Favorites

(Note: I do not in any way know any of these survivors. I am totally making all this stuff up as if I actually have a clue.However, I've received emails from past Survivors complimenting me on my insight. So, although I make this crap up, sometimes I actually get things right.)

Without ever looking at Ryan' s profile, my first impression when I looked at his picture was that this is one serious video game playing super-geek. And as much as this sub-group of humans is so easily made fun of, I found myself torn in my initial evaluation.

His profile is like watching a Cool/Uncool tennis match.

Cool: writing/recording his own electronic and punk rock music
Uncool: Produce Clerk
Cool: Basketball
Uncool: Capture The Flag
Cool: Favorite color - Green
Uncool: Favorite color - #DDDDFF

And it goes on and on like that.

But where I'm torn is that I must admit that I actually like some of his uncool stuff. For example, his favorite color #DDDDFF. Yes, this is a total computer geek thing to do to give the hexadecimal html color code, but I have to say that the color is quite nice. (I use it for the font in his Favorites section.)

The forensics club usually consists of super-smart-study-on-the-weekend-likes-to-discuss-politics-as-a-high-school-kid nerdy types. But making it to the National Forensics Tournament is HUGE. This guy will be able to step outside of any situation, analyze both sides, make extremely well-thought-out arguments both pro and con, all the while being smart enough to rip apart even the slightest aspect of someone else's strategy. The troubling part about this, however, is that he's 23 and he's still describing things he did in high school.

And I totally agree with his response to Favorite Alcoholic Drinks: Drinking is for the boring. There are so many people in this world that simply cannot have fun without alcohol. They're like: Hmmm... I' m not creative enough to think of a way to truly entertain myself with only my mind and my abilities of insight and communication, so... "Dude's let's go get plastered!"

So I'm torn.

He even writes and produces his own music. This is cool. But it' s punk music. Punk music is the only genre of music that totally NON-talented musicians can make it big. There does exist an occasional band with talent, but usually it's angry people writing angry lyrics who taught themselves how to play within the last 6 months or so. There are SO many punk bads that were formed like this:

"Can you play guitar?"
"No."
"Bass?"
"Nope."
"Can you sing or play drums?"
"No, but I've always wanted to be in a band and my mom said she'd buy me a set of drums and that we could practice in our basement. And I have tattoos and a nose ring and I wear clothes that adults hate and I rebel against societal norms."
"Cool! We have a band."

Ryan Shoulders' favorite magazines are PC Gamer and Nintendo Power. Worse, he lists as a favorite actress porn star Jenna Jameson.

So, sooner or later, his potential dates will have to explain to mom and dad, " Well, he plays a lot of video games and he watches a lot of porn, but he' s really a nice guy. And he's smart, too."

His audition video was pretty dang good. The funniest thing about it was how he described various Survivor scenarios using, " The token old lady," " The token gay guy," and " the token hot chick." It featured some of his music (" Music is my life" ) and was recorded in reverse. (This is a shot of him putting the sleeper hold on a bunny.)

And I must admit that he doesn't look like such a total dweeby-geek in his videos.

Now, theoretically, an expert gamer should do very well playing a game. It takes some serious smarts and abilities to strategize in order to get through Zelda and Age of Mythology. (I don't know anything about Doom III other than the Doom videos are immensely popular.) So, unless Mr. Shoulders turns out to be a typical young lazy-ass, I totally expect him to play an extremely good under-the-radar game.

In fact, it'll take a few episodes for people to warm up to him, but I expect Ryan to be one of these two extremes: either really annoying and very much disliked or (this is my guess) eventually becoming one of the most enjoyable to watch and listen to.

Hopefully he'll be able to cope without his computer, but I'm thinking not.

In fact, I'm believing all the spoilers when they say Ryan Shoulders is a very early-booted lazy-ass. Ah well...

Punk computer geek power!