Back to the Amazing Race!

Before I get to today's subject I must comment on people and chain emails. Guaranteed that if I receive an email that mentions "forward this to 4 friends and you will be rewarded", that the button I hit is not the forward, but the delete. Don't waste my time with these. But I do like it when people send out those "surveys" and the one question is "Who will not respond?". Easiest answer for everyone. That will be me.

I got an email the other day from Jodi with her comments about the Amazing Race. I watched the Tuesday show yesterday and realized I hadn't talked about the prior episode which was done in Russia. I had never seen more teams hit a wall like they did with the caviar. One team had a huge lead but fell back to fourth when the girl couldn't eat it. She got sick and had to lay down. Next team in had the same problem. Finally, the married couple came in and he wolfed it down. Other teams had problems too. It was bad enough they had to walk up and down an icy deck to get on a old battleship, but to eat 2 pounds of caviar seemed harsh. Best part of the show was watching the teams hit the finish line. The caviar eater looked ill on every team. I was happy to see the old couple go. I was getting sick of his whining about how they can teach the youngsters a thing or two. Go pop some Viagra old man and have your own amazing race.

So, to get all caught up...I am beginning to think that these may be the stupidest teams to race yet. One team who has at least a 7 hour lead took the fast forward. Huh? You have a huge lead, you don't need this. Anyone getting the fast forward would not leap ahead of you. So now they may have somewhere between the 7 and a 12 hour lead. However, they will be starting the next day at some time early in the morning. This is all catch up time for the other teams. Haven't anyone doing the race realized there are so many catch up spots during the race. It is extremely rare that someone gets to an airport and hops a flight to the next city leaving the other behind. Yes, it happened this week, but for the most part, airports, bus stations, train stations, ports, and big attractions with hours of operation are all spots in the race the clumps the teams together to make it exciting. When you have a huge lead, you can do little to protect it. One thing you do not do is take a fast forward with a lead. Well, there would be one reason, but I would be giving these too people credit. I think they said there are only 2 of these. Strategy would dictate that you could take one out of play. They never mention that this was their intention. But if it was, wouldn't you work to take the second one if you could? At the pit stop, you talk with the other and find out if the first one was used or not. Actually, that doesn't really matter but whoever is in the lead that hits the next fast forward, they must use it if there are only 2 of them in play. That totally prevents a team from catching up.
The other problem with taking the fast forward here is that you are in Egypt, a historic country with all of these pyramids and sights to see. What a waste. I personally wouldn't sleep in the street in a country that isn't that fond of Americans. Which lead me to wonder what the heck the bowling moms are going to do. One twist this year is that they hit the stop and it wasn't an elimination point. I had figured that out when the clue said "last team may be eliminated" not "last team will be eliminated". So instead they took all of their money and they won't get any. Why not just kick them out? How are they going to earn money to make it to the next destination? They better not wuss out and give all the teams like a buck to start the next segment. But it does look like they are screwed.
But back to the stupidity of the group. The leaders take a fast forward they don't need. The rest of the group listens to the leaders in the airport and don't even try to find a better flight. WTF? The leaders need to go to Egypt. They go to the airport and check with one airline. One airline? Yeah, the gimpy pizza guys tried the french airline but surprise! the stuck up people told them they were closed instead of helping someone out. Hmm...the french not helping Americans...where have I seen that before? Oh well. So each team hits the airport and they all book pretty much the same flight which takes them first to Frankfurt. Everyone gets to Frankfurt and they lay around for what might be 10 to 12 hours for their Cairo flight. Everyone that is except for Team Midget. Yeah, they still annoy the crap out of me. How many times will they keep talking like they are from a trailer park. Wait. Trailer park, New Jersey. Close enough. They sounds like city hicks and are quite annoying to me. Especially when the girl keeps telling the midget to run faster. Those little legs are moving as fast as they can and she won't move any faster. Heck, you were dumb enough to team with someone who can't run so live with it. Again, I digress. Team Midget found a better flight when they got to Frankfurt and took it. They waited for everyone to fall asleep before they snuck away. Great move! Even better when someone says "oh, they probably found an earlier flight". Dumbasses! Only one team checked on other flights. They deserve to lose.
Finally, the last of the stupid teams that needs to be mentioned are the twins. Boy, are these two full of themselves! They started with all of this bravado of being smart, having this determination and their twin intuition on how they know what each other thinks and they have worked together all of their lives. That is great except you have no common sense. None. Who puts together a puzzle, cannot figure it out and think "Hmm...I am in a strange country, have no clue where to go, but I think I will go bumbling around and maybe I will stumble across something that tell me where to go" They will not last much longer because they have no clue how to play this game. It shows on the exasperation on their faces. Hopefully they will fall soon with Team Midget. Unfortunately, we probably have another month of watching Team Midget as the gimpy pizza guys will not go much further nor will the bowling moms.
The team that is out front is kinda boring. He seems to be a bit of an ass. The married couple are ok. I have little problem with them. I give him credit for helping others still. The Christian couple are blah. I could have done without the "Schmoopie" kissy scene on the train. They won't win because they don't have the killer instinct.

As I think I have mentioned, I have been playing poker in the free tournament series that is being held around town. Played for the last 3 nights. Did shitty, very good and ok. But had some wings each night. I think I have gained 5 pounds doing this. Thankfully, I get a break with volleyball tonight. No wings, but beer. Hey, life is life.