Pumpkin Seeds: Survivor Edition

1. Call me a sap but last night's Survivor catapulted the show back to the top of my favorites list. Rob proposing to Amber, before the winner was declared, was one of the coolest TV moments ever. EVER!

2. There was more drama, humor and energy in last night's three-hour finale than in the last three seasons of Friends.

3. For all those complaining about reality shows being bad for TV and being of lesser-quality than its scripted counterparts, Survivor is the George McKibbens that shoots that theory down.

4. Speaking of George, the Urbana trio has appropriately dropped out of tonight's 13 slam finals, effectively voiding the semi-finals results and making way for the remaining three people that hadn't made a team yet to step in. (Jive Poetic and Carlos Gomez made the Providence team [?!?!?!] and Diane Roy stuck to her guns and passed on the second chance.) Hooray for Rich Villar, in particular, whose presence along with Fish & Jai almost makes me want to set aside my issues and go. Of course, I won't, but if there's a deity out there watching over slam, I hope he sees fit to have those three, Abena Koomson and Mahogany Brown make the team.

5. There's only two women in tonight's finals.

6. After an exuberant Mother's Day Weekend with a house full of family on Saturday and a quiet, relaxing Sunday, the last place I want to be today is at work. Last week's funk hasn't lifted and I'm getting dangerously close to the "fuck it" zone.

7. Days like today make me want to head for the hills, stockpile weapons and home school my kids.

8. I've now received two copies of an email with the subject "Pfc. Lynndie England," encouraging support of her and basically saying the world should stop whining that "some of our troops embarresed some Iraqi pisioners" because "these people hate us and do not think any American has the right to live, they do not deserve our sympathy." For anyone that wonders how our soldiers might be capable of committing such acts, the ignorance of this email is Exhibit A. The average high school population would be Exhibit B. Thankfully, neither was sent by anyone I know as it would be grounds for a verbal spanking and a reconsideration of our friendship.

9. At some point people need to remove their rose-colored glasses, rub their eyes and come to grips with reality. The US is in way over its head with this occupation of Iraq. The entire operation is overly-reliant on inadequately trained soldiers, and not just the reservists, either, as the majority of the regular Army receives less-than-stellar training on anything beyond their specific jobs. The military is like a big manufacturing corporation, driven by an assembly line operation full of minimum-wage, unskilled labor performing very specific jobs with little to no transferable knowledge. Most of the on-site management is made up of lifers who've simply outlasted those that realized they could do better elsewhere. Rumsfeld, Myers, et al are the CEOs that could care less as long as the profits keep rolling in and the unions don't push too hard. The Democrats are the unions. And the average American? They're the German citizens that did nothing to stop the Nazis.

10. What ever happened to Hasan Akbar?