Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Episode 33.2

There’s a lot of useless crap for me to talk about in the introduction to my blog posts. But I like doing it and I feel that sometimes there are good things to talk about. It doesn’t always relate to Survivor, but it is a good thing for me to talk about something of some sort or another.

I hope that people like the way I talk about potential spoilers in this blog by making sure that the beginning and end of the spoiler are separated for people to skip if they don’t want to read it. Speaking of which… SPOILER! Caleb Reynolds is rumored to be a contestant on next season. Until this is confirmed or not, I will include him on groupings I have of medically evacuated players. Keep that in mind if the list does change again. END SPOILER. So do you think that I do a good job with the way I mention potential spoilers or not? It might be better for me to never mention them (I doubt that I would know anything that serious), but I’m not sure if that can always be the case or not.

The promo seemed to imply that yet another man would be medically evacuated from the game. Why is it that nearly all of the medical evacuations are men and women never seem to be pulled from the game at all? Men are considered the stronger gender (although, let’s face it, if they had to give birth, mankind would be extinct by now) so you do have to wonder if it is their knack for doing more dangerous things that have gotten them hurt more. I should do an analysis of medical evacuations sometime. I have no idea who to guess for this potential evacuation and would probably just say that Zeke might be the person who might get pulled in this episode.

You know what I realized? The first time they were in Fiji, there was political turmoil that almost resulted in an evacuation of the cast. Now that they’ve returned to Fiji, they did have to evacuate the whole cast. I do wonder if we’ll ever find out what happened after the evacuation from the hurricane until they returned. I’m guessing that they were still kept separate as tribes. I’m hoping for a secret scene, but I might just have to wait for cast interviews to find out for sure what happened.

In case you were wondering what shows I’ll be watching now on Wednesdays, I’ll let you know: I finally have a second VCR to use which I will use to record Arrow on a regular basis; I will watch Blindspot online now, although I may see more of it live during the winter hiatus of Survivor; I will watch Law and Order: SUV after Survivor; I will record Modern Family to watch later; I might get into Frequency, if possible; I have gotten into Designated Survivor (yay, political thrillers!); and I will also watch Code Black. I especially love the Code Black promos for this new season as they are using a song that I’ve heard on Joy FM, a Christian radio station. Did they know that they are using a Christian song? I know, and I applaud them for it. Now I just hope that these shows are coming in.

When it comes to who I might root for this season, I haven’t made up my mind just yet. I’m not sure if I will have a favorite to win or not. I could root for Mari, but I’m not so sure that I want to put my support behind her just yet. The last time I rooted for a gamer to win Survivor was in Gabon when Ken was playing. While I liked Ken at first, by the time he was voted out, I no longer cared for him. He was a pretty dumb player, but I might have to wait until a possible look back at the season before I go into full detail about him. Anyways, like many people, I find Zeke to be an interesting person. We’ll see if he lasts. David is a disaster waiting to happen. I hope that he can actually last a long time, but he could easily be the next quitter of Survivor. Honestly, we’ll have to see what happens with him as it could go in many different ways. He could make it far or not far enough. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, we get to the purple tribe who is still complaining about the game thus far. CeCe got votes as she was somehow close to Rachel. David thinks that he is more like Cochran than Ozzy. To be far, though, Ozzy has constantly gotten worse edits when he’s played and Cochran has gotten better edits as he’s played. David then looks for the idol. He finds it in a random coconut.

In the second segment of the show, there’s a showmance brewing between Figgy and Taylor. Michaela thinks that kissing in this environment is nasty. (Not to sound racist or anything, but do only black women call things nasty?) Jay forgets Rob and Amber when he says that no couple has ever lasted on Survivor. He thinks that the minority alliance he is in with them could crumble because of this (not realizing, of course, that the rest of the tribe could turn against them). Ken catches an octopus for his tribe. Remember when Tom hunted a shark? I think that this is different because it seemed, in a strange way, that the octopus wanted to get caught.

In the third segment of the show, things are strange as usual on the millennial tribe. Figgy seems to butt heads with Michaela. On the gen x tribe, there are problems with other people thinking that Paul is a problem. But the real problem is when Paul starts to have a medical problem.

In the fourth segment of the show, the situation with Paul gets serious enough that it seems like they might have to put a helicopter on standby. Paul is not medically evacuated. David thought that it would be good if Paul were pulled so we are being shown more negativity to David in the game. We then get to the day seven immunity challenge (when are they going to gain back that extra day? Will this be a 40 day Survivor season this time? I’m not sure yet) where the winning tribe gets a tarp. If I had to do a prediction, it would be that gen x wins the challenge. David struggles at the challenge. But, gen x still wins the challenge as I predicted. Mari gets the confessional after the challenge so we’ll see if this is a kiss of death confessional or not. Also, it seems that the person I know who coined the term is no longer blogging about Survivor. Guess I’ll need to think of a different back-up person.

In the fifth segment of the show, we get back to the tribe after their immunity loss. People think that they should just vote out Figgy. Jay thinks that his alliance is done considering how they will lose a member. There is drama being stirred up. I can’t tell if Jay is lying or not to save his alliance. While I’m normally against lying in general life, it does have advantages in Survivor.  Michaela points out that things are not going well on this tribe. A whisper makes Mari seem like the target of one person. We do not get the reason at the moment. This is happening during the real discussion. I can’t tell which two women are whispering. Michelle and Hannah are talking and it seems that Jeff creates drama by talking about it. Has there ever been a tribal council like this before? I don’t remember there being a side conversation ever. Hannah takes a while deciding who to vote for, which people notice. Mari is voted out. I guess that if I want to see more of her, then I should watch Smosh games.

On the next Survivor, Zeke and Adam feel betrayed by the vote off. There is also a twist in the end. SPOILER. Apparently they are switching into three tribes like they did in Cambodia. I got this information from a supposedly spoiler-free place too. END SPOILER.

Total confessional count: CeCe- 2, Paul- 3, Will- 2, David- 7, Michaela- 6, Sunday- 2, Figgy- 5, Chris- 3, Lucy- 0, Adam- 3, Bret- 2, Jessica- 3, Ken- 3, Michelle- 2, Hannah- 3, Zeke- 6, Jay- 3, Taylor- 4, Mari- 6.

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


Mari had two confessionals this episode this episode, the same number as Paul, Ken, Zeke, Jay, and Taylor. The contestants who were higher than her in the count for this episode were Figgy, David, and Michaela, with Figgy being the highest with four. Everyone else was lower than Mari, in terms of the count for this episode. Lucy, Adam, Bret, Jessica, CeCe, Will, and Hannah all had no new confessionals this episode. Lucy still has no confessionals total throughout the game. Mari had six confessionals total, the same number as Michaela and Zeke. Only David was higher than both of them and he has seven total confessionals. We’ll see what happens next time. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Survivor: Millennials versus Gen X Premiere

Well, here we are at another Survivor season. This time we are doing a battle of the generations. I’m surprised that I didn’t see this one coming. It’s the type of thing that seems like such an obvious twist that of course they would do it at some point. And yet, I never thought about it being done as a twist. I hope that I like the twist. Sometimes twists work and sometimes they don’t. I should do a whole analysis on twists of Survivor, but I doubt that I ever will. I should also try working this cast out as a returning player season. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out when some players from past seasons would work. I just have to figure out when the generations actually were. I’m surprised that I don’t already know this. Plus it is weird that this is technically another age battle. Nicaragua was officially young versus old and Panama was sort of like that for just the first episode or so.

Now I hope that I don’t sound dumb for wondering this, but what is a millennial? I have no idea what generation they are supposed to be. Were they born starting from 2000 onward? That can’t be right or they’d still be too young to compete in Survivor. (Well, they will be too young, but only for about two more years.) Are those born in the 90s millennials? I guess they would have to be by default. I’m just wondering why they are always being insulted and called lazy by other people. Sorry if I’m confused by this, but it seems that other people don’t seem to know what it is because they tend to think that different groups of people are millennials.

I guess that I’m wondering going into this which of the two tribes I’m supposed to root for. I think that I am a millennial since as of the summer, I am finally able to run for Congress. Of course, I’d probably never do that as I don’t want a job where so many people will hate me. I guess we’ll see as time goes by which of the tribes we are supposed to root for and which one the winner comes from. They don’t have as clear a winner’s edit as they used to.

Before my summer birthday happened, I had a dream that Danni from Guatemala had died. I didn’t realize that it was a dream at first, but did later into the dream. I also had a dream about there being some sort of special that had aired and they mentioned Danni in the dream. I was so thrown off by the special that apparently I had not been able to blog about it as I would have liked to. Dreams can be strange. In the meantime, I should probably figure out something else to ramble about. Before that, I might as well tell you about more dreams.

I had a dream that another Price is Right Survivor special aired and I wasn’t able to blog about it live so I hoped that I could watch it later online. I also had a dream where Jonathan Penner had died. The dream said that his was the second Survivor death of the year which implied that some other, unknown contestant had died before him that same year or that I had remembered the Danni death dream and thought that it was the first death of the year. I seem to have dreamt that a lot of the Survivor contestants have died. And yet, none of those dreams included B. B. Andersen or Caleb Bankston before their deaths. It would be weird though if any real life deaths happen after I dream about the same person dying. But I should move on to happier topics. Should I even mention these dreams?

Ever since San Juan del Sur has had two less contestants than it was supposed to, I have wondered if those two contestants would be playing Survivor in the future. One of them, So, ended up on the next season: Worlds Apart. I don’t know if this meant that she replaced someone else originally slated for that season or not. But her sister hasn’t been able to play again yet. Will we see her in the future? I don’t know the cast yet as of this paragraph’s writing. We could have seen her in Kaoh Rong potentially, but we never did. I don’t know if we’ll see her in this season or if we’ll have to wait for a future season. Sadly, we might never see her at all. I hope that we do see her, though

http://survivorshade.com/ Here’s a fun blog like website called Survivor Shade. They have a person and different Survivor contestants help recap each episode in a fun way. Right now, they have two regular contributors, one from gen x and the other is a millennial. In each episode this season, they will be having a guest gen x contestant and guest millennial contestant helping with the posts. I love this website, even if they are a bit unusual. Consider this an endorsement of Survivor Shade.

I started a new facebook group called Still a Rams Fan which is dedicated to those who still root for the Rams despite them leaving St. Louis. I thought that I would mention it here in this blog of mine. Also, I have another group called Firefly: Where are They Now? That group is basically keeping track of the nine cast members and creator of Firefly by mentioning what projects they are now doing.

Sometimes the anticipation of a season leads to a lot of wondering about what will happen. Sometimes Jeff Probst can accidently reveal spoilers about the season. Plus, tons of us want to know about season 34. SPOILER. Both tribes will go to tribal council before a potential swap. I really hope that they do a season soon without a swap. They are starting to overuse that twist. Season 34 is an all-star season, which seems soon to do that again. Apparently it will have two contestants from this season, but I won’t reveal who until the finale post of this season. Day 39 of season 34 was probably shortly before August 30th of this year based on a post from one of the likely contestants. Also, the elements will affect the game like they never have before so it could lead to even more medical evacuations. END SPOILER. We’ll find out for sure what happens as the show airs.

One of Survivor’s best websites, Survivor Oz, is ending and we may lose access to all of it. I don’t know if I can somehow listen to any and every interview from it that I’d want to. Hopefully, I can find similar interviews on other podcasts (or somehow start my own podcast and interview people myself) or they can at least keep this up in some way. This will be a sad loss for the Survivor community.

Something to possibly note this season is the nicknames that people might have. I will find out as the show airs which of them I should change to their nicknames and which ones should remain their real names. It will probably relate to airtime which person for sure does or doesn’t have what nickname. I find nicknames to be confusing a lot, or at least a lot in Survivor: Fiji. And I haven’t even blogged about that season yet. It might be helpful if Jessica Figueroa goes by Figgy so I don’t have to keep her separate from Jessica Lewis. Keeping track of both first and last name can be a bit of a bother.

I have done almost no research into the cast this time around because I’m honestly not sure I want to know that much about them before the show starts airing. I might only be able to do cast previews or whatever I’ll call them before all-star seasons. With all new players, I’m just not sure that I’ll be able to come up with a good way of reviewing the cast ahead of time. Plus, I can probably have a more untainted version of the cast doing things this way. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Taylor, Mari, Zeke, some guy I missed, Sunday, and David are shown in the introduction. Does this mean that the others are out already? We’ll see. Jeff hands out the wrapped buffs with names to the contestants. Jeff mentions the years that each generation was born. Paul is the oldest in the game. CeCe doesn’t think that millennials work for anything. Adam (not me) defends stereotypes about his generation. Both tribes are given a chance to raid stuff in one of many unofficial opening challenges that the game starts with. Jessica (Lewis, I’m guessing), grabs an envelope, which is probably an idol clue. The younger tribe takes chickens and the older tribe takes fishing gear.

They seem to be on a small island. Jeff warns of potential hurricanes. Someone does bible translations which my mom (and me) were impressed by. Mari plays video games online so I’ll probably have to look up her videos on youtube. I like watching video games. I even got addicted to speedruns by accident. I was looking for a three day challenge of Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, but I looked up a speenrun of it by mistake as I thought that it would be the same thing. I was able to see a three day challenge (beating that game without using the song of time) later. Zeke doesn’t feel like he fits on his tribe. Jessica Lewis gets a new advantage: the legacy advantage. It only works on day 36 and she has to pass it on in some way if she is voted out (or presumably removed from the game in some other fashion). How would she do that? Will we find out?

In the second segment of the show, Figgy (Jessica Figueroa) is focused on in some way that I can’t really describe that well. Jay, Figgy, and Taylor seem to form a threesome. You can tell that they are definitely reinforcing stereotypes. Michelle is glad that what she’s doing is getting her trust on the tribe. People aren’t liking Rachel as much as she seems to be trying too hard. David doesn’t think that he can handle the environment, but he is only here for the game play. David thinks that someone has the idol and points this out to people. Chris thinks poorly of him because of this. Adam seems a bit rigid in a way. There seems to be a major storm brewing. When it is dark, the younger tribe does a quick job trying to figure out the shelter. They suffer due to their lack of shelter.

I will have new ways of recording shows this season with more options of what to do. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t suffer from other problems. While I’d love to record Law and Order: SUV tonight, that channel has pretty much almost never come in since around May. I don’t know how Blindspot or Grimm ended their seasons. I can just hope that NBC can start coming in later this season or I won’t be able to watch any of their shows. I was wanting to see if The Good Place was any good and I don’t want to resort to watching any show online except for Blindspot since they moved it to compete with this show. But if SUV isn’t coming in at eight, I guess that I’ll just have to record Modern Family instead. I’d miss it anyways if the other option was coming in.

In the third segment of the show, CeCe complains about the rain and the younger tribe was given a tarp. It is a temporary thing somehow. The older tribe gets one too. Jeff comes to the island and visits the orange (younger) tribe first. They are evacuating the island. I read that this had happened. I thought that it somehow happened before the season actually started, but it appears that it is part of the season in a way. This must be the unprecedented weather event. This might not have any effect on medical evacuations during the season as it seems that this might be the only event that happens.

In the fourth segment of the show, the tribes return the next day (at least in the edit, because I thought that filming was delayed for two weeks) and the older tribe learns that a tree fell on their shelter. David is worried about him staying in the game and goes off looking for the idol which alienates him from his tribe as he’s not helping them build shelter. The younger tribe also rebuilds and it seems like the players are not getting along according to the confessionals. This has yet to show up among camp life and seems to only be private right now. Could things fall apart for this tribe?

In the fifth segment of the show, we get to the day four immunity challenge. Is it just me or is this the latest they have ever done a first immunity challenge? This had to be due to the storm. This is when the tarps are returned. The challenge features potential shortcuts, but they get a bigger puzzle for each shortcut that they use. The younger tribe think that they should do the shortcut on the balance beam to avoid a potential failure ala Lopevi. The older tribe takes both shortcuts. The younger tribe does not take the first shortcut, but they do take the second one. It seems dumb as usual that only some people can do the puzzle at the end instead of the whole tribe. GET RID OF THIS STUPID RULE! The younger tribe wins the challenge after the older falters at the puzzle. Now how will there be enough material for the rest of the episode?

In the sixth segment of the show, the older tribe returns after their loss. Rachel seems to get the bulk of the blame for the loss. David tries to rectify the situation from earlier, but he might not be doing a good job with it. Do we really need a failure like this so soon? Honestly, I can’t tell right now if it is him or Rachel who will be the first boot. At tribal council, all of the tribe members talk about feeling in danger, although some feel more in danger than others. The votes seem a bit scattered in a way. Would CeCe really be in danger? No, she is not. Rachel is voted out. But how will CeCe feel now?

On the next Survivor, it appears that a showmance is brewing and a medical evacuation is going to happen more than likely. This means that I’ll have to update my groups of that again. Could someone have really had a heart attack in the game? I guess we’ll have to see for sure.

Total confessional count: Rachel- 2, Michaela- 3, Sunday- 1, Jessica “Figgy” Figueroa- 1, Chris- 2, Lucy- 0, Adam- 3, Bret- 2, Jessica Lewis- 3, Ken- 1, Michelle- 1, Hannah- 3, Zeke- 4, Justin “Jay”- 1, Taylor- 2, Mari- 4, Ciandre “CeCe”- 2, Paul- 1, Will- 2, David- 4.

Rachel had two confessionals from my count, but what do I know? I always miss some. She had the same number as CeCe, Bret, Will, Chris, and Taylor. She had more than Paul, Ken, Michelle, Sunday, Figgy, Jay, and Lucy. Lucy is the lowest in terms of confessionals as she is the only one with none in this episode. There are three tied for the highest confessional with four a piece: Mari, Zeke, and David. We’ll see, probably sooner rather than later, if any of these are red herrings for early outs or are good signs for their future in the game. I know that it goes both ways right now.


Boy, it feels good to be back blogging about Survivor episodes again. It feels good since it has been so long since there have been new episodes. I do wonder if three seasons would be a good idea or not (by adding a regular summer season), but I think that just having it in the main TV season is what works. We’ll see what this season is like in the future. For now, this is  Adam Decker, signing off.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Top Ten Most Deserving Winners

Okay, before I get to the gist of this post, I should tell you that no matter how much I like or hate a particular winner, I don’t feel that anyone should have won over another person. Basically, anyone who wins shouldn’t have lost to some other player for any reason whatsoever. And I’m not going to say that anyone who won didn’t deserve it as they clearly had some way of beating the other contestants even if I didn’t like it in the end. This blog post will mention who, for whatever reason, I felt stood out as most deserving of the sole Survivor prize. This may not even be the same as who I would pick for the top ten winners of Survivor. In my mind, these are the winners who had to overcome lots of problems and may not have had it as easy as some other winners. But, I might as well get to my choices.

Honorable mentions: Tina proved that a nice person could win, but I feel that another nice person did a better job with winning and I’m putting him on the list instead. Vecepia invented a new way of playing the game that could result in a win. As a floater, she proved that there were different ways to produce the win. But I’m not sure that’s good enough to put on the list. Earl won unanimously and that could have gotten him a spot on this list, but I felt that others did better at that. Kim played a wondrous game from start to finish. But in a way, it wasn’t that much of a difficult route to the win that others might have had. Mike had to win a bunch of challenges to defeat the alliance that he was not part of anymore and still got their votes to win. But I’m just not sure enough that he should be on the list compared to those that I did pick. So I’ll get to the actual top ten now.

#10 Jenna: This may be an odd pick to some, but she was the first contestant to win in a landside losing only one single jury vote. I’m not entirely sure why people hate her. But she played a game that got even a notable enemy of hers to vote for her to win. She had to have done something right.

#9 Ethan: One of my favorite winners, Ethan was pretty much prove that nice guys can actually win the game of Survivor. He played a truly great and respectable game and won because of it. If you saw the Survivor Showdown that I was in, then you’ll notice that the person who picked Ethan for most likable contestant was the person who won that round of the debate. He truly is a great person and didn’t do well on All-Stars simply because people were afraid that he could win again. I have the feeling that it’s possible he could if he appeared on the show a third time.

#8 Jeremy: Here’s a contestant that faced the most jury members ever in the history of Survivor and got every single one of their votes to win. It can be hard to believe that nobody ever thought of targeting this nice guy throughout the game. Maybe he had it a bit easier than most, but he was still up against other great finalists and got ten jury votes to win the game.

#7 Richard: On the surface, some may think that he had it easy being the first winner and the fact that not many other people were actually playing the game this season. But here’s a guy who was always playing to win and he had the cockiness to tell everyone that he was going to win. And he actually did win. Without him, we might not have alliances and the game would be completely different. Can you imagine the game without alliances? It would be totally different and wouldn’t work. This guy helped make Survivor into what it is today.

#6 JT: Mr. Perfect Game himself has to be on the list, especially since he was the first person to ever get no votes against him throughout the whole game and then win every jury vote. You can’t do that easily. Proof of that is that he’s the eighteenth winner and only the first person to achieve this feat is quite legendary for him. You might be wondering why he’s only number six on this list, but you’ll have to wonder who else could be a more deserving winner than him. Well…

#5 Tom: Here’s a player who spent a record time in the game immune from being voted out. From being on the dominate Koror tribe to winning a record number of individual immunity challenges (a record shared with four other players), Tom was a great player who played one of the best games that I can think of and remember being played.

#4 Tony: Imagine being one of the hugest villains in Survivor history and actually winning the game even after flipping on various people throughout the game. And unlike some villains, he didn’t rely on a bare minimum of the jury votes the way someone like Brian did. And he never even won an immunity challenge either. Can you believe that someone like him could actually win in the end? So many people would have been betting against him, but I knew that he would probably win and he did.

#3 Sandra: If you don’t have her on here for her first win, then you’ll definitely have to put her on here for winning the second time. There used to be a stigma against former winners and no one cared, it seems, that she actually overcame that by getting far in the game. In the premerge part of the game she had to deal with being in the wrong alliance where people either flipped on it to the other side or were voted out. Soon, she was left all by herself, and yet wasn’t targeted by the rest of the tribe. Then, when she made the merge, she had the opportunity to join the heroes and flip on her old tribe mates. She didn’t do this and still got all of the votes of the heroes to win. Can you believe that she actually won? There are only two other people that I felt had more to overcome.

#2 Chris: From the very first challenge, he was on the outs. It’s hard to believe that he actually lasted past the first tribal council. Then, when the men were outnumbered at the merge, he thought that he would be the last in the obvious elimination order. After losing the pivotal immunity challenge, the women on the tribe decided to get rid of one of their own. Then, everything fell apart for them. Chris was able to overcome a lot of odds and then win.

When it comes to this list, I am putting people on here based on what they did when they won, how they won, and what they overcame in order to win. The person who I think is most deserving of the win probably had the most going against her.

#1 Denise: First, you are on a tribe that loses every freaking challenge. You get moved to another tribe and they start losing the challenges. So you then make it to the merge and you’ve attended every tribal council thus far in the game and will have to go to every tribal council during the rest of the season in order to win the game. Every contestant knows this about you and people start to target you. But you are able to get different alliances in this game to work with and against each other to further your own life in the game. At the end, you might have some stiff competition, but you are still able to pull off the win. After going to every tribal council during a season, you win.


Well, I hope that this list isn’t controversial to anyone, especially the winners that aren’t on this list. This might be one of the more questionable posts that I’ve done, but I still hope that others like it and aren’t offended by it. That’s all regarding this post. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Stephenie LaGrossa Palau Recap Extended Version

Well, here we are at the next recap of mine of a contestant’s previous game on a season that I have on DVD. Out of three possible people from Palau, I posted a question as to which of the three should receive a recap and the winner was Stephenie. So, now we get to a recap of mine based on her game from her first season. I might ramble some throughout the blog so look for the paragraphs that start with an episode title from this season and read only them if you don’t want to read my ramblings. Those are the paragraphs that start with a phrase, then a dash. Actually, to make this simple, just read the paragraphs that are in a different font than this one.

WARNING! This blog post contains a lot of unnecessary ramblings. If you want to read just the important parts, skip to the parts in different font than this one. I feel the need to randomly talk about various shows that I’m watching on DVD and other formats. And that’s just part of the ramblings. Sorry for all the ramblings. I even ramble about the ramblings that I ramble about. Weird, huh? I promise that I will post an alternate version of this post that contains just the recap with an introduction and closing. The alternate post will contain no rambling in it. So just read that, unless you want to read all of this.

Now you might be wondering how I was able to watch this. You might know this based on previous blog posts, but you might not so I’ll tell you anyways. In order to decide which shows to watch from, I have a list of stuff to roll from and the corresponding number relates to certain shows. Whenever I roll Survivor, I will update a different blog of mine, provided that I could watch it as originally planned. Now there were a lot of shows to add to the list before it. So in addition to an older list of TV shows on DVD, I’m going to be switching it back and forth with a new list, since there were that many to add all at once. That list, in order of how I’d add them is VeggieTales on VHS, The Muppet Show season 1, Laugh it up Fuzzball (The Family Guy Star Wars parodies), Invader Zim season 1, Flashpoint season 1, and Survivor: Palau. Now, I’ll update you which days I’ll watch Survivor: Palau to get this recap. I’ll also keep you updated on what shows change on the list.

First comes the waiting game for the first episode of the season. Alternating between two lists might be a bit confusing. But I just have to wait until I roll the number 5 to watch Survivor: Palau. Well, that ended up happening sooner than I expected. I watched the first episode of that season on 9-22-2015.

This Has Never Happened Before- Stephenie gets her first confessional of the season when she decides to jump out of the boat. She gets a second confessional about it as well. Jumping out of the boat was a mistake as she didn’t get to shore until much later after the boat. According to commentary with the episode, the other contestants eventually brought the boat back to her and Jonathan, who had also jumped out of the boat. She had a planned alliance with Tom, Katie, and Ian, but was put on a different tribe than them. She was chosen by Bobby Jon to be on the Ulong tribe and she picked Jeff to be on the tribe afterwards. At the immunity challenge, she doesn’t like her tribe’s decision to take multiple items at the challenge which contributes to their loss. It is ultimately Stephenie that successfully campaigns to eliminate Jolanda. She gets a third confessional about it. She successfully votes against Jolanda in this episode. Ultimately, she has three confessionals thus far in the game.

Now I wait to roll a 5 again. My other list got rid of an item, so I’m moving VeggieTales VHS tapes off of this list. Since I would need an option on this list here, I’m putting recorded shows on VHS on this list at number 6 and that can fill any holes in the list should more arise until just one list can remain again. Anyways, I roll the second episode of the season on 9-26-2015.

Love is in the Air, Rats are Everywhere- Stephenie gets her first confessional of the episode when she talks about how she thinks getting rid of Jolanda was a good idea. She helps score at least two points at the reward challenge that her tribe wins (the third and ninth points, at least). She gets another confessional about how the fire that they now have has helped them cook and eat food. She gets a third confessional about who to vote for at the tribal council. She voted with the majority of her tribe to get rid of Ashlee. So that’s three total confessionals for her in this episode leading to six total.

Now I wait to roll a 5 again. In case you didn’t know, while the order that the things on this list might be in one order, it is alphabetical order that decides what number they are. VHS tapes must take the lowest place on the list, thus being the highest numbers. The s choice of Survivor is the lowest place outside of the VHS tapes so that it why and how it is number 5 at the moment.

Well, the list has now changed. I must take off the random shows on VHS for the moment as I add The Big Bang Theory season 1 to the list. This means that Survivor: Palau is now number 6 on the list and I wait to roll that number. I don’t know if I should be explaining why I add each show to the list so I’ll just say what I added and not why. Most of them are due to dreams about them while others are because I recently acquired them (well, maybe not recent as much anymore with some, but they were still unwatched until now and that’s the point that matters anyways).

Due to November coming soon and me needing to blog about TV shows once a month, this means that I have to roll a Survivor episode that month. Why not October? Well, there were certain cheats that I had to post that month without having to watch this Survivor season. Those cheats won’t work in November and I think that I might be especially screwed in December when I won’t be watching any shows from my list. At least my OCD says that I must create a new post for that blog once a month so I can always find a solution.

Well, October has past as of the writing of this paragraph. This means that watching Halloween based episodes will have to wait until next year. This will affect both The Big Bang Theory and Invader Zim episodes that I’m watching. I’ll let you know when they are both removed from the list. Also, I’ve decided that if Survivor: Palau goes off of the newer list and becomes part of the original list or top six shows, then I will basically forget the list that I’m telling you about (although, it will serve as future replacements for the main list) and that will be the only list, as it is meant to be.

I’m wondering why I didn’t just forego the planned replacements with the other shows and just add this one to the list. I can’t change it now, but I might change it in the future. Although, the more that I think about it, this way I’m using now probably works better anyways. Besides, it’s not like I’m doing anything more than a recap right now.

With it being November as of this paragraph, I’m noticing various Christmas commercials. Now in the month of December, there are certain Christmas movies and specials that I watch. This could affect watching Survivor that month. I do have a plan around that (two plans, actually) to potentially watch Survivor: Palau in December. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you about the Christmas specials and Christmas episodes from shows on DVD (or VHS) when that month happens.

To help readers of this blog post, I’ve made the important parts of it in Times New Roman and the rest of it in Calibri (Body). So if you are reading this font and this paragraph, then you are unfortunately probably wasting your time. Sorry about that.

It’s been a while since I’ve rolled Survivor: Palau on DVD and it is starting to annoy me greatly. Now I do have loopholes for updating my TV blog regardless of if I can roll Survivor or not. But it would still be very nice if I could watch more of it. This is messing up with me getting caught up on VHS shows. That can complicate Christmas watching that I do. Meanwhile, if I can, I’ll be adding Survivor: Palau to that list, although I probably won’t need to anyways. What I do know if that I will probably update my TV blog in December sometime after the Survivor finale.

I finally roll a 6 on 11-18-2015. There is a minor problem since today is a Wednesday and this is when I typically update my Survivor blog. I guess I’ll just update my TV blog tomorrow, which I would have done anyways if I hadn’t been able to watch this. I will say that in the future, since I’ll be doing Thursday posts during Advent and various posts during the hiatus between Cambodia and the next season, it might be okay for me to roll this on Wednesdays in the future. Anyways, I should get to the next episode.

Dangerous Creatures and Horrible Setbacks- Stephenie previously wanting to vote out Kim was discussed in the recap, even though this ultimately didn’t end up happening. She starts the episode with a confessional as to why they are tired of tribal council. Stephenie competes against Jenn in the second part of the reward challenge. I had previously told you about their rivalry when I talked about Jenn’s time on Survivor: Palau. Stephenie scores a point for her tribe. Ulong wins the reward. Stephenie is the longest lasting woman at the immunity challenge, but her tribe still loses. At tribal council, Stephenie joins the majority of her tribe in voting out Jeff. She has one new confessional this episode. She now has seven total confessionals.

Now I wait to roll a 6 again. In December, I’ll probably add this and two other shows to my list of Christmas watching even though it has nothing to do with Christmas. I’ll probably just wait to roll it once. But I’m not even sure I’ll do that. I can just wait until the finale of Cambodia airs and update my TV blog sometime after it happens. We’ll see. I’ll be sure to tell you when December rolls around.

Well, as of this paragraph, the Christmas season has reached a point where I’m willing to embrace it. This means that I won’t be watching stuff from my TV rolling list unless I have to get caught up on stuff I recorded on VHS. Basically, I will return to those lists later. I might even be able to return to them in December if I can watch through all my Christmas stuff at a good time. For the first time, I might watch more than the VHS tapes I’m backlogged on during December due to how things might work out. For one, I’ll probably want to see at least one episode of Survivor: Palau during this time and I’d have to watch through enough of the Christmas things before I’d even have the opportunity to watch it.

I still have not gotten all the Christmas specials that I would like to have on DVD. I’m not sure one exists for one of them that I’d like (The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas) anyways. So I start basically with five Christmas specials that I’d want to watch. Those are, in alphabetical order, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Smurfs Christmas Specials, and The Tangerine Bear. Keep in mind that unless I put this season as p instead of s, I would have to watch the Smurfs Christmas Specials (which I would do in one sitting as both are about a combined hour) before I could add Survivor to the list. Meanwhile, I would need a sixth item for the list and this year it works out for me to add two VeggieTales Christmas episodes.

Since different holiday episodes are only watched with each holiday, since I was not able to catch up to the Thanksgiving episode of 8 Simple Rule’s first season, I will pretty much have to wait to roll the episodes before it and then wait another year to add it to the list long term. Meanwhile, I should (probably shouldn’t) tell you about the Christmas watching in terms of specials.

The first Christmas special that I watch is the Smurfs one. I replace that with a Christmas episode from the seventh season of NCIS. And with the Smurfs gone, this will mean that I can add Survivor whenever it works with the list. I watched the NCIS episode, but it will stay on the list so I can watch it again with commentary. Next I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and replaced that with Survivor which will be number 4 on the rolling list. I will only watch one episode if I even roll it this month. Otherwise, it will revert to the normal list in January. Also, after the finale of season 31, I’ll just update my TV blog without having to watch any Survivor.

Continuing the Christmas watching that I’m doing, I watch The Tangerine Bear and replace that with Christmas related episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine. In the future, I’d have specials that I typically watch replace TV shows with the same letter instead of doing it the other way around. I also watch Frosty the Snowman and replace it with episodes of Farscape, which I’m borrowing from a friend. That’s on the other watching list of mine that’s not the newer one. It’s around this point that I might end up lowering the list to less choices. It all depends on what I roll. This means that Survivor might not even be a choice to roll. We’ll see about that.

I end up watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and cut the list to three choices. Those choices are the NCIS episode Faith with commentary, two Christmas related videos of Thomas the Tank Engine, and two Christmas VeggieTales. I watched one of the Thomas the Tank Engine specials before the list changed again. I’m finally able to add more specials to the list by watching a VHS tape that I have of Yogi’s First Christmas. After it is a special which changes the list again making the last choice X-mas VHS tape (as it was once called), and reinstating Survivor and Farscape to the lists. If by Thursday the choice of Survivor remains unwatched, I will certainly ignore the next episode until January (or later) whenever I happen to roll it.

There’s another update. One of the tapes that I watch that has Christmas things on it is of declining quality. While I can still probably watch it, I have decided to retire it. I might reinstate it in the future. But this will give me an excuse to watch a Christmas VHS tape of Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too instead of sticking to the tape that I watch. I might return to it at this point next year. I don’t know how long I’ve had this tape that I got from V-Stock. But I have yet to watch it and hope that it turns out good. Meanwhile, I also hope that I can get copies of Yogi’s First Christmas and The Wish that Changed Christmas in some other format should this tape continue to fail in the future. I know that I can get Ernest Saves Christmas.

To make a long story short, he got away with my snorkel. Wait, that’s something else. Anyways, I was not able to see any Survivor episodes during December, so I will go back to the normal list. I don’t know when I’ll roll the choice again, but I don’t have to worry about updating my TV blog for December anyways, and I’m good with it for the next few months as well, so it could be a while, actually.

Well, it is now January as of this paragraph. I might repeat just the recap parts of this post at the end with a message saying, in all caps, the only important part you need to read is beneath this line. This is probably an even worse post than when I did one introducing my look back at Survivor: Borneo. And, since this is a new year, if I finish watching this season this year, then I will not add it back to my lists until the next year. That could cause even further problems if I somehow don’t finish watching this season again this year.

For the first time this year, I rolled the number six on 1-25-2016. This ends the long streak of not being able to watch shows that I’ve had with some of the shows. That might not make sense. Anyways, I will now blog about the fourth episode of the season. Ironically, my TV blog would have been updated anyways today regardless of what I rolled. Also, I must roll from the list in February as I do not have a cheat that would work that month.

Sumo at Sea- Before the reward challenge, the tribe shows its continued lack of leadership by failing to pick a representative. Stephenie gets a confessional about the challenge. The tribe is still working on the challenge when Jeff Probst returns. She gets a second confessional about how she’s glad how the shelter turned out, even though they don’t end up winning. She gets a third confessional this episode about upcoming immunity challenge and how they can’t keep losing. In the challenge, she fights against Jenn and wins that round easily. There is a rematch of the fight later in the challenge. This one lasts longer, but ultimately ends with Stephenie winning again. However, the challenge is a close loss for Ulong who returns to tribal council. She is mad over the challenge loss in a fourth confessional for her this episode. She then talks in a fifth confessional about trying to get rid of the guys so they don’t gang up against the women. This is interesting as it doesn’t end up happening that the men take control, even though Kim does get voted off tonight. Stephenie even casts her vote that way, joining the majority of her tribe in making this decision. So that’s five confessionals this episode and twelve confessionals total.

The rolling list has finally changed for the first time this year. I finished something on my older list and thus moved something off of this list. The Muppet Show is now part of that list, moving it off of this list. I am replacing it with Wallace and Gromit. Why that? Well, I originally had two of the three classic tapes on VHS and at Goodwill I was able to find the missing tape. Thus, I will watch all three of the tapes. I also got something else new for a different collection, but I have to wait until something else is off of the main list before I can add it. Anyways, Survivor is now number 5 on the rolling list.

Since I must know watch a Survivor episode on DVD at least once a month, this creates a bit of a problem with all my choices. Waiting until I roll an episode of Survivor means that I will get further behind on my recorded shows on VHS. Meanwhile, I thought that I had a cheat so I didn’t have to watch a show this month, but I don’t. Hopefully this won’t prove a problem and I can roll this show quickly so I can get caught up on tapes.

Well, I roll a five on 2-3-2016 so I will watch the next episode of Survivor: Palau. This means that I don’t have to roll this choice again this month. Now this will affect my blogs overall for today since it is a Wednesday and I won’t be updating my Survivor blog today. But I’ll be sure to tell them what happen when I post on Sunday. But I will make sure that I have a cheat in place so I don’t have to worry about rolling Survivor when I would normally update my Survivor blog after a new episode. It’s a different kind of cheat, in case you are wondering. It’s one that would prevent me from rolling from the list of TV shows that I have on DVD.

The Best and Worst Reward Ever- Stephenie gets the first confessional on her tribe this episode. People are exploring the camp area and she gets a confessional about it. She gets a second confessional about how it is raining all night. Ulong took an early lead in the challenge, but it is blown when Ibrehem doesn’t get a bottle in his turn. Stephenie is close to winning the challenge, but that doesn’t end up happening, although it probably didn’t matter as Tom says that Koror was still ahead. Stephenie is hoping for an early merge in her third confessional of the episode where the tribe complains about losing all the time. Ulong is disappointed by their loss at tribal council and get kind of screwed by when Koror votes to give people from their tribe immunity. My records say that Ian and Coby voted for Stephenie to have immunity. There isn’t an official record of this, so it’s unknown if my information is right. Ibrehem wins immunity, thus throwing a wrench in the plans of Ulong. This leads to a bit of scattered votes. At first Stephenie votes against Bobby Jon, but there is a tie. It’s one of the few tie votes (possibly the only one) where we know for sure that there isn’t a possibility of a tie at the revote. Stephenie votes out Angie at the revote, joining the rest of her tribe in doing so. She now has three confessionals this episode and fifteen total.

I end up rolling another five on 2-9-2016. Now I was wanting to use a different computer at home more often, but I might not be able to. Besides, I just want to use it so I can finish reading a Time Magazine before its first birthday. (This is a double issue, so it has two first birthdays.) I will work hard to catch up on that. Meanwhile, I am not as backlogged on tapes as I could be, but I don’t have to roll this show next month anyways.

Jellyfish ‘n Chips- Stephenie’s vote change from Bobby Jon to Angie was mentioned in the recap. She gets a confessional about the tribal council and twist that it brought. Stephenie helps bring her tribe to a win at the reward challenge. She gets a confessional about it. They mention various Survivor facts that are printed on the Pringles. She gets a third confessional about the reward. Preparing for the immunity challenge, she gets another confessional. When confronted about the vote from the previous tribal council, she lies to Bobby Jon about her vote. This gets her another confessional. At tribal council, she doesn’t know who to vote for at first. Originally she votes against Ibrehem and causes a tie. But she then votes against James and he gets voted out. So she has five confessionals this episode and twenty total confessionals.

When it comes to the rolling lists of mine, there are two intentions of having multiple lists. It is certain that the only reason I have the second list is because of Survivor: Palau being one of the choices. Now either it will become part of the main list and that will be the only list or I will finish watching it while it is still on the other list that it is on now. Things from this other list could and probably will disappear in the future without moving to the other list, which is the main list. Only by enough choices being backlogged did I create this other list and being backlogged could create other lists. But not being able to keep up with stuff on VHS is the main problem, although any number of things could prevent me from watching shows on DVD.

There are problems with me watching things on my lists as I’m too far behind on tapes. There are things on the list that I haven’t rolled this year. We are in March now as of this paragraph. I will need to roll an episode in at least April. But I’m getting so backlogged with other choices that if I’m not able to roll choices like now then I’m not able to finish watching stuff and replace it with other stuff. There might be more problems and if there are, I might tell you about it in my next recap which I can hopefully figure out how that will work. Meanwhile, I really need to figure out how to better handle these lists in the future. I’m not sure if I can go back to other ways of watching shows, whatever that was. I can’t even remember that well what it was.

I decided that if you want to get bragging rights, I will create a ten question quiz to anyone who claims they have read all of this blog post. If you get all ten questions right, I will post you in the hall of fame that I will especially create just for you. Remember that not all of this on the quiz will actually refer to what this post should be about and it will mostly be about the ramblings between the actually important parts of the blog post. If you are up for the task, just let me know.

Kelly Wiglesworth may not be the next recap I do after all. Maybe I should create a poll like I did with the contestants from Palau and someone can decide based on those choices who they think should be the next recap. If it is not Kelly, then the Borneo contestant it will be could be Jenna, Sue, Rudy, or Richard with Kelly still remaining a choice. I’m not sure when I’ll do that poll, but it will be before I finish this recap on Stephenie.

I am at a point now when I am backlogged on tapes and can’t watch anything from either list of shows to watch. But I have only a limited number of shows that I can watch. Once I run out of that number, if I’m still backlogged, I’ll just roll from this alternate list that I’m using. Every time I roll from it gives me another jump ahead, as I call them, to watch an episode on tape as this other list doesn’t have the tape as a rolling option. Also, I’ll have to roll a Survivor episode at least once in April as I do not have any cheats that would allow me to avoid rolling to update my TV blog (although I will update the blog at least once that month regardless of if the roll ever works out on it or not).

When it comes time for April, which is what will happen soon as I’m writing this paragraph, I might as well say that I’m going to go back to rolling for choices as soon as I’m done watching one of these tapes. I must then roll Survivor to go back to watching the tapes. Of course, I still will update my TV blog in April if I’m not able to roll an episode.

It turns out that I am able to roll an episode in April. On 4-10-2016, I get to watch the next episode. Since I have cheats to update my TV blog in May, it will be until at least June before I have to roll for a new episode. Meanwhile, I just need a break from recording shows on VHS for a while so I won’t get so backlogged on them and won’t need to get caught up as much.

The Great White Shark Hunter- Stephenie starts the episode with a confessional about the fact that her tribe keeps losing challenges. It is only now on my fourth time watching this season that I’m able to catch the foreshadowing. Both tribes build a distress signal for the reward challenge. The challenge is actually an interesting point given the huge number advantage that Koror has. They are the only tribe to sit out the same people in back to back challenges as the other tribe had less than half of their members. You can tell that the edit favors Koror and not Ulong because Ulong sucks so much. Ulong loses the reward. Stephenie gets a second confessional about why they want to win a challenge. Sadly, they won’t ever win a challenge again on Ulong. Stephenie originally helps with one part of the immunity challenge and then switches to the other. Regardless, her tribe loses again. She gets a third confessional when she was worrying about the upcoming tribal council. Stephenie seems to be considered for the vote against Ibrehem and she tries to get Bobby Jon on her side. She gets her first vote against her from Ibrehem. She votes against Ibrehem and Bobby Jon does as well eliminating him. This means that she has three confessionals this episode and twenty-three total confessionals.

One of the reasons that I’m so backlogged on tapes is that I record as much as I do on tape. Now it isn’t always me having three shows that I watch at once that get things recorded on tape instead of either watched live or recorded on my laptop. Sometimes there is too much room on my laptop for stuff so I record it on tape instead. Sometimes it’s the same situation with shows I would typically watch live. Sometimes someone is using my laptop so I record on VHS instead of using my laptop as I normally would. But there are problems with it and most of it is just me watching too much TV. Here’s hoping that I’ll like less shows in the next TV season. It’s sad that I’m hoping that when you think about it. But in a way, it is far more sad that I watch this much TV in the first place.

Things are changing in the Survivor world in terms of what is on DVD. Or, at least that’s what they are saying. It seems that there is nothing new released since South Pacific, but they are getting closer to releasing Blood versus Water on DVD. When they do, it will be added to my wish list and hopefully I can acquire it at some point. I might end up buying it for myself. The last show on DVD that I bought for myself was NCIS: Los Angeles season 1 and I told you that when I did my look back of Borneo back in 2014. When will I be able to do the look back of Blood versus Water? I don’t know when that will happen at the moment. I’ll try to report it so hopefully it won’t be during the summer or winter hiatus of Survivor, although it could be. I’ll tell you about it either as I’m able to start it or during the regular season if I get it on DVD or not. I’m just really confused by the whole preorder thing. Why are so many seasons out for preorder but not something we can buy?

Remember when I talked about using a different font so you’d know which parts of the blog post to read? Well, I’m about to introduce another font that includes shared information. Since I normally tell people about what group of shows on DVD I’m watching in my blog about Madam Secretary, I will have some linked information there. Here’s more information about this:

If you ever see this font when I do a post, then I have linked it up with my Madam Secretary blog in a way for a reason. I talk about what I watch on DVD in that blog and once Survivor: Palau is moved to that blog (if it is at all, that is), I will mention certain things in this font in both this blog and my blog about Madam Secretary.

To prove how lazy I am at these blogs of mine, read the post on the season finale of Madam Secretary (if it is posted yet, that is) and look for a paragraph on that font. I changed very little when a basically transferred the same thing into this document. While I’m on this topic, copying and pasting things are generally a bad idea as that could be plagiarism in many ways. Or not. It depends on what you are copying and why. For instance, the fact that most of this post (the important parts, at least) was already posted by myself isn’t something that could be worried about. You copying this blog and claiming it as your own is something that would cause a problem.

Finally getting into the whole summer watching shows is a good thing since that means finally getting caught up on stuff. And this means that the list will finally change. Now I was able to roll everything off of the list once the new year started except for The Big Bang Theory. It wasn’t until the last day of May in which I was finally able to watch it. Now I am done with it for the moment as the next episode in line to watch is a Halloween based episode that I will not watch until October. This creates the first time something is removed from this list without being moved to the other list. I am replacing The Big Bang Theory with the previously holiday locked NCIS season 7.

Remember how I have different blogs? Well, now there are times that I won’t want to roll Survivor since I plan on updating other blogs on those days. Of course, things could easily change relating to that. I’m posting more of my Good Wife blog and my CSI: Cyber blog now that both shows are over. I’ll do that until every episode from the show I have left to publish is up there. Sometimes I don’t roll this option when I want to, but we’ll see what happens for sure or not.

June is now the month as of this paragraph. I will not have any cheats until August to post my TV blog in except for really late in the month should I not roll it at all. But I don’t have any unused offering envelopes until August so I’ll have to roll it this month and the next month for sure. Plus, there is still a backlog of tapes that need to be caught up on. I have to roll anyways and since I don’t have enough automatic watch options of the tapes anyways, it’s good to get caught up anyways.

Well, the rolling list has changed again. It won’t affect where Survivor: Palau is on the list just yet. But the Laugh it up Fuzzball trilogy is now on the older list. Replacing it on this list is Power Rangers season 1, volume 1. (Actually, select episodes of Power Rangers: Megaforce will be on the list before being replaced by what I mentioned.) There was once a time when I had the single list of mine down to just three choices. Power Rangers was one of the three. I had a rule against watching the same show twice in one day. This meant that if I already had watched Power Rangers that day and rolled it again, I would have to keep rolling for an option until I got something other than Power Rangers. As a result, I ended up with more jump aheads to watch than episodes that I could watch at the time. Now that I have more seasons of it to watch, I can finally use the rest of those jump aheads.

At first I thought that I might never end up rolling Survivor: Palau during the month of June. I was all ready to just do my obligated monthly post of my TV blog anyways once I reached a certain point without a roll of it. Well, on 6-22-2016, I finally rolled the option after constantly rolling a five on my other list. I was not ultimately able to watch the episode or update my TV blog until the next day, but I figured that I might as well roll it to see if I would finally get it or not. Looks like the stars have finally aligned and I’ve also got enough tape jump aheads to go back to what recorded shows I still need to get caught up on. I just hope that I don’t have problems in July regarding what to roll for.

Neanderthal Man- Stephenie starts this episode with a confessional. It has always bothered me that there wasn’t a merge in this episode. I guess that producers just wanted to see a tribe of one for a change. At the reward challenge, it comes down to a tie-breaker that Ulong loses. Nobody could root for the members of Ulong. Koror had the sit-outs all rooting for the tribe. Stephenie believes that Bobby Jon is the strongest on their tribe. She gets another confessional about their tribe’s constant losses and she seems at first that Bobby Jon is taking it too well. Some members of Koror talk about wanting Stephenie to survive longer since she was originally part of the Tom, Katie, and Ian group that I will mention later.

Recap continued- Stephenie talks about how Bobby Jon is like a cave man (or Neanderthal man?) in another confessional. I’m wondering if some of what she is saying is actually from the next episode but put into this one. She is at around five confessionals so far this episode. She gets yet another before the upcoming immunity challenge. Ulong loses the immunity challenge and will thus never win again. Stephenie gets another two confessionals after the loss. She puzzles over what might happen in the future. She is also concerned over Bobby Jon being too good at the game. She gets yet another confessional about it. At tribal council, she wins the intense special immunity challenge. I do wonder why it was a fire making tie-breaker, but I guess that anything else would have been anticlimactic. Do you know how random a rock draw would have been? By winning this challenge, she causes the elimination of Bobby Jon. If my count is corright, Stephenie has nine confessionals this episode. She would then have thirty-two total confessionals.

Well, the rolling list has changed again. It will probably and hopefully do a lot of that this summer. I finished watching Wallace and Gromit and will replace that with season 1 of Dollhouse. Now I had dreamt about Dollhouse while it was still last year but knew that I wouldn’t be able to add it until this year. So I’m adding it this year with Spanish subtitles. If you ever saw something on my facebook page in Spanish, it was a quote from Dollhouse. The change in the list means that Survivor: Palau is now number 6 on the roll.

It didn’t take long for the list to change yet again. With a choice removed from the main list since I finished watching that, I am moving Invader Zim off of this list. It will be replaced by Richard Scarry videos that I have. This does not affect where Survivor: Palau is on the list.

I end up rolling Survivor: Palau again on 7-8-2016. This could possibly mess up some of my other blogs in a way, but I’m not entirely sure if it does or not. I’ll just do what changes I can and things should work out for the best.

I Will Not Give Up- If there were ever an episode about Stephenie, this is the one. We begin with her returning to camp alone and getting a confessional about it. I guess I would call this a really long confessional in a way. She gets another confessional while still alone on Ulong. She then gets the treemail about joining Koror. She calls this a merge, but it isn’t actually considered one. Stephenie gets a third confessional in the episode by talking about her new tribe Koror. Jenn talks about Stephenie and Jenn considers her a threat.

Recap continued: Coby ends up making a possibly fatal mistake by telling Stephenie all that is wrong with Koror. Some Palauans teach Koror members how to fish which Stephenie is happy about in a confessional. In another confessional, she’s concerned about being the next one to go. Coby does air Koror’s dirty laundry to Stephenie, a move that got him voted out later. Everyone talking to Stephenie confuses her and makes her wonder if she’s safe or not. Jeff tells Tom that they can vote out Stephenie and make it an easy vote. She loses the challenge for pizza, which is the last of the food temptations. (I just lost the game.) At tribal council, Jenn talks about her rivalry with Stephenie. She talks about possibly feeling bad for herself if she got voted out tonight. She only gets one vote against her from Janu. Meanwhile, she joins the rest of the tribe in voting out Coby. She has six confessionals this episode. It wasn’t as much about her as I thought. She then has thirty-eight total confessionals.

Well, the rolling list has changed once again. Flashpoint has moved up off of this list. In its place, I will be watching the second season of Charmed. The last episode I watched of it was a Valentine’s Day episode. Since that holiday has passed, I’m putting it back on this list. Now, the next thing set to move up off of this list is Survivor: Palau. If that happens, then I will not be using this alternate list anymore. But that’s if I don’t finish watching something else on this list first. I’m also reaching the point where there may be too many duplicate letters and not enough new letter choices. But, if Survivor: Palau is transferred, then I won’t have to worry about that, for a while at least.

The list has changed and it is not the transfer of Survivor: Palau just yet. That would mean the end of this list for a while. But the list change is a bit complicated. Why do I say that? Well, I’m adding two different choices to this list while temporarily nullifying a choice already on the list. The next item to be added is the first season of NCIS. I’m starting at the first season again due to a dream about an episode from before the seventh season that I was watching. Like Dollhouse, I’ll have to watch this in a foreign language whenever possible, but this won’t work for the first season just yet. So the first change to the list is the first season of NCIS instead of the seventh. I will switch back to the seventh later.

Now, you don’t even know which of the choices from this newer list has been removed just yet. That show that I finished watching was the Richard Scarry videos that I have. The new letter choice that will be added to this list is VeggieTales on DVD. This puts Survivor: Palau as number 6 on the list.

Remember how this is linked up my TV blog in a way? Well, if you read any of my other blogs, you’ll know that they have changed starting during the summer. The cancellations of both The Good Wife and CSI: Cyber have made me change the way that I did those blogs. I already did them in a strange way in the first place as I wouldn’t post about the new episode immediately after each new episode happened. I thus started in May posting the rest of the episodes of those shows each week. The roll of this show is how I started posting The Good Wife episodes on Fridays and CSI: Cyber episodes on Saturdays.

The next month, the roll messed up this schedule and moved The Good Wife to Saturdays and CSI: Cyber to Sundays. This, in a way, left Friday unfilled in posts. Then, a roll happened that would put the TV blog on a Friday. I decided to start doing weekly Friday posts of my TV blog from that point forward, although I might put it on other days in the future. This push back put The Good Wife on Sundays and CSI: Cyber on Mondays. It was then that I stopped posting CSI: Cyber. This means that, at the moment at least, Saturdays and Mondays are unfilled days that can be locked in for weekly posts on my TV blog should I ever roll this choice on that day. This also means that I won’t have to roll Survivor every month with possible exceptions for as long as everything works out with the current weekday.

I have yet another update about the rolling list and it affects this blog. You see, I am moving Survivor: Palau off of my other list and it becomes part of the main list. This means that, at the moment at least, there is no need for a second list and I’m going to go back to a more manageable list of six choices instead of two lists of six choices. So the choices currently on this list will slowly be moved to the other lists as stuff on that list slowly disappears. That means that once any show is removed off of the main list, I’ll then add, in this order, NCIS season 7, Power Rangers season 1, volume 1, Dollhouse season 1 with Spanish subtitles, Charmed season 2, NCIS season 1, and VeggieTales on DVD. And there are more choices after those.

Now that these blogs are linked up in a way at time, you will be seeing more posts like this in the courier new font. Every time I roll the Survivor: Palau choice, you will see a note about it in two of my blogs. These notes will explain when I’m able to watch these episodes of Survivor: Palau.

On 7-30-2016, I rolled the number 5 and will watch the next Survivor: Palau episode. This will put the updates of my TV blog on Saturdays and get rid of the Friday updates as it is the end of the month. I will wait for the next roll after this.

Exile Island- We begin with a recap of Stephenie’s time alone on Ulong. For the reward challenge, Stephenie is put with a group of Ian, Katie, and Jenn. Her team or tribe loses the challenge. She gets a confessional before the immunity challenge. There is talk about voting out Stephenie. She gets a second confessional about thinking that she’ll be the one who is voted out. She only has two new confessionals this episode. Stephenie gets upset at the tribal council due to Janu wanting to quit the game. In the end, Janu decides to quit the game so there’s no vote. This puts Stephenie at forty total confessionals.

You know, soon it will be the one year anniversary of when I started watching this show on DVD. You’ve probably heard of the phrase: moving at a snail’s pace. Well, I’m moving so slowly at this, a snail could easily beat me. I’m hoping that I can at least finish this before the next winter hiatus of Survivor. Meanwhile, people are probably wondering what happened to this potential recap of mine. I am working on it, but I don’t do it as quickly as someone else. I still won’t know at first whether I’ll be doing a recap on a Borneo contestant next or if Blood versus Water will come out on DVD so I can watch that twice more with blog posts for a regular look back and another recapping Caleb Bankston’s time on the show. And I still don’t know yet if I’ll be wanting any other past season of Survivor right now.

On 8-4-2016, I rolled the number five again which means that I will watch the next episode. This day was a Thursday so this doesn’t mean any new weekly updates for my TV blog. I could finish watching this season sooner than expected, especially now that I only have one list of shows to roll from.

I’ll Show You How Threatening I am: Stephenie starts the episode with a confessional. She gets another confessional wondering what happened to her alliance on this tribe. There’s even a third confessional about it. There’s yet another confessional about what might happen next and how Stephenie wants to show others that she’s a threat. At the Survivor auction, Stephenie joins Caryn to buy an item. They originally get cheese and crackers, but trade it for hamburgers and fries. After Tom sets the price for the letters from home, Stephenie is allowed to buy hers at the same price he bought his at. Stephenie gets a confessional about the letters from home that she got. Stephenie talks about a possible all women’s alliance after she loses the immunity challenge. She’s at seven confessionals before tribal council happens. She votes against Caryn in the episode, but the rest of the tribe votes against her and she’s eliminated. This gives her forty-seven confessionals.

With Stephenie’s elimination, there really isn’t much to blog about until the jury speaks so the next two episodes are kind of irrelevant in a way. Then the finale won’t matter for a long while until Stephenie addresses the jury. Then there’s the reunion show, which I know will matter when it comes to airtime that Stephenie will get.

On 8-17-2016, I rolled the number 5 again. That day was a Wednesday so this means that I will be updating my TV blog instead of my Survivor blog on that day. I am almost done with watching the show on DVD.

We’ll Make You Pay: Stephenie’s last stand is covered in the recap. That’s pretty much all the airtime she’ll probably get this episode. I am right about that. I’m not sure how I should be doing the recap part right now, but we’ll see.

I know that the alternate TV show watching list that I roll from is gone now, but since I’m still transferring stuff to the main list, I might as well tell you what gets transferred to the main list from the old alternate list. NCIS season 7 is now on the main list. If I still had this other list, this would be an ideal moment as this would mean that only the earlier NCIS season would still be on the alternate list and I wouldn’t have to worry about any major changes in the list.

The list has changed again and I’m moving Power Rangers season 1 volume 1 to the main list. I’m not sure what other major changes there will be to the list in the near future, although there could be something that would be changed soon.

On 8-24-2016, I rolled the number 5 again. This means that I get to watch the penultimate episode of Survivor: Palau. Just one more change and then I will finish watching it.

It Could All Backfire: It appears that there is no importance of Stephenie to the story of this episode, which seems appropriate as she is on the jury right now. I’m surprised that there wasn’t a mention of how the previous episode started with only contestants from the original Koror tribe.

On 8-30-2016, I rolled the number 5 and watched the last episode of Survivor: Palau. This will mean replacing it on the list. It could be a while before Survivor: Borneo is added to the list, but you’ll see more about that later.

The Ultimate Shock: Stephenie is mentioned a lot in the really long recap leading into the finale. On the rites of passage, Stephenie talks about how much stronger she is now because of Survivor. Her jury speech is first addressing Tom about how he might have done something to save her in the game. She also asks Katie what she might have done better than Tom. Katie thought that whoever came from Ulong would be voted out, but Tom retorts that he thought that Stephenie was an ace in the hole. Ultimately, Stephenie gives her vote to win to Tom.

Reunion show: Stephenie gets a segment of the reunion show to herself. Jeff Probst wonders how it felt to be on a tribe on her own. She is considered one of the most popular women to play the game. She only gets a small amount of airtime as they were much better at doing the reunion show back then.

Notes about Stephenie: Special features reveal that she auditioned the moment that she got out of college. She was in an early alliance with Katie, Tom, and Ian, but they all wound up on a different tribe than she was. When she realizes that these people want her out, she tries and fails to create an all women’s alliance. This is when she gets voted out.

Well, there’s still more useless things for me to talk about in this extended blog post of mine. Since Survivor: Palau is now gone from the main list, I am replacing that with Dollhouse. That means that I will now have only three choices from the alternate list to be transferred, in this order: Charmed season 2, NCIS season 1, and VeggieTales on DVD. Of course, there are other options to add past them. I probably will share the n option with the seventh season of NCIS by alternating between the two of them for as long as necessary. We’ll also see if I ever create a list like that again.


Congratulations! You have wasted a lot of time by reading this whole blog post. But, consider yourself a dedicated reader of this blog. Send me a private message on facebook if you have read all of this post so I can quiz you about it. There are 13 pages of this post. Also, if you have a blog about Survivor, let me know. I will return in the future with a recap of Sue Hawk from Borneo. That’s who won the poll I had posted as I decided not to automatically go with Kelly Wiglesworth after all. Maybe next time. I’ll be back soon with more blog posts. I mean, a new season is about to start. It will be nice to get back to blogging about episodes again.