A sporting flutter on horrible media wickedness


I saw the first episode of Survivor II: The Australian Outback on Sunday, and I was immediately hooked. (Maybe the fact that I didn’t see any of the shows from Survivor I contributed.) These people are awful! I tried to imaging going camping with any of them. With a couple of exceptions (Rodger), I would be trying to get them to stand under a poorly-balanced rock in less than ten minutes.

The one who annoys me the most is Kimmi Kappenberg, a bartender from Long Island. She has a mixture of stupidity, stridency, and boorishness that makes my blood boil every time she’s on screen. “Don’t build the fire over here, Keith, build it over there, in case we need to move it later!” Also, she wouldn’t shut up at night! I don’t think that she should be voted off the island — I think that she should be killed and eaten by her teammates.

So I went to InterTops, a graymarket Internet betting site, and signed up so that I could take a little action on the show. I put ten bucks on Kimmi to win at 10-1. That way, I won’t feel too bad if she actually comes through, defying all that is good and holy in this world. Then I put twenty bucks in on Keith Famie, who I think actually has a chance of winning, but I only got 4-1 on him. Elisabeth Filarski, the footwear designer with the goofy headress, was a hallmate at Boston University of one of my team members — Asad Khan — and the inside scoop on her is that she isn’t a goer, so I didn’t bet on her.

If only they offered odds on Temptation Island!