I took the original of this cute little penguin at the Omaha zoo.

I did have to turn on the heat. It was about 30 this morning.

So I’ve been watching Survivor–the reality show where they are to beat each other in challenges to be the winner of 100K. It’s interesting to see the manipulations–the strategies: keep the stronger players to ensure they can win the rewards as a team and don’t have to keep voting off their team members, or get rid of the stronger players so they can win against the weaker members to get to the final three. At the final three, some of the ones kicked off earlier vote to decide who wins.

It’s a throw of the dice, though it sure seemed in the beginning of the series it was rigged as to who would win and my mother and kids and I quit watching it after a couple of seasons. Back in those days, you couldn’t watch the whole thing through in a few days. It was a week in between, ads, the works. So it’s kind of fun watching it this way. It’s interesting to see characterization under pressure, for writing in stories too.

The 2 recent seasons I had watched had the same theme–the winner was the guy who back-stabbed the most, therein playing the game the “best.” I think something is lost on that. I like the idea of the best strategist, but all around well-rounded, can be effective in helping their team win the challenges, can work around camp so they have a fire, food, and shelter, and a well-liked person should win. The one who keeps forging ahead, no matter the insurmountable odds. The one who can be a leader or a team player, whatever is called for. Who knows his/her strengths and weaknesses. Not the one who is behind the scenes playing everyone against everyone. They often haven’t won hardly any challenges at all to move their team along. They’re the con-artists, the manipulators. They’re really not survivors, but users, in my book. In fact, some will say they’re not going to work because they have to save themselves for the challenges.

I’ve been watching a more interesting season of winners or near winners who are in this challenge together and I had only watched 2 more recent seasons and was surprised to see some of the same faces I saw in those 2 earlier episodes.

At the end where the people who were kicked off and judge the final three, it sounds like they’re reading off a script. And if it’s not more sincere than that, if they have to vote by some rigid criterion set by the producer–which means, rottenest person who survived wins, it’s not for me.

One of the characters I really like is this extremely muscled black grave digger. He is so funny, and really good at the physical challenges. He ended up with two immunity necklaces, didn’t believe anyone was going to vote him off and didn’t use either one of them on the earlier season. He’s just fun. So in this one, the poor guy tears a leg muscle and they vote him out. He was calling this other guy an old fat Superman who had no muscle and didn’t win any of the challenges. I didn’t see him as fat, but James was right. He hadn’t won any challenges. Ironically, James had beat both him and another guy in the previous challenge despite the leg brace. The other guy knew they were going to vote him off, but when they did a little foot race to see if James could beat another guy on their team–JT, just to see if he needed to go, James couldn’t beat him. He was struggling to run because of his injury.

Now, one of the reasons they let him go also was because of his banana etiquette. He asked, “There’s a banana etiquette?”

A friend of his told him he needed to bring bananas back to the camp for everyone who wanted one, not just take one for himself. In the earlier show, they were trying to keep an alliance of their people and vote off the people who were from the other team, and he kept saying, “You can run around naked, but don’t bite the apple. Just leave that apple alone. So what do they do? They eat the apple!” He was so mad, but personality-wise and since he really works hard for a team effort and as an individual and one of the biggest contributors to working at the camp and keeping them fed and the fire going, etc., I would love to see him win.

Then there’s JT and he did win on that season, conniving, backstabbing, I would love to see him go. He just makes friends with everyone and walks away with the prize. Anorexic Courtney won one challenge in that earlier season, never can do anything, she’s a total liability, sits out for most challenges and she ended up in the final 3. Shaking head. I hope she never wins. She’s a coat-tail hanger-on. She never did anything, never helped with camp, nothing. Maybe this time she’ll be eliminated before the final 3. One can hope.

So with that said, I need to get to work and back to writing. lol

Have a super lovely day, no rain today for us!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”
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