Rock the Boat, Work the Middle, Change Positions

Last week was a very sad one on Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Inferno II as our biker boy Brad was eliminated by Abram. Man, did that ever suck. There were just so many more annoying people that I felt should have gone first. But hey, Abram stepped up and performed when he had to, and that is the essence of the Inferno. Before Brad and Abram had their match, Brad helped us demonstrate some of the more crazy things that can happen when you are drunk. A wedgie from The Miz turned the waistband of Brad’s boxers into a necklace, and turned Brad into a raving lunatic. But if you thought the drunken antics would be eliminated now that Brad is gone, you surely don’t know Derrick or Landon.If you watched any of the Philadelphia season of Real World, you know that Landon loves to get drunk, and when he gets drunk, sometimes bad things happen. Remember that time he almost pulled a knife on Mel’s friends? Her friends did suck, and maybe you were actually rooting for them to get poked, but I think you know what I mean. Landon got so drunk in the beginning of the episode, the producers thought it was worthy of the groggy vision filter on the camera during the footage of him walking outside.

The guys on this show are naturally competitive, although some may say it’s just too much testosterone. Landon says a few things to Derrick like “Your sister was enjoyable,” which naturally starts a fight. During the fracas, Landon is slammed up against a car, and Derrick somehow has his ear nearly ripped off. Landon has blood on his back somehow, and Derrick is sent to get stitches.

Returning to their house, Landon had trouble walking up the stairs, and this wasn’t just a “oops, I tripped on the stairs” type of thing, he literally couldn’t hold his equilibrium long enough to walk vertically. If I had a choice of driving with Landon or Ben Sanderson from Leaving Las Vegas (you know, the guy who drank himself to death), I would choose Mr. Sanderson every time- at least that guy knew he had a problem. With the help of his friends, Landon was able to make it up the stairs and into his bed, where he promptly passes out.

Any time you pass out so hard, and you are sharing a home full of idiots, you have to watch out for people drawing things on your face. My 2+ years living in the fraternity house taught me this. Never fall asleep anywhere unless a door is locked behind you. People will come in and draw all over you, doesn’t matter where you are. They likely will write something very nice like “PUSSY” on your forehead or perhaps a cock and balls, most likely with a dotted line of pee/jizz aimed towards your mouth. The same fate befell Landon, as Mike started the festivities with an “ENTER PENIS HERE” on his back with an arrow pointed at his ass. Everybody else proceeded to give Landon some impromptu Sharpie tats, and then Derrick came home.

Derrick was really upset that he didn’t get to have fun while people were drawing things on Landon, not to mention there was barely any room left on his back to write anything, so Derrick decided on his own remedy. He grabbed a pair of clippers and put a nice little bald patch on the back of Landon’s head. Waking up the next morning, Landon was unfazed by either prank. You sort of had the feeling that this kind of stuff happened to him…a lot. He joked about it with Derrick and wasn’t upset at all.

Landon didn’t really know what to do about the bald spot, but everybody was encouraging him to shave his head, and not in any normal way; he had to shave his head in a way that would truly be worthy of the very special idiots that comprise the show. Whenever somebody is about to get their head shaved, it is like a national rule that you must first do a hard target search within a mile perimeter to find if there are any black guys around. Karamo’s gone, but Darrell is around, so he got the nod, and shaved Landon’s head, but left two racing stripes of hair just in case. Dan said it best, commenting that it looked like a “landing strip for dumbass airlines.”

For the next competition, they were to wear swimsuits in their team colors and tennis shoes, and when they got to the beach, they found Dave Mirra with a bale of hay, a plastic cow, and a papier mache wolf. The competition was called “Riddle Me This,” so you knew that it was going to be some sort of puzzle. I love it whenever there is a puzzle challenge or somebody decides that the competition has a component that requires some form of high-level thought. There is always this scramble to decide who is the smartest. “Oh, you want to two semesters of college? I went to three,” or ” You finished the ENTIRE crossword on the plane!” and “You can read?!”

This challenge wasn’t really that difficult, as the three items are a variation on a puzzle that we all likely learned as kids. You have a cow, a wolf, and hay. You have to get all three to an island across the river, but you can only carry one item at a time. If the cow is left with the hay, it will eat the hay. If the cow is left with the wolf, the wolf will eat the cow. Julie picked up on this right away and whispered the instructions to her team. The Bad Asses really didn’t know what was going on, but decided to go along anyway. Hey, the bad guys had enough trouble with the “wear swimsuits of your team colors” portion of the challenge, so who knew who was responsible for the deep analytical portion of the game.

As the competition started, Julie read the instructions to make sure she was correct, and she had nailed it on the head. The Good Guys got into their boat with the cow and began paddling for the island about 100 feet away, with the Bad Asses right behind them. They came back to shore, picked up the hay, and got to the other side. Since you can’t leave the cow with the hay, you had to bring the cow back. When they got to the shore, they took the wolf to the island, and the final trip was with the cow once again.

The Bad Asses had followed them pretty well, but everybody is an alpha male on this team, including the lesbians, so nobody was working together or giving any leadership, which slowed them down just a little bit. To make matters worse, they were taking on water every single time they got in and out of the boat. It wasn’t all that terrible, but it was really funny to watch them sink farther and farther down. The Good Guys had put the cow back on the island and were trying to leave when the Bad Asses tried some strategy. They decided that they were going to block in the Good Guys’ boat so that they couldn’t get back to the other side. Well, that’s great, but eventually they were going to have to put that cow on the shore, and when that happened, it gave the Good Guys enough of an opening to paddle back to victory. In this week’s moment of karma/cosmic justice, the Bad Asses managed to capsize their boat because it kept on filling with water. They just barely made it back to shore.

This win gave the Good Guys $50,000 and the Bad Asses $60,000. The game is still close, and anybody can win it. Inferno participants this week had to be decided next, and it was going to be a choice once again between Veronica and Tonya for the Good Guys. They decided that if Julie was picked, she would say Veronica; she really wanted to just pound her face in. If Jamie or Shavonda were picked, they would choose Tonya, who they felt was weakest.

The Bad Asses were all set to pick Julie, but then they realized they might try some shady shit again and switch the names. Now, this is not a shady tactic. The reason why the Good Guys picked last is because they won the competition that day, it’s as if the producers wanted to give the winners an added advantage. If they wanted fairness, they would have had the teams submit the names to Dave Mirra and let him read them out. Still, Rachel was worried that her schmoopy would be next to go, so she went and asked the Good Guys if they were cheating or not, because that would be bad. Not only was Rachel completely transparent in her attentions, but their whole team forgot how they were big advocates of shady behavior and sabotage not a few hours earlier with the boats. She looked them in the eye, and they said they weren’t going to switch votes.

When the two teams got together, the Bad Asses picked Julie, and when she got up Veronica also got up, thinking her name was going to be called. I don’t know why the Good Guys caved, but they didn’t have Julie call Veronica’s name. Instead, she said Tonya. This made me mad because I know how much drama picking Veronica would have caused, but maybe I should stop wishing for her demise in the Inferno and just hope that she loses in the final challenge. That would be just as good.