Erik B. reports that John Brady Kiesling has resigned, with a rather powerful letter, if I do say so myself.
--Nick
So ... I don't have a strongly formed opinion about the winning plan for the World Trade Center redesign. I just haven't paid enough attention to know what the alternatives are in depth or anything (I looked at a few pictures, but that's about all).
The whole bit about the complete lack of shadows on 9/11 in the hours of the attack and the 1,776 feet are kinda cool, though.
--Nick
Good Lord ... the guys are freakin' pathetic. Amazing living structure, for sure (as we've known for some time), but really nothing else to their credit. And the girls? Yes, still pathetic ... but looking to be less so by the end of this episode, with at least a passable set of living conditions and a firm grasp of how to manipulate the guys.
That's right, it's Survivor time again! And, here we go ...
- Hmm ... didn't they just say last week that their structure was great and they only had a few drips, but mostly stayed dry? Now, their structure had "a lot of leaks and everyone was getting wet"?
- Heh, so you're men so you want to just build and think about comfort later? More like you want to build and then think about women later.
- So ... Matthew starts speaking in Chinese with Daniel. This ends up biting him in the ass later (I'll get to that later), but honestly, why the hell did he start doing that in the first place? You know that Daniel will say anything at tribal council and doesn't pay any attention at all to controlling what he says. Plus, you know that he's one of the two people that are in the hot seat right now ... why the hell would you want to do anything that might associate yourself with him? Dumb, dumb, dumb on his part.
- Apparently Shawna hasn't been doing the cooking ... how did she not know that the lid didn't fit right on that pot? I think all she managed to do was piss off all the wasps.
- Wow, the girls talked about how they were eating flour with maggots, but I think this is the first time we've gotten a good look at their flour. That is seriously nasty.
- So ... while I admit it's kind of clever of Jeanne to nominate Deena as leader, she manages to avoid gaining points in my book by "initiating" her as leader (Jeanne - the next L. Ron Hubbard), and even more so, by being in cahoots with Religious Bitch!
- Holy delusional flirting, Batman! The guys are beyond pathetic here ... Oh wait, I'm being unfair. After all, I know it's been a whole seven days since they've had girls around them. Not that I believe that some of these guys have girls around when they're back in the U.S., right? And look at Jeff egging on the flirting and making fun of the guys is hilarious, especially when they don't seem to realize how ridiculous they are ... I swear, he has way too much fun at this job :).
- What is this "Unfortunately, no I don't" crap from Alex? "Shawna, it is my pleasure to give you my pumice stone," says Rob ... WTF are these idiots doing? You're playing for a reward here ... this pretty much shows how the guys are not thinking about the game ... they're thinking about the girls with which they have no chance. Way to go, girls, for totally egging them on in this.
- I'm sure Rob gets shot down by women ... a lot. Freakin' dorky kiss-ass. Daniel ... loooooooooooooooooser. Either he's stupid for not remembering what's happened? Or he's a loser for intentionally blowing it to talk to a girl.
- The guys got burned SOOOOOOOOOO many times by the standard wrong-guess, the next person knows what you have problem. I'm shocked, especially when they were do or die, that they didn't ask for an object that they didn't have and knew that somebody else didn't have (fake a mistake), then have one of the other tribe ask for that item and tell them that you don't have it. I guarantee that the first time, this would expose an item that the other tribe has and you can steal it from them. Of course, this just elevates the game to include bluffing, but hell, take the advantage of a free pair. For that matter, it's not just the guys ... one of the girls should have thought of this, too! OK ... actually, I lied. I'm not shocked. I mean, it's not like there was a rocket scientist playing the game or anything ... or ... err ... umm ... yeah. Hmph.
- Um ... yeah ... nice reward, Rob. I'm sure that the girls all want to get with you. As Deb said, it doesn't matter if Heidi is only a "6" right now, since you're right down there hovering in the "2" range.
- Heh, OK, as much as Rob annoys me, I'm glad he called Joanna out for being an idiot about "Jesus being for Jaburu". What I'd love to see is if there was a similar religious freak on the other tribe ... one of these times they have to have one on both sides ... then we can see them try and reconcile which side Jesus is really on.
- Ugh ... how sad is it that the guys are dreaming about the girls bathing each other? And then how sad was it how they sat there and gawked at each other while bathing ... at least they understand how much power they have over the guys right now. And Heidi ... what the hell was that crap about the older women judging you? Sounds like you're the one judging them ... and now I'm judging you. You're a stuck-up bitch ... oh yeah, and you're ageist. Way to stereotype all older women as being so obviously jealous of your body. Come back to reality, Heidi.
- We had an interesting discussion about whether the cameraman was a man or a woman in this scene ... on the one hand, you think they might feel self-conscious about going topless if it was a guy ... but then again, they've already said they're willing to use toplessness to their favor, which means they aren't bashful, and (probably more relevantly), to have been out there this long, they've already had to integrate the constant camera presence in to their lives and pretty much learned to ignore it. So ... there's no way to tell if it was a guy or a girl, but it probably wouldn't matter either way (except perhaps in how much enjoyment the camera operator got out of the whole scene).
- Heh, apparently the guys aren't any better at fishing than the girls without bait. Those were some sad-ass guppies that would have been better used as bait ... and WTF is up with Matthew and his "Super-Chef" act? He forgot one item on his list of things they don't have ... a decent chef.
- The Viagra joke, apparently, wasn't new to Deb, but it was new to me. Heh.
- The little Volkswagen commercial-like musical bit with the girls working synchronized to music was pretty cool, I have to say.
- So ... with Deena at the helm and over a week in, looks like the girls are finally putting together a decent living area. About time, but now what am I going to make fun of them for? And look at that, they finally caught some real fish! Hmm ... well ... I trust they'll do something stupid soon enough. And, there we go ... holy crap, please stop singing!
- Lord, enough with the eight-ball already ... and with the girls. Forget these girls ... any girls that ever see this scene will never date you again.
- During the immunity challenge, I was totally ready to make fun of the girls for not knowing how to cut a rope using a machete (you don't saw, you chop) ... and then the guys got to their second rope to cut and totally freakin' sucked. There was some speculation in our group that maybe the guys got a duller machete in order to even things up (which would be clever, I suppose, but totally unfair of the producers ... I don't think they'd stoop that low, especially given the nature of the challenges and how well the girls have been doing), but I don't believe it. You just don't saw ropes with an unserated blade the way the guys were. Pathetic, I have to say ... I had this impression that they knew how to use their tools based on their structure, but now I wonder again.
- Let's see if Daniel can screw himself over ... and ... there he goes, with the Chinese language thing and trying to play the race card. And look at the look on Matthew's face when Daniel brings up that they both speak Chinese ... it finally and instantly dawns on him what a mistake he made way back when associating himself with Daniel. And holy crap, does he look pissed ... even after the vote!
- Holy Landslide ... that was not how we expected things were going to go ... Daniel probably totally hosed himself with his stupidity at Tribal Council and everyone pounced on the idiot ... even Matthew, I imagine, wanted to distance himself as quickly as possible. Up until then, I'd say it was really unclear whether it'd be him or Rodger. Jeff gave him just enough rope (and not even that much ... just a simple question and he didn't even have to probe in to try and get Daniel to screw up) and he hung himself in fine fashion.
- Did anyone else notice that the song that they play while people vote has been reinstrumented this year? They switched it to make the synthesizer/drums more mellow and switched to playing the melody with the same flute they're using as the Amazon-specific backdrop to the main theme instead of the flute they usually use.
- We all noticed that he made sure to reveal the two votes that we saw during the voting first ... I don't remember them always being this precise ... evil!
- Finally, looks like fishing is involved in the challenge next week. Deb thinks that perhaps Jeff was trying to hint to them that they should learn to fish better and that this is totally unfair. This is something they certainly could do, and there's no way to know for sure, but I'd like to believe (as I continue to have faith in Jeff and the producers to do the right thing) that he was just pointing out that they should stop bitching about food when they aren't putting their all into fishing.
Thanks, as always, goes to the crew I watch with (Marc, Zach, Jenn, Deb, Rick, and Katrina) for inspiration on a lot of this. I'm sure many of these ideas came up during our viewing and I've just forgotten to properly attribute the ideas to the right people. Sorry about that.
--Nick
Edit: Time for Erik B.'s weekly take. Quote of the week: "The men once again played with their balls, errrr, their Magic 8 Ball."
Whee, filled out the whole calendar!
Observe it in all its gloriousness, for today only. :)
--Nick
Frenchie, it would seem, is not the twist. Nor is the fact that there are four wild-cards being chosen rather than the expected two. That last bit also probably isn't a big surprise, if they really are trying to address the perceived weakness of their finalists so far. Not to mention being ratings grubbers and trying to extend the show by two more weeks.
--Nick
Heh ... Fox? Lying? How can that be?
Though Gail Berman (president of Fox Entertainment) claimed that Joe Millionaire was a one-shot deal, apparently the 40 million viewers convinced them that integrity was overrated.
How they're going to manage to make Joe Millionaire work again is beyond me ... will be interesting to see how they do it.
--Nick
Well ... Zora and Evan are toast. Oh well ... I thought maybe they'd work out, but I can't say I'm shocked or anything.
But, could it possibly be, Trista and Ryan, actually bucking the trend? So far, none of the couples that have shown up on one of the high-profile reality shows (by which I mean things like The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire, not Blind Date and the like) have actually followed through after the show was over ... take for example, Aaron and Helene's high profile breakup.
But, I heard this interesting bit of info on the radio ... apparently Trista and Ryan are registered at Bloomingdale's and have set a date (June 7). You'd think this isn't a huge surprise, given that they did get engaged at the end of the show ... but so did Aaron and Helene.
Then again, I wonder how much verification the online registry companies do ... could be some random people just trying to generate some buzz. I went looking for some news on whether this is true or not, but I didn't find anything in my brief searches.
--Nick
Once in a while, the masses fail to piss me off and manage to get something right.
Clearly they got it right tonight ... though Patrick didn't deserve to be third place. Marc speculates (and I agree) that Corey and Joshua got way more votes than the rest of them, so Patrick actually trailed by a huge amount.
There's been a lot of criticism that the semifinalists this year suck ... I will point out that this is somewhat exaggerated and unfair, given that some of the best singers from last year didn't come into their own until midway into the finals, and because people who bitch about this are only remembering the very best of last year (Kelly, Tamyra, and Justin are the names that they keep throwing about). Good Lord, these people need to shut up ... they keep forgetting about the huge number of people who sucked last year, even in the finals. How about comparing some of the crappy people this year against some of the crappy semi-finalists of last year? In the end, only the best few will be remembered from this year and people will start calling this year the "glory year of the past". I hate how these people never remember this factor.
That said, there have been some serious stinkers in the semi-finals, and probably not 8 that even have a chance of making it any further. Thus, there isn't any reason to pick 8 of the semi-finalists that didn't make it for the wild-card round. I'm really glad and excited that they're bringing back some other people to give them a shot ... whether they just missed the cut before due to a bad day or whether the judges just made a mistake, they deserve more of a chance than some of the schmucks we say during the semis, and I'm glad that the judges (I have to think Simon had something to do with this) stepped up and did the right thing to improve the competition. Next week should be much better for their decision.
The only mistake I'd say they still made was not bringing back Danny Rodriguez (remember him? The Broadway, showtunes style singer that sang "My Way" when he didn't make it past the 2nd round) ... he's really really good and blows away many of the semi-finalists. He has the same wrong-genre problem that people like Patrick do, but he's good enough to overcome that. Or at least, to get a chance to be accepted by the public.
But who's spot would he take? While we were watching, Marc pointed out (again, quite rightly) that Chip was the only other one in this group that didn't totally suck ... and ... good call, he's the one that gets into the wild card episode. But then the announcement that another one made it ... and we pretty much decided that we didn't care who it was, they don't deserve it. Turns out, it was Nasheka ... and while she was probably 4th best of the group ... Danny should be in her spot.
Then, the matter of the twist ... Erin tells me she's read speculation that the surprise is that Frenchie is being brought back ... not sure if I believe that's possible, but it'd be an interesting surprise.
Finally ... Steve's comment about the Kimberly slip-up last night. Yeah, it's been obvious for a long time that she's a shoo-in for the judge's choice ... and I actually agree. I think she's losing some votes for the bitch factor from the things she did during the round 2 auditions ... but she's got a good, unique voice and a good personality and look for the camera. When it was just 8 wild-cards from the 24 remaining semi-finalists, I would have been large quantities of money that she'd make it ...
I do think, though, that the big loser from the whole change to bring in non-semi-finalists as wild-cards was Kimberly. I do still think it's her slot to lose and I expect her to win one of the slots, but I wouldn't bet as confidently anymore ... the people they're bringing in probably have a legitimate shot ... much more so than the other losing semi-finalists. I'd say I'd peg her at 90% right now. As an early guess, I think it'll be her and Aliceyn (the girl who Simon admitted slipped through the cracks during last week's "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" episode) rounding out the final 10.
As for the big winner? That would be us ... next week promises to be a much better episode because of their decision, and I have high hopes.
--Nick
About damned f***ing time somebody got it straight.
Marc and I have both meaning to rant on this for some time, but Marc found this commentary which says it more eloquently than I could.
You have physical access to the machine, the machine isn't secure. Period.
Why the hell is the press full of so many stupid people? Oh wait, I forgot, they got a chance to jump on the anti-MS bandwagon ... can't pass that up, even if it makes you look like an idiot.
--Nick
What the hell is wrong with these people? (Ugh, that link will break in a week ... but I'm talking about the Round 4 contestants on American Idol).
Why is it that they think that they're the experts on singing and the judges don't know what they're talking about? These people suck and they just don't realize it ... and accusing the judges of not understanding music is just their way of denying it. The judges are pretty much usually spot on, especially Simon (and to a lesser extent, Randy) ... I think that just about anyone listening can tell what the judges are trying to say - in retrospect, at least, even if they don't notice when the performance is happening. For anyone that listens carefully and has some music background, what they say is painfully obvious ... I've gotten to the point now where I pretty much comment mid-song on exactly what the judges will say with 95% accuracy. And when I do disagree with them, usually I can see why we disagree and I can see their point, even if we don't see eye to eye for some reason. Once in a while we just flat-out disagree, but it's very rare, so it's very likely that contestants who disagree with them are just plain wrong, especially since only the crappy ones tend to fight them.
So Sylvia, I'm glad you're good enough for your church ... stick to that church, because that's about as far as you're going to be able to take it. This does not make you an expert ... and damn, did you butcher that song by pretty much yelling it out. Paula put this very well ... definitely oversang that song.
Chip Days ... decent voice, but man, you've had so many chances now, time to break out of the shell! Ryan even gave you a chance afterward and you totally blew it. He doesn't do well on camera, it seems.
Juanita, just shut the hell up. I'll put it more simply than the judges - you suck. Your voice has no richness to it ... it's just this thin hollow shell trying a song that's way over your head. Funny thing with her ... she was oversinging, too ... her voice was just so weak that it didn't sound like it. Cardinal sin that many people are committing ... trying to make their voice sound stronger than it is ... you can always tell. Bitch to the judges all you want ... all you're succeeding in convincing us of is that you're self-deluded and bitch in addition to being a really bad singer. Don't quit your day job ... oh crap. No day job. Umm ... well ... go find something to do that you actually can do well.
Patrick's got this weird eye thing with his left eye ... and he can't do this genre, no matter how hard he tries. He's got a hard edge that I'm sure would work well for certain genres of songs, but in a song that doesn't want that edge, he can't completely contain it. His voice also cracked in some tougher parts of the song ... he's also oversinging trying to stretch to those songs ... he just can't handle it. Not good. This isn't the right competition for you ...
Nasheka is just a tad bit sharp. She's also got a very nasal voice and loses her voice sometimes on the high notes ... She also doesn't look very into the song. Not as horrible as the other 4 so far, though. I'm still depressed so far at having to vote for 2 tonight ...
Joshua ... Good Lord, don't admit that you were thinking about doing a country song. Thank God you came to your senses before doing that. I'm glad that you finally dropped that saluting thing ... it was getting old quick. And, funny that after last week's bit with Edwin McCain asking that people stop butchering the song, Joshua actually did it decently. He was actually good ... up until, ow, why did you try the little vocal flourish during the word "said" right before the chorus? That sounded bad and pushed you beyond your range. He's also singing a little too quickly and he's got a bit of a harsh edge to his voice tonight, but I think that's nerves. Compared to the others, though, I'm nitpicking. Finally, someone I can vote for with a clear conscience.
Ashley provides a good comparison to Juanita. She's also got a thinner voice ... a more mellow style rather than a belt-it-out Mariah Carey style voice. But, on the good side, she seems aware of it and knows how to use it ... don't oversing, don't try and sound all powerful when you know you're not. You'll sound better that way rather than just sounding like she's pretending to be something she's not. That said, this was not a good song choice for her. She just couldn't do the chorus well with her vocal style - she requires more smooth flowing melodies and that's a very tough, accented set of beats to hit that you need a stronger voice to carry through. And actually, this underscores the bigger problem she has ... while she knows how to maximize her voice, it's just not that strong and you can only go so far with it. I actually think as she gets older, her voice might mature and she might be able to do better ... the right song choices might help her mask her weaknesses for now, but she really wants to be in American Idol 2005. And yikes ... the judges were much more negative on her than me ... oh well ... nobody's perfect every time ... and I'm going to guess they focused on when she hit the chorus and after, which were decidedly worse than the first half of the song.
And finally, Corey. Heh, he looks like a mini-Justin with the hairstyle. Nice voice, but his stage presence is a little silly ... he seems kinda twitchy. Slightly lost vocal control in a couple places, but otherwise, good ... to me, presentation can be fixed more easily than voice. And the little vocal control slip-ups can be fixed with a little more experience.
Now, you'll just have to take it on faith that I wrote these comments while they sang, before the judges had their say (except when I added commentary on their commentary). Erin's the only one who's really watched the show with me a decent amount, so perhaps she can vouch for my accuracy in real-time commentary. Really, though, not horribly much discrepency between my comments and theirs ... Sylvia and Juanita, go suck on that. They know what they're talking about.
As Simon would say, if America gets it right, they're going to vote for Joshua and Corey.
Summary recap: Stop questioning the judges. They're right. You're wrong. So just can the attitude and STFU.
--Nick
Edit: Marc points out that I'm not the only one that feels this way.
I think I finally figured out why moms tend to look a little too sexy for my cat: It's because there is evidence, in most cases irrefutable, that they put out. Kinda hard to claim you don't put out when you're pushing a stroller, huh?
- John F. Rizzo
This is from, of all things, a Magic tournament report. Rizzo's tournament reports, though, are some of my favorite Magic article writing anywhere. He's one of those wirters that have a knack for just calling out hilarious situations and breaking out amazing one-liners that leave you rolling.
Unfortunately, he stopped playing about a year ago and consequently stopped writing ... mostly. He wrote one article back in November out of the blue, which was an amazing surprise when I went on my rounds of Magic articles for the day and pretty much made my week.
He posted something new yesterday, again out of the blue and totally making my week. The above quote was lifted from that article. Totally not PC and horribly wrong ... but really, really funny.
--Nick
Funny how you grow accustomed to things and then they don't seem so bad anymore.
The theme song to Dragnet isn't so bad as I remembered. The trombones doing their thing are still obscenely obnoxious, but if you were to dump those, the rest wouldn't be horrible. The little interlude in the middle is catchy, too.
And, while I have no good explanation or excuse for why I still watch I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, I've been watching and the host isn't as vile as I seemed to recall. Now he's just bad.
Joe Rogan, on the other hand, grows on me more and more the more that I watch Fear Factor. He's got a wit and enjoyment of what he's doing about him that reminds me somewhat of Jeff Probst (who is still the king of all Reality TV hosts). Anderson Cooper had the same qualities, which is why those three are the triumverate, as far as I'm concerned.
--Nick
So much for all that Unbreakable BS that Oracle was spewing ... Or do these somehow not count? Yes, I'm sure there have been many other vulnerabilities found since they announced their stupid campaign, but this is the first I randomly ran into since I never actually took the time to look into it.
As was obvious to anyone tech-savvy at all from the beginning, the whole campaign is quite stupid.
--Nick
Is it just me, or would this potentially be one of the most hilarious debates ever?
Of course, the Bushies will have no part of it ... but I can't say I'm too surprised, since I've already described what I think are the fallacies in their arguments.
--Nick
So, none of the contestants was actually competent enough to force the choice. But, given the choice ... which two of the three would you choose to eat?
- Bull Spleen
- Bull Snout
- Bull Spinal Cord
Not sure there really is a good answer ... but the hair on the snout was pretty freakin' nasty looking ...
--Nick
I have this maddeningly annoying second wind that hits every night at right about 12:30. I never feel like going to bed before that, since it's so early and there's always a few more things I feel like doing. But if I'm up at 12:30, no matter how tired I've been all day and all night, I immediately am the most alert I am all day, and this lasts until probably 3:30.
Not good for the schedule.
--Nick
I don't actually have anything to say.
That said, I've become unnaturally enamored with the idea of filling in the entire calendar with posts ... which means I have to come up with something to say today.
Thus, this is cheating, but still does the trick. :)
--Nick
Bah, why is Fox Sports Net showing a pointless game between San Diego and San Francisco that's 20 points with 1:55 left when USC and Cal are neck and neck with seconds to go?
The regional argument goes out the window considering the teams playing, and USC/Cal has both higher profile and better drama ...
Stupid Fox Sports Net.
--Nick
Ryan has provided me with a perfect excuse to give to everyone that gives me a hard time about my diet. "Hey, at least I'm not eating Hungry-Man Breakfasts!"
The obligatory warning - the review linked to above has some vulgarity in it, for those of you who that kind of thing bothers. It's not horrible, though, and certainly one of the funniest reviews I've read in a long time. Don't forget to take a good look at those nutrition facts while you're there ...
--Nick
About the only objection I have to this article is the early sentiment that even people who watch Reality TV think it's bad. "Yet, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, never have so many watched so much TV with so little good to say about it." Bah ... totally untrue that people have nothing good to say about Reality TV! I rave about it all the time, as do my friends who are true fans ... I assure you, the crew I watch Survivor with does not sit there and deride the show ... we take it very seriously.
Other than that, though, the article is quite good, though. Well, OK ... the dig against CSI isn't fair either (I'm an equal opportunity TV watcher ... scripted shows can be good, too!) ... CSI: Miami, on the other hand ...
Thanks to Erin for the link ... always hooking me up with the good TV stuff. :)
--Nick
Edit: Heh, that's what I get for posting too late at night. I forgot the actual link. Hyperlink inserted above.
By popular demand, http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~nfang/ now redirects you to my weblog, saving you a precious 7 keystrokes.
--Nick
And the complete inability to live for the girls continues on Survivor.
As always, organization is way too much to expect from this weblog, so no coherent paragraphs for you. My assorted thoughts:
- So ... while I couldn't say for sure last week that cooking the flour should have been much easier than the girls made it out to be, now we have proof. Come on, girls, it's not rocket science ... or at least, the guys seem to be able to make decent flour cakes with a dumb rocket scientist.
- Dave couldn't have given them a better segue if they'd paid him to ... "It'd suck to be outside right now." And of course, everyone knows they're going straight to the girls. Great stuff!
- Good Lord, Butch ... you don't know all their names yet? Why the hell did they choose you to be the guide, then? Now, granted, I still don't remember all their names ... but c'mon, are you guys here to play or not?
- Man, listen to the guys bitch after the reward challenge about losing to girls. You guys freakin' sucked. You would have lost to iguanas with missing legs. Jeff looks like he's ready to tell the guys straight up that they suck. At least he got to get in the digs about how the fish are bountiful and they basically can't fish worth crap. Deb says that according to one of her friends, fishing in the Amazon river is ridiculously easy.
- Joanna ... it's like Linda reborn. Oh, wait, do they not believe in resurrection ... uh oh, better watch out before she gets in my face and gives me the dreaded hand. She's a serious, serious bitch ... and while she provides some amusement, I want her outta there. The crew (Deb, Rick, Zach, Jenn, Marc, and I) came up with some great ways to mess with her, though. Someone should sneak that idol into her sleeping bag. And after she bitched out Christy, Christy should have dropped down and started worshipping the idol, denouncing Joanna's deity of choice (which sounded like blahblahblahJediblahblah to me).
- The granola bar ... heh. I wonder how somebody snuck that in. I half expect that the producers stuck it there as a possible comedic element ... stick one in the bottom of each team's box and see them squirm. How great would it have been to see the girls burn theirs and go into a big rage, then pan over to the guys saying, "Cool!" and chowing down. :P
- Wow, the guys actually impressed me at the immunity challenge. That wasn't easy ... separating individuals to answer and getting to some pretty detailed stuf . Much harder than I expected they were going to make it.
- Christy, who hadn't bugged me much until the end of this episode, basically self-destructed. She was totally right about the people not working on the shelter, especially after they all bitched about getting wet. But when they finally come to help, this isn't the right time to get annoyed and righteous. Way to be stupid ... who the hell bitches everyone out right before tribal council? It took Jeff to save her from herself, pointing out the whole exclusion and deafness thing and getting her the sympathy vote back.
- They did a great job of making us all think that Christy was screwed right up until Jeff bailed her out. In the end, it's the sickness factor, kicking in again.
- We realized while they were voting that there are too many girls whose names start with the same letter. They should be assigned names for the purposes of Survivor ... maybe based on their roles. We already have Spooky-Religious-Bitch ... we can add Sick-Bitch, Annoying-Bitch, Anorexic-Model-Bitch, Stupid-Bitch. Heh. That's gonna get me in trouble with somebody, I'm sure ... just imagine that "Bitch" is my shorthand for "Very respectable woman".
That's all for now ... still waiting to get to watch the finale of The Bachelorette.
--Nick
Edit: Bwahaha! Seems you can always count on Erik B. to have at least one choice line in each of his recaps. This week: "Every woman in the tribe has PMS every 28 minutes."
Good Lord ...
Steve points out the new show American Candidate ...
Steve, incidentally, runs a much more focused weblog consisting of only Reality TV musings. Worth a read for all you Reality TV fans out there.
--Nick
Eric points out that Brian Tiemann has found a quite amusing site ... well worth the visit.
--Nick
Oh, goodie! Now all I need is an inflatable bride. All you singles out there, better snatch yours up quickly!
Got lots of random links today which I'm just going to spew at you now with reckless abandon. That first one was thanks to Eric.
Erik N. sent a link demonstrating that Shel Silverstein wasn't just all about the childrens' poetry ...
Penny Arcade (for those of you that haven't seen it, always a great read ... sort of weblog style and written/drawn exceptionally well) put up a link to the Visual Thesaurus, which is cool, though I'm not sure what use I'd put it to. Interesting to note that they're now popular enough that they actually Penny Arcaded the GamerTag Database.
And finally, with Easter comes the traditional Easter candies, including those nasty marshmallow Peeps. Zach pointed out that they are, however, at least good for students with too much time on their hands. Similar experiments have been done on similarly articifial and nasty (in my opinion, of course) foods ...
--Nick
ABC has been asking a lot of the wrong questions lately. In this case, the real question is, "Why am I watching this show? Get me out of here!" In particular, the host of this show is horrible. Not to mention the celebrities ... who somehow all seemed confused as to what was going to happen to them. Dude, look around ... if everyone else is as washed out as you are, you think they're sending you out there for a nice vacation?
--Nick
Read in the news today that Progressive is now offering insurance on Segways. They even went as far as to have a deal with Segway where Segway mentions them on their web site.
This shows promise, since I failed getting insurance a month ago.
I haven't checked with them yet to find out the cost, details, etc ... but I'll report when I do. Hopefully they won't try and charge an arm and a leg simply because it's a new device ...
--Nick
Ugh.
I hadn't gotten around to watching the Bachelorette yet (and won't probably until Friday), and was rudely reminded why you have to watch the finales of popular Reality TV shows live ...
I lasted a grand total of about an hour before the result was spoiled for me (and I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it yet) ...
Actually, I should have known. The one season where I couldn't watch the finale of Survivor live, I was smart enough to sequester myself completely from all media and news to make sure it wouldn't be spoiled. In general, I even stop reading the web once the east coast knows the results of shows since I'm afraid they'll be spoiled.
Guess I just got careless this time. :(
--Nick
I was arguing with Gurpratap today about the value of sleep ... my position is easily seen based on the time of this post.
Anyway, he brought up the idea that he considered sleep to be important, just like in the programming world, where sleeping overrides other things.
Really though, I think the computer version of sleep falls well within my view of things. It's low priority, not happening for you automatically until you have nothing else to do and voluntarily call it, or being forced upon you against your will. Either way, it's clearly a last resort. :)
--Nick
Here's a special live edition of the weblog ... I'm going to take notes on the finale of Joe Millionaire while I watch so that I don't forget stuff as I go along.
Before the episode, though, a quick comment on last week's recap fiasco and Fox marketing. Last week's episode, as many have commented, was a horrible bait-and-switch ... Fox kept marketing something big happening, even throughout the whole episode, and then ultimately did nothing but show old stuff and a couple of walks through the park. It was so bad that (and I can't find the link right now, unfortunately) a Fox spokesperson supposedly said that they apologized if they went too far in their advertising.
From the raw perspective of getting people to watch your shows, though, they've done a masterful job of it. They milked a week out of it that they ordinarily couldn't because everyone was expecting something big, at the expense of pissing people off. That's a fairly standard trade you can make. However, by fanning the flames of the twist (which I think is likely just giving them money afterwards) and getting everyone to think something huge is going to happen, they know (probably rightly) that it doesn't matter how pissed off people are, they're going to watch the finale anyway. Thus, they get to have their cake and eat it, too. After all, I was pissed and here I am, glued to the TV.
To the episode:
- I'm predict that he'll choose Sarah, but he'll be making a mistake. Zora's clearly a better person and more likely to like him instead of the money
- Glad to see nobody's in it for the money. Sheesh! All these girls saying it wasn't about the money. One, I don't believe you, and two, like anyone's going to get up on national TV and say, "Yeah, it was all about the money".
- The camera shot when Melissa said that she, "brings a lot to the table," was hilarious ... only on Fox.
- Wow, Paul just came right out and acknolwedged that they jerked everyone around last week. I bet this was in direct response to the backlash they got last week ... which means that this must have been filmed really recently.
- And, to nobody's surprise at all, Heidi turns out really to be a bitch. Marc and I were sitting here talking about how her boyfriend should have tossed her to the curb after this whole show, but there he is ... apparently just in it for the looks (which is good, since that's all he gets, and even there, not so much, really). Whatever floats his boat, I guess.
- Bwahahaha! "Yeah, hope that plan works out for you, Heidi". That was Paul's moment of the whole series, bar none ... totally deadpan and exactly spot-on ... almost approached Jeff Probst with that one.
- Isn't it funny how Fox is different from all the other networks? Other reality shows: Hide the bad things that come up in your participants' pasts (witness Brian on Survivor or Frenchie on American Idol). Fox: Revel in it. Put up newspaper headlines and fake photos. Simulated Image? Heh. What the hell did that add to the show? Fox trying to be all in-your-face again, and this time they fell flat on their faces. Still, definitely more happy to have controversial people than other shows ...
- Go Zora for calling out the freakin' smokers.
- Zora must be totally spotless if Fox couldn't come up with anything to rag on her with.
- Heh, now they did a full recap of last week's recap debacle. They're desparate to milk ratings and fill time, obviously ... and it makes last week's episode even sadder since everything new that happened last weekend was showed today.
- Ugh, Paul's continual bringing up of the big twist is getting really annoying.
- Zora looks like she knows that it's not her ... and as soon as he starts talking, it's obvious it's not her. He isn't as good at making it seem like it's possibly her as the Bachelors have been ... dropped the bomb quickly. Whoa, holy crap ... it is her. OK, so he's better at it than I thought. :P I did not see that coming AT ALL. That's probably the big surprise of the night!
- Unfortunately, now we don't get to see Sarah get screwed over and probably freak out over the lie ... Zora's more likely to not care about the money, though Marc points out that she might care about the lie.
- Sarah, on the other hands, looks like she expects to get it. And she looks excited to hear the two things he gets off his chest ... maybe she's gonna get beaten down after all. And wow, look at the brief flash of "holy sh**" on her face before she pulled her composure together. I suppose that's fair ... I suppose anyone would do that. Now she has the fake condescending smile going on. Wow, and now he smacks her with not having chosen her. She looks pissed, and he had a slight grin on ... and now the smile's back. Now we're back to how she feels ... wonder if it's not being chosen or the money? Watching her reactions, actually, I kinda believe that I've given her too hard a time ... she's probably not as bad as I've made her out to be (in particular, I don't think it's as clear cut of a Zora = good vs. Sarah = bad thing as many people make it out to be).
- Wow, I wonder if the producers advised him to knock her over in rapid succession like that? That was brutal! I could believe that he chose to do it that way himself, though. It goes like this - he wants to tell her he's not rich first so that she isn't as disappointed. Then, she gets defensive because she thinks he was implying that she only cared about the money. So, in order to deflect this, he goes into the other news. Or maybe the producers planned it. Either way, talk about seriously brutal.
- Melissa looks like she would have taken the money news the worst, though the knowing look on Sarah's face suggests that yes, she did care ... maybe I was too nice above. Hard to read her now.
- Heh, "Money does not make you suave. Money doesn't give you charm and class and all those things," says Melissa ... while smoking her cigarette.
- No more limo. Heh. Welcome back to minivan-world, Melissa and Sarah.
- As I said early on, this show would only be funny (as opposed to just plain mean) if a total bitch got screwed over ... having it be Zora takes a lot of the fun away. Watching Heidi twist in the wind would have been hilarious, for example.
- Wow, look at Zora do the whole, "bad news, bad news, bad news, wow, I accept," right back at Evan ... she had me totally fooled, too ... and by the looks of it, so was Evan.
- Yay for Zora actually being a good person. I was briefly worried.
- So the twist was the obvious one. To them, obviously, it was a surprise and it turned out as a great twist for them. But for us, it was totally obvious for weeks now, and Fox totally exaggerated it to try and drum up interest and make us think it was this huge thing that nobody had figured out. That's twice in two weeks now that they've jerked everyone's chains.
So, when it came to the decisions, that was two for two tonight that I called wrong on the fly ... I was totally wrong about everything that I thought I could read from what they were saying/doing. That's kind of satisfying, actually ... this ending would have been totally fine on its own without Fox spouting off on this stupid twist crap for something that we ultimately just knew.
And perhaps the biggest surprise of all for me ... what I'll consider to be the real twist ... Evan turns out to be a good guy and Zora turns out to be a good person ... they're a good couple and I actually hope they make it. Who would have pictured that in the beginning, especially hearing the concept of the show? Marc points out that Evan's smarter than he looks ... he probably picked the only girl that really didn't care about the money. Good for them! I'm glad they ended up with the money instead of some golddigger.
Ultimately, score -10 for Fox programming and a lot of annoyance (I imagine I'm not the only one who thinks that they were asses about this whole thing), but high marks for Fox marketing, who really milked this thing for all it was worth. It comes down to this ... if they just tell us that the ending will be very interesting and let us watch it, without having spilled the beans on the existence of the twist, the surprises in the episode and the ending couple would have been a satisfying ending and the extra twist would have been an extra bonus. It would have been a much more satisfying experience to watch. On the other hand, handling it like they did, they got many more viewers. When you get down to it, for a TV network, I guess the number of viewers counts for more than the quality of the experience.
Fox = Ratings whores.
--Nick
Eric writes about the follies of an Initiative system, and Sean Harding further points out how Tim Eyman is a particularly egregious violator of this system.
This all reminds me of something I meant to post a while back ... the only worthwhile initiative involving Tim Eyman.
Marc, in particular, owes me an apology on this one ... I told him about this measure and he totally made fun of me for being politically clueless and making stuff up, since obviously this type of thing couldn't happen.
Ha!
(That's me having the last laugh.)
--Nick
Edit: Fixed a typo (see comments for details).
Erik N. visited Seattle this weekend, and is our usual tradition, we spent way too much money on food.
Tonight's entry was Nishino, a very nice sushi restaurant downtown. Sushi is always a treat, especially when it's as good as it is at Nishino, and I certainly think it's well worth eating.
Every time I have sushi, though, I always remember the problem I have with it about two hours after the meal ... it never sticks! I can be full to the verge of exploding when I leave a sushi restaurant and two hours later, I'm looking to find a snack.
Speaking of which, it's about time to hit the chips and salsa.
--Nick
Zach reports that Taco Bell might in fact sell its hot sauce in supermarkets. According to his web searches, QFC might actually carry it ...
More to come when I have time to investigate.
--Nick
Edit: Wow, Zach goes above and beyond. He was just at QFC to check and they do, in fact, sell a Taco Bell hot sauce. I'm not yet sure that it's exactly the same, but I'll certainly be trying it out.
Erin reports that school's cancelled for her tomorrow due to snow. This makes me jealous for two reasons ...
1) Who doesn't like to get a free day off? Just one more in a string of wonderful things about school that you never fully appreciate until you're not in school anymore.
2) We got no snow this year. None. Zip. I don't like to have tons of snow all winter gumming things up, but a nice snowfall once a year is a nice thing.
--Nick
I think I discovered the cure to some new biological agent.
I cooked rice about a month ago, the last time I cooked dinner. A little bit was left over, and as is my habit, I left it in the rice cooker to be finished the next night. But this time, I forgot I had it and went on my merry way.
Marc was cleaning the kitchen this afternoon on a whim and opened said rice cooker, and the rice was now a nice shimmering blue-green shade of freakin' nasty.
I've already disposed of said stuff, but maybe I just tossed away some significant discovery ... oops.
--Nick
I hear such great things about Spam Assassin, and from what I can tell, it seems reasonably useful ...
But it strikes me that that isn't actually what you want ... really, I want someone to come up with Spammer Assassin. I mean, aren't you supposed to address the root cause of problems?
--Nick
The answer, it would appear, is no, you're not. Then again, my tastes have always differed from many other people's. I've always gone for cute more than "sexy", which oftentimes to me seems like just a euphemism for sleazy. While a few of the girls were attractive, most ended up in that latter category.
Of course, nobody ought to know, since ABC was stupid and scheduled the show against Survivor, which means no real reality TV fan saw it tonight. I hooked up the old VCR to give it a chance, though, since with the right judges I thought it might be humorous. It turned out to be pretty boring and I don't expect it to do very well.
Maybe this show will be better ... or at least, emphasize more cute and talented than just sleazy. Either way, ABC seems desparate to cash in on the American Idol phenomenon, and while this entry failed, maybe All-American Girl will do better since it's by the creators of American Idol ... having some talent to judge always helps. We'll just have to see.
Tonight's premiere of Survivor, of course, was the real reality TV entry for tonight and the real subject of this post ... as always, Survivor looks as strong and interesting as ever. The show never fails to please, and especially Jeff Probst is always kicking ass and taking names. He's still the best reality TV host and I think many other shows lack strongly in this department. He also looks like he absolutely loves his job and really gets into it, which you can tell and makes the show better. Why wouldn't he? I'd love his job ... so much fun.
Anyway, thoughts for tonight. Consider this your SPOILER ALERT:
- As much as I didn't want to enter with the whole sexist thought that the guys were going to have a much easier time of things than the girls, it was so obvious that this was the case watching the show. Watching the girls try and live was painful. Good case in point - starting a fire. The guys just took care of it ... no big deal since they were given everything they needed. The girls? Good Lord. I loved the scene where they first got a little flame started and then let it die. "Oh look, the fire's going out. Awwwwwwwwwwwww, isn't that cute?"
- Watching them come up to their campsites, how funny would it have been if the big surprise of the season was that they don't get a campground ... instead, they're living on the water in boats and on rafts. Survivor: Waterworld.
- Believe in yourself? Luxury item? Bwahahahahaha!
- The girls trying to chop down trees and cut logs was just hilarious ... talk about freakin' hopeless. We'll see if they ever manage to get a shelter up ... I kinda doubt it (and the preview for next week bears this out). The guys' shelter, on the other hand, was amazing ... nice to have a civil engineer on the team, eh?
- In the beginning, when Jeff's announcing the teams, we're thinking, "when are they going to realize the guys vs. girls thing?" We figure, clearly it's at the fifth girl named, when you can no longer believe that they're just announcing the four girls and then the five girls. And at least, they weren't stupid enough not to figure this out. The guys' reaction when they figured this out was priceless ... some of those guys definitely wanted to see Shawna and Heidi in swimsuits for the next 39 days.
- Was that fish not the most pathetic thing you've ever seen? I forget who, but the look of disgust on one of the girls' face when they saw it was hilarious.
- The Magic 8-Ball ... ugh, how dorky is Rob? He's such an ass-kisser, too ... everyone's a hero to him somehow. And how sad is it that the guys immediately used it to predict whether they'd get to hook up with the girls? We're going to have one horny-ass camp in a few weeks.
- The girls' utter inability to cook the flour was just sad ... though the guys seemed to be well prepared for the experience this time around (finally!), what's it going to take to finally get a crew to show up prepared to do this basic cooking and to know the survival skills?
- Girls + Tarantula = Funny. I shouldn't laugh here, since I'm afraid of spiders, but that was pretty funny ... they're going to have a rough time out there.
- Of course, showing how cocky the guys were and how well they were adjusting to life vs. how much trouble the girls were having totally foreshadowed the girls winning the first challenge, and they clearly even designed it to make it work that way ... that way, the episode works great. You have guys dominating in living, but losing the challenge from being too cocky. Putting in a balance beam gives the girls a big edge ... if you assume the average girl has better balance than the average guy, then the worst guy is going to be worse than the worst girl, and the way the challenge is laid out, it's pretty much just the worst person on your team that mattered. And Daniel, for all his trash-talk, totally sucked it up on the balance beam. Why the hell did he put his feet down? It should have been totally obvious that it was his fault that they blew that huge lead and they should have voted his ass out (I'm already developing a healthy dislike for him). As for the puzzle ... Jeff Probst, in another display of why he's the premiere reality host on TV, totally called it ... computer programmer and a rocket scientist and they couldn't put together a freakin' puzzle!
- Jeff at Tribal Council was absolutely hilarious. Totally egging on the guys to talk about which girls they were interested in ... he's totally enflaming the guys' hormones, and then calling them on what BS their attitudes toward the women were after they got their asses handed to them. Go Jeff! That said, the girls aren't doing a good job of making themselves look self-sufficient ... their skills in camp are laughable and hopefully Jeff will call that out when they end up at Tribal Council.
- Though Ryan was also obnoxious and needed to go, Daniel was clearly to blame for the guys going to Tribal Council and should have been smacked down for totally sucking. Guess the Ryan being an obnoxious ass made up for that and got him dumped. Props to Deb for figuring this all out in advance and predicting Ryan's demise.
- Did I mention Jeff Probst is my hero? Him and Mark Burnett. They're my heroes.
So far, a fantastic start to my favorite Reality TV show.
--Nick
Edit: Erik B. has some good thoughts on this as well, prompting the question of whether mutual TrackBacks will cause the universe to explode.
The point he calls out about laundry was spot on, and I meant to write about this but forgot between watching the show and driving home. Just wait until one of them accidentally drinks laundry water. Plus, when they finally lose a challenge ... "Well, we were doing great, but then Shawna forgot to wash her Buff, and it all went downhill from there."
Edit: Gurpratap reminded me of one other thing worth mentioning ... who doesn't keep their oars in the boat? Guess the girls were excited about catching that little spiny fish ...
Erin pointed me to this bit of news today.
Apparently despite the fact that 19 Entertainment seems to like her, Frenchie got the boot from American Idol.
Honestly, I'm still digesting my thoughts on this. Here are some.
- Why is it that every reality show these days has some scandalous thing like this come out about one of their contestants? If the producers care about such things (and it seems that they do), then why aren't they screening these folks better?
- How is it that these people keep trying to sneak through with these secrets? If you're on a popular reality show, somebody's going to sniff it out ... might as well come clean and make sure that it's OK before you start. This might not be relevant so much in this case ... I read a rumor somewhere that she told them straight off the bat and they were OK with it to begin with, so maybe it wasn't until it was exposed publicly that they acted, in which case shame on them and the producers. In either case, you should expect to have the skeletons dragged out of your closet if you participate in a show like this.
- Too bad it was her, she actually had a good voice and while I don't know if she could have won, she certainly was a contender.
- Should she have been kicked out? Well ... first off, I think it was certainly fair and within the producers' rights to do so ... the right to do so is in the contract. So on the one side, you do something like what she did, you have to live with it ... those are the types of things that you need to think about before you do something stupid like that and it's her own damn fault for doing it. On the other hand, it was in the past and one could argue that it really doesn't have much relevance to what's going on now.
Ultimately, I'd wrap it up like this. I agree with Simon's assessment that you're not just going for the best voice necessarily here ... you want somebody who can be an American Idol, which means good talent, good image, potential success in the industry (which sometimes is different than the first two things ... having a unique voice, for example, oftentimes can give you an edge in this category), and good role model. Frenchie now falls down a bit in the last category, and perhaps more than a bit. Now that it's out in the open, they can't keep her because the damage to her image as a potential role model can't ever be undone.
--Nick
Maddie tried to pull that whole "No pain, no gain" crap on me in a conversation today. She, like many other folks, seem to always forget the corollary ... "No pain, no pain".
The cliche doesn't work so well when you factor that into it.
--Nick
Nick sent me this link earlier today ... funny, but highly irreverent. Quite possibly offensive.
Read at your own risk.
--Nick
Edit: Some folks that typically find this type of over-the-top humor amusing have told me that much of this crosses the line even for them ... so I probably wouldn't read it even at your own risk.
The thing about being peed on ... "apparently you don't notice it for at least a minute .... it doesn't totally dawn on you until your leg is soaked".
Hopefully Jimmy Kimmel's show works out, since he, Adam Carolla, and Bill Simmons are seriously some of the funniest guys ever.
--Nick
Does anybody else think that the new remake of the Dragnet theme song is horrible?
Dragnet was one of my favorite shows growing up (on Nick at Nite, of course ... I'm not that old), and one of the distinctive elements was the theme song and various little riffs they'd play during an episode.
The riffs are gone and the theme song is only there in bits and pices, mangled to a bloody pulp.
--Nick
After watching tonight's final episode of Celebrity Mole: Hawaii, I have two quick observations.
1) When in doubt, the Mole is the most attractive person (female preferred, but they can't always go with females). Why? Obviously, attractive people are a draw for TV shows and help increase viewership. How do you guarantee that the lingerie model stays as long as possible? By making them the Mole, of course. Same thing applied for Kathryn in the first Mole, and I made the same observation and guess back then. Incidentally, I don't find Frederique particularly attractive at this point, but I imagine I'm in the minority, and she has the history working for her.
2) Watching some of the behind the scenes stuff here and details about the quizzes, I'm even more convinced that this show must be one of the most fun for the actual participants, and lends itself to fantastic challenges. There are limitations I won't get into right now that prevent it from being a great TV show, but as a participant, that would be my top choice for the show to be on.
I have many more thoughts about The Mole in general which I'll write down at some point, but that'll have to wait for later since I have many other things I want to write about tonight.
--Nick
Erik B's post on Mario Kart brings back some memories ... Eric, Marc, and I (that is, my housemates at the time and I) played hours upon hours of this for the span of a few months when we first moved in together ...
Mario Kart is a brilliant multiplayer racing game. It really is ... and what separates it from all the other racing games (at least, when playing with your friends) is a very well tuned balance in the racing mechanics and particularly through the items in which you're almost always in the race. More on why it's "almost always" and not "always" in a moment.
I've played other racing games looking for something to match Mario Kart and I've never found anything that comes close in this regard ... almost always, when you fall behind, you're pretty much out of it and just going through the motions. Even in games with items like Mario Kart, usually this ends up being the case ... you end up being a non-factor. It's either too hard for the people in front to fall back (items that work don't do enough) or the items aren't designed well to deal with a race that isn't close (items can't work from too far a distance). The latter seems to happen a lot.
With Mario Kart, though, there is a great progression of items which, though they have very different behaviors, can be simplified to a very basic scale. Each one has a certain catch-up factor, which you can think of as giving you an x second boost compared to other players, and the further back you are, the higher the catch-up factor of the item you're going to get. And, very importantly, the items that have high catch-up factors work regardless of how far back you are ... this keeps you in the race even if you fall pretty far behind.
At the same time, though, they're balanced such that the items don't become overwhelming ... yes the game cheats and gives better items to people that are behind, but the catch-up factors aren't so extreme that this means that it's always a toss-up ... this is also why you can't always be in the race, even if you fall a full lap behind ... if you make the items too powerful, there no longer is any real skill to the game and you might as well flip a coin.
This results in a system with lots of nail-biting finishes and races that are usually fun for everyone, as well as lots of great stories. And while it can be frustrating for the better races to occasionally be cheated out of a win by a stroke of luck, this is well-worth the tradeoff of making most of the races actually interesting.
As it turns out, the game is balanced very carefully (I doubt by accident) such that everyone can win every so often, but the better players still win more often ... a great combination for mixed-skill gamers, of which almost any group is comprised, which contains incentives for all.
Proof that better players still win more often - Eric and Marc are flat out better at the game than I am. They beat the pants off me regularly ... and there were many a time where I was the spoiler, just deciding the balance between the two of them and trying to prevent one of them from winning half the races in a cycle (one race each of the 16 tracks - we used to play by the cycle and would do 2, 3, or even 4 a night ... one huge design oversight on their part was to be able to select whole circuits or cycles when racing with 3 or 4 players, or to have a random track selection ... easy features to implement that would have been great to have for hard-core players). I was the guy who got occasionally lucky through items and bursts of decent driving and would win 3 or 4 out of the 16.
One week, though, I remember going on a tear. For the span of about a week, I dominated both of them to looks of utter surprise and disgust ... still one of the highlights of my gaming career has to be winning more than half the races twice in a row ... a fact which they deny and disavow to this day, but will haunt them to their graves.
Nintendo seriously needs to get off their asses and release this on GameCube ... and make sure that they don't screw it up. It's easy to look at the game and say that anyone could have written that, but I have a grand appreciation for how much that isn't true.