It must be exciting to be 17 and sign a contract with a large book publisher like Little Brown and Company for $500,000 and two books. I mean, really, who wouldn’t be excited at any age for that deal? Meet Kaavya Viswanathan, now 19 and a Sophomore at Harvard, who is currently on “leave” from said school.

Ms. Viswanathan delivered her book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life : A Novel, and it was published in March of this year. DreamWorks liked it enough to even pick up the film rights. Wow…things are going really well for her, aren’t they?

That is, they were going well for her until this week. It seems that someone noticed that seven passages in her book had a stunning resemblance to two books by Megan McCafferty called Sloppy Firsts : A Novel and Second Helpings : A Novel. At first Kaavya was shocked and apologized to everyone and promised future editions would be corrected. As McCafferty’s published looked, they claimed to have found up to 40 passages that were the same.

As the week progressed, Little Brown said they would stand by their author…that was until late Thursday when they decided to pull the remainder of her 100,000 print run from store shelves. It is unclear, at this time, if it will be rereleased with cleaned up passages or if Kaavya will be thrown out with yesterday’s trash. There is also some talk she may be expelled from Harvard over this.

Her…”defense”…such as it is, is that she admits she did read the two copied books when she was younger and loved them so much she must have internalized the words. Um…may I see a show of hands of people who have accidentally written words from a novel they read years before because they loved it so much? Yeah…I thought as much. Because I know I am constantly writing “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” oh wait…did I just internalize that? Silly me.

The weird thing is, I don’t blame only Kaavya for this whole mess. Her publisher is at much at fault as she is. First of all, you do not give a two book deal worth $500,000 to an untried teen author. That’s just insane. Where were the fact checkers and editors in all this? The really odd twist is the rumblings that her book had to be taken to a “packager” named 17th Street. (There is an excellent description of what a packager does here) This says to me there were problems with the writing if they had to send her book out to a ghostwriting farm. There are thousands of writers out there waiting for a break, and a teenage hack get a two book deal and a movie….yay.

This is the second incident of sloppy publishing work in a short window of time. I am sure we all remember the Oprah/A Million Little Pieces debacle. What is going on in the publishing industry? In a time where every entertainment dollar is being fought for between DVDs/video games/music/the internet and so on, now is not the time for sloppy publishing work. Now is the time for some of the most stellar work ever. There should be no tales of plagerism and fake “memoirs”, there should be tales of books of amazing literary prose being published.

Now, I have to say that McCafferty has handelled this with class:

“I wish to inform all of the parties involved that I am not seeking restitution in any form. […] I look forward to getting back to work and moving on, and hope Ms. Viswanathan can, too.”

I personally would be looking to crush the little leech, and her publisher.

Oh how I love the occasional post to worship my geekiness.

The BlackBerry 7290 is rocking my world. Even though I don’t get the full web capabilities here in Kirksville, it is still smazing to me how much I am loving text messaging and forwarding IMs to my phone. And having a full QWERTY keyboard is wonderful. So, yep, so glad I finally upgraded phones and got texting.
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Oh, holy bigger hard drives Batman! Seagate is coming out with their first perpindicular hard drive in the near future. While most hard drives have topped out at 500gb, this sucker is a 750gb monster. They’ve increased the size by changing the way the data physically is stored on the platter. As opposed to the old way of the data “laying flat”, or longitudially, on the drive, the data now “stands up”, allowing far more data in the same space. By next year, it is estimated there will be 1tb hard drives out there…that’s 1,000gb. Excuse me while I tie a bib around my neck.

They are also applying this technology to laptop hard drives and Seagate has already shipped 160gb laptop drives, as opposed to the usual 80 - 100 gb drives.
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More free WiFi is coming to the world it looks like. Suffolk county, New York is looking to provide free WiFi to the entire county. This adds them to places such as Philadelphia, Chicago and San Fransisco that are working on making giant WiFi clouds. Why do I think that someday the entire country is going to be one giant WiFi cloud? Not that I would mind, I love the idea of being online at anytime, anywhere.
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The other day, I talked about how our NAS box was acting up. Well, the local computer techs called Iomega since it was still under warranty. To say neither the tech or I was impressed would be an understatemant. I won’t bore you all with the details, but this will be our last Iomega product.

Has no one ever realized that when you launch a “boycott” of something, all you are really doing is building the hype around it? Archbishop Angelo Amato, the number two official in the Vatican doctrinal office, has called for a boycott of the upcoming film, The Da Vinci Code.

You know what? Just makes me want to see it more. Just like I drank more when I was under the legal age then after, the more someone tells me I shouldn’t do something, the more I want to do it. True, I was not raised Catholic, I was raised Episcopalian, so the Vatican has never held sway over me, but every time they say people shouldn’t do something, it just makes me want to.

One thing in the article really stuck out to me though:

He said that if “such lies and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust they would have justly provoked a world uprising.”

Ok, first off, you are mixing another theological doctorine with historical fact. The Koran, like the Bible, is the doctorine by which a group of people live by, the Holocaust is historical, documented fact. Dan Brown wrote a book that is, at the heart of it, a murder mystery that, just happens, to be set around the world of Christanity. Yes, it sets out the theory that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, but so what? Lots of people theorize that they were married. Heck, the TV show Rescue Me said as much in their second season, but no one says a word about that, but I guess that’s because they haven’t sold 40 million copies.

This is one of the problems I have with any group or orginization in this day and age….no one may question anything. Everyone is so sensitive about everything, all subjects are becoming off-limits. Nothing can be discussed, made fun of or even looked at. The only one I have understood recently is the Muslims were upset over the drawings of Muhammad in a Dutch newspaper. Well, the Koran specifically states you may not show representations of the Prophet, that’s a bit different in that it is a rule actually written out, and it should be respected. The Bible has no such passage. Nowhere does it say “Hey, you may not theorize about Jesus’ love life, if you do, we’ll boycott you!”

I don’t want anyone to think I am attacking everyday Catholics, I’m not. I’m attacking the silliness of the fact that it appears no one may state a THEORY about the life of Jesus. Is no one allowed to discuss the possabilities the Bible does not cover every minute of his life? Remember, there are no accounts of the childhood of Jesus in the Bible, has no one ever wondered what his childhood would be like? It seems if I put out a THEORY on that, the Vatican would boycott me. Oh no…the horror, I had a thought that was not approved by the Vatican.

I’m probably not getting my point across here very clearly, and I don’t need a lot of comments about how I am a hater of the Catholic church, because I’m not, I’m a hater of anyone, or anything, that stifles free thought.

Why? Why is The Apprentice tormenting us? I mean, I know I have said that every episode this time, but they are just getting downright more painful with each episode. This weeks task was just…bizarre and the product placement was beyond shoehorned feeling.

Lee came back from the boardroom to discover everyone had prepared for Leslie to return since it was her birthday. Oops! Oh well.

The next morning, the teams met with the Donald, Ivanka (who seems to have perfected the never-ending model pouty lip), Donald Trump, Jr. (already practicing his own bizarre hair style) and an Ameriquest executive to receive their next task. The two teams were to head over to Ellis Island, shoot pictures and create a souvenir program to be sold the next day with all the proceeds going to the Statue of Liberty Fund. The team to make the most money would be the winners.

Don’t get me wrong folks, I think the fund is a very worthy cause, but what does Ameriquest have to do with this? I have no clue. And again, this is a task that makes NO sense in the real business world! If someone came to me and said “Sean, go make a souvenir program!” My first question woul dbe “What’s my budget so I can get on hiring a proffesional team?” I know nothing about creating a program and I would have the brains to hire specialists.

Lee as Project Manager for Gold Rush. He sent Tarek and Michael out to the island to shoot pictures, while he and Charmaine stayed in the loft to work on bulk sales. They didn’t get very far, but it still seemed like a good idea.

Over at Synergy, Allie was up as Project Manager and she took the entire team to the island. Half the team shot the pictures, while the other half took the tour, which seemed like a waste of resources. Andrea also thought it was silly and told Allie that in front of the entire team. Nice tact. When they went to leave the Island, a few members got left behind due to a forgotten notebook. Good job guys. Their other problem was Andrea stepping up as an “expert” in graphic arts. What we later learned was she is an expert at HIRING graphic artists. Her “graphics” for the booklet were less than stellar.

The big problem, and death blow for Synergy, came when Lee had Gold Rush up at 5 AM so they could make sure to get the spots along the line-up to get on the ferrys over to the isalnd. Synergy fought an uphill battle all day as Gold Rush sold stacks of their books and even got some bulk sales from Lee and Charmaine’s phone calls. With one hour left Andrea announced to Allie she was an “expert” in book sales…yeah…I think Andrea is an “expert” as BSing is what I think.

Long story short, Synergy lost, Gold Rush went golfing with VJ Singh and Trump, Andrea was fired without anyone leaving the room *snore*

Survivor Exile Island was an odd one this episode. It was obvious from the getgo that Terry was everyone’s target, but he was also clear he was not going out without a fight. Meanwhile, Bruce was in pain from bowel problems.

When Tree Mail arrived for Reward Challange, each Survivor was issued a voodoo doll they were to decorate to make them look like themselves. They had a good time doing this and then headed off to the challange. As usual, Jeff Probst was there to torment them all:

“Each of the castaways will fill out a questionnaire in private, then the results will be tallied and the Challenge will begin. The questions will be posed to the group. At this time, they will guess whose name came up most often. Each time someone gets a correct answer, they’ll get to chop one of three ropes assigned to each tribe member. After three chops, the rope will release a torch that will in turn send their voodoo dolls up in flames.”

It is obvious this style of challange is always done to create strife, and it did. Terry was the first one chopped out and Courtney was named the most things, including most annoying, which had obvious signs of hurting her feelings. In the end, Cirie won and took Aras and Danielle with her on the reward, much to Shane’s obvious anger. Cirie wondered through out the reward if she had made the wrong choice, but by then, it was too late. She also chose to send Terry off to Exile Island.

The meat of the episode happened back at camp as Shane tried talking to Courtney, who was still upset about the things said about her at the challange, and they seemed to reach an allaince in the end of it. In the background of all this though was Bruce in an incredible amount of pain that continued to mount through out the episode. As night came, it finally got to be too much and the Survivor Production team called in their medic to examine Bruce. After not much time it was decided that Bruce needed to be taken back to base camp for more observation, so in the middle of the night, Bruce was taken out by stretcher to a boat and taken away.

The next day, Cirie, Danielle and Aras returned to camp, not knowing what had happened. As they learned, they of course got concerned and waited to hear what was going on with Bruce. When they saw Jeff approaching in a boat with Terry, they knew things couldn’t be good. Jeff gathered the tribe and explained that Bruce’s bowel and urinary track had shut down and he was out of the game for good. It had not yet been decided if he would be in the jury. Due to this, there would be no Immunity Chllange and no Tribal Council. This has only happened one other time when Mike Skupin fell in the fire in Survivor Austrlian Outback, that was pre-merge and pre-jury. I wish Bruce well!

Amazing Race opened with Eric & Jeremy in first place. Upon opening their clue, they learned they were to fly 2,300 miles to Muscat, Oman, once there they needed to find a giant incense burner to receive their next clue. The teams were also instructed to locate a charter bus station location on the main bridge by the Pit Stop and sign up to be taken to the Atehns Airport. All the teams made it on to the 9 AM bus except for BJ & Tyler, who made it on the 10 AM. We also started to see cracks in the Ray & Yolanda team as the stress of being together 24/7 was getting to them.

Side note here, you would think being in last would get BJ & Tyler down….nope. They took the oppurtunity as the only team on the 10 AM bus to impersonate the other teams that were already gone and it was darn hillarious.

Once all the teams were at the airport, it was quickly becoming obvious they realized they were the final five teams as niceness seems to be going out the window (more on that later). Fran & Barry were first to discover the Gulf Air flight landing in Oman at 10:45 PM. Ray & Yolanda, Joseph & Monica and Eric & Jeremy only discovered it by following them to the counter. When BJ & Tyler arrived, no one would tell them anything. By the time they figured it out, Gulf Air was sold out and they had to go with a Qatar Air flight landing at 11:45 pm.

Once there were there, everyone located the burner, it was a bit hard to miss, but it didn’t open until 6 AM, allowing all the teams to catch up. Ray & Yolanda used this as a chance to discuss their relationship, but it didn’t seem to do anything but make the situation worse.

Once the burner opened, the teams raced in to get their clues and learned that they would be driving 135 miles to the town of Sur, a small fishing town that used to be a major trade center. After getting there, they needed to cross on a ferry to the town of Baith Al Battha. On the way, the teams encountered two flooded areas, the first they were guided across, the second they were on their own. While the other teams hesitated, Eric & Jeremy cut in line to go through, angering Joseph & Monica and BJ & Tyler. Ray & Yolanda, whose cmmunication was disentigrating even more, were falling into last place.

Once in Baith Al Battha, the teams found their clue contained this leg’s Detour:

“In this Detour, Teams had to choose between Camel and Watchtower. In Camel, Teams needed to use a block and tackle system used by locals to load a camel into a pickup truck. Then, when the camel was secure in the flatbed, they had to use a map and travel one mile to deliver it at a Bedouin camp. In Watchtower, Teams had to search among three watchtowers for an Arabic message box. However, not all watchtowers contained a message box. Once they found one, they had to travel one mile to a silver shop and deliver it to a man called Mubarek.”

BJ & Tyler, Joseph & Monica and Fran & Berry opted for the watchtowers, while Eric & Jeremy did the camel. BJ & Tyler and FAB (Fran & Berry…tired of typing their names) quickly found their message boxes while MoJo (Joseph & Monica) figured after one tower it was better to switch to the camel task. Eric & Jeremy thankfully got lost with their camel and the other teams breezed through their choices. Of special ntoe, BJ & Tyler offered to help FAB find the silver shop…hmmmm, funny, but weren’t BJ & Tyler the guys left out in the cold earlier in the episode? These guys keep impressing me more and more with their sense of fair play. The clues everyone got told them to drive 80 miles to the village of Al Hawiyah.

Once in Al Hawiyah, the teams found the Roadblock for this leg:

“In this Roadblock, one Team member had to dig through 117 sand mounds to find one out of six shuwas. This traditional Omani dish of spiced lamb is wrapped in a dried palm leaf bag and steamed in an underground oven. Once they find the shuwa, their dinner for the evening, they would receive their next clue.

BJ was the first one to hit the dunes….and the last one to leave them. I hate tasks like this, they just seem so frustrating because they really do just come down to luck. Add in the heat, and the bad luck, and BJ was having a bad day. FAB did come in first, BJ & Tyler came in last, but luckily it was a non-eliminatin round! YAY! (For those who don’t know, that means they stay in the race, but they have no money and only the clothes they have on)

If you’ve seen over 117 movies, you have no life. Mark the ones you’ve seen. There are 190 movies on this list. Put your score in header and repost:

(x) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x)Grease
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean
( ) Boondock Saints
( ) The Mexican
(x) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
(x) Neverending Story
(x) Blazing Saddles
(x) Airplane!
Total:7

(x) The Princess Bride.
(x) AnchorMan: The Legend of Ron Burgandy
(x) Napoleon Dynamite
(x) Labyrinth
( ) Saw
( ) Saw II
( ) White Noise
( ) White Oleander
(x) Anger Management
(x) 50 First Dates
Total:6

(x) Scream
(x) Scream 2
(x) Scream 3
(x) Scary Movie
(x) Scary Movie 2
(x) Scary Movie 3
( ) Scary Movie 4
(x) American Pie
(x) American Pie 2
(x) American Wedding
( ) American Pie Band Camp
Total: 8

(x) Harry Potter
(x) Harry Potter 2
(x) Harry Potter 3
(x) Harry Potter 4
(x) Resident Evil I
(x) Resident Evil 2
(x) The Wedding Singer
( ) Little Black Book
(x) The Village
(x) Lilo & Stitch
( ) Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch has a Glitch
Total: 9

( ) Finding Nemo
( ) Finding Neverland
(x) Signs
(x) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
( ) White Chicks
( ) Butterfly Effect
( ) Thirteen Going on 30
(x) I, Robot
Total: 3

(x)Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
(x) Universal Soldier
( ) A Series Of Unfortunate Events
( ) Along Came Polly
(x) Deep Impact
(x) KingPin
(x) Never Been Kissed
( ) Meet The Parents
( ) Meet the Fockers
( ) Eight Crazy Nights
(x) Joe Dirt
Total: 6

( ) A Cinderella Story
(x) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
( ) Dumb & Dumberer
(x) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final destination 3
(x) Halloween
(x) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
Total: 4

( ) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
( ) Practical Magic
(x) Chicago
( ) Ghost Ship
(x) From Hell
(x) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
( ) I am sam
( )The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards
Total: 3

(x) The Day After Tomorrow
(x) Child’s Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
(x) Bride of chucky
( )Ten Things I Hate About You
( ) Just Married
(x) Gothika
(x) Nightmare on Elm Street
(x) Sixteen Candles
(x) Remember the Titans
total: 7

( ) Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
(x) Seven
(x) Ocean’s Eleven
(x) Oceans’s Twelve
( ) Bourne Identity
( ) Lone Star State of Mind
(x) Bedazzled
(x) Predator I
(x) Predator II
TOTAL: 6

(x) Independence Day
(x) Cujo
(x) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
(x) Christine
(x) ET
(x) Children of the Corn
( ) My Boss’ daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
( ) Frailty
Total: 6

( ) Best Bet
( ) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
(x) She’s All That
(x) Calendar Girls
( ) Sideways
(x) Mars Attacks
(x) Event Horizon
( ) Ever After
(x) Forrest Gump
(x) Big Trouble in Little China
Total: 6

(x) X-Men
(x) X-men 2
(x) Spider-Man
(x) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
( ) Catch Me If You Can
(x) The Others
( ) Freaky Friday
(x) Reign of Fire
( ) Cruel Intentions
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
(x) The Hot Chick
Total: 8

( ) Swimfan
( ) Miracle
(x) Old School
( ) The Notebook
(x) K-Pax
(x) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(x)Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(x) Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
( ) Walk to Remember
( ) Boogeyman
Total: 5

( ) Hitch
(x) The Fifth Element
(x) Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace
(x)Star Wars Episode II Attack of The Clones
(x) Star Wars Episode III Revenge of The Sith
(x) Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
(x)Star Wars Episode VI Return of The Jedi
(x) Troop Beverly Hills
( ) Swimming with Sharks
Total: 8

(x) Air Force One
( ) For Richer or Poorer
(x) Trainspotting
(x) People Under the Stairs
(x) Blue Velvet
(x) Sound of music
(x) Parent Trap
( ) Parent Trap Re-make
(x) The Birds
(x) The Terminator
(x)Terminator-2
(x) T-3
total: 10

( ) Empire Records
(x) SLC Punk
(x) Meet Joe Black
(x) Nightmare Before Christmas
(x) The Silence of the Lambs
(x) Sleepy Hollow
( ) I Heart Huckabees
( ) 24 Hour Party People
( ) Blood In Blood Out
Total: 5

(x)Thirteen
( ) Manic
(x)American History X
(x) Deep Blue Sea
(x) George of the Jungle
(x) Canadian Bacon
( ) How High
( ) The Jackel
( ) My little pony 1986
total: 5

(x) The Godfather
(x) The Godfather pt. 2
(x) The Godfather pt. 3
(x) Good Fellas
(x) Reservoir Dogs
(x) The Warriors
total: 6

(x) Fargo
(x) The Big Lebowski
(x) Pulp Fiction
(x) Kill Bill pt1
(x) Kill Bill pt2
( ) The Hire
total: 5

So, 30 years ago today, a little known Brooklyn band launched their first album, and somehow, their music would later find me a few years later and make me sit up and take notice. Ladies and Gentleman, let us all take a moment to raise our glasses and salute, the one, the only…The Ramones.

I love Beau (blonde cocker spaniel), he’s like a little member of the family. He always makes me laugh, makes me smile, no matter how bad the day.

That is unless it’s 3 AM and he decides “Hey! Now would be a good time to wander as deep into the surrounding woods as I can! So what if it is up to a 50 - 55 degree incline! Sean won’t mind coming down to carry me back up!”

Good times at 3 AM…good times.

Netgear is finally taking pre-orders on their SPH101 Skype Phone. The bad news? Amazon.com is listing it for $249.

So, why am I still tempted to buy this? IT’S SKYPE…WITHOUT A COMPUTER! *runs around the room until he passes out* It works with 802.11g WiFi and backwards compatiable to 802.11b (non-tech speak:99% chance if you have WiFi in your home/work/school, this will work for you). Now you could finally receive a Skype call when your computer is turned off and you are in a totaly different room. So long as there is a WiFi connection, this sucker will work.

Now, carry this idea further…city wide WiFi hot spots. If it works with them (more on that in a second), you would be able to go anywhere in a city and use the phone. SkypeOut and SkypeIn work with it, so your phone calls to-and-from landlines and mobile phones would still work. With that in mind, would you need a cell phone with a monthly contract? Would you need to worry about overages? Nope.

I don’t want to seem all Pollyanna about it, there are some cons to it. Ever been in a hotel that reuires you log in before they will let you surf the web? This phone won’t work on those connections. No text messaging. City wide WiFi is still unproven to be effective in large office buildings. $249 is a tad steep.

My recommendation is you wait for the technology to get some of the bugs worked out and for the price to come down. It gets to a version 2.0, the price drops to around $100 - $150…I will be killing all the analog landlines in my life off.

Oh yeah, did I mention it’s ugly?

Wow, no clue how I got a week behind on Amazing Race recaps! And with such a heart stopping ending too!

Eric & Jeremy were first out and their clue instructed them to travel 350 miles by train, and then ferry, to Rome, Italy and locate Trevi Fountain. The train was of course an equalizer and all the teams made it on one train. Interesting side note, Ray & Yolanda had not seen Eric & Jeremy since Moscow, that was four episodes ago!

Once in Rome, Eric & Jeremy and Joseph & Monica took taxis to the fountain while everyone else took the train, putting the other teams behind. Once at the fountain, everyone located a man on a scooter who had their clue. This one told everyone to locate the horse drawn carriages at the well known Spanish Steps for their next clue. Between these two clues, the teams received two parts of Da Vinci’s drawning Vitruvian Man drawing. When put together it told them had cracked the code and they were to bring the pieces with them to the Pit Stop. The clue told them they would be flying 665 miles to Athens, Greece and locate the Agora, an ancient marketplace. All the teams again got even on the flight.

Since the gates of the Agora didn’t open until 8 AM, all the teams again equalized. Once the clue was opened, they discovered the first of only two Fast Forwards on the entire race.

“In this Fast Forward, Teams had to travel on foot less than one mile to a restaurant and take part in a traditional Greek method of warding off mischievous spirits: plate breaking. Teams had to break plates until they found the yellow and red route marker baked into only one of the hundreds of plates.”

Joseph & Monica, Eric & Jeremy, and Fran & Barry all tried for the Fast Forward, and the remaining Teams went 70 miles by train to the city of Corinth and exit at the Isthmos Station for their next clue. At the Fast Forward, Eric & Jeremy were the second team to the resturant, but they got it and the other teams had to race off to the next clue. The Frat Boys were told to go directly to the Pit Stop a 14th Century stronghold on the coast named Fortress of Rion.

On the way to the train station, Joseph started showing his true colors as he berated Monica for crying over the loss of the Fast Forward. Nice guy, way to be supportive. Moron. Although, she did perk up when saw Fran & Barry, confirming they were not 100% for sure in last.

Now, here’s where things got weird. BJ & Tyler, Ray & Yolanda and Lake & Michelle were on the train to Isthmos, they all got off Corinth. Realizing their mistake, they all opted to take a bus the rest of the way on the advice of an attendant. Michelle expressed concern since the clue said trains, but Lake said it wouldn’t be a problem. Can we say forshadowing boys and girls? I knew you could.

At the correct station, the clue was a Roadblock instructing one team member to do a 240 foot bungee jump. Is there a rule that every race has to have a bungee jump? Everyone did fairly well up until Fran who was scared out of her mind, but she pulled it off. The next clue was to a Detour which was:

“In this Detour, Teams had to choose between Herculean Effort and It’s All Greek to Me. In Herculean Effort, Teams needed to drive to a 2,300-year-old stadium and complete three events from the ancient Olympic games. One Team member had to throw a discus a competitive distance while the other had to throw a javelin a competitive distance. Finally, both had to take on a professional wrestler and push him outside of a 20-foot circle. In It’s All Greek to Me, Teams had to drive to the same stadium, enter an archaeological site and search a specific section for the nine pieces of pottery shard that contained Greek letters. Then, with the help of the spectators, they needed to translate the Greek letters into English and put them in order to spell out a location on the map, Dimitsana.”

While everyone raced to do the Detour, Eric & Jeremy checked in at the fort in first place. For “cracking the Da Vinci Code” they were told they would be attending the world premiere of the Da Vinci Code movie on May 19th, 2006 in Hollywood. Pretty spiffy prize I must say, but wow, what an obvious product placement from the get go.

At the Detour, Ray & Yolanada and Joseph & Monica did the Olympic games. The wrestling portionw as easier than I expected because it was 2-on-1 wrestling and darn funny to watch. Ray should never take up javelin throwing for a proffession though. Lake & Michelle wanted to do the games, but accidentally ended up at the code breaking and breezed through it with Fran & Barry on their tails. BJ & Tyler got badly lost and quickly slid to last place. Lake & Michelle were way ahead of them, but then they got lost after they left the Detour.

As the Pit Stop, remember the bus/train thing from earlier? Everyone who did that got 15 minute penalties. This didn’t really factor until it got down to BJ & Tyler who had to wait and wait to see if Lake & Michelle would come running up the stairs…they didn’t. So long Lake & Michelle, you won’t be missed!

Well it appears I am not the only one that feels this season of The Apprentice is an exercise in pain! Maureen Ryan, of the Chicago Tribune, wrote today about how starting next Monday, NBC will having a contest to give $10,000 a week to viewers. Wonderful. So basically NBC has decided this season is so bad they have to bribe people in to watching it!

Perhaps this should be a wake-up call to everyone involved with this that it has run it’s course? The time has come to fire Trump and just move on with their lives. Yet, I am sure I will still sit here every week, wating, like the idiot I can be.

It’s one of those days. Problems from all sides.

Computers - I swear every computer in the office is having a problem. All the computers are named for anime characters except for the Mac.

Urd - My computer was slogging down. I transferred the 91 gigs of MP3s off my C drive and moved all of them to one of my externals. Wow…instant speed up.

Skuld - The computer designated only for shipping duties. She’s always been the slowest and we expected that, but now snails are passing her by.

Aika - Brian’s (an employee’s) computer had major issues today even movign folders, and his dvd-rom died. I can tell she’s on her last legs, but now is not the time for buying a computer.

Achika - Mom’s computer…poor thing is oldest computer in the office now (besides the Mac) and yikes is it freezing up.

The Mac - The Mac has no name as it is not well integrated in to the network, but it’s Dave’s computer. It’s going on 7 years old, but for a Mac, that’s no biggie, but we need a new one.

The NAS Box - (Network-attached storage) Basically this is a fancy name for some extra hard drives attached to your network that everyone can access. Well, they are like mini computers with motherboards and fans of their own and…I think a fan died and the other one is over surging to make up for it.

It as not a good technology day at AnimeUSA.

On the Japan trip front, I may not be flying my beloved Korean Air anymore. I’m looking at American Airlines more and more due to the number of choices of cities and flight times to pick from. As opposed to flying out to Los Angeles for the one Korean flight a day, I can fly even to Dallas (for far less then the LA flight) and catch multiple non-stop flights to Narita in Japan. Sure, it’s a few more hours in the air, but I sleep most of the way anyway.

I also have a lot more chances to earn AA miles over KAL miles. It seems you can’t hardly pitch a rock without hitting somone that has a deal with AA for you to earn miles. After 3 round trips on KAL, and some bonus miles, I am still not able to even get an upgrade with KAL and that is annoying me.

I still have some time to pick, but I am looking at it pretty heavily.

“Forgive me Reality TV Father, for I have sinned.”

“What is your sin my son?”

“I am a self-professed Reality TV junkie and I….I….”

“Please my child, you can tell me anything.”

“I’ve….I’VE NEVER WATCHED AN EPISODE OF AMERICAN IDOL!”

“HERESY! Heresy I say!”

“I can’t help it Father. I just look at the commercials and think ‘Why in the world do I want to watch some half-assed morons, with little to no real talent be handed a fantastic career on a platter when so many real musicians are out there struggling to get their voice heard?’ It seems wrong to me Father, it seems like it goes against the whole concept of the music industry.”

“But my son, this isn’t the music industry, it is the Realm of Reality TV that our Lord Mark Burnett bestowed upon us in that fateful Summer of the year 2000 when he brought us his child, Survivor, by which all others are judged.”

“I know Father, but with all the other great reality choices out there, American Idol just holds no interest to me. I know that seems wrong since it averages around 38 million viewers, but words can not express just how disinterested I am in it!”

“Well my son, this is a great sin against the Holy Church Of Reality Television, but we are forgiving.”

“Thank you Father! What is my penance?”

“Say 20 Hail Colleens….”

“Phew…not a problem!”

“…and watch Apprentice 5 from the beginning again.”

“Can I just choose death? Please?”

Another week of Survivor Exile Island, another classic Shane moment.

Terry was entertaining Sally, Aras and Shane with tales of being a Navy pilot as we opened up. Danielle, Courtney and Cirie were sitting in the shelter mocking him and then came the question if Terry actually had the idol. Danielle said she saw it, but it really could have been anything. They searched his backpack, but nothing was there, so they figure he hid it. No clue where Bruce was, probably off playing with his rock garden.

As everyone gathered for the Reward Challange, Jeff Probst took everyone in to the hutt and showed them puppies. Well, it seemed like it was all about puppies. In reality (HA!) it was samples of the videos form home of the Survivor’s families, but they all seemed to involve dogs. This was of course followed up by the usual “*sob* *sob* That’s my 2nd cousin, twice removed on my mother’s side! *sob*” Man I hate the family video episode. Before explaining the challange, Jeff tells them that the winning team will see their full videos while eating peanut butter and jelly sandwhichs and drinking milk. The challange was dran cool though:

“For this Challenge, the tribe will divide into two teams. One person will lie face down on a cradle suspended in the air by bungee cords. Attached to that cradle are three ropes. The teammates will pull those ropes to maneuver the person on the cradle as they grab fifteen flags and place them in order into their appropriate slots. The first tribe to get all fifteen flags in order wins the Reward.”

Courtney was swung by Bruce, Sally and Terry while Danielle was swung by Aras, Shane and Cirie. At first, Danielle’s team was looking strong, but then Aras and Cirie both knocked flags out of their holes, and since Danielle had to replaee those before she could continue, that let Courtney’s team jump ahead and win. They got to send one person to Exile Island so they sent Aras as Terry said he will eat anything. Also as part of their reward, the got their luxury items which were Sally got her journal, Bruce brought a sketchbook, Terry an American flag and Courtney got her fire dancing equipment.

As Danielle, Shane and Cirie returned to camp, Shane complained of an irritation in the region of his penis and he asked Cirie to look at it as she is a nurse. Well, she looked, but she couldn’t resist laughing as she told him it was just the face he needed to keep the area dry and air it out. So….he stripped naked. Just what the world needed, a Naked Shane.

Out on Exile Island, Aras actually gets a fire started, gets milk from a coconut and looks for the Immunity Idol. It dawns on him that Terry may have it and that scares him. What I find hillarious is that Terry let it be known he has the idol, yet no one believes him most of the time. Too funny.

Immunity…well…was odd:

“…each Survivor is asked to grab a nut and a shell and put them in opposite hands. (Jeff Probst) then explains that for the Challenge, each person will swim out to a long plank with seven symbols on it resting on the ocean floor. They will have to memorize the symbols in order and race back to the beach, where they will try to replicate those symbols, in order, on their answer board. The first person to solve the puzzle correctly wins Immunity. But there’s a twist: participation in this Immunity Challenge is optional. If someone chooses not to participate, they will instead chow down on cheeseburgers, french fries and soft drinks. They can eat for as long as the Challenge goes or until the food runs out. Whoever wants to take part in the Challenge will reveal a shell in their hand. Whoever wants to sit out will show the nut. All but Aras, Terry and Sally choose to sit this one out. “

You know, it takes some large guts to say “Hey, I think I will sit out the immunity chllange so I can eat some cheeseburgers. Over-confidence always amazes me. Anyway, Terry won on the first try and Shane won the eating by getting down two cheeseburders, 9 fries and most of a soda (I think, I was just amazed). So Terry wins immunity again, but it seemed fairly obvious Sally was the target, and she was and she was ousted in a 6-2 vote. Terry will only live if he just keeps winning immunity.

The Apprentice is such a snore fest, I am surprised there haven’t been reports of the editors throwing themselves from high-rise windows. Armies of zombie Apprentice editors, walking the streets, eating brains, craving the sweet, sweet taste of non-Apprentice tainted brains, which, judging by the ratings for this season, there are many of them out there.

Episode 7 opened with the teams learning they would be working with Ace Hardware on their promitions with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America on their “New Faces for Helpful Places” program. Each team would be renovating a room at a Boys and Girls Club. Lenny took up the Project Manager post for Gold Rush and Michael for Synergy.

Lenny proved to be a horrible leader. He didn’t listen close enough to what Ace Hardware wanted, the rooms to promote team work, he instead went with very seperate music stations that promoted kids doing their own things. He also didn’t seem to ever actually lead the team as much as just watch them do what they needed to do.

Michael had a much better ear for the needs of the assignment, came up with stations in their room that promote the kids working together and worked with his team. His biggest problem was taking forever to finalize their plans and not getting them to the Ace store until mere moments before the shop closed.

Long story, short, adios Lenny. Trump didn’t even bother to send the team out and bring back a few, he just fired them in front of everyone and be done with him. Synergy’s reward was to take a girl on her Make-A-Wish Foundation shopping spree to a Toys R’ Us.

In episode 8, Lee was feeling bad about having lost Lenny. If you are wondering how that friendship came about, join the club. The teams then met with Trump in Central Park and learned Michael would be moving over to Gold Rush as the team was too overpowered now. They went on to find out their task was to promote the new P’EatZZa sanwhich at 7-11. The team with the largest percentage sales increase in sales for their assigned store would be the winner. Andrea was Project Manager for Synergy and Leslie for Gold Rush. I am going to depart a little from norm and really analyze this task, because on the surface it was a silly task, but there was a lot going on here.

Andrea tyranically chose a hat as the promotional item for the Synergy location and Gold Rush chose a cooler. Lee, Michael and Charmaine headed over to their store to scope it out. Lee talked with the manager and two important things happened:#1, he suggested the price point at $6.99 and #2 Lee got him to agree that no other sandwhichs would be on the shelves the next day. This is important because the stripping of choice was a great idea, but the manager gave them an essential piece of information, they had an experianced hand in this area tell them what price point would work, but yet Leslie decided to ignore that info and sell them for $7.99 for 1 and $8.99 for 2. This was something that would come back to haunt her the next day when Lee heard employees mocking the price.

Andrea made one good decesion and one horrible decesion. The good, she got her team out in front of the store the night before hitting the locals with fliers about the sale the next day and asking them to come back the next day and try the new food item. I didn’t think this would work, but it did as many familiar faces from the night before showed up the next day. The bad decesion was the hats. As someone who has spent 20 years in retail, I can tell you a hat never works. It’s the most half-assed promotional item out there. It almost works to the negative, as if to say “Well, we knew we needed a promotional item, but this shows a total lack or originallity and a lack of caring.” It’s like “calling it in” in terms of promotional items. It also cuts out the majority of women as they do not typically care about ball caps. They settled on a price of $4.00.

Back at Gold Rush, Lee was trying to secure a sale of 1,000 sanwhiches, hopefully at the price of $3.00. The buyer came back with a price of $2.00, after consulting Leslie, Lee went back with a price of $2.50, no deal was reached. Leslie was angry Lee had wasted so much time on a failed deal.

Back in the board room, the teams learned their results. Gold Rush increased their store’s sales by 608% and Synergy increased theirs by 997%, making Synergy the winner for the fourth week in a row. Here’s the problem with this task though…math. Let’s say Synergy’s store, on a normal day, sold 1 sandwhich for $1.00, that means Synergy would do far less work to increase the sales volume over Gold Rush, who was at a store that normally did sales of $2.00 a day. Unless the stores were perfectly even, volume is meaningless. This really should have been judged on dollar amount. Anyway, as their reward, Synergy flew down to Washington, D.C. on a private plane to meet with New York Senator Chuck Schumer for lunch. Huzzah.

In the board room, Leslie tried to say she would have pulled the sandwhichs also, Lee was ne genius. She only brought him in to the room with her and she whined about his failed deal. Trump applauded him trying and told her that’s the nature of deals, get used to it. Leslie was fired, good riddance. Just wish she could have taken Andrea with her just for annoynace factor.

I find it fascinating that bank examiners decided my company had “too many checking accounts”. Now I am having to move everything around, call and change all sorts of payments, set up new credit card accounts because some examiner had too much time on his hands. Ah how I love red tape.

Well, things are shaping up for an INSANE Summer for me.

We have hired a web designer for the new version of AnimeUSA.com. We have used the same design since 1997, so it’s about time I think. I don’t want to say anything else yet as some of my customers do find this blog and I want them to be surprised by how radically different it’s going to be.

Things are taking more and more shape for my August trip to Japan as a date I have been waiting for has fallen in to place for an event I need to go. So, as it stands, I will fly to Los Angeles on August 15th, fly out of LA for Tokyo on August 16th and arrive in Tokyo on August 17th. I will be there for two weeks and depart Tokyo on August 31st, arrive LA on August 31st due to time difference. After that is when things get tricky, I will either be flying to Dallas or Atlanta depending on which convention my employees end up doing. So I won’t be coming back to Kirksville until September 5th or 6th, meaning I will have been gone from home for 3 weeks. Lucky me. I will be dead.

I have so much to do while I am in Tokyo that it’s nuts. Sunday August 20th I will be heading out to Tokyo Big Sight for Wonder Festival. That means being up at 6 AM to hit the trains at 7 AM to get there in time. It makes for a long day, that’s for sure. The rest of my events have no set days, but I have so many wholesalers and stores hit, I will be running around like crazy. That’s what I get for not going for two years. I am also going to hit some new places that I have been locating on Google Earth which I have added train stations too, shopping areas and so on. Craziness!

So while I am trying to set up a whole new website, I have also got to start “training” for Japan, planning my meetings and prepping to be out of the office for three weeks. Good times, good times.

That cold chill you felt earlier today was the news that broke about the next edition of Big Brother. This year’s theme is borrowing a page from Survivor in that it is an All-Star Edition. Oh let the speculation and arguments begin over who qualifies as All-Star, but so help me, if Chicken George from BB1 is there, I will run screaming in to the night.

According to the news bit over at Variety, they will start with 20 pevious house guests, the public will immediately thin it down to 12 - 14 that will actually enter the house.

So, I might as well throw my hat in the ring as to who I think the returning guests will be:

BB1 (no links because CBS seems to like to forget this one happened)
Brittany - I really doubt this one because she has tried to distance herself from the show, but I would love to see her.
Josh - He is a total attention whore, he’ll do it in a heartbeat, and see some info on BB4 as to why.

BB2
I didn’t watch this season, but from what I’ve heard, good chance they will want Dr. Will back.

BB3
Marcellas - I would love to see him, but doubt he will do it since he hosts the daily talk show.
Josh - Good chance because he was so angry about being booted.

BB4
Erika - Last I heard, she was dating Josh from BB1. Would make for a fun time in the house.
Amanda - Hey, she had sex in the house with David, you know they want her back.
David - Same reason as Amanda.

BB5
Diane - She was a good player, but too emotional, I would like to see her get another chance.
Jennifer (Nakomis) - She has a great attitude AND came up with, the now infamous, “Six Finger Plan” which was carried over in to BB6. One of the most brilliant strategies ever in the history of reality TV. For those who don’t know what it is, it is a gaurenteed method of eliminating the played you want gone by using a combination of pawn nominations and the Power-Of-Veto.

BB6
Kaysar - Face it folks, there is no way in the world he won’t be back. I personally hated him, but I was in the distinct minority there.
Jennifer - That little girl cheerleader exterior hides a cunning and devious player.

We are the first country to do an All-Star BB and I’m not sure it’s a great idea. Survivor All-Stars was pretty much considered a disaster and they have said they will never do it again. As I said, no other country has done this, so why us? Simple, Arnold Shapiro and Allison Grodner. They took over producing the series with season 2, and since then have radically departed from the forumla that works everywhere else in the world, so of course, let’s get even further away from it.

Oh…and the Chen-Bot will be back. This proves there is no TV God.

Survivor Exile Island opened with Austin regretting letting the Casaya alliance know that he lost the previous Immunity Challange on purpose. Gee…ya think that was a bad idea Austin? Who knew you had the brain power to figure that one out! Terry was hoping to swing someone over to the La Mina alliance…yeah…that’ll happen.

Reward Challange seemed to pop up pretty fast. As always, the all-knowing CBS website shall explain it for you:

“…host Jeff Probst explains that the tribe will divide into three teams of three. Each team will have one boat and 100 coconuts. They must race to put the coconuts into the boats of the other two teams. The more coconuts in the boat, the slower it will be. Once the teams have exhausted their coconut supplies, they’ll paddle out in their boats to retrieve a tribe flag and fishing net, return to shore and use the fishing net to carry all the coconuts from their boat back up the beach and into the bin. The first tribe to get all the coconuts in their bin and on their finish mat with their tribe flag wins the reward: breakfast in bed. ”

The teams were:
Terry, Austin and Shane
Aras, Bruce and Sally
Danielle, Courtney and Cirie

There was a lot of back-and-forth in the game, but in the end it was the Aras, Bruce and Sally team that won it. As part of their reward they sent Danielle and Austin to Exile Island as their teams were the losers.

Dani and Austin suffered on the island in the never ending downpour of rain. The breakfast in bed was in a literal bed, but it was wet and on the beach. No one seemed to appreciate hearing about it either. The main plot of this episode though was Terry sharing with his remaining alliance that he had the hidden Immunity. They hatched a plan to lure Danielle to their side by promising to giver her the idol for her vote. They also wanted to try for Bruce, but not sure what they were going to offer him, if anything.

Immunity was another multi-elimination:

The Survivors will race through a series of obstacles in four stages. In the first stage, all nine Survivors must race to dig through the sand and pull themselves under a wooden fence. The first six to finish move on to the second round, in which they must complete a brainteaser with four written clues to guide them. After completing the brainteaser, they climb up a sand hill, through a maze and over a second sand hill. The first three to finish this phase will move on to phase three, which requires them to navigate across a rope bridge using two wooden planks. Once they’ve reached the end of the bridge, they must jump off the platform into the water and climb up a steep sand bank. The first to the top of the sand bank move on to the final round: a race through a series of vertical and horizontal tunnels and towers until the first person finishes, winning Immunity.

The race quickly eliminated the big alliance and it got all the way down to just Terry and Sally with Terry once again taking the immunity. This left the hidden idol in play as a bargaining chip. They approached Dani and Bruce, and it looked like they might flip, but in the end, no such luck. Austin was sent home in a 6 - 3 vote, and became the first member of the jury.

Only time will tell us if this was a wise play on the part of Dani and Bruce. The other problem is Terry has now broadcast he has the idol, making him an even larger target.