Jersey Guy 87

Obama dyed his hair during his first campaign to create a greater contrast with McCain.

I agree that who has money from outside the game is irrelevant to who should win the game. In fact, people who are racing because they want to race is fine by me. I also don't believe that this cast is necessarily wealthier than other casts. I'm sure some of these guys make decent money from their social media thing, I don't know if any of them make huge amounts of money.

Darnell losing the goggles put them behind from the start. They could have finished at least second without his mistake. And when he lost them he basically gave up, he didn't try to find them or get an oar. He expected someone else to do that. He essentially stood around and did nothing just like Alecia did. At least Alecia tapped out early so she didn't significantly hold up the team. Plus he crapped right in front of everyone. That was my first thought as well. Ah, Pirate Master. Tai was actually in a better position before he started looking for the idol and getting caught. In general, there seems to be some serious confusion on how to handle the idol - Alecia didn't have any idea how to answer the question "do you have an idol?" either.

Breadcrumbs to find his way back. He was planning ahead.

It was the color and the fit, no reason to have to pick one over the other. Just a completely unfortunate pair of pants. Somehow none of these guys looks like a finalist - they all look to be about mid-season. They're all bland. I guess I'm rooting for Mr./Mrs. Jackie because I can't stand Roberto or Colby. And i've lost respect for Jen because she seems to be cheering those to guys on.

Horribly long, drawn out episode, and we only got one person voted out. Going with "I'm good enough to be a finalist" isn't necessarily the best tact to use to get people to vote someone else out. Because the people voting all believe they are finalists as well. The person most in need of a makeover this week was Jen. Wow, those were some bad clothes she wore, especially to the weigh in. I understand why Colby wanted to keep his beard, I'm glad he trimmed it at least somewhat because otherwise it wasn't working for him.

And the contestants will all act surprised that their loved ones are there to see them post makeover - because they've never done that before.

She doesn't bring a lot of entertainment value either. Hassan will be bossy and pompous, his new team will hate him and Ramsay will wonder what happened to him. Christine (former winner) must be wondering what she's done wrong, she had survived this insanity only to be thrust back into it. I'm not sure what, exactly, the "talk" between Jackie and Christine was supposed to achieve but it didn't seem to achieve much to me.

I think Jen thought it would be cool to have a twin versus twin showdown instead of doing what was strategically best for her team - have a big guy who works hard go against a smaller woman who is generally not pulling as high a percentage. In other words, I don't think strategy is her strong point. I do think she delivered exactly what the producers wanted, though, whether of her own choice (whatever the reasons) or because she was directed to do so.

I'm just not convinced that Jen is the brightest trainer on the set. I'm not dismissing the idea of the producers telling her to pick the twins, I think she was already thinking that before they approached her. Because of course the twins competing head to head was their goal. But it's even easier to convince someone who already wants to do what you're going to ask them to do.

Roberto had a good week the following week, so it's not a foregone conclusion that the people who did the at-home workout for a week would be the first to go home the following week. I agree that fairness isn't an overriding concern for the producers. But I think pitting twins against each other is something Jen could have thought up on her own...

To be fair, a lot of contestants on TBL come to think that they are fitness/training experts and/or motivational speakers. They're not, but the twins are hardly the first to confuse "I lost a lot of weight in a really short time in an unhealthy way" with "I'm an expert on fitness."

The timing of when to go to singles was predetermined before the season started. They had no way of knowing the twins would still be on the show let alone the ones to be sent home the previous week. And Roberto managed to have a decent week so it's not like it was guaranteed one of them would go home.

I was kind of hoping Colby would get drunk enough to start hitting on Jacky during the wine tasting.

Jen apparently has no idea about strategy for TBL. Her team's best course of action is to ignore whatever she suggests. I didn't see why it was all on Stephen either - a tie (Jacky sticks with the women) and Luis is going home anyway. In fact, I think that's how Stephen and Jacky should have played it. It would make the two of them look like less of a sure-thing voting bloc. Of course, Jen probably suggested to Stephen he should vote with his wife. There was very clearly some intent to create a boys versus girls thing. Not just the challenge but also the first day's workout was all boys (plus Erin, who said it felt weird to leave the girls), they went out drinking divided by gender and Bob smoothly noticed the gender divide as well when it was time to vote. Strange, because that hasn't been a theme all season until tonight.

I never did the SAT prep thing although it wasn't as big an industry back when I took the SATs. I don't plan on having my son do any specific prep for them either (he's in 7th grade so he's got a few years). The only "prep" I did was reading a book that basically explained the strategy for guessing if you didn't know any answer - the author claimed you could get 1100 (back when 1600 was the top score) without reading a single question. Basically he studied a whole bunch of past tests and found the bias in how the answers are positioned. I didn't need to guess on any of the questions so I didn't get to try out his theories in real life. I only took the SAT once as well - my score was good enough that odds were I'd score lower the next time out. The ice chest cooler just seemed unnecessary for me. It only cools one person, it's expensive and there was no comment on how noisy it is. Suck it up if it's hot outside, or stay inside. I'm not qualified in any way to discuss whether the sports bra was a good idea or not, my impression was it looked like it was heavy but she mentioned being able to take out pads. My wife didn't have much to say about it either. I used to travel a lot for business. I never had need for some sort of heavy battery being carried around in my bag. I figured out how to keep my devices charged by planning ahead for the day. And rather than rely on some hard drive in your bag that's being thrown around all day invest in some cloud storage. And by invest I mean sign up for a free Google Drive or Drop Box account.

Actually, I believe Meese is the incorrect plural form of moose.

People from New Jersey can cook Italian food. Have you never seen the Sopranos? It's going to be a while before they get rid of the truly worthless, no "entertainment value" losers and get down to the ones with talent and those kept around just to stir the pot. The right person went home even if her team didn't nominate her. I'm sure there will be some fireworks to start the next episode over Ariel going rogue on who was nominated.

Strategy by Team Jen in the rope pull challenge was poor. They had their biggest guys go last, when the rope (and buoys) were lightest. Did they intentionally throw that challenge? There's really lack of interesting characters this season. And it's the first season I can recall that uses "Team Jen" and "Team Dolvett" instead of Red Team and Blue Team. Overall, it just reeks of a show coming to an end a couple of seasons too late.

Did Jen really say that there had never been anything like the "growing pound advantage" in all her time on the Biggest Loser? Isn't this her second season?

Going without a host would be better than Bob. There are plenty of former contestants who would make horrible hosts. Plus, making that seem like a viable career path for a Biggest Loser contestant would make far too many of them even more unbearable. It's bad enough how many of them already aspire to being motivational speakers/trainers.

The crowd-sourced college tuition thing was bizarre. The only people who are going to contribute to your kid's college fund are relatives. And you can ask them directly. You don't need a web site skimming 8% off the top. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the baby changing pad with a scale take off - hyper competitive parents with too much money will buy just about anything to show what better parents they are. I have a beard, I trim it daily. I clean the sink when I'm done. Nobody seems to have a problem.

Richard being gay was a story line in the very first season of Survivor because he aligned with an ex Navy Seal was was very homophobic (but became friends with Richard, just not in a homosexual way). I think Richard was done with the show. Surprised he bothered given how little time he really spent there. And he doesn't have a chance for the at home prize. The over the top reactions to the idea of splitting up the teams was ridiculous. It's bad enough when someone gets eliminated they act as if they've been taken out back and shot. But both teams live in the same house, it's not like you're not going to see your partner from your original team again.

The two people below the yellow line don't get to vote so there are only six people voting. If there's a tie the person with the lowest percentage weight loss goes home - that was Hope. So three votes puts her out. The show is in the business of entertaining people and make money for NBC and the producers. They're not going to pay to train people who were voted out, there's no reason to do that and it just costs them money. So of course you get contestants focused on winning (although to win they have to lose weight). And yeah, Bob is horrible as host. Possibly worse than he was as a trainer.

Vegas makes total sense for this type of thing. It's in the desert, for one thing, so there's plenty of open land nearby. Plus, you're out there for a conference/convention/whatever and get tired of gambling - head out and smash a car with a large piece of machinery. I still wouldn't travel somewhere just to play with the heavy equipment but a destination I'm likely to be at for business travel anyway (like Vegas) I'd take a trip to check it out (and find a way to expense the $300 while I was at it).