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NOTE: THIS IS NOT THE THREAD WHERE THE MESSAGE BOARD POSTERS VOTE FOR THEIR 'OFFICIAL' PICK. THAT THREAD IS HERE
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OK, first let's get the easy things out of the way... based on the vidcaps, everyone seems to believe the TAMMY wins the Immmunity Challenge and ROBERT wins the Reward Challenge and I see no obvious reason to disagree, therefore TAMMY is our pick to win immunity (although might she be tempted to grant it to "Leader John" to cover that big target on his back?) and ROBERT is our selection of the scuba diving Reward Challenge.

As far as this week's bootee goes, well, that's a bit more difficult. Like most folks, I enjoy both cheering for the underdogs and believing in a good conspiracy -- and theories for both (both resulting in a John boot) are out there for to the believing.

Unfortunately however this time the mind has won out over the heart and we're going to try and keep it a bit more logical and Occum's Razor-like. The Rotu Four will not collapse from within as a result of a Zoe defection -- the woman has lived on a damn island in Maine with the same 100 people all her life, what does she care what some loud mouth from the mainland (even if it is from relatively nearby New Hampshire) thinks about her. Let's remember before she got switched on Day 10, there was little love for Karhy in the Love Tribe. And I doubt absence has made any of those hearts grow fonder. There will be no great rebel and refugee unification of Neleh, Paschal, Kathy, Sean, and Vee. None of these folks have shown one iota of REAL leadership skills, I find it difficult to believe that this rag-tag crew could even accidently manage to all write the same name down on the voting ballot.

That leaves the obvious... that despite what Burnett tries to convince of us EVERY SEASON (this is starting to get pretty old now,) the alliance will hold until there is a clear reason not to do so (numerical advantage, etc.) Sean manages to avoid booting because, damn, who knows why they keep keeping his lazy ass around, but they just do. KATHY's neverending story arc finally ends and she gets to take over Kelly Goldsmith's hostess role at the jury lodge for the next couple of weeks.

On the off chance the heart is right and the mind is wacked (after all, we have been getting some serious sun around these parts the past few days) we'll go with JOHN as our alternate selection (and this is one time I wouldn't mind being wrong and seeing his arrogant ass be voted off, either from within or by the meek inheriting the earth, I find it insulting to all of us that this guy dares to call himself the "Ultimate Survivor fan" -- what real fan who has studied the game would act like he has done?)

-SB