Which is to say not a whole lot of breakthroughs going on here. In a more positive note, my request for travel on Friday did not get approved in time so it was automatically canceled. Instead of flying to and from Denver this week I’ll be spending shitloads of hours in the office. Today I brought in my sleeping bag. I will have a working app by next week so that I can spend oodles of time celebrating with ITP-Readers Lisa and Randy when they come in to town next week, as well as ITP-Reader Betsy’s birthday BetsyFest which begins this Friday.
Note to Betsy: I will be in town for Top Chef. I have a meeting which will last until 7:00pm. I could crockpot something for Top Chef dinner, or we could get takeout this week. Regardless, let’s wish for only “scattered” showers so that a quality satellite signal can be acquired. Note to Self: Fix your goddamn satellite setup, it’s your business!
RealiTV Update: The Amazing Race — Sew, Sew, Sew Your Boat
SPOILERS
I should have written this update whilst watching the show (and not watching the Jets play poorly agains New England as I predicted). This week’s update will be abbreviated and full of false facts….
Teams finally got out of Africa and flew to Denmark. Our remaining “local” team, Team Super Bowl Shuffle, somehow fumbled yet another The Amazing Race concept by “assuming that all of the teams will wait for the next day’s flight” when in fact all of the other teams got the hell out of Africa as soon as they could. I’m guessing that Marcus wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar. This blunder should have eliminated them immediately, but as we find out the racers have to drive themselves around a foreign country for the first time (?) this season — which always makes for great television!
The only other team playing on Team Super Bowl Shuffle’s level is Team I’m Sorry, Who Are You? who’ve miraculously come in next-to-last many times. But, you know what they say “Next to last is last non-eliminated, when there is an elimination of course.” Oye! Sign me up for the Divorce Pool if these two ever tie the knot.
In Denmark we see silly dancing in period costume as a Roadblock. Team AARP has the distinct advantage here because as we find out, this is the same sort of dancing they did at their wedding in the 1800s. Team AARP seems to be catching many breaks these days.
From the Dance Hall Days Roadblock to this episode’s Detour, and, foreshadowing, Double-Dutch U-Turn! Here we find the Danes to be in love with butter churning and bunny hopping, oddly neither of these required more dancing. If only some of these racers were farmers… I was a bit uneasy watching some of the racers “churn their butter” as it reminded me of those Public Health films they showed boys in Catholic school. “Churn your butter and you’ll go blind!” Sister Flower Power (it was the early 1970s) would warn us. After watching butter churning I was relieved to find out that bunny hopping did not also require the racers to fuck like rabbits.
From the Detour teams had to run to a windmill, which appeared to have seen better days, where the Double-Dutch U-Turn awaited them. Oooh, look at the 21st Century technology juxtaposed against the 15th Century technology. Well played, CBS! Nothing brings out the evil in people like a Double-Dutch U-Turn! Team B-Average Joe, comfortably in the lead because “Joe” is a great fancy-pants dancer and churns his butter well to the beat of Asian commands, decide to U-Turn Team AARP. When Team AARP arrive they decide to U-Turn Team AWW80sD (I assume they chose to do this because Team AWW80sD frivolously used their U-Turn powers last week).
If I had the time I’d write a two-thousand word summary of why the female portion of Team B-Average Joe annoys me. In brief, who the fuck U-Turns the second place team just so that they can win one leg of the race?! I’m as competitive as the next guy, but this bitch makes me look like a pacifist. It’s one goddamn leg, which she didn’t figure out was not the last goddamn leg of the race! Bitch.
From the windmill the teams had to drive themselves to the Pitstop. This week we got a heavy dose of the “CBS Editor Reality Distortion Field” as it sure looked like Team I’m Sorry, Who Are You? had screwed the pooch, but no they apparently finished far ahead of Team AWW80sD, who once again got lost while going somewhere (I’m sorry, I thought these men were world navigators), were eliminated.
TAR Game Update
- Yours Truly: Team B-Average Joe (have I mentioned how much she annoys me?)
- ITP-Reader Terri: Team I’m Sorry, Who Are You? (aka “The Divorcees”)
- ITP-Reader Stacy: Team What Would Jesus Dude!
- ITP-Reader Betsy: Team Around the World With 80s Dad
WE HAVE A WINNER! (and that winner is not me) In fact, it’s a damn good thing that we didn’t adopt the “If the team you pick to get eliminated comes in first you are assessed a double penalty” rule that I’ve proposed.
It’s like BetsyFest has started early! Betsy, as this week’s winner you get to assign the rest of us one song that we must purchase from the iTunes store prior to next week’s show. And, with the honor of picking correctly you also get to pick first next week.
Okay, time to write the code….
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
Did you happen to catch the preview for next week? Looks like all contestants are going to be sporting bikinis and speedos and doing some sort of flexing thing on a stage. It looked pretty disturbing for the 5 seconds they showed.
Actually, I never watch the previews because I don’t want them to sway my pick. As you can tell this strategy is working wonderfully for me! 😉
what country is that into body building? I saw that preview…….. and wondered where the heck are they going next?
here’s my problem with getting that lost in Denmark- don’t many people there speak English? It didn’t make sense- why wouldn’t you stop & get directions?
Team I’m Sorry, Who Are You? are almost as annoying as the Asian chick. She just wants to win so bad. After the Dudes beating them last week in a footrace, it made so much more sense to u-turn them, but she doesn’t care about that, she just wants the extra prizes.
A couple of other things about my TAR recap:
– I know “Dutch” is Sweden, not Denmark. At least I think I know this.
– I don’t know why you wouldn’t stop for directions, at least prior to standing out in the middle of what appeared to be a busy road.
– I understand being motivated to win, but it makes sense to look at the Big Picture. All the Asian chick did with choosing to U-Turn Team AARP when her team is in first place is put a target on her and her teammate’s back. (at least IMHO)
Dutch- Netherlands
Dane- Denmark
Swede- Sweden
Deutsch- Germany
Simple huh? And for those who care, Pennsylvania Dutch really means German, going back to a mispronunciation of Deutsch.
I thought Asian chick turned team AARP because she thought they were on their heels? The “stage win” is still a worthy prize if you don’t really have a chace to win on GC.
Debbie and I took a lovely trail ride yesterday, she upon the temporary resident of JEFDSDR Maxwell Smart, and me upon the 1200lb power keg and ejection seat known as Mack. Except for not knowing what to expect and thinking at any second he would decide my quarter was done and put me off, it was fun. Clearly being dumped off has colored my view, but I hope to be back on regularly.
-FP
Damn- Me 🙂
I’ve clearly been working too much because my logic/knowledge has turned cloudy.
At this stage of the race everyone has a chance at GC. I can understand the next-to-last place team U-turning the last-place team to secure not getting eliminated, but U-turning someone just to win the stage seems short-sighted.
The weekend was pretty uneventful but I do have a funny/strange story to tell.
We returned from Columbus around 2:30, a little later I stepped outside, there was a somewhat bewildered man wandering down my street, looking a little out of place. I said hi, what’s up? He threw his hand up, said “I’m just done!”, so then I asked are you okay? To which he answered, “I’m a lost hasher”…I giggled then introduced myself as Martha Screw-it and proceed to make a few phone calls, I finally got a hold of Terri (Star Whore) and was able to return the lost hasher to the pack.
Stray dogs and hasher just seem to know who’s house to go to…
That’s funny, Martha.
I saw an SUV with a Wheelhopper sticker on it yesterday morning around Perimeter Mall.
Of all the places to be lost and to just happen to run into you. While this guy might think he’d been cursed, he probably has no idea how lucky he was.
paulie i was distracted with phone calls last night didnt even pay attention to damn TAR but glad to hear that I won! Am thinking of song now. Might be “All the young dudes” in honor of the snowboarders who will probably win this thing.
And a heads up to those ITP readers who want to betsyfest (it’s not about me, it’s just a state of mind). The fest goes on for 12 days and it’s simply about having fun, living in the moment, and letting go of regrets. The kick off is at my place this friday 6 pm onward. Stop on by if the spirit moves–if it don’t–you can betsyfest in your own tradition. (i’m now using this word as a verb. cool).
Seriously–No matter how it seems, I’m not being an egocentric by calling this betsyfest. It’s just a really fun word to say.
And to think that I remember when it was illegal to purchase BetsyFest on Sundays in Georgia. My the times they have changed…
I didn’t know the guy, but I don’t think it was his first brush with drama 😉 he also said something about being held up at gun point by some kids. I’m not really sure about that…clearly these kids don’t realize hasher (and runners) don’t carry anything worth stealing.
I may have to start bring my sleeping bag to the office. There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day lately.
Bestyfest – I hope I can make it into town for at last one day of this fun…….. and yes, it is fun to say!
Since I live close enough, I really don’t have to worry about bringing a sleeping bag to work, but the way things have been for the last month, it would seem to be a good idea…….. I’m really hoping once we get past Black Friday, things will slow down……..
Hey! Thanks, Martha for taking care of the stray ;). His name is Jackie O’F**k and he breeds drama.
He’s a friend of mine from college who re-emerged this summer. I haven’t heard from him in months. He called me Saturday morning saying he wanted to go hash. He told me to pick him up at the Value Village on Moreland. I did…and his suitcase and his plastic bag of Christmas wreaths.
He texted me yesterday to check to see if his, um, “special ring” had fallen out of his bag in the back of my car. Seriously.
Thankfully, the “ring” was not there or I would have barfed. And sold my car on the spot. And moved to another country.
Yep. Welcome to my nightmare.
No problem Terri, I think I learned more about him in 20 minutes than I ever want to know. He just kept telling me to ‘call the police’ because ‘that cop was cute’…He said he was going to make me a wreath with running shoes and toilet paper, yeah???
Thanks for the offer to stick around and have a beer, I was so beat and I left the house with wet hair and no jacket.