Author: Shawn

If you don’t mind, I’d like to extend last week’s theme one more time. Back on June 22nd, I posted a saying of the day: Loose lips sink ships. So do large holes in the hull. Well…

SHIPWRECK: Loose lips sink ships. In this case, it seems they were Randi’s lips.

And the flashbacks keep a-comin’. The showdown at the Joe. K. Corral brought back some not-so-great memories of the outdoor challenge, primarily the ones of Scarlet yelling at me. In her case, the yelling was somewhat justified—she had a reason to be pissed off at me. Randi… not so justified. Going off on a tear because Joe wouldn’t let her play a stupid joke was asinine and immature. With that kind of behavior, they should have changed her title from “The Navy Diva” to “The Navy Brat.”

Then there was my being pushed to the brink. Scarlet had asked me to “go look for firewood with her” so she could yell at me away from everyone else. I folded my arms as she kept going and going and going… finally, she paused for a moment and I asked, “Are you done?” When my family heard that on TV in that tone of voice, they knew I was at my breaking point. Thankfully, Scarlet’s response was, “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Had she started yelling again, I’m not sure what I would have done, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. I don’t think I would have lashed out physically, but she probably would have received a dose of her own medicine plus a little extra to grow on.

And then there’s Joe in a similar situation. He folded his arms as Randi kept going and going and going… I don’t know what his threshold is for bitchiness, but I guess when you reach it… [insert spitting noise here]. Not that it improved the situation—far from it—but it had a much more impressive effect on her than “You will rue the day you met me.” Actions speak louder than words and loogies apparently speak pretty frickin’ loud.

Before I go any further, I’d like to tell you a story about the house being “haunted.” In this case, it means the house is “filled with bored crew members who need to get their jollies somehow.” We had a similar problem one night, though it was limited to rattling against the windows (probably courtesy of little rocks being thrown at them from outside). Some of the girls were getting freaked out and the noises kept coming. Once they calmed down and stopped being scared, the noises stopped as well. Coincidence? Maaaaaybe…

Another flashback: Watching Leticia trying to hook up the fire hose was like seeing Scarlet struggling to loosen the lug nuts on the car tire all over again. She was doing so well—seriously, she was in front up until that point—and then the tire iron simply wouldn’t turn. (If that ever happens again, I’ll remember to tell her, “Put it level to the ground and stomp on it!”) And as our gracious host was providing commentary, he told the viewing audience that Scarlet was trying to turn the tire iron the wrong way. Oh, I was sorely tempted to provide some of my own commentary at him…

After looking at that giant pile of trash, I think I’d prefer the smell of napalm in the morning.

And what the hell was with the “arithmetic” challenge, anyway? When the geeks (and Leticia) were being firefighters, they could jump onto that inflatable bulls-eye (or almost land on the pavement next to it) and marvel at what they did. They feel good about themselves, gain confidence, think about kicking fire ass and taking fire names, etc. What could the girls possibly get out of sifting through garbage? “I’m so proud of myself for not puking while I was digging for bottles!” After all, not everyone can complete their challenges without blowing chunks. Or so I’m told.

Flimsy reasoning for sending someone to the elimination may sound like a load of crap, but it’s better than using a dartboard.

“Greg, please understand that I take no pride in going to the elimination room with you.” Why is that so hard for Randi to believe? Joe is friends with Greggy. It’s her ass that he wouldn’t mind kicking to the curb. And if she’s made such a drastic change, why doesn’t she sound any different? She’s still as loud and belligerent as when she was feuding with DraculAmber—the only difference I could see between the “earlier” and “later” clips was that her hair didn’t look like she had a bunch of balloons clinging to it anymore.

So after watching the entire episode, I’d once again like to reference an older entry where I questioned whether Randi had any virtues since she lacked humility. I’ll give her credit for supporting Greggy, but beyond that, I didn’t see much of anything.

Wanna know how I judge growth on that show? Listen to the exit interviews. The ones who learned something during their stay always talk about how they changed. For example, Greggy felt more comfortable with himself and was thrilled about his new-found confidence. On the other hand, the ones who didn’t learn anything say that they helped everyone else change. You may have noticed that Randi placed herself firmly in the latter category. (Incidentally, so did Lauren from Season 1, which didn’t surprise me a bit.)

And after reading this entire entry, I realized just how much of it revolves around Randi. I imagine that’s the way she looks at the world, so if she ever reads this, she’ll probably ignore what I wrote and simply bask in the attention I gave her. Dammit…

Interesting ploy by the producers. This is the first season when face time hasn’t indicated how long someone will last on the show. First Jonathan, then Jim, guys who seemed like dead ringers to go deep into the season because you never saw them. (If I was either of those two, I’d be kinda pissed about being denied seven or eight of my fifteen minutes of fame.)

And now we have Beauty and the Geek again! Finally, the show resumes its title, its premise and its purpose: to teach geeky guys that not all beautiful girls are pretentious bitches. That’s not the only purpose, of course, but it’s one that John E. and Jonathan didn’t get to fully experience. Bummer, dudes…

Tommy reminded me of all the guys from Season 1: the beauties had the rocket science challenge. Sure, Tommy gets to be on the radio, but the girls get the physics projects!

I think Cara might have a future in politics. Ask her a question she doesn’t want to (or can’t) answer and she’ll tell you about something that’s vaguely related, but never address the actual issue that you wanted to know about. It’s worked in the presidential debates for months now—it can work for you, too!

Someone needs to explain to Randi that humility is a virtue—I’m assuming that she has other virtues to make up for it, but they haven’t shown any yet.

Why, why, why did they revert back to narrowing the group down to two people before announcing the winner? I had so much hope after Cara won the science fair, but nope! Dr. Drew decided to fuck it all up. The man’s a doctor, he should know what that kind of stress can do to a person. After Jason realized that he helped Cara win her challenge, then came in second place for the geeks’ challenge… that boy may never have a proper erection again.

Note to Joe: when you’re on a radio show like “Dr. Drew Live” (a.k.a., “Loveline”), please keep your answers short and sweet. You can say a whole lot in one minute. If you go on for much longer than that, you might as well be their parents giving them “the sex talk”. (Incidentally, I managed to avoid having that conversation with my dad—I stumbled onto the book Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex, But Was Afraid To Ask and read it cover to cover. If you feel uncomfortable talking to your kids about that stuff, “accidentally” leave it in their bedroom and ask if they have any questions three days later.)

The stairway ceremonies are becoming more unorthodox every season. When I was around, if someone was sent to the elimination room, we sucked it up and moved on. Well, that’s what the others did—Scarlet and I got sent there by default—but had that happened to us, I like to think we would have sucked it up and moved on. Nowadays, they encourage bitching about “How dare you choose us!”

And then there’s Tommy. Now that was unorthodox. Walking up to Jim and Tiffany after calling them out and giving them both a big hug… yikes almighty. For those who think Tommy is only pretending to be a geek, you have to admit that he’s doing a pretty damn good job of it.

I learned a few things about Jim’s internal workings after this episode. One: he has more guts than I thought after asking Tiffany to kiss him. Two: he has bigger balls than I thought after his “tit for tat” pledge. Personally, there’s no way that I’d tell someone that. For one thing, someone else might start acting like a major dick in a few days, but because Jim committed himself to sending Tommy to the elimination room, that dick is probably gonna be safe. For another, revenge is a lot sweeter when the person isn’t expecting it.

Given her complete domination in the elimination room, all Leticia has to do is shrink a couple inches and dye her hair brown to become this season’s version of Mindi. Well, that plus give up the whole “jumping out of airplanes” thing.

That was a nice shot of Matt’s trembling hands on top of his buzzer. I didn’t think any of the beauties brought their earthquake projects home from the Beauty and the Geek Science Fair, but I might have been wrong.

“Hey, Jim, why weren’t you on Beauty and the Geek for very long?”
“God hates me.”

Does anyone else find it both ironic and satisfying that out of the three girls who were trying to manipulate the geeks (Leticia, Tiffany and DraculAmber), two of them have already left the mansion?