandon's first fish is just sad.
- And nwo Sophie thinks Brandon is hiding something. Another storyline!

- So we have Upolu figuring out how to get up the wall, while Savaii flounders (hey there's John not being very helpful in an immunity challenge!)
- Rick destroys the chopping of the ropes.
- And now Semhar is failing at shooting baskets after saying she can do it no problem.
- "Mikayla is a scoring machine!" Jeff with the unintentional comedy.
- Upolu wins immunity, with Semhar having given up during the challenge. But hey, she's showing a lot of cleavage. (
- Jim rules. "Sorta bad? I feel sorta bad when I'm out of milk. I feel like crap now that we're going home and having to vote somebody out." "It's not tag team wrestling, it's Survivor."

- Upolu gets back, and it's time to find the clue to a hidden immunity idol.
- The Stacey sequence where she continues on about how the clue could be right
- At least Semhar has the self-awareness to know that she shouldn't have gone off on Jim. It's probably too late though.
- And now Ozzy is being blinded by Semhar looks.
- Jim "[Semhar's] body is mesmerizing, but not hypnotizing." Jim is awesome.
- Ozzy telling Semhar to politick is strong.
- John is a huge fan of the game, but not playing the game? WTF?
- And then John goes into paranoia mode.
- And the fight is set up: Jim vs. Ozzy. Hopefully it goes better than Jimmy Johnson vs. Marty.
- Also, the John speech about him being the first one out? Classic misdirection.

- Dawn bringing up her crying was not a good thing.
- Jeff's hosting skills were on the display by jumping right to Jim after Semhar was brought up as being worried.
- Jim's response was great in not directly bashing
- ~~Mark~~Papa Bear defending John was fantastic to further his agenda.
- For being such a fan, John should have known that Jeff would gladly let tribal council go for days if it meant good TV.
- Meanwhile, John is digging his own grave. He was onto something with the "what exactly are you doing around camp" bit, but blew it by continuing to go on.
- I think Jeff might have to clean up a mess from this tribal council.

- John needs to realize how close he came to going, and needs to think about how to change his play. A hint - shut up.
- Meanwhile, Semhar probably doesn't understand why she was voted out, even though it should be obvious. She talks about having passion, but John has just as much. And she's just as much of a liability as John, only John did not insist that he was capable at something only to show he wasn't.

Survivor: South Pacific Preseason Power Rankings

2011-09-14T01:00:00.000-04:00

I hate doing power rankings before we've seen an episode of Survivor. I thin it's incredibly difficult to get a read on the new players simply on the basis of their bio and odd video that is kicking around. With that said, the last time I did something like this, it lead to the hilarity of Misty, winner of Panama. So for your amusement, here are my preseason power rankings for South Pacific.

(And remember, I will disown any predictive nature of these power rankings unless I nail the winner. In that case, I will gloat forever.)

1. Jim (Savaii):

He has a great life story, doing a lot of things, but it looks like he might have a case of ADD.

In all seriousness, he strikes me as a strong contender to win - a likable person who also has some smarts to him. He is grounded, but he's also able to think strategically.

2. Elyse (Savaii):

One of the most confusing biographies of them all. Most of it reads like what a stereotypical vapid person would write. But then there are pieces which show that there is an intelligent and complex person there. I'm leaning to Elyse being a revelation, and being similiar to Brenda from Nicaragua (who she claims she is most like.)

Of course, saying that you embrace that you are a "character" isn't a good sign for future success either.

And after watching her video over at ew.com, she seems like she is truly going to fit the Parvarti/Brenda role. We will have to see how she fits in with everybody else though - there is a good chance that her game could go south very quickly.

3. Ozzy:

I think the only way to play against Ozzy is to vote him into Redemption Island early and often. If you assume that he is the greatest threat to win challenges, then your best bet is to make him compete in as many competitions as he can, in hopes that he trips up once and ends up losing.

Even if he does win every challenge though, if you sent him to Redemption Island you have an interesting argument for everybody to consider - that he had an easier time when compared to everybody else. If he is sent to Redemption Island right off the bat, he won't have to outwit anybody. Heck he won't have to really participate in any part of the social side of the game. The argument would be that all he had to do was win challenges, and if that's what Mark Burnett wanted Survivor to be, he would have never had a jury to judge everybody else.

The other side of the coin would be to let Ozzy carry you until the merge, then blindside him as soon as he does not have immunity. The problem with that idea is that (a) he could win every challenge or (b) you risk pissing him and othe people on the jury off while hurting any chance you might have of claiming to have played a honest game or (c) you risk him being able to create bonds with other players that end up keeping him in the game.

I dont' believe that Ozzy will win this season, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. He is obviously a great challenge competitor, and his social game is not bad by any measure. If he's learned anything since his last time on the show, he has a chance of winning.

4. Whitney (Savaii):

So Whitney is best known for finishing 5th on Nashville Star. Now she's released a record.

Her bio doesn't concentrate on the singing career too much, which is a good thing. And her description of herself is a good thing - being outgoing, happy and honest are characteristics that can get you carried a far way. I do have concerns about her reasons for being on Survivor - proving to yourself that you can do it and going on the adventure of a lifetime is not showing the drive necessary to actually win.

Beyond that, she does have the qualities to be somebody who could benefit from an angry jury against a dominant player, though she lacks the qualities to be a dominant player. She is going to have to rely on others to carry her to the end, when she could strike.

5. Albert (Upolu):

I'm considering calling bullshit on Albert here - his occupation is Baseball/Dating Coach, and his inspiration in life is Crash Davis, who was essentially a baseball/dating coach. Also, do you want to be a "life-grinder" at age 26?

"I have little to no patience for ignorance" and "I also get bothered by mentally weak people" does not jive with "I have a legitimate chance to win one million dollars," regardless of how calculated and self-aware you are.

Also, wanting to prove to yourself that you can beat all in a game of strength, strategy and will does not lead one to think that you have a legitimate shot at winning one million dollars.

After watching his EW video, I am less confident in his ability to do anything - first he applied for the Amazing Race, which is a totally different game, and he is very full of himself (here's a hint - physical and social game is not unique in Survivor.)

6. Mikayla (Upolu):

So, Playboy cover model and Lingerie Football Player. Great! Being a strong woman is always a plus, and being an attractive woman is also a plus.

But you're most like Jane? JANE? That is easily the worst comparison ever.

And trying to not stand out as a physical threat? Do you not understand what a benefit it is to be a plus in physical challenges if you are a woman?

Mikayla is the most difficult to place - she could surprise in individual challenges, but at the same time she could end up getting the boot early on. Her best bet is to get to the merge with two alpha males, and let them try to battle each other to skate under the radar.

7. Mark (Savalii):

DANGER!

SURVIVOR contestant you are most like: I haven’t seen anyone like me.

Even though he's the Sears competiton winner, he can't come up with one previous Survivor that he's like? Say you're like Russell in being able to find things even. Something other than the lame "I'm unique." You know what? You seem like a nice guy, which makes you like many prior players. Just run with that.

His placement is going to be dependent on his tribe. If he ends up on the dominant tribe, he could go far as a reliable piece of an alliance, one that won't turn on his alliance. If he's on the weaker tribe though, he could make the jury, then get picked off. He just doesn't seem like a player capable of making a big move. That isn't necessarily a detriment to winning the game, but it does make him more dependent on how his alliance does.

8. Dawn (Savaii):

Her contestants that she is most like are Sandra, Parvati and Stephenie. And yet in her Dalton Ross video, she says that it is about time for a strong female to emerge. Now I could be mistaken, but I would think that Sandra, Stephenie and Parvati are all strong women, two of whom won the game. Maybe I wasn't watching the same show as she was?

Confusion aside, nothing strikes me as being particulary noteworthy about her. She seems destined for the jury, but who knows? She could end up emerging as a great player.

9. Rick (Upolu):

Rick has an awesome mustache. This must be mentioned if only to get it out of the way.

Rick is also very pre-occupied with people quitting, which is not going to be a good thing should somebody get the idea that they don't want to play any more. Rick will be sure to let you know why you shouldn't be quitting.

It's obvious that Rick has a high respect for Survivor as a game - the hatred of quitters, and the desire to be named "Sole Survivor" is genuine. And it seems like he is going to end up on Coach's tribe, if only beccause he's the only person to express any sort of animosity towards Coach.

He's hopefully going to be the guy who tells it like it is, and hopefully gets to last for a while.

(That hatred of lazy people who don't keep their word coudl end up biting him in the butt though.)

10. Edna (Upolu):

Edna could go far, or she could be the first one gone. That she is an anestesiologist will at some point work against her; it could be at the end when people are deciding that she doesn't need the million dollars, so she could get voted out or lose jury votes. Or it could be at teh beginning of the game, when her desire to play "for the experience" hinders her from making the moves necessary to win.

As well, Corinne Kaplan mentioned that Edna has a similiar personality to Corinne (whcih Corinne knows as she is friends with Edna.) That will get her into trouble at some point; how Edna reacts to it will also be interesting to see.

I do appreciate her abilities to nickname everybody though; hopefully she stays long enough for some good confessional time.

(At the very least, I hope she drops many $2 words on us.)

11. Sophie: (Upolu):

Okay, what's with comparing yourself to Sue Hawk, even if it is just her "trueness to character?" Why do you want to compare yourself to somebody who is best known for calling somebody a snake and for being (allegedly) grinded upon by Richard Hatch?

Beyond that, she seems to not take herself seriously - how else would you describe somebody who would list her personal claim to fame as being Prom Princess in a graduating class of 28 people (and 10 girls)? She also seems driven, wanting to win the money and thinking it will be easy.

From her video, it does seem like she will not be afraid to speak up, and could be the insstigator for many an argument. I think she's destined for the jury, but not a victory.

12. John (Savaii):

NERD!

(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

I don't know if you want to combine the humour of Rob Cesternino and the candor of Jonathan Penner - that might lead to some awkward situations when self-editiing would have helped. As a matter of fact, I think I would have left Jonathan Penner out of it completely.

I also worry about somebody who is in Harvard Law School, but is playing up his sense of humour. He might be overcompensating here.

And finally, to bury him further, uberfans never do well on Survivor. They tend to end up trying to play the game too hard and screwing themselves over.

His video wasn't very funny either (save his random shots at David Murphy.)

13. Keith (Savaii):

So you have a pacemaker and you are goign to confront people who tell lies about you behind your back. That is not a good sign for your continued existance in this game.

I feel bad for saying that, as he seems to be a good person, but unless his personality carries him far, I can see people viewing himas an easy out early on.

14. Coach:

This will be an interesting season to watch Coach. He wants to be in the Alpha Male role, but is probably better served to be a follower. He definitely needs somebody to rein him in from time to time, along with somebody to help him with strategy.

At the same time, he remains a great person to bring along to the final three, as he's less likely to get jury votes. And he is not scheming as actively as Russell, so there is less of a reason to vote him out early on.

Coach is more likely to make the jury than Ozzy. But he stand much less of a chance to win the game. He should remain entertaining though.

15. Brandon (Upolu):

That's Brandon Hantz, of the Survivor Hantz family.

Brandon has two things immediately working against him. First is the Hantz name. He can actually work around this problem by not mentioning who his uncle is. So that's pretty easy to solve.

His bigger issue is that he's 19. Youth is not well served in Survivor; juries tend to not like their their winners to be young. This might be mitigated by his having a son; it might have made him more mature than your typical 19 year old who hasn't had much life experience.

Then again, his hobby of "shooting [his] guns," his pet peeve of not getting food the way he wants or having his hot sauce forgotten indicates he might be a typical 19 year old. And being headstrong isn't a good sign either.

BTW, if I wanted to distance from myself from my uncle Russell, I would not use the terms Cunning and manipulative to describe myself.

(Oh god, Hantz vs. Hantz could be the most terrible thing ever.)

Watching the video, I'm afraid that Brandon might get caught up in the "I'm doing this to improve myself" mentality, which can be useful to rally yourself, but not to base your game play on.

16. Semhar (Savaii):

Nothing stood out in her bio - it strikes me as something that was written to not tip anybody off as to

Her video shows a bit more personality, but is also somewhat unremarkable. The only thing that stood out is her reluctance to say she won a beauty paegent. It wasn't a major beauty paegent, so who cares? That might be an indication of having a bigger opinion of yourself than you should.

17. Christine (Upolu):

This reads like somebody who I would predict to be out first, only to have her survive for a long period of time. I can't really explain it, beyond her top reason for being sole Survivor is that she won't quit, and that she seems to belive that being strong and outspoken is a good thing to use as a description for yourself.

The combination of stubborn and helpful is interesting, but seems more likely to end up being a hinderance than a help. If you refuse to take no for an answer to the question of "can I help you?" will end up causing more trouble.

Saying that most of your sentences start with "I was angry" is not an encouraging sign.

18.Stacey (Upolu):

Major props to Stacey for choosing a player that nobody else would have thought of choosing to describe themselves. Now, choosing Vecepia because she quoted verses from the Bible (specifically the crucifixion) is a bit odd.

She wasn't really a fan prior to this, which isn't a good sign for her chances. I get a feeling that she isn't long for this game.

On 9/11

2011-09-11T15:12:00.002-04:00

In lieu of writing something myself, I'll just point you to some links regarding 9/11 that I found interesting:

Stephen Brunt's 9/11 Video Essay

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Statement on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

The story of a fighter pilot who was a part of the effort to take down United flight 93. With no weapons of any sort on board, she was going to have to act as a kamikaze pilot.

A recount by BBC's Steven Evans of his lucky decision to get a coffee on the day of 9/11.

Dirk Hayhurst's memories and thoughts about 9/11

Alan Cross wonders why there hasn't been more art inspired by 9/11

Roger Ebert talks about the 9/11 films that were created.

Toronto Mike gives us the World Trade Center's cameos in films

From Billboard, the music industry remembers 9/11

Mathew Ingram's thoughts about how 9/11 changed the media landscape.

Time's revisitng of some of the people who affected and were affected by the actions of 9/11 and the subsequent decade

Quick NFL Week 1 Picks

2011-09-11T12:44:00.002-04:00

New feature here on the 'Muse - I'm going to post my weekly NFL picks against the spread. These are using the Yahoo Sports listed spreads, so they end up locked in on Thursday or Friday. No money is being wagered either - if I make a wager at some point, I will let you know what that is.

First, the Thursday night game:

New Orleans +4.5 over Green Bay (Loss)

Sunday games:

Atlanta -3 over Chicago
Cleveland -6.5 over Cincinatti
Buffalo +6 over Kansas City
Philadelphia -5 over St. Louis
Detroit +2 over Tampa Bay
Tennessee +2 over Jacksonville
Pittsburgh +2.5 over Baltimore
Houston -8.5 over Indianapolis
Arizona -7 over Carolina
San Diego -8.5 over Minnesota
San Francisco -5.5 over Seattle
New York Giants -3 over Washington
New York Jets -4.5 over Dallas

Monday games:

New England -7 over Miami
Denver -3 over Oakland

(Bonus Survivor pool pick: New England)

Shattering Realities

2011-09-06T20:39:00.002-04:00

The Football Outsiders crew have posted their DVOA projections for this season, and they have the Bills as a decidedly mediocre team. I'm not happy about this.

You see, I had already accepted the Bills' fate. I knew they had a tough schedule (as they seem to every year), and I also knew they didn't have any exceptional talent. Their offensive line looks like crap (again), so I expected another year of middling offence, with the odd moment of pistol formation excitement thrown in. I was all aboard the Andrew Luck train, going so far to realize that if Carolina is terrible as well, the Bills have double the chance of getting Luck.

And now, Football Outsiders have burst my bubble by giving the Bills ranking of 19th, along with giving them more wins than any team in the NFC West. They're saying the Bills are better than the ENTIRE NFC WEST! And on the playoff odds, the Bills have a 15.7% chance of making the playoffs. They have a better chance of winning their division than they do getting the first pick overall! They have a 1% chance of getting the number 1 seed in the AFC for crying out loud!

I don't need this optimism. I'm perfectly content to go through this season and consider it a building season. I've already begun to wait until next year. Now I'm thinking that there is a chance they could make the playoffs if things break right.

I guess I'll have to stick with Bill Barnwell.

The last time the Bills played a meaningful game was on January 2, 2005, when they were denied a playoff spot in Week 17 at home by the Steelers' second-stringers. Since that game, the Bills have gone 36-60. And barring a miracle, things aren't about to change.

Ah, that's the stuff.

UFC 134 Reflections

2011-08-28T02:45:00.000-04:00

Some things learned from UFC 134...

In case there was any question left, Anderson Silva is the best pound for pound fighter in the world. His second round destruction of Yushin Okami was incredibly impressive.

You could see the set up for round 2 at the end of the first round. Okami actually won the first round (at least in my view); Okami hit more strikes while controlling the Octagon and playing the aggressor. However, at the end of the first round, Silva hit a high kick which stunned Okami and lead to Silva ending the round in a dominant spot.

In the second round, Silva knocked down Okami, and then let Okami up. This harkened back to the bad days of 2009/2010, when you could tell Silva was the dominant fighter but he chose to instead clown around instead of finishing a fight. Luckily, Silva seemed to have the opinion that he needed to finish the fight, and after he clipped Okami again, Silva made a move to get into a dominant position over the prone Okami, and then Silva rained down punches until Herb Dean stopped the fight.

Silva showed a killer instinct that had been somewhat lacking prior. Whether it was his experience with Chael Sonnen, or if it was his desire to impress the Brazilian live crowd, Silva came out and finished a fight that in the past he would have instead messed around with, content to ge the decision victory. If this is a demonstration of Silva's new desire to show how dominant he is, then nobody can touch Silva as a fighter, including Georges St. Pierre. What makes this even more remarkable is Silva's age; Silva is doing this at age 36, when MMA is proving to be a youngman's sport.

There is in question in my mind that we are witnessing something special - the greatest MMA fighter still performing at an elite level. Our only job as a fan is to appreciate what we are seeing.

With all those platitudes towards Silva stated, Yushin Okami had a terrible fight plan. As mentioned in my preview, Okami's only chance was to take down Silva and dominate him on the ground, like Chael Sonnen. Okami failed on both parts - he did not get Silva to the ground, and more importantly, Okami attempted to pick his spot to take Silva down. After Okami failed once, he never went back to a takedown attempt.

The beauty of Anderson silva's fighting style is how much Silva depends on reacting to his opponent. The first round of the fight was Silva timing Okami's punches, along wiht his takedown attempts. Silva managed to avoid any hard punches and at the end of the round Silva struck hard. OTOH, Okami looked for his spot - a strategy that has proven to be futile against Silva. Sonnen gave us the game plan to beat Silva - commit yourself ot taking him down, and just doing it. Do not look for the perfect opening; this just gives Silva more of an opportunity to find the gap in your defenses and then counter attack. So immediately you need to press the action against Silva, and commit to take him down early.

Okami did none of this, and looked out of his league in the second round. For Silva's part, you could watch him timing Okami's blows and then attacking. Okami failed to live up to his part, and looked completely outclassed once the second round came along.

The next middleweight contender looks to be either Brian Stann or Chael Sonnen. Whomever ends up being the top contender should look at this fight for an idea as to what not to do as a strategy.

With 10 out of 11 Brazilian fighters winning, it seems like there is a hometown advantage for Brazilian fighters. You could tell that Antonio Rodrigio Nogueiro and Shogun Rua were excited to be fighting in their home country. And while Forrest Griffin might have had a reason to be distracted (his wife went into labour during the PPV), both he and Brendan Schaub did not deliver in their opportunity to provide a memorable result in a high profile fight.

In Toronto, there was a similiar sentiment to get as many Canadians on the card in hopes they would dominate. After a 6-4 record though, the same could not be said. Given the history of MMA in Brazil, there was probably more pressure on the Brazilian figthers to perform, which they did in spades.

There's a lot of thoughts that added pressure of a hometown fight can hurt the fighters; in the case of the Brazilian fighters, they made sure to rise to the occasion and honour the history of their ancestors.

The question that always exists after a card is "What's next?" Specifically, what is next for each of the winners on the card?

For Anderson Silva, the next fight seems obvious - the winner of Brian Stann/Chael Sonnen is likely to get the next title fight. Vitor Belfort is lurking in the wings, but is still to close to his loss to Anderson Silva to be considered a contender.

Shogun Rua is waiting on the Rampage/Jones fight in September. If Jones wins, Rua is in a holding patter. He would need another win to even be considered a slight threat to Jones. But if Rampage wins, Rua could be considered for a title shot if Rashad Evans is gets hurt. A next fight might be with Rich Franklin.

For Rodrigio Nogueira, he could be the next opponent for Brock Lesnar. Lesnar is coming off of a long layoff after losing to Cain Velasquez, and could use a fight before being put into a title match. For Big Nog, a victory over Lesnar could make him a threat to Velasquez; at a minimum it would make Big Nog seem like he is back, and would provide another title match for Velasquez.

In all, the short term looks interesting for the UFC. OTOH, the long term looks even more muddled, and is really depending on having some fighters up their game significantly, or else there will be a set hierarchy for all the divisions.

***
My predictions ended up being 9-3, putting my record for the year at 70-38-2. My theoretical wagers ended up winning my $4, putting my winnings for the year at $73.80.

UFC 134 Thoughts

2011-08-27T14:00:00.000-04:00

A couple of articles going into UFC 134:

Some would argue that the origins of MMA are in Brazil. Dave Meltzer has the history of Vale Tudo and the Gracie family in this article.

For a fascinating look at the UFC's first card that they ran in Brazil, see this Todd Martin article.

The card in Brazil has the chance to be historic. Dave Meltzer makes the argument that a victory by Anderson Silva could make him the greatest of all time.
***
Thus far, I'm 61-35-2 for the year for my predictions (including an 8-3 record for UFC 133) and I have a profit of $69.80 (after losing $10 on UFC 133). My predictions for UFC 134:

Preliminaries:

Yves Jabouin over Ian Loveland

Wager: $10 on Jabouin at 2.4 odds to win $24

Yuri Alcantara over Felipe Arantes
Erick Silva over Luis Ramos
Raphael Assuncao over Johnny Eduardo
Paulo Thiago over David Mitchell

Spike Prelims:

Rousimar Palhares over Dan Miller
Thiago Tavares over Spencer Fisher

Main Card:

Luiz Cane over Sanislav Nedkov
Edson Barboza over Ross Pierson

Brendan Schaub over Antonio Rodrigio Nogueira

Schaub is on a hot streak, and has looked great recently, while Big Nog was last seen getting destroyed by Cain Velasquez. Maybe Nog's 18 month layoff has helped him recover from the effects of fighting for a long period of time. But Schaub has shown a remarkable improvement over his last few fights, and his youth will carry him to an easy victory over Nogueira.

Forrest Griffin over Mauricio Shogun Rua

This is by far the most difficult fight to pick on the main card. Griffin has a win over Rua, but that was well before Rua's comeback run of the past year or two. Rua has looked better over the last couple of years, though he did look poor against Jon Jones; Griffin had a great fight with Rich Franklin in February, but had a 14 month layoff after two poor performances.

I am going with Griffin here on the basis of recent performance over top fighters. But I would not be surprised with a Rua victory.

Wager: $10 on Griffin at 2.7 odds to win $27

Anderson Silva over Yushin Okami

Okami knows the way to beat Silva; Chael Sonnen has demonstrated it. Use wrestling to take Silva down, and have no hesitation in doing this. Take the attack to Silva; do not look for your spot. The question is whether Okami can do this. I have serious doubts that he can, as Okami tends to look for his spot and attack from there. If he does that, Silva will knock his head off.

(As a side note, I did make a wager on Yushin Okami to win this fight; the odds that Okami is at - 4.60 on Party Bets, for example - are way too high. I didn't put any significant sum of cash on it, but I am putting it out there to show this is closer than people think.)

Theoretical Wagers:

$10 on Jabouin at 2.4 odds to win $24
$10 on Griffin at 2.7 odds to win $27

Details you don't want in your heroic story

2011-08-24T22:15:00.003-04:00

In BC, a 12 year old boy delivered his own brother when his mother went into labour. She was 2 days past due date, so when Kelly McParland makes note that she didn't seem to have this well thought out, he does have a bit of a point. I'd assume that the labour came out of the blue, and she didn't have time for the paramedics to arrive. (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt here.)

What struck me though wasn't so much the circumstances of her going into labour, it's what the 12 year old boy was doing when she went into labour:

Gaelan, who lives in Campbell River, had been watching a movie about showgirls on television at about 2 a.m. on Sunday morning

I wonder why a 12 year old would be watching "a movie about showgirls" (read: Showgirls) at 2 am?

Note to my friends - should I do something amazing to get me in the news, please claim I was watching Citizen Kane. Thanks.

On Jack Layton...

2011-08-24T00:41:00.002-04:00

I join everybody in offering my condolences to the family of Jack Layton for his passing. I did not agree with many of his political policies, however I certainly can agree that he did love Canada and continually acted with the best intentions to improve the lives of many Canadians.

I wanted to also share some thoughts on the more interesting things I read over the last couple of days...

Carly Weeks in the Globe and Mail takes a different angle on the death, choosing to argue that Layton did not lose a battle against cancer. Instead he died of cancer.

When you think of this, it gives you pause. It's too easy to use the analogy; it's very common and in fact it is the terminology that Layton used himself to describe what laid ahead for him.

Obviously this isn't what anybody intends to imply. Using the battle/fight analogy is meant to honour the person, not denigrate them. However, that is the underlying message. It's just not the message that you think of when you first are offering your support to the patient, or when you are the patient. The problem, as is pointed out by Mike Marqusee in the Globe article, is when the cancer "defeats" the patient. If the cancer ends up "winning", does that mean the patient did not fight hard enough? Were they not good enough to beat cancer?

Sometimes it's necessary to take a step back and consider the words that you are using. Even though you might only intend one way of interpretation, they can have unintended consequences. I know that when somebody close to me (or even I) faces cancer, I will offer my support in a different manner than the battle analoy.

The National Post lets us know that the State Funeral for Jack Layton is unprecedented. The thing is that having an Opposition Leader die while still in office is pretty well unprecedented.

Ignoring the political implications that the Post covers, it's just the right thing to do for a politician whose popularity seemed to be increasing only 3 months prior.

Christie Blatchford found herself in a bit of trouble for a column that ended up on the internet on Monday evening. In it, she criticized the coverage of Layton's letter to Canadians, which was fair game. The coverage and commentary about the "extraordinary" letter did seem to be over the top at times and probably needed to have a bit of air let out of the balloon. The problem came when she criticized the contents of the letter and Layton's intentions.

A significant figure dying is always difficult. You have to balance having respect for those who are mourning the death, while also presenting a balanced view of their life. I'm not sure if Blatchford felt as though the scale was extremely skewed towards the praise of Layton and felt she needed to try to balance the coverage all by herself, but whatever her intentions, she failed at them. By putting this column out so soon after Layton's death, any insight she had was buried by the argument over her sensitivity towards the mourners of Jack Layton.

As for her criticisms of the letter, I tend to end up agreeing with Chris Selley, who notes:
If you find the letter over-earnest and platitudinous, well, at least it’s genuinely over-earnest and platitudinous. Would you have preferred he’d revealed it was all an act?

Quick UFC 133 Predictions

2011-08-06T08:00:00.002-04:00

Rafael Natal over Paul Bradley
Mike Brown over Nam Phan
Johny Hendricks over Mike Pierce
Nick Pace over Ivan Menjivar
Chad Mendes over Rani Yahya
Alexander Gustavsson over Matt Hammill
Rory MacDonald over Mike Pyle
Constantinos Philippou over Jorge Rivera
Brian Ebersole over Dennis Hallman
Yoshihiro Akiyama over Vitor Belfort

I think Akiyama's ground game will beat Belfort.

Tito Ortiz over Rashad Evans

Much like last time, this is a hunch pick more than anything else. There are reasons to pick Ortiz: Evans has bulked up for this fight, expecting to face Phil Davis. While the bulk will help, Evans is prone to gassing in the first place, so adding weight on won't help this. As well, Evans is working with a new camp, which is much more lackadasical than the Greg Jackson camp he came from. Ultimately, I can see a replay of their previous fight, only without the point reduction.

Theoretical Wagers:
$10 on Akiyama at 3.5 odds to win $35
$10 on Ortiz at 3.75 odds to win $37.50
$20 on Gustavsson at 1.50 odds to win $30

JayRo Watches: Cowboys and Aliens

2011-08-02T20:48:00.002-04:00

There's a point in Cowboys and Aliens where Harrison Ford gets told a plan and gets a look on his face whihc seems very familiar. A few seconds later, I recognized it - it was a look that Han Solo would give. It wouldn't be the last time that Cowboys and Aliens drew upon sci-fi inspirations to derive the desired feelings.

Cowboys and Aliens follows a standard western story structure until the final act, when it turns into a sci-fi adventure. It's an interesting concept behind a film; one that works well in general, but sometimes strains to keep the balance.

One of the main ways that the sci-fi/western mashup gets strained are the nods to famous sci-fi movies. Aliens, Star Wars and Return of the Jedi all get referenced in scenes. These should be little winks to the audience but eventually end up distracting the viewer from the actual story. As well, the transformation from western to sci-fi is a bit jarring. It's as though the final scene basically dropped any pretense of western, save for the clothes and weapons used. As well, the kidnapping side plot is contrived as well; when the reason for the kidnappings is revealed, you're left to wonder exactly why the kidnappings are continuing.

With that said, it is a fun film, especially if you can ignore the final act's transition to straight sci-fi. Harrison Ford basically acts as though he is an older Han Solo, and Sam Rockwell turns in a fun performance as the meek barkeep/doctor. Daniel Craig doesn't turn in a great performance, but it is a passable performance.

As a side note, I'd like to commend Cowboys and Aliens on delivering what the title implies the movie is about (unlike Aliens vs. Predator, which was inappropriately named.)

I'd recommend waiting for Cowboys and Aliens to come out on video and renting it. It is a fun film, but it isn't a film that you need to rush to see.

Random findings

2011-08-02T20:38:00.004-04:00

My random find for today: ESPN.com's baseball analyst/prospect maven Keith Law's list of Top 100 old-school hip-hop songs.

While he admits that it is mostly his personal preferences, comments #21 and #69 cover my complaints about the list pretty well.

(Note: I also posted this for Mike to look at and possibly comment on.)

Quality control

2011-07-27T18:28:00.003-04:00

I'm a pretty big podcast listener, and that includes daily radio shows. One of my favourites to download is the Jeff Blair Show from the Fan 590. Of course, since they only offer each hour of the show for download, I check to see who is on the show to decide if I want to listen to that hour. Well, here's the description for the 9am hour on today (emphasis mine):

Head Coach of the Toronto Blue Jays John Farrell joins Jeff Blair to discuss last nights game, the status of Jose Bautista, Emilie Heymans and Jennifer Abel discuss aspirations for London 2012.

JayRo Watches: Captain America

2011-07-24T17:45:00.001-04:00

I'm really an easy person to please with movies - deliver on what I'm expecting, and I'm satisfied. In that sense, Captain America was satisfying. However, there were a few big things that ended up bugging me a lot.

(Warning - kinda spoilerish stuff ahoy.)

The first was Steve Rogers' development into Captain America. He starts out as a skinny guy who is nowhere close to as gifted as other soliders. But as soon as he receives the super-soldier serum, he not only becomes a gifted athlete, he apparently also learns elite fighting skills as he immediately demonstrates. What makes it even more unusual is that the filmmaker makes sure to show Rogers fall while running really fast in a chase, demonstrating that Rogers doesn't fully understand and control his new found gifts. So why can he immediately fight like and elite fighter?

The other major thing that bothered me was the plot that got us to Captain America fighting on the front lines. In short, he was told that he couldn't fight in the war because he was the only super soldier that was created, and was much too valuable to be risked on the front lines. Instead, he is used as a propaganda tool by the US Government. When he goes to meet the troops, he finds that they mock him for not actually fighting in the war, including by the very people who banned him from fighting. What exactly happened in between thich allowed him to start fighting in the war?

These are basic plot points that could have been addressed but were either ignored or not even noticed. Either way, they drag down what is otherwise a decent movie.

The ending also felt more like a comic book ending than an actual movie ending. The serialization is expected, since this is essentially a direct lead-in to next year's Avengers, ubt it felt somewhat out of place in an actual movie.

(End spoilers)

The action in the film is pretty enjoyable, and the 3D is decently done. I don't feel it was necessary, but it was enjoyable.

I'd recommend this for a rental, unless you absolutely need to see it in 3D or want to geek out to the after credits part.

How Conrad Black Made Me Change My Tune on Hockey

2011-07-21T00:30:00.001-04:00

I have to admit to paying a lot of attention to Conrad Black. His trial intrigued, fascinated and annoyed me. I do read his column every week; when he is on his game he is a ridiculously talented writer. And I found myself following the back and forth between John Moore and Mr. Black.

The one thing that sticks out with the end result of this trial is how much Mr. Black refuses to acknowledge the reality of the situation he's in.

When Black writes things like "In a mind-bending exercise of suppressing, distorting, and fabricating evidence, the Circuit Court revived two of the counts," he comes across as thinking he's still to be vindicated on these charges. When Black states that ...there is practically no chance that even an American court would have convicted on the two remaining counts if they had not been embedded in 15 other counts that eventually all failed at different stages of the proceedings, he comes across as a conspiracy theorist who has deluded himself into thinking that he is the victim in this situation.

It's frustrating to read Black when he continues on about his conviction. I found myself wishing him to continue to write about the U.S. penal system and its failures (in his view). On this he is just as passionate, but it seems much more productive use of his immeasurable writing skills. But it also got me to think about myself and my own railing on about the Boston Bruins' Stanley Cup victory.

I have been frustrated by how the sports media has glossed over something that I found incredibly odd and discomforting - that the Bruins benefitted from favourable refereeing in each game 7 they played during the playoffs. While I realize that linking this to Colin Campbell (father of Bruins' player Gregory Campbell) is basically taking a giant leap into the crazy conspiracy theory area, it would be nice if somebody acknowledged that the refereeing actually changed in game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals and game six to game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals and it benefitted the Bruins, who were a much stronger team at even strength than on special teams. I've brought this up at times with friends to the point where I'm basically repeating myself. And that's not productive for anybody.

So here's my solemn vow: when I talk about the inconsistency of refereeing in the playoffs, I will not take any shots at the Boston Bruins benefitting multiple times from this. Further, I will only talk about the inconsistencies within the series, not in the greater terms of the playoffs.

I know I am not as skilled a writer as Conrad Black. I hope that someday I will have one-thousandth of his writing talent. But until that day arrives, I'll settle for having a skill he seems to lack: being able to move past things in order to work towards a greater good.

Sleight of hand

2011-07-12T23:25:00.000-04:00

I will never understand the Conservative government of Canada. I'd come to this conclusion a while ago, but every once in a while, I'm reminded of this. For example, this interview with James Moore.

It's not that he's saying the CBC needs to expect to lose 5% of its funding from the government. That's the right of the government to determine, and if they feel that the CBC should be included in the parlimentary review, that is fair. Instead, it's that two months ago, after their majority victory Moore said that the government "will maintain or increase support for the CBC."

Why does the government feel a need to do this sort of stuff? All Moore had to do in May is point to the budget tabled in March, and say we're using this as our economic platform for this year, and we have our review of expenses going forward. While there might be complaining about the potential of cuts, it would passed over once the cuts did not appear in this budget. Instead, Moore chose to appear as though he wasn't telling the truth previously by blatantly going against what he said two months earlier.

As an added bonus, he claims his statements in May were based on the 2008 election platform which leads to the following questions:

1. Did Moore know what was in the 2011 Conservative election platform in May?

2. If Moore did know what was in the 2011 Conservative election platform, why did he respond to the CBC funding question by referring to the 2008 platform after the 2011 election?

3. What possible relevance does the 2008 platform have to the results of the 2011 election and CBC funding?

I want to believe the Conservatives are competent managers. I truly do think that they are going to make changes based on their beliefs, but are not going to make extreme changes to the country. But these sorts of actions make me think that they aren't satisfied by just winning a majority - they want to screw around and humiliate the institutions that they do not like.

I can't say that's something that I want to see my government do.

(h/t: Tod Maffin)

JayRo Watches: Horrible Bosses

2011-07-10T03:00:00.000-04:00

A common theme in many comedies is that of otherwise normal people deciding to commit a major crime. From Throw Mama From the Train to Very Bad Things, you get to see either the build to the crime or the after effects of the crime.

The key to these films is not necessarily the plot; while a believable plot could be helpful, you can also have an extraordinarily far-fetched plot if the humour associated with it is good. The key instead are the characters themselves. The main protagonists need to be likable to let you sympathize with them as they resort to their criminal activities to solve their problems. In some cases it works well, in others it's an abject failure. Horrible Bosses succeeds thanks to its characters.

Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day play the characters who are looking to kill their horrible bosses. The characters are likable and relatable; everybody can relate to how horrible bosses can you cause you discomfort and pain in the workplace. And the horrible bosses in this movie are truly horrible - walking cliches amped up to a point of absurdity. Colin Farrell and Jennifer Aniston play their roles well, though they are secondary to Kevin Spacey's main antagonist role. The interaction between boss and subordinate gives you a great sense of why these characters would so want to kill their boss that they actually are moved to action. The plot does help here, as while the bosses's actions seem to be well exaggerated, the twists in the movie make internal sense and move the movie along well.

While Bateman has the lead role, Sudeikis and Day do a lot of the heavy lifting in the comedy, leaving Bateman to be more the straight man. And Sudeikis and Day deliver, with Day being primed for a bit of a Zach Galifianakis like breakout performance (thanks in part to his role being the more zany.)

I recommend Horrible Bosses - it is a fine comedy that will likely have you laughing at many parts.

And now CFNY is dead

2011-07-07T23:32:00.003-04:00

Alan Cross is gone from Corus Radio

His last day was the 30th, and we find out (via a third party) a week later that's gone from the company. Given the Martin Streek fiasco, this shouldn't be surprising.

With any luck, Alan will come to an agreement to continue on with the Ongoing History of New Music. Or failing that he can talk to Brian Ibbott about how he is able to podcast using most any music he chooses, and make OHoNM a podcast.

I'll still listen to the Edge in the afternoon and evening when I'm around a radio, but it's not must listen to any more. I'm just as happy bouncing around from station to station to find something that I want to listen to.

JayRo Watches - Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2011-07-04T00:01:00.002-04:00

On Grantland last week, they ran a Chris Ryan piece where he defended Michael Bay. I probably appreciated it more than most, as I don't think that I have left a Michael Bay movie and thought "Wow, that was a waste of my time" or "Wow, that wasn't entertaining in any way." Maybe I just figured out the key to a Michael Bay movie earlier than most - you have to go in expecting a spectacle. Any sort of decent acting performance or three dimensional plot is a bonus. Even when a Bay film misses completely on the basics of filmmaking (ie plot and acting and proper framing of shots), it still works. (As a friend mentioned about Transformers Revenge of the Fallen: "Revenge of the Fallen was pretty bad, but hey, big robots and explodey. Can't fault that.")

All of this is build up to say that Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the apex of Michael Bay's directing career. The plot is kind of nuanced (even if it can be boiled down to "Earth is being invaded by aliens"), the action scenes are incredible, and some of the visuals are amazing to behold. As well, you get Bay's music video-esque treatment of the female lead (in the first scene in present time, my friend suggested that it looked like a Victoria Secret's commercial, and he was right.) There are a lot of "humanizing" moments where a character delivers an inspirational speech to rally the troops and us to his side. You get many actors willing to mug for the camera, producing some memorable characters who you enjoy seeing on screen.. And yes, giant robots go explodey.

(I want to give the climax a shout out here - it gets set up earlier in the movie, but Bay allows you to forget it by putting about 30 minutes of pure action right after it.)

What was truly remarkable was how the 3D worked in this movie. While it didn't need the 3D (which really could be said for any movie, including Avatar) Transformers 3 uses 3D in the best way I have seen it used, except maybe Avatar. The difference between Avatar and Transformers 3 is tha Avatar used 3D to try to immerse the viewer in the planet's environment; Transformers 3 uses it seemlessly, so that it isn't a distraction but you know that it is there. It doesn't really use the cheesy "here comes an object flying at you" effect, instead it uses 3D to actually provide some physical depth to each scene which helps to provide some perspective on what is going on around the characters.

In all honesty, if there was ever going to be a film where Michael Bay received a best director nomination, this would be it. With that said, he isn't going to be nominated, but it is a remarkable achievment that he should be proud of.

I highly recommend Transformers: Dark of the Moon to those who can accept a movie that does not challenge them intellectually at all, or who like things that explode.

UFC 132 Thoughts

2011-07-03T02:53:00.001-04:00

One of the biggest themes going through today's card was redemption. Each of the three main fights had a fighter attempting to redeem themselves from a previous event in their career. In each case, the fighter achived redemption.

Going into his fight, Tito Ortiz had two options - win his fight, or be let go from the UFC. Given that he had not won a fight since 2006 and his most recent fights saw him look rather pedestrian (not too mention the various injuries/excuses Ortiz had offered to explain his poor performances,) the general consensus was that Ortiz would be looking for a new group to fight in after UFC 132 had finished.

Funny thing about that though. Ortiz ended up dropping Bader with a punch early in the first round, then securing a guillotine choke to record a victory. Not only was that Ortiz's first victory in 5 years, it was the first time in 10 years Ortiz had stopped a fighter who was not named Ken Shamrock. In mere minutes, Ortiz had managed to turn the fans into rabid fans supporting him, and set himself up for a greater run in the UFC.

Chris Leben was on top of the world on July 3rd, 2010. He had just won two fights in 2 weeks - an accomplishment that has very little precedence in modern MMA competitions. He was considered to be within a fight or two of a title shot in he middleweight division. But that was not to be. In October, Leben was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence. Two months later, he faced Brian Stann and was destroyed by the new up and comer. Leben's future prospects as an elite MMA fighter were in question.

Leben was paired with Wanderlei Silva for this card, and Leben was thrilled to be facing his idol. He took full advantage of his high profile opponent, and in 27 seconds, cemented himself as being in the upper tier of middleweight fighters. Leben weathered a brief flurry from Silva, then dropped him with multiple uppercuts before finishing with the fight on the ground with some frightening ground and pound. Leben was back, and accepted by the community as a great fighter.

Dominick Cruz has an unusual style, one that has helped him dominate the Bantamweight division as its champion. However, Cruz had one blemish on his record - a loss to Urijah Faber in 2007. It hung over his head for a long while, and only at UFC 132 did he have an opportunity to change this.

During the fight, Cruz used his manic unorthodox style to keep Faber off balance and prevent Faber from having any sustained success in attacking. As well, Cruz was able to attack and get some solid strikes in, along with some takedowns. This gave Cruz the victory and avenged his one loss in his career. He was redeemed in his eyes.

Sports, and specifically fighting sports, produce many opportunities for redemption stories to be told, so long as the fighter involved holds their part of the bargain. Tonight, we had three fighters tell their stories of redemption to us, and remind us how powerful a redemption story could be.
***
My predictions were 9-2, putting me at 53-32-2 for the year. I won four wagers at a profit of $63, making my profit for the year $79.80.

UFC 132 Preview and Predictions

2011-07-02T01:00:00.001-04:00

Some thoughts on this intersting PPV...

UFC 132 is going to be quite the litmus test. It originally was scheduled to be Dominick Cruz vs. Urijah Faber in the main event, with BJ Penn vs. Jon Fitch in the semi-main event. With Fitch pulling out due to injury, it left Faber and Cruz as the mian event, with no semi-main to help with the buy rate.

Faber drew a remarkable buyrate in the WEC with the relative lack of promotion given to the fight, but it was still only 175,000 PPV buys. Now he is being pegged to draw on PPV, but with the UFC name behind it fully. It will be a test to see how well the former WEC division draws on PPV, as well as how effective the UFC marketing machine truly is. They have an advantage in having Faber fight, easily the most recognizable and marketable face of the former WEC fights. But question remains as to how interested people are in these divisions.

There is a hint as to how this fight will do - on January 1st Frankie Edgar and Grey Maynard fought and the buyrate was only 270,000 buys. Maynard and Edgar were theoretically more well known than Faber and Cruz, however they were also hampered by fighting on New Year's Day, traditionally a day when people watch college football. This fight is on Independence Day weekend which has traditionally been a good weekend for UFC ppvs.

I'd expect this to do about 325,000 buys. For the UFC, I do hope it has more. These divisions need more exposure and success as they are the most exciting divisions for fights.

Predictions:

Preliminary card:
Jeff Hougland over Donny Walker
Anthony Njokuani over Andre Winner
Brad Tavares over Aaron Simpson
Brian Bowles over Takeya Mizugaki

Preliminary fights on Spike:
George Soitoropolous over Rafael dos Anjos

This will be an interesting fight to see the strategy that is employed by both fighters. Both are more skilled at submission fighting than at striking, so it might be beneficial for one to stay standing. The question is which of the two feels that their striking is superior to the other. My feeling is that Soitoropolous is the one who will be more confident in his striking skills, and he will use that to his advantage.

Melvin Guillard over Shane Roller

The biggest question mark in this fight is which Guillard will show up: the one that we saw who destroyed Evan Dunham and seemed likely to finally live up to his immense potential, or the one who plays it safe and just tries to grind out his win. I hope it is the first, though I don't believe it will matter which one shows up - Guillard is going to win.

Main card on the PPV:
Dennis Siver over Matt Wiman

A great opener between two fighters who are at about the same level. In one sense this is an important fight for both for future slotting, but in another, it really does not matter that much in the grand scheme of things. The winner is going to move up a bit, but is still at least 2 if not 3 title shots away from getting their title shot (unless they knock off another contender ahead of them.) I favour Siver in this fight, but it is an even fight which could truly go either way.

Carlos Condit over Dong Hyun Kim

Another even fight, but with more title implications than the previous fight. Condit could very well be one fight away from getting a title shot (which is more a reflection of the depth in the welterweight division than anything else.) Kim is likely a bit further away than Condit from getting a title shot, but with a great performance could very well vault himself to contendership. This will be a tough fight for both. Kim's fighting style is a bit unorthodox and could befuddle Condit, but I'm betting Condit will end up winning.

Tito Ortiz over Ryan Bader

In all honesty, this is hunch pick. Bader was humiliated by Jon Jones in February, but that's Jon Jones. I'm more concerned with Bader's performance against Little Nog in September. Bader controlled him with wrestling, but otherwise showed very little against an opponent who was on the back end of his career. Ortiz is a more accomplished wrestler, and hasn't looked terrible in his fights since his return. I can easily see him earning a decision over Bader. The safe pick is definitely Bader; I'm going the other way.

Chris Leben over Wanderlei Silva

Silva is returning to the octagon after a 16 month layoff from his previous fight. It's against Chris Leben, who was last seen getting destroyed by Brian Stann. If this isn't an exciting, standing slugfest then something has gone horrifically wrong and you should jump to Dana White's twitter feed for the spewing of explicatives. I'm going with the fighter who has fought in the past year, even if he probably hasn't recovered from his knockout yet.

Dominick Cruz over Urijah Faber

Let me make something clear - I want to see Faber win. I think he's a great ambassador for the sport, and quite honestly I think he's a more entertaining fighter than "The Decisionator". However, Cruz is the better fighter, and he's going to win this fight. The one advantage Faber has in this fight is his wrestling, but Cruz is a strong defender of takedowns as well. I believe Cruz will neutralize Faber's wrestling and win the striking battle.

Theortical Wagers:
(As always, these odds come from our friends at PartyBets)

$20 on Njokuani at 1.65 odds to win $33
$10 on Tavares at 2.65 odds to win $28.50
$10 on Ortiz at 4.40 odds to win $44
$10 on Leben at 2.30 odds to win $23
$20 on Cruz at 1.65 odds to win $33

Questioning Authority

2011-06-28T08:00:00.001-04:00

When I first read about a federal report on obesity being questioned by a professor of medicine and chair of obesity research, I wanted to comment that we need to look at who is criticizing the report. Somebody whose career is based around researching obesity might have a vested interest to discredit a report that indicates that simple changes to diet and exercise patterns might reduce obesity cases significantly. I especially wanted to when Kelly McParland snarked: Walking around the block is going to offset the double baconator you had for lunch? I don’t think so.

Now comes along the New England Journal of Medicine and a new report which attempts to quantify what affect each type of food has on your weight. (Jonathan Kay has a handy summary of the findings.)

I'm sure there are holes to this report when considering the obesity issue, but it does lay out for us a few ideas when it comes to losing weight. Specifically, something along the lines of "fried carbs bad, naturally occurring foods good." I know that I lost a fair bit of weight by changing my diet to include better types of food (like nuts for snacks, whole grains and salsads replacing fries, and chicken replacing beef more often than not.) It just makes sense given what we know.

That's why I don't understand McParland and Dr. Sharma's full scale rejection of the idea that eating more fruits and vegetables and getting 15 minutes of exercising will lead to a decrease of obesity cases. I understand that there are some cases when this will not be able to be the only piece of a solution, but in many cases, it will help, if not solve the problem. One thing that will definitely not help is the defeatist attitude that McParland and Dr. Sharma seem to be willing to propigate. Encouragement helps people; dismissing a sensible claim immediately helps nobody.

JayRo Watches: Expedition Impossible

2011-06-27T19:59:00.002-04:00

(No true spoilers here.)

I watched the first episode of Expedition Impossible and enjoyed it a lot. That's all you need to know.

Well, maybe some description would be nice.

Expedition Impossible is essentially Mark Burnett's ode to the Amazing Race. It uses the familiar checkpoint/roadblock method of racing, but eliminates (a) the travelling from country to country via plane and (b) the puzzle side of determining where you have to go next. Both are replaced by having to traverse the landscape of Morocco, whether that be the desert, the canyons or the snow capped mountains. The last team to ~~check in at the pit stop~~ cross the finish line is eliminated.

One improvement on the Amazing Race is some of the humour added by "translating" the locals. (I put translating in quotes because it's not completely clear whether the locals are actually saying what the subtitles say.) On the Amazing Race, you normally are left to wonder what these locals are thinking about the crazy Americans doing wacky things in their country. Here, you get an answer, and it can be amusing.

The addition of team names is a mixed blessing - it's nice to have an easy way to identify the teams from the outset, but the names are pretty plain. They are pretty descriptive of the idea behind the team though, so again, it is appreciated.

If you like the Amazing Race, you will enjoy this show. It has all of the features of the amazing race, with some gorgeous shots of the Moroccian landscape that only a Mark Burnett production can provide.

It's all in how you present it

2011-06-23T08:30:00.000-04:00

Robin Leach talked about Gordon Ramsay and his new Las Vegas restaurant and Hell's Kitchen when he wrote this:

Hell’s Kitchen is now the longest-running, non-celebrity contestant, reality TV challenge program, surpassing Donald Trump’s The Apprentice.

My first reaction was to try to come up with a snarky comment about Survivor not counting because it wasn't filmed in the US, and American Idol not counting because too many people watch it. But then I started to think to try to understand exactly what he was saying. So, I went to Wikipedia to see if they had a reference for that "non-celebrity contestant, reality TV challenge program" line It has this to say:

Hell's Kitchen has surpassed The Apprentice (hosted by Donald Trump) in number of non-celebrity-contestant seasons

So, I have no clue as to what a "non-celebrity contestant, reality TV challenge program" is. If I had to guess, it's a show where the winner is determined by some sort of judging and not by any sort of calculated measurement.

The true question now is where did Leach get this line? Did somebody read what Wikipedia said and then give it a bit of a flourish? did a PR flack give him that line to add into his column? Or was it a simple misinterpretation?

No matter what the reason is, that line is one hell of a thin slice to make in order to puff up somebody whose ego doesn't need any more inflating. But that is Robin Leach's style - gush about his subjects and write puff pieces. He doesn't need to question something so specific sounding. Why would somebody lie about something as specific as "non-celebrity contestant, reality TV challenge program." What would be the benefit of being the longest lasting of such a niche group?

I don't think there's a benefit to being the longest running anything of a limited subsection of television; it's clear that others believe that being number one in something has to be a positive.

Random Thoughts - June 22, 2011

2011-06-22T08:00:00.002-04:00

It seems to be the norm, but Bell put their foot in their mouth again. Saying that it's preposterous that consumers should be able to see content on all cellphones and tablets is backwards and wrong thinking. You can sell access to the content and make money. As well, exclusive content does not drive people to particular providers - the hardware and vertical integration does. You'd think that Bell would have learned this by now - it's not like their Mobile NHL has dragged the customers to them.

Kayden Kross wrote an interesting letter attacking porn piracy (site is probably NSFW, but there is no actual nudity in the article.) She makes a strong point that the pirates could have worked with the porn industry and both could have made a lot of money. But her conclusion only looks at one part of the equation. Instead of blaming the pirates for causing a race to the bottom, she shoud also consider why the porn industry couldn't put together an equivalent website to the porntubes of the world, supported by both subscription rates and ad revenue. If it worked for anime, why couldn't it work for porn?

Unlike other privacy complaints we have seen, the complaint against eHarmony seemed to be resolved in a sensible manner. Privacy commissioner receives a complaint, investigates, the advises the site of the issues and their recommended way of resolving it. The website responds by saying they are working to implement similiar methods to resolve the issue and also advises of alternate methods to complete the action. Win, win.

From the category of teh awesome: Patrick Stewart is starring in a production of the Merchant of Venice which is being put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon. The twist? The play is set in Las Vegas

Random Thoughts - June 21, 2011

2011-06-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

To continue my recent Tropicana kick, I present this: John Curtas visited Bacio recently, and he agrees that the gnocchi is gummy. Considering when he visited Bacio, Chef Carla Pellegrino was in the restaurant, it's a safe assumption that it is something with their preparation instead of a one-off occurence. It's also encouraging that the other dishes he sampled were up to his standards.

While on the subject of Vegas, Vegas Inc. declared McCarran Airport as a highlight of Vegas. As somebody who travels through Terminal 2 of McCarran, I have to disagree. The benefit of flying into Terminal 2 is that you can get a cab almost immediately after landing, since it's a pretty quiet terminal. The downside is that the terminal really has nothing in it - a Pizza Hut or Burger King for food, a newsstand, but nothing too spectacular. If anything, it's the perfect compliment for your feelings when you are leaving Vegas - reserved to allow you to begin to revert to "real world" mode, and melancholy to reflect your sadness on leaving the city.

In the coolest thing to be seen in a long while, 10 Sports Illustrated writers drafted teams and then simulated them via Strat-O-Matic. I actually disagreed with the first pick in the draft, but won't spoil it for you.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta writes a fantastic article about Nick Charles' battle with terminal bladder cancer.

This sounds odd: Deep Fried Kool-Aid.

James McAvoy has limited any chance he has of ever working with James Cameron

Getting Blanked brings the baseball related funny.

Already setting up next year

2011-06-20T21:24:00.001-04:00

Max Pacioretty wasn't happy with the Bruins winning the Cup. (Not that I blame him; and I congratulate him for not goin on the rant that I did after the end of round 1.)

How to prove yourself to be a douchebag in one easy step

2011-06-17T00:35:00.002-04:00

Second picture in.

Rethinking Tropicana's layout

2011-06-15T23:40:00.001-04:00

I am a bit surprised to hear that Bacio at Tropicana has cut their hours. As I said in my review of the restaurant, I think it's a solid restaurant (though I'd stay away from the Gnocchi.) So for it to cut its hours is a bit surprising, and an indication that something isn't working. So the puzzle for the Trop to solve is why this restaurant isn't working. I can think of two reasons:

1. Pricing My Gnocchi cost $24. Ignoring my feelings on the quality of the Gnocchi, it's not a difficult pasta to make. And considering the sauce was a simple meat sauce, I'm not sure what gave it the $24 price point. That's not all though - get Veal Parmesan, and it will cost you $42! If they set the price point about $5 lower, people would be much more likely to eat there.

2. Location First, a story. Last year during my Memorial Day trip to Vegas, there was a pool party held at the Tropicana pool. It went well, but one consisten complaint was that it was difficult to find the pool, with the signage being rather confusing. The signage for the pool has been fixed, but it remains for Bacio. To get to Bacio, you have to go through the casino floor, take an escalator to the second floor, walk around a promenade and the go down a hall until you reach Bacio. When you enter, there is no signage to indicate where to go for Bacio, so unless you head towards the general area of Bacio, you wouldn't know where it is.

What's a bigger issue is that these issues aren't just Bacio issues, but they are common to all of the restaurants in the Tropicana. Indeed, if you enter the Tropicana through the main entrance, the only food option within any sort of sight line is the sundry store. The restaurants aren't even readily visible as you move around in the casino, or when you head down the path to lead you there. Instead they are buried behind multiple turns and are very close to "out of sight, out of mind."

You want to go to Biscayne? It's right across from Bacio. It's also more expensive than Bacio - the prices are closer to Carnevino. It's one thing for Carnevino to charge these prices - they have the star chef, along with a reputation for being a top steakhouse. Biscayne has neither of these. And implicitly, both Bacio and Biscayne acknowledge this by offering a prix fix menu at a great discount. Bacio gives an app, main course, dessert, glass of house wine and coffee or tea for $33.99 when it would normally cost $45+ for all of this. Biscayne has a $39.99 4 course meal which also includes a wine pairing. By putting these menus out there, they send a message that the prices on he actual menu might be exaggerated a bit.

Cafe Nikki also suffers from a similiar price issue - the cheapest entree it has is $24. It does have sandwiches and burgers available, but those are in the $15-$18 range. Want something decent for breakfast? Too bad for you. Cafe Nikki only servesa breakfast buffet now. Even the pizza place in the food court is somewhat pricey - a $6 single burger seems like the best deal there.

All of this works against Tropicana. While thir rooms are refreshed and great (review still to come, honestly!), the lack of clearly visible restaurant options which are reasonably costed are sorely lacking. It's more than enough to drive somebody to MGM Grand and one of their multitude of options, or to New York New York and their All You Can Eat Pancake deal. If Tropicana doesn't come up with a creative way to drive foot traffic to their restaurants, they will find their other restaurants going dark for a couple of nights a week.

UFC 131 Thoughts

2011-06-12T21:43:00.002-04:00

UFC 131 ended up producing the desired winners in most matches.(*) More importantly, those winners gave performances that made the winners look like they are worthy of the next match they will receive.

Junior dos Santos absolutely mauled Shane Carwin in the main event. The match had already been declared for the next title shot, but with Cain Velasquez looking so dominant in all of his fights it was going to take a dominant performance to make people believe that Cain was in any sort of danger. dos Santos delivered this. The first round was a mirror of Carwin's last fight, only with Carwin receiving the benefit of the doubt from the referee. Make no mistake, Carwin was being pummelled unmercifully and could have seen the ref stop the fight. And if the round were 30 seconds longer, this likely would have happened. But with only 10 seconds remaining, and it being obvious that Herb Dean was not going to stop the fight, dos Santos relented on his attack, choosing to reserve his energy. Not that it mattered; Carwin's face told the story. dos Santos eventually ended up with a decision victory, but most everybody will remember it as a dominant performance, and one that made dos Santos look like a threat to Velasquez's title.

Similarly, Kenny Florian's defeat of Diego Nunes set Florian up for a future title featherweight title shot. This was also pre-ordained; if Florian was going to be able to survive his cut to 145 pounds, he would be lined up to face the winner of Jose Aldo Jr. and Chad Mendes. Florian did not look dominant; however he did look as though his skills did not suffer from fighting at a lower weight class. And that should be more than enough to sell a PPV.

Combine this with Donald Cerrone's victory and you have three matches that set up future contenders well.

(*): This is unlike UFC 130, where the right people won, but did not look impressive in winning.
***
More importanly for the UFC, this show was an entertaining one. After the end of UFC 129, and the whole of UFC 130, this was a welcome event.

It's said often that bad events will be forgiven by fans becasue the event is real. The fans understand that not all fights will be exciting, but so long as some are exciting to watch with a definitive end. This is true, but if you end up with enough boring fights/cards in a row, you will reach a tipping point where business will go down and (heaven forbid) the fad will pass. UFC 131 headed this off, but it is a real danger for UFC to consider.

The real issue that UFC has to fight against is the reality that this is a real sport. Fighters make money by winning, not being spectacular. As much as they want to score the memorable knockout, they want to win to keep their job even more. And UFC can not do much more than they have to incentivize their fighters to produce spectacular finishes - large bonuses (in many cases more than the purse for winning a fight) and more prominent positions on fight cards can only go so far. In the end fighters need to make the decision as to whether they are going to go for a bonus, or if they desire to win at all costs. It's a tradeoff that is difficult to decide.
***
My predictions were 4-3, putting me at 44-30-2 for the year. No wagers were made, so I am still at a net profit of $18.60 for the year.

UFC 131 Predictions

2011-06-11T20:07:00.002-04:00

Not including the facebook fights, as I saw the results for them.

Jesse Bongfeldt over Chris Weidman
Yves Edwards over Sam Stout
Donald Cerrone over Vagner Rocha
Jon Olav Einemo over Dave Herman
Mark Munoz over Damien Maia
Kenny Florian over Diego Nunes
Junior dos Santos over Shane Carwin

Random Thoughts - June 10, 2011

2011-06-10T15:32:00.002-04:00

Some random thoughts for a Friday...

Compare and contrast time. Adam Daifallah on Wednesday about the Conservative Party of Canada's success:
Another point has been the professionalization of the Conservative Party. Before Harper first won, the Tories had a weak, gaffe-prone communications operation. Since winning government, the Conservatives have (for better or worse) become a case study in professional political organization, from its tight scripting to message control to the way it has defined its political opponents, especially the last two Liberal leaders. It would be difficult to find another political party in the Western world today that has a better-oiled communications machine than Harper’s Tories.

And his co-author Tasha Kheiriddin on Thursday, regarding the $50MM spent on Muskoka upgrades:
The report also makes you wonder about the communications plan in the Prime Minister’s Office. The government took major heat over the budget for security costs when it was made public. Yet, as Fraser points out, officials knew that they were likely to come in under budget – so shouldn’t someone have advised the Tories to downgrade the estimates, to minimize public opposition to the price tag?

That's the best communication machine of all Western world political parties?

Speaking of the National Post, Canada's best sports columnist, Bruce Arthur, has a fantastic article about how non-fans of the Canucks or Bruins feel about the series: No One is Pure in the Stanley Cup Final. And Down Goes Brown takes a contrarian stance by giving us positive things associated with both teams.

Toronto arrests their creepy weirdos who violate women by taking photographs up their skirts. Meanwhile, in Franklin County, Ohio, they make it much easier. (Money quote: "She speculates that men, who didn’t take half the population into account, designed the stairs." You think?)

Kelly McParland is confused that Shania Twain claimed to not be able to sing due to the trauma of her divorce, but has now announced a residency at Caesar's Palace. Maybe he missed the fact that it will start in December 2012?

JayRo Watches: The Green Hornet

2011-06-07T08:00:00.001-04:00

I went into watching the Green Hornet with much trepidation. Most everything I heard about it was horrible, with reviews shitting all over it. To my surprise, I did not mind it.

I should be clear - this is not a fantastic film that people should hunt down immediately. The action was pretty pedestrian, the development of the Britt Reid character was forced, and the swerve of the big baddie at the end was pretty obvious. But this was balanced with Seth Rogan's performance of a bumbling super hero pretending to be a villain, along with the general greatness of the Kato character.

The plot of the Green Hornet is pretty straight forward - father dies, son turns to crime fighting then avenges father's death. The twist is that the Green Hornet pretends to be a villain to get closer to the actual villains. Along the way there are twists and turns, but the feel of the movie is very familiar.

In all, this is a mediocre film which you will end up sitting down and watching one day when it is on television. And after it is done you will wonder where your time went. It won't move you to buy a DVD, nor will it encourage you to want to see a second Green Hornet film, but you won't feel as though you have been ripped off on your time.

JayRo Watches: X-Men First Class

2011-06-06T08:00:00.001-04:00

X-Men First Class is definitely a Bryan Singer movie, even if he did not direct it. It follows through on X-Men 1 and 2, and ties up a lot of the loose ends. As well, it carries on the tradition of the first two movies to concentrate on characters and acting performances over action.

That isn't to say that there are no spectacular fight scenes. In particular, Magneto has quite a few scenes where he looked like the greatest assassin ever created. But what drives the movie are the performances of the actors.

James McAvoy plays Charles Xavier, and carries a lot of the heavy load in the first half of the movie. McAvoy brings a lot of Xavier's gravitas and mysterious ability to push and challenge his students. He also supplies the wisdom that you expect from Professor X. But in the second half of the movie, he hands over the movie to the true star, Michael Fassbender.

Fassbender plays Magneto with aplomb, taking what is initially a character who is driven solely by revenge, and helping to transform him into the complex character who desires to take mutant kind to rule the world. He takes us along with his own change into this character, letting us understand his motives while not necessarily tipping his hand as to where the character is going to go. It was a breakout performance for Fassbender; not necessarily an Oscar worthy performance, but on that should make Hollywood pay notice and get Fassbender many more starring roles.

I should also take a moment to commend Kevin Bacon on his performance; more often than not Bacon is treated as a bit of a joke, thanks to the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. But his performance as Sebastian Shaw was a strong performance for somebody who normally isn't cast as a main villain.

I recommend seeing this movie, especially if you enjoed the first two X-Men movies. The acting carries the movie, though the story and action were not lacking either.

Well, I failed again

2011-05-30T16:35:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I did not post, meaning that Manic May ended right again on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. I did it intentionally, choosing to sleep/relax/hang out with friends over posting. I'll get into this more in the post-mortem on Wednesday, but it was definitely the right choice.

I'll have a UFC 130 summary up either later today or tomorrow But for those who can't wait, the results of my predictions...

Overall, my predictions were 6-4 (starting out 6-0, then going 0-4), putting me at 40-26-2 for the year. I made $10.40 on my wagers, putting me at a net profit of $18.30.

UFC 130 Predictions

2011-05-28T15:43:00.002-04:00

Some quick predictions and theoretical wagers...

Renan Barao over Cole Escovedo
Michael McDonald over Chris Cariaso

Bet: $20 on McDonald at 1.22 odds to get back $24.40

Gleison Tibau over Rafaello Oliveira
Tim Boetsch over Kendall Grove

Bet: $20 on Boetsch at 2.15 odds to get back $43

Demetrious Johnson over Miguel Torres

Bet: $20 on Johnson at 2.15 odds to get back $43

Brian Stann over Jorge Santiago
Thiago Alves over Rick Story
Stefan Struve over Travis Browne

Bet: $20 on Struve at 2.20 odds to get back $44

Roy Nelson over Frank Mir
Matt Hamill over Rampage Jackson

Going out on a limb for this one, but if Rampage isn't taking Hamill seriously, Rampage will lose.

Bet: $20 on Hamill at 3.40 odds to get back $68

JayRo in Vegas - Day 4

2011-05-27T15:09:00.002-04:00

Love - still good

Yesterday I went and saw Love for the second time. It was just as fantastic as the first time. It helped to have a bit of an understanding of what they were trying to tell us, but even without that, it is fantastic to watch. I went in a group of eleven, and everyone was impressed and loved it. I think I liked it more than Absinthe, but I'm not entirely sure. I'll have to think about it some more.

JayRo in Vegas - Day 3

2011-05-26T17:59:00.001-04:00

My new home base

Yesterday I moved to Mandalay Bay after spending two nights in the Tropicana. The Trop was a fantastic place to stay (with review still to come), but I kinda feel like I'm home now.

Just yesterday, I was thinking about the places I have stayed the most. If I'm counting right, I have stayed at Excalibur the most, with Mandalay Bay the next in line. The next time I stay at Mandalay Bay, it will tie Excalibur. But I haven't stayed at Excalibur for 4 years, while my stays at Mandalay Bay have been more recent. I don't know why, but it just feels more comfortable now. Maybe I'm just used to it, and know what I'm going to get - a standard room which is nice and comfortable, and slightly luxurious as well.

I will definitely stay at Tropicana again, but I will always start with Mandalay Bay when considering a place to stay.

A brief review of Absinthe

This is the best show I have seen in a long time. It's an acrobat/circus based show with a lot of humour built in. It should be noted that the show is definitely adult, with both female nudity and rather raunchy humour being told. So be prepared to offended. At the same time, the acrobatics being displayed are incredible, and are emphasized by the size of the "tent" - at worst you are about 25 feet away from the action, which is about an 8 foot diameter circular stage. I can not recommend this show strongly enough.

JayRo in Vegas: Day 2

2011-05-25T12:58:00.004-04:00

Quick thoughts about the Cosmopolitan

I went to the Cosmopolitan for the first time yesterday, and gave it a once over. Some thoughts about it:

The first view I saw was this:

I have to admit it that is a great first impression.

Next order of business was to sign up for my new Identity rewards card. The clerk was extremely nice and knew some things about Ontario which I did not know.

One thing I didn't like about the process was that the clerk had to enter your secret pin number, as opposed to having a number pad where you could enter the information yourself. Granted, it was only a pin number, but how many people would use the same pin number for that and, say, their debit card?

Once I got my card, I parked myself at a $0.25 Video poker machine and played my free play through, along with another $40. This lasted me about 45 minutes, during which I was never offered cocktail service. There was at least two cocktail waitresses walking by, but neither seemed to have my section. When I subsequently moved to another machine, all was good in the world and I got my drink.

The atmosphere during the day was a bit non-existant. No real energy or excitement on the casino floor. So I came back at night. The first thing I did was head to the secret pizza shop and had a decent slice of pepperoni for $3.75. The pizza joint is a cool idea, and is sorely needed for a place to get a quick snack.

I walked the casino floor after and as I figured, it was like night and day (no pun intended). The table games were relatively active, but the bars had the most action in them. One thing I did notice about the table games were that the minimums were pretty high. I saw as many $50+ tables as $25 tables, and a sparse amount of $15 tables. There was a $10 Casino War table, but otherwise you needed to be betting a quarter to be playing at those tables. I can't say as that was good for my plans to play a couple of hands of blackjack to acquire some chips, but if it works for them, so be it.

One other thing I found interesting was the attire of the people who were there at night. A lot of suits and cocktail dresses - not what I would expect from the "curious class", but closer to the convention types that you would expect.

Random final note: I had my first celebrity sighting of the trip - Brad Garrett was at the Cosmopolitan with a woman who I presume was his girlfriend. (I didn't ask.)

I'll probably visit Cosmopolitan again, and there is a chance that I will stay there for a few nights the next time I am in town. While the table limits at night are a non-starter, the hotel still has amazing views in it's rooms, and some interesting restaurants as well. I can always gamble at another casino.

JayRo in Vegas - Day 1

2011-05-24T15:23:00.004-04:00

As I've mentioned once or twice, I'm in Vegas this week. I'm hoping to put up a post a day about my various adventures and tribulations along the way. So, let's get this started...

Eating at Bacio

For the first couple of nights, I'm staying at the newly renovated Tropicana. A room review will show up, but I will say that the renovations look fantastic. I love the room and the look of the casino.

With all this said, I also wanted to make sure I ate at some of the restaurants being offered here. I was torn between Bacio and Biscayne (which are convienently located right across from one another). As it turns out, a passerby would end up making the decision for me by handing me an unused $27 comp for Bacio. To that person, I thank you again for your generousity.

I was seated by the hostess (who is sure to be featured on Eating LV's Hot Hostess Watch), and once seated was asked by Glenn if I would like water and what kind. Being a simple person, I asked for regular/tap water, and it was brought without problem. Then my main server Manny appeared, asking me if I had any questions about the menu or wine list, and making recommendations of his choices from both. For the small berth in the actual Bacio restaurant, there were 3 teams of two servers, a main who handled orders and delivery of the meals/alcoholic drinks, and a secondary (junior? What's the correct term here?) who served the non-alcoholic drinks, bread and did some cleaning of the tables as well.

I ordered a Chianti (which Manny said was the house Chianti), and received my bread basket.

I'm going to be honest and say I don't remember what the breads were. There was a foccacia, some sort of olive bread, a cheese something (the thin large wafer). An olive oil/balsalmic vinegar combination was served along side for dipping. The breads were fine, and the oil/vinegar combination complimented the breads nicely.

Manny came back and I made my order:

I started with the Vongole Oreganate, which are described as "Broiled Bread Mixture Stuffed Littleneck Clams". This was on the recommendation by my mysterious benefactor, the hostess and Manny. These were pretty good, and surprisingly light considering that the bulk of the food is just bread mixture. The one downside of this dish was that the clams played second fiddle to the breading. The breading was quite tasty and definitely carried the dish. The broth was lemony; if you put some on top of the clams it would have added another dimension.

For my main course, I selected the Gnocchi al Ragu, which is a "Potato Gnocchi in Slow Cooked Ground Beef, Veal, Pork and Tomato Sauce".

This was a disappointment. The problem was the Gnocchi. The gnocchi stuck to me, but to my teeth instead of to my stomach. This ended making the gnocchi feel more heavy than it should have. The sauce was good, not good enough to elevate the dish, but it was good enough.

In all, I think I would come back. I'm willing to give the gnocchi a pass and try something else (I am eyeing up the Pollo Scarpariello), as the service was a strength and the ambience was suprisingly nice.

The bill came to $46

I hate having to do the right thing

I played a lot of video poker yesterday, and came across this dealt hand:

What an unfair choice - take the guaranteed $6.25, take the the 1 in 47 shot at the $1000 Royal Flush, or the 2 in 47 shot at the $62.50 Straight Flush.

The Jacks or Better book says you have to keep the 4 to the Royal Flush instead of the open ended straight flush draw or even the flush. So that's what I did, to this result:

Ah well, maybe next time it will actually hit.

Some Random Thoughts on the Celebrity Apprentice and other things that pop into my head

2011-05-23T10:00:00.003-04:00

A quick view behind the curtain here. When this posts, I'll be flying to Las Vegas. Right now, I'm going through my final preparations, making sure I have all of my tickets/reservations, that I have everything packed and in general that I haven't forgot anything. So some hurried thoughts:

- That red carpet skit at the start would have been much funnier without the lame "you're fired" bit at the end.
- The entire John Rich/Def Leppard interaction was fantastic. Between the blank stare when Rich went on about his kickdrum stuff, and Def Leppard
- David Cassidy insulting and making fun of Richard Hatch about going to jail, and then talking about getting what's coming to you when you take the low road was just a bit awkward.
- Donald Trump: Peace Negotiator is not destined to be successful.
- Donald Trump does a worse job in wrangling in the people who are getting too far off topic.
- With that said, Gary Busey was note perfect in his appearance in the finale, until he actually got to shwo what he was talking about on the Omaha Steak thing.
- The kickdrum argument was possibly the most inane cliffhanger "setback" ever. Heck, the whole argument was inane, as shown by how easy it was solved.
- So, why is John Rich getting all these donations, while Marlee Matlin isn't?
- Of course, we're getting a lot of John Rich's failures, so Marlee Matlin will win.
- How in the sweet blue fuck do you fuck up your timing on Def Leppard?
- Seriously, I still don't get how you end up saying "Time to go now, only 30 minutes before our headliner is supposed to show." For somebody who's been incredibly point on before this task, AND A PERSON WHO GIVES CONCERTS FOR A LIVING, how do you fuck up this schedule/timing?
- Your solution? I'll just jump up and perform myself. Not that awkward.
- You know, in wrestling there's a thought that if you fuck up a spot, you don't go back to it. That's what John Rich did when he had them sing that Retro 7Up opening again.
- Oh, and John Rich still loses. Between the timing and the not meeting the executives, he can't win.
- Speaking of awkward, that planned clinking of the cans by the executives was uber-awkward.
- Star Jones decides to bring up the black woman card against Nene Leaks. Whoops.
- Marlee Matlin's reaction to John Rich's extra fund raising was necessary, but came across as desperate.
- Hearing the crowd while they were showing the pretaped footage is still offputting. I don't want to hear it
- Donald Trump knows how to sell some things, for example putting his black cowboy hat on.
- If only Trump hadn't already announcedhe wasn't going to run for President. Then his "announcement you have all been waiting for" tease would have had more meaning.
- The musical performance was pretty good. And I'm happy that they finally integrated the ASL version of applause. I realize it's an verbal medium as well, but still.
- So the people who think Marlee should win are the people who were the first three to go, and Gary Busey. Not a great endorsement.
- Holy crap John Rich won. How did that happen?
- No really, how did that happen?

Er, that's about it. I'mstill stunned over John Rich actually winning.

A video and a plug

2011-05-22T23:07:00.002-04:00

Kevin Peirera interviews Royce Gracie on Attack of the Show, then decides it would be fun to get choked out.

I found the video posted on a new website created by Mike Sawyer: Tough Talk MMA. Add it to your rotation; MMA news and views plus the odd Las Vegas insider tidbit from a great man.

Might as well finish off the series

2011-05-21T15:34:00.003-04:00

For those who haven't been following along, on Thursday I jumped the gun on a blog post, and found that an assumption about what I would find if I changed a study completed by Steven Levitt was absolutely incorrect. On Friday, I finished my analysis and figured out (to my satisfaction) why the results came through like they did. Today, I'm going to take a look at the NBA and see what happens if you take a look at it and compare that to the randomly paired poker pro results .

I have used the playoffs from 2007-2010 as a base for the basketball population test. Here's how the percentages break down:

Champion (1 team): 71.95% win percentage vs. the rest of the league, 81.60% vs non playoff teams
Made the finals (2 teams): 72.19% win percentage vs. teams that did not make the finals, 79.32% vs. non playoff teams, overall win percentage 71.65%
Made the Conference finals (4 teams): 67.28% win percentage vs. teams that did not make the finals, 73.79% vs. non playoff teams, overall win percentage 65.63%
Made the second round (8 teams): 64.91% vs. teasm that did not make the second round of the playoffs, 70.16% vs. non playoff teams, overall win percentage 61.43%
Made the playoffs (16 teams): 65.84% vs. non playoff teams, overall win percentage 57.70%

It's worth noting that there are 30 teams in the NBA, which means that 14 teams do not make the playoffs.

If anything, this destroys Levitt's main point, which is the random pairings he made of "elite players" vs. non-elite players show about the same win percentage of baseball teams when doing a playoff vs. non playoff cut. Basketball actually has much larger spread of win percentages, with teams having individual win percentage ranging from 10% to 75%+, which indicates a greater spread in talent between the teams. This would also match better with World Series of Poker fields, which have a large spread in talent.

What would be ideal would be to know more abou what Levitt's population did. How often do elite players cash vs. non-elite players? If you randomly pair an elite and non-elite player, how often do both cash, how often does only once cash, and how often do neither cash? Just throwing out the random pairing percentage doesn't give us a proper idea of it's significance.

All of this isn't to say that poker is not a game of skill; it is. The question is how much of it is skill, and how much is also random occurance of the cards.

Trying to make sense of it

2011-05-20T08:00:00.001-04:00

As a follow up to yesterday's post, I ran the numbers for playoff, LCS and World Series teams against teams that miss that cut off for 1998-2010 (1998 chosen because it was the first year with full expansion.)

The pattern stayed the same - the playoff/non-playoff divide had playoff teams winning 56.53% of the time, while the LCS/non-LCS divide has LCS teams winning 56.00% of the time. After thinking about it, I'm a bit more comofortable with why this is happening.

It's going to seem like a simple explanation, but the reason this happened is because the non-LCS population of teams is better than the non-playoff population of teams. Playoff teams that lose in the divisional round have an overall win percentage of 54.93% in the following year, and have a winning percentage of 50.83% against LCS teams.

(I will note that if you compare LCS teams to non-playoff teams, LCS teams win 57.05% of the time, which is the phenomenom that I was expecting to see.)

I still have reservations about the testing method that Levitt used - baseball win percentages generally speaking range between 40% and 60%, so I don't know if a comparison of straight win percentages is the best method to show the comparison. But since there isn't really an equivalent win/loss for the random pairings that Levitt used, I don't know how to solve this. As well, there is a related argument to be made that MLB teams are already divided into varying ranges of elite talent teams, while the poker population tested contains talent levels that range from elite to poor. The argument basically is that if you put an MLB team up against, say, a beer league team, you would expect the MLB team to win 99% of the time, if not 100%. In the poker population, you already have the equivalent of MLB teams against beer league teams, so you would expect the random pairing win percentage to be higher.

I still wish to test the basketball playoffs, to see if there's something there. But I am glad to understand why cutting at a highter threshold ends up providing a lower win percentage. Sometimes it takes doing a bit more work and a second look to understand better what's going on.

Jumping ahead of the story

2011-05-19T09:13:00.000-04:00

This was supposed to be a post about Steve Levitt's paper comparing poker and baseball. In a sense it still is, because I have a couple of reservations about the test Levitt did.

The reservation I have which I haven't tested is to compare the WSOP results to NBA results. I think that's an interesting test as teams tend to not change quality that much from year to year. I haven't found the information in an quick format to run calculations on. Once I do get them together, I will post the results.

The other reservation I had was with the population size that Levitt tested. For poker players, he identified 720 players as being high skill that participated in the 2010 WSOP. We know that the full population of WSOP players is at a minimum 7,319 players, because that is the number who played in the main event. So Levitt's test of poker players defines the population of high skill players as being < 10% of the population. But when he makes the same cut for baseball, he defines the equivalent high skill as making the playoffs. The problem with this is that he's defining high skill in baseball as being 26.67% of the population.

That difference is huge. I realize there are restraints given the number of teams in MLB, but it still strikes me as there has to be a better definition to be used. So I decided that a slightly more fair definition would be to only consider the four teams that made the LCS. This would set the cutoff at being 13.33%, which strikes me as being closer to equivalent for my liking.

So off I went to run the calculations. And to be honest, I was expecting to find that teams which made the LCS won 56% or 57% of games against teams that did not make the LCS, and I would write something pithy about cosnidering definitions when doing a test and Levitt might not have proven what he thought he did.

Then I saw the results - Teams that made the LCS won 54.46% of games against teams which did not make the LCS. Compare this to the playoff/non-playoff cutoff, which sees playoff teams win 55.72% of their games against non-playoff teams.

Quite honestly, I don't know what to make of this. There is something about teams that lose in the divisional round of the playoffs - LCS teams only win 44.07% of their games against teams that lost in the divisional round. But LCS teams fare better against teams that did not make the playoffs when compared to teams that lose in the divisional round.

I am definitely going to get more data on this - I want to know if this is just a three year blip on the radar, or if there's an actual trend in place. Also, I want to know exactly what is going on here - is there some sort of pattern that can be found regarding divisional round losers? Is using World Series competitors any different for determining skill vs. non skill? Is there something else I'm missing?

The bigger issue here is that I had this post practically written in my head, and then I went to get the numbers to back up my thoughts only to find that maybe assuming what was going to happen was a bad idea. So even if in getting into this data I find absolutely nothing conclusive, I will be able to take away something - it's always better to ask a question, gather your data, then answer the question than to ask a question, answer a question and then gather your data.

Agendas and perspective

2011-05-18T08:00:00.004-04:00

Two unrelated pieces of writing which struck a nerve...

Lorne Gunter has a lot of things to say about Jack Layton and Olivia Chow's trip to Disneyland and junkets in general. I agree with him in principle; politicians shouldn't be taking trips from lobbyists, especially if it can influence their position on legislation.

However, look at the top junket takers and the places they went. Jim Karygiannis took top spot with 16 overseas trips worth $71,950. Pretty damning. So, where did he go?

Greece. Yup that's pretty nice. Definitely not good.

France. Another vacation spot.

Belgium. I can see wanting to go to Belgium and maybe enjoying a beer or three.

The United States. Well, it's possible he had work there, but there sure are a good number of vacation spots.

India. It is emerging as a power...

China. We are trying to build better relations with China...

Egypt. There are places to go where you can really enjoy luxury. But if you went in the last few months, it might not be so comfortable.

Nigeria. Maybe he was collecting his money owed from a Nigerian prince?

Bangladesh. Maybe he was going for some spiritual awakening?

Cyprus? Haiti? If he was vacationing or going on a junket to these spots, I think he's doing it wrong.

Same goes for John Williams, who intersperced trips to Germany, England, Monaco, South Africa, the United States, Mexico and Qatar with trips to Albania, Serbia, Columbia, Kuwait and Indonesia.

Lorne really buries his lede here by showing us all of the trips and including trips that certainly look like they are related to an MP's job. But by not including those, it would look like he's actually trying to plump up the charges of junkets. It's great that he's decided to point out the worst offenders to taking trips from lobbyists. At the same time, it would be better to try to determine which trips were relevant, and which ones weren't.
***
On the other end of the spectrum, Robin Leach gives us a "report" of Danielle Staub's activities. (see bottom.)

Leach lets us know that Staub is gone from the Real Housewives franchise, and is no longer developing a show with them. Leach takes it a step further to tell us that Staub is making appearances at Score's in Manhattan, which is a topless club. There's a certain amount of glee that Leach seems to be taking with bringing us this and sure enough, Leach himsels tells us why he is so giddy. Staub in the past had said she was going to be the next Robin Leach.

Under most circumstances, this would be a tough situation of media letting their bias come through in their repoting. But with this being Robin Leach, it's more or less accepted that Leach's biases will be apparent in his reporting, and you go from there.

Both stories that I've mentioned here give us an idea as to how important perspective is for getting a better understanding as to what is driving the story and/or how big of a story it actually is. Without that, it would be very easy to over react.

Survivor - Ranking the winners

2011-05-17T08:00:00.001-04:00

It's been a long time since I've done this. And there have been a few memorable performances and some not so memorable ones. Without further ado, here's the list.

1. Rob (Season 22)

Yes, I've put Rob's season at number one. It was a pitch perfect performance, which should have been a 9-0 vote. That it wasn't is not a reflection on Rob; it's just one of those variances that the game gives us. (Scary thought - Rob probably didn't need immunity go make final tribal.)

2. Brian (Season 5)

The best winner pre-Rob, I've knocked him down one perch because he was facing Clay, who was pretty unlikable in his own way. And yet, Clay managed to get two votes.

3. JT (Season 18)

Needed Stephen Fishbach to do a bit of the heavy lifting for strategy, but there is no questioning JT's dominance in challenges and the social game.

4. Richard (Survivor 1)

The originator of the strategy that carries the game even today.

5. Tom (Season 10)

Dropped from the number one spot when I reconsidered his final three performance. If Ian doesn't have a bout of conscious and a desire to buy back his integrity, Tom could very well lose. Given this, it's tough to give Tom credit for the best game ever. Even if he made of the greatest moves by threatening to tie the vote to essentially blackmail Katie into voting with him to get rid of Greg.

6. Yul (Survivor 13)

Even with the most powerful immunity idol ever, Yul played an incredible game.

7. Parvarti (Survivor 16)

Biggest jump from last time, after reconsidering how much was her and how much was Amanda that season.

8. Todd (Survivor 15)

Not a reflection on Todd, who played a very strong game.

9. Tina (Survivor 2)

Did what nobody else could do that season - take out Colby.

The rest.

10. Aras (Season 12)
11. Bob (Season 17)
12. Chris (Season 9)
13. Jenna (Season 6)
14. Ethan (Season 3)
15. Earl (Season 14)
16. Fabio (Season 21)
17. Sandra (Season 7)
18. Amber (Season 8)
19. Natalie (Season 19)
20. Danni (Season 11)
21. Sandra (Season 20)

Not last because she did give the jury what they wanted to hear.

22. Vescepia (Season 4)

Winning because your opponent won't admit she did something that she doesn't feel she did is not exactly the best credentials.

My new favourist search which brought people to this blog

2011-05-16T21:43:00.003-04:00

"survivor what was andrea doing showing her butt to her mom"

Brilliant not only for the absurdity of the situation on the show, but also because it was Natalie who did this.

Survivor Season Rankings - Updated with Redemption Island

2011-05-16T09:00:00.002-04:00

Here's my rankings of Survivor Seasons.

My goal is to rewatch each season during the summer and possibly revamp these ratings. In some cases it's been 8 years since I last saw them, so it's worth the review.

(6/2 Update: At the suggestion of commenter Scott, I'm leading off with a non-spoiler list which is just a list of the seasons. After that is a list with a bit of discussion with each season, along with the winner of each season. If you havent seen each season, stop after the first list.)

Ranking summary:

1. Survivor: Borneo (Season 1)
2. Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains (Season 20)
3. Survivor: Micronesia — Fans Vs. Favorites (Season 16)
4. Survivor: Pearl Islands (Season 7)
5. Survivor: Samoa (Season 19)
6. Survivor: Amazon (Season 6)
7. Survivor: Palau (Season 10)
8. Survivor: China (Season 15)
9. Survivor: Australian Outback (Season 2)
10. Survivor: Cook Islands (Season 13)
11. Survivor: Tocantins (Season 18)
12. Survivor: Africa (Season 3)
13. Survivor: Redemption Island (Season 22)
14. Survivor: Gabon (Seaon 17)
15. Survivor: Panama (Season 12)
16. Survivor: Fiji (Season 14)
17. Survivor: Guatemala (Season 11)
18. Survivor: Vanuatu (Season 9)
19. Survivor: All-Stars (Season 8)
20. Survivor: Marquesas (Season 4)
21. Survivor: Nicaragua (Season 21)
22. Survivor: Thailand (Season 5)

DETAILED LISTING

1. Survivor: Borneo (Winner: Richard Hatch)

The original can never be duplicated.

2. Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains (Winner: Sandra Diaz-Twine)

In this case, familiarity helps. Knowing each of the players going in and how they were likely to play set some expectations. The season lived up to it and more. The casting of players and characters was fantastic. The winner was a bit disappointing, but the lead to the final tribal was great.

3. Survivor: Micronesia — Fans Vs. Favorites (Winner: Parvati Shallow)

A lot of blind sides, the single stupidest move in Survivor history and some interesting characters introdued. Awesome season. Though I'm a bit frightened at the similiarities between this and the Ruins III.

4. Survivor: Pearl Islands (Winner: Sandra Diaz-Twine)

Rupert. Johnny Fairplay. The season that Survivor became fun to watch for reasons beyond the actual game.

5. Survivor: Samoa (Winner: Natalie White)

Putting aside the jury vote, this season was a win simply because of Russell. His play reinvigorated the show and the game.

6. Survivor: Amazon (Winner: Jenna Morasca)

The first season where alliances were fluid. The game was played in a much different manner than before, with votes moving continually.

Oh, and chocolate and peanut butter.

7. Survivor: Palau (Winner: Tom Westman)

The first season where we saw a true dominant tribe. Then came Stephanie's survival for 2 weeks, then Tom's bold move to threaten to tie a vote to get people on side with him. Very underrated year.

8. Survivor: China (Winner: Todd Herzog)

It has James' stupid non-play of a hidden immunity idol, Todd wearing his bad deeds, and Amanda's first final tribal council failure. A pretty good year.

9. Survivor: Australian Outback (Winner: Tina Wesson)

The beginning of the Jeff Probst/Colby Donaldson bromance. Also the first ever major strategic blunder, though it was at least done out of some sense of loyalty. What ever happened to Elisabeth anyway?

10. Survivor: Cook Islands (Winner: Yul Kwon)

Two of the most likable players in Yul and Ozzie. It also had the funniest Survivor moment, when Sundra and Becky "battled" to build fire. Taking 90 minutes to do so. After being given matches 30 minutes in.

11. Survivor: Tocantins (Winner: J.T. Thomas)

The year of Coach! Also, a great blindside of Tyson.

12. Survivor: Africa (Winner: Ethan Zohn)

Oh Kelly. If only Brandon hadn't have gone into business for himself, we would have had the first momentum swing post-merge ever, and you might have stuck around longer. Also notable for Lex getting eliminated in the Fallen Comrades competition even though he answered a question correctly. That earned him (and Big Tom) 2nd place money.

13. Survivor: Redemption Island (Winner: Rob Mariano)

The Boston Rob show gets up her because of Boston Rob's hilarious confessionals, his running of the show from start to finish and Phillip's wackiness. In an unrelated note, if Rob didn't win I would have rated it lower.

14. Survivor: Gabon (Winner: Bob Crowley)

Even with the fake hidden immunity idol, Susie almost won. 'Nuff said.

15. Survivor: Panama (Winner: Aras Baskauskas)

The Terry year, where his loss of the final immunity challenge (under questionable means) ended up giving us Aras as a winner. Awesome for Terry's dominance, not so awesome for everything else.

16. Survivor: Fiji (Winner: Earl Cole)

Yau Man and Earl were the stars of the season. The have/have not twist and the inevitability of Earl winning once Dreamz refused to hand over immunity to Yau Man were the downfalls.

17. Survivor: Guatemala (Winner: Danni Boatwright)

Stephanie gets a second chance and turns into a mean person. Still an attractive person, but a mean person nonetheless. And then she loses to Danni.

18. Survivor: Vanuatu (Winner: Chris Daugherty)

Probably the most difficult to place. Chris's victory when outnumbered 5-1 and with not winning immunity was impressive, but the show was horrible before that.

19. Survivor: All-Stars (Winner: Amber Brkich)

It gave us Boston Rob and Amber as a power couple, but it also gave us the biggest farce of a final council before Samoa. And the overriding theme of the previous winners didn't deserve tostay around becaue they had already won was anoying and uncomfortable.

20. Survivor: Marquesas (Winner: Vecepia Towery)

This should rank higher. It gave us Boston Rob, whatshername being carried to the island like Cleopatra, and the first shakeup of the status quo. But it was the most frustrating final two ever, with both not really deerving of being there.

21. Survivor: Nicaragua (Winner: Judson "Fabio" Birza)

It was a tedious season until Fabio went on his immunity streak. By breaking up the boot order, Fabio rode to victory, and gave us a likeable winner, which puts this slightly ahead of...

22. Survivor: Thailand (Winner: Brian Heidik)

Oh, the tediousness. We were just waiting for the end so Brian could win and watching was like watching a death march to the end. Cool final challenge though.

Survivor Redemption Island Finale Live Blog

2011-05-15T20:12:00.053-04:00

Funny, just 15 minutes ago I wasn't sure I was doing this...

- Ashley has made a habit of being strong in challenges?
- Grant is the last person at Redemption Island. YAY!
- Hinting Philip is acting the beginning of the show...hmmm...

- I still don't get how Grant is a-ok with being blindsided by this alliance.
- Andrea understands that she's in trouble at Redemption Island
- Why does Andrea still have to sleep on the ground when Grant gets in the shelter?
- Rob claims to have a huge heart in there. He also acknowledges he is the only threat left.
- And now it's Rob vs. Ashley, unless Grant comes back.
- Matt finding his serenity might be an indication he's going back.
- Mike hoping for pizza is awesome.
- I have to imagine the relief of Redemption Island being over is fantastic.
- Thanking god for Redemption Island Matt?
- The tribe is also there because the tribe has shown up for all duels after the first return Jeff.
- You know what would have been cool for the final immunity challenge? This Redemption Island duel. Balancing a vase on a tetter totter using one foot? Awesome.
- 40 minutes? Wow.
- Wow Grant's out first. Good for Boston Rob.
- (Is this what the season has come to? Analyzing things through the eyes of Boston Rob?)
- Matt out. Wow.
- Hey, remember when Andrea was talking about being an underdog? She is so winning.
- Stretching your leg muscles does not look strong.
- Funny, Jeff mentions pay attention to what you were doing, then Mike loses focus and his vase drops.
- Hell of a comeback for Andrea.
- All girl alliance?
- Grant has also found his zen.
- Matt is honestly a very likeable person. Too bad he had to spend a lot of time on Redemption Island.
- Mike "Today's outcome wasn't what I wanted" Really?
- All girl alliance.
- Rob hs to be thrilled about this outcome. Will people really vote for Andrea over Rob?

- Commercial alert: Kevin James is Dr. Dolittle, only not under that name. I mean, do you not rememberDr. Dolittle coming out in the last 15 years?

- Congratulating them again?
- Today's word is "Awkward".
- All girl puppet alliance.
- Andrea is playing this awesome. Making up stories about how people will vote for Phillip to win?
- Uh-oh, Rob has his mind set on Ashley. Remember Heroes vs. Villains and Russell, Rob.
- Holy crap that's going to be a difficult yet easy task. Balance beam, then arranging tiles from 1 to 100?
- Oh, that's not as difficult. Go on balance beam, bring tiles, arrange those tiles. Repeat with other bags.
- So Phillip and Natalie aren't that good at challenges.
- Oh criminy, they were teasing another Ashley win in the intro.
- Ashley has to win, right?
- Yes, yes she does.
- So this is how Ashley wins - the Fabio plan of winning a few immunity challenges at the end.

- Let the scramble begin!
- Another s
- Uh-oh. Rob is way to confident about not being voted out.
- And now the puppets talk. Didn't Rob
- Natalie promises that she won't vote Ashley out next. Um, yeah.
- "And now she's listening to my entire conversation." Awesome secret agenting there Phillip.
- What in the sweet blue fuck is going on?
- Wait, they're going to vote for Rob now Andrea? Need consistency in your story Andrea.
- Then again, you're telling Ashley and Natalie, so they probably doesn't figure it out.
- "I like to gamble. God I'm sick. I'm so sick." It's called Gamblers Anonymous Rob.
- (Also, he's using the idol.)
- Holy crap Grant shaved and cut his hair. Must have used the Ponderosa Spa.
- "Obviously you have forgotten my title. The Undercover Specialist." FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING GOOD IN THE WORLD, LET THIS MAN MAKE FINAL TRIBAL.
- And then Rob casually mentions that he had Phillip look out for
- Hey, Jeff is actually pushing the all girl alliance that
- Andrea's "this jury is an intelligent jury" line is fantastic for it's knee sucking.
- And then Natalie shocks Rob by saying he is a threat.
- Rob gets to poke the "Andrea will win this as well" button.
- Way to ensure the idol will be played, Natalie.
- Grant's eyes lit up when he played the idol.
- So he didn't need to play the idol after all. Too bad you didn't get to keep your Silver Strike, but the $10 is worth it.
- I think this vote sealed it for Rob if he makes Final Tribal. I'd like to take my prediction back.

- In other news, my PVR is almost caught up to the live feed, so no more fast forwarding through commercials for me.

- Um, Stealth R Us didn't do what they wanted Phillip. Grant isn't there.
- Ashley thinks Andrea threw Natalie and Ashley under the bus and that Andrea being gone is a sign that Ashley made bigger moves? Come on.
- Jeff showing passion in this speech. An early contender for "The Thing that Made Jeff Probst's announcing side too happy," award.
- The flag thing indicating you have already hit that spot is not fair.
- Though I guess it tells Jeff what is going on.
- Ashley dropping her bag is kinda odd.
- I bet Rob kicks the bag if he sees it.
- "Natalie being a good sport and still playing along." Awesome Jeff.
- Rob trying to trick Ashley into "working together"
- My god Rob comes through in the clutch!
- And then he breaks down. Call the Wah-bulance!
- Jeff previews the biggest hurdle for Rob - this is his 4th time playing. Why does he deserve it this time?
- Rob is now okay with not winning? I guess he understands that the jury vote isn't completely in his hands.

- Let the scrambling begin!
- So what happens if it's a tie at final four? Fire challenge? Will it beat the epic Sondra/Becky fire challenge?
- Hey, playing up Ashley and Natalie's connection is good.
- Ashley got close to the Zapatera people? When did we see this?
- "I have to convince Natalie" "It's Ashley." Way to go.
- Here's a thought, propose a two/two split and say that they have to compete to be in.
- Natalie is a terrible actor.
- "I'd rather lose this game than lsoe a friend in Ashley." That's why 19 year olds should not play Survivor.
- Phillip's "And Rob should be worried about me beating him because I won how man challenges? Oh yeah, none!" was pitch perfect.
- Ashley basically dared Natalie and Phillip to vote her out. What a stupid thing to do. Don't say you have a better chance to win over the other two people voting for you.
- Did Ashley pick up on the horrible Natalie acting and realize she was going?
- WE GET PHILLIP FACING THE JURY!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!
- Well, Ashley just said she didn't know she was going, which means she's very unaware.

- Wait, I just realized we didn't have Fallen Comrades yet.
- Phillip is saying in confessional that his great great grandfather coming to him in a vision is an actual thing?
- Phillp's jury plan of "pouring salt in the wound" is terrible.
- "This is the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life. I'm 19" 'Nuff said.
- Yay blurring!
- Boston Rob's opposite pointers are fantastic.
- Phillip is burning his briefs!

Jury time!

Natalie' opening statement:
- Wanted to play well
- My social skills were my key, choosing
- God this is painful. Way too scattershot.

Phillip's opening statement:
- I had to change my strategy as soon as Rob showed up.
- I don't know what to say to this beyond AWESOME!

Rob's opening statement:
- Rob might as well have a power point presentation
- Here's what I did, but it doesn't matter. It only matters what you think. I played 4 times, but it doesn't define me. My family is most important and I want to bring something home to them.

- So, who asks the "are you donating to charity?" question?

Andrea up first for questions:
Phillip - "You are weird" "We've seen a lot of different Phillips. Who is the real one?"
"I was on the outside of the tribe, that's why you don't me." "So you aren't answering?" "I'm Phillip Sheppard."
Natalie - "borderline creepy relationship with Rob" "Why did you betray your friend?" "Rob's so great" yada yada. "Rode coattails" "rob's so great" yada yada.

NATALIE Apologizes for being creepy?

Ashley starts with lecturing Phillip, and Phillip tries to interrupt and it goes on and on.
Ashley asks Natalie why she didn't share Ashley was going, and Natalie says it was a back and forth and wasn't set. Ashely is disappointed.
Ashley put Rob on a pedastal and doesn't think she knows who he is and after tonight doesn't know if she wants to see him again. Rob shrugs.

Grant up.
Natalie what was the Natalie/Rob alliance dynamic like.
Same question for Rob. Natalie came up to me and asked me what to do. I valued our relationship until you were going to kick to my ass.

Ralph.
Natalie, you can't do nothing without looking at Rob. And then Natalie looks at Rob.
Ralph points out that Natalie never got to know him, and Natalie says it was for her place in the tribe.
Why does Phillip not have more feathers? Because he only put them in when he found them. Does Phillip like Ralph? Phillip thought he worked hard and was funny and if they were in the same tribe initially they would have gotten along fine.

Matt
Matt to Rob - clearly you are duplicitous and a liar. Where is the line drawn? "When I get back home" I feel it's necessary to play the game like this. I had alliances with everybody in Omatepe but

Julie starts with the fucking lectures because the people there did not play the game with honour. SAYS THE FUCKING PERSON WHO THREW A CHALLENGE! Glass houses, ye who have no sin, etc. etc. Quick summary:
- Natalie, would your parents be proud of how you played the game? Because if you were my daughter the answer would be no.
- Phillip would your son be proud of how you played?
- Rob, teach your daughters to be strong women, not how you treated Natalie.

Mike
- Did you learn anything about yourself out here?
- Rob needs to take care of his family and stop playing games.
- Natalie learned how to support yourself
- Phillip knew he was an outcast, and could bring his knowledge from the outside world to here and be a beacon for the Sheppard family.

Steve
- Congratulations Rob and Natalie on surviving the elements
- Natalie congrats on being 19 and surviving.
- Rob, you lasted 117 days, I broke at 31.
- Phillip I'm sorry for you. I think you're pretty shameful.
(Guess Steve isn't voting for Phillip.)

David
- I'm going to talk to the jury. Basically telling them to vote for Rob since he played the best strategic game ever. Very good final arguments councillor. (Though it might work against him.)

Voting time.
- David would have rather played the game with Rob? Um.
- Ralph votes for Phillip and spells Phil wrong. Awesome and fitting. Also, Andrea was right!
- Bring on the jet ski!
- BOOO! No jet ski!
- First thing I noticed - Ashley is a brunette. That and Phillip's fine suit.
- Thanks for dressing up Rob.
- Ashley breaks the "looks better while playing Survivor" rule in half.
Votes:
Rob
Phile
Rob
Rob
(Rob looks very confident right now)
Rob
(It's OVAH!)
Rob

- Hey, they all snuck in the old players.
- Russell among the first to congratulate Rob.

- The Superman bit was awesome.
- Hey, Jeff changed.
- Rob knew in the beginning if he could make these people play with me, he stood a chance.
- Kristina's looking for the idol was a key moment, and it really was.
- Loyalty was most key for Rob. Adn that's why Natalie was the key.

- Wait, Natalie and Ashley knew Rob had an idol? That would have been a nice piece of information to have.
- Andrea's take away is that you have to check in with everybody always.

- Rob knew that if he showed Phillip love, he would be loyal. Based on his life story.

The Grant/Rob exchange probably deserves it's own blog post, but it does highlight one of the key things all future players of Survivor need to realize - if somebody votes you out, it's not a personal thing unless they tell you it is personal.

- Thing I just realized. Why didn't they have Russell and Rob pick their tribe schoolyard style?

- Matt really didn't win 10 out of 11 duels. He survived 10 out of 11 duels.
- The Jeff Probst trying to figure out showmances segment is never not awkward.

- Nice transition from "our troops are great" to "any regrets about that last challenge?"

- Russell Hantz would appreciate it if you would stop showing him cry.
- A bit of humbleness from Russell in congratulating Rob.
- And then he goes off on his tribe and brings back the old Russell. Russell is still scarred by his tribe throwing that challenge.
- Jeff calls Russell "Phillip"
- That was an amazing back and forth between Jeff and Russell to leave open the opportunity of Russell retuning.

- Jeff Probst learns that trying to control Phillip Sheppard on live TV is a losing proposition.
- Phillip says calling Steve a racist a mistake. Thank goodness. Now maybe Steve can apologize for the stuff he said at final tribal?
- And it's official, Phillip is a former federal agent.

- 40 to 36 is close?
- Rob wins Viewer's Choice? I'm shocked.
- David is dating a Survivor who I don't remember. And then he and Jeff Probst set up a marriage proposal to said Survivor woman. And there's a curse word.

_Redemption Island is back...and so is the two returning players twist! They're in the South Pacific. Um, interesting.

Survivor Redemption Island - How Everybody Can Win

2011-05-14T21:53:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned on Thursday, this season is tough to figure out in terms of who will probably win. So, before I roll out my OFFICIAL PREDICTION on who will win, a run through why each person still in the game will win the game and will not win the game.

Mike, Matt

(Note: I'm combining these two because they essentially have the same reasoning.)

Why they will win: Because they will win the Redemption Island duel and then win all immunity challenges on route to the final tribal council. Because they are likable people who treated everybody on the jury nicely.

Why they won't win: Because they did not win all the immunity challenges. Because the jury doesn't like the idea of somebody who was not involved in playing the main portion of the game winning.

Andrea

Why she will win: Because she came back from Redemption Island and was able to engineer the ouster of Boston Rob. Or she was able to be brought to the final three and looked like a better option than either Rob or Philip. Or she benefitted from a Rob/Natalie vote split and somehow won 4-3-2.

Why she won't win: Because she did not win at Redemption Island. Because the jury did not enjoy her anger over being betrayed after she betrayed Matt in a very similiar way. Because the jury felt that her getting voted out was an indication that she did not play well.

Grant

Why he will win: Because he will come back from Redemption Island and win challenges, which he has done continually throughout the season. Because he will be able to make an argument that he was involved in the strategy of voting out everybody before him.

Why he won't win: Because he won't come back from Redemption Island. Because he will not make Final Tribal if he does not win immunity challenges. Because the jury will pair him and Rob together and vote for the third option.

Ashley

Why she will win: Because she's sitting beside Rob and Philip, and the jury is bitter about Rob running the show.

Why she won't win: Because she has annoyed most of the jury. Because she did not actively play the game until 4 days left. Because she is seen as a follower of Boston Rob, and lacking independent thought.

Philip

Why he will win: Because she wasn't lying about having the greatest final tribal council argument against Boston Rob. Because his unusual actions were an admitted put-on to make the final three. Because the jury thought it would be funny if he won.

Why he won't win: Because he's Philip.

Natalie

Why she will win: Because the jury wants a place to park their votes which isn't Boston Rob. Because the jury will find irony in Rob losing again to the girl he brought along to the end. Because she's everybody little sister, and really how can anybody vote against her? Because the game was especially tough for her since she is lacking some life expereince.

Why she won't win: Because she is only 19, and the jury will have a problem in voting to give her $1 million. Because she is seen as a puppet of Boston Rob's. Because she hasn't really played the game. Because Ashley's jury question is an epic takedown of her.

Rob

Why he will win: Becuase he dominated the game from start to finish and the jury will want to recognize this accomplishment.

Why he won't win: Because he dominated the game from start to finish and the jury will want to punish him for this.

My choice for this year's winner? I really think that Boston Rob deserves to win this season. We haven't seen a dominant point-perfect performance like this since, well, All-Stars (Thailand, if you want to only include winning performances.) At the same time, I can not shake what we have seen over the last few seasons - a jury who chose not to reward the best strategy, and instead voted for the more likeable (to them) player.

So I am choosing Natalie to win this season. She benefits from the jury's bitterness towards Rob, and wins the game.

When second isn't good enough

2011-05-13T23:02:00.002-04:00

I've always thought about if I were on a reality competitionshow , what position would I want to finish (assuming I did not win.) I came to the conclusion that I wanted to be the person eliminated right before the final challenge/jury vote/whatever.

I realize that this seems a bit odd - most people would at least want a chance to win the game. I can understand this theory, but at the same time you have the knowledge that you failed if you did not win. I'm not sure what feeling would be worse: not knowing how you would fare in a final, or knowing that you weren't good enough to win. But it goes beyond that. History shows that when given a choice, other reality competition players will more often than not choose the weakest player(s), who they feel stand the worst chance to win in a final competition as their competitors.

This truth can best be seen in the first season of Survivor. In the final immunity challenge, Richard Hatch actually removed himself from the competition early, using the logic that whomever won the competition whould have to choose to face him in the final tribal council. Both other competitors realized this was the case immediately, with Rudy stating that he had lost $1 million when he lost that immunity challenge. This proved to be true, with Kelly voting out Rudy and choosing to bring Richard along to the final tribal council.

We also got to see the opposite of this theory in play in the second season of Survivor. Colby, dominant in challenges, had to choose between his main alliance mate in Tina, and his other alliance mate (and much more hated) Keith. The person he chose would be in the final tribal council. Colby willingly chose Tina over Keith for honour reasons, knowing that his job would be much more difficult in facing Tina. As it turned out, Tina won and most members of the jury indicated that if Colby had brought Keith to the final, Colby would have won in a landslide.

This rule also applies to Big Brother and other "vote for the person who you feel is the winner" type of shows. But what about a show like the Apprentice, where there is really only one arbitrator - Donald Trump? Funy enough this exists in a slightly different way.

Apprentice (and its Celebrity cousin) has a tradition for the "finale." 4 (or the odd time 3) candidates are brought in to be interviewed by various people who have had success in either the Apprentice/Celebrity Apprentice, or in actual business. These people then come back to Mr. Trump and give him their recommendations for who should end up in the final two. Trump then takes these recommendations and results to decide who will be the final two candidates who will be competing in the final challenge. The dirty secret is that Trump tends to already know who the final two will be, and he does what he can to influence who the final two will be prior to this interview process.

Let's use this year's Celebrity Apprentice as an example. Jon Rich and Marlee Matlin had competed as project managers earlier in the season, and had combined to have the lartgest amount of donations brought to any challenge in the history of Celebrity Apprentice. This was so impressive that when the final 5 competitors came together to figure out the next competition, Trump was very excited to find out that Marlee and Jon Rich would be battling again, going so far as to hype the battle as a rematch of two titans. Jon Richwon, leaving the losing group of candidates to be Marlee, Star Jones and Meat Loaf.

During the previous competition, Meat Loaf was very emotional when he was raising money once he realized the money may not end up going to his charity of choice. He even went so far to get Star to inquire if Mr. Trump would allow them to keep the money they had raised. He cried when Jon Rich stood up and told him that if Meat Loaf lost, he would personally donate the amount Meat Loaf raised for his charity. In the current task, Meat Loaf was the driving force behind the creative for a losing promotional video.

Meanwhile, Star Jones had been a strong competitor going into that task. She was in charge of branding for this task, and the branding was identified as another of the weak sots. Both Jones and Loaf were likely to be on the chopping block. One would assume that Jones would make it through on the strength on her previous performances.

One would assume wrong. Buoyed on by a blowup between Meat Loaf and Star Jones about Loaf's referring to Jones as "sweetie", Trump followed through by firing Jones, citing her inability to get a long with people (using the "sweetie" argument as an example) as well as the weak branding (which was her responsibility.) He ignored that Loaf was the one who edited the video (thus not including the necessary branding), and created the ideathat the onStar executives hated (specifically the bumbling police officer character.) The reason why this happened had less to do with their respective performances, and more to do with an overriding narrative - Marlee Matlin and Jon Rich were now tied 1-1 in head to head competitions, and there was only going to be one opportunity left to match them up once again.

In order for Trump to get to a final two of Rich and Matlin, he needs for them to get through the final four interviews. Trump has no way of preventing Li'l Jon from affeecting his preferred final two, beyond finding a reason to fire him in the final four. He can probably point to Jon Rich and Marlee Matlin being moreimpressive or something - call it a close choice, but ultimately firing him. Meat Loaf has done a good job in terms of being a worker bee - when put in a role where he has to either lead a group or is in charge of running a significant piece of a task, he has proven to be more of a questionable commodity. Mr. Trump will be able to easily fire him while giving him the platitudes about his performance. But Star Jones? One of Star's greatest gifts in this competition is her ability to present arguments that favoured her. She is very likley to impress the interviewers, putting Trump in a position where he woud have to jump through hoops to explain why he was firing her. So instead, when given the oportunity to get rid of her before the interviews, he pounced.

This is a continuing story with the Celebrity Apprentice, where the stronger candidates Clint Black and Maria Kanellis were fired prior to the interviews for menial reasons, while Jesse James and Curtis Stone were kept even though they were subsequently fired for either not having what it takes to be the Celebrity Apprentice and being a one-trick pony (Stone) or holding back contacts and not bringing in big donors (James). In the first Celebrity Apprentice, Trace Adkins' inability to win a task as project manager was glossed over so that he coudl be brought back and face Piers Morgan in the final. As well, Trump changed what he had said he was going to do during Apprentice Season 6, when he fired strong competitor Kristine Lefevbre for a mistake, even though he had previously stated he would be firing two members of a team. It's an indicator of how Trump works - get an idea as to what you want your final two to be, then make the path to it as clean as you can. If anything, being eliminated prior to the one on one interview process is an indication of how strong a player you are - should Trump think you could mess up his ideal final two for the show, he will want to get rid of you before the final four.

When you are eliminated right before a final challenge/tribal council, it is an indication that you are considered to be a threat to win the competition outright. If I can't win, I'd rather have the knowledge that I was a threat to win the entire thing than to know that I was given a chance to win, but could not. Call it the power of the "What If".

Survivor Redemption Island Episode 13 Power Rankings

2011-05-11T23:16:00.001-04:00

One of the things is not like the others

8. Andrea (9)

I feel bad for Andrea in that she has to compete with three of the top four challenge players in the game for a shot at coming back. I mean, no pressure or anything.

Also, her talking (then crying) about being betrayed as especially awkward when Matt was right there. You would have thought that she'd have more self-awareness, but that was for naught.

Hope you have a streak in you...

7. Matt (7)
6. Mike (6)
5. Grant (2)

The one thing I would wager a lot of money on - the winner of Redemption Island will be voted out the first time they do not have immunity.

Let's Go Crazy

4. Philip (5)

He is so far over cover that he's undercover. In a sense, he's running a similiar plan to Russell in terms of keeping people off balance with his antics. The main difference is that Russell was also trying to continually advance his game. Philip ssems to think the game is done until final tribal now. I would not assume that at final 4+1 means there's no change to the plan. That's a sure way to end up getting out manuevered and to get put through to the jury.

understands she's in a poor position now, but isn't doing enough to help herself

3. Ashley (4)

Ashley figured out she's trouble in the eyes of Boston Rob which could be an issue. But she hasn't tried anything to knock off the king of the island, and it's probably too late to do it. At this point, people are convinced that they are going to the end with Rob, and there's no real benefit to jumping ship this far away.

Your new power couple

2. Rob(1)
1. Natalie (3)

Those with acute memory will recall that Rob has been number one on these power rankings for a long time. Today is the first time Rob isn't number one, and that's because of the uncertainty of the jury and the reactions of some of his former alliance mates.

I came away fro this weeks' episode with an uneasy feeling that Rob wasn`t taking the blindsides that serious but instead was just assuming that nobody would hold him responsible for voting him out. That was very much a projection of how Rob would look at it. What makes it exceptionally funny is that this is what happened in All-Stars. The difference this time is that Rob isn't marrying Natalie (as far as we know.)

And thus, that's why Natalie is ranked number one. We know that she is going to the final three. We assume that she hasn't done anything truly offensive towards the jury, and that they all think she's a sweet girl. If we also assume Rob makes the final three with Natalie, she's going to come out as the best spot to make the protest vote.

No matter which way things turn out, Sunday is going to be an interesting two hours.

Survivor Redemption Island Episode 13 Thoughts

2011-05-11T23:11:00.001-04:00

This is a tough season to judge what is going to happen in the final tribal council. Normally, you have a good idea as to where the jury stands with most of the final contestants. But this season is different, as we have no idea where the jury stands on the remaining players.

The Pagong-ing of Zapatera was both inevitable and obvious. From what we saw, Zapatera didn't really have too many bad feelings about individual Omatepe members, save Phillip. Ralph seems incredibly bitter about everything that Omatepe did as a tribe to him, but it didn't seem as though he was singling out any one person as the reason for this. So there doesn't seem to be a clear cut favourite to receive the favour of Zapatera. And since it is most likely that there will be 5 members of Zapatera on the jury (which would be a majority), it gets more difficult to figure out who is the odds on favourite to win.

The other item is that we don't know how the Omatepe players that end up getting voted out are going to react to being voted out. Andrea seemed to feel betrayed, but she didn't make it clear if she held Boston Rob responsible, or if she holds the entire tribe responsible. Grant knows he was betrayed; he doesn't know if it was Philip or Boston Rob (for some reason he didn't seem to think of both of them betraying him). He also said he was at peace with what had happened, so there is a chance he doesn't truly blame any of the players.

With all this in mind, nobody can really state with any certainty what the final result is. Heck you can't really rule Philip out since he has that amazing final tribal speech in his back pocket.

(Okay, I'm kidding. You can rule Philip out.)

The funny part is that Redemption Island actually helps to clarify what will happen at final tribal. If the returning Redemption Island player makes it to final tribal, they will win. Period.

It's an interesting year to be watching, because of this uncertainty. You can make the case for any player remaining on how they can win, or alternately why they should win. Maybe this is why Jeff Probst was so high on the season.
***
Throughout the season we've been straight forward story telling. A thread would start at the beginning of the episode, and would be resolved by the end of it. There were no notable swerves out there. Once the editors told you what was going to happen, they delivered it.

Tonight, they through that back on us.

We began with Ashley delivering the following statements:

"I love blindsides. In an evil way it's fun to see their reaction and how shocked they are. And she was shocked. You could tell."
"Can Natalie and I just say that we are the last girls standing"
"I just always felt that Natalie and I were always like this [crosses fingers]"
"I'll tell you if there's any plan to vote you out, and you tell me and maybe us two..."

Which would normally be a tease of Ashley getting voted out. This was combined with:

Natalie:
"I'm kinda stuck in a bad situation, just because Ashley keeps bringing up 'You're looking out for me and I'm looking out for you'"
"I'm leaning towards sticking with Rob just because he has been there for me througout this, but so has Ashley."

Rob:
"There's just something about her that's sneaky."

Which should have sealed the fate. Then Ashley won immunity, and that tease went to waste. We did end up getting Grant's vote out, which was teased prior to the immunity challenge, so there was a tied up thread there. And Ashley's word did lead into a bigger storyline of essentially "Ashley starts playing the game about 20 days too late". But to get blindsided by a tease not delivering in the same episode was a bit of a jolt.
***
A new feature for this recap, as I'm awarding an new award every episode. It's called "The Thing that Made Jeff Probst's announcing side too happy," which means an event or scene which wasn't that big of a deal necessarily, but gave Jeff an opportunity to act like a true investigative journalist or colour analyst for the action.

This week, it went to Andrea's struggle in the Redemption Island challenge, which let Jeff make a comparison to show how composed Matt and Mike were in comparison to Andrea. You know Jeff was thrilled that he could use some psychological babble to explain why Andrea was failing, and Jeff rose to occasion,

It's too bad that Ralph had to mess it up by choking as though he ate a whole chicken in one go.
***
Your schedule for Survivor posts this week:

Thursday - Final Power Rankings
Friday - General post on how where you finish in a reality show indicates how respected you were as a player
Saturday - A look at the remaining players and why they can win final tribal along with why they can not.
Sunday - Finale thoughts
Monday - the much popular Season Rankings
Tuesday - Winner Rankings
To be determined - Final thoughts on the Redemption Island twist.

The Art of the Misdirection

2011-05-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

When I was much younger, I had some eclectic tastes and interests. One thing that interested me was the rise of Donald Trump. I read Trump: The Art of the Deal with a lot of interest. I own a first edition of Trump: The Game(*)

(*) That reminds me that I should play this again sometime.

This is a roundabout way to say that I'm not surprised by what he's been doing by flirting with running to be president of the United States. And nor will I be surprised when he doesn't formally declare as a candidate.

The biggest thing to realize about Donald Trump is that the biggest reason he has been so successful in business is his name. Trump has built the Trump name up to be one of the biggest hotel brands in the world. And his method of building up that Trump name is to get personally involved in many other projects, whether that be the USFL or Trump Ice, his brand of bottled water.

Once he gets involved in these projects, one of three things occur - either the project is a success and he's able to claim some credit for the success, the project is slightly successful and Trump takes credit for this part of the success, or it fails and Trump avoids being the scapegoat by placing the blame elsewhere.

So let's look at his recent musings about running for President.

The first key to his musing is that Trump recognizes that there is no shining star in the Republican ranks to take a run at President Obama in 2012. The early returns on the presidential candidates is that there are no good candidates there; the best option is Milt Romney and he does not appeal to the Tea Party part of the Republican caucas.

Trump saw this and took advantage. He knew by flirting with running, the public would know his name and this would allow him to do well in polls. In turn, this would give him some credibility with the journalists who would otherwise dismiss his flirtation as a publicity stunt. (This isn't to say that it still isn't being dismissed by some as a publicity stunt; instead any "publicity stunt" argument comes with a caveat that Trump is polling well and might be resonating with the public.)

Next, Trump starts making stump speeches in locations. These speeches contain a lot of "no nonsense" talk about the economy and what needs to be done to fix it. It appeals to the Tea Party side of the crowd which again helps him with polling, along with getting the positive attention of other Tea Party representatives. These representatives defend him on panels, and further the mystique of a Trump presidential run.

And then there was the birther nonsense. Trump knew that it was a no lose issue for him to tackle. The group that he was trying to get the support of was already of the opinion that President Obmaa was hiding not being born in the US. Trump also knew that he didn't need to have the support of the more mainstream Republicans, as he wasn't planning on running for president. This meant he wouldn't have to worry about the long term ramifications of this line of attack.

The end result if Obama did not release his birth certificate is that Trump could rage on about how untrustworthy Obama was, and that he was hiding something. Trump would essentially be in the same position he was before persuing the Birther argument. Fans/supporters who disagreed with Trump would be likely to dismiss it as another exampleof Trump's blowhard antics, which makes him appealing to watch. The fans/supporters would stay.

Now, when Obama did release his birth certificate, Trump was very quick to take credit for the release. This ended up helping him in two main ways. First, he was able to solidify his position amongst the outsiders of the Republican party. He gained more influence with them, and thus gained more influence in the Republican party. he will now be somebody who the eventual Republican Presidential candidate will have to court.

Second, this gave Trump his exit strategy. He can now say that he has accomplished something in his teasing of running for president, so he can declare it a victory and an accomplishment which nobody else can. He can be gracious in leaving by just saying that he is confident that the Republican candidate is now better equipped to lead the party against Obama (or something). That was the end game for Trump - find a way to say you accmomplished something, while not actually putting yourself out for scrutiny.

(Why has Trump continued on with his attacks by saying that the certificate could have been forged? Because until he announces he is not running for president, Trump needs to keep his base comfortable and activated.)

What's the next step for Trump? Continue on, then on the Celebrity Apprentice finale, announce you will not be running. Then promote your latest venture, while still using your position to keep your values in the forefront.

Trump's motives are prety clear most of the time. You just have to know where to look.

JayRo Listens To: Wasting Light

2011-05-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

I'm going to be honest with you; I'm not entirely sure how to write a valuable review of an album. I'm not a musician, so I'm not able to get too much into the detail of the technical skills of the artists. I also think that music is much more of a personal experience than, say, a movie or a book or a television show. It is difficult to offer a review on those circumstances.

With that said, I can tell you what I like. And I really, really like Wasting Light by the Foo Fighters.

At this point it's probably fair to admit that I am an unabashed Foo Fighters fan. So it's fair to say that there is a hint of bias in this review.

For those who do not like the Foo Fighters, you should give this album a chance. It is rather accessible and more standard rock. There is less experimentation with their sound and more straight forward rock.

For fans of the Foo Fighters, this is closer to The Color and the Shape. It is a welcome improvement on Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, which seemed to be more Dave and the band trying to expand themselves artistically. It isn't as good as In Your Honor, but that is not a slight given the accomplishment that In Your Honor is. All things considered, it is a welcome return for the Foo Fighters.

I recommend purchasing this album.

A quick post on the Amazing Race

2011-05-08T22:26:00.002-04:00

It's always frustrating when the most deserving teams end up 3 and 4, while the teams that coasted through end up 1 and 2.

Hotel Review: Cambridge Suites Toronto

2011-05-08T14:30:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, I went to Toronto and stayed at the Cambridge Suites Toronto Here's a review.

Sitting Room

The room was a standard suite at Cambridge Suites. When you walk in, you are put in the sitting area/kitchenette area.

Standard fare here, with a couch which apparently folds out (I never checked), a flat screen TV with some HD content, a chair and a coffee table.

From there, you can head to the left, where you find a communal closet to store your coats and other outside wear (as seen by my fantastic photography skillz).

To the right is an entrance to the one washroom in the suite.

Another fantastic photo.

Bathroom

The bathroom is a very good size, with standard amenities. The bathtub/shower combo:

The showerhead was a bit finicky. I had to work a little bit to find my preferred pressure but once I did, all was fine. The temperature was no problem.

Standard low rider toilet. No problem with flushing or anything.

One sink in the washroom, which was no problem for me, but might be a problem for a couple or a family who need to get ready for a night out.

The bedroom

Separating the bedroom from the sitting area are a set of french doors:

When you enter, you find the bed:

The bed seemed comfortable enough, but I wasn't able to get a truly good night's sleep. I would get half an hour then wake up. This repeated for every night. I don't know if it was because of the bed, the room, or my sleeping pattern, but one way or another I couldn't get a good night's sleep.

The alarm clock. No docking station for an iPod and a bit confusing to figure out at first. Once I did figure it out, there was no problem at all, and it worked without problem.

Flatscreen TV in the room. Same as the one in the sitting area.

The closest in the bedroom. In it is a luggage rack, iron and ironing board.

Other items

Notably missing from the room was a safe to store your valuables. I don't know if the hotel has a safety deposit available, but I think the lack of safe was a downside.

The room does have a microwave and a mini fridge to use for storing food. As well, it comes with more glassware than normal. 6 drinking glasses were available. It also has a desk you can sit and work at. As well, there's a continental breakfast in the restaurant in the morning. If it's included in your room, it is a nice bonus. If you have to pay to add it, I would not recommend it. It is very basic.

(It's also worth noting that coffee and water is available free throughout the day.)

Finally, the view from the room:

Overall thoughts:

Overall, I did not mind my room. It served my purposes well. I would definitely return for the right price, though if I look to stay downtown Toronto in the future, I would likley lookat another hotel first. It probably has most value for more than one person than a single traveller.

JayRo Watches Movies: Thor

2011-05-07T13:06:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, I talked about the theory of the summer popcorn movie. Last night I saw the prototypical popcorn movie in Thor.

Thor's the retelling of the comic book superhero from Marvel. It's not so much of an origin story as it is an introduction story. Taken on it's own, it is a fine film. It's not going to win any Oscars, but it is a step above a normal action film.

It tells the story of how Thor became the great god that he is today, and his growth from a powerful warrior, to a more worldly god. Through it, Thor is also thrown to Earth as a mortal, left to learn humility and other methods beyond fighting to solve conflict. Luckily for him, he meets Jane Foster (played by Natalie Portman) and her friends.

The strength of the film is actually the fish out of water scenes on Earth. Between Thor's lack of understanding of regular human interactions and everybody else's reaction to Thor, it is comedic gold.

There is also a fair bit of intrigue in Asgard, where most of the film's gravitas comes from. Kenneth Branaugh draws from his Shakespearian background to lenda fair bit of credence and value to these scenes. It does break down at times, especially when it comes to trying to determine Loki's intentions through his various actions. That is more of a weakness of the story than it is the fault of Branaugh or the actors.

A special mention for Chris Hemsworth, who does a great job in playing Thor. He seemed to know which notes he needed to hit in a role which could have easily given way to extreme overacting in the wrong hands.

A solid thumbs up and watch it for Thor.

On the Mike Croft "Go" rating system, this scores a 2.
For the "Avengers" movies the rankings are as follows:

Iron Man
Thor
Iron Man 2
Hulk

Note: There iso another setup for the upcoming movie version of "The Avengers" in this movie. Stay until the end of the credits (much like every other Marvel movie)

JayRo Watches Movies: Fast 5

2011-05-06T08:17:00.000-04:00

The term popcorn movie gets thrown around a lot for most summer movies. It means a movie that you can go into and not have to think about. Instead, you just watch the action and enjoy it for what it is. This is the essence of Fast 5.

Fast Five is the fifth installment in the Fast and the Furious. By now, you know what to expect. Cars, testosterone and violence. It hasn't changed at all. What has seemingly changed is the tone. The movie seems a bit more fun, with everybody seemingly being in on the joke that yes, the movie is ridiculous, the script is cliche ridden, and the actors are there to chew up the scenery. It's conceit is that it basically tells you that it's okay to laugh at it; in reality you are laughing with them.

That isn't to say that this movie won't challenge you - it will, but not in the way you would expect. Instead of questioning your values or anything like that, you are questioning how many laws of phsyics are broken, along with how 5 foot nothing Vin Diesel is apparently the same size as six foot three the Rock? It will dare you to find your own plot holes in the movie. It will do all this while winking at you.

In the end, I really enjoyed Fast 5. It is a bad movie that doesn't pretend to be anything but. It basically tells you "Of course this is terrbile. Would you have it any other way?"

No, no I wouldn't.

Survivor Redemption Island Episode 12 Power Rankings

2011-05-05T08:00:00.001-04:00

What happened

9. Andrea (5)

Completely blindsided, and now having to face three pretty strong competitors in an attempt to save her game. It doesn't look good for Andrea, which is too bad. She seemed like she knew what she was doing, only to get caught up in the Boston Rob whirlwind.

I only have to beat one person, right?

8. Ralph (9)

I will be shocked if Ralph is able to beat Mike and Matt in any final duel.

When do we really have to try?

7. Matt (8)
6. Mike (7)

It's merely a question of which one of these two will go back into the game only to get voted out again. Omatepe has to be hoping that it's Matt, if only to avoid the awkwardness of voting out the guy who gave up visiting with his family so they all could visit with theirs.

I wish I had used that crazy unline a fox line this week

5. Philip (6)

He says he has the argument that will beat Boston Rob. I really want to hear this argument because it will either be the greatest argument of all time, or the funniest.

Thinks their position is stronger than it is

4. Ashley (4)

I don't think Ashley understands that she is in a bad spot here, and her best bet would be to split off with Natalie and Philip to geet rid of Rob and Grant. I think she thinks the final three will be her, Natalie and Rob, which then leads to the question of "How are you going to beat Rob?" I don't think she has the answer for that.

This is how Amber won

3. Natalie (3)

I don't know if Natalie realizes she's being carried to the finals. I don't know if she's going to be able to pull off the final tribal necessary to get the jury to give her the votes. And I don't know if this jury will hate Rob as much as the All-Stars jurty hated him. But I do know that it is a great position for Natalie to be in, because she has a chance to make these arguments in final tribal.

The one who loses the final four immunity challenge is in a lot of trouble

2. Grant (2)
1. Rob (1)

This season is coming down to a final showdown at the final four. The winner will win this season; the loser will be on the jury. It goes without saying that I'm looking forward to that challenge.

Survivor Redemption Island Episode 12 Thoughts

2011-05-04T23:24:00.003-04:00

To mix things up, I'm just going to put the notes I took here, and then expand on them as much as possible.

- Philip's ridiculous dance after getting the phone

It was just in the background, but Philip's dance was once the tribe received their smartphone was a funny aside.

- Philip's fist pump when Ralph won

I honestly had forgot about the Steve/Philip battle from two episode ago, so Philip's fist pump caught me off guard initially.

- Using Redemption Island for reward as well.

Fun little twist on the duel here.

- New Redemption Island idea.

With Redemption Island, why wouldn't they run a challenge where the winner gets back into the game, and the last place finisher gets the book. That would be an extra reason for someone to win.

- Not really "giving your love" for your mother up

Probst had some odd wording when referring to Mike's decision on who to choose to let them see their family.

- The decision.

I don't know if it is right for Mike to choose the players int he game to get to see their family instead of anybody else. I do know it was pretty magnanimous of him to do so.

- Ralph being selfish

While I understand his general point, I think Ralph's anger about Mike letting the remaining players see their family has a lot more to do with Ralph not seeing his family and less to do with Mike not taking the reward.

- Why does God care about Survivor so much? (Mike)

Mike first mentioned the bible when deciding on who would get the reward. No problem there. But when Mike started talking about praying and God causing him to win the challenge? That was a bit much. (I was also disappointed that there was no footbage of Matt questioning why God had forsaken him.)

- Mike, the greatest guy in the world

Mike explained in confessionals why he chose to send the remaining six, and it basically boiled down to "because it was the right thing to do". That was an incredible display of generosity.

- Andrea's Dad wanting hair advice

I was amused by Andrea's dad asking her how she kept her hair looking so good.

- No really, why does God care about Survivor so much? (Natalie)

So Natalie's mom tells Natalie that she was praying for Natalie, and asking God to watch over Nnatalie. How does God have so much time to deal with Matt, Mike and Natalie on Survivor?

- Philip - "I'm prepared to go crazy if I have to. That's what works for me."

Philip said this to his sister, leading us to wonder how much of an act this is.

- Rob's sister seems to care about Survivor oh so much

We see Rob talking about the game with his sister, and it certianly seemed like she was interested in anything but the game, and just patronizing his needs.

- Natalie showing off her bum to her mom

This was while Rob was giving a synopsis of why he is winning the game, and it was seemingly Natalie showing off her bum to her mother, including a gentle ass slap. Very odd scene to add.

- "All they have to do is talk to each other. But they won't"

Rob said this about all of the other players who think he is in a final two alliance with them. He knows that he has them all so under control that they aren't even questioning whether he is going to take them to the final two or not. Just another example of Rob's dominance.

- Rob's assessment of the players - most knowledgeable Rob, Grant and Andrea

This means that they have actually seen the show before. And honestly, that seems to be a fair assessment.

- Build steps immunity challenge

This doesn't cover the enormity of the challenge - it was a good 2-3 stories that they had to go up and down. As well, they could only bring one plank to attempt to fit into the staircase, so if they failed once, they would have to go back down to try again.

- Grant the choker

Grant had a lead near the end, only to squander it by messing up on planks twice in a row. It was kind of shocking to see him fail like that. One explanation is that the 110 degree heat make him a bit goofy, which also helps to explain...

- Rob almost dies to win

I don't know how much of that was a need for Rob to call the Wahmbulance, but Rob was struggling so much near the end that I thought somebody else was going to over take him in the end.

- "Can you help me stand up?"

Defeated in victory, Rob needs help to get his cramp riddled body to stand up.

- What is this Philip getting voted out stuff?

It was odd, because Philip started talking about how he had the argument that nobody had thought of to beat Boston Rob in the final tribal. Then, as if on cue, Rob started talking about voting Philip out because he thinks Philip might be playing him and might have something up his sleeve. What? We need some sort of line to be drawn for us to explain how that connection was being made by Rob.

- Oh Andrea, why do you feel safe?

I guess it's a credit to Rob et al as to how much they made sure Andrea think she was a part of the core crew, but when you don't have immunity, and you were in an alliance with the only person on your tribe on Redemption Island, and you 've openly talked about feeling bad about putting him there, you shouldn't feel comfortable in your position.

- The bizarre Jeff-Philip-Andrea thing

This occurred with Jeff chastising Philip for trying to seem like a big threat when that will just lead people to vote you out. In the net breath, he tells Andrea that she did incredibly well in the challenge today, and then she beams with pride. Did you not just hear what Jeff told Philip? Control your emotions.

- Andrea's excellent response to the immunity threat

Jeff asks her if it's a bad thing to be an immunity threat, and Andrea responds that they still need to be strong because somebody will be coming back from Redemption Island and they need to beat that person. It's a great point that I hadn't considered and if she was getting voted out only because of her strength in challenges, it might ahve given everybody else pause.

- Grant's not so good response to the same question

I've just got to be me and not change who I am? Huh?

- Jeff playing to Philip's ego with the counterintelligence line

Pure genius to ensure Philip will open up.

- "I made no alliances when I, you know, broke them"

Kristina and Francesca would disagree with this statement Philip.

- "Don't know for sure, but I think I'm a guy who you want to have around"

A subtle plea to the rest of the tribe, while not pointing out that he's a hatable guy.

- Nobody feels insecure at this moment

My mind was blown when nobody said they felt insecure. If anything, the fact that everybody else thought they were secure would make me feel insecure.

- Rob gives everybody a bit of a wakeup call by saying that he wouldn't feel comfortable if he didn't have immunity.

I don't know if Rob should have done this, but it's a fair statement.

- "You have done everything right to get to this point. Ovavate(?)"

Philip's great grandfather's words right before the vote. I honestly don't know that last word, hence the question mark.

- David, master of the obvious "She got blindsided"

You think, David? What was the tipoff, that she felt safe going into the vote, or that she reacted when she saw her name a second time?

Power rankings to come tomorrow.

Left Wing Locked

2011-05-03T00:24:00.004-04:00

Warning: Canadian Political Content Ahead

A lot is going to be said about the defeat of the Liberal party this week in the federal election. Plenty about how the Liberals need to do soul searching to find out what they stand up for. How the Liberal brand has been tarnished and needs to be renewed. What you are not likely to hear is how the Liberals shot themselves in the foot.

One thing that is obvious from these results is that there is a desire for change. The Conservative seats that had been picked up are on a thin margin, with the NDP picking up a lot of votes from the Liberals. This vote splitting is the biggest cause of the shocking drop of the Liberals. The question is why the vote bleed occurred.

From the start of the campaign, the Liberals made a conscious decision to attack the Conservatives on their actions while in government. A fine idea. However, the Liberals chose to make their platform a leftwing platform. That was their undoing.

The platform had two effects which the Liberals did not seem to anticipate. First, it effectively ran away many of the centre-right voters who might be inclined to vote Liberal. These voters moved to the Conservatives, giving them a chance to pick up some Liberal seats.

More importantly, with the platform being left leaning, it moved into the NDP's territory. This set up a direct comparison between the two parties. When this is combined with the general malaise that the voting public was feeling towards the same old parties being in charge (the Conservatives, Liberals and Bloc specifically), and you get plenty of voters who would have parked their votes with the Liberals instead deciding to give the NDP a chance.

The Liberals should have been putting themselves into a position to be the alternative to the Conservatives. The easiest way to do this would have been to create a platform that was centre right, which pledged to battle the deficit with the Corporate Tax Rate roll back instead of spending the roll back funds on additional programs. Quite honestly, the deficit is one of the biggest concerns for most of the public, and the public was looking for somebody to step up and show the same concern that they were feeling. Nobody really did that, so the public gravated towards the party they felt was the lesser of a bunch of evils

The Liberals still could have used some of their better ideas (such as the Education Passport), but funded them in other manners. They could have created a much better narrative, using the Conservatives own blundering, combining it with Stephen Harper saying that Canada wouldn't go into a recession, and dusting it with a bit of 90's nostalgia to remind the public that they actually had previously slayed the deficit that a Conservative government had left them. All of this would have resonated well with the public, and would have shown the Liberals as trying to lead the country, instead of auditioning for the role of main opposition.

The Liberals chose to stake their ground on the left; that gave the Conservatives much more room to manuever, and gave us three parties trying to battle over the left. When all was said and done, the Liberals found themselves with very little area left.

Going forward, the Liberals will likely go through the motions of refreshing and renewing their brand and party. With any luck, somebody will remind them that if they had only tried to battle the Conservatives on their ground, the results could have been very different.

Changing of Perspective

2011-05-02T07:30:00.001-04:00

Sun News has done a fantastic job of building up a reputation. First they launch a news network which is criticized for trying to draw based on sex appeal. Then they have to back off of a story that they published and claim that they felt had been planted by a Conservative operative.

Now they've essentially accused NDP Leader Jack Layton of being found with a prostitute. And guess what? There's questions about how the story was obtained.

There are two things which stand out to me on this story:

1) Jack Layton's "yup, this story happened, but there was nothing improper about what happened" reaction was a classic "Tell the truth and hope the story goes away" reaction. This is probably the best way for Layton to handle it, but unfortunately there will be some that will question whether he is telling the truth.

2) I do not understand why the media was quick to run with this story. The Sun had already shown that it could be manipulated by a juicy story, so wouldn't a healthy dose of skepticism be worth it in this case?

Ultimately, what Chirs Selley says is going to be true: This story isn't going to matter.

UFC 129 Thoughts

2011-05-01T17:08:00.002-04:00

One of the great cliches in the sports world is the discussion of how someone has the "heart of a champion". In the two title matches last night at UFC 129, we saw examples of this cliche coming true, as well as an example of someone demonstrating the opposite.

Jose Aldo came into his fight with Mark Hominick looking poorly. The day before, Aldo had to leave a special "seven champions" Q&A because he was lightheaded. Many people noted how bad Aldo looked. And when we entered the second round of the actual fight, Aldo was breathing through his mouth, which is a sign that Aldo was excessively tired. Inspite of this though, Aldo powered through and dominated the third and fourth rounds, which gave him the scoring edge going into the final round.

Mark Hominick had a great story going into his fight. He was fighting within an hour of his hometown for the world featherweight title. His wife was pregnant and due to deliver a daughter at any time. It was set up to be a great story that everybody would love. But during the fight, Aldo was definitely winning. In the third round, Aldo opened a cut under Hominick's eye, which also caused swelling. And in the fourth, Aldo landed a vicious short elbow which caused a large hemotoma to form on Hominick's head. The hemotoma was so large that the referee, John McCarthy, stopped the fight so a doctor could check Hominick and determine whether he could continue. This was then repeated after the end of the fourth round. Things did not look good for Hominick.

Hominick was not to be deterred though. He came out in the fifth round and dominated Aldo, rocking Aldo with ground strikes and bringing the crowd to its feet. It was an incredible final round - Hominick rising to meet the enduring performance of Aldo and for five minutes giving the crowd an ending they could be satisfied with. It was an ending which harkened back to the ending of the original Rocky movie, with the only difference being that Hominick apologized to his wife for possibly causing her to go into labour.

Georges St. Pierre is considered to be (with due respect to Anderson Silva) the pre-eminant fighter in all of MMA. The allure of GSP is that you are getting to watch a great fighter demonstrate elite skills with an elite game plan in the octagon. On this night though, the Georges St. Pierre that we saw was a mortal one.

In the second round of his fight, Jake Shields hit St. Pierre with a jab that struck St. Pierre in the eye. St. Pierre's vision went blurry, and by the end of the third round St. Pierre was panicked about his vision out of that eye. He had two rounds left to face Jake Shields, who was described by St. Pierre as the "most dangerous fighter" St. Pierre had ever faced. St. Pierre had to still spend two rounds fighting this man and still press the issue, as there was a chance that he was only winning two of the three rounds on the scorecards.

Cue Round four. St. Pierre landed a head kick that knocked Shields down and all but cemented the victory on the score card for GSP. The only thing left for him to do was to ensure that Shields never put him in a dangerous position. Luckily for him, Jake Shields was willing to play along and never threaten GSP.

Shields' performance was frustrating. As I mentioned before, GSP looked mortal. He was panicked. And yet, Jake Shields refused to put an extra effort into his fight. He fought timidly and without passion. Shields decided not to take any chances in the fight, seemingly content to let his opportunity to pass without even trying to win. When held to the standards the other three fighter set, it was an embarassing effort that indicated that Shields should not be considered among the elite fighters in MMA.
***
Going into last night's fight, Dana White expressed doubt that this would be Randy Couture's last fight. Unfortunately, Lyoto Machida made sure to guarantee it to be Couture's last fight.

In the fight, Randy looked slow, and frankly, old. As much as he felt that he knew how to stop Machida, it was clear that Randy no longer had the physical skills to implement that strategy. The spectacular knockout using a leaping front kick only emphasized this.

It's always difficult when an all time legend decides to retire. It's normally under two circumstances: Either the legend is going out on top of the game, or the legend is retiring when it is clear that their skills have diminished to a point that they can no longer compete at a level that we will remember them for. In the former, the fan is left feeling robbed, wanting to see more of this special competitor. But the later might be even more sad - your final memory being the athlete failing and looking human. In Randy's case, it is definitely the latter. The one bright side to this is that Randy went out in front of such a large crowd that it did feel a bit like closure; starting as the sport began its rise to prominence, and ending as the sport reached the peak of its ascention, with the largest show it has ever held.

The story's ending would have been better if Randy had won, but it was still a satisfying ending to a legendary career.
***
Overall, my predictions were 7-5, and my bets broke even. On the year, I am 34-22-2, with a net profit of $7.90.

UFC 129 Predictions

2011-04-30T07:00:00.000-04:00

Some quick picks for UFC 129:

Yves Jabouin over Pablo Garza
John Makdessi over Kyle Watson
Jason Macdonald over Ryan Jensen
Charlie Valencia over Ivan Menjivar
Daniel Roberts over Claude Patrick

Sean Pierson over Jake Ellenberger

Pierson is the definite underdog here; I am betting on the crowd pushing him to the upset.

Rory Macdonald over Nate Diaz

This will be an interesting fight. Macdonald is a prospect who almost beat Carlos Condit; Diaz is, well, Diaz. It's intriguing and I think Macdonald takes it.

Ben Henderson over Mark Boeck

This will be a really fun fight. Henderson might be best remembered as the guy who Anthony Pettis kicked Matrix style, but Henderson is a former WEC champion, and is really, really good. I like him to win.

Bet: $20 on Ben Henderson at 1.75 odds - win $35

Vladimir Matyushenko over Jason Brilz

I saw Jason Brilz basically end the Little Nog myth, even if he did not get the win. But I think he's going to lose to the Janitor, who is a very good wrestler in his own right.

Randy Couture over Lyoto Machida

Randy Couture has said this will be his last fight. He also chose to fight Lyoto Machida, presumably because he saw something in Machida's game. Add these together with a lacadasical fight from Machida in his last fight, and I think Couture will win.

Bet: $15 on Randy Couture at 3.20 odds - win $48

Jose Aldo Jr. over Mark Hominick

This pick pains me, but quite honestly Jose Aldo Jr. might be a top 3 pound for pound fighter in all of MMA. Not selecting him is shooting yourself in the foot.

Georges St. Pierre over Jake Shields

It's said that Jake Shields poses the biggest threat to GSP because he could be a sumbission threat. If you saw what happened between Shields and a gassed Dan Henderson, you know how ludicrous this sounds. I fully expect GSP to avoid any submission threat by standing and pounding Jake Shields.

Survivor Redemption Island Episode 11 Power Rankings

2011-04-28T00:04:00.003-04:00

(and extraneous thought)

It's been joked many times that Jeff Probst has a crush on Boston Rob, and will do a lot to help him out when he can. Tonight at tribal council though, he went into full on shill mode for his pal "Mariano".

Steve found a line that he really needed to take earlier when it came to Rob - his history. Steve pointed out the All-Stars incident, where Rob asked Lex to save Amber, only to then betray Lex at the first opportunity. Lex felt as though this was a personal attack on their friendship, and the two really haven't talked since. If Steve had been hammering this point earlier and to the right audience (Andrea definitely, and even, *gasp* Philip), he might have been able to turn the game. Instead Steve chose to belittle Philip and partiall bring us that horrendously uncomfortable Tribal Council from last episode.

Still, Steve had it in his head that the girls might still flip on Rob, and he brought up the All-Stars incident. This is when Jeff Probst sprung into action. He took the lead from Steve and went into spin control. When asking Andrea about Steve's point, he made sure to mention first that Rob hadn't betrayed Amber in All-Stars, and still hasn't to this date. He continually pointed out that Amber was not betrayed, while burying the lede that Lex was betrayed. It was a bit offputting to say the least.

One key thing about Jeff Probst as Survivor host is that he is supposed to be the viewer's representative on the show. When he narrates the action of a challenge, he is telling the viewers what is going on. When he asks questions at tribal council, he is supposed to be asking the questions that we would like to be answered in front of the other players. When he attempts to lead the players to his desired conclusions, he is betraying the trust of the viewer, and that harms the game and the show.

It's likely that Probst's actions had no impact on the voting. But it shouldn't have occurred in the first place. As viewers, we shouldn't be left wondering if the impartiality of the game has been compromised. And that is something that Jeff Probst is normally good at controlling.
***
And off to the power rankings:

I hope this is just a single elimination duel...

10. Steve (8)
9. Ralph (7)

The Pagong-ing of Zapatera is done, with Steve and Ralph headed to Redemption Island. Omatepe wouldn't have a problem with Steve returning, since he's been rather unsuccessful in challenges. Ralph though, would be problematic. He has shown a bit of an affinity to do well in challenges, even without winning. The last thing Omatepe needs is somebody to go on an immunity run.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

8. Matt (10)

Matt certainly seemed like he was ready to quit. And quite honestly, it would have been easy to quit at the shuffleboard challenge. Make a bad throw here, another one there, and you are soon out of the game. But something snapped into place during the competition, and Matt ended up surviving another duel. He is a huge threat if he gets back into the game. you can bet that Rob already has a plan in place for his eventual return.

Insert witty title here

7. Mike (9)

I wish I can say more about Mike; he's just as big of a threat as he was prior to being voted out; his only chance of winning is going on an immunity run. Sadly, this isn't going to happen. Just as importantly, I think his jury question is not going to be interesting in any way. Maybe there's another chance for you to get back on the show Mike; I thing you'll end up doing better.

Crazy unlike a Fox

6. Philip (6)

It's a close to safe bet that Philip is here until the very end. But I get the impression that as much as he claims to have a plan, he has no plan to get jury votes. If he realizes this, he is going after Boston Rob. If he doesn't then he's going to be baffled at why he received no votes.

Hush little baby
don't say a word

5. Andrea (4)

Rob and friends have lulled her into a sense of security, which seems to be her downfall. Well, that and apparently having some human emotions in the game of Survivor.

The sweetest two words in the English Language

4. Ashley (5)

The default bump. If she makes final four, she might sneak into the final three as a "the jury doesn't like her" selection.

I'm not Amber Rob, I swear

3. Natalie (3)

I still don't understand why Rob sees value in bringing Natalie to the final three. He's played the game with Amber, and knows that vote parking in protest against someone is a real possibility. My guess? Rob thinks that the 4-3 vote for Amber might be indicative of a trend, but he can get one extra person in this game to vote for him.

Frontrunners can be fun sometimes

2. Grant (2)
1. Rob (1)

This week was interesting because we got to see Rob's future planning vis a vis Grant's.

Rob's experience helps him in a lot of situations. Tonight was one such night. The tribe was given a mystery package, and Rob immediately goes into control mode. He doesn't know what's in it, but he assumes it's going to be something that will have an immediate impact that is meant to shake up the game. What does he do? Immediately start planning who to vote for after Ralph, their initial target. He does this just in case there's a second vote. As it turns out, Rob was right and yet his machinations really ended up meaning very little; the tribe was likely to vote for Steve without prompting. But that thought to make sure that Plan B was already decided is what puts Rob ahead of everybody else.

Grant was much different in his future planning. He started looking at a long term plan, knowing that soon Zapatera would be gone and Omatepe would have to start getting rid of one of their own. Grant, knowing that he might be a target for this, starts laying the ground work for Andrea to go two votes down the road. Thanks to Steve, Andrea was spared one more vote, but her time is coming. And Grant might have set himself up to be Rob's right hand man. That could be an impressive feat.

Blog post - saved

2011-04-26T22:03:00.003-04:00

I was going to go tackle this article by John Doyle in regards to the apparent flood of singing competition shows (which is to say, the three of them). But then I saw this article by Doyle and see that he's really just repeating an article that he wrote 6 months ago. If he's not going to bother to put in an effort, why should I?

It returns

2011-04-22T08:08:00.001-04:00

Once again I've become a little angry with my blogging. Other than my Survivor posts, I've been pretty negligent with posting anything. So, much like last year, I'm going to do Manic May. What does that mean? A post every day.

The hurdles this year? Another trip to Vegas at the end of the month, and a trip to UFC 129 around the beginning of the month. The Vegas trip will probably be the most difficult time yet again, but I think last year's eperience will help me to be more prepared for this year.

As with last year, expect a fair bit of Survivor content, along with movie reviews (the summer season is here), some UFC thoughts, the return of Monday Musings and Random Thoughts and other minutia.

Survivor Redemption Island Episode 10 Power Rankings

2011-04-21T11:47:00.002-04:00

Given up on the game

11. Julie (6)

One thing about Julie's stealing of Philip's shorts is that it indicated to me that she felt there was no chance of her making final tribal. It was an act of frustration for sure, but it was also an act of somebody who knew that her actions were not going to impact her game going forward. I'd go so far as to say that her actions were those of someone who desperately wanted her actions to have some sort of impact in the game. Much like the rest of her game, stealing the shorts reflected poorly on her, and ended up meaning very little to the rest of the game.

You still aren't welcome

10. Matt (11)
9. Mike (10)

Nothing has changed here - whomever of these two come back into the game will just be voted out at the net tribal council in which they do not have immunity.

Living on a Prayer

8. Steve (9)
7. Ralph (8)

Pagonging in full effect.

Everybody else

6. Philip (6)

Philip drops behind Ashely because I believe there's no chance he will get any votes from Zapatera, making his chances of winning even more difficult.

5. Ashley (7)

If Rob is serious about finding a Public Enemy #2, he will know this is his best choice.

4. Andrea (4)
3. Natalie (3)
2. Grant (2)
1. Rob (1)

No change in the top 4 is a good inidication that we are still in a holding pattern for another couple of weeks.

Survivor Redemption Island Episode 10 Thoughts

2011-04-20T20:52:00.004-04:00

You know, after my disasterous pick of Misty to win Panama, I like to think that I've improved my abilities to pick out potential winners and losers. That's why I put no faith in what seemed to be somewhat consensus picks to win in Kristina and David. They both fell under the same category: too strategic.

One thing that I've figured out is that as time has gone on, being a strong strategic player is nowhere close to being as important as being a good social player. The jury is more likely to vote against you if they do not like you, even if you were the greatest strategic player of all time. Players like David and Kristina tend to put a target on their back by asserting their intelligence, which in turn ends up getting that player voted out. The strategic player tends to not make as many connections, as the connections amke it more difficult to eliminate a player. That lack of connection makes it more difficult for a juror to vote for the strategic player.

Ultimately, what did Kristina and David in was being a transparently strategic player who was in a minority situation. And it was their own actions that put them in the minority situation. Kristina chose to make a move on Boston Rob and isolate herself. David chose to throw a challenge in order to remove Russell from the game. Their own strategy and drive ended up working against them in the long run.
***
Everything after the Redemption Island duel was just uncomfortable. Unlike Cook Islands, where the producers interjected the race situation in about as innocuous a way as possible, seeing somebody accuse another of being a racist is not a good time. Throw in that the one accusing the other has acted in an, um, unusual manner, and it's even worse.

It's pretty obvious that Philip has faced sever racial prejudice before, and that has impacted the say he sees things. It's also pretty obvious that Steve wasn't trying to imply any sort of bigotry. What should have happened was both taking a step back to realize what they were arguing about - storing rice. is there a compromise there?

But it's more than that. Julie's "I stole the shorts and you'll never find them" comment was stupid and uncomfortable. Ralph's laughing at Philip's underwear while voting was uncomfortable. I mean, here's Philip basically pouring out his heart in tribal council, and Ralph mocks him in private, while Julie mocks him TO HIS FACE! For Julie to say afterwards that Philip is the poison in the tribe after she intentionally poked and prodded him (along with Steve) to get a reaction is laughable at best. It's pretty obvious that Julie has given up on the game at this point, but more on that tomorrow.
***
Enough about this thoroughly unenjoyable topic, here are a few things that I enjoyed:

The only thing amusing about the blow up at camp was that they cut away from Philip giving the "kiss my ass" sign, as though this is the most offensive thing in Survivor history. I mean, really?

Also amusing, when Rob mentions who he wants to make "Public Enemy #2," (with Philip being Public Enemy #1) we get a cut to Ashley.

Ashley falling down due to her dizziness during the immunity challenge made me giggle. Granted, I have an issue with laughing inappropriately at people falling down, but still...

Philip imitating Jeff Probst's inflection and line when Philip proclaimed that he had finished the puzzle wheel...only to find out that he actually had not finished the wheel.

Steve's weak "Steve's done" while Probst was checking Rob's puzzle also amused me.

***
I'm calling it right now - the Redemption Island winner will not come back until the final 6, which coincidentally is the number of Omatepe members remaining. It's the sort of cute thing that ends up happening on Survivor.

Grind My Gears: A random thought as I catch up on my DVR

2011-04-17T17:41:00.004-04:00

I'm watching this week's Poker After Dark, and a situation arose which has annoyed me with a lot of the televised poker that ~~will no longer be on television~~ is on television currently.

They are playing PLO, and Phil Ivey just went all in against Patrick Antonius. Ivey has a pair of aces, while Antonius has KK99. Antonius in theory only has 4 outs - 2 kings and 2 nines. However, thanks to the hole cams, we know that other players have already folded both kings and 1 nine, leaving Antonius only one out. But the graphics on the screen and the announcers act as though Antonius has all 4 outs available to him. Why not be honest about this and give us the correct odds?

(What makes this case particularly irksome is that in a previous hand, the graphics and announcers reflected the true situation, noting a folded card as being an out that is no longer available to a player.)

Survivor Redemption Island Episode 9 Power Rankings

2011-04-14T11:02:00.004-04:00

Good night, this is the end...

12. David (7)

I never bought the "so smart he's probably going to win" hype that some gave him. He struck me as somebody who didn't have the social skills necessary, and was most likely to overplay his game. Getting rid of Russell was definitely an overplay; in the end it cost him the game.

Welcome back, now get out.

11. Matt (12)
10. Mike (8)

I don't know which of these two will come back from Redemption Island; I am willing to wager that it is one of those two though. It won't matter. The only way they will make final tribal is if they go on an immunity run a la Fabio.

Living on a Prayer

9. Steve (11)
8. Ralph (10)

Pagonging in full effect.

Sacrifice on the altar of votes

7. Ashley (6)

I can see Ashley getting voted out before the last Zapatera memember as a concession to that Zapatera member to have outlasted Ashley, similiar to Adam and Candace on Exile Island when they asked to beat out Jonathan.

Let's not kid ourselves, you aren't going anywhere

6. Julie (4)

Julie could have been a contender, but chose the easy way out by getting rid of Russell. Where would she be if she went with him instead? In a group of 4 which includes 3 players who are tought to get along with. What a horrible position to be in.

Power player?

5. Philip (9)

My friend Gary made some salient points about Philip's play today, specifically that you have to get people to vote for you. I agree. I'm just not sure that what Philip did in tribal council is the reason why he won't get votes.

One truth about who votes for who is that at a minimum, the juror who is casting the vote has to respect the person who they are voting for. They don't have to like them; we've seen many examples of people voting for someone they dislike. But the juror has to be at ease with their choice. They have to be able to justify it in some way. Without some sort of respect for the player, they will not vote for them. Right now, Philip does not have the respect of anybody. While he still has time to change this (much like Fabio from last year), he needs to change this view quickly, or else his chance of winning will quickly fade.

Keep on keeping on

4. Andrea (3)

Bumped down, but she is still in a position to make a big play and get to the final three.

A new contender emerges

3. Natalie (5)

Rob's right hand girl, and the person he wants to bring to the final three. She did get on the nerve of a few of her tribemates, but not to the level of Ashley. If Rob ultimately annoys his tribe too much, Natalie is the safe place to park votes as a protest against Rob. Kind of like Amber.

It's yours to lose. Now stop trying to lose it.

2. Grant (2)
1. Rob (1)

Both Rob and Grant are making small moves which could end up destroying their end game. By eating the fish offered by Zapatera, he rebelled against Rob, who has already shown an inclination to get rid of people who even slightly cross him. Throw in Grant's apparent edge in a final tribal situation, and Rob is starting to think of getting rid of Grant.

Meanwhile, Rob seems to be misjudging who is most likely to be hated by the jury. Natalie is more likely to be liked by the jury than Ashley, but Rob is almost rewarding Natalie's loyalty over Ashley's non-likeableness by planning to bring Natalie to the final three.

Both of these moves can easily be corrected, but they are the small things that can turn into big things, that can cost someone a million dollars.