Final 4

[Dominic Briones]

Woooo! So last week went as best as it could have with Talla winning. As much as I love Rhian, she was the next best option if Talla was safe. Estelle and I both had to promise Talla safety this week so that she'd keep us off the block. Originally, I was honestly considering keeping true to the deal I made Talla (and yes, perhaps even voting against Estelle), until we all realized that Talla was stretching every truth that she could last round. She worked her booty off to get the 4 of us against one another, and it almost worked. However, we all talked and realized that the "smear campaigns" she was referring to were not really smear campaigns, but more so each of us pitching to her the pros/cons of her possible options.

At the same time, I do know that Rhian was working over Estelle, trying to get her to save her with the PoV, thus forcing me up on the block. In the end, Rhian gave me a really long plea to keep her, but I was honest and told her that it made most sense to evict her over Dixie. Plus, Estelle was going to as well, and Talla would have broke the tie to evict Rhian anyways. But still, I didn't wanna hide behind the "my vote didn't matter" excuse this week, since Rhian deserved better.

So now I am in the final 4, and I have 2 chances to win safety. In the Hoh, I have to just beat Estelle/Dixie, and in the PoV, I have an advantage. If I don't walk away with one of the wins this week, I will be gravely disappointed. With that said, let me play out the options this week in terms of evictions... kind of like I did in season 2 where I realized I had a very good chance of surviving f4 even if I didnt win a challenge (which I didn't!).

I win HoH = Safe no matter what
Estelle wins HoH and Dixie wins PoV. Dixie evicts Talla.
Estelle wins HoH and I win PoV. I evict Talla.
Estelle wins HoH and Talla wins PoV. Talla evcits Dixie? This is the one I am most unsure of.
Dixie wins HoH and Estelle wins PoV. Estelle evicts Talla.
Dixie wins HoH and I win PoV. I evict Talla.
Dixie wins HoH and Talla wins PoV. Talla evits Estelle.

So... there's a very good chance that I am safe this round. Talla winning PoV is probably most scary, since I'm not sure if she really does wanna take me to final 2. I wanna believe her, but if Estelle wins HoH and Talla wins PoV, I could see her wanting to split up me and Estelle. Granted, going to f3 with Estelle and Dixie is like gauranteeing that Talla would need to win the final HoH to get to the finale.

We shall see. I am staying optiminstic though!

[Dominic Briones]

btw. I am posting my DR from work, which, at any point, I could be called away. That's why I am not doing the challenge here! Just wanted to clear that up.

[Dominic Briones]

So, there are 512 possible combinations once you solve the first puzzle. I tried approximately 450 of them (around 88%) before finding the one that worked. I guarantee I am not winning this competition. The combination starts with 33, and that was LITERALLY the last number I went through all the possible combinations for. I picked and chose around the outer circle, figuring I might be lucky and hit it fast. Well, I was wrong. Should have started at the top and went clockwise. #fail

Great challenge. Super stressful and irritating, trying to not get the numbers confused, but definitely challenging!

[Dominic Briones]

So I was REALLY bummed with that PoV. I had a chart ready on my laptop, and didn't have access to it yesterday. I was gonna wait til today to do the challenge, but then when I saw Shir posted that there was no way to prepare, I figured that it meant we wouldn't need such things for the challenge. Well, that was a wrong assumption. To top it off, my internet started going wonky in the middle of the challenge, and pages would sometimes take upwards of 15-30 seconds to load as I was searching for answers that I could have gotten in 5 seconds with my chart. Let's just say it was a frustrating experience overall. To see that I was like 2 minutes away from winning makes me think I could have easily shaved 2 minutes off my time if I'd have had my chart. But... assuming Dixie is telling the truth about keeping me, then it saved me from having to break my word to Talla and evict her. That could potentially help me get a jury vote in the end.

If Dixie evicts me, I will DEFINITELY be bummed, seeing that I feel I could have easily won this challenge if it weren't for not having my chart and my internet. I know it sounds like I'm making excuses, but that was my challenge to win! Here's hoping to make another RAF final 3!