Life is a Journey Constantly Turning Down an Unknown Path

The Patriots, Georgetown, Duke, UConn, and Kristi Jo. If you think your bracket and all of your prognosticating ability was trashed, you're just stepping into my torment. From Sunday the 16th to Sunday the 23rd, several of my prominent predictions came up empty. It was rough, a seemingly endless parade of failure upon failure to see into the future. It was like taking the other exit off the freeway, thinking that if you just catch a little more than half the lights that you'll save time, only to hit every red light on the way, and get stuck behind a traffic accident. Yeah, it sucked.
I have to start chronologically, simply so I know that I got them all. On that fateful Sunday the 16th, Kristi Jo, arguably the best looking, and clearly the one who had the strongest relationship with Bret, left the show. I would say she was booted, but she was given the option to stay or go. There were two girls left without passes and Bret told her that she could stay if she wanted to, or she could go if she felt she needed to. She walked. If you would have told me that it was going to happen that way before the epsiode started, I would have asked you to leave my presence and began forgetting your existence. I had her in the final four for sure. Out of all of them, I had her going as the favorite, posting at 5-2 odds. And she bails leaving five girls to compete.
Sure, she did cause more turmoil in the house than any two other girls combined. Yes, she was married and had only told her husband that she wanted to get a divorce at the beginning of the episode... over the phone. Of course, she did spend half her time crying and the other half winning Bret's emotions. To be honest, she had all the pieces that you would need for a reality victor. Great for the ratings, fantastic for drama, and very soft on the eyes. However, she couldn't handle it all, and in what came to be ominous of the week's events, the goliath's began to fall.
Wednesday the 19th: I've spoken about my passion for this before. It is deep and it is fierce. Sleep has taken a back seat to it, and I love my sleep. It's the Gauntlet, brought to you by MTV, and it is fantastic. This season was stellar, and a changing of the guard wherein many of the standard players have hung up their respective bikini's or speedo's. But what it will be remembered for is how simply dominant the Veteran team was. They started with 16 and finished with 12, while the Rookie team was whittled down to just six for the final challenge. That's right, the Vets went 10-4. Sure that may not sound impressive, but a closer examination makes it all the more impressive. Two of those losses were intentional. One of them was because the Rookies had a distinct advantage because their numbers were depleted already (They were down 3-0 at that point). The only legit loss was the last elimination challenge. It is arguable that have six members as opposed to 13 made it easier to balance the platform, but still, the rookies did it, and I'll give them that victory as a legitimate one for them. So really, the Vets could easily have gone 12-0 in non-team size dependent challenges, and 12-2 overall. Easily. Maybe they could have gone 13-1. That's obscenely dominate in the challenge, where producers try to balance out the teams.
Heading into the final challenge, it became extremely clear that the Veterans had it all but in the bag. Unfortunately for them, the bag was not big enough for the 300+ pound Eric. How he was physically cleared to do these challenges in the first place is amazing. No really, if you saw this guy your first thought would never be, "Ooh, I want him on my team in a competition of endurance and agility." It just isn't. He's not even getting drafted. Maybe someone will let him tryout and if he's lucky get a contract on a practice squad, but he's never seeing the field.
It would be like if you saw Boomer Wells walking past the track as you were training for the Tour de France. You're not asking him what his helmet size is.
Needless to say, when the first two legs are a half mile swim and mile run, the Vets were so far behind, binoculars were needed. There were five stages, and by the time the vets got to the second, the Rookies were done with the third, and by the time the Vets finished the third, the Rooks were working on the fifth. They were that far ahead. And here's where it gets completely crazy. Eric passes out and goes into heat stroke. (In case you were wondering, that's what heat stroke looks like. Inability to visually focus, decreased mental status, muscle fatigue, loss of coordination, yeah those are the classical signs of heat stroke. Short, rapid breathing, yep, that too, and by the way, when that happens, you start looking for a stretcher. Walking, much less running, is no longer an option.) They call the ambulance, and after probably ten minutes, they take him away. The Vets rightfully think it's all over and that they'll never be able to catch the rookies, but decide to press on anyway. The kicker is that they actually catch up to the rooks, and pass them. The last stage involved raising a flag, which the vets did long before the rooks, but the horn doesn't sound indicative of victory.
No Eric, no victory. Because of an all-team-members-must-be-at-the-finish rule, the vets were de facto disqualified. The Rooks take their time, and after being pounded day in and day out by the superior Vets, they win it all and walk away with the $300K, while the Vets leave only with the shirts on their backs. Un..be..lievable. It's hard to make comparisons of this in other sports. The closest would be if Colorado actually beat Boston in the World Series because it turns out, there was some rule that you couldn't use a DH in game 7, and we all would agree that Dice-K is not an exact replacement for David Ortis. Rockies would win and everyone would leave the stadium dazed, questioning how long Rocktober will last. (Honestly, had the Rockies won, couldn't you have seen people saying that Rocktober lasted from the beginning of their winning streak all the way until the victory parade through Denver? It would have been a 45-day imaginary month, that everyone knew about. Kids would have been told all over Colorado that Rocktober was real, and this would have lead to all sort of psychological trauma. If you want to find a silver lining for the Bosox win, this is it. And maybe that it will start a backlash against the Bosox.)
If I was thinking about it all back then, I probably would have reviewed my bracket. But you don't alway realize that history is going on around you. How was I to know that the biggest reality upsets ever would be during the same week as the opening round of March Madness? (Again, it makes so much sense in hindsight, but so does voting against Mr. T) No really, who picked Western Kentucky, Davidson, and Villanova to all make it to the sweet sixteen? Did anyone even have two of them going? (If you check, the leader in all of the brackets received by ESPN had all 16 members correctly, picked, while the guy tied with him missed one of them, but got more of the earlier round correct to tie it up.) Had I seen it coming, I would have gone with Davidson getting as far as they did. The other two I still would have bounced in the first round though.
So how does the week end? Right where it began. That's right, Rock of Love. With five left, all the ugo's are gone. Well, all but Destiney. How she is still there is the definition of no news is good news. She raised her voice to Kristi Jo once, and that was quickly forgotten as KJ flew off the handle. Now, beyond that, think of any other instance where Destiney stood out from the others. Go ahead. Search VH1's database if you want. You won't find one. It doesn't exist. It's up there with, "Where the heck was Jessica the first month and a half of the show?" as the greatest enigmas of this season. (And where was she? No really, I want her to win. I like Ambre because I think she's the most level-headed, but I want Jessica to win, mostly because she's short, energetic, attractive and relatively conservative. Essentially means that she hasn't stripped before, but you take what you can get with Rock of Love contestants.)
The best looking one, now with KJ gone, is hands down Megan. This is not up for debate. She's scoring a 75-80 on every measurable. Except for intelligence. Dumb as a brick doesn't fit, because the brick will actually change a little bit to make a better fit, given enough pressure in that direction. Not Megan. She's permanently dumb. She would be the ultimate test in the "Could you date a dumb chick, even if she was smoking hot?" conundrum. The two extremes are not better unified into one person than Megan.
Needless to say, I had her as a finalist. You see where this is going already don't you? Yep, she got the boot last night. Now, even though you know how it ends, I would recommend catching the last ten minutes of the episode. Her reaction is priceless and really all you need to know about her. After she is told her time is up, she stands there, silently, slowly shaking her head. For ten minutes. To the point where everyone else starts making facial reactions to it. To the point where Bret repeats himself twice to make sure she understands. Hilarious. Remember 50-cent's reaction to Britney Spears's comback at the VMA's? Like that.
Now, I'm left to openly root for Jessica to take it all, wait anxiously for the next Real World/Road Rules challenge and hope my other three final four NCAA teams can hold on. Word.