Okay, wake up dead.

On a quest to snuff out The Mole.

I’ve decided that I’m going to be blogging every Tuesday about ABC’s show The Mole. The premise of the show is there are a group of people who have to work together to earn as much money as possible by the end of the show, but as there is in any reality show, there is a catch. In this case, there are a few catches. One is that only one person is going go get all of the money. It isn’t split. The second is that one of the people on the show, the mole, is being paid to do everything they can to sabotage the missions. No one but the mole knows who the mole is, so when things go wrong people get heated. At the end of every show there is a quiz that all of the players have to take and all of the questions are about what the mole did during the said episode. The player who scores the lowest on the test is “executed.”

However, before I get into my new favorite show, I have to rant a little about the America’s Best Dance Crew live tryouts. I know what you’re thinking, “you watched the America’s Best Dance Crew live tryouts?” Of course I watched the damn tryouts. If you don’t know me, my best friend and my sister, two of my three favorite people in the world, are dancers. Because of this, I’ve had to watch much more dancing than you’d expect from someone who has dedicated his life to avoiding actually dancing himself his whole life. I have no rhythm, but I like watching that hip hop and break dance stuff from time to time.

A rant before the quest.

Anyway, all of the regional tryouts, East, Midwest and the South were pretty lame, I pretty much knew which group was going to be, how do I say, executed. But, in the Western region, all of the groups were fucking amazing. There was a group of b-boys from Vegas, my pre-tryout pick to be my favorite group, a group from San Francisco who has battled and beat last years winners, an 80s group from Orange County and a group of Filipinos. After all of the groups auditioned, everyone was on the group from the bay’s jock, and rightfully so I guess. The b-boys disappointed a little to me. They had all kinds of dudes who were “world champion break dancers” but none of them did anything I’ve never seen. They should have been booted because they were not exciting at all for some breakers. I LOVED the Filipino group. I can’t emphasize the word love enough. Shane Sparks summed it up when he said they had so much swag. Their collective swagger was ridiculous, and of course, they were the ones to get booted. I knew the 80s group wouldn’t leave and the group from Frisco wouldn’t either, so when it came down to the 80s group and the Filipinos, I knew they had no shot to move on. Don’t get me wrong, the break dancers were good, but they didn’t have the best performance of the group, hell, they didn’t even have the third best performance of the group. I understand that they have all of the “potential” and “up-side” (notice that I’m getting into NBA Draft mode), but this isn’t what the competition should be about (or the NBA Draft for that matter). The Filipinos had one of the best performances of the night, I don’t know how I’m going to watch the rest of the season because I don’t have a favorite now. It’s hard to watch these shows with no one to root for. However, what I’ve learned form these dancing shows is that black people aren’t the best dancers, Asians are.

Oh, and one more thing…

Again, I’d like to congratulate Ken Griffey Jr. for knocking out his 600th career home run. He’s such a stand up guy. He’s never in trouble for anything, he just goes out and plays the game the way it’s supposed to be played. I can only imagine where that homerun count would be at if he never got injured. Dude has a ridiculous swing and I couldn’t be happier for him. I’m hoping Cincinnati lets him go so he has the opportunity to play for a ring. He’s been a role model for so many young kids who grew up loving the game of baseball, I’m just glad he finally reached this milestone.

Finally; week two, blog one.

This week’s episode began with the eleven remaining players (one was eliminated in the first episode, I’ll go back and watch it at some point) were split up into two groups. One group of nine and one group of two in a race to get to the top of this summit. The group of two had to write a two person bicycle to the top and the group of nine got to ride a suspended tram to the top of the mountain – but they had to score a goal on a Chilean soccer team before they could get on the tram.

This ended up being one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life. A guy named Bobby talked about how he knew more about soccer than any of the other people playing in the Mole, and another guy, Paul (see above) said he had played soccer in his youth too. When a group of 10-year-old Chilean kids as the opposing team, the mole contestants got a sudden boost of confidence. Little did they know, these Chileans were no joke. They were doing bicycle kicks and “crossing” the hell out of the Mole contestants. They scored 14 straight goals before the game was regulated to penalty kicks to give the contestants a chance to score one. Bobby was unable to run, even after all of his talking, and was forced to become their goal keeper after some time. When Ali, a blonde model, finally kicked in a penalty kick they were given directions to find the suspension tram.

While the larger group played soccer and looked for the tram, Mark and Kirstin, the two on the two-person bike steadily climbed up the hill. If they got to the top first, the would receive exemption for this week, and if the others got to the top of the hill first, 35,000 would he added to the collective pot. While Mark and Kirstin tried to pedal their way to the top, the chain on the bike kept coming off, which seemed suspicious to me, but they eventually go to the top of the summit before the others did and earned their exemptions.

The second mission the players had to go on was a mission to find as many ceramic pigs as possible and sling shot them into a stadium where two players would catch them in a blanket. There would be $1,000 added to the collective pot for each pig successfully brought back into the stadium. There were three groups of three looking for pigs throughout the city and a group of two who were to stay back and catch the pigs as they were brought back from the other groups. Bobby (see above), because of all the running he did the day before playing soccer, was not able to walk, so he was pushed around in their groups wheel barrow by Kirstin. I don’t remember how much money they earned, but I know it was 20-something thousand – and Bobby’s group didn’t bring back any of that.

At the end, there was the test (my answers in bold):

Question 1: Is the Mole?
Male
Female


Question 2: In "Race to the Summit" how did the Mole arrive at the summit?
Bike
Gondola 1
Gondola 2
Gondola 3


Question 3: Did the Mole earn an exemption in "Race to the Summit" ?
Yes
No


Question 4: In "Race to the Summit," which group did the Mole join?
"Uphill Battle" Team
"Goal Oriented" Team


Question 5: At the start of the "When Pigs Fly" mission, did the Mole grab a wheelbarrow?
Yes
No

Question 6: How many Mole pigs did the Mole's "Ham It Up" team find in Pomaire?
0
18
26
The Mole was not a "Ham It Up" player


Question 7: In "When Pigs Fly," what did the Mole do after returning from Pomaire?
Catch pigs
Hold one end of the slingshot handle
Load pigs and shoot slingshot
Nothing


Question 8: During "When Pigs Fly," did the Mole wear protective headgear?
Yes
No


Question 9: During "When Pigs Fly," was the Mole transported in a wheelbarrow for the majority of the time?
Yes
No

Question 10: Who is the Mole?
Ali
Alex
Bobby
Clay
Craig
Kristen
Liz
Mark
Nicole
Paul
Victoria

My top three Mole candidates are as follows:

1) Ali. As of right now, I’m thinking Ali is the mole. When the soccer group got the directions to the suspended tram, she wanted to go back and take a short cut to get there. This lead to the group being separated and ultimately losing the $35,000 – and if I remember correctly, she was a part of the group that got lost when they were trying to get back to the arena to launch the ceramic pigs. Besides, the girl just looks conniving (I wish there was a way to spell the sound I make every time I use that word).

2) Nichole. I haven’t mentioned her in my blog yet, but that’s exactly why she’s a top Mole candidate right now. She’s black, she’s an OBGYN, and she ended the show telling Paul that she would kill him in his sleep. When he responded with some smart remark, she followed that up with, “okay, wake up dead.” If that’s not mole-ish, I don’t know what is.

3) Bobby. Right now, all of the obvious signs are pointing to Bobby. He didn’t show up in the soccer game then had to be wheel barrowed around during the quest to find the ceramic pigs. He’s third on this list only because if he is the mole, what he’s doing is wayyyyyy too obvious. Either he’s doing exactly what he’s supposed to do, or he’s one of the biggest pussies of all time, in which case Nichole can check him out.

Oh, and the old lady, Liz (see below), was executed.

Make sure you guys watch the Mole next week and give me your ideas on who is sabotaging the game. For tonight, make sure you watch Game 3 of the Lakers-Celtics Finals. Kobe’s going for 45+. You heard it here first.

One more thing before I get out of here -- I've set a goal for the summer. I'm going to try and knock out 100,000 words by the end of the summer. It's going to be challenging, and 350 a day definitely won't cut it, but I'm sure I can do it. I've gotten a surprising (actually, very surprising) amount of support from those who know about what I'm trying to do. Thanks for the support and the interest. Hopefully I can keep this going, 5 days in a row so far, over 5,000 words (and no, I didn't count the test in my word count). I'll be back tomorrow.

(Test and all photos courtesy of ABC.com)

Stay Hideous
-PB

(Word count to date: 5,033)