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A Hopeful Final Four
What are the chances that Matt, Butch, or Christy approaches Rob and tells him the obvious: That if he votes with the “cool people,” there’s no way he could possibly go higher than fourth place? Rob has shown smarts all along. Is it possible for him to put aside his lusting over the unattainable Heidi and realize that he will never truly be “in” their group?

(Note: The pictures of Heidi are to document her drastic changes throughout her less than 30 days in the jungle.)
If they can convince Rob of this, then we would see a final four that would truly be a joy to have. If not, then we’d be left with the eye candy, who I must admit has played a good game. I can’t deny them that. My only problem with the “cool people” is that they still have their have-yet-to-grow-up-and-realize-that-there’s-more-to-people-than-physical-beauty mindset. They’ve played a good game and they’ve been pretty good strategists (with some exceptions), but their immaturity leaves a bit to be desired.

Thus far, we haven’t seen Butch and Matt having many conversations with Christy, but we know they had to have bonded out there. I have a feeling that the editors have purposely not shown us this because there is a long-shot that we’ll see them convincing Rob to vote against group hottie-body.

Psycho or Editing?
And we’ve seen Matt portrayed as a potentially murderous psycho, but I wonder how much of this is due to editing. Matt’s father is a bone-and-joint surgeon — Dr. Harry Von Ertfelda. Matt went to a prestigious culinary school in Paris. We already know he speaks Mandarin because he grew up in Hong Kong. And according to an article in his local paper, Matt has successfully traversed the Darien Gap, a famous jungle stretch that links Colombia to Panama.

He dived for sunken treasure off Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands and has trekked deep in the jungle into unmapped areas of New Guinea to track cannibals.

It’s difficult to have done all these things and not have social grace and be a complete, freak-everyone-out loner. Yes, he’s looking increasingly psycho, but we must put things into perspective: compare Matt’s changes to Heidi’s!

Rob isn’t really “in” their group even though they are doing very well at making him think he is.
So, who’s left? Here’s a little review:
Rob aka Thinks-He’s-Cool-Drools-over-the-Hotties-Forgotten-Magic-8-Ball-Too-Many-Alliances-Too-Many-Secrets boy.
Alex (see the picture at right of the skinny guy whose pants are falling off) aka Way-Too-Skinny-Triathlon-Coach-Successfully-Flirts-With-The-Hotties-Weird-Beard-Action-On-His-Neck guy. (more…)

After a bit of a hiatus from Survivor, I thought it would be a good idea to catch you up on what has happened down in the Amazon jungle so that you can jump into the next episode feeling as if you’re “in the know.”
(First of all, I should thank everyone who wrote wondering why the hell I haven’t written anything for the last few episodes. I really have no excuse, but if you’d like to think I was busy doing something incredibly exciting and world-events-changing, please do.)

As was typical of all prior review episodes, last week’s was basically a waste of time. The only new stuff included more reasons as to why people voted as they did, Joanna aka Super-Annoying-Religious-Idiot woman screaming some more, Christy teaching some sign language, and maybe a few other minor things I’ve already forgotten.

Here’s what’s going on…
Rob has lit the bomb’s fuse called “Too many secrets and alliances.” He has a secret spy-like arrangement with Increasingly-Psychotic-Looking guy to pass on voting directives to Non-Noticed-Ignored-Guy-Who’s-Ability-to-Remain-is-Starting-to-Impress-Me man, but since it’s a secret spy-like arrangement that no one can suspect them of having, Increasingly-Psychotic-Looking guy must go out of his way to ensure that he and Rob are never seen speaking together.
So, they’ve created what they call a chain of communication. This is one of those concepts creative 6-year-olds make up when they play with action figures and make the cool bad-guy voices. In fact, I totally expect either of them, during their post-eviction Early Show interview, to say that they were just playing when they detailed all that secret spy communication stuff.

Play or not, Rob told everyone else how he’s sending Increasingly-Psychotic-Looking guy on wild goose changes just to keep him busy and they all laughed and laughed, making Rob feel oh-so-good about himself.

What Rob does not understand is that sooner or later, all those people he has laughing with him over how well he’s able to lie to Increasingly-Psychotic-Looking guy and Non-Noticed-Ignored guy will realize, “Hey, wait a minute. If Rob can lie so well to those two who consider him a friend and partner, who’s to say that he can’t lie to us just as well?”

Something else that makes me question things about Rob is his continual mention of how he thinks Increasingly-Psychotic-Looking guy is going to kill him. Everyone else has also made similar comments, but never anything about him being dangerous. So, I think it’s possible that the others in the tribe are simply yupping Rob along.
In other words, this is a case of a dweeb being allowed to hang around with the popular people because this dweeb is helping them with their grades or he’s a computer hacker that got them credit cards or something like that.

Robert Gellman is a Columbia University trained psychotherapist turned Creative Director of the Intuitive Design Company (IDC) located in Niagara Falls, New York. Gellman was Feng Shui design consultant for Dr. Andrew Weil’s Subtle Energy Laboratory, a part of the Integrative Medicine Program at the University of Arizona. (more…)

Sometimes, we are better to leave those first loves, tightly wrapped, inside those proverbial boxes of our minds. There are some things best immortalized as perfect.

Somewhere along the roads of life, we choose which paths we will travel down. Deep inside our minds, we carry small, fragile boxes of memories and experiences, each of which contributes to the people we are today. These packages, you understand, aren’t the types that are ripped open on a conscious level as we make decisions, cradle moments and navigate new, unforeseen roads. Rather, they are tied with a beautiful ribbon or sturdy string, and perhaps sometimes, if the moment is just right, we might carefully untie their bows and touch things again, careful to place things back just the way they were. (more…)