Crappy the Smart-Assed Toilet

Currently one of the most-viewed videos at YouTube: What if Microsoft redesigned the iPod packaging?

Because a good parody is almost always closer to the truth than, well, pretty much anything. It’ll be interesting to see how this compares to Microsoft’s Origami fantasy.

We’re pleased to report that the two-week SPEIOCHC is over. The opening credits have been returned unharmed, although slightly altered from the experience (poor La Mina has 7-9 disadvantage in numbers). We’re not sure what was taken out of the show to make room for the credits, although early intel suggests it’s the characters of Bob Dawg Mason and Ruth Marie Wesson, er, Milliman. To tell the truth, we’ve never actually been huge fans of the opening credits, but we’re still okay with the exchange. As long as no arms were secretly funneled to Iran, of course. Checking… nope, Dan’s arm is still there in the credits. So everything appears to be on the level.

The show started, and several new plot developments erupted in enthusiastic freshness. In one remarkable turn of events, it turns out that the people who haven’t eaten for eight days are a bit hungry. Also, someone who voted with the previous episode’s bootee feels a tad uncomfortable around the tribemates who deceived her. It’s sparkling new story innovations like these that keep Survivor fans coming back season after season. Yes, indeed. And with these innovations out of the way, it was then time for some sort of challenge.

Welcome back, you “One Survivor” Viveros tree, you. Feel free to substitute Guided By Voices’ “I Am A Tree” for the grating theme song while you’re standing there in that pose, okay?

It was a reward challenge, which was, as should have been obvious to any viewer deeply attuned to the show’s voodoo/mysticism theme, a water-based puzzle. That’s because puzzles are at the core of the voodoo worship rituals, which is why, as everyone knows, 90% of the Nobel laureates in Chemistry, Medicine, and Physics have also been high-level voodoo practitioners. And just as naturally, the winner of this challenge received… a toilet. That’s because, well, weekly sponsor Charmin was totally set to give them live chickens for a sacrifice, but after watching one too many TV news reports on AVIAN FLU!!!!, the medical staff vetoed it. So Charmin ended up just tossing in a few rolls of toilet paper, instead.

As you might imagine, one of the tribes won. We can’t exactly remember which, because the challenge, which involved putting pie-shaped wedges into a container - sort of like Trivial Pursuit, except dumbed down enough so that nobody is required to answer any actual questions - sort of put us to sleep. But since the outhouse later turned up in Casaya camp, we’ll say the purple tribe won. Plus that Terry/Tom guy got sent to Exile Island, and we think he’s on the other tribe. Nonetheless, we’re sure the victory was quite dramatic.

Now normally, any group of starving people would be overjoyed to have a bonafide, non-flushable toilet in their camp, right? Well, not so those ingrates on Casaya. Instead of launching into a giddy, flower-filled, all-dancing, all-singing jubilee at their newfound sanitation, from the moment Casaya got back to camp, things went straight into the shitter.

Or at least Bobby did, ruining a perfectly good, family-oriented product placement like toilet paper, by giving a partially off-camera demonstration of what it’s supposed to be used for. You may remember Bobby, or you probably won’t, for his previous roles as “that guy sleeping over there” and “that one guy who the challenge people liked.” Well, anyway, as we mentioned, he apparently neglected to notice that the outhouse’s name was “Casa de Charmin” and not “Casa de Febreze: Noticeables” In his defense, he may have been confused, because Cirie had already eaten the second “C” off of the sign, hoping it was a croissant. But on the plus side, Casaya later re-christened themselves (after Bobby christened the facilities) as “Team Harmin” (which narrowly beat out “Team #2″), and Bobby wasn’t seen for the rest of the show, so it all worked out for the best.

Actually, the real reason for the hubbub over Bobby’s deposit was edited out. It appeared briefly on the CBS site, but was for some reason taken down. Here’s what we remember about it: Courtney, as usual, was pissed off and/or weeping when the satisfied, lighter Bobby returned. “I hope you didn’t use any of the toilet paper,” she screeched. Bobby was a bit confused. “Um… why?” Rolling her eyes, Courtney seethed, “Don’t pretend you don’t know! Danielle had dibs on like two rolls, because she didn’t think her bikini top was tight enough. I need like, at least two rolls for my rhythmic gymnastics show. Bruce had reserved several rolls for his Zen paper arrangement sculpture. And surely you haven’t forgotten that Shane’s thinking rock proposed to him two days ago, and that we need the rest to make veils and gowns for everyone at Shane’s bridal shower tomorrow night?” Bobby thought about it for a while, then finally growled in response, “Don’t call me Shirley.”

Meanwhile, the poor Terry/Tom-less souls on La Mina, not having received any toilet paper, nor signs bearing the letter “C”, were hungry. But help was on its way. Austin, seeing as how well the appellation had worked for the acting careers of Ethan and Bobby Jon, decided to christen himself “Jesus of Nazareth,” and set about turning loaves to fishes. Unfortunately, (1) they didn’t have any loaves, and (2) thanks to Sally, they couldn’t have caught the fishes anyway, if they did have loaves. He thought it might work with leaves, seeing as how they’re only one letter off, but all he got out was toilet paper. Crap! Then he tried it with a few rocks, which did in fact produce a small number of snails. And it was good. While the snails were not particularly tasty, they at least didn’t try to escape very quickly. So La Mina was still, for the most part, pretty damned hungry. Sadly for the tribe, Austin forgot to try the whole water-into-wine thing, because Lord knows, if you’re drunk enough, you forget you’re hungry. But then again, maybe Austin had merely become the revisionist, ultra-conservative Jesus of Nazareth, who turned water into whine, instead. So they were also pretty thirsty, thanks to the newfound lack of water.

In an unfortunate turn of events, Terry/Tom managed to miss all of these festivities, having been sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to Exile Island. Whereas hapless Bruce had received vague clues like “Day 4: It’s somewhere on the island” and “Day 7: It’s not in the ocean”, the producers gave Terry slightly more helpful “hints” to the location of the hidden immunity idol, as in, “It’s under this tree, right here. Under that rock right there. Make sure you bring your machete and/or the secret Exile Island backhoe, because it’s in a box about a foot down.” They had to re-film the “discovery” sequence a few times, because Terry kept ignoring the cameraman’s subtle suggestions, such as “No! Not that rock, you idiot! Try the one with the big red X painted on it!” But in the end, Terry emerged with what appeared to be a string attached to the shrunken head of former contestant Johnny Fairplay, whom Probst had “taken care of” after the past season’s finale party. Despite all appearances, this is allegedly a good thing to have.

Next, there was some sort of immunity challenge, which CBS (while showing the reward challenge) hyped as “the closest challenge ever in Survivor history.” Personally, we think the original marketing pitch, “a bunch of people carrying water in little buckets” might have drawn in a few more viewers, since it sounds like one of those strange Winter Olympic events you didn’t know existed, like “biathlon,” but CBS didn’t ask our opinion. Once again, one of the tribes won, and since we seemed to see a lot of the La Mina people for the rest of the show, we’ll guess it was the purple one again. Again, we’re sure this was very dramatic.

Naturally, since La Mina contained three men, two women, and (according to the CBS web site) someone named Nick who we’re not actually sure is on the show, the only decision possible was which of the two women to boot. Sally, having seen that Misty’s use of the “feminine wiles” tactic hadn’t seemed to work too well on Nick and Austin, opted to go for the “work hard and do well in challenges” strategy, which had previously failed for Tina. Luckily, Sally hadn’t seen that. Ruth Marie, meanwhile, rested comfortably in the assurance that, since she had successfully carried out her IC duty of sitting on a swing for hours, until at last it was time to pull out the pin and raise La Mina’s flag, they weren’t going to tribal council that night.

As it turns out, Ruth Marie was wrong. Or at least as “wrong” as you can be without ever actually speaking on the show (we have used a complex system of facial expression recognition software, neural network simulators, and just plain guessing to discern what Ruth Marie has been “saying”). But they did in fact go to tribal council. Ruth Marie was then voted out, which surprised some viewers, who thought this alleged “Ruth Marie” person might have just been extra footage of Tina Wesson spliced in from Survivor: All Stars. Sadly, we may never know the truth.

And thus endeth another Crappy recap. Should you prefer recaps from people who actually watched the show, or at least can recount it in a fashion that resembles what actually aired, you may want to check out:
- “Recaps by AMAI” at Survivor Sucks (by Sucks poster AllMenAreIslands)
- “Honest Achmed’s Survivor Recaps” at HonestAchmed.com
- or “n00b summaries” by Sucks poster KororShark9.

Or if all else fails, you can read the reactions of a selection of former Survivors at the CBS site’s blog. But you’ll have to find that on your own, because CBS has still failed to hire us to write for that. Come on CBS, just because we were never on the show, don’t really watch it all that carefully, and fail to adequately praise it at almost every opportunity, is that really reason(s) enough to shut us out?

Week two of the Survivor: Panama - Exile Island Opening Credits Hostage Crisis (aka, the SPEIOCHC) has come and gone, with still no word of the whereabouts of the missing credits sequence and theme song. While the captors’ identities have not yet been publicly released, speculation has been rampant on online message boards, with the most popular theory being that the credits were taken captive by a single, mysterious assailant. According to intel posted by longtime spoiler ChillOne, word around the show is that this man’s name is “Chef Gropest,” or a common rhyming equivalent.

In place of the credits, the abductor did leave a 15-minute recap of the previous week’s “highlights,” followed by what appeared to be a ransom note, featuring disjointed flashes of various body parts, such as Dan’s arm. Overall, an extremely ominous development. Worse still, whole sections of the show, from the clues to the hidden idol on Exile Island, to the entire third day of filming, now appear to have disappeared as well. Clearly, this is getting serious: somebody needs to alert Jack Bauer about this terrifying development. Sure, the credits may end up dead in the bloody aftermath, or perhaps innocent bystander CBS shows such as Courting Alex might be exposed to deadly Centox nerve gas, but that’s a risk we’re willing to take. Oh wait, he’s under contract with FOX. Dammit!

This is not to say there wasn’t any new footage on the show, of course. There was a reward challenge of some kind, and as we recall, an immunity challenge. Some sand, some water, and some sandy, wet model/actors getting skinnier (and sandier, and wetter). And naturally, the requisite 5 minutes of yelling by contestant Shane Powers. Then again, we may just be remembering the previous week’s “Next time on Survivor” segment.

Hold on, we do recall one early bit involved a contestant substitution. It appears original contestant “Silent” Bruce Kanegai, who communicated with the outside world solely by chopping things with a machete, seems to have met with an unfortunate fate while on Exile Island, and been removed from the game. In his place, CBS inserted a similarly-clothed gentleman named “Bruce Kanegai, God of Backpacking,” or at least, that’s what he said to his new tribemates at Casaya. And to the cameraman and producer when he gave a confessional that night. And to Jeff Probst the next day. And to the opposing tribe. And to the bushes over there, by the beach. We’re guessing this may be some sort of “Will they notice the difference?” CBS stunt, perhaps like the twin swap idea, used by Big Brother. We’re onto you, CBS! Can’t slip that one past our Crappy viewing habits!

As we said, some kind of reward challenge was shown. It involved… balls. That’s about the extent of the impact it made on the Crappy memory banks. The tribe not containing “Bruce Kanegai, God of Backpacking” won it, and received some exciting blankets and tarps for their efforts. After smiling graciously at their newfound comfort, and politely asking Probst if he had any recipes for blanket stew, or possibly tarp canapes, they then sent “Bruce Kanegai, God of Backpacking” to Exile Island (we’d say “again,” but we’re not fooled, CBS!). Sadly, the God of Backpacking was not seen for the remainder of the episode, so it appears he may have met the same fate as his predecessor, “Silent Bruce,” forcing CBS to stage an emergency casting call for a second replacement “Bruce,” who we imagine we’ll meet next week. Or maybe it’s just that CBS figured that, since they’d already shown a “Bruce” reading the Episode 3 Exile Island clues in the previous episode, repetition was unnecessary. One of the two.

Missing along with the Exile Island footage (maybe it’s that, since the words “Exile Island” are in the title of the show, CBS decided that didn’t really need to take up additional airtime showing it) were most of the scenes of camp life, apart from the usual standbys: People complaining about the rain (as Jeff Probst would chipperly explain to the entertainment press in selling the show prior to Episode 1, “We filmed during the rainy season!”), Shane throwing a tantrum (this time about a “rock” instead of cigarettes, we’re guessing it’s not the kind he was sitting on), people “fishing” (by which we mean, not catching actual fish to eat), and lastly, the young women of La Mina proving that they’re not just “pretty faces” by “pretending” that they’re just “pretty faces” (note: if Sarah from Marquesas can pull this off successfully, we question whether this is really a master strategy, requiring an advanced degree in engineering). Still, if backrubs happen on Survivor, it is apparently part of the contract that they be aired.

With the filler and recaps out of the way, it was eventually time for the immunity challenge. Now, we’re not saying it wasn’t entertaining, but we do question our tastes a bit when the highlight of the show involved grown, otherwise (mostly) sane adults fighting like a bunch of two-year-olds over sandy pillows (that as far as we know, they didn’t even get to keep). We’re guessing that, when he was putting his nose to the grindstone to study for his M.D. (having already gotten an engineering Ph.D.), Dan Barry didn’t say to himself: “Someday I’ll have gone into space three times, and taken four space walks. But what I really want to remembered for is writhing half-naked in the sand with some middle-aged Hollywood addict/scene rat.” Then again, we’re often wrong with predicting Dan Barry’s past activities, so maybe we’re wrong on that, too.

Our ability to discern Dan Barry’s past actions appears to be fairly limited, but we’re still guessing Nick enjoyed his backrub more than Dan did.

That said, there is a certain… poetic beauty? No, that’s not it. Athletic grace? Not quite… hmm, sociopathic amusement? Yeah, that’s it… in seeing the likes of Bobby and Cirie tossing around the scrawny model/actors like rag dolls. And we do have to note that most brilliant strategic move in the entire episode came when the new “Bruce” yelled out, “Sit on her, Cirie!” But seriously, given the choice between some pampered, pouty princess (or worse, prince) twirling around on the ice in hopes of a donut-shaped medal, versus Bobby casually letting a desperate Ruth Marie race to her mat, then at the last second, with no discernible effort on his part, picking her up and plopping her onto the Casaya mat, all to win some stick upon which three fake skulls have been impaled, we’ll take the CBS option every time. Of course, we’d take most anything every time over figure skating, possibly even C-SPAN. Yes, we’re aware that there are these nifty inventions called books, which can be fine substitutes for TV at such moments. But, well, we’re fairly lazy, and we have short attention spans.

Wait, what were we talking about again? Oh right, Survivor. So anyway, following La Mina’s IC loss, the planning for the boot kicked into high gear. Nick, seeing Austin sitting around the fire with the rest of the tribe, ran up to him and yelled out, “Hey Austin, we’re voting out Ruth Marie!” At this, Ruth Marie erupted in a closed-mouth stare, slightly different from her usual stare, and quite possibly signalling “What?” Or maybe, “Her?” Austin, understandably a bit panicked by this reaction, quickly hushed Nick up, and moved him to a more discrete location. It turned out to be a couple of feet away from where they had been sitting, but it’s the “thought” that counts. The cameramen considered moving to the new location, but opted for the optical zoom instead.

Firmly ensconced in their secure patch of sand, Nick and Austin further discussed the boot. “Dude, yeah, I got the boot instructions straight from Misty,” Nick gushed. “Her?” a skeptical Austin asked. “Look Nick, that chick’s been to Exile Island. I think she picked up some sort of disease there… have you seen her arms? I hope you didn’t let her touch you.” Nick pondered this development for several minutes. “Does a back rub count as touching?”

Later, of course, Terry filled the boys in with the correct voting instructions. “Uh, guys, we’re voting for Misty tonight.” Austin was puzzled. “Are you sure? Didn’t Misty say it was Ruth Marie?” “Oh right, sorry, I forgot to tell you: That’s her secret code for ‘Misty’. Those crazy rocket scientists with their anagrams and substitution ciphers! Ha!” Naturally, all those big words merely confused Nick even more: “Dude, what’s a rocket?” Raising an eyebrow, but still preternaturally smooth, Terry eased away, saying in a soothing voice, “So… I’m gonna go ahead and ask that you make sure you write down ‘Misty’ on the card tonight, okay? Thanks… that would be great… right….”

Since they’d already announced to the audience their intention to vote out Misty, La Mina’s trip to Tribal Council was relatively uneventful, apart from a brief contretemps between Austin and Probst over La Mina’s missing weapon of mass fishing. Probst chided Austin: “So I hear that after your boastful claims about removing from the waters of La Mina all traces of edible fish, you guys now have no clue where the Hawaiian sling is?” Austin replied, tersely: “We know exactly where the spear is.” Probst was undaunted: “No, really, I saw it on the dailies, and we’ve already edited the previous episode, and it’s the centerpiece of the show. Sally threw it in the ocean.” Austin was defensive: “If I answered that, it would give away valuable information to our enemies, which include the fish, the other tribe, any members of this tribe who will get switched to the other tribe in coming episodes, and Michael Moore.” “Michael Moore?” “Yeah, I just hate that guy.” Probst had had enough with the evasive answering, “Okay, whatever. Let’s get on with voting Misty out, so I can get back to my hotel, where I’ll be washing down my twelve-course meal with a variety of fine wines and other beverages, followed by a shower, and some pleasuring from my girlfriend who’s half my age.”

And so they did. Tune in next week, where, if you’re lucky, you can look forward to more yelling from Shane, more rain, and more complaining about food. And if we’re lucky, no ice skating. We have a good feeling we’ll be lucky this time.

Seriously, we question the decision to hand off the midday Olympics coverage to MSNBC. Mainly because it results in the curious spectacle of alleged pundit Tucker Carlson anchoring what’s essentially sports news (even saying things like [*snicker*] “Spoiler alert!”). That’s just silly. The next thing you know, Anderson Cooper will be hosting a reality show!

We can still hear them now: “Who left the cap off my **bleep**ing Glisten?”

We don’t know if enough time has passed. We don’t know what we’re saying.

But we wouldn’t mind, terribly, if Arrested Development was buried, well, in its own place. Then one week later, it would emerge from the grave, in one of the greatest illusions ever! (On Showtime, presumably).

But yeah, you’re right. Wow, they’re really gone.

We’ll be bringing you some salmon rolls right away! Hold on… Something’s gone wrong. Oh my God! The card!

If you’re like tens of Americans, you find yourself on Friday, perhaps standing around the “water cooler,” trying to remember what happened this week on Survivor. Sure, you could find out the answers in painfully easy ways, like actually watching the show. Or maybe reading about it at the official CBS site, or surprisingly (particularly to the CBS media relations people), at, uh, the not-CBS site. Or you could even support CBS’s feeble attempt to undercut the iTunes Music Store, by “renting” a crappy copy of the show for 24 hours, all for the low, low price ($1.99) you’d pay to buy it (forever) from Apple. But please don’t, it would only encourage them. Instead, throw out your old-media habits, and stop supporting methods that only tell you how it “really” happened, and start reading below, where Crappy’ll tell you how it “realityly” happened.

It was apparently belt-tightening week at CBS for the second episode of Survivor: Panama - Exile Island. To free up some much-needed cash, America’s #1 network replaced the first half hour of the show with a Jeff Probst-narrated recap of the first episode. Even the opening credits were pared back to the bare minimum: a few seconds of tribal chanting and out. Everything must go!

In a further attempt to cut costs, alleged contestants Bobby “Bob Dawg” Mason and Ruth Marie “Tina Wesson” Milliman did not appear in this episode. We thought we might have seen them during the tribal pick, but that was probably just their Dream Team stand-ins. Perhaps they were secretly exiled. Regardless, we’re told by our sources deep within CBS that the money saved by not filming them was, as always, put directly back into the brilliant, comedic genius writing of Yes Dear, The King of Queens, and Two-and-a-Half Men. That and Les Moonves and Julie Chen’s personal Love Shack slush fund. Whoops, we weren’t supposed to mention that part. Oh well, nobody reads this, anyway.

Further savings were realized as the tribes were trimmed from four to two. This one wasn’t entirely for money, as the two extra camera crews were needed back in the States to shoot the genre-busting, spectacularly original new CBS realebrity series, Playing Badminton with the Former Cast of Punky Brewster. Again, according to our CBS flies on the wall, Moonves is convinced that this birdie-smashing entry is going to wallop the crap out of American Idol in the ratings, and force FOX to merge with the CW. You sure know how to pick ‘em, Les!

To save on twist-writing, the tribal shuffle was recycled from Palau, with captains Terry “Tom Westman” Deitz and Danielle “Stephenie, Yet Again” DiLorenzo initiating a schoolyard pick’em. Danielle kicked off the festivities by selecting Shane “Krusty the Klown” Powers, saying “That’s a wicked awesome Sawx tattoo ya got theah.” Shane hugged her, then sobbed, “No! Boston’s my dear, dear son, who I occasionally see when there aren’t Hollywood parties to attend, or reality show auditions.” As Danielle looked imploringly back at Probst and started to ask, “Uh, can I put this one back?”, Shane suddenly spotted a cameraman innocently lighting up a Marlboro. Whipping across the clearing with near-light speed, Shane hoisted the guy up by his lapels, bellowing an otherworldly howl: “Give me that and I will allow you to live!”

But sadly, as Shane thrust the entire pack of cigarettes into his mouth, lit them and started to inhale, he was tackled by SEG security. Probst gently reminded him, “While we do try to withhold as much food and medication as possible to keep you guys cranky, you’re really not supposed to touch the crew.” Eventually, Shane’s screams and thrashing were subdued by medical personnel, who applied Nicoderm CQ patches to every square inch of Shane’s body, although they later decided to remove the one covering his mouth, because people who could snap at any moment usually make for good sound bites. Chastened, Shane returned to his tribe, and the picking resumed with his selection of “Sideshow” Courtney Marit. From there followed Aras and Cirie, confirming that “Casaya” is Spanish for “some kind of nut.” The other tribe self-selected a bunch of eggheads and boring old people. As punishment, they were not given much camera time for the rest of the show.

Last, and apparently least, was Silent Bruce Kanegai, who it turns out is actually capable of speech, as long as he’s not holding a machete. Probst turned to him, arched an eyebrow, and solemnly intoned, “Bruce, I’m sorry to inform you, you’re the last to arrive.” After pausing for dramatic effect, he continued, “What are you going to do now?” Inexplicably, Bruce erupted in a chorus of whoops, handsprings, and backflips: “I’m going to Disneyworld! Woo-hoo!” Confused, Probst backpedaled, “Well, I was kidding before, but actually, you’re getting Exiled.” Bruce responded, rather half-heartedly, “Woo…?” Pleased to once again be dispensing pain, Probst continued, “Actually, it’s just a money-saving thing again. You get a bye for this episode, and we’ll just splice in some footage from your pre-game interview, and pretend it’s Exile Island. Nobody will be the wiser. Grab some smokes on your way out and see you in a few days.”

The many moods of Shane Powers
Jonesing	Craving	Needing a fix

From there, a competition of some kind followed, notable only in that it did not involve Bruce Jenner, Kelly Monaco, or Simon Cowell in any way. Wait, hold on. We’ve just been informed that perhaps the reason CBS has thus far (after a full 24 hours! The nerve!) failed to offer us a contract to write for the CBS site’s Survivors Strike Back blog is that there is not a sufficiently excessive level of CBS/SEG asskissery present in our writing. With this in mind, please strike the first sentence from this paragraph (and for that matter the second, third, and the part preceding the colon in the yet-to-be-read fourth). What we meant to say was: Wow, what a reward challenge! We’ve never seen such an amazing use of bamboo, paint, and wooden objects, since, like, ever! And the drama? Oh. My. God! Who could have predicted that, after she announced her mortal fear of leaves in the first episode, Cirie would be forced to conquer that fear in order to win a challenge in the next episode? Amazing! (Well, technically, they didn’t win, but still…). Absolutely the most original obstacle course we’ve seen on this show! Definitely since Guatemala, at least!!!!!

So anyway, as we mentioned, there are two tribes now. La Mina (Spanish for “The Mina”) won the reward, and promptly scuttled back to camp to plot which set of pairs from the original tribes would be the first to stab the others in the back. The two thinking pairs (Terry and Dan, along with Sally and Misty) quickly realized that the best strategy was to recruit the pair of model/actor/waiter/fratboys from the younger men’s tribe, who could be convinced to vote for just about anything simply by promising to hook them up with some free beer, a meeting with their friend who does some casting on the side, and possibly some coupons for 10% off at the CBS commissary in Los Angeles, all after the show ends. Austin and Nick were a bit flummoxed by the sudden attention at first, but quickly decided that (1) they sure could use that 10% coupon, and (2) some of those people offering them coupons had boobs.

To celebrate their newfound alliance, Nick and Sally rowed out to do some “fishing.” Which means, of course, ceremonially burying the Hawaiian sling at sea. Sally did so, then looked over at Nick, “Well, it’s way down there. We’d better go back.” Nick seemed unconvinced, “Are you sure? I think I can touch bottom here.” Sally shook her head, “Oh no, it’s at least three or four feet down there, you’d never get it.” Nick nodded slowly, “Ohhhh, wow. That is deep. Okay, I guess we’d better go back.” Upon reaching the beach, Sally leapt onto the beach, slammed the remaining fishing gear down onto the sand, and commenced to re-enact some of the finer moments of the “Terrell Owens Touchdown Dance Highlights: A Celebration” 12-DVD box set in front of Tom/Terry and his gangly buddy, Ian/Dan. “Ha ha, Terry/Tom!” she shrieked. “We lost the spear! Let’s see you get a shark this time around, now, buddy!” To which Tom/Terry calmly replied, “Well, actually, I used a machete the last time.” Freezing mid-prayer/shuffle, Sally quickly started plotting ways to get Bruce onto the La Mina tribe, to ensure that Terry/Tom would not have access to the machete.

Later, a second challenge was run, also recycled from Palau. Probst described it thusly: “Okay guys, you’re looking at a free lunch here. Since Bruce will be joining whichever tribe loses today, you have a golden opportunity to lose on purpose, and get rid of someone you hate. La Mina, got anyone in mind?” Misty, who hadn’t actually been seen since she was last exiled, piped up: “Oh no, we love everyone! Except Ruth Marie, but that’s okay because she’s not here this week.” Probst then fired the same question over to Casaya. “Anyone on your tribe? I’m looking at you, Shane.” Blinking rapidly and scratching at his skin, Shane replied, “So help me, if you don’t give me a cig right this second, I will kill every motherfucking last one of you!” After a 30-minute break for an emergency patch replacement session, play resumed. Shockingly, the tribe with Tom/Terry won. Apparently, in a flash of creativity, the producers decided to add something called a “zombie head” to the Palau version of the challenge, and the head needed to be set on fire for some reason. Now, maybe we’ve been watching the wrong movies, but to our recollection, zombie heads are usually concerned with finding brains, generally display little interest in fire, and are rarely disembodied. At least until they get attacked by lawnmowers. But again, maybe it’s just us.

Anyway, Casaya headed back to decide who to boot. Bobby/ “Bob Dawg” was a popular choice, seeing as he wasn’t there at the time, but eventually Shane stepped up and announced he wanted to quit. After being taken aside by Aras (”Seriously, dude, the pre-jury trips are NON-smoking! You’d be screwed! Plus you can’t call your son to bring you a pack of smokes until you get home anyway”), Shane later clarified his statement, saying: “What I actually meant was, I want to quit smoking. That’s why I’m here, see. And I have to stay here to keep at it. So, uh, sorry about the misunderstanding. Oh yeah, and we’re voting out one of the fat chicks instead. Doesn’t matter which.”

This of course made for smooth sailing, right up until tribal council, where Probst welcomed the new Casaya to their second home, and invited the new members to light their torches. As Probst would later assert to the press, nobody could have predicted this, but upon seeing cylindrical objects and flames, something snapped in Shane, and he raised his torch to his lips, desperately trying to take a puff. Suddenly noticing the tribal council set, he proceeded to race around the cave, lifting up every candle and sucking ten times harder than The War at Home. Once again, a fresh selection of full-body patches eventually restored order.

Trying to ignore the twitching, eyebrow arching, bouncing guy in the back row, Probst focused his attention on Melinda and Cirie. “So… I hear you two are pretty much screwed. Aren’t you glad we shuffled the tribes in Episode 2?” Melinda and Cirie sobbed, wailing, “It’s not fair! Just because we voted Tina out because she was strong, doesn’t mean these people can vote us out for being weak! And Shane wanted to quit!”

At this point, Probst called a halt to the filming, and conferred with his team of producers. “So whattya think, guys? Should I goad Shane into quitting, like I did with Janu? I’m pretty sure if we wave a pack and a lighter at him, just out of camera range, he’ll go for it.” But after much discussion, it was determined that Shane was likely to a lot more yelling in the next episode than Melinda, so he got to stay. Plus, since Shane was an aspiring actor, he was willing to work for scale, while Melinda wanted residuals and a cut of the DVD sales.

And so another fine (and by fine, we mean small and granular) episode of Survivor: Palau, er, Panama - Exile Island ended. Tune in next week, where if you don’t start forking over your two bucks to CBS posthaste, you’ll be sure to find a 38-minute recap and a tribal yelp, along with 22 minutes of commercials.

When we asked the rhetorical question, “Does anybody really still watch the Grammy awards?” a few posts down, we didn’t mean, in any way, to suggest that anyone ought to be watching American Idol instead. Criminy, a second straight episode of Lost that felt like it was the fourth-place entry in some middle school fanfic competition was bad enough. But American Idol? Wasn’t there an episode of Tricycling with Former Disney Channel Stars for you people to watch, or something?

In looking over the CBS “Survivors Strike Back” blog, it strikes us that something’s missing from the CBS definitions of “community” and “elite pool of experts.” And that would be the sage comments not of actual ex-contestants, but of people who’ve helped Survivor maintain a presence on the web. By which, of course, we mean us. Oh sure, CBS has lined up an impressive set of snarky writers, PhDs, and Ivy Leaguers. But we’ve got that covered too. Surely we have the necessary chops to at least ghostwrite for the mysterious (and as-yet-invisible) “Ralph.” True, we’ve never actually gotten around to starving on national TV for 39 days ourselves, but we’re sure we’d at least consider it, as long as CBS is willing to pony up a hefty appearance fee, right up front. Tap, tap, tap. We’re waiting, CBS!

What’s that you say? We’ve already done the recap/commentary thing on our own site, and we should just shut up and get our lazy butts back to work? Huh? That’s not what you meant by “Your recaps sucked ass, shut the hell up?” Guess we’d better get our hearing checked then. Damn those ear buds. Don’t think we won’t sue you, Apple, especially for suggesting we might enjoy your free download of She Wants Revenge.

So anyway, here you go, CBS. Consider this our application for inclusion in your little “web-based magazine.” Paid inclusion, of course. But it’s definitely money well spent. As you’ll see from this particular blog, we’re nothing if not prolific and frequent posters. And think of all the traffic we’ll draw to your site when the two or three readers of Crappy the Smart-Assed Toilet (all of whom may or may not be related to us) think about clicking over to your site, eh? As we said: money well spent, money well spent.

Okay. So… Survivor: Exile Island. No, wait, Survivor: Panama. No, wait, Survivor: Panama - Exile Island. One of those. Anyway, here’s the thing: the DVR ate our copy of the show (shortly after we hit “Delete now,” as well as the A button after it asked us “Are you sure?”). So, uh, our memory’s a bit cloudy on what happened in the first episode.

But we’re pretty sure it started off in the usual way, new contestants showing up in shiny new buffs, smiling a lot. No returning contestants this time, unless you count fighter pilot Terry Deitz, who previously appeared in Palau as “firefighter Tom Westman.” All is bland, happy, new-age feelgoodery, until Bobby “Bob Dawg” Mason objects to the younger men’s buff color, a neony-yet-pastel green. “Hey Probst,” Bob Dawg says, “Can we switch buffs with the Spice Girls over there, because this color makes me look like a pussy.” Probst says, “No way. Look, we’ve already made flags and mats that match your colors. Your tribe is green.” Bob Dawg is not convinced. “Ok fine. How about we just be the Purple tribe then? Yeah, that sounds good, I’ll be Mr. Purple.” Probst: “No! Some OTHER tribe is Mr. Purple, or more accurately, the four Mrs. Purples. YOU’RE MR. GREEN!” Cirie and Shane then start whining about being stuck with all the old farts. Exasperated, Probst says, “All right, I’ve had it with you guys!” He then explains they’ll all be back on two tribes by the next episode, so they move on to the reward challenge.

Contrary to hopes raised by CBS ads, no shrunken heads were harmed in the filming of this episode.

Each tribe carefully selects their fastest runner, and they run across the tiny Exile Island to smash fake skulls on rocks. It’s important to use fast people, because… well, it’s not remotely important at all, actually. As it turns out, winning and losing this one is entirely due to luck, since there are three challenge-winning amulets spread through a pile of 40 or so skulls. But it does allow Probst to declare that “fate” decided the winner. As opposed to the secret clue Probst slipped the two men’s representatives to “only smash the skulls with the red dots.”

And so… “fate” sends three of the tribes back to their respective camps with a flint for firestarting. Timber Tina the lumberjill singlehandedly deforests the older women’s island, lashes together a Mall of America using pre-cut, suspiciously non-native-looking bamboo, and builds a massive bonfire, all in the space of about five minutes. Washing down their twelve-course dinner with some freshly-distilled coconut moonshine, her three tribemates decide: “This being provided for stuff totally blows. We came here to be on Survivor, not The Real World: Panama. Let’s boot the lumberjack lady!” Meanwhile, the younger men take turns devising games with their new flint toy, such as scorching ants, blindfolding themselves, burying it in sand, then finding it again, and the ultimate favorite, seeing how far out into the ocean they can throw it before it’s too far to get it back. Eventually the camermen just light a fire for them, out of pity. The older men are not shown for the rest of the show, because CBS objected to paying for a fifth camera crew, and because guys over 35 are boring. Except for Bruce, who chops anything that’s stationary. Watch out for that guy.

That leaves the younger women, who, in addition to their highly desirable pale-blue buffs, were given some tribe name that was never used on the show itself. It was carefully painted by the production staff onto all manner of mats, flags, an island map, and other objects. Mayo… bayo… battle axe? Nah, that’s not it. Well, we’re sure their hard work did not go unnoticed, all the same.

After the young ladies lose the RC, there is a period of indecision, in which the younger women keep trying out various picking methods until they come up with one that rids them of “that bitch, Misty,” without revealing that this is what they’re doing. That accomplished, the three non-exiles set out for their island. It’s full of many more dramatic decisions, such as “how do we build our hut next to an outlet, so we can plug in our hair dryers,” to Sally weighing whether or not to sue CBS for planting a dead sea turtle on their beach, then alerting Courtney to the (former) sea turtle’s presence. “The funeral service was okay for first couple of hours,” Sally admits later, “but when the producers brought out a crate of incense, body paint and bongos for Courtney to use in hour three, it got to be a bit much.”

Meanwhile, Misty spends her time on Exile Island… sitting. On the beach, here, and… (wait for it)… over there. Clearly, having this sort of excitement to look forward to every week will undoubtedly propel CBS to ratings successes heretofore unknown in modern history. Apparently, there’s an immunity idol somewhere there as well. Probst helpfully points out that it’s on the little islet that gets connected to the main Exile Island when the tide goes out. Misty hears this, and gazes at the receding tide. But then she recalls Jeff’s second admonition: “Or, you could just pretend you have it, and fake everyone out.” Since nobody would ever accuse a former beauty pageant contestant of not being everything she appears on the surface, Misty goes for that option. And sits some more.

Eventually, an immunity challenge involved swimming, rowing, and puzzles rolls around. And flags, can’t forget the flags. As shown in TV Guide, the older women lose. Cirie renews her campaign to oust Tina the Provider, and is successful. Ho hum.

All in all, not an inauspicious start. Shane and Cirie seem amusing enough, and to a lesser extent so do Aras and Courtney. And Silent Bruce. Certainly better than the plodding tedium of the previous night’s episode of Lost, “Fire + Water = Pssssshhhh.” Then again, so were the re-runs of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s meetings on C-SPAN. That Don Young may be a corrupt, pork-ladling, bribe-taking bureaucrat, but he’s such a crackup when he gets in front of a camera!

Finally, we still haven’t addressed the question of “Why now?” Well, as should be clear, commentary on reality TV shows is dated comedic material from the get-go. So the best plan is to get it out there when people are paying attention, such as the night of the show, or the day after. And that’s why you see it here, now, almost a full week after the show airs. This stuff never gets old! And that’s our Crappy seal of approval.

Does anybody really still watch the Grammy awards? Seriously, after looking over the list of nominees, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that, in the age of the iPod, a group that’s torn between whether to crown Mariah Carey, Paul McCartney or U2 for the finest musical output of the past year, will be handing one of them (or Gwen Stefani, or Kanye West) a trophy with an antique gramophone as its icon.

So we’ve decided to hand out our own version of 2005 musical awards. Ones that actually recognize some sort of musical achievement, as opposed to payola-driven airplay and moved units. We’ll call them the “Buddies“, in honor of our beloved, deafness-inducing earbuds. In the process, we’ll have to dispose of some of the decrepit Grammy categories (mainly because there are a number we just don’t listen to). But here goes:

Album of the Year: This one’s a bit problematic, since we rarely buy albums in one shot anymore (Mars Volta, Death Cab, Franz Ferdinand, Decemberists, Belle & Sebasiatan and Sufjan Stevens in the past year, as we recall). Of these, we’d nominate the following two:
- Sufjan Stevens: Illinois
- The Decemberists: Picaresque
Winner: The Decemberists. Tough choice, both albums contain many standout tracks. But we think Colin Meloy and friends’ effort is the one that plays better as an album. Picaresque has a broader array of narratives, while Sufjan, by design, is stuck in one state. We’d call it a tie, but someone ought to win, and we have a feeling Sufjan will come out ahead somewhere else.

Single of the Year: Unlike the album category, this one is much more competitive. In fact, it’s extremely difficult to even get it down to five or six songs. But we’ll try, in alphabetical order:
- “Formed a Band” - Art Brut
- “Banquet” - Bloc Party
- “Poison Oak” - Bright Eyes
- “Hey Now Now” - The Cloud Room
- “For Real” - Okkervil River
- “Casimir Pulaski Day” - Sufjan Stevens
(Honorable mentions: “Be Gentle With Me” - The Boy Least Likely To, “Requiem for O.M.M.2″ - Of Montreal, “The Lord God Bird” - Sufjan Stevens, and “The Engine Driver” - The Decemberists)
A 3-3 split. Light vs. dark. UK vs. US (okay, that one’s 2-4). Should we just shut up and dance/play, or should we broodingly explore the consequences of loss? So many conflicting emotions. Honestly, any one of the six would be a fine choice, but we have to decide somehow. So for a preliminary cut, we’ll stick with the dark side, and Art Brut, Bloc Party and the Cloud Room: thanks for lightening up our otherwise leaden mood, but you’re out. So for the final three, do we go with Will Sheff’s slow-building rock anger, or Conor and Sufjan’s more quiet meditations on early death? Well, if you know us, you’d know we’re absolute suckers for the latter (sorry Will, great song, though). Of the final two, “Poison Oak” is the more tightly focused, but “Casimir” gets extra credit for throwing newfound agnostic deity-questioning into the mix.
Winner: (tie) Bright Eyes and Sufjan Stevens. Screw it, we can’t decide (can’t decide, anything). Share nicely, boys.

Newcomer of the Year: This has always been a point of contention with the Grammys, where multi-albumed artists are continually tagged as “new.” We’ve done our best to nominate only acts who actually had a first U.S. album release in 2005. There were a lot of bands from whom there was at least one great song (we’re looking at you, The Cloud Room and Arctic Monkeys), so we raised the bar to two great songs for this list (that we’ve heard, which is entirely arbitrary). But here are five we really like:
- Art Brut
- The Boy Least Likely To
- The Rakes
- Silversun Pickups
- The Spinto Band
A fair selection of different styles here, but for us, the main battle is between Art Brut and The Boy Least Likely To. And as much as we love “Formed A Band” and “Emily Kane,” Art Brut has had a lot more exposure. So we’ll have to vote for the tinkling-toy-piano-wielding underdogs. Be gentle with them:
Winner: The Boy Least Likely To.

We had plans for other categories (Best Song Featuring Banjo, Best Beard in an Indie Rock Band), but hey, our attention span is only so long.