"The girls always make bad decisions and are always losers. Since I'm a girl, then I'm a loser!"

Maybe you shouldn't let your children watch this season of "Survivor," where they've divided males and females into separate tribes.

How to win "Survivor."

10 astutely crafted rules.

Are you watching the new season? They've got the 2 tribes living together, and one tribe is all women and the other all men (including "The Gayest Gay Man In The History Of Survivor," who keeps trying to cross over to the female team, but maybe he's got a clever plan). At least the way they've got it edited, the women seem to be acting out the stereotype of women in groups of women: They're destroying each other with emotional crossfire. Everything has way too much meaning. Meanwhile, the men hang together and laugh. Since the women are all on the other team, they don't need to play up to them in the usual fashion. It's interesting.

"Survivor’s Meat-Hoarding Mouth Challenge Is Disgusting."

Oh, yes! The teams bite off chunks of pig carcass, run with it — don't eat it, even though you're hungry — and spit it in a bowl. Team with the most meat and fat deposited in the bowl — 22+ pounds — didn't just win immunity. They won the bowl o' meat to take back to camp and eat. I mean, they washed it and cooked it some more. And they talked about oral herpes and how they broke teeth, dislocated jaws, and got all kinds of scratches and cuts on their lips and gums.

Did you see that Harvard law student — John Cochran — on "Survivor"?

The new season started last night.



For some reason, he blurted out, at the first opportunity, that he's watched every episode of the show (that's some 20+ seasons) and that he's a Harvard law student, which — you'd think he'd know if he's such a sharp student of the show — makes him look unreliable and threatening. Plus, he made a spectacle of his lack of "Survivor"-level physical beauty and athleticism. Well, maybe he has some genius strategy and making elementary blunders is some sort of sleight-of-hand misdirection.

Over at the Television Without Pity forum on last night's episode:

I didn't mind "Cochran" so much until his little self-pity rant where he bemoaned the unfairness of being voted out "before the three girls." I mean, ooh, "girls" might be better than you are? The shame, the shame!...

[Different commenter:] I was kind of rooting for Cochran until he threw in that "girl" bit. Was he at a different challenge than the rest of us? Did he not notice that the GIRL, Mikayla, was seriously kicking ass?

[Yet another commenter:] Trust me, they are giving Cochran MAJOR grief at Harvard Law School for that "girls" comment. Not cool.

Cochran assumes he is charmingly witty — because that's what he needs in place of looks. But that doesn't mean people see the humor. He probably intended the "girls" remark to be cute and self-deprecating, but those show fans didn't hear it that way.

So... are we rooting for the law student or not?

Speaking of rooting, Meade and I were going back and forth between "Survivor" and the Brewers game. Let's just say that it helped a bit to have the South Pacific as leavening in the Milwaukee experience.

"The last time I rooted for someone this much in a reality tv finale, it was the Battle of the Davids on Idol."

"Before that, you might even have go back to season two of The Amazing Race (Chris/Alex v. Tara/Wil), but let's all agree on this one -- Rob Mariano has to win tonight."

"We only saw one performance [Wednesday night] from someone who went all-out to demonstrate his or her worthiness in a reality competition, and that was Rob Mariano."

"I'm basically done with Idol this season, and have gone from fast-forwarding the intro packages to skipping the judging to now skipping most of each performance as well. The show that I want to see -- and the one that this Iovine-added season promised to deliver -- is one which sought and created the next contemporary artist. The show took a fatal turn away from that path two years ago when Kris Allen outlasted Adam Lambert, and the ascension this year of the G-Rated Lambert and two uninspiring country artists has not improved matters."

Adam at Throwing Things has been trying to watch the same 2 reality shows we've been trying to watch.

"I checked with my Lord and Savior - Satan - and he told me that he doesn't want Matt to win."

Ha ha.

"You know what 'Survivor' is like? It's like marriage with the guarantee that you will divorce."

Things overheard at Meadehouse. 

Wait. It needs some tweaking. It's like marriage with the guarantee that you will divorce, and one partner will get all the assets.

Jeff Probst analyzes the odds for tonight's big "Survivor" finale.

Video. And hang out here and talk if you're watching the show.

I'm for Fabio!

Jeff Probst accuses 2 contestants of breaching the implied "Survivor" contract.

Okay... but, of course, there is a written contract. What's in it? The idea of an implied contract is nothing but a figure of speech for Jeff here as he's exacting what is probably the only power he has to impose a penalty: bad-mouthing the quitters.

"Are you wearing your 'Survivor' T-shirt because 'Survivor' starts again on TV tonight?"

Yeah, the show's back, with the tribes split into old (40 and over) and young (30 and under), and it's on Wednesdays now. And Meade's wearing his "Survivor" T-shirt.



It all makes sense. Except... Meade should have been  there on the oldie team. He's way over 40. But he did earn that T-shirt. (Enlarge to read.)

''I am not here to make any friends."

Says Yve Rojas, who is also not here to avoid clichés.

"But my opinion of Russell changed when he admitted to Boston Rob that he did not play to win."

"You can’t be the best if you’re not playing to win. He can hoop and holler all he wants about 'America choosing' but that’s not this game. This game is about convincing a jury of your peers that you are the most deserving person. He didn’t do that. But my problem is not that he didn’t accomplish that goal, it’s that it wasn’t his goal in the first place."

So says Jeff Probst who owes us an apology then for that "All Stars" season where, upon revealing who the jury gave $1 million to, he announced that they were giving away another million dollars to the player America votes for. And it was so obviously a device to give money to the player that won in the alternative way of entertaining America — Rupert. If Russell was playing to win in the alternative Rupert fashion of making himself a popular TV character, then Jeff should take some responsibility for that.

***

Don't miss the video interview with Queen Sandra at the link.

The best and worst of Heroes and Villains.

A nice collection of moments... as we lead up to the big finale on "Survivor" tonight. The funniest thing to me was J.T.'s letter to Russell.

"The Villains do not have a leader. Russell is not a leader..."

"Boston Rob was a leader. He led his tribe. But Boston Rob is gone.... Sandra... Russell’s Achilles heel. It’s not that he’s 'stupid'... It’s his ego. Pure ego. In this case, it’s that he can’t stand thinking Coach is having second thoughts about him. Nobody has second thoughts about Russell Hantz. 'I’m Russell Hantz!' With Parvati, it’s his ego that is leading him to believe she really likes him. She doesn’t. Parvati doesn’t like anybody. We all know that. We’ve watched her play this game three times now. She’s a flirt. A very good flirt. A million-dollar flirt. But she doesn’t like you, Russell."

Probst opines.

"Could Coach be more of a douchebag? Seriously."

"Voting for a third person when you know that two people are targeted is the same as voting out the person with whom you were allegedly allied. It doesn't help him at all because he knows he can't trust Russell, and therefore he had to, had to get rid of him here."

In the "Heroes and Villains" season of "Survivor," the contestants were out filming when the previous season was on TV, so they didn't know what Russell had done to distinguish himself as a villain. Boston Rob, in his exit interview, said: "... I realized that 20 seasons in, you have 10 people that are considered the most villainous to ever play the game, and here’s a guy from the most recent season, so he had to do something so outlandish to get picked over all those other contestants." The other contestants may not have done as well in figuring out whether to trust Russell over Rob.

Rob on Coach:

Coach really wants to play with honor and integrity, and at the end of the day, he has the opportunity to do that and chooses another path. But that’s on him.

Coach actually appeared to take the easiest path possible in not voting for you, yet casting a vote that he knew ensured you going home. That seems like he was almost trying to not own up to his decision.

I think he’s a guy that was conflicted and he didn’t have it in him to do the right thing in this situation. So, it’s bad for me because it makes me go home, but he’s the one who has to live with it.

And what does Jeff Probst have to say about it? He's been Coach's biggest fan:

I love Coach. Always loved Coach. I still want to develop a show centered around “Tales of The Dragon Slayer.” But right now The Dragon Slayer is depressed. He’s lost his way. As much as he wants to live by a code, he finds himself trapped in a corner on a game called Survivor and there appears no way out. If this were a movie, this would be the end of Act II when all seems lost. Is it? Or can he rise up from the ashes and be reborn yet again?

On Rob's saying to Coach, after the vote, "You’re a little man":

I love how Rob went out. He didn’t pretend it didn’t matter, he didn’t say “good luck”, he simply said what was on his mind, the subtext of which was clear: Coach, you suck.

Coach. Coach. Coach. I too am a bit dismayed. I will need time to sort through this emotionally. I will certainly need more therapy to help me understand and try to forgive.

"May the best man win."

That's not what you want to say when you're competing against a woman, and women are judging the contest. But I would have voted for you, Li'l Russell. Come back soon — on an "All Stars" show.

Does God care about Twitter... and "Survivor"?

A mother's tweet: "Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool." Now, the poor boy died — 19 minutes after the tweet — and the mother is being criticized for using Twitter. Her tweeting had nothing to do with the accident, though, and it's not really wrong — is it? — for a writer to ask her readers for their prayers?

The woman, Shellie Ross, had over 5,000 followers on Twitter, and I don't think it was wrong for her to reach out to them in her time of anguish. At the same time, I cannot conceive of a God that would decide whether to answer a prayer based on the number of followers on Twitter!

And, did you watch "Survivor" last night? 2 contestants who had bonded over a late-in-the-game revelation of Christian faith found themselves on the same team in a competition that required them to pull ropes out of a structure without causing coconuts to tumble out. They started praying to God for victory. Like God should pay attention to whether coconuts are falling. I know Jesus said that God pays attention to every sparrow that falls, but he said nothing about coconuts. Or who wins on "Survivor." By the way, Team Jesus lost when a whole hilarious load of coconuts rained down as a rope was pulled by the Christian in a bikini. That doesn't, of course, mean that God wasn't paying attention. If you believe in prayer, no adverse result will ever shake your belief. In this case, the believer's explanation is obvious: God rejected the request.

Why would God help you win games? And, for that matter, why would God save a dying boy based on whether he had someone who knew he was dying and thought prayer might help? Why wouldn't He be irritated that you imagine him making decisions like that? Believers don't seem to worry too much about the possibility that their invocations displease God. In the case of the coconuts, maybe God actively preferred the people who declined to seek divine intervention. In the case of the boy, why must any child die?

Who made Biden — and Katie Couric — look dumb?

It's not Biden's fault — or Couric's — that he — or she — looks like a doofus posing with reality show wannabes at the White House State Dinner. It's not their job to check identities. It's their job — at a party — to pose like this — or is there some gracious way to deflect posers? You might ask why they're throwing big parties when times are so bad. But what the hell? And when can we watch the big Oprah-Obama TV Christmas special? There's Obama putting up the White House decorations, the doorbell rings, and it's Oprah! The doorbell rings again... and it's — who? — Russell from "Survivor"?

"A pretty little pharmaceutical sales rep walking barefoot thru the jungle, in a bikini, whacking a rat until it’s dead. That’s not normal behavior."

"Therein lies one of the most beautiful things about Survivor. If forces people to confront truths about themselves they might otherwise never have to face."