7:51 p.m.

Hey, here we are again. While I am waiting for Survivor to start tonight, I’m thinking about Survivor and online dating. If this does not interest you at all then just proceed to the 8 p.m. portion of this blog, but I’ve got ten minutes to kill until the show starts. Hopefully Rob doesn’t actually read this.

Recently, I’ve been taking my bachelor lifestyle to the world of online dating, which only seems 40 percent less horrifying than it did five years ago…right? What I tell myself is that it’s basically the new blind-dating of the 2014 world. I mean, it worked for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You Got Mail.

It’s still a little weird, and if you’ll allow me to steal the thoughts from Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers, basically how I feel about online dating is this: It’s forcing yourself to go on a forced, awkward situation where you meet at a public place and do the ass-out hug when you greet each other; where I’m not really interested in her, but I pretend to be interested in her, so then I start getting interested in her, and all the while I’m thinking –Are we going to get hopped up enough here to make some bad decisions… maybe play a little game of “just the tip,” just to see how it feels?

So far, I’ve met the full gamut of women: the nice ones (usually really shy, though), the recently divorced and not looking to get into anything serious ones (pretty cool actually, just really frustrating and could be awkward down the road), and the I was the shy girl in high school and now I’m trying to overcompensate by being overly forward ones (usually need a tetanus shot afterwards).Basically, online dating is like Survivor in that you’re forced to play a game and try to make an alliance with someone normally you maybe wouldn’t, and together you try and navigate.….OK…OK, that’s a little bit of a stretch…..

I am just trying to kill time waiting for the show to start, so sue me. You learned a little bit about my sick mind…Hey look, it’s 8 p.m.!!

8 p.m.

Previously on Survivor (Probst’s voice)… Two cops made a deal to stick together, which was only thirty seconds of Episode 1 that has had no meaning, nor meant anything since then, but for some reason I’m talking about it now. Tony maniacally shouts “Top 5, baby!”, but everybody is too scared of him to ask him what in the hell that means. Kass and I have a secret forbidden love relationship going on, which may lead to my first Survivor love-child.

Black-and-white Survivor starts us off with Spencer hoping for a merge. Spencer’s hair looks longer every episode… like suspiciously longer. Let’s all agree to keep an eye on this development. Spencer also doesn’t appear to have any facial hair, which is a shame because I think a mustache would do wonders for his game, or at the very least, give him the sex appeal his game has been lacking.

Sarah calls an impromptu meeting with her fellow tribemates, telling them if the merge happens that they’re all going to stick together. Kass is skeptical and already seems like she is ready to jump ship faster than Kim Kardashian jumped from Kris Humphries to Kanye West.

Kass and Sarah have a conversation that can best be described as icy. Sarah is carrying herself as if she holds all the power. Kass seems like she is itching to make a big move tonight…hmmmmmmmmm. Sleeping with Probst is paying off as maybe he is slipping her the secret intel files on what’s going on with each player. How great would that be if it were true?

Commercial- So the girl from Father of the Bride is still alive? Apparently she is guest-starring on Two and A Half Men…good for her. Apparently she also married a country music singer. Do you think she hired Martin Short as her wedding coordinator?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9Q2aMfUI3s

He seems available right now…unless he’s making the Three Amigos sequel I’ve been waiting for since I was eight.

Woo is trying to shoehorn in Tony as his new Cliff BFF. It seems…too soon……too soon, Woo.

Tony shares that he’s having fun now for the first time in this game. Does that mean he’s not actively planning a 12-person homicide now? Did his former tribe feel like crap after hearing that Tony wasn’t having fun with them? Seemed like a cheap shot from Tony.

We get a shot of L.J., who is about two weeks’ worth of beard growth away from looking like Forrest Gump when he just felt like running.

We next get a pretty cool shot of L.J. and Tony separately digging up their idols in a Treasure of the Sierra Madre-type of way (For you 80 and older fans out there, don’t think I forgot about you!)

Apparently movie trailers in the 1940’s didn’t leave a lot to the imagination when it came to spelling out the whole plot of a movie. Anti-smoking ads should just show Humphrey Bogart in each one because he always looked 30 years older than he really was. Nobody pulled off the gaunt look like Bogie.

Morgan’s dressed like she’s about to go on a Young Mothers of Suburbia walk to Starbucks as she’s reading some scroll the producers made for some reason. I mean, are scrolls associated with island life? Why not a highly produced shot of a message in a bottle floating up to the shore?

Tasha is dressed in the suit that the Wizard of Oz wore in the movie for some reason today; all that’s missing is his hat and hot air balloon.

We get a dramatic shot of the rowboat carrying the other tribe over for the new merge. A lot of awkward hugs are exchanged. Another scroll is read by Morgan. Was she voted the Reader of the Scrolls? Was it a close vote? Did the person who came in second get pissed? These are the things I was wondering.

Spencer is looking vagabondy as he comments how he might be able to run this game soon. Take it easy, Spencer… one day at a time, buddy. You’re also looking like Bubbles’ friend from The Wire that also got ahead of himself to his detriment.

8:15 p.m.

We get a Yoga class taught by Trish, as Tony is thinking about whom he can get to flip; he’s banking on his fellow cop pal, Sarah…

Tony and Sarah convene. Sarah is not willing to swear on her badge. This seems like it’s not the smartest move. What happens if you swear on your badge and you break your word? Do they take you out back and shoot you? Do they perform some ceremony where you are stripped of your badge and get exiled to become a bicycle cop?

Sarah’s having a board meeting with Jeremiah and Kass, telling them whom she wants to vote out, which I guess is Woo. Privately Sarah threatens Kass and anybody else not to pick a fight with her. She seems a little too cocky…This seems bad if you’re a Sarah fan; she’s basically tempting the Survivor gods to Julius Caesar her.

Kass is privately sharing that she is not happy with Sarah…This smells like Kass is going to make a big, treacherous move!

The claws are out with Sarah and Kass at the campfire, and Trish looks on in delight. Do they not notice Trish looking on like Solazzo when he noticed Sonny wanted in on the drug trade

Tasha tries to play mediator with Kass and Sarah. Kass frets that Tasha is playing favorites with Sarah. I will say that Kass seems a little paranoid….like she just smoked pot for the first time and is bugging out big time. I get that you can’t really trust anybody, but she seems a little extra on edge tonight.

8:30 p.m.

The Immunity Challenge tonight is a balance competition. I would do horribly in this comp with my size 14 shoes…Jeff smugly taunts everybody as he does the play by play, but nobody seems amused.

Tony lets us know that this is not a fun challenge: “There’s nothing fun about this, Jeff.”…It’s like even when he says normal sentences, he still sounds a little off…Am I crazy in thinking that?

It’s a massacre out there as they’re dropping like flies as all but three fall into the water right away. It’s like the Titanic out there! Somebody save Morgan, please! I would totally Leo DiCaprio-out and give her a piece of wood to float on, while I freeze to death…granted the water here looks a little warmer than the waters the night the Titanic went down.

What..??? Somehow Tony is still up…It’s Woo and Tony left. I would have bet my life this comp would have been won by one of the yoga gurus.

Props to Tony on this one; I didn’t know he had the balance. He even gives Woo a playful salute as he jumps off.

Woo wins immunity! This should make for a really interesting tribal council tonight. The stage is set for Kass to shank somebody tonight, or maybe she will be the one to be shanked. Either way, this feels like a pivotal, choose-your-own-adventure moment where there are very different destinies that will unfold because of this choice tonight (more so than every other tribal). I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, I always had a kamikaze, suicidal attitude when it came to choose-your-own-adventure books. I would always make the most reckless choices with those books……cool story, right?

OMG Elisabeth Shue is on CSI? Why did none of you tell me??!!! I’m so glad she was able to turn her life around after the prostitution stint in Las Vegas with Nick Cage that almost killed her.

Sarah tells us that she is going to stay with her current tribe, the “weaker” tribe as she described them. She self-proclaims herself as the president. Seriously, her Survivor death is all but certain now…it’s like a horror movie… You know it’s coming, and you know it’s not going to be pretty.

El Presidente Vitalicio and the weakettes meet in the water. I love the meetings that take place in four feet of water. Do you think anybody is peeing as the meeting is going on? What’s the over/under on the amount of people peeing as that meeting is going on? I would say 2.5 and I would take the over.

The “strong” tribe meets as the pee party of the “weak” tribe is taking place. Tony is foolishly thinking Sarah is with them, but Trish is not buying it. Trish is really a better player than I thought, as she rightly identifies Kass as the one they need to flip. This is feeling like The Departed and Sarah could be Martin Sheen if she is not careful.

The Sarah tribe decides to vote out Tony. Kass is out for blood with Sarah, claiming that she will do a pre-emptive strike first! Even though I like big moves, it would seem like Kass would be higher up the food chain on her current tribe than if she flips to the other tribe, right? At the same time, Sarah is begging for something bad to happen.

8:45 p.m.

Trish fills Kass’ head with even more propaganda to flip. It looks like Sarah is getting the Martin Sheen treatment later tonight. I think anytime you claim to be the president in Survivor like Sarah has tonight, you deserve to go home.

Tribal Council starts with L.J. randomly presenting as really emo…Maybe an Ethan Hawke Reality Bites homage is in order?

Cheer up, L.J.; it’s going to work out. Somebody give him a cigarette or something.

Tony inexplicably or brilliantly reveals that he has an idol. I got a little nervous when Spencer than told him to “pull it out” because Tony looked a little frenzied and god knows what he would have “pulled out”.

Everybody on #TeamSarah is talking to one another, so Jeff just decrees that they go straight to the vote! What the hell… I don’t think I’ve seen him go to the vote so quickly like this…

Tony pulls out and asks Jeff to inspect his Idol… smart move because there was a recent story in the Survivor Tribune about counterfeit idols being in the market. You can never be too careful these days with hidden immunity idols.

Tony is laughing…everybody looks afraid again. I imagine this if you were to laugh around Tony:

In a surprise move, L.J. plays his idol… I might add, also a stupid move by him. Why would L.J. do that? Are L.J. and Tony in a bromance? I mean, you’re playing Survivor. Why give away any edge you have in this game? I am really confused by that. Granted it was cool of L.J. and very honorable, but he could have had a serious ace up his sleeve for down the road that could have potentially saved his Survivor life.

The votes are in and Jefra is the target of the Sarah administration and she is already starting to cry. So to summarize, two precious idols were played and neither of them were needed. This is why the terrorists hate us…just wasting idols like this.

Sarah, seeing her name being called out, has a look like she’s sitting in a doctor’s office while the doctor tells her she’s pregnant with Corey Feldman’s child. Sorry, Sarah, but you tempted fate.

…And Sarah is gone. She takes it pretty well, I must say. I guess for her goodbye song, we will go with this:

Seriously, is that not the most depressing video of all-time? I’ve been in an early/mid 90’s kick all week, but seriously, why would they make a video like this? This time period was like the heyday of really weird, depressing, grunge music videos. Remember the Pearl Jam video Jeremy?

What a great episode. Kass made her choice and now we will see if it was the correct move. In my mind, if Kass makes it to the final four, you can say it was a good move on her part. It seems to me, that the biggest cut-throat players in the game (Tony, Trish) are whom Kass has aligned herself with. Will that come back to haunt her? It’s my opinion at this moment in the game that the best player is Trish. She seems to have a very good instinctual Survivor mind and seems to have the respect of the people she needs to advance. It should be noted that I really don’t know anything because two weeks ago, I thought Sarah was in the best place in this game, and now she’s gone. Like I keep on saying, this season is wide open, not like the past couple of seasons where we had clear favorites and could easily predict what was going to happen. I think Trish is in the best place, but I could easily be talked into L.J. or really anybody else. Let me know who you think are likely to be the final three below in the comment section. Thanks for reading and I will see you next week!