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Survivor Cook Islands: Is it all BS?

A fellow Vancouver Blogger that goes by the name Gus Greeper has a really interesting entry about this seasonâ€™s Survivor Cook Islands. Apparently she went to the Cook Islands with her family in 1998 and from how she’s describing everything, it sounds like a lot of the aspects of this seasons Survivor are complete bs. Just a few points out of the post that make me go hmmm, are:

“There are fifteen islands in total. The main island whose name and capital is Rarotonga is so small you can ride a motor scooter around it in approximately twenty minutes.”
“ALL of the tribes are on Rarotonga although they are trying to make it look like they are using multiple islands they are not. Exile Island takes no more than ten minutes to swim out to I donâ€™t remember exactly but I reached it without problem.”
“The white guys are at the park where I ran the triathlon. They could head over to the â€˜Fruits of Rarotongaâ€™ for a fruit smoothie.”
“The one group on aitutaki are in the lagoon where all the nice resorts are. It just kills the illusion that they are out in the wilderness.”
“And the reason that they stopped chasing the chicken is they would have run out on the road and been run over. You may have noticed in one shot when they were chasing the chicken that there was a pile of poles lying on the ground, you canâ€™t cut trees in the park so they have supplied them with poles. Plus I think if you check they do not have bamboo in that part of the world. We have been all over that island I have never seen any.”

To find out more about this seasonâ€™s Survivor Cook Islands and the Cook Islands in general, check out the story over at GusGreeper.com.

Amazing Race: Bilal & Sa’eed and Vipul & Arti Eliminated

Well, my dumb ass forgot that the Amazing Race 10 season premier was on tonight so I missed the first 15 or so mins of the show and didn’t take any notes on the show. Boooo. I also forgot that a new Simpsons was on that was going to feature one of my favorite bands, The White Stripes, which really sucks.

Anyways, I’ll give a very brief recap of the premier episode of Amazing Race 10 as best I can, and by very brief, I mean very. 🙂

Everyone started off somewhere in Washington state, I think Seattle, and the first leg of the race was to get to Seatac airport and catch a flight to Beijing China.

Once everyone arrived in China they were set out to find thr Golden House restaraunt where 1 member of each team had to eat the eyeballs out of 3 stewed fish heads, for a total of 6 fish eyeballs each. Ewwwwwwwww.

After they finished the eating challenge all teams took a ww2 motorbike w/ sidecar to a market where that got the first Detour, choosing between Labour and Leisure. The labor challenge required each team to take a penny cab 1 mile where they would lay stones as part of a walk way in a specific pattern, which turned out to be pretty hard and looked rather difficult, actually. The Leisure challenge required a 2 mile penny cab trip to a square/monestary/something rather where each team must learn a specific set of Tai Chi movements, completing them together and correctly before being allowed to move onto the next leg of the race.

Once each team finished the Labor or Leisure challenges, each team hopped in a cab to the great wall of china where they had to scale the side of the wall and run a few feet to hit the closing marker for the first portion of the race. The last team to arrive at the location were Vipul & Arti, though they were the second team eliminated, as Bilal & Sa’eed were eliminated when they came in last for an earlier challenge.

So, here we are, the official first episode is over and the season has no kicked off. I’m looking forward to this season, it looks to be quite an interesting crew and I’ve already taken a liking to a few of the teams. It’s going to be a good.

Stay tuned for more Amazing Race 10 recaps.

Free Starbucks Coffee: Squeeky Wheel Edition

As most of you probably know, Starbucks let leak a free starbucks coffee coupon that was originally intended for use in the southern US only, and only for friends and family of staff. And, as most of you likely also know, Starbucks let that campaign run for not even 24 hours before cancelling the free coffee coupon and pissing off a whole lot of people as it had hit the internet and spread like wilfe fire. Although some people got a great deal more pissed off than others, one inparticular even decided to filed a class-action lawsuit against Starbucks.

I’m guessing you probably don’t want to get involved in a class-action lawsuit just to get your hands on some more free starbucks coffee. So why not screw starbucks the honest mans way?

My friend and fellow Vancouver Blogger Andrew from GoldenGod.net informed me of another way to take advantage of Starbucks that has become fairly popular. And no, this isn’t the poor-mans americano trick that involves getting half a cup of coffee and filling the rest with milk from the condiments bar, though I do admit that it a cool idea too.

Do things the old fashion way, call them up and bitch, bitch, bitch! Apparently anyone that calls up and complains about the entire free starbucks coffee coupon debaucle is given a $5 giftcard as a bit of a piss off tactic. Whatever, works for me, the more money I can cause Starbucks to lose, the better!

Update: The guys over at the Consumerist made another post where they have recorded a phone call held with a Starbucks rep where they were issued the gift card. How cool is that? Give is a listen here.

Read more @ The Consumerist

Quick Hits: Friday Edition

My wife just got a phone call from some friends in Nebraska so I took the oppertunity to pause the movie, put down the beer and get some quick blogging in. So here it goes, lazy man style:

Things are going so well in Iraq that US troops are now digging trenches all around Baghdad in an effort to better safe guard the city. I always thought Baghdad could use a moat. [Yahoo News]
The Colbert Report: Senator George Allan isn’t a racist, just look at all the “ethnic” friends he has. [YouTube Video]
NBC has decided to become one of the first major networks to offer free online streaming of many of their most popular TV shows. Yay Free! [Gizmodo]
Everyone had the upper on your favorite pair of Converse All Stars, aka Chucks burn out before the soles? Then why not knit yourself a new pair? [Boing Boing]
Famed fashion designer Michael Kors and the fashion industry in Spain have made a fantastic decision and are flat out refusing to hire models that are skinny to the point of grossness. Yay! Let’s see some models with some meat on their bones, please! [PR Inside]
President Bush rebutt’s torture bill comments made by Colin Powell in the usual “nu uh! nu uh! nuh uh!” fashion. [Think Progress].
You know when election time comes everyone and their brother releases horrible “elect me” videos, usually tearing down their opponent instead of propping themselves up? Well this is the best. election. video. ever! [Daily Kos]
President Bush sings “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” by U2. [Break.com]
HA! This little ditty does not surprise me at ALL. Apparently the evil Dr. Will of CBS’ hit reality TV series Big Brother All Stars is going to be the next Young & The Restless star. He totally reminds me of Joey on friends when he played the Dr on a soap opera. [Tabloid Whore]

Alright folks, that’s enough of the quick hits for now. I have a Red Stripe Beer and movie waiting for me. Hooray Beer!

High Power Microwaves Tested On Protesters Before The Battlefield

[Um… What? Sorry, did I read that right?]

Airforce Secretary Michael Wynne wants to see “non-lethal” weapons like microwave powered devices tested against American citizens (see also Anti-War Protesters) before they are used in the battlefield.

Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Secretary Michael Wynne.
[Um… Yeah, who cares about the safety of dirty hippy protesters, as long as we don’t hurt the enemy. Riiiiiight, makes sense to me?]

”If we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation,” said Wynne. ”(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.”
[Where as is you injured a protester no one but the protesters and sympathizers would care, and they don’t support the war anyways, so who cares about them. Great line of reasoning.]

[I love when government and military officials say stupid things like this. I guess ole’ Georgie boy has been able to get away with say things a hell of a lot worse, so why not everyone else, right? Oh well, it’s pretty safe to say the entire system is screwed anyhow, what difference is another crackpot wanting to make protesters into guinea pigs going to make, not much.]

Bush vs Powell vs Common Article 3

You know the world is in a sad state of affairs when even Colin Powell is saying President George Bush is going to far.

Though the US Senate (I believe?) just recently passed a bill with the goal of further protecting prisoners of war and terrorists from cruel and unusual “interrogation” tactics, the good ole’ boy Mr. George Bush is trying to force a bill through that would achieve the complete opposite.

The bill which President Bush is trying to push through would see the rights of US interogators protected substantially more so then those of the people being interogated. Colin Powell stated that Bush’s proposed changes to the War Crimes Act would “liberalize the definition of what is torture” and would allow US interogators to use “hypothermia, threats of violence to the detainee and his family, stress positions, ‘long-time standing’, prolonged sleep deprivation, and possibly waterboarding” without any fear of being prosecuted at a later time.

Colin Powell made his thoughts on the matter quite clear and finally disagreed with how far President Bush is going, stating that â€œThe world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.â€

I’m glad at least one person in that big white building and weird pentagon shaped building has finally managed to pull their head at least 1/4 of the way out of their ass. It’s things like this that make me utterly discusted with Bush. It really amazes me that he can even get away with trying to push things like this through, how absurd.

Segway Falls Flat on it’s Face… Again

Segway Inc., creators of the “revolutionary” Segway scooter, have recently issued a complete recall of all Segways ever sold, to the tune of roughly 23,500 scooters.

The company, based in Bedford, NH, along with the Consumer Protection Safety Commission urged all Segway owners not to make use of the scooters until they are inspected by an authorized dealer.

Apparently there is a fault in the software that operates the gyroscopes and balancing computers that can, at random and completely unexpected times, abruptly throw the Segway into reverse. This, of course, would result in the surprised (to say the least) rider being thrown to the ground face first.

The company has dispatched specially equipt laptops to all dealers in the hopes of avoiding and future issues and repairing the existing fault. The process takes around 20 mins to complete, but will save many a Segway rider from broken teeth and a scraped up face.

This is almost as funny as when they originally hyped the Segway for release and everyone thought it was going to be something cool like a rocket pack, only to find out it’s actually a glorified lawn mower for the incredibly lazy. Go Segway!

Survivor Cook Islands Recap: Sekou Eliminated

Tonight was the 1-hour premier episode of Survivor Cook Islands that I have been looking forward to for quite a while now. Like hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of other people, I had my butt glued to the couch 5 mins before the show started and was chomping at the bit. Let the madness begin!

The show starts off like the good old days of Survivor with all four teams running around a boat, grabbing what they can and, in some cases, stealing things from other tribes. The contestants were given 30 seconds to grab everything they could get their hands on before they had to jump overboard.

Everyone seems to get a decent amount of stuff and the first bit of controversy begins when Jonathan of the Caucasian tribe (aka Rarotonga) stole one of the chickens that had been caught by Yul of the Asian-American tribe (aka Puka). Oooooh, chicken stealer! You gonna pay!

Pan to the Hispanic-American tribe (aka Aitutaki) landing at their camp site, getting setup and Ozzy scaling a coconut tree, retreiving coconuts for his Aitutaki tribe mates. These guys seem like a pretty put together team, excluding the fat, lazy, metalhead Billy, that is. I forsee much lazyness and slacking in his short future.

Flip to the Asian-American tribe (aka Puka) and we find out that Cao Boi is already feeling a bit left out, which is no surprise, really. He’s the oldest member of a young team, the only one of the team that is an Asia born Asian and he’s excentric. Personally, I think he’s going to be the cool guy this season. The cooky character that everyone loves, love Chicken George from Big Brother.

Over to the African-American tribe (aka Manihiki) we go. Sekou starts off right away trying to be the leader and trying to get everyone organized and we all know how well that works, at least all of us that have watched Survivor before. This should be an interesting tribe, the alliances started instantly, everyone of them seems to be pretty stubborn and headstrong, I can almost smell the drama.

Last but not least we see the Caucasian tribe (aka Rarotonga) getting established. Jessica “Flicka” gets herself into some hot water right away by lifting the box where the chickens were being kept, letting them escape. After a while trying to catch the chickens everyone gave up. Jessica came in as an underdog, outcast person as it is, just for being alternative by nature, and losing the chickens right off the bat sure isn’t going to help.

The African-American tribe (Manihiki) are the first to find their gross, tainted, disease ridden water supply, but at least there’s a lot of it. A few trends emerge as well, with Sekou being lazy and taking to many breaks and two of the ladies, Rebecca and Sundra getting close already – I think we have the makings of an alliance here.The Caucasian tribe (Rarotonga) can’t manage to get any kind of shelter together so they are all forced to snuggle up close and get real friendly to stay warm. Right off the bat Adam and Candice seem to be getting just a little bit more friendly the everyone else – Does Survivor have an equivalent to the Big Brother showmance? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Yul of the Asian-American tribe (Puka) complains about having a headache and Cao Boi, being the crazy old coot that he is, diagnosis it as being something called the “bad wind” and proceeds to massage, rub, manipulate and generally screw with Yul’s temples and forehead and, amazingly enough, his headache goes away. As dumb as that looked, it was pretty cool.

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