AMAZING RACE – 10/7/12

 
Maybe I just have a sick mind but anyone else pick up on all the hand job simulation shown with the whole balloon/air pump segment.  A couple times, my whole TV screen was taken up entirely by one hand pumping back and forth blowing a balloon up.  The shots were for at least 10 seconds, which doesn’t sound like much but since there was absolutely no other reason to fill the whole screen with some unknown person’s hand performing this motion with an object that looked like genitals, I found it creepy.  I’ll take the academic angle as opposed to my having a sick mind though.  I remember a Social Psych class I took in college talking about how they have all these expert psychologists behind the scenes of these shows trying to insert sexual subliminal messages to unconsciously keep you wanting to watch.  I don’t know, this whole segment was kind of less than subliminal for me.  There was also a dedicated shot of one of the Jameses working a couple balloons that both looked quite a bit like a full set of men’s genitals.  You probably think I’m crazy because you missed it, but if you were to see the show again I think you’d realize I’m right!  Or not.  Whatever J  Maybe it was just because these people supremely suck at making balloon animals that these Indonesian kids were stuck walking around wearing balloon models of a penis and balls on their heads.  Creepy. So anyway, if you’re bored at your desk at work or something and thinking what the hell, let me check this out, it was about 26 minutes, 25 seconds into the show.  Let me know if I’m crazy, please.
 
BACK to the show.  Sorry about that annoying little aside.  Does anyone else find Will a little weird?  He talks about the Bull task saying that it was “so much fun, racing the bulls, exhilarating.”  He said it like with zero emotion.  It’s just weird to say this particular sentence with no excitement whatsoever.  Anyway, he must have a phobia of balloons because he was the one that really sucked at that task.  (Again, not enough to have made this that much of a challenge, but no one seemed all that challenged by anything this week).  Gary says he’s never seen Will this way before, shaking and swearing profusely.  Oops, that was a pretty funny typo.  Kind of wish it was true too, would’ve made the show a little more exciting.  I am picturing a guy sweating his ass off, sounding like he has Tourette’s, while bicycling and having balloon animals pop up in his face at the same time.  Damn, that would’ve been great.  But alas, he was only sweating profusely.  But seriously, making balloon animals makes him do all this?  He had a huge wince on his face and was gritting his teeth like he was lifting freaking cars or something.  Crazy.  You’re blowing up balloon animals and pedaling a bike, pal.  Get a grip.  And by the way, how f’ing annoying was Gary?  All the coaching and whatnot.  “You can do this!” “You got this!” “Come on Will!!!” over and over.  He all but had cheerleading pompoms going.  I can’t believe Will didn’t tell him to shut the F up already.  So we’re subject to all this hoopla of Will sweating, popping balloons and freaking out and with Gary going on and on in encouragement for ten minutes and Will finally blows up one balloon successfully. “1 out of 8” flashes on the screen!  All that sweating over one freaking balloon?
 
We’ve next hit the Detour:  Ice by the Pound or Fish by the Barrel.  Ice by the Pound entailed delivering ten 65 pound blocks of ice.  First, Phil tells us that the teams must get this large block of ice from the “Giant icemaker.” They basically show a guy carrying a huge block of ice with a giant set of tongs or something. The guy seemed to be 5 feet tall too so no clue what Phil was talking about.  Maybe the tongs?  I didn’t see anything all that impressive.  Anyway, Phil then says the teams have to “then slide it through the factory.”  Uh, when I think of “factory,” I picture like a large fancy assembly line like putting Ford Mustangs together or something.  The “factory” Phil refers to looks to be a guy sliding the ice through a large mouse hole in a really, really sh*tty looking concrete wall that could not possibly have been dirtier. The wall had “Ice Pick Up” spray painted on it about 75 years ago, from the look of it.  The whole set up looked to be green with moss too.  Disgusting.  Not exactly a fancy operation.  I’m not guessing that this place would pass even the crappiest of inspections in America.  And what the hell are they doing with this ice?  Once again, glad to NOT live in some of these other countries.  There are a few things I am snobby about and one of those things is not having freaking dirt or moss or mouse droppings in my ice.  
 
We find out where the ice ends up with the second choice in the Detour – Fish by the Barrel.  The teams have to break up the disgusting ice and stack fish on it for sale.  Wow.  They’ve got raw fish sitting on this dirty ice.  I was kind of hoping to find out they used these blocks for ice skating as opposed to something that led to eating, but whatever.  Remind me not to eat fish in Indonesia any time soon.  
 
We’re back to the brainiac twins, Lexi and Trey.  Lexi says Trey is doing the task because he obviously has the guns to do it.  I was thinking it was a good thing it wasn’t a challenge that required a brain because they’d both be disqualified.  But guns, yeah, I guess so.  What the hell is up with the Karate Kid bandana Trey is wearing on his forehead?  Anyway, Lexi refers repeatedly to Trey’s muscles and guns and basically how fit and full of awesomeness he is.  “Trey had to put the ice on his big muscled arms…”  Now we see why he puts up with her airheadedness.  She says how awesome and hot he is 100 times an hour.  I’d date her if she constantly said that sh*t about me too.  
 
Well, back to highlighter head and mullet lady (couldn’t recall their names and don’t feel like looking them up, so there it is) who ask their taxi driver basically to find some random tire shop in town that’s mentioned on their clue.  (Rob and Kelley.  There it is!  Now I don’t have to type HH and ML over and over).  The guy has no clue what place they are referring to and repeatedly drives around and asks for help.  Rob doesn’t like this so he freaks and bitches about how he can’t believe they get the one guy that doesn’t know stuff in his own town.  Uh?  Do you know every auto shop in your town?  I think not.  Give this guy a break.  Rob hits a new low when he starts yelling and berating the guy in English.  Yeah, that’ll work.  The guy is still smiling from ear to ear so it really looks like he’s getting your insults, dummy.  If he was, he’d be kicking your neon yellow ass right out of that taxi.  When the driver finally gets the right directions, Rob yells “I told you to turn around, but you didn’t turn around!” Yeah, like YOU knew were you were going all of a sudden, Rob?  Drive yourself next time, A-hole.
 
Back to the disgusting fish market, one of the twins is breaking the “hard” ice (as opposed to the soft stuff we’re used to in America) to put the fish on. Natalie (honestly, don’t know or care if it was her or Nadiya) says the only problem is my makeup is going to be sweating off and getting into the fish and ice.  She has her hair resting inside the barrel of ice and fish also.  But after seeing that “factory,” I got a feeling that that is the least of the contamination going on with those fish.