OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

In case anyone's noticed I'm not posting, it's just because my brain has frozen in the cold here in Minnesota and absolutely nothing of interest is crossing it right now. I'll get back when it thaws a bit or when something of interest occurs to me. Of course, I could talk about...

Finished watching Norwegian Survivor. I'd tell you who won but I don't want to ruin it for you in case you watch it. :) They have a lot of differences from the American show. For one thing, when they get down near the end of the game, instead of voting people off, the winner of the immunity challenge gets to select who goes. Puts a MUCH larger incentive on winning. Then, when there's only 4 left, the winner picks someone to leave immediately after the challenge, then the other two that are left immediately compete to decide who will be in the final two with the winner of the challenge when there was 4 left.

Am starting the 2nd Russian Survivor. All their contestants are celebrities in Russia, although, not surprisingly, I didn't recognize a single one of them. Also noticed most of the women were definitely not like American celebrities (meaning that none of them were particularly well-endowed as seems to be a requirement here). Even so, they show actual nudity, no blanked out areas. Of course, the quality of the film is so poor it makes little difference.

They started out with 20 people, a 10-woman tribe and a 10-man tribe. In the first episode one man was eliminated just getting to the boat. Then there was another guy who really was having trouble with the physical part and I think he volunteered (it is in Russian, you know, with no subtitles) to be the first voted off. Trouble with the Russian Survivor is that the people's names just sort of merge into the other words of the language so you can't even tell who they're talking about.

Have decided that since so many people have analyzed how to play survivor successfully that some rules as to how the shows will go have been established. My rules concerning who's likely to make it to the end:

1. Strong people won't make it, they will be voted off after the merge, unless they're controlled by someone else.

2. Weak people won't make it, they will be voted off first while they're divided into tribes, unless they're important to someone else's vote plans.

3. Most likely to make it are those who are small, yet strong enough to be of use, especially those who adapt well to the physical deprivations.

4. Usually there will be a "schemer," but he's unlikely to win unless he can keep his scheming secret.

5. They must be friendly (or give that impression) without be the out-front type, not get in arguments with people involving issues of importance to everyone (so you can get mad with someone for lying to you, but not about the tribe in general doing it).

6. Whiners never win.

Funny how things go sometimes. There's lots of places where you can go to download episodes of Survivor (and about most anything else, especially things with cult status), but there's only one place I've found that has a lot of the more unusual stuff (like the foreign ones).

These places have a certain number of people they will send files to at one time (this guy has a pretty fast machine and allows 4 to be sent at once, most are set at 2). They also have a queue where you can put in your request. His queues is 6 long.

Almost every time I log onto his machine all his "sends" are full and his queue is too. Now there's an estimated time for completion for each send, so you can log back in about that time and when a send ends, all the queues move up and there's an opening at the end. So time it just right, get in there before someone else (who's doing the same thing as you) and you can get in line to receive what you want.

Anyway, I've been there so many time, and have discussed Survivor (especially the foreign ones) with him so much that all I have to do is request what I want (even though it says that all the queues are used up), he notices it in his logs and automatically queues stuff up for me, to be sent next. It's nice to have friends on the net.

Watched part of "Cheaper by the Dozen" this morning, but my copy has sound in only one channel and a buzz in the other, making it hard to hear. Am trying to get a later copy that may be better. It looks like an OK movie, except it's supposed to be about parents raising 12 kids and, as you might expect, it's more about 12 kids raising themselves while the parents try to be supporting and loving and responsible in spite of the kids' actions.

Well, the Christmas present for my son has been backordered. This is the replacement gift for the one we got which was a near duplicate of one his kids got him. Guess which one he kept? :) I think he'll like the replacement (although he has absolutely no "use" for it), if he ever gets it. Actually it will be coming to me because the site I got it from, from some strange reason, wouldn't let me send it to an address different from my own - it had the button but when you clicked it, nothing happened, not even when I stopped my pop-up blocker.

Have you been over to Survivor-Central.Com and read the first episode of Survivor Okinawa? You really should, it's good. Be aware, however, that it's not a quick read, lots of words there. There are also pre-show interviews, etc. from the 16 contestants (real-life people who went through 3 months of on-line game). There's also SurvivorOkinawa.com where there's a forum and info on the contestants. My son did that site (poppa, pointing proudly).

If you haven't noticed, Survivor can play a large part of your life if you get hooked. As I've gotten older most of my pastimes have fallen away: stamp collecting, writing, reading, developing computer games, making love to countless women (OK, so maybe that one never really happened). But TV watching takes little energy or effort and passes the time best when you're watching a show you like.

Of course, my wife says the same thing, so we watch countless house shows of one kind or another. Oh, well, nothing's perfect. :)