April 4, 2005

Chico:  From Somewhere in America.... WLTI is on!
Gordon: This is Gordon Pepper, and I have a hangover from the last episode
Jason:  (hands over some more champagne)
Gordon: (sip sip sip)
Chico:  This is Chico Alexander, and I took a chaser, so I should be fine. And with us as always, our esteemed group of minions: He's a little bit country and a little bit rock'n'roll, Jason Block.
Jason:  This is Jason Block and I am hungover from being rejected by Celador not to audition for Millionaire Live - But I get to go back on Beat The Block this Tuesday.
Chico:  He's a little bit rock and a little more funk soul brother, James Dinan...
Gordon: James may be hung over for having to turn down a shot at Stump the Schwab 2.
Chico:  And we have ourselves a special guest today. Straight from Ultimate Film Fanatic... Nat Dykeman!
Nat:    I'm not the ultimate, I'm just the midwest region guy.
Gordon: Welcome, Nat!
Jason:  Hello Nat.
Gordon: Nat is going to be hung over after this weekend, as this is the weekend of the Lake County Film Festival.
Nat:    Let me tell you why I'm up at this hour - www.lakecountyfilmfest.com. If you remember on the show, I started my own film festival. Yesterday was the start of my 2nd one.
Gordon: How is it going?
Nat:    Last night was great...a decent amount of people, and EVERYONE loved the opening film.
Chico:  What was it?
Nat:    www.seethismovie.com. There's not much stuff about it, it hasn't been shown many times. Not even 5 votes on imdb.com.
Gordon: Congratulations on winning the Regionals in the Ultimate Film Fanatics show. How much did you win?
Nat:    I only won $5,000 and a $7,000 TV......and the ass end of a statue.
Gordon: But I'm sure the statue has a pretty ass.
Jason:  How is the Plasma TV?
Nat:    I still haven't gotten it!
Gordon: Awww =(. We'll chat more about the Ultimate Film Fanatic and their new season coming up, as well as new seasons of other shows, but let's now segue-way this conversation to the current game shows on the air. Did you, by any chance, happen to see From Justin to Kelly?
James: Probably not, but he probably did burn all of the copies of From Justin to Kelly he could find.
Chico:  All 539 of them?
Gordon: From Justin to Kelly, I am guessing, was not a film classic.
James: Uh, no.
Joe:    That's an understatement.
James: And I sat through it for the purpose of mocking it.
Nat:    Have you guys heard about this movie staring a German idol guy?
Gordon: I have.
Nat:    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421051/combined
Gordon: Its the movie about a German Idol guy and people trying to kill him, if I remember correctly.
Nat:    Plot Outline: Evil assassins want to kill Daniel Kublbock, the third runner up for the German Idols.
James: That should be "stupid assassins".
Gordon: You have to milk those 15 minutes of fame somehow.
Nat:    User rating: 1.9 (2616 votes)...worst movies on imdb: #16
Gordon: While the German movie is #16 on the worst movie list according to imdb.com, From Justin to Kelly is...#3.
Chico:  Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing an assassin trying to take out all of the German idol contestants.
Gordon: Going back to the American Version - Jessica Sierra is gone. Is this a surprise?
Jason:  To me yes.
Chico:  In retrospect... no.
Jason:  Scott Savol---should have been gone.
Chico:  I mean, I wasn't expecting it, but I understand.
Jason:  Arrest or no arrest.
Chico:  Yes. You notice that there are two distinct groups...There are the ones that are excellent, and the ones that are... a'ight.
Gordon: In terms of Jessica, I don't think it was that much of a surprise, as I had her in the bottom 3.
Jason:  I was. Scott should have been gone.
Gordon: I thought Scott was worse, but Jessica just got her clock cleaned by Carrie.
Jason:  That is true.
Chico:  I was going through the last State of Play.. AND I was going through the recaps of American Candidate, which works the same way, and I understand why some of the votes go crazy. Three words: Split genre voting.
Gordon: Which is a major factor in the Chaos Theory.
Jason:  That was a great article.
Gordon: Thanks, Jason.
Jason:  Now I understand what the heck you are talking about.
Gordon: Yep.
Chico:  Just as why the lone conservative won over a gaggle of liberals, but that was last year.
Gordon: Carrie is leading the vote now, but once the pop people are solidified into one person, it's going to be VERY hard for her to win unless she starts also singing pop and rock.
Joe:    She will sooner or later.
Chico:  You mean habitually?
Gordon: Once in a while, she can float back to country, but she has to show America that she can sing in all genres, not just country/rock.
Jason:  Agreed.
Gordon: Barring anything weird happening, I think Scott, Anthony and Nadia will be singing for their existence on the show next week.
Joe:    Scott and Anthony at the very least.
Chico:  I don't know. I think they called Anwar on his game last week (both the public and the judges). He's going to have to step it up as well.
Gordon: I agree - but I think Anwar is smart and he will step it up - plus this is the first time that he is in danger and I think Anwar has a solid throng of voters - but if Nadia outsings him, he could be gone.
James: Definitely Scott...I feel that even if he gives the performance of his life, the fact his past has come back to haunt him will burn in the mind of viewers
Gordon: And speaking of that....According to The Smoking Gun, Scott Savol has had spousal abuse issues in his past, which has resulted in him being arrested and sentenced to probation. Will this little tidbit affect the voting?
Jason:  Yes.
James: I think so...yes.
Joe:    Possibly.
Chico:  Maybe... yeah.
Gordon: If you base it on history, the answer is....no.
Chico:  Explain.
Gordon: During season 2 at around this time, The Smoking Gun had an expose on Trenyce and her shoplifting past. That got much more press than this, and she avoided it and got all the way to the top 5. The difference, however, is that Trenyce was very safe back then, and Scott is far from safe.
Jason:  Scott is in trouble...this could push him over the cliff. Shoplifting is a lot different than beating a woman.
Joe:    Indeed.
Gordon: I certainly don't think that it helps.
Chico:  He's very much in the trouble bracket.
Gordon: And if you've seen the shows, it is very evident that Scott has a temper to begin with.
Jason:  Anger issues.
James: I'd be very curious to see what happens when Scott is eliminated...will AI allow him to speak with the ETs and Insiders of the world given his background?
Jason:  They have to.
Gordon: I think he'll be heavily coached when he does.
Jason:  With Bruno in the background :)
Chico:  By virtue of the contract, I think he already IS heavily coached.
Gordon: Ulong needs to be coached on how to win immunity challenges.
Jason:  This is horrible -  0-6.
Gordon: It's time for the merge. Is there anything that is stopping Ulong from being the first two people out?
Chico:  No.. and if I may interrupt here, me and my sister (not a doctor, but a lab tech like myself) were talking about an incidental thing that could have happened instead of Ib's vote out. Let's just say that we had a tribe of three, Gordon... You, me, aaaaand..... Joe!
Joe:    ME?  Why are you dragging ME into this?
Gordon: We always drag you into everything, Joe. get used to it.
Joe:    9_9
Chico:  Anyway, let's just say that we're all going to Tribal... I vote for you, you vote for Joe, and Joe votes for me. CBS would have NO way to resolve this unless we go to various tiebreakers.
Joe:    Okay.
Chico:  And let's just say that we all had the same amount of votes from previous Tribals. How would you see CBS solving this problem?
Gordon: Well, they solved it in Survivor Marquesas with ...THE PURPLE ROCK OF DEATH!!!!
Chico:  Then there'd be no hard feelings, no conflict... but they would still be dead come the merge.
Gordon: If you remember, when it came down to 4, they had a 2-2 tie, and everyone drew rocks. Paschal English had the purple rock of death and he left, making it the ONLY Survivor who left without ever getting a single negative vote.
Chico:  And I do believe that the merge is impending, because of the way we're running right now. You see, there's 2 versus 8... and knowing that you can't sit out any one tribe member for more than two challenges... it's a given.
Gordon: There has to be some sort of a merge, as we're also down to that magic number of 10.
Chico:  Or you pull a Thailand.
Gordon: It could happen - and then we will see the purple rock of death because there will only be 2 people left.
Jason:  Do you think Burnett will make any changes for next Survivor? Or is this just an aberration?
Gordon: I think it's an aberration - the Survivors picked their own teams, for crying out loud. Who would know that it would turn into...well...this?
Chico:  I don't see why Burnett wouldn't make any changes.
James: Mark Burnett always makes a tweak for each Survivor, so you're guaranteed to see at least one.
Gordon: I would like to see three teams of 6 for the next one, though.
Joe:    If we're lucky, he'll just cancel it. :-D
Gordon: Survivor is in the Top 5, Joe - it's not getting cancelled.
Joe:    Just thought I would interject that.
Chico:  You always do.
Joe:    ROFL.
Chico:  Anyway, speaking to something we all know and love, it's getting down to the wire on the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tourney... round 1.
Jason:  Bor-ing.
Gordon: It was decent this week - but there was no star power like there has been for the previous weeks.
Chico:  I think they're just going for completion at this point. I wasn't really that enthralled. I mean last week had Chacko for cripes sake.
James: We did see some strange hair though, courtesy of Rick Knutsen :). Kind of John Tesh meets the kid on Dutch Boy paint cans
Chico:  That hairstyle looks familiar...Looks like Cousin Oliver. Gordon?
Gordon: Hardy har har.
James: And a great story from Craig Barker on the two 1997 College TOC contestants getting hitched.
Chico:  I have to say that that was memorable.
James: Which got some play in the NY Post.
Chico:  Really?
James: It was in Friday's edition...it's on the Post website at nypost.com
Chico:  I'll have to check that out later...
James: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/43604.htm
Chico:  In the meanwhile, we have about a week left in round 1. Which means that it's time to look at the road ahead (Buy Ford! =p).
Gordon: As long as we don't have life-sized puppets of the remaining Jeopardy contestants.
Jason:  MY EYES!
Chico:  Heh.. that was scary.
Joe:    Yeah, that's not good.
Gordon: So let's look ahead - who do we have left?
Chico:  We have the remaining players, but they will have to take on "the big ten..."  I present this week's Big Board: The Big Ten...
Gordon: Ooooh.
Chico:  You've seen how the players have done so far, but how would they fare against these guys?
Jason:  It all depends--every player could  have a bad game. This argument is moot.
James: Look at Leszek or Bernie Cullen.
Chico:  .... Way to kill a segment, Jason =p
Jason: Sorry. Carry on.
Chico:  First: Chuck Forrest: record holder for regular winnings until season 6.
Gordon: As much as I love Forrest's play, the veterans have not done well with the new timing of the buzzers. He could struggle here.
James: Also, several players have copied the Forrest style of play, so he's no longer unique.
Jason:  That's true.
Chico:  Next: Frank Spangenberg, the man who broke Chuck's record. Does he have a style his own?
Jason:  No, but he is a damn good player.
Gordon: He's a very good player - but I stick him in the same boat as Forrest.
James: Very good player, but he's shown his flaws in the Super J! and Million Dollar Masters tourneys. I could see him lose in Round 2.
Chico:  I agree. Would be something if he ran the board, though. Then there's Brian Weikle, the man who broke HIS record.
Gordon: I think he'll do well.
Chico:  You notice that he's actually fairly current. Think that'll have an effect on him.
James: Brian is a veteran of the "buzzer wars" (quizbowl) and shouldn't have problems with the J! buzzer.
Joe:    Very likely.
James: Could go far.
Jason:  The more recent ones have a better shot.
Chico:  Would you count Robin Carroll as recent?
Jason:  Yes.
Gordon: yes.
James: Yes.
Chico:  Alright. Making sure. She was actually the 96 grand champion and represented the US in the International Tournament.
Gordon: Next person?
Chico:  Next is Brad Rutter... the Million Dollar Master!
Jason:  He's got a shot.
Gordon: A definite chance - he's won tournaments and he's current.
James: He's got something to prove as well...he's J!'s other millionaire, and he wants to show the other contestants he wasn't a "fluke"
Chico:  And what about his opponents, Eric Newhouse and Bob Verini?
James: I'd rank Brian, Robin and Brad ahead of Eric. Not sure about Bob, though.
Joe:    Yeah, What About Bob?
Chico:  Could be a crap shoot. Remember the Super J! tournament?
Gordon: I don't think Eric will have a good showing. I think Bob is good, but I don't think he'd get past Brad.
James: Eric's probably the weakest of the first-round bye players.
Chico:  Then there's Sean Ryan, the first six-timer.
James: Eh...I see him lose in Round 2
Gordon: Sean has yet to prove his pedigree - I also see an early exit.
Chico:  And Tom Walsh, the first seven-timer? Who lost in the recent TOC to Russ Schumacher... who also lost?
James: I don't care much for Walsh.  He gave an interview to the Washington Post about KenJen, he mentioned how he felt like the guy whose career HR record Babe Ruth broke, and proceeded to give the WRONG NAME. I want him to lose painfully :)
Gordon: I think Tom isn't going far either.
Chico:  And finally, at the end.. Ken Jennings.
Gordon: I think KenJen has to be the favorite - but I still don't see him winning it.
Jason:  He will not win.
Chico:  I think the pressure'll get to him.
James: He'll put up a good effort, but will likely fall short.
Gordon: And while we get the torches and pitchforks, it's time to go for a break.
Chico:  Got it. We're back after the break. Give me an ad bumper.

(Today's Big Board has been brought to you by The American Idol Movie Collection. Collect them all and use them as gerbil cage dividers.)

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