I’ve always loved Halloween. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that I grew up in the costume business. My dad’s mother owned the largest costume shop in the Southwest, outside of Hollywood. Some of my earliest memories are wandering through her shop looking at masks, and when she built a warehouse, I spent hours crawling through the racks, playing with swords and just marvelling in the wonders of costuming.

When I was 8, my mom opened her own costume shop here in Missouri and by the time I was 11, I was the only kid I knew with a make-up kit…stage make-up thank you. How many kids can tell you that they can make realistic bullet holes, chop off fingers and they mix their own blood capsules because “the commercially released ones suck”. Yep, you could say Halloween is in my…blood. Yeah, it was cheesy, so sue me.

Mom finally closed her costume shop several years ago, but there are still reminders of our past all over our house. Most horror movies do nothing for me because I am too busy looking at the make-up effects, visual gags and going “Oh come on, you could have at least blended the pancake at the collar!” No..I am not fun to watch movies with most of the time.

All that being said, I thought I would give you a list of some of my fave scary movies and TV shows.

Movies
Halloween – You can not make a list of scary movies without listing this one. It rejuvinated the lackluster horror genre of the 1970′s and really put Jamie Lee Curtis on the map. If it hadn’t been for John Carpenter’s vision of Michael Meyers, you probably wouldn’t have Jason, Freddy, Scream or any of the other horror films that followed.

Funny side story. The mask of Michael is a Capt. Kirk, of Star Trek, mask painted white. It was the only mask Carpenter’s prop man could find in a hurry. Years later, when Don Post Jr. wanted to make a Michael mask, he already had the mold, so was way easy to do. One problem, he had to pay to license it yet again since it was now considered another character. Too funny.

Hellraiser – A little bit heavy on the gore, too many horror movies think gore = good, but it overcomes it with an intriguing plot and creepy concepts.

The Nightmare Before Christmas – One of the things I love about this movie is that it will probably make my Christmas list also! Great music, amazing visuals and a cute story adds up a fun, yet dark, film.

Psycho – Alfred Hitchcock was a master of subtle horror. He could scare you more with what you didn’t see, than with what you saw. Has there ever been a scarier scene than the shower with Janet Leigh? And the casting of Anthony Perkins as Norman? Inspired! This is one of the few times I have liked a movie better than the book!

Sleepy Hollow – Tim Burton rocks. Johnny Depp rocks. Christina Ricci rocks. This movie was destined to be cool. Sure, some of the legend of the Headless Horseman was changed, but it still was a great, fun ride.

TV Shows
Kolchak – The Night Stalker – Sure the production values look horrible now, but this show had some top notch writing, great concepts and the stellar performing skills of Darin McGavin. If it wasn’t for this show, the X-Files and the new Night Stalker would have never come about. Well…yay for X-Files at least.

Tales from the Crypt – Based on the old EC Comics series of the same name, this show ran on HBO for several seasons and had some amazing guest actors and directors. The Crypt Keeper’s intros and exits were always amusing to.

And for free tonight on the Sci Fi Channel, you can catch the Ghsot Hunters Halloween Special! I love this show. You can also get season 1 of it on DVD now, but if nothing else, check out tonights episode at 10 EST/9 CST.

Happy Hauntings everyone!

May I just say Sir Alex Ferguson needs to get his head out of his behind and fix whatever it is that’s wrong with Manchester United this season! They lost 4-to-1 against Middlesbrough on Saturday. MIDDLESBROUGH!!! They are in eleventh, Man United was in second, but due to the loss they have now slipped to sixth. Meanwhile Chelsea is in first place with 31 points, a full 13 ahead of Man United.

I may have to go cry in a corner now.

(for those of you who have no clue what I am talking about, this is all about Premiere League soccer)

You know, I love music, and I am always for helping out in promoting exciting new bands. So, have you heard about Prussian Blue? You haven’t? Well, they are twin girls from California and are just as cute as can be! Their names are Lynx and Lamb, and I think they are going to be tearing up the charts soon with their unique music. Why, they even already are doing some modelling!

Oh…did I forget to mention they are white supremacists? Silly me! Yep, you read that right folks, these new Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen wanna-bes are singing all about their pure aryan heritage and spreading their own special breed of hate for all non-aryans.

Why do I even bring this up? Well, for some odd reason, the mainstream media picked up a story on them this week. It even got as far as being mentioned in this weeks episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. Why the media picked up on this, I have no idea, but is fine by me that people know this sort of thing is going on.

Yes, the USA does have the freedom of speech, and they have every right to say what ever disgusting, vile thing they want to. What disgusts me is that they are being used in such a way, and I do mean “used”. It disgusts me even more they have a fan base. The idea of using children to promote such a venomous message is, I hate to use the word again, disgusting. These are children. If they want a musical career, fine, let them sing about what kids care about, but to use them as what boils down to poster children for such a polarizing subject just turns my stomach.

What prompted me to write this entry though was a story on their official web site about how their apperance at the Kern County Fair in Bakersfield had been cancelled due to “security concerns” (all quotes come from the information posted on the Prussian Blue website). It seems that Lynx and Lamb had some of their friends hand out flyers about their upcoming apperance at school. A female student who “disagreed with their politics” informed their mother, and the mother was the one to express concerns to “the public censors at The Californian“. The Californian then went on to inform the fair officials and that is how the show got cancelled. Now, the account on the web site also says how sad their friends were that the show had been cancelled because so many of them had planned on attending.

Wow…I’m speechless. Is there a growing youth movement of hatred I am unaware of? The biggest thing going when I was in school was who was going to buy the booze that weekend. I can’t remember even once going “Hey gang, let’s hop in our cars and drive down to the local fair to hear our friends sing songs about white supremacy! YAY!” You can check out their…lyrics…here. For the record, I did listen to a 44 second clip of a song from their second album that they are working on. Um…not to be mean, but…I think someone stepped on a cat’s tail and called it singing. They can’t hold a tune, can’t harmonize and they are so heavily filtered by the mixing that it is just a mess.

I guess to sum it up, I feel bad for these girls. All parents influence their kids, I know mine did, and I am sure they would have gotten at least some of this thinking in their heads anyway. Using them as poster children for such a movement though…I just hope they can get over it someday.

(I also find it interesting to note the family mentions several times the girls are home-schooled, yet, somehow, they won awards from “their school” last year.)

As The Apprentice 4 opened this week, Felisha and Alla were hoping that Kristi would be the one to return to the suite, but instead, Jennifer was the one to walk through the door. Awwww poor Blonde Squad didn’t get what they wanted. Oh well, that’s life girls.

Both teams were told to choose their project managers and meet in the board room the next morning. Alla was PM for Capital Edge and Josh for Excel. Once in the room, they discovered Trump and George were both away on business, so only Carolyn and Bill, winner of Apprentice 1, were waiting for them. In Trump’s abscence, Carolyn took over the boss’s seat and asked Alla to choose her three weakest members and move them to Excel. She chose Jennifer, Rebecca, and Marshawn. In turn, Josh was asked to name three and he picked Clay, Adam, and Markus to go to Capital Edge. So to recap, the team line-ups are now Marshawn, Rebecca, James, Jennifer, Brian, Mark, and Josh on Excel and the new Capital Edge is Alla, Clay, Felisha, Adam, Markus, and Randal.

They were then given their task which was to set up an “interactive sales event”, based on a sport of their choice, at a Dick’s Sporting Goods store. The team that generated the biggest increase in sales, based on percentages, would be the winner. Capital Edge listened to Markus (insert me fainting here) and went with golf, while Excel chose baseball.

As Capital Edge tried to set up their event, Alla and Clay were at odds over how to set up the display but finally went with a fairway theme. They chose to focus on three main golf categories:apparel, golf clubs and golfing tips and family & fun. However, the next day, Clay continued whining about everything and took Alla aside, and while holding her hands, told her how displeased he was at how his ideas were being torn apart. Don’t worry, I didn’t understand his whining either. When Carolyn stopped by to check it out, she asked Markus who on the team knew golf as they appeared to be unknowledgable in the industry, which she would know working on it for Trump. Markus admitted none of them played golf. A personal comment here, my dad worked in the golf industry for over 20 years, the majority of which he spent as a salesman, he has never played a round of golf and was one of his companies top salesman. While I see Carolyn’s point, golf is somewhat of a business that can take care of itself.

Excel seemed all gung-ho on doing a baseball diamond with a sales station at each base with a batting cage for people to try out equipment. When they arrived the next morning, they discovered the batting cage was bigger than expected and made seeing the products more difficult, as Marshawn pointed out, but they kept it anyway feeling it would all be fine. During the actual event, Mark ran the pitching machine while James gave pointers to the people playing in the cage. While the line was long for the cage, Brian expressed concernes it was distracting from sales.

At the end of the day, the teams went back to the board room and Carolyn called Trump to inform him of the results. Capital Edge increased sales in the golf department by an impressive 74% over the average. Excel…well…Excel DECREASED sales by 34% in the baseball department. It was fairly obvious it could almost all be blamed on the cage. As a reward to Capital Edge, they were flown by a private jet up to Montauk in East Hampton where they enjoyed deep sea fishing and a dinner on the beach with a private chef.

As Excel prepped for the board room, Mark and Josh discussed who should go. Mark wanted James to go as he had always planned to float and not do much, Josh was for Jennifer going as she had promised she could sell the high end items with no problem, but had instead spent most of her time working an outside vendor to sell hot dogs. They promised they would help defend each other though.

In the board room, Trump returned and immediately expressed his anger over such a huge defeat. Rebecca said the batting cage was to blame, which James took credit for suggesting. Jennifer said it was all Josh’s fault as a bad project manager, but he immediately jumped on her lack of sales on the high end items like she said she could deliver. Trump finally cut everyone off and told Josh that due to the size of the loss, he was not going to have the usual project manager luxury of choosing he would come back in the room. Trump said Brian (because of his exemption from last week), Rebecca and Marshawn (the two of them because everyone thought they both had done well) may return to the suite while Josh, Jennifer, Mark and James would all come back in.

Trump discussed it with Bill and Carolyn before bringing them back in and Carolyn summed it up best “I can’t pick one of them!” When the four returned, Jennifer tried defending herself, but it was pointless. Trump said to Jennifer the she let him down. Funniest moment of the episode had to be Jennifer saying to Trump “You shouldn’t fire me Mr. Trump. You would be making a big mistake.” The look on Trump’s face was priceless.

Trump then spoke to Josh saying he was a lousy leader, that James’ batting cage was a horrible idea and to Mark he reminded him that he failed to sell a single item. After a few more seconds he said “You’re all fired. All four are fired.” The look on Josh’s face was total disbelief. As they sat their amazed, Trump finally had to say “Go home…go home.” to get them out of the room. The cab ride with four people all sitting in total silence was another amazing moment.

A few comments on this one. First of all, I just have to say how much I love Carolyn and I want to see more and more of her. Her part has been stepped up, but honestly, I want to see her even more she is so interesting. The other thing is just how good this episode was. It was a brave move to fire four people since it means shortening the show by three episodes, but it makes the show that much more real.

Survivor Gautemala opened this week with the Nakum tribe returning from their heated tribal council where Judd and Margaret had gone after each other with such vigor. Judd expressed happiness at her ouster, mentioning how she has just pushed all of his buttons. Sorry Judd, but I think you pushed some of your own buttons in that fight.

The Yaxha tribe was tribe was having some trouble as some of them got some pretty nasty injuries from last weeks immunity challange with the giant ball. Bobby Jon had a really nasty injusry on his upper right shoulder that when he tried to take his shirt off, it actually had blended in with the wound. As he took the shirt off, he was pulling away the early stages of his scab. Looked painful. We also learned that Brandon’s shoulers also carried similar injuries.

The teams went to the reward challange which was…well…to be blunt, it was odd. There were four poles set up. A team mate would talk up to a pole, hook on to the fabric, and then spin, wrapping themselves up. That person would then move to pole #2, hook on again, and be joined by a second person and they would wrap up together and so on until pole #4. Once all four were wrapped, you could then unwrap yourselves. First tribe to get everyone on to their mat would win reward. Long story short, Yaxha won. Reward was a zip-line ride through the trees, ending at a chocolate buffet. Reasoning behind this being that the Mayans discovered chocolate.

On Yaxha’s way back from their reward, they decided to stop and ask Nakum if they would like to come back to the pool they had won previously to celebrate Danni’s birthday and share in some of the sweets from the reward. Nakum aggreed and went over. We got treated to a very sullen and pissed-off Jamie who felt it was wrong for them to associate with the other tribe like this. He finally put a kaboosh on the going ons by reminding everyone they needed to get their camps ready for the night. The anger on Stephanie’s face was fairly obvious.

The immunity challange was a giant team puzzle that members collected that pieces and then assembled. The puzzles had the name of their tribe on it and looked like the ancient Mayan calanders. Nakum took an early lead and held it to bring home a victory, sending Yaxha to tribal council.

Amy and Gary were feeling outnumbered, but were unsure of what to do to swing votes over to oust Bobby Jon. There was a fleeting hope when Amy and Danni talked, but it didn’t last long and Amy was sent home.

As the tribe prepared to leave the tribal council area, Probst stopped them and informed them they would not be going back to the Yaxha camp as they were being merged with Nakum. He handed them their new buffs and told them all of their items would be moved over. This is the first time the merge has happened in this fashion and you could see the tribe was shook by this turn of events. That’s what Survivor is all about folks.

This weeks The Apprentice:Martha Stewart started off with Primarius wondering if it would be Jim or Jennifer would be returning from the conference room, obviouslly they were hoping it would be Jennifer. Oops! Sorry Charlie! The team took Jim aside and asked him if he could put everything behind him and he said he was willing to do so and work as hard as possible to win the next task.

As the teams relaxed, the doorbell began ringing. Howie finally answered the door to find Martha standing there wanting to stop by to say hello and check out the loft. Everyone was giddy by her visit until she asked to see their bedrooms. This caused Howie to book it to his bed to make it. What made this even funnier was that Howie’s wife had warned him this might happen and that he should keep his bed made. That will teach him to listen to his wife!

While Martha toured the loft she found Jim and talked with him for a few minutes. She informed him that she would like to see him as a project manager for the coming task. He said he would be up to the challange. Oh joy.

The next morning everyone was transported out to Martha’s Connecticut studios to learn what the next task would be. Eash team was being assigned four celebrity dog owners that they were to negotiate an experiance with. The events they negotiated would be auctioned off at the Beneful Celebrity Dog Auction which benefits Broadway Barks, a charity that helps homeless dogs and providing funds for New York animal shelters. The winning team would be the one to raise the most money. Primarius was assigned Paul & Amanda Sorvino, Susan Lucci, John Lithgow & Joanna Gleason and Todd Oldham. Matchstick were given Chad Pennington, Fran Drescher, Bruce Villanch & Jordan Ballard and Merv Griffin.

I won’t bore you with each indvidual negotiation, but they were interesting. Matchstick’s had two major problems. Their project manager, Marcela, was basically a lump in all the meetings, allowing her team mates to control everything. David was also a big zero in his meetings, and evern served as a distraction in the meeting with Merv Griffin when Mr. Griffin expressed displeasure at the fact David was typing on his laptop during the meeting, even though it was for taking notes. I would chalk that up to David’s age, but the idea of clicking keys in such an intimate setting would also drive me batty.

Over at Primarius, Jim was his usual, annoying, egotistical self. Proving this mostly at dinner by drinking far more than he should and not discussing the task, wasting valuable time. Otherwise his team did a wonderful job in spite of him.

As the auction went on, the race seemed strongly in Matchsticks favor, and Jim even started to talk of feeling like he would be the one to go. Sadly, the results ended up being Matchstick $40,350 to the $44,100 total of Primarius. Darn it! Jim won as project manager! At least it was all for a good cause.

Matchstick prepped to go the conference room and it was clearly going to be a battle between David and Marcela as to who was going to be the one to go. David felt it was ok for him to sit back, but Charles, Martha’s CEO, pointed out that maybe he could have contributed an idea that would have given em the winning amount they needed. The team leaned towards Marcela being the one to go while Marcela felt David should be the one to go. Martha finally sent everyone back to loft except for David and Marcela.

As she brought them back in to the room, she asked each why they should be the one to stay. David brought up that he wanted to rework Martha’s internet strategy and Marcela said she wanted this job more than anything and felt she would be a better fit. In the end, David was sent home, but there was some discussion after he left of putting him in contact with Martha’s internet division about his ideas he had stated so nicely. He might have a future yet.

Next week…DOUBLE FIRING!

It was time to leave New Orleans very first thing on this week’s Amazing Race:Family Edition. The first clue told everyone they needed to fly 2,000 miles to Panama City in…PANAMA! The road side attractions of the USA are over, for now, and we are back where Amazing Race belongs, on international soil! YES! Once in Panama City they were to travel 31 miles to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, take a boat across the Panama Canal to the island home of the Institute and find a scientist named Ricardo Diaz who would give them their next clue.

The teams first were instructed to take one of two flights, a Continental or an American Airlines flight. The Bransen family called ahead and learned the Continental flight would arrive at 6:40 PM and the American would land at 9:10 PM. It was an obvious choice which plane everyone would prefer to be on. Once at the airport, the teams learned they couldn’t buy tickets until the morning, but they all waited at the Continental desk, not knowing how many seats there were. The Bransens, Linzs and Paolos all got seats. This left the Godlewski, Gaghan and Weaver families to take the later American flight.

Once they all arrived at the boat dock, they were all hit with an equalizer as the boats wouldn’t be leaving until 7 AM the next morning. The families all took seperate boats with the Paolos leading the way, the Linzs ended up with a slow boat that slipped them from second to fifth place, and the Gaghans got a scare when their boat driver wanted to stop for more passangers, but the parents talked him out of it.

Once at the Institute, the families all searched for the hammock-swinging Ricardo Diaz. This clue led to the Detour for this leg of the race and as always, here is the official sites explanation:

“In this Detour, Teams had to choose between Rhythm and Coos. In Rhythm, Teams had to travel by red devil bus to the Casco Viejo neighborhood and visit several locations to collect four musical instruments: a trumpet, a trombone, a saxophone and a congo drum. After Teams had all four instruments, they had to deliver them on foot to a club called Take Five Jazz and Wine where the bandleader would hand them their next clue. In Coos, Teams needed to travel by red devil bus to El Parque Metropolitano and use binoculars to search the rainforest canopy for wooden replicas of five local birds, then circle their discoveries on an aviary chart to present to the bird expert. If they circled the wrong birds, they had to repeat the task until they got it right.”

Before the teams could decide anything, they also learned their clue contained the only Fast Forward for the entire race. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it is a special task that, if completed, allows the team to race ahead to the pit stop and skip all tasks. The task was to make their way to the Pacific side of the Panama Canal and find the crane at Pier 14. Once there, teams would split into pairs and make a 140 foot tandem bungee jump. Two teams went for it, the Paolos and the Gaghans. Sadly, the Paolos got there first, and after some initial fear, completed the task, meaning the Gaghans had to go one of the Detour tasks. The Paolos went straight to the Mira Flores Locks, the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal, which was the pit stop for this leg, allowing them to come in first.

The Bransens and Weavers decided to spot birds, while the Godlewski and Linz families teamed up over their dislike of the Weavers to help each other deliver instruments. I was a little disgusted with just how much work the Linz boys did compared to the Godlewski sisters, but to each their own. Once the Gaghans were back in the area, they also went for the instruments.

Receivng the next clue, the teams were instructed to find a baseball stadium, Estadio Juan Demostenes Arosemena, for their next clue. Once there, they were instructed in the Roadblock for this leg. One member of each team would take a turn at bat trying to get a base run or a home run off of a champion little league pitcher. Each batter would get three tries and then have to wait in line to try again.

This led to one of the most intesting moments of the night. While Rolly Weaver was at bat, Alex Linz was taunting him to miss. Linda Weaver took exception to this and told him to be quiet and that they were cheering everyone on. Now mind you, earlier in the episode, Linda had told the Linz’s bus driver to slow down, not that he listened, so she is just as guilty as wishing ill on another team as anyone. I am so looking forward to the Weavers coming in last at some point.

As the teams worked their way through the batting, the battle for last place got down to the Gaghans and the Godlewskis. The Gaghans got out of there with only one pitch, leaving the sister team in last place. As they both raced to the pit stop, the Godlewskis decided to put on as many clothes as possible in case this was a non-elimination round. I will admit, they looked funny, but it was rather smart. Non-elimination round rules say you lose all your money and all your possesions except the clothes on your back…well…if you are wearing nearly all your clothes, what can they do? Sure, they looked silly, but it paid off as they came in last and it did turn out to be a non-elimination leg. I applaud them for thinking ahead. It also gave us the great line from the host, Phil Keoghan: “Did you know it was illegal in Panama to wear underpants on top of underpants on top of your pants?”

I love Phil.

I love DVD’s with alternate endings. It gives you a great insight into the thought process of the film makers. It lets you speculate what could have been and they are always interesting.

So, imagine my surprise while I was just watching Gilmore Girls (don’t laugh), and there was a Titanic – Special Collector\’s Edition DVD coming out. What caught my attention was “…with an alternate ending”. Um…excuse me? Is this the ending where the Titanic defeats the evil iceberg and discover it was a secret plot by a foreign power? How do you have an “alternate ending” for a story about…THE TITANIC? It is clear that James Cameron is insane. It also has 25 delted scenes, as if the movie wasn’t long enough already.

Everyone do me a favor, remember this will never be on my Amazon wishlist! If someone bought this for me…well…let’s just say you would need a doctor to remove it.

If you do not know who Rosa Parks is, you really need to read up on this woman. On December 1st, 1955, while sitting in the “colored” section of a Montgomery, AL bus, she was ordered by the bus driver to give up her seat to a white man as the white’s only section was full. Ms. Parks refused and was arrested for “disorderly conduct”. Many people credit this moment as the beginning of the civil rights movement in the USA.

You never really hear the news mention them any more, but the Mars Rovers are still going strong. Both rovers were slated to have a 90 day life span while they explored the surface of Mars. Spirit, the first rover to land, has now been going for over 640 days. Oppurtunity, the second to make planet fall, has been going for over 620 days. Do you think we have gotten our monies worth out of these yet?

Considering the bad track record of NASA on other missions, the success of these rovers is astounding. You have to wonder if anyone who works on these missions would think these little fellas would still be going after this long. My question is, why are we pondering sending manned missions back to the Moon in 2018, when these little guys are doing such a good job? Couldn’t we just send more of these rovers out? I realize the gravity of the Moon is less than Mars, but the rovers were built to have different wheel systems, so certainly we could adapt them to a lower gravity situation.

The Apprentice 4 opened with the men awaiting the return of the the women’s team. The looks on their faces was priceless as the entire team came back at once, minus Toral. The women didn’t seem that interested in discussing what happened except amongst themselves to decide that “what happens in the board room, stays in the board room”. Thank you Las Vegas for giving us that now overused gem of a slogan.

The next morning the teams met Trump in the Grand Army Plaza. We also learned that Apprentice 1 winner Bill Rancic would be replacing George for this episode. Bill…buddy…what exactly is it you are doing for Trump anyway? Yes, I know they said you were “building” a new building for him, but you seem to spend more time on TV than anything. As the women can’t seem to catch a break, Trump wanted them to choose someone from the men’s team to come over and help them. Without hesitation they asked for Randal. That soft sobbing you hear in the background? That’s Randal crying his eyes out at the prospect of being stuck with these morons. Sorry folks, but that is about the only word befitting of this paticular group of women.

This weeks task was to design a parade float for the new Sony Pictures production Zathura, directed by Jon Favrau. Jon,buddy, go back to making Dinner For Five, have some respect for the great films you did like Swingers. Lord. Both teams went to meet with the director and Geoffrey Ammer from Sony. The men were first up, and project manager Brian immediately mis-prounced the name of the movie, which prompted an immediate twitch from Favrau. The men learned from this and moved on. The women had the same meeting, but no sign of project manager Jennifer M. messing up the name. (Funny side note, NBC.com’s recap spelled Favrau’s first name “John”…oh irony, how I love thee.)

The men set about building their float to resemble the main element of the movie, the board game the film is named for. They also made a decesion to put the name as many places as possible as making sure people understand the title is an important aspect to any marketing for this movie. There was the usual ‘trouble’ with Markus, but honestly, I can’t tell if it’s really him or the other guys thinking there is a problem with him. Right now I am saying it is a mixture of the two.

Over on the women’s team…well…yeah. The on-going disaster did just that, continued to be a disaster. This week the source of trouble was mixed between Jennifer W. and Kristi. Oh no, the Blonde Sqaud was squabbling amongst themselves! The horror! Kristi came up with the concept for the float, which at first sounded decent, but then collapsed into insanity as no one had thought about scale. This was brought upduring construction, but only somewhat acknowledged. It was amusing to see how Randal was totally lost as to how this team even functioned. Jennifer M. also confronted Kristi about her lousy attitude and the stress level just rose from there.

Back on the me’s project, Markus finally talked to Brian about being marginalized, to which Brian basically said too bad. At the same time, Josh has enough of Markus and joined in the argument to say it was time for everyone to stop carrying Markus’ weight. Again, I have to ponder who is really 100% at fault here, but I think it may be a mixture.

As the teams prepared for the judging by Favareu and Ammer, Jennifer pulled something that just amazed me. She took three team members with her to a carpet store to get some red carpet for the presentation as she wanted it to feel like a movie premiere. Um….why does it take four people, at the last minute, to go get one piece of carpet that probably won’t even be noticed? Just curious. The men made an excellent presentation while the women…well…Jennifer M. never said the name of the movie correctly once. Yeah…you guessed it…mis-pronouncing the name, lack of branding and out of scale, the girls lost yet again. The prize for the men was to go in to a recording studio with hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean. What followed was an oddly painful, yet cool, scene of them recording an original song called “The Rubble Man” about project manager Brian.

Ah…the board room. I think the women are going to have their names engraved on these chairs. The board room really turned into a slug-fest between Jennifer M. and Kristi. Kristi said all the fault was Jen’s, and Jen said it was obnoxius style of Kristi that caused all the problems in the team. When Trump finally asked Jen who should come back in with her, she opted only to bring Kristi. Always a risky gamble to bring only one back in as it paid off with Kristi being fired because of her overall negative effect on the team no matter what role she played in the project.

Trump did hint at a major shakeup to the teams next week.

Time for keeping the folks of Survivor Gautemala on their toes again! This time it was a combined reward & immunity challange, but it was individual immunity since both tribes were heading to tribal council that night.

We started off over at Yaxha and a confused Brandon wondering how the 4 strong alliance of Nakum has faltered and voted out one of their own, Blake. Brandon approached the brain-trust known as Bobby Jon for an answer. He rambled a bit, but the final answer had to do with Blake annoying the tribe, and we were left with a puzzled looking Blake standing on their dock, not sure what to think.

At Nakum, it seemed their biggest problem was the neverending mosquito attacks. Well, that and the constant comments about what a sour-puss Margaret is.

The tribes showed up at their challange, expecting only the usual reward, but instead, Nakum had been ordered to bring the immunity idol with them. Jeff Probst took and explained all would be explained in a moment. The reward was a barbacue with hamburgers, hot dogs, root beer and beer. Stephanie’s rapid fire “ohmygodohmygodohmygod” was amusing. The challange was each tribe would send in a team of 2 people, they would then try to roll a giant ball in to the other teams end zone to score a point. First team to score 3 would win. In addition, the tribe to win would compete in the immunity competition for the first indvidual immunity. The winner of the immunity would also win the chance to watch the opposing tribes tribal council to learn info.

First up were Stephanie and Cindy vs. Amy and Danni. It was a good fight, but the Yaxha girls took it. Score 1-to-0. Next up were Judd and Jamie for Yaxha and Bobby Jon and Brandon for Nakum. Yaxha won, bringing the score to 1-to-1, but we were treated to Jamie and Bobby Jon getting into a shouting match complete with chest bumping. Next up were Gary and Amy for Yaxha against Staphanie and Judd. Amy fell and injured her ankle again allowing Nakum to score and making it 2-to-1. In the next round, Amy had to play again since it was all women, and somehow she battled past her injury to tie the score up once more. Final round no matter what had Nakum members Judd & Jamie scoring the winning point. Yaxha was sent home with no food and no chance at immunity.

Immunity was untie three bags of letters and use the contents to spell a two word phrase. After each bag was untied, they had to race back and put them on their bench, once all three bags were there, they could open the bags and work on the words. Everyone was fairly even, except for Judd who had trouble emptying his bags. He looked over at Rafe’s table, and repeatedly said “Ancient Ruins…Ancient Ruins”. Though he didn’t have his letters, he had figured out the words, and by saying it, this allowed Rafe to win.. I couldn’t tell if Judd was just working it out, or telling Rafe on purpose. He claimed he just blurted it out, but it seemed a tad odd.

Back at the Nakum camp, the BBQ was a big hit, but a beer went missing. Everyone was supposed to get two beers and one root beer. Some folks traded there beers to Judd for his root beer and hot dog, and no one could figure out what happened to Cindy’s second beer. It looked like Judd had drunk it, but he never fessed up and tried deflecting blame. It was ugly and stupid, but out there, it is important. Of course, in 114 degree heat, I’m not sure drinking beer is that wise any way, but oh well.

Nakum was the first tribe to go to tribal council and it turned in to the “Judd Vs. Maragaret Show”, to the point even Probst tried to comment on how odd it was, only to be cut off by Judd. In the end, Maragaret was the one to go and Rafe moved over to the jury benches and watched the Yaxha tribal council, which was much friendlier and everyone commenting on what a wonderful guy Brian is. Odd. Oh wait…could it be because they were trying to soften the blow of voting him out? Nah! Before they voted, Rafe was informed he was to go write down one of Yaxha’s names, awarding them with immunity. The name was put in an envolope in the voting urn and would not be revealed until the other voting was over. When it was clear Brian was leaving, Probst opened the envolope revealing Rafe had given immunity to Gary. I would have liked to know why he gave it to him, but oh well.

All in all, a good episode. I think this edition of Survivor just had to thin down the numbers to get to the interesting stuff.