'The Amazing Race 10' - Pit Stop Order and Philimination

Arrival to the Pit Stop:

1. Peter/Sarah - Also won a trip to Mexico
2. Tyler/James
3. Duke/Lauren
4. Tom/Terry
5. Dustin/Kandice
6. Rob/Kimberly
7. David/Mary
8. Erwin/Godwin
9. Lyn/Karlyn
10. Kellie/Jamie... Philiminated, but didn't even finish the Roadblock leading to the Pit Stop.

A full recap/review will be posted later this evening. Stop back!

Tonight's 'The Amazing Race 10' Blogging Schedule

While I thought that the commercial with David and Mary was funny, graphic artist Zoetawny must have thought otherwise! Heehee. I don't know, 'round these parts, gay folks are everywhere.

As usual, I'll post important events of the show - any unusual happenings and the Philimination (or non-Philimination) news as it airs here on the East Coast because I know some West Coast folks love to peek ahead. Sometime late tonight (ET), I'll post a full show review/recap and I'd love to hear what everyone thought of the show.

'Lost' - What We Know

Lost begins its eagerly anticipated third season Wednesday, October 4, at 9 PM ET/PT in most viewing areas. Will we find out more answers to questions posed? Are The Others really a force for good? And, where did that dang huge polar bear go?

It's hard for a mere fan of the show to digest all the clues put forth and I know I miss some every show I watch. If you haven't watched the show, it may be hard to jump aboard the Lost island, but it's not impossible. As a prelude to the new season, I'll go into some of what we know and some of the riddles posed. For every mystery, a new mystery seems to arrive. Are they making it all up as they go along? Well, yeah... it's fiction, you know! But, hopefully, the writers do have resolutions for mysteries posed. Either way, I'm hooked.

Here are the basics:

• Oceanic Flight 815, which could seat over 360 passengers, on a flight from Sydney, Australia, to Los Angeles, California, crashed somewhere over the Pacific Ocean possibly near the Fiji Islands. The crash was due to instrument failure. Although it's not known how many passengers were aboard, we know that at least 70 survived the crash.
• The plane broke into three parts as it went down - the central fuselage contained 48 survivors (believed to be 49 at first, but one was not from the flight), the front section contained only the pilot, and the tail section had 23 more surviving passengers. The three sections landed in various parts of the island.
• In the Season 2 finale, it was revealed that the failure to push a mysterious button on schedule caused an electromagnetic field disturbance which affected the plane's instruments, resulting in its crash.
• Each character, or plane crash survivor, has his own story and some interweave with the lives of others on the plane. The show uses flashbacks to show life events of each leading up to the crash.
• In Season 1, there was a huge polar bear. He has not been seen since and his importance (or lack thereof) is not known.
• The first season focused on the passengers from the fuselage and they were unaware that others from the tail section survived.
• The fuselage survivors determined "Others" were on the island and that the "Others" were an evil lot, kidnapping children and just plain ol' evil nefarious stuff going on. There are also monsters or some unseen force which sounds as large as dinosaurs crashing trees in a dark wisp of smoke.
• There's a mysterious French woman on the island (not a crash survivor) who tells tales of the Others and evil stuff.
• A hatch (one of more than a few on the island) was found on Season 2. In it, Desmond (on the island previous to the plane crash), had been entering numbers and pushing a button every time a timer hit the number 108, supposedly to save the world. The failure to push the button one time is what has been indicated to cause the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Desmond ran away, leaving new crash survivors the task of saving the world on a scheduled basis.
• In exploring the hatch, the survivors found out about the DHARMA Initiative, a research project, from an orientation video. DHARMA stands for Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications Initiative. Okay. The definition of "heuristic" (hey, I didn't know) is: A replicable method or approach for directing one's attention in learning, discovery, or problem-solving. Hmmm.
• The DHARMA Iniative was sponsored by the Hanso Foundation.

Are you confused enough yet? Wait! There's more!

• Mysterious numbers keep recurring on the island and in the backstory of one of the focal characters, Hurley. Hurley believes that his winning lottery numbers brought him bad luck (along with several million dollars). His lottery numbers - 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 - have played a prominent role throughout the show as the numbers needed to input before pushing the button to "save the world" and more.
• Last season marked the discovery of Others who survived the plane crash in the tail section.
• But they're not the only Others, and they're not the true Others about whom the French woman feared.
• The real Others, in pirate-like appearance, kidnapped Walt (a young boy from the fuselage). His father, Michael, will do whatever he has to do to get Walt back.
• It's possible that a real Other has been captured with the find of one Henry Gale who supposedly crashed his air balloon on the island. (Reference back to The Wizard of Oz.)
• In regard to the numbers game of Lost, when they showed Henry's address, he lived at 815 Walnut Ridge - the same number as the flight. Once again, numbers play a huge role in the plot and its clues. And, the 108 timer flip (to save the world) is the sum of the lottery numbers.
• There isn't space, nor the time in the day, to go into each character on the Island, but you can read up on them on the episode recaps on the ABC Official Lost website. There are murderers, thieves, a man who couldn't walk but now can, and a dog named Vincent (as opposed to a dog named Boo).

Are you still with me? Today, Sunday, September 24, there will be an Internet radio show at 11 PM ET (8 PM PT) in which DJ Dan is supposed to "blow the roof off of the Hanso Foundation" exposing new clues as we go into the third season.

LOST. It's more than just a television show. It's a never-ending mind game of clues, adventure, and odd bed-fellows. But, I'm going to be watching.

'Survivor 13: Cook Islands' - Billy Garcia Interviews

Well, well... for someone who conserved energy instead of using it on the island, Billy Garcia (the second castoff from Cook Islands) sure has been busy on the media front.

Reality News Online had an interview <--- to read the whole interview, click on that link. A few points brought up in the interview:

Billy thought that the idea of separating the tribes by race didn't work for him although it seems to work for the show on the whole. He believes it gave a lot of folks from various minorities a shot on the show. He felt that because his music is heavy metal, a type more popular with Caucasians, that his tribemates feared he would eventually flip to side with the Raro tribe. He also claimed his strategy was indeed to conserve energy and then come to save the day when the rest of the tribe tired (I'm paraphrasing).

Billy mentioned that there was indeed a lot of food in the six days he was there -- more than all previous seasons combined. Okay, he exaggerates a bit, but it's not just the viewers thinking they have a lot of food so far. He said that Cristina thinks Ozzy is a "pompous-know-it-all-jerk." Heh. I think he got that one spot on. I think Ozzy really does know a lot, but he certainly has a chip on his shoulder.

He claims that he was "starving for attention" when Candice gave her the "We love you" bit and when he was watching the show, he saw there was really nothing to it. He said he had to laugh at himself when he saw the show.

If he had his choice, Billy would have wanted to be on a tribe composed of all of the "outsider" types - Cao-Boi, Flicka, Sekou. He called them "alternatives."

He knew before the Tribal Council that the vote would go against him. Cristina had indicated it would go down that way. That's why he went ahead and called out Ozzy and JP.

Media Fiends has a rather poorly written transcript of Billy's The Early Show appearance. But, it's better than my own as I was already on my work commute when he appeared on the show.

Billy Garcia's band (Forsakken) has its own website if you want to check that out or you're into heavy metal music.

'Survivor 13: Cook Islands' - Ep. 2 -or- "A Challenge Thrown, But Chickens Caught"

Yes, the tribe has once again spoken and Zoetawny has given me yet another graphic. They didn't seem to smile so much at Tribal Council tonight, though.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here's the skinny on tonight's second episode of Survivor 13: Cook Islands and some of my thoughts regarding the events --

Oh, let's skip the inevitable recap. In this day and age, do producers really think it's all that necessary to waste up to five minutes a week going on about what we saw last week? What's up with that? Heck, anyone following the show has either seen it or read about it. Stop it, television shows. No need to do that each week. Viewers want fresh chickens.

It looks like the Hiki Tribe sans Sekou is getting its act together to an extent. They received flint in the last Tribal Council, yet still had problems making fire. Yikes. On a personal level, they're meshing better without a perceived leader. But I wonder how one cannot start a fire for a long time when they have flint, rocks, a machete, dry wood, and nice tinder materials.

Over at Aitu, they're just rocking in the food department. They're spearing fish, digging clams, snagging crabs and all is cool in their little Cook Islands world. Or, is it? When they see chickens running around, Cristina wants to build a trap. Yet, Ozzy has even better ideas for a chicken trap. For someone who said last week that he didn't want to appear as a leader, Ozzy's not being shy. He and Cristina clash, but Ozzy's trap idea worked out. Cristina told her tribemates about being shot in her work as a policewoman. Cecilia and JP seemed suitably impressed; Ozzy seemed to be not too keen on cops.

The Puka Tribe also devised a chicken trap, an old-style crate with bait propped with a stick. Wham! Two chickens at once! Is there anything this tribe can't do? Becky and Yul developed a trust or, on this island, it's an alliance. They're both Korean and they both have the same values, work ethic, and will do well working together.

Jonathan returned to the Raro camp to find that his tribe had done nothing since he left. They still have no real shelter. He tried to get them in gear. Now, last week I didn't care for Jonathan, but in my eyes he's redeemed himself a bit this week. At least, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Adam wants to sit around and conserve energy; both Adam and Candice are busy flirting and doing nothing together. Jonathan could have really freaked, but he didn't. Candice advised Adam not to make an enemy out of Jonathan. Whether Adam will heed the advice, we'll see down the road. Meanwhile, JessFlicka set out "pimpin' out our palace."

The show cut back to the Aitu Tribe where Billy's conserving energy. Perhaps he and Adam should join up together? We find out later on that they might share another interest, too. Heh. Billy has a friend in Cristina who could be protecting him just to spite Ozzy for her own plans. Billy told her that "metal (heavy metal music) is his culture, not Hispanic." Okay, if he says so.

Each tribe seems to have one member who is getting on the nerves of the others. On Puka, it's fan-favorite-to-watch, Cao-Boi. He snores, he tells ethnic jokes about Asians, and he's alienating the others with no care for their opinions. While he cured yet another Bad Wind Headache, he's not making real friends here, not at all. His fellow tribemates are very concerned that his jokes perpetuate stereotypes and most of them want to disprove stereotypes. Oh, Cao-Boi, shhh!

The night before the Immunity/Rewards Challenge, Billy was snoring as Ozzy planned to oust him by throwing the challenge. He insisted that Billy was nothing but deadwood and was bringing an otherwise strong tribe down. He got JP on the bandwagon, although Cristina wasn't happy with the thought at all. She referred to Ozzy by his given name of "Oscar" as she spoke of her distrust of him in confessionals.

I'm not sure if the entire season will combine the Immunity and Reward Challenges, but this one followed last week's example. It was an obstacle course, tied together, retrieve puzzle pieces and solve the puzzle genre challenge. Jeff told a story about Captain Cook and the puzzle was based on the story. Hoo-hah. Since the other three tribes had one more member than Hiki, one from each tribe had to sit out. Jenny and Adam sat out. Billy tried to sit out on Aitu, but instead JP was determined he would and practically left them mid-sentence. The plan was in motion. Or, more precisely, the lack of motion. Ozzy was dragging his heels so much that it was clear what was going on. Billy and Cristina both picked up on it, but when you're tied together, there's not too much you can do at that point.

In the photo on the right, Billy looks on from below as Ozzy oh-so-slowly unties a clue.

Jeff first announced that Puka had won, but then decided it was a tie between Puka and Raro - both won Immunity and two tarps per tribe. Hiki didn't fare all that well, but because Ozzy threw the challenge, Hiki won Immunity.

Aitu chose to send Yul to Exile Island. A big mistake on their part as he made rather quick work of the clues and found the hidden Immunity Idol. I think we have a Korean Terry on our hands. This guy is good and he doesn't seem to alienate others. He could very well make it to the end, I think.

Billy figured Ozzy was trying to vote him off and turned to Cristina who, in turn, turned to Cecilia. It looked like Ozzy's plan just might backfire and the OzMan may find the tables turned. Cecilia thinks a lot of Cristina, they're amigas. Can she be trusted when she gives her word?

In Tribal Council, tempers flared as Billy exposed Ozzy's plan. JP backed up Ozzy saying that Billy was just trying to act like a victim when it's all his own actions which put him in the boat. (Not the Survivor boat, although they all put themselves in that one.) Cristina defended Billy until Billy made an odd announcement which silenced everybody. Um... he declared his love at first sight for Candice. Yes, Candice of Raro. Yes, Candice, the apple of Adam's eye. No, they haven't talked, but Billy knew it was love.

Well, just what could anyone say? Jeff, practically speechless for the first time in years, declared that it was time for them to vote. Of course, Billy voted for Ozzy and Ozzy voted for Billy. We knew that JP would also vote for Billy. While Jeff read four votes - one Billy, one Ozzy, one Billy, one Billy... the real shocker at the end when they showed all of the tribemates casting the vote was that Cristina also voted out Billy. It was 4-1.

So, did the trust thing work between Cecilia and Cristina? I don't know. I'm assuming that they must have talked about changing the vote. But I had it almost figured for a 3-2 Ozzy ouster. When it turned out it was really Billy, I was confused. The plot thickens.

But they have chickens!