ASK before you touch!

I have a deaf-blind friend. Let's call her A. I met her in high school, but we were never really acquaintances because we ran with different crowds. As fate would have it, I bumped into her years later and she helped me land a job. I'm forever grateful to her.

Since I've been working with her and getting to know her, I've been learning more and more what it's like to be deaf and blind. It's a tough world out there when you're deaf. It's even tougher when you're blind too. Sometimes it's funny.

The stories I love to hear from A are the ones where she can't identify odd-looking things. Things that are gross. Things that she would never ever have touched if she knew what it was. Even if you have perfect vision (or close to it), your eyes could still play tricks on you and you'd be right in the same boat as A.

A’s biggest threat is the water hose. To her – it looks identical to a snake, no matter if it’s coiled up or flattened out. So whenever she sees a green thingy, she very carefully steps around it. I can imagine what other people thought about that. It must be funny to see a girl tip-toeing around a garden water hose. Better safe than sorry, eh?

A was in Galveston a few years back and stayed at a hotel/beach house with some friends and family. One night, she encountered something weird in her bed. It was touching her. She felt around for it, picked it up, squished it, and rolled it around in her hand before deciding that it wasn’t anything of much importance. She tossed it away. A little while later, she woke up with some pain. That little squishy thing attached to something hard had bitten her. She called for her mom and had her mom turn on the lights to see what was in her bed. Here’s the funny part. When her mom realized what it was, she started laughing at A. Nice, huh? What A had in her hands earlier that evening was a little hermit crab that the previous tenant must have left behind. They knew it wasn’t a random crab from the beach because that crab had a painted shell, the kind that you see in the stores. If it were me, I would have NEVER felt around for it, picked up anything like that in the dark, squished it then tossed it away!

Here’s something that happened to a normal-sighted person and probably the most disgusting. A girl went into her mother’s shower stall and noticed a big black gunk in one of the bottom corners. She took a close look at it and tried to figure out what it was. She was stumped. She kind of panicked and thought that it was a big nasty bug. She called for her mom and sisters to come check it out. All the ladies in the family trampled into the bathroom to see what the fuss was all about. After a few seconds, the mom became red in the face and started laughing. That big black gunk wasn’t a bug, but actually a mass of pubic hair. Who did the hair come from? The girl’s step-father. I bet that girl was thankful she didn’t poke at it.

At work the other day, I had a rude (but dead) visitor. It was Monday so little critters had the whole weekend to explore the office. Whenever A is out sick, I take over and work in her office (while juggling two of my other responsibilities). At first I didn’t notice. I don’t know how, but I didn’t. My usual morning routine is this: I sit down, clock in, check what’s on the yahoo front page for interesting news, sign into Yahoo chat, sign into all my emails, go into the kitchen to drop off my lunch and then come back to the office to start working. That morning, my routine was the same – except that I stepped over an icky bug and worked right next to it for a while without noticing. I left the room to do something and when I came back, I noticed a big, dead brown tarantula that was right next to my chair. Ick. I called the only male employee into the office and asked him to toss it out for me. He did, minus one of the legs. It must have broken off when he picked it up. Double ick. I tried to ignore it and kept working, but eventually I got sick of just knowing that a leg was right next to me so I ended up vacuuming the whole office.

A came into work the next day and I told her what happened. She laughed and said that she was glad it wasn’t her who found it. Yeah right. Would she have found it? She probably would have stepped right on it, and if she noticed it, she might have just picked it up and threw it away. A said that after a lifetime of touching icky stuff without knowing what it was, she has learned one thing….

The moral of all this: If you don’t know what it is, ask before you even think about touching it. You’d save yourself a lot of grief and icky moments.

Just blogging... Just because

I sat down to blog. I tried, I promise. But I don't think I can do it. I'm exhausted. Oh well, better luck tomorrow I hope.

At least I came on and posted about something other than the Biggest Loser (ha!).

M's Thoughts

Ever wonder what goes on inside my head? Ok - I hear a joke coming on here - I can faintly hear L or J say "nothing!" Ahem. Like everybody else, I have random thoughts that'll pop in my head out of nowhere. Just recently, I've started to take notes. See… it's not all that scary inside...right? Some may be silly, but at least I’m brave enough to admit what I’m thinking.

How come I've never seen a bird drop dead from the wire?

Is time travel even remotely possible (with all silliness aside)?

If pandas could communicate, what would they say about being the mascot/spokesperson for Panda Express?

At your local grocery store, did you ever realize that you might be touching the same food that people touch after peeing and not washing their hands before/during shopping? Yeah - you might want to think twice about that.

We all know about mail-order brides. Where are the mail-order husbands?

What does deja vu really mean? Depending on your beliefs, it could be the exact same moment from a previous life, uncanny ESP, or just that you've had the exact same conversation (or activity) before. So what does it mean when I have deja vu feelings at a restaurant that was just built last week (and I get the feeling that I've been there before, had the same conversation and took a bite out of my food at the exact same moment)?

Speaking of deja vu, what if we DO repeat our lives again and again. Each time we experience deja vu just proves that we take the same paths over and over again - otherwise, we wouldn't be having that. Right? Maybe not. Whatever.

Do some birds have a fear of heights? I got this from a friend and have been wondering about it since.

It's amazing that how in this recession Americans are still getting bigger. Burger King has changed some locations to be open 24-hours (not just the drive-thru). If fast food places were only open like 5 hours a day (or how about none at all?), I'm willing to bet that our total weight as a country would drop dramatically.

I realized that because I hear the word "recession" all the time now, I actually forgot (briefly) what the economic term was for the opposite of recession. How sad.

Will we ever run out of water? Like, ever?

Every time I see a Ford Escort, I think "I really miss that car." I'm still furious. Just months after I paid off my car, a stupid idiot wrecked it. It was never a powerful car, but having "sports" on it made it very cool in my book. It was my first brand-new car. I bought it and paid it off all by myself with my own money. I was so proud and I felt like such a grown-up.

What would be worse - dying on the first day of war or dying on the last day of war?

Is it really better to have loved and lost than never loved at all? Sometimes I don’t think so.

Seriously, has anybody ever seen a large dog like a Saint Bernard have sex with a teeny dog like a Chihuahua? What would their puppies look like?

What if there really are friendly vampires living among us? Would you want to be one of them?

Why must all good things come to an end?

People can die from all kinds of things... has anybody died purely just from stress (no heart attacks, no strokes, nothing - just falling asleep and never waking up due to stress)?

When will the world get sick of worshiping celebrities?

When will I die and how?

I can relate to the people on Lost. They're stuck on an island and some of them don't want to leave because it's all they know. Sometimes I feel that way about some situations in my life.

Will Wal-Mart ever go bankrupt?

With so many people out of work and watching their spending habits, how is it that there are new restaurants and retail stores still being built all over the place? Thought they were all suffering?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a deaf version of the Bachelorette?

Living in a deaf town would be hell, wouldn't it? No privacy (you can't just meet someone in public and sign whatever you want - people will know what you're saying), constant drama and eventually, you'll lose your sanity.

And my final thought for the day - this is the best blog ever. Right? Right!

Biggest Loser, Season 9 - Episode 8

Usually the opening of each episode is pretty somber. It’s sad for the person whose partner just left the show. It’s sad for the viewers as well, because by now, we’ve grown to like these people. However, this time around, the opening was a little bit silly. Because the blue team lost, they had to decide who would be leaving and in other words, who O’Neal would be replacing. Sunshine was on the Blue team and O’Neal was sitting at the table right across from the door waiting for sunshine to come thru the door. One by one, members of the blue team filed in and each time, it wasn’t Sunshine. This was major manipulation by the producers. That was NOT nice! Sunshine was the last one to walk in (again, not nice!). After O’Neal calmed down, he turned into a big motivator. He started to rally up the team with a pep talk. That reminded me of Coach Mo.

The Biggest Loser wouldn’t be complete without something new to freak the contestants out with. This week, the contestants were given a full time job, where they would be working 8 hours a day for 5 days. They would be learning how to fit in workouts before/after work, bring healthy food to work, etc… just like the rest of us. Michael wasn’t looking forward to the new routine… wake up, work out, work, work out, sleep and start all over again. Who looks forward to that? Not Me. I may not work out as much as they do but I have stuff that keeps me busy to the point where it’s almost the same thing – always constantly doing something.

At this week’s challenge, the prize was free groceries for a year. How cool. The game was to pull semi-trucks down a road and collect crates with puzzle pieces along the way. The puzzle pieces spells out the prize. I felt so bad for black, they could not get started. It was all women with just Sam. This fueled the distaste I felt for Michael when he first organized the teams. Eventually black caught up and was moving through it well. Their biggest problem is actually getting the truck moving again once they stop to load the back with puzzle pieces. Once they can get the truck moving, they do pretty well and they are able to keep semi-caught up.

The black team gave up a good fight but ultimately, they didn’t make it. The blue team had to try so hard to stay ahead and to actually win the thing. While strength isn’t black’s forte, they could make up for it with determination and a mind-set to do whatever it takes to stay in the game. They were finally catching up to blue while doing the puzzles. It got to the point where blue was starting to panic. When they did win, they were so thrilled and celebrated loudly like beating black is a difficult thing to do. This just proves that it doesn’t matter who’s on black and who’s on blue. Granted, black might have an easier time with the challenges if some of the people were switched around, but the fact that they still put up a good fight was satisfying to see.

While the blue team celebrated, all I could do was think bad thoughts. I kept reminding myself that it was Michael that did this, not the entire blue team. During private interviews, Koli was talking smack saying that the blue team should watch out. During Sam’s interview, he said that they better get out the popcorn because the real show is the weigh-in. I definitely agree. They proved themselves last week and I’m hoping they prove themselves again this week.

I’m proud of Sam; he gave a great pep talk. It certainly helps to have someone lift your spirits when you’re down. He was saying that it doesn’t matter who’s winning during halftime – what matters is who’s winning in the 4th quarter of the game. He also said that anybody watching the show is probably thinking that they can’t do it and that they should prove everybody wrong. Well Sam, hate to say it but you were wrong. I’m watching and I think you CAN do it. I’m rooting for you guys.

Watching them go to work was funny. Koli was smart and volunteered to do the heavy outdoor work because he could get a good workout in. Daris partnered up with someone to do inventory. While reading off the labels, he mispronounced vegetables and said “veggie-table.” That was cute - who says that!?

The contestants spent their week working at a food bank. They organized inventory, moved food and handed out food to the less fortunate.

*Disclaimer: I absolve myself of any responsibility for this next comment.
I am merely a messenger. It is funny and definitely makes sense (I’ll
admit to that), but I’m not taking responsibility – just because I can :)

“Isn’t it ironic how a small, skinny starving person would go to a food bank only to be given two bags of food from an obese person?”

Watching them wake up every morning at 5:45, get on the bus at 7:30, arrive to work at 9, eat lunch at 12:30m, stop working at 5, get home at 6, work out until 7:30…. that sounds a lot like my life minus all the working out. Just watching them go through the routine made me feel irritated. How can anybody stand doing that every day!?

On to the weigh-in...

It’s starting to irritate me now when people get disappointed with losing just 5 pounds. Anybody would give to lose 5 pounds in a week… most of us take weeks to lose even that. They have to remember that they had full time jobs this week and worked out less – living the life just like the rest of us. 5 pounds is still pretty damn good.

Lance looked like a very giddy little boy just waiting to break through that 300 pound wall. It would be SO awful if he lost zero or gained weight. He ended up losing 10. Good job.

After blue was done weighing in (nothing exciting happened with them except for Lance breaking through the 300 pounds), it was determined that black needed to lose a little more than 38… a little over 6 each person to make it. With a team of 5 women, it is still doable. Drea ends up losing 7. Ashley loses 8. Cheryl lost 5. Sherry lost 5. Stephanie only lost 3. Sam needed more than 10 to keep his team out of the elimination room. That is certainly doable under normal circumstances (normal for the Biggest Loser), but this week, everybody had to work. It seemed that black was on a roll and then suddenly, it went downhill. Sam only lost 4. Bummer.

Sherry lost the most percentage out of the black team so she’s safe from elimination. Watching it, I have no idea which way it’s going to go. Anybody was pretty up for elimination. It was bittersweet for blue because they have to watch their partners on the black team face elimination. They had their little moments where they said good-bye to their former partners, not knowing whether they’d see him/her again.

After watching the black team discuss about who needs to stay and who needs to go, I had basically figured out that it was down to either Sam or Cheryl. The voting was what surprised me. One went to Stephanie because Cheryl felt she was strong enough to do it at home (and Stephanie voted for Cheryl – uh, why?). Sherry voted for Sam because he was strong enough to do it at home. Ashley voted for Cheryl, her own mother’s closest friend on campus! Was it a strategy to keep the younger people on campus so she’d have more allies? She certainly wouldn’t vote for her own mother, that was a given. With three votes, Cheryl was booted out. While that itself isn’t surprising, I was especially surprised that Cheryl would vote for Stephanie and that Ashley would vote for Cheryl. Things people will do….

Stay Tuned!

Biggest Loser, Season 9 - Episode 7

Oh boy! Bye-bye Olympics and hello Biggest Loser! How I missed you! When I was starting to teach my class an associate pastor showed up, sat down and said “I’m ready for your class.” I knew he was joking so I waited while he paused and he goes “haha, nope, I’m going home to watch the Biggest Loser!” Even though I knew I was recording it, I was still jealous.

Just when I thought I was done with seeing anything Olympic-related for the next two years, the show opens up with a review of what happened during the last episode. I’m all for short reviews. Anybody who knows me knows that I have bad short-term (and probably long-term) memory. A little refresher never hurt anybody, but this refresher was kind of annoying. Two weeks of Olympics is enough for me.

Remember what happened at the end of the last episode? Orange n Black was battling it out for the spot to stay on campus….and they were both in trouble. Crooked torch versus tense pain in the knees – who will prevail? Orange made it when Black dropped the torch in just under 10 minutes. I don’t think I could even do it for 5 minutes.

Yay! Next came the Temptation Challenge… my favorite challenge of them all, mostly because I get to see Jillian and Bob freak out over who ate what. Food challenges always come with a very nice reward – and that never ends well. This challenge involved eating chocolate chip cookies. Sunshine commented on how much she loves chocolate chip cookies…. who doesn’t? However, too much of one thing can never be good for anybody. Ali announced that now everyone would be split into black and blue. Surprise, surprise – winner of the temptation chooses who’s on black and blue. This person would also choose who gets immunity, even themselves, and there’s a catch….

Ali announced that before they know what the game is, everybody’s gotta decide if they’re in or out. Ali counts to three and only two people decided to play. Michael and Drea (white and black) were the suckers who decided they wanted the power – how nice. The game is Memory – match up the artery-clogging treats that are behind each square. Inside there somewhere, there are two golden cards to match up – the “pick the teams” card. If you match any of the treats, the other person has to eat a cookie and you keep playing. If you don’t get a match, you eat a cookie and 100 calories that goes with it. Once someone matches up the golden cards, the game’s over.

If you have played Memory before, you’d know that like any game of memory you don’t get a match during the first few turns unless you’re extremely lucky. I figured that they’d be going at least 3 or 4 turns before they even start to see the 2nd match of anything. This is funny – my roomie is sitting with me playing right along with the contestants and pointing to where all the matches are. It might be easy on this side of the screen but imagine all the pressure that’s put on you to choose the right squares.

Lance (red) pointed out that he was extremely happy he didn’t volunteer to play because of all the cookies and food that Michael and Drea are eating. Yeah – duh. Anytime there’s a temptation challenge, you do not play! All those calories aren’t worth it. About 6 or 7 rounds in, Drea is whipping Michael’s butt and has found 3 matches. She has also found one of the golden cards that give the power to choose teams.

Michael finally gets a match and Drea ends up eating a PB&J sandwich. The game still hasn’t ended and at this point, Michael is just praying that Drea finds the ticket just so it’ll be over. But then he says that he has to find the ticket or otherwise this would have all been for nothing. Yeah, you think? After all those calories and after all the matches Drea has made – Michael found the last ticket and matched them up.

There might be lots of but kissing now….or maybe not. Michael said he wanted to be fair but at the same time he needed to protect himself. He hasn’t done anything off the charts thus far; he did have great power in the past and was fair.

Now came time for Michael to announce who is going to be on what team. First order of business: splitting up Koli and Sam. Whoa – splitting up Tongan cousins. Smart if you want to play the game but not smart if you want to stay friends with them. Next, he split up the orange team. Drea mentioned to Michael that she wanted to stay with Bob but Michael put her with Jillian. The only thing he honored was putting red with Bob like he wanted. At least he has one ally. It seems that he’s building one team up against the other … strong versus weak. Did he even think that after the losing team loses a contestant that he’d be joining them (IF he chose himself for Immunity)? Most likely he’d be stuck with the weaker team. Not smart. Or maybe he’s betting that he’d lose the most out of everyone each week and have immunity each time (if they still do immunity for person who lost the most for that team). My head is spinning with all these different game tactics. So many ways to do stuff – and so many ways to make enemies.

Michael kept pink together. I figured he’d keep yellow together and give himself immunity. Right? But wait!!! Michael didn’t give himself immunity. He gave it to O’Neal (yellow) and put himself on the blue team. He’s betting that black will lose weigh in and that O’Neal will end up there and thus Sunshine up from her father. That’s horrible. Black looked so tiny versus the blue. There’s no way that they’ll win the weigh in… however, Jillian was faced with that challenge before. She was given a black team back when there was a red and blue team. Jillian got stuck with the outcasts and eventually the outcasts kicked red and blue’s butts. I really hope this is what happens this time around. This would make for excellent TV!

Enter Jillian. One pissed Jillian. Sprinkle in a little bit of peeved Bob. The end result: a lot of yelling. Jillian was yelling at Michael about giving everybody a fair chance. Why can’t everybody stay based on hard work and not manipulation? Michael said that he couldn’t make it even and increase the risk of sending himself home. Well maybe if he made it all even, he’d kick himself into overdrive and lose all that weight.

Bob tells blue that regardless of them being stacked against black, there’s still no time to slack. It would be funny to see Bob say “you know what? I don’t agree with how the teams are set up” and just walk off. Michael had the gall to tell Miggy “if you don’t lose weight for my team, you’re gone. You’re no use to me.” This isn’t the Michael that we came to love. Greed will get the best of anybody, huh?

Here comes the first challenge for the black/blue teams. This is their first test of seeing how well they all work together. The task was to pull your banner up a tall building by pulling them up from the roof. Blue had a strong start but eventually, they started to fall apart and black was creeping up on them. I’m rooting for the black – I’ve always liked the underdogs. In the end, blue won and they received letters from home. At least black gave up a good fight.

At the weigh in, Michael felt that he needed to lose a lot of pounds to prove himself to his team. He ends up losing 15 and breaks Rudy’s record from last year of 101 pounds in 7 weeks. He lost 107. Way to go… I guess… I like Rudy a whole lot better and would have liked him to keep his record.

Lance’s personal record was to get out of 300 and he needed 6 pounds to do it. He lost 5 and got to an even 300. Hopefully he’ll break through that wall next week.

Blue team pulled two big numbers (13 and 10) and the rest were average. Nonetheless, they put up a big number for the blue team to match. They need to lose a little more than 39 pounds. It came down to an average of about 6 pounds each person. I’m hoping that if a few of them fall below 6 pounds, that Sam could make up for the difference. But it just might be too much of a job to carry. Drea played the food temptation game and lost so she was the first up for the blue team. She only lost 5. Cheryl only lost 4. Sherry lost 6. Sam loses 8. Stephanie pulled 8… it was the first time she lost that much since week 1. Ashley needs to lose 9 to keep her team safe….do I feel a commercial break coming on here? Yep. Go figure….After the commercial break; we saw that Ashley lost 10! TEN! Eat that, Michael! I’m taking an early bet that Michael would be the one to go home, but let’s see.

I spoke too soon. Ali announced that Michael has immunity because he lost the most percentage of weight out of everybody on the blue team. What a bummer.

I’m curious, who decides the order that they sit in at the elimination? Before and during the elimination, Michael kept saying that it shouldn’t have been them. Uh, right. Hey Michael, that’s another backfire. Maybe you should have learned your lesson after that big backfire during the string challenge. Playing games isn’t working out for you, you should stick to just losing weight and staying on campus by pure heart and determination.

In the end, it came down to Miggy and Lance because they were the two lowest percentages. Miggy ended up going home because everybody figured that Lance would be a better asset for the challenges (they have O’Neal coming in and he can’t do challenges). By now, everybody has learned the challenges could make or break your week. How sad for Miggy – but she won’t be missed. She tends to be stressed out a lot and she passes that on to the people around her. I have a good feeling that she’ll do well at home. After all, she’s got that fire in her that we saw during the first episode.

I’m up for another exciting episode of the Biggest Loser. Why must we wait another week!?

Biggest Loser, Season 9 - Episode 6

This week's episode was pretty mellow. Nothing exciting and no major twists - what happened? Maybe the writers were afraid that if there were too many surprises week after week, the contestants would get a heart attack. After all, they aren't in the best of shape. With the Olympics starting this week, it makes sense that the Biggest Loser would have an Olympic-themed week. The workouts, challenges and daily lessons all centered around the Olympics and the centered around a few of the athletes that will be competing.

Everyone was flown out to Colorado for a mini-vacation. They would be spending one week at the Olympic training center getting lessons on how the athletes train for the Olympics and what they ate. The contestants ate a special diet specially prepared for them (insert your own sarcastic remark here - I have none), and lived in luxury. How about I get fat so I can live in luxury as well?

This week's twist was that there would be a red line in addition to the dreaded yellow line. The yellow line doesn't look so terrible now, does it? Whoever falls below the red line automatically goes home and of course, the two that falls under the yellow line will be up for elimination.

After the contestants were introduced to their "haven" for the week, they met with a few athletes that would be competing in the Olympics and trained with them. The Olympian competitors went too easy on them, I think. Bob thought so too. Koli was obviously lacking determination throughout the workouts. It seems that he had a complex about John leaving and Koli deemed himself unworthy enough to continue on. If it were me, I'd be like "aw bummer, but at least I'm still here and my odds of winning went up."

The pop challenge was based on a sport from the Olympics (big shocker), an activity that stimulated speed skating. First three players to slide back and forth to 500 wins an advantage at the next challenge. Another big shocker - Grey and Red were up for 1st place. It was another close race. Melissa started off at the top and stayed at the top throughout the whole time. She made a blooper and tripped over herself, giving Koli the chance to jump ahead and win 1st place. Melissa won second and Sunshine (Yellow) won third. Sunshine sure started off with a bang after coming into the game pretty late. I'm hoping to see good things from her.

The advantage for the next challenge was this: 1st place would have a chance to give 3 shots; 2nd place would give 2 shots; and 3rd place would give 1 shot. This next challenge was based off another Olympic event. The players would run around a track and each time they completed the circle, they would pick up a rifle (armed with lasers, not real ammo) and shoot at a target. Their goal was to shoot at another player's 5 targets to get them out of the game. Of course, Melissa and Sunshine decided to gun (pun intended) for Koli because he was obviously the biggest threat. In return, Koli gave Melissa and Sunshine their shots back. Because Melissa had 2 opportunities, she used them both on Koli and Koli gave two back to Melissa. Sunshine gave one to Koli and he gave one back to her... with lots of love.

Going with the mellow theme they got going here, the prize for this challenge was immunity. Sure - Immunity is great but how about changing things up a little? Immunity has become a little bit boring. Right when the game started, everybody was aiming for Melissa. I guess with three shots out already, people didn't consider Koli a threat (yet). Melissa was the first one out and Koli was the second. Unlike most of the other challenges, this one didn't depend on your determination, strength and drive to win. This one was just whoever hated you the least.

After a short while, it was down to Yellow and Black - both of them dads. It was neck and neck. Both dads had four targets down; they were grunting and struggling to run that last lap. They both made it to their opponent's targets right about the same time, and Yellow took the first shot. Imagine the pressure to take a shot. One of them had to take a shot quicker than the other and there was the added pressure of actually making that shot. If one of them missed, it would have been over for them. Yellow aimed, fired and won. He received immunity and he was thrilled. But wait a second - weren't Yellow supposed to have immunity for two weeks in a row? Did I miss something here? Oh well.

After the challenge, the players went to do a last minute workout. Their workout was with a medalist figure skater and the workout was called "The Boot Camp Workout." I did one of those before - man, that was tough.

Did you hear something? I didn't. Wow - Jillian was quiet this week. No lecturing, no doctoring and definitely no counseling. Wow.

On to the weigh-in. Wouldn't it be funny if both members of a team fell below the red/yellow lines? Hmm, maybe it wouldn't be funny to them.

The numbers were much lower this week - most likely due to the mini-vacation they took. Miggy pulled a higher number than everybody else and this is two weeks after surgery. I'm thinking we'll see her pull out ahead of everybody else from now on. Maybe not.

It was down to Red again versus the others at the end. Melissa needed three to make it above the yellow line and she actually gained a pound. At this point, I wasn't surprised. This automatically forced her down below the red line - bye bye Melissa.

J said that it seemed pretty odd that she was prepped with a long-winded speech. Maybe she was just rambling on, saying whatever was on her mind at the moment, but it DID seem like a well-prepared going-away speech. Did she fall below on purpose? She spoke about missing her kids. For the on-camera interview she said that she knew she wasn't going to make it towards the end, and that she thought she'd at least make it a little bit longer. That would actually make sense - the biggest ones would stay the longest because they had more fat to lose. However, that isn't always true. Helen won the title and she wasn't even the top 4 biggest when her season started. John from this season was one of the biggest (tying with his twin brother for 2nd place) and he went home last week. Michael was the biggest person ever to step on campus and he was in extreme danger of going home (he fell below the yellow line). He would have left if it wasn't for his mother begging everybody to keep him there.

Anyways, after Melissa went home Ali announced that it was time for a twist. Orange (mom) and Black (dad) fell below and one of them has got to go. This time, there would not be an elimination but in staying with the Olympic spirit, there would be an elimination game. Whoever won the game would win the right to stay another week.

The game was that they had to balance a torch pole on their heads to "hold up" their torch. Whoever's torch pole fell first would be eliminated.

Who won? You'll just have to wait until next week to find out just like the rest of us....

Biggest Loser, Season 9 - Episode 5

This season has certainly not been lacking in drama. While drama may be the way to go (misery loves company), I was actually hoping for less drama this week. My philosophy with drama has always been this: If it doesn’t involve me, go have fun with it. However, with all the extra drama I’ve been hearing about lately, I’ve just about had it. Will this week’s episode grant me the serenity I’m looking for?

Right after the elimination, Miggy ended up in the hospital with stomach pains. Could it be separation anxiety? While she was carted off to the hospital, the remaining players geared up for another week of game-playing and losing weight. First things first, remember the two teams that got eliminated right at the start? Blue and Yellow came back to duke it out for another chance on campus. For those of you who suck at remembering things (like I do), Blue was a Mother/Daughter team and Yellow was a Father/Daughter team. The two teams were reintroduced to the remaining players and then… off to the weigh-in they go, right? Wrong.

For the first time ever (we have welcomed players late into the game before, but never like this), they headed straight to the gym to get their “Rite of Passage” as Bob delicately put it. Every Biggest Loser contestant that has stepped on campus has been subjected to a grueling work-out that is aptly titled “The Last-Chance Workout.” Heaven forbid that either Blue or Yellow would be eliminated again without experiencing anything like that.

Let’s focus on Ali for a little bit. I adore her and I love her character on Days of Our Lives. She’s pretty cute and I like her so much better than the first host… but (yes, there’s always a “but” with me)… what the heck was that outfit?! She looked like she stepped straight out of Starbucks with that black getup and a green apron/skirt thingie. Ali – fire your wardrobe person. Seriously.

This week’s “pop” challenge was actually the weigh-in of the Blue and Yellow teams. I don’t really know why but I felt drawn to the Yellow team and was rooting for them to win. In addition to winning a spot back on campus, there were some pretty heavy prizes. First – they would receive two weeks Immunity to guarantee at least a little chance at spending time on campus. Second – they would receive 100% of the voting power at the next elimination. Hot dang! This would immediately create plenty of room for the team to make enemies and there will certainly be lots of ass-kissing this week.

The weigh in results: Yellow won the weigh-in but not without some impressive results from the Blue team. The daughter lost 39 pounds all on her own at home in just one month while the house average is 45 pounds lost in the same amount of time. How about that? Yellow needed 61 pounds to lose in order to beat out Blue and the father alone lost 51 pounds. They certainly proved that they could do it at home. Will they do even better on campus? You have to love Bob. As soon as it was declared that Yellow won the weigh-in, Bob grinned and stated, “Ooh! Another victim!” Yeah. Have fun with that one, Yellow team.

OK – I cannot go a week without saying anything about Melissa. What happened!? She went from this uber-strong and determined girl to a super crybaby. Was Bob pushing too hard? Maybe – but with all the “unintentional” weight loss/gain issues she’s been having, you’d better know that Bob would do whatever he could to get that straightened out, including work her to death and finding that “niche” to get her body to respond.

After weeks of practically non-existence, Daris’ presence was finally acknowledged by Jillian. Yes, Jillian… and what does she do best? Welcome to another episode of “Dr. Jillian: What the Bleep is Wrong with My Contestants?” She went after poor Daris. She isn’t successful until she makes her “patients” cry and she hasn’t failed…yet.

Well, enough about Jillian. On to the challenge! One person on each team is chosen to hit a rotating tackling dummy 1,000 times. Should be easy, right? Ha! Nothing on the Biggest Loser is easy. The first team that gets to 1,000 wins Immunity (duh) and the last person to get 1,000 gets a 2 pound disadvantage. This was a fun one. I figured that Grey and Red would be the ones to watch. They’ve proven themselves time and time again and they are seriously strong competitors. When the game started, it was no surprise to see Red and Grey shoot up ahead of everybody. Throughout the entire game, they were neck and neck. Insert Mike: Mike is so huge – he didn’t even have to move back and forth like everybody else did. He stood in one place and hit the tackling dummies like they were nothing. He had a bad start… and slowly but surely, he rose to the top and eventually passed Red. Now we’re talking! Grey freaked out but remained strong. Mike eventually overtook Koli and made it to the top. Who’d have thunk it?

Aww, Mike was cute. He shouted out to the camera and said “I did it Mom!” He did a complete 180 – going from being a slacker to a hard-working contestant. He certainly earned his spot this week.

Miggy came back from the hospital after all this and announced that she had surgery. She had her appendix removed. They also found a cyst and some mass. Yikes. She was prohibited from having any heavy exercise. The only thing she could do at this point was walk. They should have kept Migdalia…The first thing Miggy did was wake up at 5:30am to walk. She set a goal to walk 20 miles that day. Mike decided to go along and walk with her for morale and support.

When Mike was walking along the path, he cracked a joke. “Hear that? Nothing. Because the birds are sleeping!” I hear ya, Mike. I wouldn’t be up at 5:30am either if it was my choice!
Later on at the weigh-in, we found out that she walked 13 miles one day after the surgery. She’s nuts! Actually, I probably wouldn’t blame her for being so determined. She had a post-surgery meeting and found out that they pumped about 8 to 9 pounds of fluid into her. That would certainly destroy her chances at making it through the weigh in. Talk about a potential death sentence of your time on campus.

This was a weird week. White had Immunity, Pink gained 2 pounds and Green went off to surgery. This week was truly an original week. Here’s another thing that’s weird. We usually see Jillian tackle one contestant per week. She probably has tried to take on more than one patient at once, but right now I don’t really remember if she has. Shortly after going after Daris, she went after Ashley. Welcome to Episode #2 - “Dr Jillian: What’s got Ashley all wound up?” Gag. Enough is enough.

The last-chance workout was pretty uneventful. It was kind of boring, even. I’m really starting to like Purple (but for the life of me, can’t remember her name). She was very positive and encouraging. She took up a leadership role and led some of the players on a particular workout. There’s always one or two of those each season. Last season was Coach Mo. He was awesome.

We have made it through the episode thus far without too much drama. So far, so good. Let’s see how the weigh-in went. With Yellow having the only vote, this weigh-in was particularly scary for all the other contestants. Yellow could be objective with their vote – not really knowing anybody and not having any grudges (yet). However, Dad said that he’ll vote whichever way that’ll help him in the long run. A self-proclaimed game player. Ouch. Wonder how that will turn out?

Highlights of the weigh-in:
Pink did well despite the 2 pound disadvantage. They lost 15 (not counting the 2 pounds). Will this be enough?

Red didn’t do so hot this week. Melissa lost 5 and Lance only lost 4. Melissa was not shy to admit that she was disappointed in Lance. What? Where was her support for her spouse? Did we see Lance say he was disappointed in Melissa when she only lost 1 pound? When she gained 1 pound? Please.

Red started to drop lower and lower on the board after more people weighed in. Will they finally be under the yellow line? My initial guess was that they would make it because Green had a bad week. I had no faith in Miggy losing enough to stay on campus another week. She had surgery, 8 or 9 pounds were added and then she couldn’t really work out. Making it another week would be impossible.

It was down to Red, Green and Brown (John). Who would stay and who would go? I was shocked to see that Miggy had lost 5 pounds. She was able to get rid of the surgery weight and plowed through the week by just walking. I have a renewed respect for Miggy now. Let’s hope she doesn’t mess it up again. Green’s success meant that Red would be on the bottom. Now it was truly down to Red and Brown.

I could imagine what Yellow was thinking. It might be better to have Brown to go under so they wouldn’t be faced with the task of eliminating either Melissa or Lance. Who knows? They might have gained lots of alliances by booting Melissa off.

It turned out that it was unnecessary to give Yellow 100% voting power. There was no need for an elimination because Brown didn’t lose enough. He needed more than 7 and only lost 6. Bummer.

It was sad to see him go, but I’m already looking forward to the next episode. John – you can do it. Come back and amaze us at the finale!

Biggest Loser, Season 9 - Episode 4

When someone's health (and game) is on the line, you would think that they'd do whatever they needed to, right? Last week we saw two teams playing a dangerous game of risk, a game that might have meant the end for them. It wasn't much of a surprise to see Red (namely Melissa) play the game and succeed. Michael took a shot at playing, but he didn't do so well. He assumed he was safe from being weighed in so he slacked off. As a result, he lost his mother. Not only he lost his mother, he probably hurt himself a little bit in the process. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't be playing games. Did he wake up? We'll find out soon enough.

There was a pop challenge right off the bat and again, immunity was at stake. Immunity is always a highly coveted prize but I think that especially after the last few weeks, the contestants would want to make sure that Melissa didn't get immunity again. The contestants walked around a one-mile loop and each time they went around, they collected a card. That card would be inserted into a machine at the end of every trip and the contestants would either get a green checkmark or a red X. The goal was to receive three checkmarks. They would each have to walk at least three miles before they could complete the challenge.

My early prediction was that Red would receive immunity. Who else? Red seems to be the "Tara" of this season, although their track record isn't as great as hers yet. Sure enough, Red won the challenge, and they were given an additional prize. This was probably the meanest prize that has existed on the show so far (or that I remember). Red had the power to give out three things: a 2 pound disadvantage, no access to the gym, and no voting power at the elimination. They could give one to three different teams or give two to one particular team or even give all three to one team. Wow. This would certainly make some enemies for Red team.

After the recent drama, Red was redeemed (in my opinion) by giving out the disadvantages as fairly as possible. The no gym access was given to John because the vast majority of his workouts are in the pool anyway. Due to his bad knees and poor health, he is not able to work out much on the heavy-duty equipment. Mike lost his voting power for the next elimination, which also made sense. Right after losing his mother, he received lectures from almost everybody else about how he shouldn't be playing games when his health is on the line. Red felt that Mike might be holding grudges over the next week and that would get in the way of him voting wisely at the next elimination. No surprise here – Red gave the 2 pound disadvantage to the Green team. Green was NOT happy about it, but really, who would be happy about getting that disadvantage? Red explained that since Green didn't do so hot the previous week, they had great potential to lose additional weight at the next weigh in. Red was confident that Green would do well enough to overcome the disadvantage. From their perspective, that was feasible and a pretty good excuse, but it had to be personal too. How could it not?

This episode has been nothing but drama! Jillian sure knows how to make enemies. It’s ok to have strong opinions about things and I certainly wouldn't want to be treated like I’m stupid but again, I believe Jillian came on too strong. Ever hear of just agreeing to disagree, Jillian? She was so adamant about getting Melissa to tell the truth. Actually, she wanted to Melissa admit to the truth that Jillian believed was the truth. Forget whether Melissa was lying or not, the point is that Jillian should have just let things be. It got to the point where Lance didn't want to work with her anymore. I probably would have felt the same way, but I think that Lance is hurting himself in the process. Jillian has a proven track record of getting these people to lose weight successfully. 7 out of 8 seasons so far, the contestants that won the title were trained by her. That has to count for something. This isn’t the first time a contestant walked away from her. Season 7’s Sione and Filipe walked away when they lost respect for her. She went after Filipe and she went after him hard. She probably means well but she should tone it down.

After the big confrontation between Melissa and Jillian, Melissa wanted to talk about it. She casually told Lance “put your book down, I want to talk about it” and like an obedient husband, he promptly put his book down and focused 100% of his attention on her. Wow. She trained him well.

Next, there was another challenge and the prize this time was phone calls home. Not only that, the winning team would have the power to give out phone calls to three teams. When that was announced, everybody assumed that if another team won, they wouldn’t be one of the three to get the prize. I’m guessing that none of them have any real allies. I haven’t seen any real bonding between any of the contestants. They’ve all just mainly stuck with their own partner and ignored everybody else. Needless to say, when the challenge started, everybody started off with a bang, giving their all so that they could win that phone call home. The challenge was that they had to use their strength to pull themselves up to the top of a big pulley. At this point, I didn’t have any predictions on who was going to win. This was all brute strength and the will to win. I believed that everybody had the will to win. When there’s a will, there’s a way.

Sam & Koli ended up winning the challenge (and it was such a close race!), so they were given the opportunity to make some allies. If they chose wisely, they’d be setting themselves up to become friends with people that would help them later on in the game. So far, this is the fairest group of contestants that I’ve seen. Sam & Koli handed out the prizes according to whom they felt needed it the most. I have to say that I agree with their choices (for the most part). The three prizes went to Red, Green and John. Red because they have 2 kids at home, Green because Migdalia has kids at home and a husband that was leaving for Afghanistan and John because he lost his brother the first week.

Bob came in and announced that everybody should fill up their water bottles because they were going on a trip. Immediately, I knew that he would be taking everybody to Subway. Bob has become predicable in many ways, one of which he’d take everybody to Subway and give them tips on how to eat healthy when they’re out of the house. After a nice meal, Bob announced that they would be doing their last minute workout on a huge hill. I wonder if Bob had John in mind since John didn’t have access to the gym that week. It was nice to see John be able to participate in that workout. After they were done, Jillian found them and announced that she had a workout of her own. Yikes. TWO last chance workouts. Not fun.

Finally, it was time for the weigh in. At this point, it just wouldn’t make sense to NOT keep track of Melissa’s weight loss. This time around she lost 11 and Lance lost 6. That would have been impressive, but we have to remember that over the last two weeks, Melissa has lost zero. She was due for some weight loss. Melissa HAD to lose some weight because if she didn’t, no doubt everybody would know 100% for sure that she was up to something. After all, she had immunity again. Why bother losing weight if it didn’t count, right? What everybody probably didn’t notice was that Lance only lost 6. He has done exceptionally well so far. Of course, weight loss can be unpredictable. We’ve seen people lose weight in the double digits for several weeks in a row only to be slapped in the face with just a weight loss of 2 pounds. It’s my thinking that since everybody’s attention is on Melissa and her weight loss pattern, people probably wouldn’t give much thought to Lance. What if Melissa set it up to where she’d lose enough weight to throw attention off of herself and have Lance “save” some of his weight loss for next week? It would be his weight loss next that that would save them. Could it be?

I want to see Daris make it to makeover week. I want to see him get rid of that mess on his head that’s called hair.

We haven’t seen much of Black, Orange and Purple this week. It isn’t really all that surprising because the camera goes where the drama is, but I’m wondering just when they’ll get their 15 minutes of fame. The quiet ones deserve some attention too.

The weigh in all came down to Pink and Green battling it out for that last slot right above the yellow line. Honestly, at this point, I didn’t care who went below because I wouldn’t miss either one of these 4 contestants. I certainly wouldn’t miss Green’s attitudes.

Green ended up being down below the yellow line with 4 pounds under what was needed. Green gave Red a pretty hard time about the 2 pound disadvantage and at the end, that 2 pound didn’t matter. Even without the 2 pounds, they would have still been under the yellow line. That didn’t stop them from cussing Red out and exhibiting some pretty nasty attitudes. Man, I thought Tracey was bad.

I actually wonder what Ali thinks about all this. She works on a soap opera, which is pretty hilarious to me.

I was hoping that Miggy would be the one to go home. Everybody could do without her attitude and without her prodding her daughter to “stay strong.” During the weigh in, Migdalia became emotional because she knew that either she or her mom would be going home. Miggy kept telling her “don’t cry.” Why!? What’s wrong with showing sadness? I guess it's a part of their culture. A culture where women are one of the "boys" or where women are expected to be strong. Strong women are admirable but come on! Or maybe women are so oppressed in their culture that they feel that they have to be overly strong to...whatever. At this point - I don't care. They've got to go.

I truly believe that Migdalia would do well on the ranch with her mother gone. Maybe not at first – she would (for sure) exhibit bitterness and give everybody a hard time – but eventually, she would soften up (I hope) and improve while on the ranch.

She ended up telling everybody that she wanted to go home and that they please vote her off. Like the obedient robots they are, everybody listened. When will they actually think for themselves for once?

Stay tuned!