Survivorfest 5 week 1!

Local gal Marisa falls victim to Evil Russell.

The new season of Survivorfest is off with a bang!

Initial thoughts on a couple of our contestants:

Shannon goes by the nickname "Shambo" because she was in the armed forces and wore a bandana when the movie "First Blood" came out. Plus she has a "power mullet" and when you make personal choices like that, at the very least you should get to choose your own nicknames. I really wonder how she got out of the Marines with that hair-do.

I'm told that Russell S looks like the vampire Laurent from the movie Twilight: http://tinyurl.com/kj3y8s

Betsy seems like a better cop than "Officer friendly" would lead one to believe.

Russell S sounds like Cleveland from the Family Guy. I can almost hear him say "Pete-uh...why would you eat all the tribe's bananas?"

Russell H is completely evil in all respects. He is totally my favorite from a completely game-specific point of view. If I had to deal with him in person I would probably start quietly digging a shallow grave on the beach.


Each team came ashore and was immediately told to vote on a leader. This would be the "paint a target on my back" challenge.


Russell S was voted the leader of the tribe Galu. I think it was his dreadlocks.


Mick was voted leader of the Fao Fao tribe. I wonder if he told his tongue-bathing-homeless person stories to anyone up to that point. I'm guessing not.


Ben seemed a little miffed to have not received any consideration. Since he's a hillbilly what has shot and kilt nearly everythin' around!

The first challenge, for flint, was a swim, a strength, agility and puzzle challenge.

The swimmers chosen were Jai-son and John.

People chosen for the strength portion were Russell H and Erik.

The agility participants were Marisa and Yasmin (who wears heels on Survivor? Who picks someone who wears heels thinking they would be the best choice for an agility challenge?).

The "smartest" people chosen for the puzzle challenge were Shambo and Liz. Liz was a bit put off as she felt that she was stereotyped as smart because she was Asian. If it makes you feel any better, Liz, I think you were picked because you were old, not Asian.

Mike imploded years of progress between whatever-his-ethnicity-is and African Americans by uttering "I'm surprised they picked Jaison 'cause Afro-Americans aren't known for swimmers."


Jaison bounded out to a good lead over John. On the way back up the shore he treated us all to the first blur of our game and 5 big points for anyone who has him! This was followed up a few seconds later by an impressive double blur by Marisa. Some of you may have missed Jaison's blur. I doubt anyone missed Marisa's. Sorry, no points for being second.

Russell S may not be a born leader, but he seems to be one of those irritating types who feels the need to let you know that you're doing well even when you're failing miserably.

Fao Fao wins flint! Shambo did a great job of making up time on the puzzle after Erik struggled mightily with the strength challenge. In all fairness, she should be well-experienced in assembling M-16 rifles in the dark during a fire fight, so putting a puzzle together probably isn't any more stressful.

Back at camp Russell H (now to be known as Evil Russell) shared with us his game plan:

Lie to everyone
Call all the women "dumb", thereby assuring that he will not win any vote-in money on the reunion show from the viewers
Empty out canteens at night and burn people's socks to make them miserable (nice touch)

While I respect Russell's ability to create total chaos, I think he's making the mistake of lying too much, too soon. He's going to get caught. Possibly killed. See, this is what makes for good reality TV.

He even went so far as to make up a story about being flooded out of his home in New Orleans during Katrina and losing his beloved German Shepherd. All of it a complete fabrication. Definitely no sympathy money from the viewers at home. And CBS takes another PR hit.


Ben the hillbilly was happy to tell everyone how to make camp. I keep waiting for him to say something like "you guys remember JT from last season, right? I'm JUST like him!" Mick, the elected leader, seemed more than happy to let him take charge.

At the Galu camp Russell seemed to be fervently empowering everyone as much as possible without providing any actual value.

Rocket scientist John seemed incapable of acting on a strategy. It sounded like he was actually planning an irrigation system before the tribe even had a place to sleep.

The immunity challenge was to have the tribes climb over several wooden, angled climbing walls and then pull a heavy crate over a ramp which they would then disassemble to form a puzzle out of the planks.

Going over one wall Yasmin gave herself a plank enema. Ouch, sphincter splinters!

Galu won the challenge when Fao Fao couldn't complete the puzzle. They responded with the chant "Galu is in the house! Galu is in the house!" Great. They don't have fire or shelter, but they have a chant.

Back at loser camp, Evil Russell continued to nurture his relationship with his "dumb gals". He poured it on a little too much to Marisa who said: "You've been talking with everyone...It makes me wary."

Evil Russell asked her to repeat herself "it makes me wary." As God as my witness I was waiting for him to say "well, if'n yer tired, just take a nap!"

But I think he got the point that she didn't trust him and that made her an immediate threat. Evil Russell then went around camp announcing that she had threatened him with her lack of complete trust and that she must, perforce, be voted off.

I find that liars, much more than honest people, become extremely irritated when their integrity is challenged. Wonder why that is.

Frankly, I'm not sure if Marisa was all that worried about whether she could trust Evil Russell in the game or if she was just uncomfortable with the way he kept checking her out while they talked. Uber creepy.

Betsy, to her credit, seems to have good instincts about Evil Russell. I suspect she's another week or so from digging that shallow grave on the beach I mentioned.

At council, Ashley seemed pretty laid back about the possibility of getting voted off. "It is what it is."

However, when someone mentioned that she might be the one voted off by factor of being the "weakest" she got a little hot. It's one thing to be cast off because you're a useless idiot, it's quite another to be considered out of shape. It's important for all of us to have our priorities straight.

Marisa was also irritated that she was considered "weak". She explained "there's...um...different levels of weakness..." Like mental.

In a close-ish voted, Marisa was cast out. Another quick exit for an Ohio Survivor.

Mike B was the lone person who chose Marisa as a Loveable Loser, so he takes a nice early lead in our game.

See you next week on...Survivorfest!