Jersey Guy 87

None of us know the situation between Adam and his mom, the decision on whether to go on Survivor or not given her condition was a personal one. I don't feel qualified to judge whether or not it was the right thing for Adam to do, only he can make that decision. And, down the line, he might decide it was the wrong choice or he may not. He might realize that either choice (play Survivor or not) sucked. That his brother came for the family member visit what appears to be two weeks or less before his mother passed indicates to me that the family was on board with the decision. Gamewise, Adam's been all over the place. I think he loses to David or Jay, I doubt he can get both of them out.

Sadly, some people still care. Although I'm not sure anyone on this season of Survivor does.

Given how overall delusional that woman was I'm not surprised at all that she didn't know anything about it. I knew Robert would be all over the puppies (and grabbing an extra one was a classic Robert move), I just can't believe it took those guys so long to say yes to his offer. He was asking for less equity than Kevin and Damon and you know he's going to be into the company. The fishing line thing seemed like a throw-away item. If he's successful it will soon be in the bottom of lots of tackle boxes along with the other 37 tools fishermen have for cutting lines. I wasn't that impressed by the jeans guys. $150 for a pair of jeans is way more than I would ever pay (regular Levis work fine for me).

I noticed that too and was surprised to see Kevin be the one to scarf extra food. Usually Cuban does that. The lemonade stand idea was bad, I'm glad Sacca is the one to invest in it. He can afford to throw away $50k. The lockbox thing sounds kind of interesting until you put yourself in the shoes of the people trying to sell their house - then it's "no way am I letting strangers in my house unescorted." And if you make them use a realtor to see your house there's not a lot of need for a special lockbox that anyone can get a code for - the realtor will have access to the lockbox.

One of her teammates said it - she had a meltdown. I don't think anyone got the combination on the first try, there were a limited number of combinations to try you just had to be methodical about it. She flipped out for no good reason. As others have said you can rat out someone having an idol but I didn't think you were allowed to go back to the benches after your torch was snuffed. Given how visibly angry she was I was really surprised they let Michaela go back and thus have the confrontation with Jay. Sometimes I feel sorry for Survivor players. If they don't make a move because they think it's too early they're criticized for not making a move. If they make a big move they're criticized for overplaying or making the move too soon. I think Jay was smart to get rid of Michaela now - he correctly identified she's a threat post-merge, he probably figures the merge is coming soon and he is reasonably confident that even if they go back to tribal he'll be safe.

Sunday gets no respect. She's equally useless in challenges. Glad the showmance has ended, that was annoying. Adam made the right call, if not for his own game at least for the sake of the viewers. Michaela is way too blunt to win. Couple a bad social game with being a challenge beast and you're putting a big target on your back. I liked the puzzle twist at the end of the blindfold challenge.

My wife has had a number of surgeries over the past 6-7 years for some problems with her knee/ankle/foot. Every single surgery her surgeon has essentially pushed opiates on her - she gets a prescription before her surgery date, the nurses at the surgery center give her a filled prescription in post-op, another prescription is offered at the first checkup, etc. She can't stand them - yes, they help with the pain immediately after surgery but she hates the fogginess they cause her and gets off them as soon as she can. But if she liked the feeling I could see easily how she'd become an addict - the doctors are writing the prescription before they even ask her if she needs more. Her most recent surgery (we're hoping it's her last) she specifically told the doctor to not write her a prescription because she didn't need it - she still had 80% of the pills from her previous surgery left over. And I think that's where the problem comes from - we went from a system where opiates were rarely prescribed and often denied to people with terminal illness to a system where doctors are writing prescriptions left and right without really assessing the need. And a lot of people aren't like my wife - they find the painkilling aspects to outweigh the foggy mind aspect (or enjoy the foggy mind aspect) and so they take the prescription, use all the pills, get a refill, etc. And then they've got a problem. We need doctors to find a balance so we get needed pain medication to people who need it but don't overprescribe so people can more easily become addicted.

Johnson and Stein are perfect examples of why you need people in politics who have experience in politics. Things aren't that simple. Do away with three departments of the US government? Sure, sounds good. But who covers for the things they did that you still want done? Oh, you don't actually know what they do, you just want to eliminate them so you can talk about smaller government. I have no idea if a third party can be successful in America but when they trot out thoroughly unqualified candidates they have no shot. Ross Perot and John Anderson were the closest things to viable third party candidates that I can recall and they were both essentially spoilers in the end.

I'm glad Gia got it despite being on the winning team. She would have gone home last week except Jessica decided to nominate herself and pack her bags, I'm surprised she didn't tell Gordon to save himself the trouble and just go home on her own. But Gia was a disaster, Gordon knew that and he got rid of her when she deserved it. Haven't figured out yet who I'm rooting for. I'm not sure I'll find that person this year.

Lucy really screwed up with her whole "we need to get Jessica out, she's trying to control the tribe. Now, let me tell you exactly what to do and you better not step even slightly out of line" approach. And I'm not convinced that Jessica was trying to control things as much as get rid of Paul before he could tighten the bro alliance - it was in Lucy's best interest to get rid of Paul as well. I'm undecided on David's decision to play his idol for Jessica. I think things are somewhat fluid on the tribe, so even if she had gone home he, Ken and CeCe wouldn't necessarily be on the ropes next time anyway. So I think he wasted it. I assume if they had caught the goat they wouldn't be allowed to kill it and eat it - I thought TPTB had put in a no killing anything that lives on land rule back when the pig was slaughtered in one of the first seasons (and because people were grossed out that people on season one were eating rat). I love Jay's idea of being a rebel - working as a real estate agent and appear on a network TV show. Way to live on the edge there, dude.

I thought the moms with swimsuits had a bad idea. I have no idea from their pitch why their swimsuits are so much better for "moms" than any other swimsuit. Plus I think the number of places where people where swimsuits all day long are fairly limited. The Tekdry idea sounds good at first but I don't know how well it will succeed. There's the whole issue of needing to dry the phone as soon as possible (the mail order side of things seems just stupid to me) plus phones are heading towards better and better water resistance. And most people have rice or can get a bag of rice much quicker than they'd get to a Tekdry center. I'm sure their method of having water-absorbing beads combined with heated air is better than the bag of rice solution but I'm not sure it's enough better to make up for the amount of time it would take you to get to one of their facilities. The NightRunner idea seems like it could be good, they wound up (accidentally, I think) playing the sharks pretty well and got the deal they wanted. Wally Amos was just sad. If anyone deserved a sympathy $50K it was him, not the moms.

Resurrection Island.

I think that despite being a good looking, athletic guy he's fairly shy and doesn't have an alpha personality. Glad Paul is gone. I never like the all talk, no results types. And, as lame as CeCe was going across the balance beam not one person on her tribe stepped up and said "you go across, I'll take your bag." Even though Probst basically told them to do that. Idiots.

Fishing products like this tend to have infomercials to get the word out about them. I think part of the reason they went with Robert was because he called the kid the smartest 17 year old he had ever met (or something similar to that thought). See, that's a sign of how much we've evolved. I made it way past thirty on Cheetos, Twinkies and Boone's Farm. The lapels were tacky. If I go to something that requires a tux I'll spend the money to rent a tux and look like I belong there. The woman with the magnets did a good job getting a deal on her terms with the right shark but I think fun tack works just as well and is already on the market.

A show dedicated to Wonder Bread and Kraft imitation cheese slices?

Maybe they figured this was the best way to re-hydrate him. It seemed to work. Yeah, that was pretty funny. Every generation seems to go through this, though - when you're young you think you're much more free sexually than that "uptight" generation that's older than you, when you get a little older you complain that the new young generation is way too loose sexually. I'm still struggling to find people to root for this season, I've got plenty to root against so far. In other words, a fairly normal season for me.

I think the issue is that Mark and Robert both fill essentially the same role - they're the tech-oriented guys. So they don't bring different skill sets to the table to help an entrepreneur. Lori has her QVC/Bed Bath and Beyond angle which is something Mark doesn't have so she can help him out in that sense.

The grilled cheese guys were, I suppose, a better choice than the Jersey Shore crowd but that's not saying much. Really bad season, I don't know that I'll be in next year.

The soup idea was horrible - $85 for soup that will be delivered in a couple of days? Amazon will deliver a carton of cans of Campbell's soup that's there tomorrow (worst case) for a whole lot less. I've seen the beer thing before, I think I got a link to their crowdfunding campaign. My recollection is it's good with some styles of beer, not so good with others. Sharks were eager to jump in on that. My son's basketball team is thinking of getting "branded" slides. $50 seems a little high, though. Coder girl carried herself a whole lot older than 16. And I mean that in a very positive way.

I can't see an eye infection getting anyone pulled from the game if they're being given eye drops - it will probably clear up in a couple of days. At this point the generational thing is really forced, hopefully we'll get some sort of swap/merge before too long to calm it down.

I would guess that all the stuff he doesn't like makes it difficult to effectively play the game (assuming he had game to begin with, of course - if he didn't it doesn't matter). Because the other stuff is a huge part of the gameplay - it's not just playing the game it's playing the game while in uncomfortable to harsh conditions.

I thought at first the tribal sign said "Vanilla" which would be a good description, actually. Yeah, that makes sense. Keep the two tribes apart, don't give them any comforts other than a shower, some small amount of food. I assume the day spent in the hotel essentially doesn't count - they'll have 39 days on the island. Dave should have been voted out. And it's way too early to get into complicated vote-splitting plans with people you don't know yet.

My father (who is considerably older than Rachel) recently insisted that India was not part of Asia in a conversation with me. When I asked him which continent it belonged to he hemmed and hawed before finally admitting that it was actually part of Asia.

When I realized this was the final three and not one of the trucks seemed worthy of winning it really drove home how weak this season is. At best all of these trucks are the type to go out at 4 or 5.

I'm (depending on your definition) either a GenX or Baby Boomer (I was born in 1965 - I've seen "Gen X" defined as starting anywhere from 1961 to 1966. I don't feel a connection to either Baby Boomers or Gen X, probably because of that). I avoid writing in longhand as much as possible. My handwriting is an incomprehensible scrawl, I can't imagine what others think of it. The idea that "Gen X" writes things in longhand is ridiculous. By some definitions, btw, Probst is a member of Gen X. So STFU, Probst.