Location Ideas

As Survivor keeps going on, the one problem seems to be the locations that they keep reusing over and over again. So far, Gabon is the latest unique location and Cambodia was the newest location that they went to. Due to the way things are now filmed, you’ll see the game play out in the same location twice. It helps lower the cost to have one season, a two week break, and another season all in the same location. But what are locations that would work for future Survivor seasons? Well, I might as well speculate as to what would be a good place for them to do Survivor at in this blog of mine.

I should note that I’m doing very minimal research (actually, no research) into what places are political stable, isolated but not too dangerous, and ideal for Survivor seasons. I’m just naming various places that I think would work well for a Survivor season. Maybe any of them would actually work. Maybe, none of them would. We’ll see what locations, if any, they ever go to.

Survivor, the US version at least, has never been to Europe. Maybe this is too developed a place to have an isolated enough area to do the show. I would love to see a Survivor season in Ireland. Or, they could go to Northern Ireland. You’d think that European countries would have islands that are isolated enough that they could be used to film a Survivor season at. Possible European islands they could go to would be Crete, Malta, and Sicily.

Now just because there’s a place that hasn’t been used, doesn’t mean that there aren’t more underused places that should be used more in the future. For one, they have hardly been to Africa or South America as much as they could have been. Now this may be due to the fact that they normally film seasons during our summer so they wouldn’t be able to have warmer places down there during that time of the year. Still, it would be interesting to wonder where else they could film on either of those two continents.

Let’s start with Africa. Having been to South Africa, I would highly recommend that they go there, if they can find a good place. Other places that might work would be Congo, Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Djibouti, Morocco, Mali, and Senegal.

Here’s where I think would work in South America: they should go to Bolivia, the Galapagos Islands, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. I just hope that all of the regions are politically stable enough. I have no reason to doubt that, but I’m doing no research into that.

Switching now to Mezo America (or Central America, as most people call it, although I’m honestly bothered that it isn’t considered North America to many people), you might be wondering which of those countries I would want Survivor to go to. I think that Belize, Honduras, and Costa Rica would be good Central American countries to visit.

Asia is what I’ll do next. Of all the Asian countries that they haven’t been to yet, I think that they should go to Japan, Taiwan, Burma, Nepal, and Mongolia. I have no idea which continent Papua New Guinea is, but I would add that too.

Oceania isn’t a continent per say, but it is the most common place that Survivor has gone to. For all the places there that they haven’t gone to in Oceania, I would suggest the Marshall Islands, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tasmania, French Polynesia, and Easter Island. Is Easter Island in that chain of oceans? I think it would be a good idea either way.

Well, that’s about it for this blog post. I hope that I had good suggestions and I look forward to whatever new locations I hope Survivor goes to. I’m not sure that I have any one location that I’d want more or less than the other. I just want more new locations. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Top Ten Maroonings

At the beginning of the game, people are marooned at the start and there are always memorable ways of doing that. You are basically starting the game off and the next season in an interesting way of some sort. The way they begin is pivotal to how the game will work so I might as well mention what I think the best ten maroonings are.

Honorable mentions: I remember liking Australia’s marooning, but I didn’t like it enough to put it on the list as I felt that it was too much like others. They did something interesting and different for Thailand’s marooning by using fake tribes before they learn that there aren’t any preselected tribes. But I’m not sure that I felt that it had much else to offer besides that. The Vanuatu marooning was interesting, but it doesn’t quite make the cut on my list. Cook Islands was slightly interesting, but I didn’t like it enough to find it worthy of the top ten. Nicaragua also had the fake tribe premise which is interesting, but I also don’t feel it worthy of the top ten. I might include South Pacific if the marooning was more interesting than just the returning players doing a challenge. That’s all I can think of for honorable mentions.

#10 One World: This game had quite an interesting lead-in to it. First, we learn that the tribes will be separated by gender and they are given a quick grab from the truck. To make things interesting, a man steals stuff from the women’s pile, which isn’t actually against the rules. Then they are both sent off in separate ways when they eventually learn that they are living at the same beach. It may not have been the most interesting marooning, but it is good enough in my mind to make the top ten.

#9 Guatemala: Few seasons begin in such a harsh way like Guatemala did. First, the new contestants learn that there will be two returning players joining them in the game. Then they have to do a hike against each other through tough terrain. Now my sister who has hiked the same trail has said that Jeff was probably exaggerating how rough the road really was. But this is the first challenge of the tribes and the winner gets a better camp. Pretty good reward challenge, right? The game starts out in a very interesting way, the likes of which we don’t typically see that much.

#8 Samoa: A lot of seasons rely on some sort of first impressions twist at the beginning. This one actually has a good way of doing that by first getting all the people to vote for a leader among their members. That leader then has to decide who among his contestants will do what in the challenge. You are starting the game with a lot of unknown things being brought forth and it all plays out from there.

#7 Marquesas: In this season, contestants started without any major supplies of any kind starting out. That alone has to be a pretty hard thing. The game can only get harsher from there and it does. This was certainly one of the more physically demanding seasons in the show’s history. It starts out pretty tough and doesn’t get much easier.

#6 Micronesia: First, you get a tribe of new players who wonder who they will be facing against in the game. That’s when the favorites tribe is introduced, one by one. We get a special challenge at the beginning where one player from each tribe gets to be immune at their first tribal council. It’s interesting seeing the dynamics of the game come across the way that they do.

#5 All-Stars: This season was different than any that had come before it. And, you have an interesting new way of doing the tribes and the whole start of the game. In order to hide the fact that there were three tribes in the game, each tribe of six was separated from the others at the start of the game and they didn’t even know who else might have been on other tribes. It wasn’t until the first immunity challenge that they finally learned of the competition that they would be facing in the game. The three tribes twist worked well, which made it weird that they didn’t use it again until Philippines. They might have started overusing it from there, but that doesn’t matter much. The fact that they kept it a secret who all was playing from the other tribes was quite interesting.

#4 Blood versus Water: Let’s start with day 0. We have the pairs of loved ones each by themselves in ten different places before the game actually begins for real, but on an overnight experience that will test the people in the game. Then, they learn that the new players are on one tribe against the returning players and they will have to defeat their loved ones in challenges to stay safe in the game. Any challenge that you win could put your own loved one in danger so the game takes an interesting turn all starting with the idea that you were actually playing with your loved one.

#3 Borneo: To not include the very first marooning on this list would have been a travesty. In the very first season, the very first episode has to include some sort of interesting way of bringing forth the show. A lot of series premieres can be make or break. Unlike a scripted show which typically does just the pilot before they decide whether or not they want more, with Survivor, they had to do a whole season. They have the contestants on a boat and they suddenly have to jump ship with Jeff Probst in the middle of the chaos trying to keep track of everything. It is an interesting and great way to start the show.

#2 Pearl Islands: We start with the fact that the contestants just thought that they were taking publicity pictures for the season. They didn’t know that the game was starting. Then, we have them bartering in a local town for supplies. Members of Morgan foolishly leave their boat of supplies next to Rupert and he takes everything from the boat. The pirate theme is on and we have a great beginning to the season second only to number one.

What season do I have listed as best marooning? Well, not everything about it was perfect, to say the least. It’s hard to come up with something that’s absolute perfect. But the season is very good in my mind and even though there were some parts of it that was bad (mostly a very bad twist), I still have it as the best marooning in Survivor’s history.

#1 Palau: Sometimes a surprise start is the best type of start. You have a bunch of confused contestants trying to race to the beach as quickly as possible. It’s a shame that two of them wouldn’t even get to play the game. Later seasons would do the race to the beach challenge better by making it immunity at their tribe’s first tribal council. Anyways, after the strange challenge, all of the contestants got to live on one beach together at the start of the game. So we are off to a great start that’s sadly affected by a bad twist. But I still list it as the best marooning in Survivor history.

That’s all for this blog post of mine. I wonder if you agree with this post of mine at all. I wish that I had a better memory. Mine is so weird. I just wish that it was better. I actually thought that I knew a good joke about memory, but I forgot it. So, hopefully, I’m not missing any good maroonings. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Survivor: Millennials versus Gen X Finale

I need to work on the end of the season awards, the officially unnamed awards that I give at the end of the season. I give an award for the three dumbest moves of the season, the breakout star of the season, I rank the season against the others, I rank the tribe swap among the other tribe swaps, and I also give an award to the most memorable moment of the season. I need to work on that so I know who will get what in the season. Also, I might be starting a new, secret blog. Well, it was planned to be secret as I don’t plan on identifying myself in it, but I’m not sure if it will end up that way or not. And it is all because of Adam that I’m doing this.

Once again, I have family visiting around the time that this episode aired. But, I’m not sure if it will affect this blog or not. If this is later than Thursday, then you’ll know why. I do plan on scheduling more posts for the last two Wednesdays in December. I plan on doing more random posts as usual, but I don’t think that any of them will appear on Sundays during the winter hiatus. I need to work on them, but I’m really getting too much on my plate and my work doesn’t even affect most of my writing.

There is something that I feel is worth mentioning. I’m afraid that during and before upcoming seasons of shows, I may be cursing some of the contestants from it. Whenever I notice that there is a contestant from a new season that shows up as a potential friend request on facebook, I tend to give them a request. How does this affect them? So far, of all the new players on seasons that I send a friend request to, those that accept tend to have some form of a negative or invisible edit. Why am I mentioning this? David from this season is someone who accepted a friend request of mine. I hope that he can still do well despite this. Maybe he can break the curse. If not, he could wind up like Spencer in Cambodia and have a terrible finale despite previous great game play. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, we get to Jeff introducing the show. He is full of the usual hype that he’s known for. I can’t tell if this is more of a Jeff full of crap thing or not. At least he has the energy a host would need. I haven’t heard many, if any, people wanting a new host. As usual, we get an introduction to all of the final contestants, giving each of them one confessional each.

Jay talks about wasting his idol. He thinks that there is a new one hidden. Bret talks about a wasted opportunity tonight by getting rid of Sunday instead of either Jay or David. Speaking of David, he makes a fake idol. I love fake idols. I think that David is right and there are no idols left. We’ll see. Jay finds the fake idol and thinks that it is real.

In the second segment of the show, it is revealed that the legacy advantage is immunity at tonight’s tribal council. The challenge is for reward and immunity, with the reward being a nice, juicy steak, with all the fixings. Jay makes a mistake by not covering his combination which everyone else uses to progress in the challenge. David wins the challenge. Jay decides to steal the reward, but still invites David to share in it. He also has Adam, who gave him the advantage, partake in the reward as well. I wonder if they had the reward part of this challenge just for someone to potentially steal it.

In the third segment of the show, we get to the reward and Jay makes his case for staying in the game. He tries to target Bret. But it seems that everyone else wants to get rid of Jay. Since when did Jay become a threat to win? Also, there seems to be slight audio problems with the tape that I’m using. Adam and Jay seem to be best frenemies in the game.

Also, I need to get caught up on Ponderosa sometime. I honestly don’t know if I should be including that on my blog, although I tend to ignore any online exclusives for this blog. I might add Ponderosa in special, future posts when I do look backs on seasons. I can’t make sense of who might be going on after the tribal council. Jay plays his fake idol. Ken cancels out his votes with the legacy advantage. Jessica reacts because this could have been her with immunity. I’ve been loving the tribal councils this season. Hopefully, the others will be good too. Ken only cancelled out Jay’s vote for him.

In the fourth segment of the show, we go right to the next immunity challenge without any of the post tribal council life in between. David talks about how he thinks he will do bad since it is a water challenge. I wouldn’t like a water challenge either, although you’ll never know in advance what seasons will actually have them and what seasons won’t. Ken ends up winning the challenge with no one else seeing what the answer might be. Also, am I the only one who gets offended by the term participation trophy? I hear about them, but I don’t think that I’ve ever gotten one. That’s not to say that I don’t have trophies at all. I just didn’t get any just for participating. Not that I want one for that.

In the fifth segment of the show, Adam talks about wanting to get rid of David. He looks for a hidden immunity idol. After looking for the idol, but failing to find it, Adam thinks that David somehow has an idol, even though one probably doesn’t exist. Turns out, he does find a real idol. David still works with the idea of getting rid of Adam. Adam tells people about his idol for some odd reason. Hannah brags about playing both sides as if that normally works for most people.

David brings up a good point at tribal council regarding if players are the best if they don’t make it there. He is right. You have to vote for the best of who made the end, as many good players never make it that far. To little surprise, Adam plays his hidden immunity idol. But, it was Bret who got voted out.

In the sixth segment of the show, David is glad that he survived tribal council. I’m glad, although I would probably like most people to still win. We have brought back the final immunity challenge that first appeared as a final immunity challenge in One World. There is a thirty minute time limit to the challenge for some odd reason. Has that been there before? It seems messed up. I don’t really like challenges where you can lose all your progress so easily.

The challenge is tied between Hannah and Ken. We then get to a showdown between the two of them. Ken wins the showdown. I can’t tell if David was trying to help by talking to him or if he was doing something like yelling, “DON’T MESS UP!” to someone who you want to mess up.

In the seventh segment of the show, David talks about how he thinks that he is safe in the game, despite not winning immunity. Hannah wants to avoid a fire making challenge by making sure that all the other players get rid of David. Would they really pass up this opportunity? Adam openly tells David that he is going after David. Will there be another fire-making tie-breaker? Honestly, I’m not sure what will happen since my sense of time gets messed up by not watching something live. The threat of David is discussed. It was real as he gets voted out tonight. Guess that I did curse him.

In the eighth segment of the show, we get to the final three before the last tribal council this season. I honestly don’t know with of the three I’d rather have win. I’d probably want Adam to win, but I honestly don’t know for sure. What’s with the buzz cut, David?

Total confessional count: David- 44, Adam- 42, Bret- 20, Ken- 25, Hannah- 27, Jay- 34. New confessionals this episode: Ken- 6, Hannah- 6, Jay- 6, David- 7, Adam- 8, Bret- 6.

In the ninth segment of the show, Taylor wants each of them to pitch to him why they should vote for him. Hannah reacts to saying that she helped vote them out and grew in the game. The others give their responses as well. Sunday is next and asks how people are adaptable in the game. Ken takes this moment to chastise Hannah for flipping. Adam thinks that this was unpredictable, but Hannah defends herself. Jessica asks why Ken would vote out David and turn on his allies. Will asks Adam to defend his erratic voting behavior and Hannah interrupts to give her case. I wonder how people know who was voting for who anyways.

Zeke talks about what he did and Hannah again uses this to attack Adam. Why does she do that all the time? I’m hoping that she doesn’t win now. Michelle asks how Hannah was on the wrong side of the vote sometimes and there is more discussion going on. Bret then asks more questions that I kind of lose track of. Jay asks a question of Adam and Adam gets emotional as usual. Chris then makes his case for Adam to win the game. Also, how do they decide the order people talk in? David is the last person to talk and he wonders how Survivor has changed them. I do admire Adam’s story about his mother with cancer, but it’s kind of getting old. Does that make me sound heartless? Sorry if it does.

In the tenth segment of the show, we get to the final tribal council vote. We don’t see any of the votes revealed, which makes me wonder if the decision will be unanimous. Hey, I think that I’ll win! No, wait, I’m not the Adam who played this time. It is Adam who ends up winning. Yay! He gets the check right away, although I’m not sure why.

In the eleventh segment of the show, we get to Adam talking about his win. Production told Adam that he could do a future season if he refused this one to stay with his mother. He decided, as we all know, to go and play Survivor. In a way, this makes him connect with Jenna, a past winner. Jay discusses why Adam talked to him first about his mother. Adam gets to talk about his mother who died an hour after he got home and gets really emotional about him. I take back my possible insult about his mother’s story as I do like seeing a more human side to the players sometime.

Adam is working with Stand Up to Cancer. I wonder if his winnings will help with cancer research. He does decide to give 10% of his winnings in order to help cancer research. Also, could second hand smoke give someone lung cancer? It might be possible. We then get to talk some to David about how he became a threat to win. We then get to see more of Zeke. What’s with his mustache anyways? Zeke talks about the memorable moment of the rock draw. I love it because it came as a complete surprise, although I did like it in Blood versus Water even though they did give away that it was happening.

In the twelfth segment of the show, we get to Bret and Zeke having their bonding moment. He did tell people that he was gay before going out to play, but there were tons of people who didn’t know. Ken and Hannah apparently had a moment that I’m now realizing just how funny that moment was. I don’t fully understand the moment that was going on. Ken says that it is complicated whether or not he is currently single. Is he dating more than one person?

In the thirteenth segment of the show, we get to Michaela. She thought that loyalty was important, but realized how she made a mistake by doing the seashell moment. Jessica feels that she made the right choice by drawing for rocks, but she drew the wrong rock. We get to Will and why they decided to let him play since he’s only in high school still. I don’t think that there should be a second high-schooler playing. We hear from Sunday, as well as Taylor and Figgy. Taylor has a baby now, but not with Figgy as it would seem. What? We even get to Chris for some reason. It seems that most of the premerge contestants are ignored as usual. For shame, Jeff.

In the fourteenth segment of the show, we get to nature shots of the island for some odd reason. To no surprise, they are returning to Fiji as they always return to the location of the fall season when they do the spring season. We all know this has happened since Samoa. It will be called Survivor: Game Changers. I’m a bit confused as to who will be in the cast, although I’m pretty sure that I already know anyways. You’ll see it mentioned in a future paragraph. I’ll have to check it make sure that it is the right cast when you see the new season’s posts.

In the fifteenth segment of the show, we hear that there are no grudges held by this cast. Jeff tells us about the casting opportunity. I haven’t heard an official renewal yet, but I should probably apply for a change since it would be fun to do, I think.

Points at reunion show: Rachel- 0, Mari- 0, Paul- 0, Lucy- 0, CeCe- 0, Figgy- 1, Michaela- 1, Michelle- 1, Taylor- 1, Chris- 1, Jessica- 1, Zeke- 1, Will- 1, Sunday- 1, Jay- 1, Bret- 1, David- 1, Ken- 1, Hannah- 1, Adam- 2.

It seems to be a pretty good reunion show, even if they did ignore the first five people voted out and only talked to the winner twice. I’m glad that I didn’t have to work today so I could see the season finale earlier. I just hope that I don’t mess up the rest of my day because of it. Now, on to the end of the season awards that I do:

Let’s start with the three dumbest moves of season. I wasn’t entirely sure what would work as the three dumbest moves, but after the finale, I think that I have them. The award will go to Hannah for attacking Adam a lot at the final tribal council. I don’t know if that helped cost her the win or not, but I don’t think that it did her any good. The silver will go to Jay’s mistakes in this and the last episode. He wasted his idol and made a mistake that allowed others to win a challenge instead of him. The gold award will undoubtedly have to go to Taylor for digging his grave at tribal council.

Now let’s get to the breakout character of the season. In my mind, while there were tons of interesting people in the cast, the breakout character would have to be David for his ways of playing the game and going from zero chance of winning to a huge chance and everyone knew it.

What is the most memorable moment of the season? Well, there’s a lot to choose from, actually, although I’m not sure what would be the best. Ultimately, I’d probably have to go with the next rock draw as it just came out of nowhere and took us all by surprise.

Now let’s get to the ranking of this season and this season’s tribe swap. First, I’ll rank the tribe swap. I’ll admit that I might not have tribe swaps mentioned a good way as I don’t mention multiple swaps from a single season. But I do have 22 tribe swaps mentioned and think that this season ranks 9^th out of all of them. As for how this season ranks among the other 33, I would rank this as 15^th out of 33 seasons. It is a pretty good one, although I’m not sure if it offered much besides flashy tribal councils.

You might be wondering about what next season will be like. SPOILER. It is rumored to be an all-star season. Here is the rumored cast: Jeff Varner (Australia, Cambodia), Sandra (Pearl Islands, Heroes versus Villains), Cirie (Panama, Micronesia, Heroes versus Villains), Ozzy (Cook Islands, Micronesia, South Pacific), JT (Tocantins, Heroes versus Villains), Andrea (Redemption Island and Caramoan), Troyzan (One World), Malcolm (Philippines, Caramoan), Brad (Blood versus Water), Ciera (Blood versus Water, Cambodia), Sarah (Cagayan), Tony (Cagayan), Hali (Worlds Apart), Sierra (Worlds Apart), Caleb (Kaoh Rong), Debbie (Kaoh Rong), Tai (Kaoh Rong), Aubry (Kaoh Rong), Michaela (this season), and Zeke (this season). Of course, they have none of the original players from Guatemala, although Danni was an earlier rumored contestant. Will that ever happen? I know that none of the fans from Caramoan have returned yet either, but I would rather solve the Guatemala problem first before I worry about a season that happened around seven years later. I do not know if this cast is accurate or not, but we’ll see in the future what it is. END SPOILER. What’s weird is that Survivor won’t be returning until March 8^th.

Well, I’m done with this blog post. I’ll also be moving this blog back to Wednesdays to update it then. Until the new season starts, you’ll see random posts as usual. All I have to do is stay two updates ahead at all times and then I should be good until the next season starts. I hope that you enjoy my random posts in the meantime. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 33.12

Is this season really ending soon? If it is, it can be hard to believe that. Why do I say that? Well, there are still eight people in the game and, supposedly, next week will be the finale. I was surprised last year when they had six people in the finale episode. Would they really start a finale with seven people? Maybe I’m confused about when the finale is, but it doesn’t make sense that the finale is soon. How is that even possible?

Well, promos are saying that two contestants are going home after this episode. I don’t know if that means that it will be two hours or if it will be like in Samoa where they turned what would have normally been a reward challenge into an immunity challenge and keep the next immunity challenge. I don’t know if we’ll see something like that again ever. I just can get annoyed by wondering why there are two hour episodes when you’d think that they could have premiered the season earlier. Did they ever catch up on days after the evacuation of the island in the premiere? I guess that they will have by the time this episode airs. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Will thinks that he can flip his way to the end. He needs to remember that people like Tony and Vecepia are the exception and not the rule. Bret talks about who to target in the game now. Not much happens in the first act.

In the second segment of the show, we get to an immunity challenge. The challenge seems pretty straightforward. It is another new one. Jay is the person who ends up winning the challenge after just getting one disk in after another. Jay: They see me rolling, they’re hating. He gets a bit cocky after his win, thinking that he doesn’t have to talk to anyone.

In the third segment of the show, Ken wonders who to target since Jay is immune. Will wants to go after Ken. David feels that he could be targeted since he doesn’t know what’s happening. Adam feels that Will is a huge target. Hannah is insecure as usual. (She makes me think of that One Direction song.) No one seems to be sure what is going on heading into tribal council. At tribal council, they talk about the previous tribal council. Loyalty is discussed as well. Will is voted out of the game. After tribal council, Jay feels that people aligned with him are cursed. Adam wants to vote out Jay.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the next immunity challenge. Adam openly helps Ken win the challenge. Was that a smart move? Is he even allowed to do that? Speaking of possibly dumb moves, I need to work on the end of the season awards that I give.

In the fifth segment of the show, David works out how to stay in the game and split the votes for some other player. Hannah is still after Sunday for reasons that I’ve never quite understood. Adam wants to split the votes between Jay and David. Adam point blank tells Jay to play the idol but Jay isn’t so sure that he needs to do that. Adam gets emotional again talking about his mother and Jay starts by giving him the cold shoulder, but then gets emotional as well.

Hannah is still bent on getting rid of Sunday and her own reasoning behind this seems flawed to me. If you are convinced she’s a goat, which she probably is, then you don’t need to vote her out. At tribal council, they discuss who the right person to be voted out is. Jay plays his idol thinking that he’d rather be safe than sorry. Jay wasted his idol. Sunday is the person who gets voted out, which seems like a waste to me. But, I am a David fan so him winning wouldn’t be bad to me.

On the next Survivor, we get to the season finale on Wednesday. How will the legacy advantage affect the game? Is the stealing reward advantage a moot point now? Will there be another idol in the game somehow? I feel that the idols should be gone by now, but I have no idea if they will make a surprise appearance again or not. Sometimes they don’t appear in logical ways since they keep changing with the game. We’ll see what ends up happening or not.

Total confessional count: Adam- 34, Bret- 14, Ken- 19, Hannah- 21, Jay- 28, Will- 16, David- 37, Sunday- 9. New confessionals this episode: Bret- 2, Ken- 3, Hannah- 2, Jay- 3, Will- 2, David- 2, Sunday- 0, Adam- 6.

Sunday had no confessionals this episode, the absolute lowest of all of them. Will had the second lowest with two, a number shared with Bret, Hannah, and David. Everyone else was higher with Adam as the highest with six. In terms of total confessionals, Sunday had the lowest with only nine. Will had sixteen total confessionals. Going into the finale, Bret will have the lowest with fourteen. Everyone else is higher than Will with David still the highest with thirty-seven, Adam the second highest with thirty-four, and Jay is the third highest with twenty-eight. We’ll see what happens a week from now. I’ll be back next Thursday with my thoughts on the finale. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 33.11

Now that Christmas is in full swing, I have a question that has been bugging me for quite a while. What’s the point of ugly Christmas sweaters? Why is that a thing? Can someone explain them to me? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Why can’t they at least be good looking Christmas sweaters? Does anyone else not understand them? If you do, let me know what the deal about them is. Maybe it’s one of the many things in life that I’ll just never understand. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Hannah is feeling bad as usual (was that the shortest recap ever?). David feels that his idol was wasted. Zeke gets a bit cocky after the vote. Will things go the way that he wants them to? I guess that we'll see...

In the second segment of the show, Ken receives the legacy advantage. It’s a good thing that he mentioned a previous promise of Jess or I wouldn’t have known why he got the advantage. It’s easy to forget things, if you can remember. We get to the reward challenge which is a loved ones challenge where everything could change. Things are emotional as usual.

It turns out that the advantage promo was a fake out because Adam insists before the challenge that he wouldn’t use it, this time at least. We’ll see if he does that or not. I do feel that he should have stolen David’s reward last episode, but it might be better if he never actually uses the advantage. Jay wins the challenge. He picks Will, Sunday, and Adam to join him on the reward. The contestants that don’t win don’t get a last hug with their loved ones.

In the third segment of the show, Jay respects Adam’s lack of using his advantage. Adam gets emotional news from his brother Evan about his mother. Adam feels inspired by this. Adam gives his advantage to Jay. Can he do that? I guess that he can. He just did.

In the fourth segment of the show, Will feels that he needs to take control of the game since people aren’t exactly taking him seriously. We then get to the immunity challenge. The challenge involves holding a bar. David is out first which must suck for him. Hannah is out next. Then, it is Will. I think that Sunday is out next. Zeke is then out which David celebrates a bit. Ken is then out leaving Jay and Adam as the only two left. Jay is out and Adam just barely wins the challenge. Will wants to use this opportunity to take out Zeke.

In the fifth segment of the show, Adam gets a bit cocky with his win in the challenge. I’m not sure if he can win the whole game, although he might be able to do an offset. Zeke wants to go after Ken. Whether or not Will can be trusted is brought up. Will lets Ken know that he is the target. This quickly goes around to other tribemates. This irritates everyone. Ken looks like he is the most in danger, but it is really hard to tell what is going on in this season. It’s nice to have things this crazy in the game.

Will admits at tribal that he was going to flip on Zeke. Is this like in Heroes versus Villains when Sandra tried to flip, but wasn’t able to since Candice flipped as well? As usual this season, I have no idea what is going on into the vote. Adam decides to play his idol on Hannah. She had votes so the idol play was worth it this time around. Zeke is voted out as a result.

On the next Survivor, Will continues trying to take charge, but Adam continues to be after his own way in the game. I still don’t know if Adam can make it long and I’m also wondering how we are going to get to the end of the game soon considering how there’s still so many people left.

Total confessional count: Ken- 16, Hannah- 19, Zeke- 30, Jay- 25, Will- 14, David- 35, Sunday- 9, Adam- 28, Bret- 12.

New confessionals this episode: Hannah- 2, Zeke- 2, Jay- 3, Will- 6, David- 3, Sunday- 0, Adam- 4, Bret- 0, Ken- 3. Special loved ones confessional: Evan- 1.

Zeke had two new confessionals this episode, the same number as Hannah.  Ken, Jay, Will, David, and Adam were all higher this episode. Will is the highest this episode with six confessionals. Sunday and Bret had no new confessionals this episode. In terms of total confessionals, Zeke had thirty. The only person with a higher count is David with thirty-five. Everyone else is lower than Zeke and David with Sunday as the lowest with nine. That’s pretty much all there is to mention regarding this episode. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 33.10

You might be wondering why I didn’t update this blog after the newest Survivor episode aired. Well, I was very busy from sometime on Wednesday when the episode originally aired, causing me to miss the episode, until sometime on Monday after all the chaos of Thanksgiving break happened and ended. I was out of state visiting relatives. Normally, they come here for Thanksgiving, but things change and I may be leaving state again. Hopefully I’ll be able to see the episode, or I’ll do an awkward post here about how I wasn’t able to actually blog about it, like I did with the third episode of Caramoan that I probably could have watched online without any problems. So I’m sorry about the lack of a blog post last week and I should inform you that new updates of this blog will now be on Thursdays, the day after a new episode airs, until the end of the season. Now, back to the regularly scheduled blog post:

Something that I didn’t mention in my last blog post was something that Lex from Africa and All-Stars posted on his facebook page. There was some facebook error which had memorialized his page. He posted about the mistake as he was surprised that this would have happened. I do have to wonder about memorializing facebook pages since someone I know has died and that seems like the logic thing to do. I wouldn’t want to leave it out in limbo at least. I still don’t know who will be death number four for the Survivor community and I don’t honestly want to know since that would mean that it actually happened. I just hope that it’s not Todd from China as he’s been going through a lot.

It seems like a lot of things have been going on with this computer. The AVG Zen thing seems messed up in a way. I don’t think that I wanted it in the first place, and now I’d have to pay for it to keep it. Can I at least keep the regular AVG? I like the free version. I don’t want this to be some annoying thing that computers do or try to do to you despite what you actually want. I just hope that they aren’t trying to take over the world as the plot of many movies are. Has anyone else been having this problem with AVG? Is there a different antivirus I should use instead?

I had dreams about what might have happened in this episode before I was able to see it. The dream was basically another confusing thing where it implied that I would be watching the next episode before or without me seeing this one first. I’m surprised and annoyed that they made it two hours long. That wasn’t even clear in the promos. They said that two contestants would be voted out, but they never said that it would be a two hour long episode. It could have been like in Samoa or Heroes versus Villains where they had two people voted out in a postmerge episode that only lasted an hour. It is always annoying when they just air a longer version of a show as if most of us don’t already have some sort of plan in place with what to watch after the show under a normal basis. Aren’t we normally watching whatever other show we want to? I guess that they don’t care about our normal plan on those nights. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, the tribe gets back from tribal council. Jay doesn’t like how Taylor threw him under the bus. But he shares the rest of the food with the tribe and he is certain that no one will think that he has an idol now.

In the second segment of the show, apparently Hannah and Ken might be together, but this is according to the awkward Hannah who can’t even say what she’s trying to say. Will tells Zeke about Jay’s idol and this soon becomes common knowledge throughout the tribe. (What happened between you and Professor Quirrell was a complete secret. So, naturally, the whole school knows.) Next comes the reward challenge. David wants to sit out of his own accord, but ends up playing after the support of his tribe. Jay is the one who doesn’t wind up playing. I'll always hate forced losers. The purple team of Zeke, Adam, Hannah, Bret, and Sunday ends up winning.

In the third segment of the show, Hannah is glad that she won her first reward, although she’s doesn’t want the losers to be upset. Adam is emotional when he gets a letter from home. All of the reward winners get a letter too. David somehow had a fear of life. Is that a real thing? That seems bad. David wants to vote out Chris, although it seems that Jessica wants Zeke gone. It’s too soon to know what will happen for sure until the immunity challenge.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the immunity challenge. It is something different, yet very similar to challenges that we’ve seen in the past. David winds up winning the challenge, although it was a close finish. It's hard to recap the challenge this time.

In the fifth segment of the show, Jay talks about blowing the challenge. Sunday wants to get out Jessica. Why can’t women get along on this show? There are three women left and they turn on each other. Haven’t they seen John Tucker Must Die? There is discussion among who to vote for. Well, right before I started watching the episode online, I was spoiled as to who would be eliminated. I should have just gone straight to Survivor’s part of the website. Chris gets voted out and proves that when Jeff asks you if you are safe third, you are probably the one getting voted out.

It then goes straight into the post tribal council life. Jay is glad that he didn’t play the idol: that his gamble paid off. David wants to get rid of Zeke and Zeke thinks the same of David. Somehow, David and Zeke form a rivalry with their sides to the game.

In the sixth segment of the show, there is more talk among David and Zeke about each other. Why are they so against each other? I guess that, like most rivalries, there isn’t really a cause: it just happens.  At the reward challenge, instead of the sit-out automatically losing, this time, the sit-out automatically wins. That seems strange to me. The orange team of Bret, Sunday, and Zeke win the challenge. Adam talks about not using his advantage this time around.

In the seventh segment of the show, Zeke and Bret become drinking buddies. Bret is apparently gay and tells Zeke about it. So they bond over this. I wonder if they will start dating at some point. There’s not much to this segment.

In the eighth segment of the show, Hannah wonders who to vote out. She reveals information to David about the game. David then considers what potential mistakes he may have made in the game. We then get to the next immunity challenge. The challenge has a maze that has to be solved before anything else happens. But, contestants can’t see the maze as they solve it. Jay solves it first and then has a huge lead on the sliding puzzle. He ends up winning the challenge.

In the ninth segment of the show, Jay doesn’t want to give his idol to any other player. You know, Adam is probably the only one in the game who still has a secret idol still. Things seem to be falling apart for everyone, it seems. Is it still David and Zeke? I can’t honestly tell. How did things become five against five anyways? We might be missing something here...

At tribal council, David plays his idol for Ken. But Ken doesn’t get votes. It is between Zeke and Hannah. This means that if he had played it for Hannah like she wanted, he could have averted a tie and caused his enemy’s elimination. After the first tied vote, they vote again. There is still a tie and they decide to draw for rocks as they can’t decide who to vote out. Jessica (whose side was she on?) is the person who ends up drawing a rock. She wills her legacy advantage to Ken. Why Ken? That doesn’t really seem like a connection she had, but we don’t know much about her from her invisible edit.

On the next Survivor, David does something or another of some sort. The loved ones challenge changes the game once again. Will Adam use his advantage? Why do they even have such a strange advantage in the game in the first place?

Total confessional count: Zeke- 28, Jay- 22, Will- 8, David- 32, Sunday- 9, Chris- 15, Adam- 24, Bret- 12, Jessica- 15, Ken- 13, Hannah- 17.

New confessionals this episode: David- 7, Sunday- 2, Chris- 1, Adam- 4, Bret- 2, Jessica- 4, Ken- 1, Hannah- 4, Zeke- 9, Jay- 4, Will- 1.

Chris had only one new confessional in this two hour episode. He had the same number as Ken and Will. Jessica had four confessionals this episode, the same number as Hannah, Jay, and Adam. The people with confessionals between the number of Jessica and Chris were Sunday and Bret. David and Zeke were both higher than four with Zeke as the highest with nine. In terms of total confessionals, Chris and Jessica have fifteen confessionals. Those with a lower number are Ken, Will, Sunday, and Bret. The lowest total count is Will with eight. David has the highest with thirty-two. While it probably was two separate episodes combined into one, I still decided to make it one count for this episode.

Well, I’d like to apologize again for this being a week late due to Thanksgiving. Hopefully this won’t happen again, but I should be able to explain it in the next post if this ever does happen again. I know that I’ve missed planned posts in the past, although that’s typically from the hiatus between seasons when most people don’t even update their Survivor blogs anyways. I’ll be back tomorrow with the episode that airs later tonight. Posts will be on Thursdays now until the season is over. Then, I’ll move them back to Wednesdays. I don’t know yet when the new season will start, but I’ll find out more about that later. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 33.9

Isn’t it weird that only one man has been eliminated from the game thus far? The merge has made me realize that somehow, men have taken control of the game, whether other people, including these men, realize it or not. You’d think that the women should band together but they may not realize this, nor would they see it as anything other than what it really is: women just happen to being the victims of the vote week after week. But this is unusual and I’m not sure there has ever been a season this successful for men before. Now things could turn for them, but I doubt that a woman would win this season. It’s a shame that we don’t see more women winners (or that they get such bad edits like last season’s winner). I wonder if I’m the first to notice the gender imbalance still in the game.

I don’t know if I like Adam this season or if I want him to win. I think that I should. I do wonder when/if he will be voted out or otherwise eliminated this season. He might be in it for the long haul. Only one other person thus far named Adam has played. He was in the Cook Islands season. He made it all the way to the finale and was the highest ranking member of his tribe. We still don’t know whether or not the name alone will prove successful or not. I think that Survivor Oz has done articles on this. But whatever great game play he had seems to be quickly deteriorating so I’m not sure he will make the finale. He could be good, but I just don’t know.

It’s a good thing that I was able to see the Price is Right Survivor special when I did. Otherwise, I would have only just watched it for the first time on Friday and you wouldn’t see the post until the winter hiatus of the show. It’s good to finally be at the end of watching the recorded from last season. Man I have got to stop procrastinating sometime. I think that I will later. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Jay talks about what happened after tribal council. Some people are worried about what secrets could come to light in the future. Taylor and Adam seem to have an agreement about not to rat each other out. Why is Taylor pulling a NaOnka? Vinara is the name of the merged tribe. Why is it called that?

In the second segment of the show, we get to the reward challenge that I miss a lot of as I’m preparing supper for myself. Hannah’s group loses the challenge which causes her to question herself. At the reward, the score sounds kind of like Gantsa’s Paradise to me. Back at camp, Adam, who did not steal the reward, talks to Jay and things do not seem to go well. I don’t think that Adam meant to be rude, but he was considered that anyways. If you want to know how a different Adam feels about things like that sometime, check out my facebook page. I should go back to twitter where I’m less likely to get in trouble for things that I post. I go on a political rant on facebook, I get into long arguments. I go on one on twitter, I get four new followers. Weird difference, right?

In the next segment of the show, Sunday is worried about someone. She wants to get rid of Jessica. Why are the women always trying to get rid of each other when only three of them are left? The immunity challenge offers a sit out or play option. I honestly wouldn’t sit out for a measly meal like that. Ball on a bow is a new one. Also, Screen Junkies, if you are reading this, please do an honest trailer for this show (Survivor) because I’d love to hear you talk about the ball fetish that the somehow straight Jeff has. Will and Zeke are the only people who sit out. Ken wins the challenge.

In the next segment of the show, David thinks that they should split the votes between Taylor and Jay. But the promos have basically revealed that something dramatic was going to happen. Jay doesn’t like being on the bottom. Jay doesn’t know what to do with his idol. He was a person with an idol, right? We then get to tribal council.

Taylor comes forward about the food, but lies and says that Adam had some of the food. Taylor then blabs about his advantage. Adam comes forward about it when comforted about it. Taylor is convinced that Adam would only use his advantage on the loved ones reward. I don’t think that I like either one of them. Here I was thinking that the mudslinging was over for a while. Maybe the vote isn’t as obvious or all this drama is supposed to make us forget it. No votes are revealed. No idols are played. Taylor is the person who gets voted out. Somehow, I didn’t see that coming despite the signs to the contrary. And I might be coming up with a nominee for dumbest move of the season.

On the next Survivor, the gen-xers are imploding and Will reveals Jay’s idol which them becomes common knowledge to people. Remember that crazy promo before the double tribal council episode of Gabon? That’s what this promo reminds me of.

Total confessional count: Sunday- 7, Chris- 14, Adam- 20, Bret- 10, Jessica- 11, Ken- 12, Hannah- 13, Zeke- 19, Jay- 18, Taylor- 20, Will- 7, David- 25.

New confessionals this episode: Bret- 1, Jessica- 0, Ken- 0, Hannah- 2, Zeke- 1, Jay- 4, Taylor- 3, Will- 1, David- 1, Sunday- 3, Chris- 2, Adam- 2.

Taylor had three confessionals this episode; the same number as Sunday. The only person with more confessionals was Jay. Everyone else had less. Jessica and Ken are the only people this episode without new confessionals. Ken didn’t even get one after winning, which must show how irrelevant either this episode’s immunity was or how irrelevant he is. In terms of total confessionals, Taylor had twenty, which is the same number as his rival Adam.  The only person higher than them is David with twenty-five confessionals. Everyone else is lower than those three are. The lowest are Sunday and Will who are the only two people still left with single digits. They both have seven total confessionals. That’s pretty much all the new things to talk about here. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 33.8

I am behind on tapes that have shows that I watch recorded on them. So while the election is over, this means that I will still have to see a lot of those ads in what I have recorded. The mudslinging of elections has gotten much worse over the years. And while I normally don’t like Christmas commercials airing before Thanksgiving, I’m going to more than enjoy them replacing the political commercials. I do hope that the country is better off after the election and that things will work out well for a change.

http://adamdeckerelementarytvshow.blogspot.com/ Here’s a link to a new blog of mine. As the url implies, it is about the TV show Elementary. While I’m planning on updating it every Thursday starting out, I know that this won’t happen during Advent when I do this blog on Thursdays. (I know that I could post both blogs on the same Thursday, but I’d rather not do that. I also cannot under most circumstance blog about any other show besides this on one the day the newest episode actually airs.)

Anyways, due to changes with my other blogs, I may not do any Sunday posts during the winter hiatus. Those are always chosen whenever I want them to be, but I don’t know yet when the season finale is and I don’t think that they do Sunday finales again for some odd reason. Of course, it was odd that they did them there in the first place. At least we don’t have to worry about football delaying it like it did with at least the South Pacific, Philippines, and (in some regions, but not mine) Blood versus Water finales. (If the Nicaragua finale was delayed, I don’t remember.)

I like the fact that the merge is happening at this point in the game now that something crazy has happened on every tribe in the game. What better way to make everything crazy that just letting all the sides turn on each other? Is it even still a battle of generations? Who will the battles be between? If this isn’t one of the craziest merge episodes ever, I will be really disappointed.

I’m hoping that Blood versus Water comes out on DVD soon. (Is it already? I don’t know.) If it does come out on DVD before Christmas, I hope that I can get it as a gift or for myself whenever it is released. When I am able to do the look back, it will be the first time that I’d be doing a look back on a season that I’d have already blogged about. I might even post a blog post about the first time I blogged about it. I don’t know if I will or not, but this blog does change from time to time.

Something that I noticed on Tuesday and Wednesday last week was which networks preempted planned new episodes because of the World Series. Of course, all FOX shows were preempted as they were the network airing games six and seven. Of the CBS shows that I watch, they preempted NCIS, Bull, NCIS: New Orleans, but not this show or Code Black. ABC did not preempt an election themed Fresh Off the Boat or a new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. On Wednesday, they aired the CMA awards, thus preempting whatever new shows might have otherwise aired anyways. The CW aired, as usual, new episodes of The Flash, Arrow, and Frequency. NBC preempted Blindspot and Law and Order: SVU. You have to wonder what this means for some of these shows long term. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Ikabula gets back from tribal council. Jay thinks that he made a good move. Hannah says that she would have voted with them; it seems that she was trying to make sure that she would be on their side if she wants them to be. This tribe then gets a notice about the upcoming merge. They leave on a boat with a time limit. I wonder if they were forced off of that part of the island or not. I heard that happened in Marquesas.

In the second segment of the show, the orange tribe is where the merge will take place. People get used to their new tribe while wondering who is with who now. Zeke feels that some allies of him can tell them what happened on the other tribes. Broliance? Is that a thing? Well, I guess that I too had made up words under the right situnario.

In the third segment of the show, Adam looks for a merge idol while ignoring the merge feast. He gets a reward stealer which seems like another in a long line of bad twists that they’ve been using recently. We’ll see if it can be used fairly or not. Also, isn’t there still a legacy advantage in the game? Taylor hides some food for just himself, although this does not go unnoticed. Adam and Taylor have a conversation and Taylor appears to think that Adam is being dumb. (Don’t you ever hate sentences where you can’t use pronouns like you want to?) Bret talks about what he saw during the night and tries to get people to vote out Adam and Taylor.

In the fourth segment of the show, Taylor tells Jay about what Adam was talking about regarding getting rid of Will. Zeke overhears some of this conversation. We then get to Jay and Taylor telling Will about Adam’s plan. Hey, they finally brought back this immunity challenge! They changed it so it is harder to do. Sunday, Chris, and Bret are the first three out respectively. Jay is out next followed by Zeke. Ken is out next. Then it is Hannah who is out. Michelle is then out. It is down to just Will and Jessica in the final round of the challenge. Will ends up winning the challenge, thus becoming the new youngest person to win individual immunity. I bet his record gets broken someday.

In the fifth segment of the show, it turns out that Adam might get voted out of the game. Does that mean that I’ll be voted out of the blogosphere? Wait, he’s a different Adam. Well, Michelle doesn’t think that voting out Adam is the right move. Zeke tells Adam about his mistake. His side starts scrambling. Also, have nearly all the women been voted out? I don’t think that this many men have made it this far together before, but I might be wrong. Didn’t a lot of women start the eliminations in Panama? Adam wonders whether or not to play his idol. I’d rather waste one than be voted out with one. The banana chip stealing is brought up again at tribal council. Adam decides not to play his idol. Why did Michelle get votes? Ultimately, she is voted out. I’m a bit confused here. Why wasn’t Taylor a target?

On the next Survivor, it appears that people know what sides people are on, but Taylor stands to possibly ruin everything. Will he? Loose lips sink ships, remember? Never blab if someone tells you a secret. That’s Survivor 101, right? It’s lesson 2 after don’t tell secrets.

Total confessional count: Michelle- 7, Hannah- 11, Zeke- 18, Jay- 14, Taylor- 17, Will- 6, David- 24, Sunday- 4, Chris- 12, Adam- 18, Bret- 9, Jessica- 11, Ken- 12.

New confessionals this episode: Zeke- 4, Jay- 3, Taylor- 4, Will- 2, David- 3, Sunday- 0, Chris- 1, Adam- 6, Bret- 3, Jessica- 0, Ken- 0, Michelle- 2, Hannah- 2.

Michelle had two confessionals this episode, the same number as Hannah and Will. The only ones lower this episode were Chris, Jessica, Ken, and Sunday with Chris being the only one of the four to actually get a confessional. Adam had the most confessionals this episode with six.  As for the total confessional count, Michelle had seven total confessionals. She has more than Sunday and Will with Sunday being the lowest with four. Besides those three, Bret is the only other one not yet in double digits; everyone else is higher. David has the most confessionals with twenty-four. I don’t understand why Michelle got voted out, but my mom says that it was because others thought that she didn’t have an idol. That’s pretty much all there is from me for this blog post. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 33.7

There are a lot of people that we’ve seen thus far in the game. There are also a lot of people that we haven’t seen much of at all. Can we guess that if you haven’t gotten airtime by now that it’s likely that you only will get airtime if you are eliminated in that episode? But there could be misnomers. A major blindside could be awaiting David allowing someone completely different to take over the game. We’ve seen it happen before. Meanwhile, you do have to wonder when/if they will switch back to two tribes. They have never done a merge and anything other than two tribes before. That’s not to say that they never will, but that is something to keep in mind.

If the Cubs win the World Series, I fear that we will never hear the end of it. It will sort of be like when Harry from the Early Show got a live colonoscopy on TV. He became the butt of everyone’s jokes and then we never heard the end of that crap. Plus enough crazy and terrible things have happened this year that we don’t need something as bad as this. Let’s just hope Trump doesn’t get elected next.

One can wonder if the ad for this episode means that Adam might get eliminated. I guess that he’s my boot prediction going into it. We’ll have to see what happens but one can always get in trouble for making big moves. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Takali gets back from tribal council. Taylor talks about feeling bad now that Figgy is voted out. Adam seems strange with the way that he talks to Taylor about it. Why even bring it up? That might not be the best post tribal move.

In the second segment of the show, we are shown Vanua. David wants to get rid of Michelle. He wants to work together with Zeke. David reveals his idol to Zeke. They sort of remind me of Penguin and the Riddler from Gotham, sexual innuendo and all. Michaela once again speaks her mind openly in front of the whole group of contestants when she mentions that she is glad that Figgy is gone. I think that Coby Archa loved her language there. I just wonder if this is going to get her in trouble sometime. It probably will because he who talks a lot in Survivor doesn’t typically do well long term.

The challenge once again goes into the ball fetish of the somehow straight Jeff. Just look at the huge sack of balls. Did they mean for them to look like that? (Man, I miss the Survivor Shade site. They would love this episode a lot.) Vanua gets first place in the challenge. Despite doing poorly for most of the challenge, the green tribe gets second place. I check the World Series score and hope that I’m prepared for the second coming of Jesus as the Cubs are winning.

In the third segment of the show, Vanua gets back from winning the reward. Zeke binge eats and Michelle clearly doesn’t like the guys on her tribe since they have no table manners. I do wonder if she has to eat with them. Taylor doesn’t like discussing politics. But he does make deals about what names not to write down. Umm, you’ll never get a jury vote that way. Michaela seems to be getting stranger as the days go by. Hannah is suspicious of Bret for some odd reason. She’s right as he is lying about being a funeral director. Why does paranoia run so rampant in this game? I do know a fun funeral director in life. Last I checked, he was also a fan of this show.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the immunity challenge. The green tribe loses. Sunday is convinced that it will probably be her or Bret. They decide to vote against each other. Michaela doesn’t think that it matters who they vote out. They want to split the vote. I forget who has idol on this tribe. I think that it is Jay. Why does it seem that men find the idols more? It seems as if they are getting rid of Michaela. That is the talk among players as they feel that she is too smart for the other players. Man, this would mean that all three tribes don’t care about which generation has the numbers. Why vote out the side you are with? It is hard to tell for sure why people keep doing that.

At tribal council, the third question on trust is asked to Michaela. If they ever ask this question and you are the third person to be asked it, you are in danger. Jay admits to his vote right before the last vote against Michaela is read. Hannah does freak out about it as they suspected. That’s among one of the greater exits in Survivor history.

On the next Survivor, we get to the merge already. Hannah wants revenge on what happened. This will make a Survivor first: three tribes merging into just one tribe. I also wonder if my Cardinals shirt that I wore today ended up working as the jinx that I hoped it would. We’ll see.

Total confessional count: Michaela- 16, Sunday- 4, Chris- 11, Adam- 12, Bret- 6, Jessica- 11, Ken- 12, Michelle- 5, Hannah- 9, Zeke- 14, Jay- 11, Taylor- 13, Will- 4, David- 21.

New confessionals this episode: Chris- 1, Adam- 1, Bret- 2, Jessica- 1, Ken- 0, Michelle- 1, Hannah- 3, Zeke- 2, Jay- 3, Taylor- 3, Will- 1, David- 2, Michaela- 3, Sunday- 1.

Michaela had three confessionals this episode, a tie for the highest shared with Jay, Taylor, and Hannah. The only person with no new confessionals this episode was Ken. In terms of the total confessional count, Michaela had sixteen confessionals. The only person who is higher than her is David with twenty-one. David is the first person to go over twenty total confessionals. Will and Sunday tie for lowest confessionals with four a piece. Since there will be a turning point in the game now, this is around the time where confessionals are no longer potential red herrings. If I had to guess, I’d say that if you aren’t in double digits now, then you may not affect the rest of the game. We’ll see what happens. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 33.6

I get really far behind on the tapes that I’m watching in regards to what other TV shows have aired. For instance, I haven’t seen the last season finale of The Flash yet and neither have I seen the last episode of The Grinder yet. There’s also an episode of Rush Hour that I still have recorded and left to watch. I get behind on shows so much that there’s always something I’m behind on. I have only been caught up on tapes once, well, since I started a new method of watching them, at least.

This isn’t related to Survivor, but I have had problems recently with an antivirus program I’ve been using. While I thought that AVG was the best antivirus, it seemed to keep asking about an update that it never asked for before. I don’t know yet if I’m still on the free version or not. I hope that I am. If I’m not, I hope that I can get it back again because it seemed as if I was put onto a trial version of something that I’d have to pay for after a month has passed. I’m not paying for something and hope that I haven’t somehow already. Hopefully this problem can be easily resolved.

I’ve had other computer issues the day the last post was updated as it seems like I almost got stuck on a page that was obviously spam. I was able to get out of it and ran antivirus as a precaution which caused me to find out about that problem as it was having its own problems. And this was after getting a suspicious email supposedly from outlook about a problem they said my account had. I hope that I don’t lose the account and doubt I would. At least I have multiple email accounts, even though losing my outlook account would mean losing a fan fiction account I don’t use that much, a facebook account I use a lot, my imdb account, my twitter account, and various other accounts that I don’t remember off hand. You wouldn’t think that I’d actually lose the account by outlook’s own doing so we’ll see if anything bad happens or not.

Something very unusual is going on in the world: the Cubs are actually playing the World Series for the first time since 1945. I didn’t know that such a thing was actually possible. I really hope that people show up to the event dressed up as goats. If someone says they’re not allowed, then they should curse the Cubs again. Meanwhile, the Cubs have only won the World Series twice, both times against the Detroit Tigers. Since they won’t be playing the Tigers (they will be playing the Cleveland Indians this year), I don’t think that they will win. But stranger things have happened. We’ll just see if the long held belief that something terrible will happen after their win (besides, of course, them winning) actually holds up in the event that they win.

There are so many different fucking commercials that are annoying me right now. For one, they’ve started Christmas commercials. Then there’s this confusing one using the song School’s Out. Not to mention all the political commercials that make me want more of the Christmas commercials. Man, I really miss the days before Citizens United. And I also hope that Jason Kander wins his election. If he doesn’t, it would be as stupid as when Alison Lundger Grimes lost to Mitch McConnell. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, the orange tribe, Vanua, gets back from tribal council. Zeke gloats over his enemies taking out one of their own. Jay wants to take care of his ladies on the green tribe. He then goes looking for an immunity idol on his tribe and finds it. They are too easy to find if you ask me. At least they are found and potentially used. I believe that Will is with him when he finds the idol. And who else comes to witness it but Michaela.

In the second segment of the show, we get to the reward challenge. Figgy kinda doesn’t know how to handle herself around others. I don’t think that I hate her, but I hope that she doesn’t win. Hannah sits out of the challenge, so how would there be medical problems with her if she wasn’t even playing in it? This seems weird, but I guess that I’ll have to see what happens. I wouldn’t say that there would never be a medical evacuation at a challenge where a person who wasn’t participating is hurt, but I guess that we’ll have to see what happens for sure.

As usual, there is a lot of confusion at the challenge and it appears that the orange tribe is having the most problems at it, although the purple tribe isn't doing much better. You can normally tell which tribes work well together at this challenge more than most others. It is around the point where all the tribes are solving the puzzle when Hannah starts to feel faint. The orange tribe gets first place. The green tribe gets second place. It looks like she might be having an anxiety attack. I’ve been there. Those aren’t fun. Wait, not an anxiety attack; a panic attack is what she’s having. That was weird and we’ll see whether or not this factors into more of the game. I hope that she's okay and I never like a medical evacuation despite my possible obsession with them. Figgy feels like she failed after the challenge.

In the third segment of the show, Zeke feels that Figgy doesn’t like him. He now wants to turn against Michelle since he feels that he was at the bottom of his old tribe. On her tribe, Hannah talks about her anxiety. She quotes Kim from One World. Taylor and Figgy wonder whether or not they should reveal to the people on their new tribe about their showmance. The two gen x people both knew about this when Figgy tells them because Tiggy was not doing a good job keeping it secret.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the immunity challenge. I’m going to guess that the purple tribe loses the challenge. It appears that Michaela and Hannah are bickering at the challenge, despite actually doing well together. Thus, the green tribe wins immunity first. Michaela then decides to offer verbal help to the orange tribe which is a risky thing to do. Whether or not her help works is what helps the orange tribe, Vanua to win immunity second. She is then a bit bitchy after the challenge. Thus, the purple tribe goes to tribal council and the prechallenge edit is true once more.

In the fifth segment of the show, Adam (not me) wonders how he should vote as to whether or not he should stick with his old tribe or not. Taylor doesn’t think that he can trust Adam. Jessica and Ken want to work with Adam. Which side will he join? You never want to be the swing vote in the game? Should he turn on his old tribe or get rid of the couple? Either move is risky. Please get rid of Figgy. Jeff points out that he’s an ordained minister, although the Universal Life “Church” which he’s ordained with is not a real church as they will literally let anyone be a pastor. They’ve let atheists be pastors.

Anyways, back to the actual show, Adam still doesn’t know which side to join and Taylor made it seem like he’d come after Adam if this doesn’t go down well. At least he doesn’t have to worry about using his idol, does he? Also, I will keep a secret when it happens what new thing I will do when he gets voted out. Figgy is voted out. Interesting, if he decided to waste his idol on Ken, they probably would have left his vote a mystery. But would it still be a good move? I think that him keeping it was the right move.

On the next Survivor, Taylor seeks vengeance on Adam while Zeke and David get together. You know, I like a lot of the players this season, but it is hard to find which one of them to root for long term. I mean, who is the best of these players? Who will win? It could be a lot of people.

Total confessional count: Ken- 12, Michelle- 4, Hannah- 6, Zeke- 12, Jay- 8, Taylor- 10, Will- 3, David- 19, Michaela- 13, Sunday- 3, Figgy- 9, Chris- 10, Adam- 11, Bret- 4, Jessica- 10.

New confessionals this episode: Michelle- 0, Hannah- 1, Zeke- 2, Jay- 1, Taylor- 2, Will- 0, David- 1, Michaela- 1, Sunday- 0, Figgy- 2, Chris- 0, Adam- 2, Bret- 0, Jessica- 1, Ken- 2.

Figgy had two confessionals this episode, the same as Adam, Zeke, Ken, and Taylor. Everyone else had less. Sunday, Chris, Michelle, Bret, and Will all had no confessionals this episode. In terms of the total confessional count, Figgy had nine. Michaela, Ken, Chris, Adam, Zeke, Jessica, Taylor, and David all have more confessionals than she did, with David as the highest with nineteen. Will and Sunday tie for the lowest with three. It was weird that Will didn’t even get a confessional about Jay’s idol. I’m also wondering why we’ve seen so little of Bret this whole game. Which one is he? I guess that we will see what happens later with these players. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 33.5

When it comes to the fall Survivor season, a lot of people might be wondering about the spring season and what that will be like. SPOILER. Two contestants from this season will be on the next season. I can’t remember who at the moment, but I think that Zeke and Michaela are the two. That would be weird since that would mean neither of the returnees from this season would be from the gen x tribe. But I can’t remember if that’s right or not as I’m not looking up the information again until the season finale of this season happens. END SPOILER. There is a lot to wonder and know, but I feel that the less one knows, the better. The only thing I’d want to know is who would be in the cast, but only if there are returning players in the cast.

Before I had this blog, there was a time during Survivor: Vanuatu where I was away from home during Thanksgiving. It has been the only time thus far where I was not at home for any of Thanksgiving. Now things have been changing with the years regarding that holiday. The point is, I don’t know where I might be yet for Thanksgiving so I’m not sure when you will get the post of this blog for the episode from before Thanksgiving. Normally I have been able to do them to day they air, but I don’t think that I’ll be able to see it on time this year. We’ll see what happens for sure. Just have a heads up for that in case there’s a future missing blog post towards the end of November. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, we get back to the gen x tribe after their tribal council. Jessica tells Ken about her legacy advantage. The tribe then goes for an idol search party. Some people miss it while David finds it and waits until people are gone before getting it. Why are those who find idols so much more likely to find it? I guess that it’s because few other have their determination to find it. The tribes then go to a challenge and learn about a tribe swap.

In the second segment of the show, they learn of the third tribe being added. Now I finally have to learn the names of the tribes. It turns out that the extra member will go to the new tribe. Did I guess that? I meant to if I didn’t. Tiggy will still exist on their tribe. I miss who is on what new tribe. I’m never good at getting that. Turns out there was not actually a challenge. The new, green tribe immediately starts building a new shelter since they have to. Nice to see them work. Takali, the purple tribe, gets used to their new tribe arrangement. This is where friction between Tiggy starts to happen. Adam (not me) doesn’t like still being on a new tribe with them. He gets a bit cocky with the power he may or may not actually have.

In the third segment of the show, we finally see the Vanua (orange) tribe, but only on the next day. Michelle is worried that things are stacked against her and Zeke due to how the swap worked. Who are the Sooners? I’ve never heard of them before. Chris decides to talk to Zeke and they want to work together. Why is Chris so quick to change sides? Back on the green tribe, Jay is working with the flint but gives up. Michaela then does the flint instead and it able to help with the fire starting. What does this mean for her future? She gets emotional afterwards for reasons I don’t understand.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the immunity challenge. I’m guessing that the purple tribe will lose. Sunday costs her tribe time at the challenge. David fumbles a lot at the challenge which seems kind of humorous in a way. It kind of reminds me of how in the Popeye film, Harold Hamgravy was constantly stumbling after his hat in the opening sequence. The purple tribe is winning the challenge, but the green tribe quickly turns things around and they fight for first. They get around evenly matched for the shooting phase. The purple tribe wins first place leaving the green and orange tribes to battle out for second place. The orange tribe loses and has to go to tribal council.

There’s a bit of a storm going on around the area where I live so I hope that this doesn’t affect the show. This does mean that I’ll have to record something on VHS instead of my laptop since the stupid CW doesn’t care about important events being reasons not to air a repeat episode.

In the fifth segment of the show, Chris wants everyone to vote against CeCe, although David isn’t sure if this is what he wants to happen or not. David sure is up to all sorts of different sinister ways. It makes me wonder if he could actually win this whole thing. But doesn’t it seem a bit too obvious? We’ll see. I just wish that he could actually make the numbers flip on his own instead of just using another idol to his advantage. It is hard to tell what is going on at tribal council. David actually says at tribal council that he is with Chris. If I were him, I would just vote out CeCe and save the idol for another day. But I have no clue what is happening going into the vote. Nobody plays an idol. CeCe is voted out of the game.

On the next Survivor, Figgy is dumb in a way and yet another challenge causes medical problems. Why can’t they fix that? Don’t they know by now that these blindfold challenges are going to cause problems most of the time?

Total confessional count: Michaela- 12, Sunday- 3, Figgy- 7, Chris- 10, Adam- 9, Bret- 4, Jessica- 9, Ken- 10, Michelle- 4, Hannah- 5, Zeke- 10, Jay- 7, Taylor- 8, CeCe- 6, Will- 3, David- 18.

New confessionals this episode: David- 4, Michaela- 3, Sunday- 0, Figgy- 1, Chris- 2, Adam- 2, Bret- 1, Jessica- 1, Ken- 3, Michelle- 2, Hannah- 0, Zeke- 2, Jay- 2, Taylor- 2, CeCe- 2, Will- 0.

CeCe had two confessionals this episode, the same number as Michelle, Zeke, Jay, Taylor, Chris, and Adam. Then there are Ken, David, and Michaela who all had higher confessionals this episode with David at the highest with four. Hannah, Sunday, and Will all had no new confessionals this episode. CeCe had six total confessionals in the game, which is more than Michelle, Hannah, Sunday, Will, and Bret. The lowest in terms of the count are Sunday and Will with three a piece. David is still king with the highest count with eighteen total confessionals. Besides him, everyone else who is now in double digits with the total count is Ken, Zeke, Michaela, and Chris. I do wonder if I’m starting to like David. He might be a good player, but his moves could get the best of him. We’ll see what happens. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.