TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 7 and 8

This episode turned out to be a two-parter. What started out as a gap of 16 hours or so between first and last place ended with the last few teams just a few minutes apart. However, a 30-minute penalty incurred at the end of a non-elimination leg resulted in Team Guido being Philiminated. Meanwhile, Team Cha Cha Cha decided to try to win some karma points by allowing Joyce and Uchenna to win a prize at the Pit Stop where the Teams finished in first together.

Episode 7 basically boiled down to who could find the best travel agent to book the earliest trip from Tanzania to Warsaw, Poland. That competition was won by the Beauty Queens who were patient with their agent while Mirna and Charla may have placed too much pressure on their agent by crowding in too closely. It would take 7 hours for their agent to find an alternative route to Poland. Joyce and Uchenna chose the wrong travel office, and it was funny that when they called another travel agency, it happened to be the one where all the other teams were sitting. The other teams convinced the agent to hang up on Uchenna abruptly. Eric and Danielle and The Guidos had to settle for using the original airline tickets provided at the beginning of the leg. Unfortunately, missing a connecting flight put them way behind the other teams. The tension between Eric and Danielle finally started to boil over.

Joyce and Uchenna had a chance to catch up with the Beauty Queens on a connecting flight through Frankfurt but I guess for a change they were not able to talk their way onto a plane. This allowed the Queens to cruise to victory in this leg with the Guidos somehow finishing last in a non-elimination leg and incur a 30-minute penalty if they did not finish first at the next Pit Stop.

The Guidos were so far behind that other teams had actually starteed the next leg before they finished. Fortunately, there were a couple of bunching points that allowed them to catch up to the other teams. The first was waiting for buses to take the teams to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The next was an Intersection that ultimately had members of four of the teams each eating a 2-foot long sausage. The whole eating contest was made for one of the most hilarious moments of the All-Star edition.

Eric and Danielle played it smart to just make sure they stayed close enough to Team Guido to the next Pit Stop, so they would not be eliminated. For a while it looked like there was a chance that Mirna and Charla would have had such a hard time getting directions from locals that they could have lost the race, but maybe their troubles were exaggerated or the distance to the Pit Stop was not very far at all.

I liked that the Race spent some time in Poland. I have yet to visit that country, but it is near the top of my list of places to go. Before a trip to Vienna, Austria in the early 90's, the mother of a good school friend loaned me a book by James A. Michener called Poland. It was excellently written, and made me really appreciate that part of the world, its history, and particularly the plight of the people of that country. [Unfortunately, I still have the book and never have gotten the chance to return it.]

The scenes at Auschwitz were particularly moving. On my airline flight, the day after viewing this episode on my DVR, I watched a touching movie called Freedom Writers. It also talked a bit about the Holocaust. Thirdly, Mirna and Charla discussed the Armenian genocide. Given some very current events around the world, it was interesting to compare how the world has for the most part gotten better -- though not by much.

I suppose the producers decided to relieve viewers from some heavy thoughts by having us see the teams struggle to eat giant sausages. I was laughing out loud when Mirna belched so loudly. Next, we witnessed Dustin suddenly throw up shortly after swallowing the last bite of her sausage. Then we had to watch Charla try to practice bulimia. That was sick but kind of humorous.

Other notes:
I wonder how long the poor guy playing Frederic Chopin had to stay in costume and sit in the misty weather waiting for the last few teams to arrive.

I never really learned how to play the piano though I had one in the house I grew up in. I did kind of learn Chopsticks and would watch how the piano tuner would work. So I know the little black spongy thing is used to do more than just clean the wire (according to Mirna). I have a decent ear for music notes but I likely would have made the same mistake as the Team Cha Cha Cha by snapping the piano string a couple of times.

I don't remember Charla falling down so often running to the Pit Stop the first time she ran the race. Fortunately, it does not look like she has gotten injured in those falls.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 6

This leg of the race was largely determined by luck in getting chosen off a waiting list for flights from Mozambique to Tanzania. The most dramatic moment was Eric and Danielle getting booted off a plane after they had already been seated. It was interesting that Eric had a premonition that something like that could happen. It also seemed a bit unfair given that they were the first team to get on the waiting list.

Once all the flights were sorted out, it was boiled down to a two team race to avoid elimination. Team Guido was much more methodical and solving a jigsaw puzzle, and they left Teri and Ian in the dust.

The race for first was kind of funny. Charla and Mirna started out with a huge lead going into Tanzania. Unfortunately "bad weather" held them back a night and allowed a few other teams to catch up. Team Cha Cha Cha had passed them at the puzzle challenge but then they made an odd decision to stop for fruit. The fruit may have been cheap to buy, but it also cost them the first place prize of a couple of catamarans. Hard to tell if they would have made more use of it than Charla and Mirna who looked confused about what they had won.

It would have been interesting to know how long it took for some of the teams to hit a target by throwing those sticks. I think in a couple of cases, contestants hit the pole holding the target instead of the target itself.

Next leg ... a two-hour special. Guess I will have to catch up with it on another evening.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 5

The key to this leg of the race was depending on the kindness of strangers. Charla and Mirna moved from last to first [as opposed to Romber who fell from first to last in the previous leg] by getting a local to give them directions around Maputo. They also were quick to find both men and women willing to pay to have their nails painted. Meanwhile, Joyce and Uchenna showed that nice guys can finish last and live to see another leg. I think they were saved by at least one non-elimination leg in the season where they ended up winning the race.

The teams were separated by as much as two or three hours at the start of the leg, but the first challenge and airline schedules caused a bunching situation as the teams raced to Africa.

It was good that the Amazing Race raised a tiny bit of awareness of a couple of problems being dealt with in Mozambique (and many other places around the world for that matter). The first is the high number of landmines buried during a civil war. It's encouraging to learn that trained rats could be used to sniff mines vs. using expensive anti-mine equipment. The second issue was the high rate of AIDS.

In lighter news, the Beauty Queens gained some karma points by taking time to paint the nails of a young girl who had no money. It may have helped them to a second place finish, but in general the task they chose was much easier and faster than filling large bags of charcoal. It helped Teri and Ian finish third.

It was also funny watching Phil avoid a hug from the coal laden Team Cha Cha Cha. That is probably the most we have ever seen him move in the history of this show. It would have been interesting to see how the Miners (David and Mary) would have done in that task.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 4

I'll have to post some very quick recaps of the last few episodes as I've fallen way behind in my TV viewing. Perhaps it has just taken me this long to get over the shock of this episode.

On this leg, the Karma police decided to strike down Team Romber pretty early instead of making Rob feel the huge disappointment of losing on the very last leg. I was hoping that when Rob and Amber were married, that maybe Rob would become a nicer guy in these reality shows. Instead it was Amber who became a little more deceitful, and that was a shame.

Ultimately, it was a spelling error (Phillipeans?) at a Detour that cost Romber the race. Coincidentally, Ferdinand Magellan himself never did make it around the world. He was killed in battle in the Philippines (correct spellig), and only 18 members of his crew completed the first known circumnavigation of the Earth. Much to the slight disappointment of my parents, that is about all I know about Filipino history.

I thought there might be a chance for Romber to save themselves at the mail sorting task, since that is a typical "needle in a haystack" type challenge where luck can play a bigger role than skill. But Rob seemed to be conceding defeat at that point.

The only other bit of trivia we got to learn this week was that Kandace snores pretty loudly.

Not as surprising, more commentary from Eric is interested in Danielle mostly because of her ample boobs. That does not bode well for a long-term relationship.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 3

This week marked the end of the race for the beloved Kentucky miners. All through this leg of the race I kept hoping the karmic police would step in and punish Charla and Mirna for trying to cut in line. Their panic can also be a bit annoying but that does not impact Karma points. Fortunately, they gained some points for inadvertently helping the hopelessly lost Team Guido. The miners somehow missed an exit on their way to a clue, but it was not really clear how far it had put them behind all the other teams.

We learned a few interesting though not very surprising tidbits about the teams this week:

- Danielle and David have never touched live fish before. But David managed to learn how to handle them faster, while Danielle somehow overcame her discomforts with them eventually. But it cost her team a bunch of time.

- Team Cha Cha Cha needs to do much more cardio work. Granted I do too, so I cannot really make fun of them.

- The Beauty Queens are in really good shape at physical tasks, and they have not gone into a panic. Now they just need to pay much more attention to directions and clues. Otherwise they may not last longer. They were incredibly fortunate not to lose any ground in skipping a clue.

- Amber seems to do most of the Road Blocks. I guess Rob does most of the plotting. But since all the other teams know the game, it may not be much of an advantage this time around. Following signs carefully did allow them to pass other teams at the end and finish first for the 3rd week in a row. However, taking a brief wrong turn early in the leg did show they are not perfect.

- I guess we now know from comments at the fish challenge why Eric is dating Danielle, but that was not too hard to guess. If I put the word he used a lot in my blog I might start getting some interesting hits from people searching for that word. So I won't.

Every team chose the rafting detour instead of a rock climb. Well the Queens did the rafting by accident. I wonder if the 40-foot climb would have been faster considering the time needed to drive to the rafts, get changed, raft, and catch a shuttle back to the cars. Teri was remarkably calm for someone who fell into the rapids. I wonder how quickly the guides were able to pull her back into the boat. The river rafting would have been frightening for me - a dislocated shoulder waiting to happen. The closest experience I have to that is riding the Rip Roaring Rapids at Great America. I vaguely recall that ride had a category associated with it but I cannot find that information anywhere right now. But people are restrained securely to a tall seat within a big rubber tire on that ride, and there are no sharp rocks to worry about.

Mirna spoke the title of the episode this week, but I have not been keeping track of this as much as last season where Mary spoke some classic lines.

Next week the teams may finally make their way out of Chile, with a finish that is sure to shock people.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 2

The theme of this episodes race revolved around paying attention to details. Missing one instruction about speed limits cost Kevin and Drew the race while Romber cruised to another victory.

The Road Block challenge took the teams into a staged boardroom meeting. Letters on buttons or pens or shirts had to be combined to find a secret word that would get them the next clue. Eric should have been the first to figure things our, but sort of outsmarted himself. This allowed Dustin to be the first to solve the puzzle. The interesting thing was seeing Amber being nice to other teams, which did not please Rob too much. I guess Rob still does not believe that karma has been an influence in many of these races.

The Detour challenge had teams choosing between putting a giant tire on a giant machine or moving some gravel around. It turned out that the gravel was easier to do while the bolting wheels required some attention to detail, and that cost some teams a bunch of time. Teri and Ian almost made a fatal error by not knowing where the cars where. Then a bunch of teams took a wrong turn, but ultimately it was the insistence of not driving over 40 km/h that cost Kevin and Drew the race.

Outside of the interesting terrain that teams had to drive through to get to the Pit Stop, there was not much in this episode that might make viewers want to book a trip to northern Chile. Almost all of my international trips have been to Europe and Asia, so it's hard for me to comment on places in South America (unless they ever visit Bogota, Columbia).

There also weren't any big surprises in the order of finish. But this is the Amazing Race, so who knows what the future holds. :)

Movies: The Academy Awards

With the small amount of hits my blog gets, I easily noticed a random blip of recent activity around my review of The Departed. I take that as a sign that the Academy Awards will be on tonight.

I have been negligent in sharing my thoughts about several other movies I have watched since seeing The Departed, and maybe I will give them the fuller reviews they deserver at some later date. Also, I have not seen every movie that was nominated for an award this year, but I will try to make public predictions for the first time. I have made correct predictions in private even without seeing any of the pictures nominated. Granted I believe all my predictions are based on an ability to process the "buzz" on the street and the media rather than on any true psychic abilities. :-)

Best Picture: The Departed. A lot of people are hoping that Little Miss Sunshine wins. I loved that movie, and I am rooting for it, but I think it may ultimately fall short. Perhaps the cast should jump on-stage and dance or do something outrageous to get the movie completely disqualified :-) If somehow the popular vote gets split between those two movies, then another excellent movie, The Queen, could just sneak through. How fearless a first public prediction is that? Not.. :-)

Best Director: I think Martin Scorsese will finally get an Oscar. I have heard good things about Letters from Iwo Jima but I think voters may say Clint Eastwood already has two directing Oscars from movies that may have been better.

Best Actress: Helen Mirren. When I saw the opening shot of The Queen, I thought I was watching a documentary rather than a movie. Maybe if I paid attention to the royal family more, I would notice differences between the real queen and an actress, but Mirren just disappeared into her role. In this case, I have to admit that I missed the movies of all the other nominated performers.

Best Actor: Forrest Whitaker. I have to go on buzz alone on that one as I have not watched The Last King of Scotland yet -- though Whitaker looks convincing as Idi Amin in the trailer for the movie. I thought Leonardo DiCaprio performed better in The Departed than in Blood Diamond. But he did an excellent job in both, so maybe he deserves some sort of an award just for that accomplishment.

Best Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy. I have to go with the buzz once again since Dreamgirls is also still on my "to see" list. Mark Wahlberg stole every scene in The Departed but his role did not allow him to display many emotions other than anger. Alan Arkin was awesome in Little Miss Sunshine as was Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond. So it is kind of funny that I am leaning toward a performance I have not seen.

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson. But I really think it would be cool if Abigail Breslin wins.

Like most people, I do not pay too much attention to the other categories. I suspect Pan's Labyrinth will get some award related to art. Finally, I think An Inconvenient Truth will win Best Documentary. I never thought a movie about a class lecture delivered by a politician criticized for being stiff would be so compelling. I've heard good things about the other documentaries so it could be a close vote.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 1

The Amazing Race is back and well I guess I am too.

I guess I now better appreciate people who manage to post entries more regularly. It is so easy to let blogging slide way down on the "To Do" list.

Anyway, it is hard for me to comment on the first leg of the race because I messed up. Not entirely but pretty badly. I forgot that by DVR was set up was specifically to record the Amazing Race 10 and not the Amazing Race in general. I did not realize that until I arrived home after a party. Fortunately, I did try to watch the show while I was at the party, but for various expected reasons, it was really hard to hear anything that was going on.

At best as I can tell, there were supposed to be some surprises with the teams this season. The two biggest surprises both involved John Vito and Jill. First, they are an ex-couple who, I guess, are still friends. Second, they managed to be eliminated quickly, falling victim to the oldest pitfall of any race - getting lost.

Not as surprising is the fact that Eric and Danielle are now dating and racing together this season. I personally would have preferred to team up with the other Dani of Team Pink (not that I would have had a chance with either of them). Anyway, I think Eric had a better chance of winning if he had stuck with his original teammate, Jeremy.

Least surprising is that Romber came in first place. Love them or hate them, they are skilled reality show competitors. It will be interesting to see how other teams keep up. Joyce and
Uchenna did beat them before, but they happened to get very lucky at the right time, and it seems unlikely that lightning will strike twice.

It's still too early to predict an elimination order. But I get a general impression that teams from earlier seasons are outmatched, along with the Miners who may not be able to form any sort of
alliance this time around. I'll still hope

Oh well, hope I correctly record the second leg and hear the audio.

TMI: 3000 Hits

I guess attaining 3000 hits is a great achievement for a major league baseball player, but it is a tiny pittance for a web site that has been around for only slightly more than a year.

For Year 2 of the Chronicles, I have migrated to the Beta version of Blogger and updated my template to take advantage of the new features without giving up much of the old look at feel. The labels should allow people to limit their RSS feeds to just the topics they are interested in.

Adapting to the new template took a little less time than I thought. I just ran into a couple of snags that were quickly resolved via Google searches. Including my counters and Random Quote of the Day just involved adding HTML/Javascript page elements. Then I ran into Java Script errors trying update those HTML elements in Firefox 2. Again this was a known issue with a simple workaround of reloading the page where one edits the page element.

TV: Amazing Race 10 - Finale

Congratulations to the Models for winning the Amazing Race 10. I guess it is nice to see a couple of reformed drug addicts show what people can do if they set their minds to it. My gut thought Rob and Kim would win, but as usual, I guessed wrong. I should have known the Models would win when challenges included putting a dress together and traveling between the fashion capitals of Paris and New York. Overall, this was a race full of surprises particularly after more recent editions were almost foregone conclusions after the first leg.

It would have been interesting to know how close the race really was. It would be interesting if the main key was finding a taxi driver with a fast pass versus one who had to wait in the cash only line at a toll booth. Something tells me the Models jogged the two miles faster than our bickering couple as well despite the editing. Or the taxi driver they found for the last 56-mile drive to the finish line was just driving that much faster.

At the beginning of the episode, I had a feeling the racers would have to go to the Sagrada Familia eventually. Not sure how one could go to Barcelona and not go there. As I said before it is an amazing building. Too bad they did not go inside. They would have had fun trying to race up at least one of the spiral staircases to find their next clue. My knees were shaky coming back down one of the church spires, but it was due to slight acrophobia and claustrophobia rather than fatigue. I guess hiding the clue in a nearby park was good enough, but I knew they would bunch up at the airport.

The Bama Moms were smart or lucky enough to have a travel agent send them to Orly Airport instead of CDG. I have never been through Orly, but I think it is a shorter commute to central Paris and maybe a much easier airport to get in and out of in general. It put them into first place inside Paris. The Moms went to the well once too often in trying to find a flight back to New York from Orly. It is possible that if they went to CDG first, that they could have gotten ahead of one of the other teams on the waiting list. However, somehow Rob and Kim managed to find the right person and negotiate an early checkin even though they arrived at the airport after the Models. The race was almost decided at that point.

Other Notes:
I guess the Miners' shirts were passed from the miners to the Chos to the Bama Moms. Either that or David and Mary had a bunch to pass around. I wonder if the racers had a separate laundry budget or facilities to wash their own clothes at the pit stops.

Google Earth just added new Geographic Web Layers. I noticed it when checking out the location of the Eiffel Tower and Place de la Concorde. There are some cool links to pictures of both locations and other pointers. The two locations are pretty close together but I guess the racers had to take a major detour and stop by Omaha beach for skydiving.

I think I mentioned before that I have visited Paris. I stayed at a hotel about 3 or 4 blocks SW along the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. The fancy restaurant where I dined, Ledoyen, is just WNW of Place de la Concorde. That area is also where the Tour de France traditionally finishes.

I have stayed in New York a few times as well, but I never passed by any of the places where the teams had to find clues.

Hopefully the woman in the yellow cap stayed dry in rainy weather by standing under the sculpture. Maybe there were spotters that let her know when any teams were close? I wonder what the auditions were like for that brief role. "Are you willing to wear a loud yellow top and hat?"

The woman judging when the dress was finished may have been the harshest judge in the history of the Amazing Race. There were challenges involving putting together some Ikea furniture and Greek statues with judges who were almost as serious about enforcing the rules.

I guess the teaser for next season confirmed the next race is an All-Star edition with some secret teams to be revealed while other teams have relationships that have changed since they originally raced. Oh well, until February, I'll have to find other subjects to write about.

TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episodes 11 and 12

The Thanksgiving holiday, a pileup of work assignments, and apartment cleaning prevented me from paying attention to my blog last week. Bad way to start off Year Two of my Chronicles, which is due for some minor tweaks to take advantage of the new Beta Blogger features.

Anyway, this edition of the race has remained true to form and had the teams finish in almost the exact reverse order than I predicted. The Beauty Queens were finally eliminated after being in the gun sights of every other team for several legs now. Their strategy for winning almost worked out for them, and they were a strong team that never had any conflicts, but in the end Karma demanded its pound of flesh (not camel meat) and so they were doomed. Even if the Queens had not overshot a challenge a week ago and put Rob and Kim into last, they would have still lost since Rob and Kim came in first this week and would have avoided the 30 minute penalty.

Granted the stress of having to come in first could have caused Rob and Kim to crumble this week. I totally thought they were goners once they chose to search for a clue in a pile of tomatoes while getting pelted by locals. I thought they were headed for a nuclear meltdown. Usually the "find a needle in a haytomato stack challenge" has taken down the strongest of teams, but somehow Rob and Kim and the Bama Moms found the clue to the Pitstop rather quickly.

The Bama Moms have proven that one can go fast by starting slow and staying calm. Last week they took advantage of not getting an earlier flight to study some maps of Morocco, so they did not get lost while other teams relied on sometimes unreliable locals for directions. They could have finished first last week while the Models had to run back to their car to get some good luck charm. This week they walked through a maze and were the first to find a way out of it. If they did not have such bad luck with taxis, they could have finished first again this week. Congratulations to them for being the first all-female team to get into the final 3. At first I thought the Bowling Moms had achieved that feat, but maybe they only made the final 4.

Other Notes:
The chariot races looked fun but dangerous. I wonder how they stayed in those things on such a bumpy track. Having a couple of stunt charioteers take a spill was pretty cool.

Hopefully Rob and Kim can avoid driving the rest of the race. I cannot recall another team having worse luck with cars.

Kim needs to see more of the world. This week she mistook some goats as dogs. I almost fell off my chair when that happened. Though I am not sure if those were goats or lambs. I was on the island of Nevis where a local had to teach me that goats have their tails up while sheep have tails that go down.

One pound or half a kilogram of meat is quite a bit of food no matter what animal it is. I probably would have made the camel kabobs a little too spicy.

I had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful city of Barcelona five or six years ago. On my last day there, I spent a whole day walking around the city. I started from my hotel to the incredible Sagrada Familia via the Diagonal. Then I went to the old bull ring, Magic Fountain, and Art Museum where the pitstop was this week. I went further up that hill to the Olympic stadium. Then I walked by the spot where the Olympic diving and swimming competitions were held. I recognized that site when I saw the first split second of the music video "Slow" by Kylie Minogue. From there I took an aerial tramway down to the harbor, walked along the beaches, and ended my trek by walking up Las Ramblas where one of the Detours took place. I do not recall the distance from Las Ramblas to the Pitstop being very far. With traffic it might be hard to say if a taxi would have been much faster than walking.

Next week, one of the final three teams will earn a million dollars. I have no clue who that will be, and I imagine I will be glued to the TV until the end. Plus I am already looking forward to the next Amazing Race. It is going to be an All-Star Edition featuring the return of the very loved and hated Team Romber. I vaguely recall getting an unusual cluster of hits to my website from Miami a few weeks ago too. Hmm...

TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 10

The Cho Bros pretty much choked this week, or at least that's how it was implied. Starting out the second half of the leg having to confront their fear of heights may have made them too tentative for the rest of the leg. The time they wasted needing to stop and ask for guidance over and over was about as bad as driving the wrong way confidently. But at least they dispelled one stereotype that men never ask for directions. The male models also have shown navigation impairment, but they realized quickly that they would not be able to read the Ukranian Cyrillic alphabet and were thoughtful enough to trust taxi drivers and the Beauty Queens to lead them around. This vaulted them to victory.

I wonder if the Beauty Queens came in second because they were being perfectionists with their Rap song. Other teams sounded like they just let the passenger throw some lyrics together while the other drove. The Queens worked diligently together on a routine that they might use if they were still competing in pageants. They could have just over-estimated how long it would take the Models to find the sheet music and a piano player at the other Detour.

Dustin might be cute and an excellent tank driver, but may not be the person you want on a Trivial Pursuit team. I think she was the one who knows about the Chinese inventing paper. She is also familiar with the Ukranian Bell Carol. However, last week she talked about Finnish clogs; this week she thought Chernobyl was where an atomic bomb went off. Granted I thought the nuclear reactor was in Russia rather than the Ukraine. If I were competing, there's a slight chance I would have gone to Moscow instead of Kiev and committed the most monumental blunder in Amazing Race history.

Rob and Kimberley were lucky that the Chos and the 'Bama Moms were moving so slowly. They were able to overcome an automobile breakdown and still come in third. It's funny how pessimistic Rob gets whenever anything goes wrong. At least he's realizing that Kimberley is a superhuman alien. They did try to be nice this week and invite a very helpful local couple into a club to watch their Rap performance. The expression on the locals' faces were classic and it was funny to see them standing patiently outside the club when Rob and Kim finished. I guess they were not in a hurry to go anywhere and enjoyed the opportunity to appear on TV. I wonder how many other countries air the Amazing Race. At least, it is being broadcast in the Philippines and Canada along with an Asian edition.

Hopefully the teams get some money for laundry after traipsing through mud twice on the same long leg.

I guess the Race was filmed in the summer. It looked like it was still early afternoon as the racers ran into the Helsinki airport at 9:17PM. It also looked pretty bright at 6:00AM the next morning. The longest amount of daylight I have experienced was June in Berlin, Germany where the sun rose around 4:30AM and did not set until around 10:00PM. The furthest north that I have traveled is Skagway, Alaska but that was in September.

Kiev looks like an interesting city to visit. After eating duck in Beijing, I am considering eating chicken in Kiev, but several sources say it did not originate there (though the text is almost identical on every site).

News: Wireless Electricity

A while back Tom Kyte was reminiscing about some old IBM equipment and joked about wireless electricity. 11 months later this news article talks about a more practical wireless electricity solution.

TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 9

This was a pretty tense week. It ended with a literal cliff hanger as the Male Models rappelled down the side of a stadium tower face first hoping to finish first and get a nice prize from Phil only to find out the race was not over. The Beauty Queens should not have been that far behind them. Meanwhile the remaining three teams were about an hour back and scrambling not to be eliminated.

The Bama Moms almost found themselves looking at a 12 - 15 hour deficit when all the other teams were able to grab a 7AM flight that would eventually take them to Finland while the next flight could have been a 9PM flight to Paris. But somehow they were able to wheedle their way on board with just seconds to spare. It was a pretty crazy flight plan from Madagascar to Johannesburg, South Africa to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Frankfurt, Germany to Helsinki, Finland.
[I had the same number of stops on a flight going from San Francisco to Bangalore, India via Paris, New York, and Mumbai. When I saw that itinerary, I changed the layovers to be about 12 to 15 hours each, so I could do some power sight-seeing at each stop.]

Whenever there is a bunching up, it seems like the Beauty Queens are always the first to get out of the airport. It has been giving them a huge time advantage and has made the other teams jealous. The producers have not shown how the Queens achieve this, but I suspect they are able to sweet talk other passengers into switching seats so they can exit the plane first.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Chos were out to prove that nice guys finish last. One of them correctly observed, "Being polite sucks sometimes." and earned title of the week. From the previews of next weeks episode, they finally make a second observation that their alliance is over. I may have been wrong about their outlook. Even when they had a chance to pass some teams racing through mud, they ran out of gas again and remained last.

Rob and Kimberley outraced the Chos as carrying Kim was probably much easier than carrying a Cho bro. In one of the funniest moments this week, Rob made the remark that carrying his partner was much easier than he thought. This left him open to the nightmare question, "Do you think I'm fat?" That exchange probably threw them off course so much, they ended up dropping from third to last in finding the Road Block challenge.

The teams had to descend into a scary dark mine to retrieve what sounded like the final clue of the week. Rob let out some evil yells as he raced his bike up the mine shaft and caught up to the Bros and the Moms The shot of Rob's headlight coming up behind the the Mom who was panting like crazy sent chills up my spine. It was like something out of a horror movie.

The ironic part of the challenge is that David of the recently eliminated Coal Miners probably would have felt right at home there. I'm not sure where the Chos got the Miners' T-shirts, but it was sort of funny that the Chos were racing in memory of David and hoped to channel David's spirit in the mine. The dude was just eliminated not killed.

The walk down the side of a stadium tower would have been the scariest challenge for me. My knees would have been trembling like crazy. But it was funny to watch. It would have reminded me more of the Batman TV series if they let both members rappel together.

And bats would have been appropriate for a slightly post-Halloween episode.

Other Notes:
I have to admit I am finding myself more attracted to Dustin each week even if she thinks people in Finland wear wooden shoes.

Someone needs to warn Tyler that being Metrosexual is "Out" while Real Men are "In". This at least according to the latest episode of Men in Trees. I may have to blog a bit more about this little TV show which is a pleasant mix of Sex and the City and Northern Exposure. Not quite as good as either, but it's the closest one can get to new episodes of each.

Did it sound like Kimberley was asking for directions to La Jolla?

Here's is a pretty cool Google Earth Mash Up of all the Amazing Race 10 locations. Similarly, here's the Google Maps Mash Up. Neat stuff.

Web: Time lapse movies

Carl Backstrom's Blog mentioned a cool video of a trip from LA to NY taken with time-lapse photography. But the link to the movie from that site seemed to take too long to download. So I found a better source here. The mount did not seem to drift at all. It is also pretty interesting that nobody tried to steal the camera from the back of that convertible (or maybe any attempts were edited out). Someday, or more likely some might, I might drive from one end of Interstate 80 to the other.

This blog collection of time lapse videos has several other interesting clips as well. I particularly enjoyed anything that included San Francisco, of course, along with the aurora displays. The video of A Year in Antarctica was educational and entertaining.

TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 8

All good things must come to an end (I figured I needed a Star Trek: TNG reference in my blog eventually). For the miners, the race around the world finally ended in Madagascar. At least Mary got to experience some new things, and learned that Madagascar is more than just an animated move. It also was good to see that the new non-elimination penalty of a 30 minute wait for a non-first place finish actually had an impact on the outcome. They actually came in 5th but only 10 minutes ahead of the Bama Moms. This added to a tense, emotional finish.

Barring a major surprise, the odds are that the Bama Moms are the next to go. I think the message from their cute children (in next week's episode) might make them want to lose and go home. So, I can start to handicap what I believe will be the final four.

The Models could be the most physically fit but most directionally challenged. There's also sign of some conflict brewing between the guys. But at least James can eat (and giving Tyler the inspiration to name an episode). That might only be good enough for 4th place in this close race. The preview showing them getting stuck in the mud might be a hint for an upset.

The Needlers pretty much have fate in their hands. If they can get along, they can win this thing. Chances are the mounting pressure will lead to another Rob meltdown or a full-blown argument. The presence of the Models and just doing the Fast Forward may have spared them for one leg. They seem to be doing OK in the developing countries despite some of their odd preconceptions about people who live there. They may get an advantage if the race goes through the fancier areas of Europe, but staying in the third world could mean a third place finish.

The Chos have been trying very hard to prove that nice guys can finish first, but so far that has only happened once for them in this race. Perhaps after they are unburdened by the rest of the six-pack they can jump over a couple of teams. It will be interesting to see if they will try to form a new alliance or try to keep the Bama Moms in it. The work they did with The Queens at the Intersection / Detour challenge showed they could work with anybody -- even the most hated team. Most importantly, the brothers get along with each other. Unfortunately, they can also get lost while driving or while in deep thought. That may only let them take second at best.

This leaves The Queens who have been on a roll despite piling on more bad karma points. This week they took the Bama Moms' car instead of using the same car that they wrecked earlier. Then they made a dumb joke about perhaps doing the Paper challenge because the Chos were Asian (maybe the only time the Chos showed any disgust, with the "Let's just go" comment). At least the comment showed that the Blondes know some history. They have gotten lost less frequently than the other teams, and could be resourceful when needed. It would be great to see an all-woman team win this race for the first time, even if I am still rooting for the nicer Chos.

This race may still have a few tricks up its sleeve, so nothing is a lock.

Other Notes:
While Los Angeles is known for its traffic and smog, most of it blown into the surrounding valleys (see simple flash demo there). Therefore, I guess Rob and Kimberly must live around Long Beach since they seem most sensitive to the smog in other cities.

I wonder if the taxi drivers in Madagascar's capital city were trying to take tourists for a ride. A few of them tried to find some long way to get the "Black Angel" and many of them waited until the last minute to get gasoline. I do not remember that issue being shown as frequently in any other race destination.

The taxi driver reaction to Karlyn's comment about being a "Black Angel" did look edited and fake (or at least more so than previous attempts to display driver "double-takes" to racer comments). But it is still kind of funny every time it happens.

I used to devour cow or ox tongue when I was a very young child until I learned what it was. I am not sure if I have ever eating cow lips, but considering how often I dine out, who knows what I have been eating. I never could eat balut, though most of my family loves it.

How many times have contestants vomited at those eating challenges? Kimberley was having the toughest time this time around.

Between the stiff dancing and the uncomfortable look Phil had while being hugged by two attractive blond women, I wonder how much of a nerd Phil was in school.

TMI: Thought for Food

I have been meaning to write this for weeks but I suppose the day after Halloween is as good a time as any to stop procrastinating.

One thing I have been thinking about as the "Big Four-Zero" quickly approaches is going on a healthier diet. I decided I will not try to eat less and exercise more since the more I think about not eating the more I actually do eat. I am sort of like that slow reading cartoon character on The Electric Company who would forget a sign contained the "NOT" word. [Yes, my TV viewing habits were established at a very young age.]

Of course, the fates have conspired against me. I went on my first cruise this summer. If there is one thing I learned, it is impossible to go hungry on-board a luxury liner. I finally fully appreciate the old joke, "I'm on a seafood diet. When I see food, I eat it." Fortunately, I did spend several hours power walking through the streets of a few Alaskan towns, otherwise I would have gained a ton of weight. I do not know if I will ever lose the half-ton I did gain.

Next, it seemed like every food that was supposed to be healthy to eat could make you sick instead. It started with spinach, then it was a lettuce recall, and next it is something else yet to be identified. On the bright side, all these food scares have allowed my sister to achieve some airtime on news show on a station in Los Angeles, KTLA [For some reason you have to use Internet Explorer and click on Part Two: An E.Coli Lab to see the video]. She does not get a speaking role but is one of the women seen messing around with test tubes and lab machinery. This means she is one of the few people in my family who has a job that all my relatives can now understand. I imagine it is a cross between CSI and Ghost Germ Hunters.

But I digress. I suppose if I live in an age where any food I eat could potentially kill me, I should get to choose my poison. So, let me introduce you to Deep Fried Coke. I wonder what happens if you squeeze a Mentos into that.

If I had just procrastinated a few minutes longer, I could have incorporated this news hot off the press that obese mice can stay healthy (but not get skinny) with a chemical called resveratol. Could Woody Allen actually be the second coming of Nostradamus?

TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 7

Rob summed up how the show has developed so far by observing, "It's amazing how this race flips, dude!" [Yes. All people in California address each other as 'Dude' or 'Man']. The coal miners went from last to first and back to last place, but were spared from elimination once again. They seem to be following the BJ and Tyler tactic of winning by losing and lulling their competitors into complacency. If these folks reach the final three, I imagine David and Mary will remove their sandbags and start running sub-10-second 100-meter dashes to finish first. Then they will reveal an evil laugh as they receive their million-dollar check. But I will continue rooting for them.

By odd coincidence, I recently researched the island of Mauritius on the Internet a few weeks ago after hearing that the company I work for was going to open an office there. It looks like a nice place to visit; I would consider myself lucky if I ever have a business assignment there.

I will have to remember that there do not seem to be many direct flights to Mauritius from Kuwait. It could not have been fun for teams to fly all the way to London, UK to Mauritius. The Beauty Queens were most incredulous that it was the fastest route. I suppose it was in frustration that they set up a conflict between the Models and the 'Bama Moms. In the end, all the teams ended up taking the same plane.

Next I have to remember that Mauritius is another country that drives on the other side of the road. On my only trip to London, I did try driving a company car with a stick shift around a parking lot. Between driving on the other side, rarely driving a car with manual transmission particularly one with the stick on the other side, and being completely unfamiliar with the rules of the road and the street signs (particularly at roundabouts), I opted to just use hire cars and the train to get around. I am impressed that the teams did not get more lost other than the Models.

Finally I have to remember to avoid sprinkling salt on my food in Mauritius. Most of the teams chose SALT at the Detour, but it did not look like any of them washed their hands before starting to dig into the piles of salt and stepping all over it with their dirty shoes. Also, the decoy salt shakers were filled with soil that was just poured into the pile.

So even with a car break down (and another Rob meltdown) and a car accident (Beauty Queens perhaps earning some bad karma), the final order was determined by how long it took for each team to give up on SALT and switched to SEA.

Humorous moments:
Phil saying "Uhh..." when Dustin asked him if he wants to ride with her on the scooter she just won. Classic. He practically walked into that trap. He may still have been too off-balance to fully execute his fake 'Philimination' routine with the Miners.

Speaking of traps, someone had fun setting up the pit next to the sails. I am pretty sure I would have fell into that thing and died laughing after freaking out for a little while.

Mary has a fear of fish? I had never heard of that before, but it does have a name, Ichthyphobia. She probably watched Piranha before becoming a Steven Seagal fan.

TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 6

Congratulations to the Miners for leaping from over 5 hours behind in last place to first with an assist from the Chos and a Fast Forward where Mary improved to 4 out of 6 in the unofficial episode naming contest. Maybe someone needs to inform her that Steven Seagal has starred in only one or two slightly successful movies in the last 10 years. Audiences cheering as his character fell to his death from a plane an early scene of 1996's Executive Decision indicated his career was headed in a similar direction.

The Miners won a trip to Negril, Jamaica. I visited the island (coincidentally around 1996) to attend a wedding, and had a great time. I remember parasailing over the long beach of Negril. The almost perfect scenery from up there was besmudged by what I initially thought was a hairy ugly albino manatee. Then I became horrified when a second glance revealed it was actually a fat old man who was completely nude with white fur all over his body except for the top of his head. Then, a rather attractive much younger woman with much less covering her waded into the picture to ... "greet" him. After I landed my parachute on a rather small platform in the water, I made sure to stay on the more modest section of the beach.

The episode scared me at first as a throwback to Treasure Hunters. The racers received their first clue via a cell phone (shameless product placement), and it was not that difficult. Basically, all they had to do was ask someone if they recognized some towers in Kuwait, only to find out they were called The Kuwait Towers. Then one member of each team had to climb up the outside of a tower to retrieve a satchel that contained some puzzle pieces that had to be combined with other puzzle pieces found in a "treasure chest" back on the ground. The feelings of deja vu continued as Erwin channeled the spirit of Sam from The Geniuses team who also a fear of heights. I guess someone behind the show wanted to prove they could do this better than the upstart competition.

Navigation once again determined the outcome of this race. The teams arrived in Kuwait at the same time. The Queens thought they had good directions to the Towers and left the airport first but still managed to get lost and lose a few spots. The Chos redeemed some karma points by getting a police escort to one clue and moving up a couple of spots out of last place. The ex-junkies / male models showed intelligence in being the first to complete a tricky puzzle. Then they avoided getting "Lost in Translation" by thinking of carrying the clue to a local to tell the name of a street writing in Arabic. However, they still got lost looking for the next clues and avoided elimination only because one other team was more lost than they were.

As the Coal Miners moved from last to first, the Triathletes fell from first to last and were eliminated from the race. I was more gratified by that result as Peter has been coming across as a loser. Perhaps it was due to editing, but the other teams did not trust him either. The Triathlets also lost points by trying to use Sarah's condition to cajole travel agents into finding a faster flight. Peter also seemed content to lie back and root for Sarah on the tougher Road Blocks. Those challenges and world travel experience helped Sarah grow up and realize that she deserves a real partner; not just some guy who supplies prosthetics (I had predicted this as early as week 1). The inability to navigate the streets of Kuwait City ended their $1,000,000 hopes. They must have gotten as lost as any people could get in an area the size of
Kuwait.

Other random notes:
The pit stop didn't seem to be the normal 12 hours as teams appeared to finish during the daytime the episode before but did not leave until the next afternoon. Either that or I'm losing my memory.


The view from the Kuwait Towers did look neat.

I am a little bit pyromaniac and a little bit pyrophobic, so the fast forward of grabbing a clue next to a simulated oil well fire would have been made for an interesting thought process.

The camel racing by remote jockey looked pretty fun. I am surprised more teams did not go for that Detour unless it was much harder to find or sounded like a trick. Camels could be stubborn and the one at the race track was snarling and baring his teeth, but overall, it appeared to be an easier Detour to complete than packing and hauling camel chow.

I've been noticing the T-shirts a little more this season. The Miners wore T-shirts that displayed a miner with the caption "Friends in Low Places". The Queens had shirts representing their home states, but I wonder how many people were trying to figure out what "CANY" meant or otherwise pretending to read those T-shirts very slowly. The Chos wore their Lost Phil shirts again, but also had one that said "Let's Hug It Out" which reminded me of a recent (and yet another hilarious) episode of The Office, where Michael was paying props to Entourage.

TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 5

I cannot remember the last time a team could not get seats on a plane and having that put them into last place for the whole leg. The bad news is that is what happened to the Coal Miners. The good news is it was the first non-elimination leg. They must now face the interesting challenge of keeping their possessions and money, but having to go from last to first and/or possibly facing a 30 minute penalty or something like that.

Most of the tense and funny moments happened on the way to the airport in Chennai. Peter acted a little slimy trying to form an alliance with the other teams and was basically rebuffed by everyone. The Chos played a mind-game on the other teams by pulling out a fake phone and pretending to make reservations. It looked like the joke would be played on them when Peter found someone willing to lend him a phone so he could make real reservations. Then things looked even worse for the Chos when the first travel agency they went to had moved. Somehow through that mess they ended up finding the earliest flight to Chennai while the Triathletes and the Barbies were booked on a much later flight. I thought that might be "bad karma" due to Peter making fun of the Coal Miners, but the tables turned once again when those last two teams were able to get an earlier connecting flight from wherever they stopped along the way. This let them finish this episode #1 and #2 despite not helping each other.

I've never been to Chennai, India. I just had one day stay in Mumbai (Bombay) followed by two weeks in Bangalore. There are subtle differences between all those cities, but one thing they definitely had in common was crazy traffic and associated pollution. I had fun riding in an auto rickshaw, while cars, trucks, motorbikes carrying whole families swarmed around me with centimeters to spare creating about five or six lanes of traffic where there should have only been two. I did wish I could cover my nose and mouth with a handkerchief though.

Yes, at least in some parts of the cities I visited, a fairly skinny cow would pop out of nowhere and wander across the street. They are just like squirrels in the U.S. except much bigger and slower.

It would be interesting to find out what they really teach in traffic school for a license. It seemed like some teams were getting a lot of help driving from their instructors. One beauty queen was only half joking when she said, "I'm so excited she didn't die." after her partner finished the driving lesson. I was surprised the show producers allowed the teams to take that sort of risk (which I almost considered more dangerous than handling the crocodiles). One good thing about the heavy traffic is that cars are generally moving so slow that an accident will likely not hurt you if you're in a car. I don't know if that applies to the pedestrians or bikers though. Apparently traffic fatalities are a leading cause of death of young people in some of these emerging countries.

I wonder how many different T-shirts the Chos squeezed into their backpacks.

Next week, the teams get to play with some contraption that makes a camel run down a sandy race track. I want to tune in just to see what that is all about.

In other semi-related news, my local PBS-HD station just rebroadcast the Dave Matthews Band performing at Red Rocks, where last Amazing Race started and ended. I guess they had to splice together songs from concerts that took place over a whole weekend. Otherwise, I'm not sure they would have been able to find more than 4 live songs short enough to fit into just one hour.