And the Torch is Out

So the Olympics are finally over. Overall, I'd give them a B. There were some quite good moments, but there were also some bad ones as well. Obviously there was the Paul Hamm incident, the insane Irish attacker during the marathon, the brief disqualification of the American backstroker that was later reversed, the moron in the pink tutu, and a couple of other gymnastics flubs that didn't get quite as high a profile as the men's all-around did. We won't bother to discuss the doping stuff because that happens at every Olympics and just isn't news anymore.

There were some good moments. The Moroccan runner getting double gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, Michael Phelps helping to lead the USA to one of the best swimming Olympics we've ever had, the women's soccer and softball teams going out well, the emergence of good young talent to take things on in the upcoming years, and the performance of American gymnastics overall. Obviously this is an American biased list, but NBC didn't exactly allow me to celebrate international accomplishments.

As for the coverage of the games, I'd have to give that a B- at best. Obviously NBC knows their audience wants to see Americans do well, but it could have done a much better job in giving a broad coverage of things, even things we stink at, instead of wasting large amounts of time with inane preps and heats. If its only a heat, why are you spending an additional 10 minutes before and after talking about it and getting soundbites from the runners? In the same amount of time, you could have covered what went on with other events and even shown more details where there was obvious cutting. It would have been nice to see some of the other divers, even if we all knew they weren't going to medal. If you're bothering to take the time to show the American who finished 37th, you could take the time to show the Canadian who finished 4th. Occationally you can get interesting stories from non-Americans, even when Americans are competing in the event.

But it made for somewhat entertaining watching. Now we just have to wait until 2006 when I can be bored to death watching figure skating and being reminded about the judging scandal while I wait forever for the few interesting speedskating and skiing events contained in the games.

TAR Update

Would that Colin had in fact been thrown in jail. It would have been so funny and such a good bitchsmacking that he truly deserves. He really is a complete jerk and flattens his girlfriend, basically telling her what to think and quashing any real self esteem she has. Hopefully she is watching this and realizing what a bad relationship she is in.

Anyway, Colin was not thrown in prison and thanks to the heliopad hours, everyone caught up to each other in Dubai. So we had a fresh race. People were generally not too stupid although its interesting to see how many teams are having problems with money. The bowling moms are not and they lost all their money at the first non-elimination leg. The focus on money during the show made it something of a boring episode after the first 20 minutes, but sometimes you have to go through bad episodes now and again.

The Texas Twosome finished first again and I am getting more and more sure that they will end up in the final three, despite their penchant for self destruction.

Chip and Kim will stay in it, if only they keep a better eye on the money. Things are going to start getting tight soon.

The Christian Models seem to be doing okay, but they are getting picked apart by money issues as well. When it comes to pure racing talent, they're managing to hang in there.

The Bowling Moms keep getting behind due mostly to a combination of bad luck and small problems that mostly have to do with their age. But they are hanging in well and if they can catch a break with one of the front three in the right time, they might make it to the final three.

The Twins are going to go down soon. They may manage to get some money back, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot so often that they consistently finish near the back. This should catch up to them in the next leg or two.

There are two more non-elimination legs and the suspicion that Mrs. X and I have is that there will be one right before the final leg. This will probably effectively whittle the race down to two teams as the third team will lose their money and be at a serious disadvantage going into the final stretch. Would that it is the Texas Twosome who get buried at the end.

Quick GoF Movie Update

I hope to have my usual TAR summary up a little later, maybe tomorrow at the latest, but in the meantime I found a summary of what's in and what's out of the Goblet of Fire movie. If you aren't interested, please stop reading. If you are, plow ahead:

What's been cut:
-The SPEW storyline
-The opening scene with the Dursleys
-The Hogwarts express (there are shots of it, but nothing in the train)
-The wand weighing.

What's still in:
-Creepy opening scene with Voldemort, Wormtail and Nagini
-The Dark Mark scene
-The "Potter Stinks" bit
-The skrewts
-The horntail challenge
-The merpeople challenge
-The final challenge (although the spider may NOT be in it, but the Sphinx is)
-Dobby and Winky
-The Portkeys
-Crouch freaking out
-The Pensieve scene
-Cedric's end

Things that are drastically reduced:
-Yule Ball
-Quidditch World Cup
-Rita Skeeter stuff (she's in it, but not as much as the book)
-Harry stressing over the egg clue
-Snape scenes (he's not in it much)
-Hagrid & Maxine love story (it's there, but just reduced to a few brief moments for humor)

Note on the ending: they manage to get it all pretty much in, which is surprising given what's going on.

That's all I've heard at the moment. I know the actors were seen filming the Stoatshead Hill scene and the trial of Barty Crouch Jr. scene. I'll keep everyone advised as I hear more.

Kerry with a Goatee

Most things that came out of Star Trek are just not known to most mainstream people. But some do make them out into the real world. One of the best known is the goatee parallel universe. In the episode Mirror, Mirror four Enterprise crew members get accidentally sucked into a parallel universe where the good guys are bad and vice-versa. The big thing about this episode is that Spock has a mustache and goatee where as in the normal universe, he's clean shaven. Since then its been an inside joke to show someone in a parallel universe with a goatee or some other facial hair. South Park did it and all 4 kids from the parallel universe had goatees. Very amusing.

Anyway, the reason I mentioned that was this article I read this morning. In it, John Kerry is shown as having suck to a strong message about current issues and not made his war record the center piece of his campaign, which seems to be causing him all kinds of annoyances. Its very easy to imagine that if he was following this line of campaign, he would be crushing Bush now instead of being in a dead heat. However, if he had followed this campaign idea he probably wouldn't have gotten the nomination as evidenced by the comments at the bottom of the article.

Marks

Some thing just catch your eye and unnerve you. This was the case with this article I read earlier today. The primary focus of the article is about implant chips to track who you are and where you are going. Sort of On-Star for people. Of course this is raising eyebrows from the civil liberties crowd who dream of a Big Brother system where the government or some corporation can track us at all times.

These of course are possible. However, I think the concept will work its way in in time. Now, cars are sold with On-Star trackers all the time. People have GPS in their phones and talk about the wonders of it. Why not have a chip that can identify you and work your credit for any purchase with the wave of a hand. Imagine, no more credit cards to carry. You just wave your hand over a scanner and it automatically deducts the money from your account. You could do the same with large purchases such as a car or a house where the central loan department is located. Sounds good doesn't it?

Now imagine a higher person controlling who could buy what based on whether a person had said chip or not. Imagine the power such a person would have. It would take a while for such a person to amass that much power and the technology isn't quite there yet. The markets would need a nasty drop off to resort to such single control as well. But its certainly possible.

And if you think about things from the same perspective I do... inevitable.

Beat Down

A very busy weekend for me. We spent Saturday moving Mrs. X out of her apartment in Columbus and down with me. So now we're all moved in snug. We're still sorting things out as to which additional items of mine and hers will go into storage and which we actually have room for. We also may have to put some of the shower gifts into storage as we won't be able to use all of them while we are living in the apartment. As soon as the wedding is over, its the beginning of house hunting season for us.

The Olympics started on Friday. Mrs. X and I have been watching a great deal of them over the past several days. Its much more entertaining than all the other crap that's normally on during the summer, even though football has officially started again. The opening ceremonies were entertaining although I think the Greeks were a little hung up on things flying through the air. Someone here in the office mentioned that the Olympic cauldron reminded him of the telescope gun that Marvin the Martian uses in his attempt to blow up the Earth - Oh, the Earth will be gone in a few minutes. I'm going to blow it up. It obstructs my view of Venus.

For the most part I've been quite entertained but I do have two rants. First, I wish the media would drop all this crap about Michael Phelps and his failure to break or tie Mark Spitz's record. First off, he's probably going to win 8 medals period and that's an enormous feat. Second, the field is much harder than it was in 1972 as evidenced by South Africa's win in the relay. Third, the kid is only 19. Let him go out and have fun for God's sake and just be appreciative that he swims for us and not Australia.

My second rant has to do with men's basketball. I personally feel that there was only one Dream Team and that was the '92 team. All others are just pale imitations so stop calling them that. Second, a lot of people seemed to have expected this, including me, so why is it a big deal that they lost. We all knew what the problems with this team were so how is it such a shock? And I don't want to hear if they had other superstars like Kobe, Shaq or KG they wouldn't have lost. This is not a team. They are not balanced, they have no perimeter shooting and they can't play the fundamentals of the game. This is a function of the deterioration of basketball in this country. Basketball used to be fun to watch with strategy, movement and balance. But as we said goodbye to the talent of the 90's, we gave way to prima donnas who never learned the strategy of the game and just came in with raw talent. Today, I can't watch a regular season basketball because its so boring. There is either a drive on the baseline for a dunk or a three point attempt. No one can work the middle and bury the inside jumper anymore. Honestly, the last good basketball game I remember seeing was the 1998 finals. I'd still opt to watch a game from the 80's or 90's over anything on today. Now the Americans are going to see what that rashness has done to them as the Europeans and South Americans wipe the floor with them.

Cnails and Slams

As an engineer, I tend to have my feet firmly rooted in science. However, I have great reservations about what scientists say about how the earth was formed and its age. Faith and reason are often portrayed as being at odds and that can create lots of conflict. Recently though, a group of guys got into a discussion about evolution here at work and one of them mentioned this lecture that he had on tape where a biologist went through and pointed out several large flaws in the evolutionary argument. I asked him if I could borrow that tape. I managed to listen to it yesterday and it was quite interesting. I had to listen to it in a disjointed fashion as I was interrupted by normal aspects of life while I was listening to it, but I got several key points out of it.

The first example he gave was against the idea of progressive mutation. This idea is that mutation happens every once in a while and some animal gets something it didn't have before which pushes it forward to become a new species. The example the lecturer gave (and I've forgot his name as of the moment) that hurt this argument was that of a woodpecker. The woodpecker forcefully bangs his head and bill into a tree to make a nest and extract bugs to eat. The impact deceleration of the head striking a tree can produce a force the equivalent of 20-30 G's on the head of the bird. To help against this the woodpecker has a long sturdy bill which cushions the impact and a reinforced skull to resist impact. The woodpecker also has a very long sticky tongue to stick down into the holes it makes to extract the bugs. Conventional theory says that the woodpecker would have gotten each item individually as it mutated. Except that if a woodpecker tried to peck wood before it got all the components, it would have killed itself in the attempt.

The second example was that of polystratic fossils. Strata are the layers of rock that have built up in one formation or another. Conventional wisdom says that this process takes millions of years to accomplish. However, there are quite a few examples of fossilized bones or trees which extend across multiple strata layers. To accomplish this, the bones would have had to be standing on end for thousands or even millions of years to settle in these shapes. With trees it gets even worse because trees rot much more efficiently than bones and should be less likely to produce fossils, especially ones going across several layers of rock. As the tree was partially buried, it would have rotted away and the hole collapsed on itself. The only way to explain these phenomenon would be if the bones and trees were rapidly buried in a sudden imolation of rock or water. Such phenomena has been observed after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens where several trees were fossilized in the same manner over a period of a week when the mountain exploded. Many of these polystratic fossilized trees are found in coal deposits which are supposed to be the product of millions of years of transformation of swampy matter. Now, how can you have swamp matter washing all around a tree, have that matter turn to coal over several million years and still keep the tree not rotting and standing upright as its covered up?

A third example is the age old one that we've never found cross animal hybrids. If you look in the fossil record, you don't find one thing that's halfway between a snail and a clam, you find snails and clams. Also when you go back, you always find more animals, not less. Evolution is supposed to be starting from something small and branching out like a tree. Instead you have thousands of animals and more and more just keep disappearing as time goes on.

There are a few other things that I or other people have thought of that I don't have the time to cover now, such as the error factor of C-14 dating and progression from asexual to sexual. But this gives a little bit for someone to think about. As with all things, weigh the evidence with an open mind. You may be surprised at the things you find out.

Some rocks, dirt, water, sugar, and lightning - now, HORSES!

TAR Recap

Well, I was both right and wrong about this week's episode. I was right in that the Texas Twosome screwed themselves over by taking the fast forward so early in the game. Everyone caught up to them and their impressing 7 hour lead was lost. They still finished 1st this week, but mostly due to their own fighting spirit. I was wrong in that I thought the Bowling Moms would be eliminated this week. They had a brilliant idea of getting money from the tourists and managed to get up to the point where the pizza brother's injuries put them in last place.

The host said that no one had ever really quit on the race before, but then, I don't think I ever seen a racer in that much physical pain before. I don't view them as quitting as I see it as more bowing to the inevitable. They knew they were eliminated and felt no need to push on. I still don't like them that much as they acted like stereotypical American jerks through most of the race, but you do have to give them a little dap for pushing through the pain towards the end. Hopefully the producers took him to a local hospital after they were eliminated.

My impressions of the rest of the teams haven't shifted too much. The Texas Twosome is getting more annoying. I'm starting to view them in the same light as the team that finished second last season, a team you know is going to be around until the end, but one you hope doesn't win. Myrna and Shmirna are getting more annoying as well. I was briefly impressed when I saw that Myrna spoke Arabic fairly well, but it went right back down the tubes with her accusations against the Texas Twosome and complaints against how she couldn't do the tasks. Shut up and just do the job.

I keep going back and forth on the Christian models. They seem likeable one minute and hateable the next. I'm also not as sure that they will be in the final three the way they keep messing up and snipping at each other in little places. I think Chip and Kim seem to be the couple that the producers are cultivating towards getting you to like them the most. They also seem to be the team that's just having the most fun. I hope they stick around until the end.

Next week looks like they're going down to either Kenya or Tanzania. It should be another non-elimination leg, but if the Bowling Moms finish last again, I don't know if they'll keep it or forward it to the next leg so that they can hit another team. It would suck if you had to take the cash of the same team twice in a row. I'm hopeful that the Moms are invigorated by their scare enough that they push someone else down and stick around for a little bit longer.

Tin Soldiers

I doubt many in my reading audience will recall from where I got my title, but its relevant to today's topic. 30 years ago yesterday Richard Nixon resigned as president of the United States. Quite a different time. No matter what you think of Nixon as a person, his first term would be considered a great success by any measure. His second term, however, was a huge disaster. A simple break in and it all went to hell. No one has ever really determined whether Mr. Nixon authorized or even knew about the break in originally, but he definitely took point on trying to cover it up. In the end, the tapes Mr. Nixon had created to help preserve his legacy ended up destroying him.

Mr. Nixon's legacy was salvaged a bit during the late 80's and 90's as he clawed his way back to respectability. After he died, I saw a political cartoon which showed an angel helping Mr. Nixon up. He was sitting on one end of a scale, on a block that said "Opening China." The other block said "Watergate" but it was being outweighed by the first block. The real legacy, of course, was the distrustful nature we still have of government and the media's desire to root out anything for a political scandal. Gone are the look the other way gifts that were afforded to prior presidents such as Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Harding. That style was already on the way out with the nastiness that started coming out during Mr. Johnson's administration over Vietnam, but Watergate accelerated the thing to a screeching pitch.

As a person who is very fond of alternative history, I've wondered what would have happened had Watergate either not happened, or if Mr. Nixon had come out immediately, apologized to the people for mistakes made by people in his government and been able to move on. Vietnam occupied a great portion of the public's mind. It's possible that with his new relationship with China, Mr. Nixon might have been able to broker a better peace accord that the one laid out in 1973/74 which lead to the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. I think South Vietnam would have eventually collapsed due to its own corruption, but that might have been staved off until 1976 or later. Its hard to say. We can't even say how many more troops Mr. Nixon might have felt were necessary to keep in Vietnam if he wasn't trying to win back the public by bringing them home.

If Mr. Nixon had successfully retired in 1976, I doubt we ever would have heard much of Mr. Jimmy Carter. He would have grabbed the nomination but Mr. Ford would have probably have enough forward momentum (to say nothing of no Nixon anger working against him) to get elected in the following election. Bob Dole was his running mate then and I don't see any reason why it wouldn't have been that again, unless the Reagan camp made enough of a push to Mr. Ford that having Mr. Reagan would secure California for him. Mr. Dole's Kansas was probably already securely in the Republican column. So we could have seen a Ford-Reagan administration or a Ford-Dole administration with Mr. Reagan securing a juicy cabinet post for his assistance in delivering California. From there, we can't really say what else would have happened. I imagine Mr. Ted Kennedy would have made his push in 1980, but perhaps been beaten out by another prominent Democrat of the time. After 12 years of Republican rule, the people might have been itching for a change and there is no evidence that the economic problems of the late 70's would have been staved off by a Republican ticket. But then again, perhaps Mr. Ford's advisors would have forced him to take a very aggressive line against Iran during the hostage crisis. If Mr. Ford were successful in delivering the Iranian hostages prior to the election and in an aggressive manner, he might have nicked it out against his Democratic nominee. Still, I think we could safely say that Mr. Reagan probably would never have had the chance to become president unless Mr. Ford lost the 1980 election and then beat out Mr. Dole and Mr. Bush for the 1984 nomination. Its very difficult to project what would have happened at this point, but it makes for fun speculation.

So we remember Mr. Nixon and the legacy he left us. But in that remembrance, we think as to what he squandered and how events might have been different had a little third rate burglary been swept under the rug.

Unbiased News Coverage?

This caught my eye. I know we're only confirming what most of us already know, but it still sits a bit uncomfortably.

Shower Fun

So we had the bridal shower for Mrs. X yesterday. I didn't go of course, but I made the customary groom show towards the end when people started leaving. I actually spent most the shower time giving my grandfather a brief tour around the suburbs where I work and live. That was a lot of fun, although my voice was getting a little hoarse towards the end. My grandfather has very poor hearing and he doesn't use his good hearing aid very often, preferring to use his cheap one. So, one had to elevate their voice a bit while speaking to him.

Anyway, the shower was good. Mrs. X and I got a great deal of nice kitchen things that will be quite useful in the near future. I'm going to be spending the better part of the week trying to figure out where to put everything and how to organize it. But that's no big deal. After all this, Mrs. X and I will also have to be adding thing to the registry again. Our lists have gotten a bit low so we're going to have to imagine other things that we would like to have. Fun times for us.

Probably the highlight of shower had to be after I arrived and some people started to leaving. One of the guests was Mrs. X's cousin (once removed) who had brought her two little girls along (2 and half and 6 months). At one point I was just sitting down and Mrs. X, who had been holding the younger girl, asked me if I wanted to hold her. I did and did a pretty good job of it. Mrs. X made the comment that she thought it looked very natural for me. I think my parents and her mom got a little gleam in their eyes at that point. They won't say it, but they are getting very eager for grandkids. They're a bit like sharks who smell blood in the water and start circling. Hopefully I'll have a couple of pictures to show around of me holding Lorelei, who made it very easy for me. Apparently I bear a passing resemblance to her dad and I think she might have thought I was him. She did keep grabbing at my chin and apparently he has a rather prominent one. Or maybe she just liked the sandpaper feeling.

After the shower we went to dinner at the place where we will be having our rehearsal dinner. Mmmmmm... stuffed pork chops. Quite good and if you're ever around Mason, OH, I would highly recommend the Houston Inn. Down home cooking and a very nice salad bar.

But now, Mrs. X has returned to her apartment for the last stages of packing. We move all the big stuff on Saturday and then she'll turn the keys in sometime a little later in the week. Should be an adventure. I just can't wait until we're all done and settled.

Troubled Waters?

The surf appears to be looking a little choppy for Mr. Kerry. The new book, Unfit for Command, which attacks Mr. Kerry's war record is comming out soon and it has some rather unflattering details. The book charges that Mr. Kerry lied about the account to which he was awarded his silver star and in the incident he went so far as to shoot a wounded Viet Cong soldier in the back while he was running away. It also accuses him of coming across an abandoned village and, after shooting all the livestock, burning it down. Very nasty and very Apocolypse Now. How much of it is true? I don't know and I'm not going to hazard a guess. However, I will say that this could be a nasty distraction, espcially as Mr. Kerry has mentioned that he committed "attrocities" during his tour in Vietnam and then gone on to make his service a centerpiece in his campaign.

Another thing is just the public perception of Mr. Kerry. A Boston blogger posted his thoughts on Mr. Kerry's percieved intellectual superiority over Mr. Bush. He's certainly not a Kerry fan, although he did make an interesting offer to the Kerry supporters for his defense.

Several other bloggers are in mixed reactions of worry or delight depending on where they stand in support of Mr. Kerry. Glen Reynolds has a compilation of some of these concerns.

But, as many of the undecided voters only care about what the candidates are going to do on the issues, all this may just blow over. We really won't be able to tell anything until the debates come. Hopefully Mr. Kerry will know how to sigh properly during the debate, for his sake.

First Amendment

Here's one that's right up Mrs. X's alley. An Orlando, Florida news station reported that a woman was fired from her telecommuting job after she had a pizza with ham on it and a BLT for lunch. The woman worked for Rising Star, a telecommunications company headquartered in central Florida. Apparently, the company has strong ties to the Muslim community and has some unwritten rules in deference to the teachings of the Koran. That is not a bad thing in my mind. However, one of these rules is that you cannot consume pork products on company grounds. This is not a written rule and the woman was never asked to sign a waiver saying that she would not eat pork on company grounds. But, after these two incidents, the woman's position was terminated.

I'm not that well grounded in employment law and first amendment, but I'm sure Mrs. X would tell you that there is some violation of the Equal Opportunity Law in here somewhere, to say nothing of a possible first amendment suit. As it is a fairly localized company and a Muslim based discrimination suit, I don't think we'll be getting much national coverage over it. But it does make one think and boggle the mind as to what some people try to impose on others.

TAR Recap

Interesting episode this week. I like the new twists of only having two fast forwards in the entire game and the loss of money in a non-elimination round. I only wish that it had not been the bowling moms who had finished in last place. I can imagine that between the loss of money and the twisted ankle one of them suffered, they'll be the team eliminated next week.

The non-elimination rounds should be happening every other episode now and they will probably do a good job in eliminating the same team the following week. Now, there is always hope, but its just crippling to loose money, especially when you keep getting less and less of it the rest of the way. I imagine this was in response to the last two seasons where a team that was not that popular with the viewers finished last but wasn't eliminated and then rebounded to finish high in the standings and stick around, much to the annoyance of the audience.

I also like the limitation of the fast forward, although it was rather amusing to see teams jump at it early last season and then start to fall behind again. It kept around some amusing teams that would normally have been eliminated much earlier. But this way is interesting too. Now, if I had been team Texas, I would not have used the FF. They were 6 hours ahead of the second place team and the FF bumped them further up to probably at least 10 hours ahead. However, anyone who has seen the show before, knows that teams catch up to each other at airports and bus stations later in the day. They'll be leaving at 11:30 PM Cairo time and I can't imagine that anything will be open when they need it to be. So they will lose the lead until Myrna and Shmirna catch up to them as was shown in the previews for next week. What's more, team Texas cannot use the other FF which will probably come sometime when there are only 4 or 5 teams left and could be much more useful in jockeying for position among the final 3.

Irregardless, it appears the twins team will stay around for a little longer. The bowling moms, crippled by no money will be eliminated next week unless there is a huge gaffe made by another team. After that, I think the pizza brothers will be eliminated as injuries to knees push them further back. So that leaves our final 5 as the twins, Myrna and Shmirna, Chip and Kim, team Texas, and team Modeling for Christ. I've yet to see anything that makes me think that the twins will not stave off elimination around 5 or 4. Mistakes might keep one of the other teams down as well, but its difficult to say. I can't give any real impression as to who will be next on the block until after these next two teams are eliminated.

Reality Update

How is this for funny: Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush are both scheduled for campaign stops in the same town at the same time, and I am very familiar with both locations. Both candidates will be making stops in Davenport, IA, about 30 miles north of the town my parents live in. I used to head up to Davenport a lot while I was in high school and college. The fact that both men are in the same town at the same time is even funnier to me since I know where the locations are and can picture them. Although, I'm a little surprised Mr. Bush is there. Despite it being in the heart of the Midwest, the QC have enough manufacturing jobs to make it a very solidly Democratic area. I couldn't even tell you the last time a Republican represented the 17th district of Illinois.

Anyway, the real news on my mind is The Amazing Race. Mrs. X and I are sliding more and more into dislike of Myrna. Certainly her loud, obnoxious comments during the caviar eat while several other women were getting sick, were very annoying. I don't like the Texas couple very much either, but there is no need for that kind of poor sportsmanship.

I have a strong feeling that we will be saying goodbye to the twins very soon. They keep lagging towards the back and one of them was clearly very sick from the caviar eating. They themselves said that they don't have a partner who really balances out their weaknesses. I expect Egypt will be hard on them and we will be seeing them fall by the wayside before too long. I hope the same doesn't happen to the bowling moms but I'm getting skeptical of seeing them past India (which I suspect they will be going to after Egypt). We shall see but I'm looking forward to seeing what happens tonight.

Mrs. X has also given up on her TV blog and will only be keeping up one blog from now on. I suspect she'll give TV her focus there after the wedding. But for those of you starved for her BB5 thoughts, I can tell you that she is relieved that the Four Horsemen seem to be breaking down and that their leader, Scott, is looking like the key figure in being knocked out. She is also ticked to see the reaction with the red-headed twins reveal themselves and give notices to the meathead alliance, as she calls them, realize that they are down another vote. I'm sure she'll give you updates as necessary.