Updates: Survivor, Hawks, Bears ………

Dude, I’m tellin’ ya………….

Let’s see here…where to begin? I’ve been unexpectedly out of town for the weekend and a lot happened since I left on Friday after the Blackhawks game. But we’ll start with Survivor from this past Thursday night.

The guy I was initially defending during the prior week’s show and shortly afterward, bearded Ben, ended up getting ousted this week for just generally being a dick. I had been questioning his ejection from a challenge in episode 2, but he survived that week’s vote when Russell bullied the woman cop off of the show. As a viewer, I figured the ejection issue was over with and the tribe would all find a new reason to dislike someone else. But Ben just couldn’t help being a real stroke around camp and to literally everyone he dealt with. I even grew to turn on him and dislike him about 20 minutes into this episode. You simply can’t be condescending to everyone else you live with and throw racial inneuendo around and expect to stick around long. You have to show some sign of humanity and humility and friendship to someone.

I did wish I could insert one extra line into the show though before Ben was voted off. After the rough-housing and ejection of a contestant on the prior week’s episode, the next challenge they have these people do is to run out into the water to retrieve boxes of puzzle pieces. They invite the opposing team to try and physically stop the person from getting to the boxes. They showed a quick shot of Ben as the challenge was being described. In real life, he was simply listening and didn’t say anything. I was just hoping he would raise his hand and say,

“Ummmm, Jeff ?????? Can you please confirm for me if we are playing by your cissy-ass, pansy rules or are we allowed to actually try and stop the other player? How long can I hold a person’s head under water? Am I allowed to strike a person with the old NFL “head slap” or is this just the usual tickling and fondling thing you guys want us to do?”

 But…….nobody said anything and I just chuckled to myself for finding yet another way to bring Probst down a notch. Even if it was just in my silly, little head.

I also have to give a little credit this week to Shambo. She may have over-reacted a little bit to her own tribe doing yoga. She distanced herself and in doing so, brought un-do attention to herself. She works hard around camp so that is probably the initial impression people had of her in her tribe. She has now replaced that with a distinct impression of not being “part of the group”. I don’t know why people get their panties out of whack……or in her case, her BVDs…..when people do yoga or martial arts exercises, etc. People have done that on the show before and explained how it helps them to unwind or keep their spirit up. But whenever someone does it on a new season, another person always has to shake their head and object to it. Open up your mind, Shambo. And cut that mullet.

But on the positive side, she went over to the other tribe’s side and really endeared herself to them. Inevitably, there will be a trading of teammates between the tribes. There always is. And if she is the one to be traded, she has a chance to turn a few of her new friends and survive for a little while. If she is NOT the one traded, she will at least have 1 or 2 new allies that come over from the other tribe to her own. Either way, she’ll have more friends than she currently has in her own, original tribe. She is irritating them with her distance and disapproval.

In the end, Ben was voted off after a lengthy and entertaining tribal debate. The one tribe is getting so decimated, they’re going to have to do something soon to transfer a player. I’ve never really liked that direction……if one tribe can systematically wipe out another one, then let them complete the job. Several seasons ago, the one tribe did get down to just the one adorable girl. She was tough as nails and spent a few nights entirely on her own ( I forget her name). But the producers/scripters don’t seem to want that to happen anymore. They always find a way to make the sides more even again. What’s the point of dominating another tribe if you will be replacing their members with your own?

We’ll see what happens next week with Russell. He’s getting by fairly easy despite his transparent manipulations thanks to more prominent goofballs like Ben. But I have a feeling his time is running out real soon. He’s the type who’ll be blindsided without ever even using the idol he has.

It turned out that after investing 3 solid hours of my life with the Blackhawks season opener on Friday morning, they let the game slip away and lost on a shootout. They still got one point for the standings out of it, but I’m sure they were as disappointed in letting it slip away as I was. However, they rebounded very nicely in the rematch on Saturday morning and shut out Florida out 4-0. They took 3 of a possible 4 standings points on the overseas trip.

The hometown boy, our back-up Finnish goalie, got the shutout. We dominated most of the game and things look pretty good. My buddies and I agreed that the Patrick Sharps and the Patrick Kanes, etc. had to personally get off to decent starts this year until Marian Hossa gets back healthy. We don’t want to struggle and be a .500 club until late November or so when he returns. Sharp and Kane both scored over the weekend and are indeed off to nice starts. So that bodes well for the first 6-8 weeks without Hossa.

And then the Bears continued to make me look like an asshole by whipping up on the Detroit Lions on Sunday. Believe me, after predicting an 8-8 season out of this team, I do hope they make me look like an asshole all season long. I feared they might start off 0-2 having to play the Packers in Green Bay and then the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers. But they are now 3-1 after the first four games. Usually ten wins is enough to get into the playoffs in the NFC. So even if we go 7-5 the rest of the way, that could get us in to the party.

It helps when you are playing the Lions. They were matching score for score in the first half, but you could see what a crap-ass team they are in every series. At one point, their center took a false start penalty on one of their drives. This is the man that is holding the ball and snaps it to start the play ! For those that aren’t too familiar with the deeper points of the game, the center might only get a false start penalty once or twice per season. He is in control. But if he wiggles the ball, he gets a penalty. You learn NOT to wiggle the ball in pee-wee league.

Then there was the kickoff return for the touchdown they surrendered to us.

 Then there was the penalty on our field goal attempt that allowed us to skip the field goal and go right ahead and punch it in for the touchdown.

Luckily we get to play these guys once more this year. So that should be one of the 7 more wins we need to make the playoffs.

Now if somehow we could just get the NFL to schedule in a couple of games against the Cubs and WhiteSox………….since they can’t sniff the playoffs, maybe they could help out a fellow Chicago team ??