U.K. Survivor Update: HOORAY! I hereby take back everything bad I said about ITV on Friday. In addition to showing Survivor two nights a week, they’re also showing a two-hour recap of the week’s episodes every Saturday night! (Well, I don’t know about every, but they sure did tonight.) So I got to watch the second episode and boy, was it good.

• The bug eating was great. They were all so hungry by that point that a few of them really seemed to savor the big, meaty grubs. Snookums declared that he couldn’t eat them if they were wriggling, but I felt that I probably could, as long as I didn’t have to go first.
• The immunity challenge was much harder than it sounded on paper. The teams had to build stretchers in 15 minutes, and then four from each team had to race through the jungle to find their missing teammate. On the way back, the path was narrow and as one of the Ular carrier’s went down, it looked like Helang would overtake. Eve, who was *on* the stretcher, however, threw her body in the path of Helang and managed to slow them down. It all came down to the final sprint, when one of the Helang guys collapsed three times. Weenie. I was especially heartened to see that Ular, the winning team, actually had a girl (Sarah, the model) as a carrier.
• Lots more swearing this time. The best was when J.J. got mad that everything had washed away and the whole camp was untidy and they kept losing things. She let lose with a tirade that’d curl your hair. That was the nail in the coffin for her, I think.
• When J.J. finally did get voted off, her final moment was pretty venomous. She turned to the group and spat out, “I know exactly who voted for me” before literally running off into the jungle. And during the closing interview, she ranted about Charlotte (even rolling her eyes at the very name, like I do at the fact that Charlotte brought no less than THREE bikinis with her) and called her the most useless person on the team. That woman has issues.
• Funniest moment: watching schoolmarm-ish Jayne brutally whack a shark upside the head with a rock so she could eat it for supper.

And “Big Brother” started today too! I’m in a time-sucking vortex of reality television. I’d say I pity you American folks faced with nothing but re-runs… except I’m going to be back in the USA myself this time next week!

Score one for the Yankees! (No, not the baseball team.) A federal appeals court has overturned the injunction against “The Wind Done Gone”. I’ve already checked Amazon and it’s not up for pre-order yet. It’s supposed to be out by the end of June though. I’m definitely stoked to read it.

Speaking of bombs… Dirk says: “I was influenced.” Whoa! Can I get a reaction, Max?

I know I don’t normally blog so much news, but there’s just tons of interesting stuff on the wires today. And some of it’s a matter of life and death! (Don’t hyperventilate, Ma. The Hammersmith Bridge is the only place they’d want put a bomb around here, and I’m far enough away from that.) Summertime excitement!

The old comments have all been added to the system! Yes, your deluded rants and ravings have now been preserved for Internet posterity.

What do you call your significant other? (Hypothetically, then, if you don’t have one.) I know Brigita likes “SigOth”. I generally just call mine “Snookums.” Or when I’m talking to others, he’s my “boy” or my “boyfriend” or my “honey bunny poopie pie.” (Just kidding about that last one.)

Well, that explains where MetaFilter has gone. And here I figured it probably had something to do with that damn Kaycee story.

Gael linked to an interesting cultural experiment of sorts: lists written by people of various nationalities detailing the way they live and the things they think. The ones I can vouch for (American, British, and German) are pretty much spot-on. Is your country represented? You should send one in. (I’m trying to get Snookums to do Australia.)

Hey, Jann (and everybody)! I just added a checkbox to make weblog links open in new windows. It’s over there in the yellow box at the left. Ask and ye shall receive.