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Immunity CHallenge I Entries

As Promised. Here are the first 5 entries for the Survivor Immunity Challenge. Now remeber none of you can reveal whos post is whose. I am missing one. The survivor that has not sent anything has until tomorrow to send me the entry, or you will not be able to play in the Immunity Challenge. At the very bottom, click on read more and then the Cast your vote to vote for the one you feel is best. The survivor who did not turn in his/her entry is the one who will suffer at this point because your post is not with the rest. Rules are Rules.

Entry 1:
So we have now arrived on Blogtiki. Stepping onto the golden sands and feeling the grains work their way between my toes I knew I was going to happy here, even if I did only survive for a week. My fellow survivors appeared with some trepidation, not quite knowing what to do or say. Here we are, 6 strangers from around the world, thrown together for a few weeks of madness. Fantastic!

Leaving them to it I decided to explore my new surroundings. I walked off up the beach, the sound of waves lapping the shore fading into the distance behind me. Just behind the first fringe of palm trees I came across the simple huts that were to be our beach homes. A quick look around told me everything I really needed to know. I might have to decorative with shells or something to brighten the place up a bit! If there’s one thing I can’t stand it is bare walls.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, my h’exploration. I grabbed the rusty knife just in case I might need it (though looking at it I reckon the knife has more to worry about than any creature I might meet!) and headed off again. I made it partially into a clearing when I heard a snuffling noise. I turned to see one of the weirdest creatures ever. It looked like a cross between a cat and a pig – it stood about 3 feet off the ground, had soft paws/feet, a long bushy tail, very alert ears and a snout that was pressed deep into the ground. It was also covered all over in a soft pink fur. My immediate instinct was to reach for my (useless) knife, but something stopped me (and it wasn’t just the fact that my knife was about as useful as a condom machine in the Vatican!). Looking more closely I could see that it was actually foraging for fallen coconuts, ferreting them out with its schnuffly snout.

This Framble as I decided to name it (what… I liked the name! – you got a problem with that?!) could prove to be very useful. All I need to do is figure out a way to catch one and keep it within easy reach. But thinking about catching it, and possibly eating it brought to mind the William Golding novel – Lord of the Flies. In particular the bit where all the boys are chanting:
Kill the pig!
Cut its throat!
Spill its blood!
It was slightly disturbing to say the least. Perhaps I could get one of the other guys to come with me and help me out…

So yeh, I left the clearing and continued on my way. I have to say guys, Pylorns wasn’t kidding when he said there were all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures on this island! I saw what looked like large purple hamsters, birds that looked as if they had only just evolved into flight, odd monkey and rabbit hybrids and many more! When I have more time I will go study these creatures further, naming them and discovering what they eat, and whether or not they can be eaten. There was a chilling aspect to it though as every so often I would hear an animal cry and I had no idea where it was coming from – way too easily spooked me thinks!

As I started to make my way back I did a double take. There, less than 5 feet in front of me, was a Dodo. A real… live… Dodo. It was incredible! Then it saw me, squawked, flapped its wings in panic and ran full pelt into the nearest tree. Incredible you say? Yes… incredibly stupid. It was dead by the time I got to it. It’s no wonder they’re extinct everywhere else. If you’re that dense then you’ve got no real chance of survival! But not being one to waste an opportunity I dragged the carcass back to camp where some bright spark had managed to get a fire going.

I don’t know what it is about a fire but it seems to call to our basic animal instinct. We want to burn things, anything we can get our hands on. We also have the rising urge to find a stick and poke it, poke it real good. I gave in to my suppressed urges and for a while my prize lay discarded on the sand as I gleefully found things to burn, giggling like a loon every time something new went up in smoke. I also managed to find myself a damned good pokey stick which could prove handy.

My attention was finally drawn back to the Dodo and I called to the others to come share my prize (well I’m a sharing person… you scratch my back etc!). Between us we fashioned a spit out of driftwood and dried seaweed. It only took us 4 attempts and several heated arguments to get it sorted! Soon though the smell of gently roasting Dodo was floating across the island and into the Australian sky.

And you know what? … It really does taste like chicken! Except possibly slightly more gamey.

With the sun setting over the ocean and a breeze brushing its way through the leaves overhead we sat in a well-fed silence. And this is where you find me now. I’ve managed to claim a palm tree as my own and am now sitting here, gazing at the glowing embers of the fire, and watching the last shreds of sunlight dance on the surface of the water. It’s so peaceful and it gives me the time to contemplate what it is I’m actually supposed to be doing here – instead of just getting a damned good tan that is!

On a different note though, this does appear to be the longest post I’ve ever written, it’s quite scary! I do apologise for the length, but there was a lot of info to get down! Plus I’m on an island with nobody else to talk to except the other 5 people who are busily tapping away at their keyboards right now.

I really ought to find something else that I can occupy my time with. I wonder how easy it is to make a bikini out of coconut shells and palm leaves. Only one way to find out…!

Entry 2:
The animals are, indeed, quite strange on the island of Blogtiki.

Traveling in family units are the ones I’ve come to call the too-reestas. The young of the species are a delight to watch—they’re brightly colored and playful, but can begin to scream in a most disturbing way when they’re hungry, when they’re tired, or just because. They’re rather fatty and I try to avoid eating those.

On occasion, you’ll see some pre-adults. They tend to be dark in color, still with the family unit, but hanging back, almost as if they don’t want to be seen with the adults. However, they do eat with the family unit, frequently taking more than their fair share, while complaining loudly the whole time. The females pre-adults frequently have little meat on them, while the male pre-adults try to mate with damn near anything that moves.

The adults are frequently quite large, especially the females, and especially their lime-green colored bottoms (I mean, their bottoms are just really fucking huge). The males are brightly colored and bossy, even though he doesn’t seem to know which way he’s going, or even where he is.

Trapping a too-reesta is very easy. I’ve discovered all I need do is use a sharp rock to carve the word BLOGTIKI on a coconut and wave it before their eyes. As a group they’ll stop, look at the coconut, and emit their frightening (but harmless) cry:

SOO-VENEERS!

And they stampede toward me as if I were waving gold before their eyes. I use the coconut to conk them on the head.

I’ve also discovered a curious bird I called the gold-colored digger. The males of the species tend to prefer gold-colored females, and the demand for golden females is so high that dark-colored females will bleach their feathers in an attempt to make themselves more attractive to the males.

The appearance of the male is not important to the female; however, the size of the male’s nest and his status (as determined by the amount of paper the male has in the nest) is. Huge nests and large amounts of paper are very important to the females and they will literally throw themselves at desirable males in an attempt to mate.

Males also recognize they need huge nests and large amounts of paper if they are to mate and are not above stealing nesting material and paper from other males in an attempt to make themselves more desirable to the females. Some males manage to make it appear they have more paper and bigger nests then they really do, but such ruses rarely work, and when they do, the female usually leaves immediately after discovering the ruse. Then she tells all her friends, and his chances of mating are non-existent after that.

Males come in all shapes and sizes, while females are usually very thin before they mate, but then go all to fat after a successful mating. Trapping them is also very easy: Merely build a big enough nest and stack plenty of paper in and around the nest, and both males and females will come running. Use the coconut again, roast, and discover they taste like chicken.

The last animal I’ll discuss is a small, bi-pedal ape I call the kohost. This is, without a doubt, the strangest creature of all. I’ve discovered some males will cultivate a goat-like “beard” on their chins, apparently in an attempt to make themselves more attractive to the females. This frequently doesn’t work; in fact, almost all of the other creatures on Blogtiki point and laugh at these “bearded” kohosts behind their back.

I’ve also discovered their diet consists mainly of fermented fruit and pizza. Where they get the pizza is beyond me.

Their mating ritual is absolutely hilarious to watch. First, the males meet in a large group and indulge in mass quantities of fermented fruit. They then chase after the females, trying to get one to look at him. Should a female glance at a male, the male will then rub his fists up his torso, from his waist to his shoulders, and hold his hands at his shoulders briefly. Most females ignore this motion, but, on the rare occasion when a female responds in kind, the group of males will shout, scream, jump up and down, and slap hands, either in celebration or because this is the first time they’ve seen a female do that (maybe both). The celebration can last anywhere from a few score of seconds to several hours, and if the female is still there after the celebration, the male will then offer her a large amount of fermented fruit. Females usually mate after indulging in a large amount of fermented fruit, but the next morning they claim nothing happened.

Rarely (very, very rarely) a female will indulge in only a small amount of fermented fruit before mating with the male. More often then not, however, the female will indulge in a small amount of fermented fruit before ducking behind a tree, relieving herself, then beating feet.

Even more rarely, a female will mate with the male without indulging in fermented fruit. In a nutshell, though, the kohosts mate very infrequently, and I fear they may be endangered.

By the way, I don’t try to eat the kohosts. But they sure are fun to watch.

Entry 3:

Heineken, Flare Guns, and Rice! Oh My!

Like all good employees of the civil service, I've done my research. There is no shortage of tasty wildlife on this bloggy island. My sources tell me that the cutest animals taste best. Let me qualify that..."Best" is a relative term as everything tastes gamey, or so my sources tell me. But no worse than half-cooked venison. My sources are always right, so don't even think about stealing my tinfoil hat. It's my luxury item.

As one would expect, there are Koala Bears, Kangaroos, Dingos, Bandicoots, and colourful birds aplenty. However, the Pademelon, Phascogale, Squeedilysquoosh, and Bilby species appear especially delectable. Then there's the fishies...I love the little fishies!

I say we fashion spears out of the local greeny, growy, things and go on a killing spree. Jeff will probably get the fist kill, (lawyers are ruthless, you know, plus he's got that quiet, loner thing going on), but I too, have an innate capacity for bloodshed.

We don't seem to have any matches, but we could use my glasses and tin foil hat to start a raging inferno fire to cook our spoils. If worse comes to worse, we could always use the flare gun to start the fire. We're tough. Who needs a real meal and a shower? I still smell like flowers! Then again, cooking isn't really necessary. Where I'm from, we eat whale meat right off the bone.

I'm not very skilled when it comes to the culinary arts. I tend to think that men are best equipped when it comes to barbequing...But as far as who should cook? Well, whoever has the least chance of giving us all food poisoning. In other words, probably not me.

One after thought:

"and a Keg of Heineken. The only problem is there is no tap for the keg and no ice to keep it cold."

And this is a problem because? Beer need not be cold to be enjoyed! Wuss ;-) First we drink the beer, then we kill the animals barbeque!

Entry 4:

Day One on Blogtiki is off to a smashing start. Paradise my ass. Bad enough that I'm stranded on this island with no moisturizer and tanning oil, but now I have to deal with flesh-eating death rabbits and men who wouldn't know how to fish if it smacked them in the face. If it weren't for the fact that I'm able to blog, I think I might just have gone crazy by now. Not that everything is bad mind you. I mean, I AM on a tropical beach in the middle of nowhere. That's no so bad I guess. It gives me time to work on my tan and start that diet I've
been meaning to do for the past few months. Months of fish and coconuts are bound to help me shed these pounds.

All of the other Survivors seem pretty nice. Do I trust any of them? Pah! Mr. Grey's nice...and cute...I'm thinking Alliance. For all of his muscles and tough guy spirit, Mr. White can't seem to figure out how to catch fish with his hands. Same goes for Mr. Periwinkle who walks around like he's afraid his delicate skin will be ruined by the salt water. In the end, Ms. Green and myself were forced to take off our tattered clothes and use our bras as nets and catch our food. The men seemed happy enough to let two naked chicks splash around in the
water and catch their food for them. Boy Scouts they are not.

We've set up camp a little ways from the beach using some trees and some washed-up boards we found. It's not the best structure, but at least it'll keep us safe from the crabs and snakes that seem hellbent on stalking us. As for the wildlife here on Blogtiki, all I'm saying is...dayum. There are some crazy albino monkies who seem to do nothing but have sex near camp. And there are these gross slugs that spit at you if you get too close. Oh and have I mentioned the flesh-eating rabbits? Well, let me tell you how I discovered them. You see, it all started yesterday when I was walking up to the bathroom (AKA: big-ass hole in the ground). So there I was, squatting over our man-made poop shoot when I heard this rustling behind me. I turn and see this cute little bunny sitting
there looking up at me. I bend down to pick it up and the little bastard hops over to my leg and starts gnawing on it. It chased me all the way back to camp and would've eaten me alive had it not been for the fast thinking of Ms. Purple, who beat it with our rice pot. I owe that woman my life. Hrm...wonder if she's up for an Alliance?

I plan on spending the next few days figuring each of these people out and deciding who I can and cannot trust. I seem to be at the disadvantage here, mainly because I'm young and cute. Things look they're about to get very interesting.

Entry 5:
8:30 AM Island Time

Ahh, Blogtiki! Pearl of the Indian Ocean. Crown Jewel of the North
Australian Coast!

My home for Survivor II.

As we passed over the island in our helicopter it wasn't hard to miss
the beauty of Blogtiki. Lush jungle covered much of the island, cut only
by a lagoon at the base of a cliff side waterfall not far from where
we'll make our camp. I believe that'll be the source of much of our
fresh water (assuming it comes from rainfall and not from the ocean
itself). The jungle may prove to be our best friend, providing our
shelter and food for our stay here and our most persistent challenge.
Few of us, I'll bet, are used to the unpredictability of the jungle and
we'll have to be on our guard.

After landing, our first priority was to set up shelter and to survey
where we'll be living during this challenge. I'm sure you'll hear about
those escapades (and how one of us was rendered temporarily topless by
an errant tree trunk!) soon enough. This Immunity Challenge, though, is
about the various animals we've seen and that's where I'll concentrate.

The first thing you notice about Blogtiki are the bugs. There are a lot
of them. They're not as thick as the Cicadas in Washington, DC, but at
times it sure feels like it. The little sand flies are the most annoying
as they buzz around your ears making that high-pitched whining sound.
They don't bite, though. I think they don't because they don't want to
tick off the mosquitoes. They definitely have the monopoly on "things
that bite other things" here on the island (unless you count one of our
female contestants, but that's another story!). I stopped counting bites
after a dozen or so. I figure before long I won't notice them. Along
with the flying bugs are the hopping and crawling bugs. I didn't see any
beetles, which would be a decent food source if we needed them, but then
again, we haven't had time to really search for them. I'm hoping that
the other animals we've seen will make good enough food that we won't
need to resort to eating bugs.

OH yes, I mentioned Cicadas. Well, they're here, too. We can hear them
in the jungle, their buzzing an omnipresent soundtrack to our
shelter-building. They're edible, too, and taste sort of bland. so I'm
told.

One of the more interesting animals I've seen here is something that
looks like a peccary or a javelina. It was a small, tuskless pig I
glimpsed just for a couple of moments peeking out of the jungle at us.
We spent a bit of time gathering stout vines and finding the right
saplings to use as snares but we finally got them rigged. Fruit,
luckily, seems to be readily available here, and we used some ripe
mangoes as bait. Once the snares were set, we just had to wait and hope
that we chose the right bait. Mmmm......tropical island pork.

------------------

1:15 PM Island Time

Success! We were wandering the beach and the shallows to see what other
animals there were here (more on that in a moment) when we heard a very
loud, very angry squealing from the jungle. We raced over and found that
we had caught one of those peccaries - which I'm now calling TikiPigs.
Killing it was a problem we hadn't really anticipated, since we didn't
have a sharp knife handy. I found a large rock and struck the TikiPig's
head once, sharply like I would if I had killed a rabbit. It was a sharp
strike and the animal didn't suffer, which is good. We skinned it and
put it on a spit over the cooking pit a couple of the guys had dug near
the shelters. We're keeping the cooking pit away from the jungle to keep
any predators away, which is a pretty good idea.

So with our first dinner cooking under the watchful eye of one of the
guys, we went back to the water. That means I get to tell you about the
fish. The fish in the shallows are not very large. We could probably
take them with nets or a spear (if we were patient and had good aim).
The concern here are sharks. I saw one or two of them swimming a little
farther out in what would be waist-deep water. They seem to be little
sharks - maybe mako sharks (which is better than tiger sharks of great
whites), but I'm not expert. They didn't seem to be all that interested
in us and I'm betting that they'd make pretty good eating if we could
catch one. That's something we're going to have to try a bit later. But
we should make sure that we don't have any cuts or anything that might
attract them too much. It wouldn't be good if one of us had to go home
minus a leg. There do seem to be some flatfish in the shallows though
that would make for good eating, too (though not a very large meal).

We also saw a few birds that looked like gulls. I'm not recommending
that we eat them. Gulls are mostly scavengers and scavengers usually
don't taste very good. But the gulls were digging around for shellfish,
and that's a good thing. If we can find some clams or crabs, then we
have another food source. We'll have to watch where they dig, scare them
off, and grab up what they've found.

-------------------

3:15 PM Island Time

Mmmm....roast TikiPig. I don't think the eating's going to be as easy as
today's was, but it was sure good to have roast pig and fruit as an
early dinner. We sent one of the girls up a tree for coconuts and she
managed to bring down a small bundle. After a few minutes trying to
crack them open, we finally succeeded and managed to have the milk with
our meal. I'm going to save some of the husks to use to get water from
under the waterfall to drink. Otherwise, we're going to have to dig for
our water. That could be a real problem after a few days.

After lunch, we sharpened up the rusty knives we were left and finished
our shelters. They're not the prettiest things you've ever seen, but
they'll certainly work for us. Weaving the wide palm leaves was a bit of
a challenge but after some trial and error (and remembering some
"Gilligan's Island") we managed to make do. They'll keep off the sun at
mid day and the rain when it comes. They won't stand up to a monsoon,
but they'll keep most of the elements at bay.

We were also visited by another member of BlogTiki's animal kingdom. As
we were relaxing in the early evening, we saw several pearlescent
lizards coming out to bask on the beach after the gulls left. I've never
seen lizards quite so lightly colored, but they blend in with the
light-colored sand, which, I suppose, gives them good camouflage. And
they eat bugs. Anything that eats bugs here is good with me. We haven't
named them yet, but I'm going with Sandcrawlers. Yes, I'm a Star Wars
geek. Sue me.

---------------------

5:00 PM Island Time

Shelter and lunch have been handled so most of us are going to explore a
bit into the jungle, at least as far as the waterfall. We're keeping our
eyes our for predators that might be trouble for us. I didn't see any
myself, but I'm not sure if the others did. We're also on the lookout
for plants that might be dangerous, or merely annoying (like those that
might cause rashes like poison oak would).

The waterfall is beautiful. Some of us dove from the cliff about 50 feet
above the little lagoon and swam until the sun went down. The lagoon
itself doesn't seem to have fish in it, which is a shame, but it'll make
for good drinking water and a place to frolic.

Oh! I saw a tuatara, too! Tuataras are the only beak-headed reptile that
exists and they're harmless to humans. The one I found was about 20 CM
long and was perched on a rock near the base of the waterfall, soaking
the warmth of the sun-heated stone. I watched him for a while, but we
apparently bored the hell out of each other so we each wandered off in
our own ways.

Another animal we'll have to watch for is the Kea. It's a very colorful
parrot that's indigenous to this area. I'd read reports before coming
here they they are very playful, but also quite aggressive. They've been
known to attack other birds and sheep as food, and to attack cars for
the rubber around the windshield and the wipers. They're another animal
we've not yet seen but we'll watch for. They could be more than a
nuisance if they're here.

With the sun setting, the island comes alive with the sounds of tree
frogs and night insects. I swore I heard an owl hooting, too (which
means small rodents live on the island, right?) but I could have been
mistaken. I remember reading somewhere that there's a type of own that
live in New Zealand. If I'm right, it's not such a stretch that they
might be here, too. The tree frogs were by far the loudest
night-critters, but it wasn't unpleasant. After a little bit, their high
"Neek-breeking" (and I'm borrowing that name for them - Neeker Breekers
- from "The Lord of the Rings") and the waves lapping on the beach were
incredibly soothing.

--------------

8:00 PM Island Time

Night has fallen and we've all had a pretty busy day. I've enjoyed
getting to know my island-mates and look forward to getting to know them
better. Tomorrow we'll forage for breakfast (bird eggs, perhaps? We did
see some nests) and go about learning what lies ahead in our time here.

For now, I'm going to rest. I'm tired.

Posted by Pylorns at June 5, 2004 07:11 PM | TrackBack

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