Yesterday my 16-year-old son Cameron took the test to get his learner’s permit, and aced it with 100%. Well done!
Now that he’s about to prepare for getting his driver’s license, I’m hoping he can put aside the years of bad habits he may have picked up from Mario Kart, Gran Turismo, and Grand Theft Auto. When he’s behind the wheel for real, there’ll be no running down pedestrians or ramming into police cars at high speed, please!
On Monday, May 17, I went for my Pre-Admission Test in preparation for my upcoming discectomy, date TBD.
My PA was a lovely young lady by the name of Angela, who had been on the job for about a month. She took my blood pressure (“Excellent!”), stethoscoped me (“Wow! Your lungs sound clean!”) and asked me the usual questions about my basic health: “Nausea? Dizziness? Alcohol use? Drug use? Depressed?” To this last, I responded that I was a little bit bummed because Lost was ending, but other than that, life is good.
She asked me what type of surgery I was going to have, and when I told her, she waved it off as if I’d said I was going to have a splinter removed from my finger. I’ve gotten that response from just about every medical-type I’ve talked to, which eases my mind somewhat.
When Andrea was finished with me, I went over to the hospital building of the little compound, where they took four or five vials of blood, a few chest x-rays (why they took pictures of my chest when it’s my lower back that’s getting cut open is a mystery to me), a container of urine, and did an EKG.
The end result, as far as I can determine, is that I’m healthy enough to go under the knife.
Now all I need is a date and time.
Updated: Just got a call from the Doc’s office. Surgery is scheduled for June 8.
Updated: Got a call an hour later. The office girl said, “If there’s a cancellation, would you mind moving your surgery up?” I said, “To when?” She said, “Tomorrow.” Sorry, Misty. I need at least a couple of days notice if I’m going to have back surgery!
So the wheels have been set in motion for my back surgery.
I met with the surgeon a couple of days ago and told him the nerve block wasn’t blocking out my nerves too well, and, as I mentioned in my last post, I’m not willing to spend whatever time I may have left shuffling around in pain. Let’s do this!
He agreed that all nonsurgical methods have been explored, and this really is the only way I’m going to get any relief.
He’s aware from our previous conversations that I do a bit of MMA training, and he knows that I really don’t want to be away from it for any length of time. He used to train himself years ago, and knows that if you’re away from it too long, it’s tough to get back up to speed.
So he told me Tuesday that he’s going to do the minimum amount of surgery that I need to relieve my problem, which is the open discectomy that I wrote about previously. This would require only a day or two in hospital, and I wouldn’t be laid up a significant amount of time.. The absolute minimum, he explained, would be endoscopic surgery, but that may be only a short-term solution in my particular situation.
More intense options would be fusion or disc replacement, which would pretty much be overkill, and stretch my convalescence time out way too far for my taste.
(Keep in mind as I explain this that I tend to hear doctors the way dogs hear humans in that Gary Larsen cartoon:
which is to say, it mostly goes in one ear and out the other. So if you’re reading the above exchange and thinking the doc doesn’t know what he’s talking about, don’t; I might be remembering the conversation incorrectly.)
Anyroad, the surgery will be done sometime in June (“Everybody wants it done in June,” he said when I made my request). He’ll have to check his schedule and get back to me with an exact date.
The first step, though, is pre-admission testing, which is all sorts of blood work and so on. I report to the testing station on May 17.
Those of you who have been enjoying my medical adventures for the past year or so are in for a treat: I’m having back surgery! And I’m going to be sharing the details along this journey with my faithful readers (me and one other person).
I may have mentioned elsewhere in these incoherent ramblings that I have a herniated disc at L5-S1, which is pinching a nerve running down my right leg, causing me large amounts of pain when I’m on my feet for too long (“too long” varying from 10 minutes upward, depending on circumstances). The discomfort can be barely bearable; if I know I’m going to be on my feet for a goodly length of time, I bring along a walking stick.
Over the past few months, I’ve had a pair of steroid epidurals, a nerve block, and been prescribed Neurontin, none of which has provided any relief. It appears that the only option left for me is surgery.
I won’t know all of the details for certain until next week, when I have a second meeting with my surgeon. At our first encounter, he examined my MRI and showed me what he suggested: a discectomy (at first I thought he said “vasectomy”, which caused me no small consternation). I told him I’d think it over and give him a call in a week. Only a few days earlier, I’d had a nerve block injection, and I wanted to give that a shot at working.
I hit up the internet for a little research, and found this at About.com:
A discectomy is a surgery done to remove a herniated disc from the spinal canal. When a disc herniation occurs, a fragment of the normal spinal disc is dislodged. This fragment may press against the spinal cord or the nerves that surround the spinal cord. This pressure causes the symptoms that are characteristic of herniated discs
The surgical treatment of a herniated disc is to remove the fragment of spinal disc that is causing the pressure on the nerve. This procedure is called a discectomy. The traditional surgery is called an open discectomy. An open discectomy is a procedure where the surgeon uses a small incision and looks at the actual herniated disc in order to remove the disc and relieve the pressure on the nerve.
How is a discectomy performed?
A discectomy is performed under general anesthesia. The procedure takes about an hour, depending on the extent of the disc herniation, the size of the patient, and other factors. A discectomy is done with the patient lying face down, and the back pointing upwards.
In order to remove the fragment of herniated disc, your surgeon will make an incision over the center of your back. The incision is usually about 3 centimeters in length. Your surgeon then carefully dissects the muscles away from the bone of your spine. Using special instruments, your surgeon removes a small amount of bone and ligament from the back of the spine. This part of the procedure is called a laminotomy.
Once this bone and ligament is removed, your surgeon can see, and protect, the spinal nerves. Once the disc herniation is found, the herniated disc fragment is removed. Depending on the appearance and the condition of the remaining disc, more disc fragments may be removed in hopes of avoiding another fragment of disc from herniating in the future. Once the disc has been cleaned out from the area around the nerves, the incision is closed and a bandage is applied.
What is the recovery from a discectomy?
Patients often awaken from surgery with complete resolution of their leg pain; however, it is not unusual for these symptoms to take several weeks to slowly dissipate. Pain around the incision is common, but usually well controlled with oral pain medications. Patients often spend one night in the hospital, but are usually then discharged the following day. A lumbar corset brace may help with some symptoms of pain, but is not necessary in all cases.
Gentle activities are encouraged after surgery, such as sitting upright and walking. Patients must avoid lifting heavy objects, and should try not to bend or twist the back excessively. Patients should avoid strenuous activity or exercise until cleared by their doctor.
What are the potential complications of a discectomy?
The most common problem of a discectomy is that there is a chance that another fragment of disc will herniate and cause similar symptoms down the road. This is a so-called recurrent disc herniation, and the risk of this occurring is about 10-15%.
Most patients find relief of much, if not all, of their symptoms from a discectomy. However, the success of the procedure is about 85-90%, meaning that 10% of patients who undergo a discectomy will still have persistent symptoms. Patients who have symptoms for long periods of time, or severe neurologic deficits (such as significant weakness) are at higher risk of incomplete recovery.
Other risks of surgery include spinal fluid leaks, bleeding, and infection. All of these can usually be treated, but may require a longer hospitalization or additional surgery.
What is endoscopic microdiscectomy?
Newer techniques may allow your surgeon to perform a procedure called an endoscopic discectomy. In an endoscopic discectomy your surgeon uses special instruments and a camera to remove the herniated disc through very small incisions.
The endoscopic microdiscectomy is a procedure that accomplishes the same goal as a traditional open discectomy, removing the herniated disc, but uses a smaller incision. Instead of actually looking at the herniated disc fragment and removing it, your surgeon uses a small camera to find the fragment and special instruments to remove it. The procedure may not require general anesthesia, and is done through a smaller incision with less tissue dissection. Your surgeon uses x-ray and the camera to “see” where the disc herniation is, and special instruments to remove the fragment.
Endoscopic microdiscectomy is appropriate in some specific situations, but not in all. Many patients are better served with a traditional open discectomy. While the idea of a faster recovery is nice, it is more important that the surgery is properly performed. Therefore, if open discectomy is more appropriate in your situation, then the endoscopic procedure should not be done. Discuss with your doctor if endoscopic microdiscectomy may be appropriate for you.
While this may seem like minor surgery to some (including the doctor who had been treating me), you have to realize that I’ve never had invasive surgery. The only procedures I’ve been in an operating room for were lipotripsies, and those involved pounding my kidney stones with sonic waves, not scalpel blades.
But by the time a week had passed, I found that the nerve block was ineffective, and decided that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my days hobbling about in pain if I didn’t have to. When the surgeon’s office called to follow-up with me (I know I said I’d call him in a week, but couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone and say,”Please stick something sharp into my spine.”), I made an appointment to talk things over with him.
That’s next Tuesday.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
I own a 32 GB iTouch, and my iTunes library is my main source of music entertainment around my house, in my car, and even (through headphones, of course) at the grocery store (hey, it beats listening to some marketing researcher’s mixtape and a scraggle of screaming kids; I just have to start remembering that when I sing along with what I’m hearing, people stare).
As an aside, my main source of music entertainment at work is a stack of CDs on which I’ve burned mp3s of every song I’ve liked from 1956-2000 (“All killer, no filler”) and a few GBs of music from Disney parks and movies.
But that’s not why I’ve called you all here today.
One problem I have with my music machine is that it tends to repeat songs. Even with more than 4000 songs onboard, you’d think I’d go for days on “Shuffle” without hearing the same song twice. If I wanted that, I’d go back to listening to regular radio. Well, maybe not, unless I could find a station without Morning Zoos and “Such and Such in the Morning” and Afternoon Drivetimes filled with dj’s who find themselves hilarious as they make humiliating prank calls and host vapid contests between playing songlists manufactured by some research company in the midwest. /rant
Another is that there’s so much music I want to listen to. I have varied tastes; my library includes the Beatles, Jack Johnson, Frank Zappa, Brahms, several different soundtracks from Les Miserables, French chansons, Richard Thompson, zydeco, various collections of world music…you get the idea. And I have several gigs of tunes on an external hard drive that I want to check out: albums that have gotten good reviews, other CDs from my collection that I’ve ripped, others I’ve downloaded.
Basically what I do is sit down every evening and delete the songs I’ve listened to during the day, then every so often load up my Touch with new music. Silly, maybe, but it’s what I do.
So I was interested to read in Chris Pilillo’s Lockergnome newsletter yesterday about a new feature in Tuesday’s iTunes update to version 9.1.0.79.
After the update, when you sync your Apple iPod of choice, you’ll notice a new option on the product tab: “Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC”. Check the box to convert the songs on your device during the sync (the original files in your iTunes library will not be changed).
It takes a while for the conversion; mine took over 10 hours for 2958 files.
When I started the sync, I had about 5.3 GB free on my Touch. When the conversion was done, I had 13.60 GB free for more songs. Quite a difference!
If you have an abundance of songs but a paucity of free space on your Apple device, this is your answer.
The story I’m about to relate is, for better or for worse, absolutely true. I have no explanation for it. A few theories, maybe, but no facts to back them up.
Our tale starts last Friday, March 26, 2010. I was sitting in my office around 10:00 ayem or so talking football with a couple of co-workers, when I casually noticed that my eyeglass lenses seemed to be smudged. In the midst of discussing the benefits/downside of Jake Delhomme joining my beloved Browns, I reached for a napkin from the stack on my desk and began to absently polish…
Nothing.
I threw a confused glance at my friends, interrupting the conversation. As they looked at me, I revealed the cause of my confusion by pulling the napkin completely through the left side of my frames: my lens was gone.
We figured it must have popped out while I was inattentively polishing it. The three of us hands-and-kneed it around, beside and behind my desk. I moved a software box lying on the floor and found the withered remains of a dead mouse (so that’s where that smell was coming from a few months back!), but no lens. We searched file folders it may have bounced into, moved nearby copiers and throw rugs, but no success.
We examined my frames: no breaks, no bends, everything screwed down tight. How the hell could a lens pop out, anyway?
I retraced my steps since I’d arrived that morning, but no luck, and no lens.
(Sharp-eyed [har!] readers may wonder how I could not notice I was missing an eyeglass lens earlier, but my long-time reader will remember that I’m afflicted with macular degeneration in my left eye, and can barely see straight out of it on a good day.)
We searched far and wide, up and down, hither and yon, everyplace we possibly could. No lens.
I had a desperate thought. The previous evening I had taken two hours of MMA training. On the nights I do this, I stick my socks into my shoes in the locker room, then slide my glasses in so I know where they’re at. Was it possible that someone had stepped on my shoe, somehow dislodging the lens?
I called Tiger Schulmann, where I trained, but Megan told me that nobody had handed in an orphan eyeglass lens.
When I got home, I examined every square inch of my humble abode. It’s not a huge place, just a tiny two-bedroom condo that takes me all of 20 minutes to vacuum. But that’s because I don’t vacuum the kitchen floor; I mop it two or three times a month. Or once every two or three months. I forget.
Anyway, the lens seemed to be nowhere to be found. I searched my car. Nothing. Checked the shoes I’d worn to training the night before. Nope. Looked in the parking lot. No lens. Looked everywhere I could think of. Nada.
I began to resign myself to the inevitable: the lens would not allow itself to be found, and I would have to fork over a few hundred dollars to Lenscrafters for a pair of replacement lenses. Because those guys won’t replace just one lens; they travel in pairs.
Yesterday, Tuesday, March 30, began like any other. OK, maybe not like any other. It was pouring down rain and pretty miserable all the way around. After I did my ADRs in the morning, I dressed, choosing to wear a pair of shoes that hadn’t graced my tootsies for 10 days or so (yeah, I have a dozen pairs. So what? I’m in touch with my feminine side).
I get to work, do this, do that, blah blah blah. About 2 pee em I got up and walked back to the kitchen area of our office. About halfway there, I felt like there was something in my shoe, like a small stone or a dead mouse.
By the time I got back to my desk, it was very uncomfortable, so I took off my shoe, only to find…
Yes, my missing lens.
Don’t ask, I don’t know. Obviously it became dislodged at karate. Maybe someone stepped on my shoe, I don’t know. Whatever. It was in a shoe that I hadn’t worn in a couple of weeks, and I had the shoe on my foot for eight hours or so before I noticed.
Strange, yes. But true.
Just a few minutes ago I received an email from a friend:
90# on your telephone
I dialed ‘0’ to check this out, and the operator confirmed that this was correct, so please pass it on.. (l also checked out snopes.com. This is true, and also applies to cell phones!)
PASS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW
I received a telephone call last evening from an individual identifying himself as an AT&T Service Technician (could also be Telus) who was conducting a test on the telephone lines. He stated that to complete the test I should touch nine (9), zero (0), the pound sign (#), and then hang up. Luckily, I was suspicious and refused.
Upon contacting the telephone company, I was informed that by pushing 90#, you give the requesting individual full access to your telephone line, which enables them to place long distance calls billed to your home phone number.
I was further informed that this scam has been originating from many local jails/prisons. DO NOT press 90# for ANYONE…
The GTE Security Department requested that I share this information with EVERYONE I KNOW.
After checking with Verizon they also said it was true, so do not dial 90# for anyone !!!!! PLEASE HIT THAT FORWARD BUTTON AND PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!
Anyone who’s been around the internet, or even been receiving email, for any amount of time will immediately recognize this for what it is: an email hoax.
Even without the parting admonition “PLEASE HIT THAT FORWARD BUTTON AND PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!
“, there’s plenty of internal evidence that “Delete”, and not “Forward”, is the button you need to push.
For starters, the message is not signed. Who wrote it? Who got the call from AT&T (or Telus, the Canadian telecommunications provider; apparently the author isn’t sure where they live)? How would someone in many local jails/prisons get their phone number? Are prisoners now allowed to willy-nilly wander around and make random unsupervised phone calls? Okay, maybe they can, but still… And GTE’s Security Department wants one person to share this information? If it’s that big a deal, why doesn’t GTE get the word out? Oh, yeah…they haven’t been around since 2000.
I hate getting these things in my inbox, for the simple reason that people I know forward them to me, and it despairs me to think I have friends gullible enough to believe those sorts of letters. My sister used to forward three or four a week to me. By way of reply, I’d forward her to the appropriate Snopes page debunking the info in her forwarded messages, and add as a signature, “If you get an email asking you to pass it on to everyone you know, it’s probably bullshit.” Eventually she wised up and started asking me before forwarding anything on, and finally stopped cluttering people’s inboxes with that kind of junk altogether.
It’s one thing to make a family member feel a little foolish, but I have no particular desire to be derisive to certain friends, even if they should know better. This doesn’t, however, include my damn fool co-worker who forwards me variations of “Obama is not a citizen!” emails every other week. I did Snopes back a reply to the current forwarder of the 90# letter, but I think for general purposes I’ll just post the following, as it appears at About.com:
Now, forward this blog to as many people as you can, so we can start keeping our inboxes clear of this crap!!!
Today I had an appointment with iDoc. I go see him on a regular basis because of my macular degeneration. For the first couple of years after I was diagnosed, he would inject me with Avastin in an attempt to salvage my eye. The injection does not go into my arm, or my hip, or my buttoral maiximus, but directly into my eyeball.
It doesn’t hurt (much), truth be told, but it’s still stressful. For me, at least. iDoc performs this procedure so often that he has two “injection days” a week. And I’ve had it done 11 times over the past few years. But no matter how often it’s been done, and no matter how much I tell myself that it doesn’t hurt, there’s still something about seeing that needle approach out of the corner of your eye, and watching the fluid squirt out of the tip and dissipate throughout…can we please talk about something else now?
Actually, November was the last time he felt the need to inject, and before that it was July of 2008. so I can’t complain too much. Stlll, these monthly “possible injections” don’t give me much to look forward to, other than the relief and thankfulness of iDoc saying,”It looks OK, I don’t think we’ll need to do an injection this month.”
However, in order to be properly examined, my pupils need to be dilated to the Maximillian, and after having extremely bright lights probing all the way to the back of my eyeballs, I generally leave his office with a splitting headache and a strong sense of “Where the hell am I?”
Driving back to the office on a day like today is the worst: not a cloud in the afternoon sky and snow as far as the eye can see. Or could see, if everything wasn’t so bright.
I’ve often thought I should just go back and sit in the waiting room for a half-hour or so until I can see without squinting again, but I’m afraid if I do that, he’ll have a change of heart and pull me back into his little chamber with a clamps and needles. No, thanks. I’ll make my break while I can.
But if I were you, I’d stay off the roads for a good half-hour after I leave his office.
This will be a short post, as I don’t have the strength to write much, even today.
Yesterday (Saturday) morning, I woke up at 3:30 a.m. Nothing unusual about that; I generally wake up at about that time every day. Don’t know why, just do. Most of the time I roll over and go back to sleep. Other times, I toss and turn until about a half-hour before my alarm goes off, then go back to sleep.
When I woke up yesterday morning, though, something was different. I felt uncomfortable, bloated. I’d had (too many) pork chops for dinner the night before, washed down by (only two) red beers, so I figured I had a slight case of overeatitis. I chewed a Pepcid from the bottle I keep on my bedstand (acid reflux, you see). And rolled over. And didn’t go back to sleep.
Instead, I fell into one of those half-sleeps, the feverish/delirious kind, where your dreams seem more real than reality, except my friend from high school had a head shaped like Gumby, and I was at a formal party wearing flowered shoes.
Things went on like this for literally a couple of hours. At 7:45 a.m., I sat straight up in bed, wide-awake, and bolted for my bathroom.
I didn’t make it all the way to the toilet for my first outpouring, only as far as the sink. Of course. For the past few days I’ve had issues with it backing up, but procrastinated fixing it; this will teach me to put off mundane household chores.
I made it to the American Standard for the next couple of rounds. After I felt sure that there was nothing more to eject, I washed my hands and rinsed my mouth out (in the kitchen, the bathroom sink being backed up with two inches of liquefied pork chops) and crawled, exhausted, back into bed.
I don’t know how long it was before the next wave hit – I’d long lost interest in clock-watching – but it seemed to be more violent than earlier. By the time it was over, sweat was pouring off of me like Gatorade off of the winning coach.
By this time, I was fully blaming the chops, tasty as they may have been. I opened up the browser on my iPhone and Googled “food poisoning”. The research I did suggested I may instead be afflicted with viral gastroenteritis. Before I could get too far into my research, another symptom appeared: the dreaded diarrhea. Thank God I didn’t have to make do with the sink this time (har!). I had two bouts which left me feeling quite drained. Literally.
The rest of the day I spent listlessly walking around the house or napping. By the time I turned in for the night, after keeping down a Cup O’ Noodles, my symptoms were reduced to a nagging headache and occasional abdominal cramps.
Today I’ve felt tapped out, with the odd visit from Mr. Nausea. The weirdest thing is that every time I hiccup or sneeze or cough, it feels like I have broken ribs. Can that happen with vomiting?
I had a bowl of Campbell’s Chunky Beef Soup for lunch, which sat well. But I made a nice ribeye for dinner and only got down three forkfuls before wrapping and storing it for another day.
The upside? According to my bathroom scale, I lost 10 pounds yesterday.
But I wouldn’t recommend anyone try my particular weight-loss plan!
It’s here! Survivor 20, formally known as Survivor: Heroes Vs Villians,with “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast” replaced with “Return, Redemption, Revenge”. I love this! I had seen the cast list, of course, but actually seeing them on the screen again quickened my heart and shortened my breath. Rupert, you old softie! Good to see you again, brother! Stefanie! I’m still holding out hope you have a hidden longing for an older man that I can fulfill. Randy! I forgot what a dick you are. Same with Tyson. Boston Rob…I forgive you your past cockiness and douchiness. Marriage and fatherhood has softened up more than your abs.
I could go on and on. But it was good to see the old familiar faces once again. Say what you will about All-Star editions of reality shows, but there’s a reason they work, for me at least. If you spend a TV season investing emotionally in certain cast members, you want to know occasionally that they’re doing well. You don’t dump your friends after six months and lose interest in seeing them again do you? (I know, I know; you think it’s pathetic that I look at complete strangers on reality television in this light. Screw you.)
As the season progresses, I’d like to commend to you three entertaining sources of insight and analysis of HvV that I never miss.
First is Dalton Ross’ recap that appears on EW.com every Friday. Dalton’s been recapping Survivor forever, and provides a fan’s insight that’s dead on and hillarious to read. He generally spends a few days on site at the beginning of each season providing behind-the-scenes goodies such as the following that appeared in his recap of the season premiere:
” As some of you may know, often when there is a challenge on Survivor that is presented as a ”first team to three wins,” in actuality, it was something much longer. Take this reward challenge: What you saw on TV was a ”first one to three wins.” But in reality, the teams actually played all the way to five. Remember how the Villains went up 2-1 after Coach dragged Colby back to the Villains mat? In actuality, the Heroes had a whopping 4-0 lead when that contest took place, and that Coach victory merely got the Villains back to 4-1. But this was just the tip of the out-of-order iceberg, and what I am about to tell you is so convoluted and confusing we may need Lostexpert Doc Jensen to decipher it. The first-round match-up you saw with Stephenie and Cirie vs. Parvati and Danielle was actually round six and got the Villains back to being down only 4-2. But wait, it gets even more confusing. Remember how you saw Stephenie dislocate her shoulder and Probst remarked how she injured herself in the very first round of the very first challenge. Well, that was true, but it wasn’t the round you saw. The actual first round (that you did not see) featured the exact same match-up (Stephenie and Cirie vs. Parvati and Danielle) and it was actually a Heroes victory. Not only that, but the injury appeared to occur while Stephenie was slapping the mat with her extended arm to give her team the win. So, the round you saw presented as the first match-up was actually a rematch that Stephenie was participating in after she had already dislocated her shoulder! (How tough is she?) So, the injury happened in one place, but was edited into another. Now because this is all a bit hard to follow, let me be clear about one thing: There is no monkeying around when it comes to Survivor challenges. The teams compete and the winner is the winner. Nothing is rigged. When you saw people winning rounds, they were winning rounds, maybe just not in the exact order it actually happened. Like all elements of the show, the producers just often record much more than can actually show so then have to figure out the best way to condense it all. (For example, the one round where Coach dragged Colby to his mat took over nine minutes by itself. It was an epic duel that was mesmerizing to witness, but simply too long to show in its entirety) And Stephenie did injure her shoulder in that competition against those same players, just not in the round they showed us. I’m actually surprised they edited it this way because watching Stephenie dislocating it as she won, and then coming back to compete after injuring it was pretty dramatic in itself. Again, just not enough time.”
Just as entertaining an insightful is Probst’s blog that appears on EW.com on Fridays. A must-read every week. A sample:
“Okay, without thinking it through – just off the top of my head – here are some overall thoughts about some of the returning Survivors:
Sandra Diaz – I am so glad she is back. I love her lippy way of telling it like it is. Courtney is also surprising me early on. I like how hard she fought in the initial challenge. Cirie is a legit, 100% full-on threat to win this game. Parvati, if given any kind of an opening will worm her way back into a solid alliance. Russell is a no-brainer. Take him out early or risk seeing him in the final again. Tom Westman, so glad he came back for another go. He needs a strong alliance and if he gets it, he will go deep. He’s a very good “people person.” Rupert, Rupert, Rupert. It’s hard for me to distinguish the Survivor Rupert from the real Rupert. Maybe there isn’t a difference anymore, but I know this… kids still love them some Rupert!”
Want your analysis a little more biting and a little less mainstream? Then you must bookmark Colette Lala’s “Bitchy Survivor Blog“. Colette, you da best!
“We’ve met them all before. We know their reputations. We’ve seen them at their best and, by golly, we’ve seen them at their worst. The Heroes sit in silence, their capes billowing in the breeze of the helicopters. They look hopeful and eager with promises of success and ponies in their future. Over in the Villains aircraft they’re smug, arrogant, smirks on their faces and an overwhelming amount of opportunites to annihilate their opponents waiting for them patiently on the beach. The gentle hairy giant known as Rupert tries to tell us that ‘good’ will win. I put my cigarette out on the kitten at my feet and I just laugh and laugh. Silly man! Thankfully, a voice of reason takes over. It’s Lucifer (Russell Hantz) fresh off of Survivor 19 telling us it’s a fact that Villains are smarter than Heroes. “It’s a proven fact.” He insists we google it. I did. I marched right over to my laptop and punched in “Are villains smarter than heroes?” I never got my answer cuz it took me to an Asian porn page, but I’ll interpret that as a resounding YES! If you can’t trust Lucifer, who can you trust? I mean, come on, seriously.
And then it happens… the line I wait for every season… I’m getting tingly all over just thinking about it… Dimples stands alone on a mess of rocks, violent waves crashing all around him, and we hear it… 39 DAYS, 20 PEOPLE, 1 SURVIVOR!!! *throws confetti in the air* I throw my top off and twirl around my living room. Hay day doh dee doh dee doh doh… I study the opening credits for clues, quickly decide I’d rather not know, and go back to my half Irish, half Salsa gyrations.”
If you’re more of a podcast fan, hurry on over to iTunes and subscribe to Armchair Survivor. Mike and Marji dissect each episode with brutal (and expicit, truth be told) honesty, and just may have you squirt a beverage out of your nose once or twice. They record their show live following Survivor and encourage chat and voicemail feedback.
These articles, blogs, and podcasts greatly augment my enjoyment of Survivor, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy them too.
Random Thoughts of an American Male 