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According to someone who sent me a friend request via Myspace, Beauty and the Geek began playing in Russia very recently. (This assumption seems to have been confirmed by all the friend requests I’ve received via Facebook…)

To everyone in Russia who watched and enjoyed the show, thank you very much. I’m glad that I could have a positive influence in your lives or at least make you laugh at the phrase “Yeah, this is great!” and other choice one-liners. (I also hope the Russian producers used my laugh for the soundbites because such a deep baritone is hard to come by.)

So I guess I’m writing this entry for a few reasons:

1) I’m flattered that so many people in Russia were willing to search for me after Beauty and the Geek went on the air.

2) Unfortunately, unless you play certain time-wasting Facebook games, I probably won’t accept your friend request there (don’t feel bad—I used the privacy settings to make sure none of the game players can see anything important about me). Myspace, on the other hand…

3) I just got home from a week and a half of summer camp, I’m leaving on Friday for a trip to Norway and I didn’t want to leave everyone in the lurch for so long.

4) I don’t want to think about packing right now and this seemed like an excellent way to avoid it.

That’s about it. I hope everyone in Europe and Asia is having a wonderful summer and I’ll try to make little posts here and there about my trip over the next month. Unless I drop my laptop into a fjord. If that happens, denying friend requests on Facebook will be the least of my problems.

Five years ago. A side room at Benchwarmer Bob’s, a local restaurant/sports bar. TVs in the upper corners of the room that were tuned into Channel 23, the WB. 7:00pm CST. The first time I’d ever heard the song Opportunities by the Pet Shop Boys and then my face appeared on national TV.

Unfortunately, there’ll never be a reunion show unless the producers take compromising photos of the participants and make us all show up or they’ll release the pictures to some national tabloids. (For the record, any story about my being Larry King’s most recent wife is totally bogus.)

But people have gone their separate ways since then. I talk to Bill on the phone once in a while, went to Mindi’s wedding this summer and that’s about it. Still, I’d like to think that everyone has succeeded in whatever we’ve been doing over the last five years. Especially if Richard is still working at that carpeting store.

I was logging into the blog a couple minutes ago to write a quick entry about a Facebook group called “America is not U.S.A. America is a Continent.” It’s true, America doesn’t consist solely of The United States of America; it’s all of North and South America. North America + South America = TWO continents. But that’s beside the point at the moment.

The first thing I did was check out the spam filter because, well, there are usually some interesting (and sometimes amusing) messages posted by websites that think I need to work out more, need cheap mp3 files and need a bigger penis. They may be right, but that’s beside the point at the moment as well. This time, I found a comment written by an actual person with a valid opinion that should probably be addressed. (When you read it, you’ll understand why it got blocked by the spam filter.) (more…)

If I remember correctly, February 2nd commemorates the 5th anniversary of me flying home to revel in my failure of being one of the four remaining Beauty and the Geek participants in the mansion. Okay, technically, there wasn’t much revelry—even if Scarlet and I had won the $250K, we wouldn’t be allowed to revel in our victory lest the producers take the money away and slap us with a big, nasty lawsuit. I wouldn’t think that going from victorious to penniless would inspire any festivities, but that’s just me.

The thing I’ll remember most about that day isn’t waking up in a hotel bed instead of my room in the mansion. It isn’t eating normal food instead of brand-name food with duct tape covering up the brand names. It isn’t even passing out on the airplane before the stewardess could tell me how to buckle my seat belt for the flight home. Nope, the thing I’ll remember most is getting off the plane. (more…)

That’s how my grandmother suggests that we live our lives: decide where we want to be in five years, then work towards that point starting now.

On January 17th, 2005—five years ago—I left a hotel with six other guys, got into in a van, stopped at Denny’s for breakfast, drove around for what seemed like hours, then eventually strolled through the front door of a mansion and into the midst of the reality TV phenomenon known as “Beauty and the Geek”. (The show being a “phenomenon” may be debatable, but please don’t spoil my delusions for the moment.) It was awesome, frustrating, amazing, sometimes nauseating… it only lasted two weeks, but it changed my life in so many ways that if I’d had a five-year plan at that point, it would have been shot straight to hell.

I sent a “Happy Anniversary” message to some of my fellow… you know, I’ve never put much thought into it before, but what were we? Participants? Contestants? Cast members? Probably all of the above, but regardless, I sent a message to a handful of them and hope that they’ve got a couple happy memories to reflect on after so many years. The likelihood of us getting together for a little reunion is minuscule at best—people seem to have gone their separate ways—but if some TV channel shows a mini-marathon of Season 1 in June (the month when the show first aired), I’ll be happy. I’ll also probably feel awesome, frustrated, amazed and sometimes nauseated all over again, but at least this time I can write that stuff in the margins of my five-year plan.

I spent the last few days in Ohio at my 10th year college reunion, but before I could write anything about it, something occurred to me: on this date four years ago, Beauty and the Geek first hit the airwaves and turned me into an international superstar. Or at least put my face on TV—the “superstar” status is questionable at best.

Four years… wow. I feel like I should write more, but that pretty much sums up my feelings at the moment. Wow.

I’m not sure why this popped back into my head earlier today, but I was thinking back to Beauty and the Geek when everyone was sitting around the hot tub talking about three things we look for in a boy/girlfriend. (Preferably one or the other and not a transsexual.) On TV, the girls were saying “trustworthy” and “spontaneous” over and over again, but didn’t show the guys’ answers. When it was my turn, here’s what I had to say: (more…)

I’ve taken some time the last few days to watch the first season of Beauty and the Geek again since my mother purchased it on amazon.com. It’s been slightly reedited—they added about two minutes of extra footage per episode—but I’m not sure if that warrants the price tag of $1.99 each or $11.14 for the season. (That’s my opinion, but if you’re a rabid fan… keep your foamy mouth to yourself.)

So I was going through, seeing how they added a few seconds here and there. For example, when I got to Episode 4 and they were showing us trying to get phone numbers, it revealed that my full quote was not “OOOHHHHHHH…”. It was “OOOHHHHHH, I got snubbed!” That’s how illuminating the new edit was at times.

But much like previous viewings, each time I watch myself wandering through that outdoor mall, thinking about the horrors of approaching random women and interrupting their routines to get the phone numbers for no reason… it still makes me cringe. Giving Caitilin a really bad massage? “Oops.” Throwing up on TV? “Man, that sucked.” Trying to get digits? It hurts to think about. Seriously.

I came up with the answer while chatting with someone online the next night. We’d turned our webcams on so we could see each other and every time I looked at my face on the screen, copying my every movement, every expression, everything that flashed across my face… it had an unreal quality to it. Then I had a flashback to watching myself on TV and it finally clicked.

I was suffering from PTRSD: Post-traumatic reality show disorder.

Given how much I enjoyed seeing people not make it to the bottom of the slope—sorry, guys—this felt like an appropriate title for the episode. Unless you haven’t heard the song, in which case you haven’t the slightest idea what I’m talking about. Well, it starts with laughter and a big drum solo, but you’ll have to hear it to really appreciate it. (Just ignore the fact that it’s being played by the Beach Boys.)

Going to Big Bear and doing the same things, but in snow? C’mon, Chris, show a little love for the outdoors. Sure, you might have seen me wandering around by myself like that, but at least I would have been enjoying nature while doing it.

I don’t buy Tara’s “I’m just a girl” defense against Joe throwing snowballs. If she could plead “I’m tiny, petite and very fragile”, then maybe… Consider: I was playing soccer last year and bumped into a girl (apparently a little too hard for her tastes). She reprimanded me with “Don’t play so hard, I’m just a chick!” Then later in the first half, she took out one of my (male) teammates from behind. “Just a chick”, my ass…

I would have loved to spend time in Big Bear and do the sledding challenge, even if it involved vomiting on the slope where people were trekking up to the top of the slide. At least it’s easier to bury the results that way.

Given The Great Wall of Big Bear, how could the producers think putting a sled together would be a challenge when The Wall was so structurally sound?

Tara and Joe are looking more and more like a married couple as time goes by. They have their spats, they support each other in the face of adversity and when Tara is in a bad mood, Joe sleeps on the couch. Except they’re in the cabin, so he grabs the bearskin rug, brings it into the room and sleeps on the floor. Who got in the last word this time, huh?!

Tommy’s got the hots for Tara, but doesn’t want to ruin things with DraculAmber, who doesn’t really like him… does anyone else wonder what his life has been like since his illusions were shattered over a month ago?

I can completely relate to Jason’s feelings of “I screwed up, it’s my fault.” I’m a tad skeptical of it being all his fault—letting his heels drag shouldn’t have slowed them down that much. I would be astonished if the producers could somehow figure out the physics behind how long and at what angle the slope would have to be, how much force to get started, what happens if they start swerving around like Tommy and Amanda… way too many factors to take into account. Maybe Jason’s ass was a little too heavy and that extra drag is ultimately what kept them from crossing the line. (Or maybe Kristina’s ass was a little too heavy, but we don’t speak of such things lest we wake up buried in the snow to our necks with wild dogs urinating on our heads.)

The elimination ceremony reminded me of something I saw on Whose Line Is It, Anyway? There were three guys who had to “vote someone off the island”, so to speak: the first two guys picked each other and the third walked up to the camera and said, “I pick me—I wanna get the hell out of here!” Sadly, Tommy and Amanda didn’t have that option, so they got rid of yet another couple. It’s a shame that he stopped giving people hugs after deciding their fates, it really is…

I’m starting to feel a little guilty. I’ve been pointing fingers at so many of the girls on the show because of their egos and bitchy attitudes—it’s not my fault that so many of them were cast—but I’ve been letting someone off the hook for a few weeks now: Chris. He claims he was the reason that his teams won the Beauty vs. Geek challenges, his team has won a challenge (i.e., Cara did, who got her really good science fair example from Jason), he assumes that any physical challenge is his for the taking (and now he’s lost two to Tommy)… I think I would have called him out if he wasn’t so calm about it. No yelling or screaming or tantrums, just “I’m the best—deal with it.” Personally, I think he should get back out on the football field so Tommy can paste him again. But that’s just me.

Someone sent me a message via Myspace to let me know that Season 5 of Beauty and the Geek may be its last. If that’s the case, I hope the show doesn’t go out with a whimper—the concept as a whole deserves better than that.