Major League Baseball Pre-Preview

With opening day tomorrow, and our first game being played tonight, it is time for me to make my baseball picks. This blog post isn't actually my picks, but my preview to my preview. I will let you know that this is my first time making picks since 2010. Yeah, it really has been that long. Three years. Previous to 2010, baseball was all I knew. It was my favorite sport, and my favorite sport to write and talk about. Then for a couple years I started to lose interest in it. I don't know why, but for some reason I didn't care much about what would happen. Perhaps it was because my beloved Cubbies were struggling and were clearly on a downward spiral. All the sudden, checking the box scores of games every day on my iPod wasn't that interesting. It meant nothing to me, because the Cubs weren't winning. There was also a time over that stretch where I wasn't following or watching all sports as closely as I used to. Some time during the 2011 season, my interest started to kick back in. I witnessed the Cubs' division rival Cardinals go on a remarkable tear at the end of the year to not only make the playoffs, but win the World Series. It looked like they were done in August, and then out of nowhere made this incredible comeback, made the playoffs, and took down a great Texas Rangers team in the World Series. This run they went on inspired many and reminded me why I love sports. 

Now, I'm no Cardinals fan. They are the Cubs' biggest rival and give the Cubs the toughest time in the summer. But I had great respect for what the Cardinals were doing and they truly were a great underdog story. I entered last year's season with my love for baseball back but I didn't make any picks. I'm no expert. I know more about the NBA and NFL, and maybe that's because it's covered my more on ESPN. I don't know. But I was trying to pick right up where I left off with baseball, trying to learn more about the game and its players. Then all the sudden, my other favorite team, the Pittsburgh Pirates started to dominate in June. Previous to this season, the Pirates hadn't had a winning season in 19 years. The Pirates were playing great ball and I thought they were gonna make the playoffs. And then... they collapsed. They became the first team to ever be 16 games over .500 with two thirds of the season complete and still finish the season with a losing record. The term "heartbreak" came to mind, something I've known way too much about as a sports fan.

Are the Cubs or Pirates going to win the World Series this year? Definitely not. However both teams are doing a good job of putting the pieces in place for the future. In 2015 we could see both teams battling it out for the NL Central Division Title. 

This year is going to be interesting. We had some huge deals in the off-season and the Astros are moving to the NL West to finally balance out the league. Seriously, how come we've had 30 teams in the MLB, with 16 in the National League and 14 in the American League? Six teams in the NL Central and four in the AL West? Makes no sense to me. We still have the problem of the designated hitter. It's no fair that the AL has a designated hitter for their pitchers while the NL doesn't. When the two teams meet in interleague play or in the World Series, whoever has home-field advantage has the game played their way. People will argue over whether or not the designated hitter is a good thing for the game... that's not what I'm talking about. The people in favor of the designated hitter will say it's good because it protects pitchers from getting injured when they aren't pitching, while old school thinkers will say that all nine players on the field should hit in the lineup. I don't side with either of those arguments. However I do think that if you're going to have a designated hitter, it should be in both leagues. Some will say that the NL has a bigger advantage when the two teams meet because the pitchers are used to hitting. I disagree. All pitchers have hit at some time in their life. Chances are some of those pitchers were the best hitters on their high school teams. It's not like you're taking a punter on a football team and putting him in on offensive line to get pummeled. The NL has no advantage. The AL has a huge advantage because they have to sign someone as their designated hitter because they'll be playing there every day during the regular season. The NL has to take someone off their bench and put them in at DH. It simply isn't fair. There are other problems I have with the MLB, specifically the salary cap which allows teams like the Yankees and Angels to spend big money on free agents when small-market teams like Tampa Bay are haunted by the thought of free agency because to them it means they won't be able to pay their guys and they'll lose them. I won't dive too much further into my problems with the league, however the fact that the Astros are moving to the AL is a good thing and it certainly is a step in the right direction.

This off-season we also said goodbye to the third-to-first pick-off move, which will now be ruled as a balk. That rule change won't only affect MLB, but everything below it. From college, to high school, to little league. That move wasn't used very often in the bigs, however it is interesting whenever the rules change. This off-season showcased Los Angeles' ability to lure big name players to its city. While the Yankees normally are the heavy spenders, we didn't hear much from them. The Dodgers gave Zack Greinke a massive deal and my favorite player Josh Hamilton fled the Rangers for a division rival. The Blue Jays jumped in on the Marlins fire sale and completely reloaded their team, also trading for NL Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey from the Mets. It will be interesting to see how things shape up this year. Will teams that spend big be rewarded? Or will small market teams like the A's and Rays be the favorites in October. I will preview it all in my MLB Preview, which I will post tonight or early tomorrow. Got any questions you would like me to answer in post? Comment and let me know. Or as always you can hit me up on twitter @vellvita7. Thanks for reading guys, hope to make this MLB preview a good one!

Good Friday Journal

If you are someone that normally reads or keeps up with my blog, I've been writing a lot lately about my favorite show, Survivor, and right now there's so much I can talk about with the show. I plan to write a couple blogs before the next episode, but I thought I'd hold off on that for now. Also, as you all know, I'm a huge sports fan and there's a ton going on the NCAA Tournament that I could write about. But that's something I feel that I should hold off on too. You see, tomorrow is one of the biggest days in history to me. Tomorrow is Good Friday. Quite honestly, this week I've heard more talk from Christians on the gay marriage discussion than I have heard about Good Friday. This is very saddening to me. I've heard Christians from both sides saying things on the topic. That's not something I want to dive in to because honestly I'm not sure if there is a right or wrong answer in terms of its legality. Regardless of my stance on the topic, I don't think it's worth it for me to throw myself into any arguments with people when we have Good Friday tomorrow. Also, I'm not saying that it's stupid to argue over the topic. I don't want to offend anyone supporting either side, but I just want to remind us all not to get too caught up on it and lose focus on the bigger things out there.

Right now, I'm on vacation with my family in Florida. One of the hardest things for me being on this trip is having to miss out on my church's Good Friday service. Every year my church puts together a remarkable service. Last year our media department put together a film for the service. They showed segments of the film throughout the service, having worship in between. At the end it was revealed to us that we were the ones that put Jesus on the cross. Because of our sin, he had to die. It was a very powerful video, and the last two years the service has had me in tears at some point. 

Often times we can forget what was done for us. We think we're entitled to things. We're prideful. We think we're the best. Sometimes I do stuff and in my head I'm thinking "check me out." Ben Willey, a great former youth pastor of mine once compared the things we do to a picture. Often times we do stuff and it looks great on the surface. But then we zoom in more and more, and it's eventually pixelized. We're selfish. We think our way's the best. Again, we're prideful. They say the root of all sin is pride. We point fingers. We blame other things for our flaws. We're cowardly. We're humans. We're imperfect.

When I was little, I never understood the fall of man. What happened with Adam and Eve in the garden? I would blame them for my sin. What I didn't realize until I was older is that Adam and Eve were representatives of us all. We all would have disobeyed God at some time. I thought Jesus died for everyone that had screwed up before him. But he died for all of us, and even though he's already died and paid the ultimate price, we continue to sin. Every time we sin, we say "you aren't enough, God, I need this too." It's like we're thirsty and God has water for us, but we're standing there saying, "but Lord, this is such good sand!" 

Another thing we often ask is how can a God of love send people to hell? But really we send ourselves to hell. Everyone has sinned and has sin in their life. Greg Laurie explains this perfectly, which you can see here. Heaven isn't for good people, it's for forgiven people. 

Anyway, going back to our main topic of discussion. Let's take a look at some scripture. Romans 8:23 reads "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Romans 6:23 says "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Right there, it says we can't do it on our own. We simply cannot get to Heaven by being a "good person" because we all have sinned and we are imperfect. Jesus came to change things. He came to open the kingdom of Heaven to everyone; everyone that chooses they want it. That's why he died on the cross for us. 

God sent his son to the earth to die. Think about that, Jesus was born to die. And he didn't just die in his sleep. God didn't just swoop him up to Heaven or anything like that. He died the most painful death imaginable, crucifiction. In fact the term "excruciating", which we like to use to talk about our own pain originated from the word crufiction. It literally means it feels like you're dying on a cross. Yeah, makes you think twice about saying that again, doesn't it? Jesus was betrayed and he was denied. He endured the ultimate amount of suffering a person can go through. Which is why it irks me when some pastors say that once you're a Christian, you no longer will suffer and everything will go good for you and nothing bad will happen to you. Jesus, the most godly man ever, knows a thing or two about suffering. And so does Paul. And Joseph. And I could go on, but I don't want to get too far off track. The Bible says that Jesus was actually sweating drops of blood the night before he was crucified. Jesus knows everything about pain from a mental/emotional standpoint. We may suffer as Christians, but joy can be found in suffering. 

As if it weren't enough for him to be betrayed by Judas, and denied by Peter, both of his disciples, he was mocked by many. He had to wear a crown of thorns. He had his hands nailed to the cross. He was dangling from the cross covered in blood and he was thinking of you. This is an image that just hits me hard. I've never watched the full movie of The Passion of the Christ, because I just can't stand seeing Christ suffer. But he did that for me. I was the cause of that. And so every time I feel tempted to sin, I should think about what he did for me on the cross, how much that cost him. Is it really worth it? Jesus died for me to do this? I have often taken this approach and suddenly the urge to sin is less appealing. 

With that said, I'm not a perfect person. I'm a sinner and I deserve death. I don't deserve anything. But because Jesus died on the cross and offered the free gift of salvation, I can be freed from my sin. I will continue to sin, but I've been forgiven and I don't want to sin. I want to grow closer to Jesus every day of my life, because he has given my life joy and meaning and excitement. There's so much I could say and go on about this. But I gotta wrap this up for your own sake and I guess my main point is to take some time tomorrow on Good Friday to remember what has been done for you. In order for us to get to the happiest day in history, we have to go through the darkest day in history. Jesus was beaten, bruised, spit on, mocked, and eventually crucified so that we may have life. He took what we all deserved, I guess that's why they call it grace. Think about that.

Covering the 6th Episode of Survivor

Hey guys, with a new episode of Survivor tomorrow, I thought it was time for me to write another blog on the show. To my casual readers that don't watch the show- I'm sorry. If you have any ideas on stuff you want me to write about, or if you want to hear my take on something, drop a comment and let me know what you want me to write. 

For those of you that are interested in reading my reviews, here we go. 

So entering this past episode, we said goodbye to Brandon Hantz. Thank goodness. As the episode closed, it started to make it look like there was some hope for the Fans tribe in future episodes. This past episode started with a tribe swap to shake things up. While in most seasons, a tribe swap can make the post-merge game more exciting and eliminate the threat of a Pagonging, I don't think they did this right in this season. The new Gota tribe, formerly the Fans tribe, consists of Malcolm, Reynold, Eddie, Erik, Brenda, Andrea and Sherri. The new Bikal tribe is made up of Phillip, Corinne, Cochran, Dawn, Matt, Mike, and Julia. So basically it went from being Fans vs. Favorites to people that are good at challenges vs. people that aren't very good at challenges. Seriously, the new Gota tribe looks like a group of superheroes. How did the three strongest men end up on the same tribe? The tribes were selected randomly, but I don't think that's the way the tribes should have been determined.

Jeff Probst gave each tribe a bowl of seven eggs with paint in them, with each egg containing the color of the castaways future tribe. In the bowl for the Fans, three of the eggs had orange (Gota) paint, and three had purple (Bikal). For the Favorites, they were also split equally, only this time four and four. Regardless of who picked what, the Favorites would have the numbers on both tribes. The Fans had no shot of obtaining the numbers in the episode and all they do is lose here. I guess if they're going to do it randomly, they should go all out random, meaning anyone could end up on either tribe. However, I think the best way to split the tribes is to have a school yard pick'em. It's the most interesting to the viewers and the most fair.way to do it. It prevents a tribe from being superior to another. It also lets people know where they stand in the game, which can increase the possibility of big moves. It simply isn't fair that one tribe has all the bros and big dogs while Phillip is the best challenge competitor of the other tribe. 

Anyway, as the episode progressed, we knew Bikal was going to be going to tribal council, and it was hinting at a potential Phillip-Corinne showdown. Bikal got smoked in the challenge by the young, fit Gota tribe. Over at Gota, Reynold and Eddie came over to Malcolm and started spewing out all their tribe's information to him. Malcolm and Andrea talked and agreed that it was still the Favorites against the Fans and that the fans will be picked off one-by-one (if they ever go to a tribal council). Andrea said she had a dream that Malcolm had the idol and asked him if he did, which he denied. Malcolm didn't want to find himself in a position like last season where everyone knew he had the idol. 

At Bikal, Phillip wanted to bring in Matt and Mike to Stealth R Us, but his tribe mates weren't a big fan of the idea. They feared that someone could have an idol. Matt went out of his way to tell them he did not have an idol. The Favorites alliance decided to put their votes on him. I think this might have been a blunder on Matt's part. If he had given them reason to think he might have an idol, they would have put their votes on either Julia or Matt and he probably would have stuck around for another three days. I also question the Favorites strategy here. I get that they plan on voting out all the Fans with the merge about to come up, but I think they should have been more careful here. There are no certainties in Survivor. While the four Favorites on the new Bikal want to get back together with the other four Favorites at the merge, you can't count on that happening. For example, I was recently rewatching Survivor: The Amazon, a season that started with the tribes split up by gender. At the merge the men had the numbers 6-4, but some of the guys like Rob Cesternino and Alex Bell had other ideas. They had made alliances with the women in their new tribe to create a new powerhouse that would shock their former tribemates and put them in a better situation. Right now, Malcolm is in a good spot in the Gota tribe. He's the top dog, and everyone's coming to him for strategy. He was in a position before where he was in the middle of a 6-8 person alliance, but now he can make whatever move he wants as he's in the driver's seat. He's also on a tribe with young guys that are similar to him, and you have to think that he'll be spending a lot of time with them because he's got a lot in common with them. This is a good opportunity for Malcolm to put himself in a better spot. In the original Fans vs. Favorites, Parvati formed alliances with a pair of the Fans, Alexis Jones and Natalie Bolton and put herself in a position that would eventually win her the game. Ozzy thought they would go into the merge and get back together but Parvati got people together and blindsided him in the second post-merge episode. 

With all that said, I think it would have been a wiser move for the Favorites alliance to try to bring in Matt and Mike for the time being and vote out Julia. I understand that they see Matt and Mike as a tight pair that could maybe sway Corinne over to them, but I think they could have gotten Matt and Mike to work for them. When your backs are to the wall, you really don't have a choice and I think Matt would have been a good ally and a good piece for them going forward. Also, Matt gives them a better shot at winning challenges. If they get to the merge and it's clear that all of the Favorites want to get back together and eliminate the Fans, then that's fine, they could easily cut Matt and Mike then. I think this could have been a costly mistake that could easily go unnoticed. 

While this wasn't a great episode, I'm glad that we're back to strategy and not watching Brandon Hantz blow up. I feel like we're in a position right now that we're slowly picking off the Fans to get to a good post-merge game. This season was pretty hyped up and if we don't have a good post-merge game, a lot of people will be very disappointed. But I still have hope. We'll probably get another boring episode or two, and then once the merge hits, hopefully, craziness and unpredictability ensues. And hopefully for Phillip, and the other three members of Stealth R Us on his tribe, this past episode wasn't the undoing of their game. 

The Meltdown: Covering the 5th Episode of Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites

Alright here's an article that very few of you will be interested in reading. But whatever you got an article earlier today and this is my blog! :) Or maybe some of you will be interested, who knows?

This past week's episode of Survivor was one of the most controversial in the show's history. I thought it was only fair to my fellow Survivor fans that read my blog to get my take on the episode.

To those that don't watch the show and are still reading, first, thanks! I appreciate that you're interested in my writing! And second allow me to give you a little background information and a recap of what happened. This is the 26th season of Survivor, and every few years or so, the producers of show like to have all-star seasons, where a group of players that have already played before come back for a second shot at winning the million dollars. Even some winners will come back to try to win again- which has happened only once. In 2010, Sandra Diaz-Twine became the first Survivor player to ever win the game twice, and in both of her appearances. Anyway, since it's been a few years since the last all-star season, the producers decided to bring back a twist they did in season 16. Ten returning players that have never won and have only played once come back to take on a tribe of ten fans, in a game where only one will remain to win the million dollar prize. They call the season Fans vs. Favorites, which has upset some people because not all the "favorites" are actually favorites of the people watching at home and people question whether all the "fans" are actual fans of the show because Survivor has recruited people in the past.

When I first saw who would be returning to play this season, I was excited to see about 6 or 7 of them, then there were a couple I was kinda "eh, alright" and then there were two I really didn't think belonged there. Those two, Francesca Hogi from Survivor: Redemption Island and Brandon Hantz from Survivor: South Pacific. Francesca was the first person voted out on her season. While she seemed like a kind individual, she didn't appear to me to be a good player. How could she be a "favorite" if she was only on one and a half episodes? I looked at it as a waste of a spot where another good returning player could come back and play.

As for Brandon Hantz, that was different. The first time Brandon played was a year ago, at the age of 19. Brandon wasn't particularly interesting in his pre-show interviews which made it apparent that the only reason they cast him was because of his relation to Survivor bad boy Russell Hantz. Russell Hantz was one of the worst villains ever. He lied and told people that his house was flooded in Hurricane Katrina to get sympathy from people, then went and poured out the water of his tribe mates and even burned one of his tribe mates' socks. In his first two seasons he managed to make it to the end of the game. Many people that watched the show loved him and thought he was a strategic mastermind because of the way the show edited him, but in actuality he was just a poor social player and people knew that if they took him to the end no one would vote for him. Sorry to get offtrack but throughout Survivor: South Pacific, the editors kept reminding us that Brandon was Russell's nephew. In his confessionals, when it would normally show a player's occupation, it would just say "Russell Hantz's Nephew". In one episode they even showed an image of Russell walking on the beach comparing Brandon's walk to Russell's.

Anyway, in Brandon's season, he came out and said he wanted to play the game like a hero. In the first episode, I liked the guy. But over the course of the season he was having emotional problems. He always felt conflicted when he would lie or do something wrong. He was clearly having drastic emotional highs and lows. I felt bad for the guy. Clearly Survivor was not good for him. Being deprived of food, sleep, and having to live on an island in a game where you vote people off was not a good thing for him. He was crying several times on the show. He seemed like a guy that wanted to do good and do the right thing but had some anger problems or something he couldn't get rid of.

He had a returning player on his season, Benjamin "Coach" Wade that helped take care of him. Coach was obviously looking out for himself and doing what was best for his game but he also felt for Brandon and wanted to help him in his alliance. He acted as a father figure to him. When they got to the final five, Brandon won immunity and was sitting in a pretty good place with only a couple tribal councils to go until the final one. Everyone was prepared to send home this one guy named Albert, but Albert was able to convince Brandon to give him his immunity and then Brandon was voted out. Brandon was devastated and felt betrayed and crushed by Albert and Coach, two guys he thought were truly his friends that were looking out for him. For the most part, they were looking out for him, until it got to the point where it was them or him. Because of this, Brandon came into this game angry, and didn't want anyone to do what had been done to him before.

There were a lot of questions about Brandon coming back. Many people such as myself were concerned for his well-being. I watched a livestream of two-time player Mike Skupin speaking at Northwestern recently and he said that it takes about two years for you to be in a good place psychologically before you play again... and that's for the average person. Another reason why I didn't want to see Brandon playing again was because in his first season they wasted so much airtime on him. It grew tiring. And he wasn't an all-star. He wasn't a favorite. There were so many other people that we fans do want to see play again and yet we're stuck with Brandon again.

Over the course of this season he has talked about how he knows he's next on the chopping block and how he wants to "go out with a bang". He talked about peeing in the tribe's rice and beans and burning the shelter to the ground. I listen to Rob Has a Podcast, a reality podcast hosted by Survivor Hall of Famer Rob Cesternino. On his podcast he mentioned how Brandon's uncle- Russell's brother- Willie Hantz had been put on last summer's season of Big Brother, another CBS reality show. Big Brother and Survivor were filmed at the exact same time. Once it became apparent to Willie that he was getting voted out of the house, he decided he wanted to "go out with a bang" which can be seen here. Willie got kicked off the show for head-butting another contestant, violating the rules. So how do we know that the Hantz's didn't get together before they left for their respective shows and plan this?

In the preview before this week's episode, they showed Brandon pouring out the rice and throwing a temper tantrum, yelling and cursing at his tribemates, specifically 54 year-old Phillip Sheppard, with Jeff Probst narrating "Every season has that one moment that no one ever forgets". This had me worried.

In the actual episode, it started by showing some stuff going on with the fans' tribe. The first thing they showed with the favorites was Brandon talking about how he wants to quit the game because he misses his family, and so he wants them to vote him out at the next tribal council. This got me to thinking about what would I do if I was a player on his tribe. I would be happy and gladly vote him out to help advance myself to the next round of the game. The next morning Brandon gets up and says he doesn't want to leave the game. As the episode progresses he gets angrier and angrier in his confessionals, most of the anger towards Phillip. Meanwhile the favorites talk about letting go of Brandon because of unpredictability and outbursts. They fear that if they upset him again he could go crazy and hurt someone.

At the challenge, two castaways on each tribe must hold a rope that is connected to a net that the other tribe is throwing coconuts in. If you let the rope go and the net falls to the ground, you are out of the challenge, last person standing wins for their tribe. Brandon and Phillip were holding the ropes for the Favorites. Brandon let his go eventually and Phillip held on for the tribe's victory. Jeff Probst even said "Phillip! Wins reward for the Favorites!" After the challenge Brandon is annoyed by how Phillip is getting so much praise for winning the challenge and being the hero. His angers continues to build and build. Phillip tells Andrea that they want to throw the challenge and get rid of Brandon, which Andrea later hints at to Brandon. Brandon confronts Phillip and finally snaps. He yells to his tribe "I'm gonna give you all a reason to vote me out." As Brandon proceeds to dump the rice container out, we hear his tribe mates yelling "BRANDON! NO!" Brandon then takes the beans and Brandon's friend and ally Erik Reichenbach tries to stop him, but Brandon threatens to hit him and continues to pour out the beans.

Phillip walks away to prevent Brandon from attacking him or letting things to get physical. Brandon then starts yelling and cursing and continuously saying things along the lines of "I'm the author of my fate." We see his tribe mates crying and down in the dumps, and you can't help but feel bad for them. What wasn't shown in the episode was that his tribe mates hid the machete from him because they were actually scared of him. They think he's lost his mind. Castaway John Cochran even compared Brandon's mind to that of a serial killer earlier in the season. We finally saw the meltdown that was hyped up to us.

The Favorites get to the immunity challenge and let Probst know they're going to forfeit immunity so that they can go to tribal council. At that moment, Brandon continues his ridiculous meltdown. It got to the point where Probst had to bring him over to where he was standing to separate him from the rest of the Favorites. From here on, things just got ridiculous and it basically turned into an episode of Jerry Springer. Brandon was verbally abusing his tribe, and most of the people tried to ignore him, but Phillip couldn't help but stand up to him. It happened two or three times during this scene where Brandon and Phillip are shouting at each other and it even escalated to the point where Brandon threatened to "knock [Phillip's] f***ing head off." Twice Brandon started to walk in the direction of the Favorites, and Probst had to do his best to calm him down. Probst put his hands on his shoulders and started massaging him, doing whatever he could to relax him.

Eventually Jeff decides to call an audible and have tribal council right there, on the spot, where the contestants would verbally vote for who they wanted out. Probst knew that he couldn't have Brandon going back to camp with the rest of his tribe. It was too dangerous. So he had them verbally cast their votes, where they unanimously voted Brandon out of the tribe. The video can be seen here.

I believe this is the second time in the history of Survivor where a player was voted out verbally at a challenge. In Survivor: Palau, at the final 3, Tom Westman voted Ian Rosenberger verbally at a challenge, however the circumstances were different. Firstly, Tom won immunity and would be the only one voting anyway, so no matter what the confidentiality would be the same- we would all eventually know who Tom was voting for. This was different. Look, I don't have a problem with them voting him out there and then. But Jeff should have had the Fans leave before they voted and spilled out tons of information about their tribe.

This truly was one of the most upsetting episodes in the history of the show. It felt like you were watching a horror movie where you were just waiting and waiting for what you knew was going to happen. Brandon was clearly brought back for the purpose of stirring things up and creating drama. I'm not going to say Brandon's bipolar or anything, I'm not a psychologist, however they should have never brought someone back that has been known to have fits of rage. Fans of the show don't want to see that. They want to see strategy. Probst always says he makes the show for the fans that watch at home. He loves his fans and he loves Survivor, but why doesn't he realize that us fans don't want to see that? That isn't Survivor. If we want that we can watch Jerry Springer. There was absolutely no strategy involved in this episode. Perhaps we hold Survivor to hire standards in both ethics and quality. But for someone like me that loves watching this show, loves seeing the strategy and game-play and has to watch episodes like last week's, it's very frustrating. I hope Survivor isn't on its last legs. It truly is a great show and I hope it can be added to the group of Wheel of Fortune and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, shows that have an endless lifespan.

This episode could however change the show. Will people be threatening to pour out the rice and beans and burn the shelter down when they're next on the chopping block? Will every vote then have to be a blindside? And how will this change casting future seasons? Will production look at this as a close call and something they're going to have to prevent in the future? Or will they see it as one of the best things to ever happen to the show and will they cast more crazy people? There are a lot of questions for a show that has yet to be officially renewed for another year of television.

How should have production handled the Hantz meltdown? I think Brandon should have been ejected and thrown out of the game. The rules state that you will be ejected if you do physical harm to another contestant, for example hitting them. I think pouring out your tribe's rice and beans is doing physical harm to someone and is unacceptable. If they eject him then they can set a precedent so that no one will act like this again on the show... but that might not be what they want. Survivor got very lucky here that no one actually got hurt. I think the production team needs to give the Favorites tribe a new container of rice and beans, because you can't have them live without that because of how one person acted.

Jeff Probst had hyped this season up to be a great one and it isn't looking like it yet. I really hope the tribe swap and the post-merge game will shake things up and give us that great season we want to see.

I hope you guys enjoyed my first Survivor blog. Drop a comment and let me know. Thanks everyone who actually read this!

March Madness Bracket Journal

It's been almost two months since my last blog post. I've been busy looking for a job, and hopefully I can write a blog soon catching you up on once been going on in my life during that time. But let's get to it.

It's that time of year again. The time where 68 teams are tested in the best playoff system in all of sports: the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Almost all of you that read this will be asked to join a March Madness pool within the next couple of days, whether it be with your friends, your office, your college, your church, or whatever it may be. There are 9,223,373,036,854,780,000 different ways you can fill out your bracket. The possibilities are endless. And that's what makes it so fun.

I'm no expert when it comes to college basketball. It differs each year how much I know about the NCAA. And part of that is due to NBA commissioner David Stern's rule that won't allow players from high school to go straight to the NBA. Don't get me started on that one, I could and might even write a whole blog about that in the future, but anyway, the point is because players can't go from high school to the NBA, we get an immense amount of "one and done" players that only stay for one year of college and then leave for the NBA. That makes it trickier to follow the sport each year because underclassmen are constantly coming in and out and teams can change so much from one year to the next. Take Kentucky for example. Last year they won the National Championship with what some consider to be one of the greatest teams ever assembled, and this year they didn't make the tournament. Let's not forget that their best player and future NBA lottery pick Nerlens Noel tore his ACL, but even before that, they weren't the same powerhouse they were last year. The point is, if you don't watch a lot of college basketball, it's difficult to learn and know a lot about the game and the teams playing. There are years where I'm watching tons of college basketball, and there are years like this one where I've hardly watched any.

I guess I would consider myself this year as a casual fan. But anyway, I want to write a blog for the rest of you casual fans, or even those that don't follow at all. I want to show why there's hope for you and how you can beat those in your pool that are know-it-alls or experts.

The tournament is a crazy thing. We've had years where the top teams run things to the end with hardly any upsets along the way, and then we have crazy years where no one could have predicted the final four. If this year's regular season is any indication of the tournament, no one is safe and we could be seeing one of the best tournaments ever. Predicting the tournament is a beautiful mix of knowledge and luck.

So how do I make my picks? For someone that hasn't watched a whole lot of college basketball the past two or three seasons until right before tournament time, I've used the tournament as a tool to help me predict. I think the tournament is the ultimate test of a team's durability, so when I look at who the lower seeds are in the tournament, I look back on their history. The perfect example was three years ago, when 14 seed Ohio (Not Ohio St.) beat 3 seeded Georgetown. It was an upset that shocked everyone. So when Ohio made the tournament again last year as a 13 seed, I had them beating 4 Michigan (which they did), and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen (which they did).

What does a team's experience in the tournament say about them? It says that they're well-coached, and if they have upset someone in recent history it has helped put them on the map and help their recruiting. And also when they get back to the tournament, they have guys who are experienced and are confident that they can do it again. So when you're looking for your upsets, look at teams that have done it before.

When you're trying to pick a winner, you can also use tournament history. Although it may be trickier. Some teams like Syracuse consistently lose and letdown their fans each year. However, there are also teams like Duke that lose some disappointing games (example: 15 seed VCU beating them in 2007) that can come back only more determined and ready like they did in 2010 when they won the national championship.

So who am I picking? Right now I'm in the early stages of forming my bracket. But let's just say I have high hopes for Miami, Memphis and Michigan. Stay tuned.