THE AMAZING RACE – 10/9/11

We’re already at week three of Amazing Race titled “Don’t Lay Down on Me Now.” As a preliminary thought, I added my twitter address up top. I literally have one follower right now—my husband. Yeah, what a loser. I signed up a couple years ago (judging by the age of my son in my picture) and I don’t think I’ve looked at it since and this is the first I’ve even given anyone a way to follow me on there. I’m totally giving excuses for having no followers. Anyway, obviously nothing really going on there yet but hopefully I’ll figure out what the hell I’m doing and be able to post my blog there soon.

So I saw a post–exit interview on cbs.com with both Ethan and Jenna and Ron and Bill. Nothing all that interesting, the usual “had such a good time…saw so many places…met so many people” prattle that people go on about when they don’t want to say “I’m a loser, no million dollars for me, snowboarders with no brains beat me.” Anyway, both teams basically blame their loss on cab drivers. Uh, could also be due to you failing to read the clue that was written in simple English, right? Had you seen that give them all ALL your money part, you’d still be in it. Plain and simple. But feel free to blame that driver for catching a red light, whatever.

Anyone who has watched the show for even one episode knows how much The Amazing Race loves to show teams suffering in a much too slow cab, a cab having to stop for gas/flat tire/other mechanical failure, or a cab where the driver seems to be struck with sudden amnesia of his own country leading to slow, tentative driving, blank looks and having to stop to ask for directions. (Along those lines, by the way, it’s like a cab driver in D.C. suddenly unable to find the White House, right? I mean these cabbies have to be pretty proficient in driving fares to major landmarks in the area already, don’t they? Almost seems a little staged sometimes, but who knows.) Anyway, back to blaming the cabbies, somehow I don’t think The Amazing Race editing would suddenly leave cabbie failure out if it really led to either of these teams’ early demise. Like most of the other teams, you failed to read the clue correctly and unfortunately for you, you were at the back of the pack when it happened. Take some responsibility guys.

Let’s get to episode three: So episode three starts the racers off, still in Indonesia. Andy and Tommy leave first and again I’m reminded that they somehow came in first last week. Clue says something about being on bicycle patrol. One of the boys sees some Indonesian with a Kool-Aid smile and says “You’ve got a good smile!” Yeah, he’s smiling because you’re annoying and stupid sounding. But go ahead and pick him anyway.

So these two jump on a bike dressed like pseudo boy scouts with hard safari type hats, which really looks great paired with the ridiculous neon blue and green shoes they have on. I won’t even get started there. We quickly find out how lucky we are because their bikes have those really annoying bells on them. And, of course, these two can’t stop ringing them like Pavlov’s dogs looking for a frigging treat. Are we four years old on Christmas morning or something? You can’t stop ringing the bike’s bell? Really? This would’ve been a nice time for one or both of them to go out of control rocketing down the street at 100 mph and crashing into a bus or something. End scene with the bell noise– Ding ding. I really think I could spice up this show, seriously.

I’m drawn out of my crash dream when one of them notes for the other to “Surf the bike,” leading the other idiot to do some lame one foot pose on the bike seat and then treating us to a wheelie. Reminds me of Michael J. Fox surfing the top of his dad’s van in Teen Wolf. Thanks for that, pal. In both instances I was hoping for a fatal crash. But seriously, these two snowboarders may actually win this thing because they have no concept of being in a rush and the stress of the race is not going to get them. Back to the surfing references that keep coming up, I’m very thankful to a reader who informed me that these two are surfers in addition to snowboarding. Cue the incessant cheesy water and waves phrases and minus another two brain cells we actually thought they had in their heads.

We’re finally taken away from the snowboarders, over to Zac and Laurence. “It’s a new episode so time for me to mention I’ve sailed around the world again.” Thanks. We’d almost forgotten. Hope your boat sinks in the next water challenge. And get a haircut Zac. Your hair is really stupid looking. Looks like you over-gelled it and then got stuck in a tornado. Actually, come to think of it, wouldn’t mind if that happened.

Pan over to my favorite showgirls, Kaylani and Lisa. As usual, they are tripping over any word longer than three letters, so it’s especially funny hearing them trying to read some of the local landmarks. The clue tells them they’ll be bike patrols; they then see a rack of bike patrol uniforms and declare “These must be them!” Smart, girls. I’m changing my opinion of you. You’ve totally shown me there’s more to you than big boobs and false eyelashes: you also have a stutter when reading words with two syllables or more. Unfortunately, next we get stuck hearing the usual boring and typical “I’m doing this for my daughter” speech. Whatever, who cares. Maybe staying home instead of seeking fame and fortune would’ve been the thing to do for your daughter, but hey, what do I know. It’s just always these shallow “I’m so pretty! No one appreciates my huge brain!” types going away for 6 months at a time to do some dumb show like the Bachelor saying it’s all for their kids. Spare me the World’s Best Mommy act, okay?

Just as an aside—was it me or did this kid look nothing like her? This woman has black hair and what looks like black eyes and that kid looked blonde and blue eyed. She either adopted or reproduced with Powder or something. Or maybe her DNA is just as confused as she is, who knows.

The camera next moves over to Cindy and Ernie. Cindy bores us with talk of her “packing list” for The Amazing Racer. Apparently, she’s such a control freak that these two studied geography, took intensive language courses, and did exercises to prepare for the show. As if you didn’t already know, we’ll never beat these Asians. Even the ones that were born in America. I’ll bet the snowboarders’ idea of prepping for the show was packing two Prefontaine headbands and one pair of underwear to share between them. Anyway, Ernie and Cindy are on bike patrol and Cindy says “Ernie’s dad’s a cop so he’s feeling at home right now.” Uh, I’m sure Dad’ll take this safari hard hat wearing bike rent a cop comparison as a real compliment.