Drove over 2000 miles last weekend to go our friends daughters wedding in Warm Springs, GA. Had a great time and congratulations to the new couple. The drive was long, but really not that bad. We stopped several times for gas and food (Loving my Prius Prime and the 50+ mpg). Shout out to Jersey Mike’s Subs for being supportive, and super helpful preparing a gluten free sub. We used Google Maps, and it seems that they have upgraded things, as it knew every road and turn to make, and even diverted us from road closures and sever weather.

The weekend before last, I also drove a lot as I headed to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center for the 80th Philly Non-Sport Card show. I went both Saturday and Sunday as they were giving out different promo cards each day. They even gave out a 2 exclusive Garbage Pail Kids Metal Promos for those who stayed to the end on Sunday.

Thanks to Non-Sport Update for the free promo packs each day, and to Rittenhouse Archives / Cryptozoic / Ted Dastick Jr. for handing out additional promos at their boots. I also won a prize at the Rittenhouse booth which was a nice surprise.

Rittenhouse Archives had some cool cards from their upcoming “Cheers” card set. Looking forward to this and to see what they do with this set. Hopefully it leads to a few more sets based on classic old TV shows.

I was also able to pick up a bunch of Star Wars and Star Trek insert cards for my sets. It’s getting hared to find older inserts (at a decent price) so was happy with what I got.

All and all, it was a fun two days of seeing old and new collectors and browsing through all the different types of cards (Autographs / Sketch / Memorabilia / Inserts)

I actually enjoyed Survivor Season 46 and was glad the Kenzie was the winner. She played a great social game and was able to get people to genuinely like her. It’s very hard to really connect with people and not have them feel you are being fake or multipartive towards them. A while back, players started thinking that the way to sway the jury’s vote in your favor was to gather information about each player during the game and then repeat it back to them, showing that you really care about them. The difficult part of this is being genuine and believable. I felt that Kenzie was a genuine nice person and truthfully cared about helping the other contestants. Really listening and caring about others is a skill and something that future Survivor contestants (hopefully myself) should really focus on. The current jurys want to like you as much and maybe even more than just look at your accomplishments. Telling them that it was your big move to vote them off now comes across as degrading unlike years ago when big moves were what would get you votes. Kenzie did the best of adapting to the current mindset of the contestants (and all people in general) in realizing what the jury wanted to see and hear.

Read this article by Rob Has A Podcast host Rob Cesterino about how things have changed over the years as far as the way the game is played. Similar to what I have said, you need to adapt to the times if you want to win Survivor, even if its not making big moves, or padding your resume for the jury. You need to get the jury to like and respect you and want to vote for you regardless of how you play the game.

As for the game play in general, I do agree with several things I have read that the format has gotten a bit stale. The producers (including #JeffProbst) seem to be focusing on getting players to play one way, while the players are playing a different way. This has made things a bit slow and underwhelming. When you have five players get voted off with immunity idols in there pockets, things need to be re-evaluated. I can’t pretend to understand what goes through people’s minds, but I don’t understand why people wouldn’t keep them self safe for another day. Were they afraid that if they played and idol, that they would become the main target the following week? Did they want to hold on to their idols so they could tell the jury, “I had and idol and didn’t need to play it”? Were they really just that unaware of what was going on and believed it when everybody said they were safe (even after the blind sides the week before). While blindsides used to be interesting (I liked it when people were completely shocked, surprised and genuinely upset when they got voted off). This season (and in the new era), is seems people are happy they got blindsided and take it as a complement for playing a good game. This does irk me. When I am a contestant, my goal will be to win and do whatever it takes. I would not be concerned about how other people judge me or my game.

As far as idea to make things a bit more inserting, they need to get rid of the beware advantages. Penalizing people for finding an advantage just seems counter intuitive. I understand they want to make people work for things, but I’m guessing that people would play harder if the reward was positive instead of a potential negative. You can still make it a multi-step process (I liked when they made the players have to say crazy things to get others to respond), but take away the lost vote penalty part and I believe things would would be better. Also put a time frame of things from the beginning. Idols should have to be played within two tribal councils once found. You could even have it so that you could leave an idol after you found it and then go back and get it later if you wanted to risk things. In the meantime, if somebody else happens to find it, then you would be out of luck.

I would also look to change the fire making challenge at the final 4. This seems to be universally un-liked since it was introduced. Having somebody who worked hard all game and win the last immunity challenge should not have to possibly give up there immunity and have to wind the fire making challenge to prove that they deserve to be in the final 3. You could have the 3 people left all make fire with the first two to complete it going to the final 3. This takes the choice away form the winner.

I have some more ideas and will post them next time

Time to run

#PEACE

Average Andy

PS — Still sad that CBS decided to cancel CSI:Las Vegas. The show was really good and was really enjoying it. Hopefully it comes back in some way (streaming or even another network).