Thoughts on BATG Episode 5

Now that my 15 minutes are over, I'm free to talk about "what really happened and stuff." Ok, I actually did like this episode better than the other ones. For some reason, my comedic genius came out a little more in this episode, and people got to get a better idea of what I'm like, which is not just a hornball like the first couple episodes seemed to show. I just want to point out all my funny lines, because I'm proud of them. I can't remember how I came up with them on the spot like that.

"I think I know how Al Gore felt in 2000."
"Is there a zoo around here? Because I got these pythons!"
"Well, we didn't want anything to get broken."
"Anyone want to play Dungeons & Dragons?" (on the bus)

I kind of have to explain that last one, I think. We got onto the charter bus, and there was a whole bunch of free stuff, like baseball caps and mugs and playing cards, and also, little bags full of dice. Well, I grabbed all the dice I could and that is what prompted me to ask if anyone wanted to participate in a roleplaying session.

About the party challenge:

I know there was no one at my party. I don't understand either. I handed out invitations. Still, nobody came. I'm pissed because that challenge had nothing to do with party planning. I throw awesome parties all the time in Chicago. I help friends throw awesome parties all the time in Chicago. Parties that have one to two hundred people. I'm serious. We go through many kegs and bottles of booze. People have fun. Also, I justified the fact that no one came to my party because I won that hand of Solitaire without cheating. I wasn't sure that was possible to do until that moment. The truth is, perhaps I didn't hand out as many invitations as the rest of the guys because Joe and I went to the bar to watch the World Series for a little while. COME ON!!! The White Sox were playing and I'm a die-hard Sox fan!!!! And we didn't have TV or radio in the mansion!

About the poker challenge:

I think I almost froze to death that day. Everyone else got to start by taking off their shoes and socks, while I had to immediately lose my shirt. Danielle knew how to play poker, she just had a hard time playing against a shark like Cher. Danielle wasn't pissed that Cher was bluffing, like she says, but she was pissed that Cher was bluffing and blatantly intimidating Danielle and then being smug about it. It's one thing to play the game, it's another to play like that against people who are much less experienced than you. You don't see the high stakes poker players go to a small time table just to intimidate and mess with the other players, do you?

About my partner:

I love Danielle. She is one of my most favorite people in the whole world, and probably my new best friend. We are incredibly similar, almost to a point where it's weird. But it's not weird. It's cool. Danielle is very smart. She just says goofy things a lot and makes up a lot of words. She makes me laugh all the time. The coolest thing about us being paired up is that I don't think I mentioned that I'm from Chicago. Later on, we found out that we live like ten or fifteen minutes apart. Of all the contestants on the show, we live the closest to each other. I'm glad that Danielle and I were paired up and I wouldn't have had it any other way. The experience would not have been nearly as fun with any of the other girls. We got along extremely well on the show, that's why you never saw any clips of us disagreeing or fighting. If I had to guess, I'd say that we probably got along better than any of the other teams.

About the elimination:

The fact that we were sent to elimination was kind of my fault. I had been drinking in Vegas, and I told Brittany that I felt we could beat Ankur & Jennipher or Wes & Sarah. I also think that perhaps Joe and Brittany sent Jennipher & Ankur because Joe is all about helping other people out. I think he wanted to put the ball in Josh's court and force him to man up and pick Wes & Sarah even though he knew Cher would be upset. Josh didn't.

For anyone talking crap about Danielle in the elimination round, you need to make like a tree and get out of here. Look at the questions. She got all the difficult ones. First of all, she was standing 30 feet away from the monitor, so she couldn't read the poker hands properly. She knew that A. was a flush, but she picked D. because she saw a full house and knew that a full house beats a flush. The cards were extremely difficult to read. What's the highest number on a roulette wheel? WTF? I don't think any of the girls in the house could have answered that, and of the guys, probably only Joe. I sure as hell couldn't. The Blackjack question. Danielle has never played blackjack before. We didn't study blackjack. It's an easy question to you and me, but not to someone who's never played before. Overall, compared to how many cards are in a deck, how many cards are in each suite, and which of these has the highest odds, Danielle got screwed and it wasn't fair.

I'm upset because they edited my first question. It was extremely difficult when Mike asked it in the mansion. I swear, it was something along the lines of "In eighteenth centure, people from the Dominican Republic used to have secret meetings called this, and now the word refers to an all night party with electronic music." I know the first part of the question is there to intimidate and confuse the geeks, but it was a long and difficult question, and I think they should have given me a little more credit and not edited it. The P Diddy question was easy, everyone knows the Black and White Ball or whatever it's called. I looked surprised when Ankur got that one question about the correct number of drinks wrong because we studied together, and we studied that exact fact, and I'm pretty sure he answered what the book said.

I must say that I think this was and probably will remain the most emotional elimination this season. Mike was tearing up a little bit. Danielle was bawling like you wouldn't believe. Jennipher was too. I think a single tear ran down Ankur's cheek. Matt, the guy who gave me my exit interview was crying. I was crying during my interview (God I hope I'm not the only guy who cried). When we walked out the door, most of the crewmembers were outside crying. We weren't supposed to go home yet, it was bad luck. This may be kind of egocentric of me, but I honestly believe that if the producers had had their way, the final round of the show would have been Danielle & I vs. Thais & Tyson, but they couldn't interfere with the game, so it didn't work out.

Now I will keep watching because I hope Joe and Brittany win! Go Chicago!!