'The Amazing Race 10' - Ep. 2 -or- "Knot a problem? Go for the ox!"

Ten teams are left. Who will be eliminated next?

We last left the teams atop the Great Wall of China, and two teams were Philiminated in the season premiere. Both Bilal and Sa'eed and Vipul and Arti bit the dust, but the race goes on.

Since Tyler and James had been the first to arrive at the Pit Stop, they were the first to leave. The clue they received directed them to travel 963 miles by bus and train to Outer Mongolia. Now, that sounds cool, eh?

We encountered the first quasi-bunching-point of the season as the teams arrived to the bus station. They were split up in two buses, one departing two hours earlier than the other. Five teams on each bus, the first held the teams of Tyler/James, Duke/Lauren, Sarah/Peter, Dustin/Kandice, and Rob/Kimberly. The second group bonded while awaiting for their 2 AM departure. Then it was off for the Erlian Train Station in Inner Mongolia. The train will take them to their destination.

How are the teams getting on with each other? Well, while the "slower" group is bonding some and generally having fun on the race, Tyler and James spied on "the blondies" - Dustin and Kandice. They don't trust them. Hey, guys, it's a race. Everyone is trying to win. They're allowed to make a cell phone call and try to get information for themselves. Sheesh.

Now, this week, Peter did it again. Last week I was a bit miffed with his claim that they were "going to play the Disability Card" and now this week he said, "It's good to have a physical disability. We're going to use that to our advantage." Keep in mind, it's Peter... not Sarah, the one with the disability. I'm not liking what I see here. While Sarah is an incredible athlete, disability or not, I don't like this relationship. The more I see of Peter, the more I think he's using her for his own purposes. He's starting to creep me out. Yeah, she's whiney at times, but he's devious. Dump him, Sarah!

And, if I have to hear the rehab, life is so hard, it's a new life, we're sober, blah-blah-blah from James and Tyler again so much during a one-hour show, I'll...I'll... um... I'll say bad things about their hair! So there.

The taxi rides that the teams took once they hit Ulaanbaater were wild! It makes the slow cabs of past experiences horses of a different color. They collected their clues in a temple which grouped them a bit as they could only go in every ten minutes.

The clue directed them to some deathtrap Russian Jeeps which they had to drive to Terlej. Then they had to ride horses (while wearing spiffy Mongolian hats) two and a half miles to receive the next clue.

Surprisingly, David and Mary (of all folks) picked up a local to help guide them in their Jeep. He guided them well until he guided him through mud and they got stuck. Bad, bad guide. They ended up getting a replacement car, but TAR's rules state they get no credit for the wasted time. They weren't the only team with car woes. Tyler and James got lost and then had a flat tire. Not only that, but they had a broken jack. Maybe their Russian Jeep needs rehab? Rob and Kimberly tried to give them their jack, but they couldn't get it out of the car. When other teams approached, all left the Pretty Boys in their dust. Finally a local helped them.

Off to the horses! Sarah changed for a prosthesis with an actual foot in case she had to use stirrups. Peter barely waited for her to do it. (Picture a sneer as I typed that. Did I mention the guy is creeping me out?) Kimberly is afraid of horses and asked, "Do you think they can smell fear?" Apparently, they can. She promptly got dumped while another racer (either Dustin or Kandice?) got dragged. A horse is a horse, of course. And, horses in Mongolia must smell fear. Leave it to the ChoBros to actually call out, "Rawhide!" I can't help but like those two. I hope their racing seriously improves, though.

After the horse ride, the teams were faced with a Detour. Their choices were Take It Down or Fill It Up. In Take It Down, the teams had to dismantle a traditional Mongolian nomadic camp, tie it according to specifications, and load it on a waiting camel. In Fill It Up, the teams had to guide an ox cart to the river, fill up buckets of water, bring them back and fill up a larger container to the specification of a Mongolian guide.


The knots involved in the Take It Down task presented problems for the teams choosing that one, while some of the oxen had minds of their own for the other task. Peter and Sarah first chose the Take It Down task, then flipped to the Fill It Up, got an ox with "fire in its eyes" (according to Peter) and flipped back. Sarah fussed that she didn't want to quit the first attempt and Peter did pretty much what he wanted to do. (Dump him, Sarah!) Kimberly and Rob bickered and he too barked out instructions. Dump him, Kimberly.


Although Team Barbie (Dustin and Kandice) finished their ox task first, they lost one of the Mongolian hats and had to go back to search for it. The teams had to ride the horses back to their Jeeps and had to have the spiffy hats. Mary and David gave Karlyn and Lyn their excess water they hauled in a nice gesture. They may be backwoods, but they seem genuinely nice folks.

As the teams took off for the next clue once they hit the Jeeps, a few wouldn't start. Both Lyn/Karlyn and Jamie/Kellie were stranded with dead batteries. (Others had issues, too. The ChoBros got stuck on the road and pushed to start theirs). The situation with the girls led to one of the most suggestive, yet totally innocent lines of the night - "He's got a long rod." Hey! It was a crank! The Russian Jeeps can be crank-started like a wind-up toy. Yes, I confess to a gutter-mind. But it was funny.

Once they hit the road, the next stop was a Roadblock. It was a tough one, too. One member oif each team had to shoot a flaming arrow 160 feet to light a target which was flat on the ground. Some teams did very well, but the last team to arrive worked into the darkness of night making the attempt, then finally gave up. They couldn't even see the target.

Here's the arrival order at the Hotel Mongolia, the Pit Stop for this leg of the race:
1. Peter/Sarah - Also won a trip for two to Mexico for first place.
2. Tyler/James
3. Duke/Lauren
4. Tom/Terry
5. Dustin/Kandice
6. Rob/Kimberly
7. David/Mary
8. Erwin/Godwin
9. Lyn/Karlyn
10. Kellie/Jamie - Philiminated.

At a confessional not on the mat, Sarah said she's noted some problems with Peter. Dump him, girl! He's using you!

And, that was the show. I sort of liked Kellie and Jamie and, though I hate to admit it, I'm liking Kandice and Dustin more. I'm usually the anti-beauty queen/model show watcher. Don't fear I've totally changed my ways. I still don't like James and Tyler. I wish they weren't such strong competitors.

I'd like to see Rob and Kimberly and Peter gone. Sarah can stay, maybe hook up with the ChoBros... or something.

'The Amazing Race 10' - Pit Stop Order and Philimination

Arrival to the Pit Stop:

1. Peter/Sarah - Also won a trip to Mexico
2. Tyler/James
3. Duke/Lauren
4. Tom/Terry
5. Dustin/Kandice
6. Rob/Kimberly
7. David/Mary
8. Erwin/Godwin
9. Lyn/Karlyn
10. Kellie/Jamie... Philiminated, but didn't even finish the Roadblock leading to the Pit Stop.

A full recap/review will be posted later this evening. Stop back!

Tonight's 'The Amazing Race 10' Blogging Schedule

While I thought that the commercial with David and Mary was funny, graphic artist Zoetawny must have thought otherwise! Heehee. I don't know, 'round these parts, gay folks are everywhere.

As usual, I'll post important events of the show - any unusual happenings and the Philimination (or non-Philimination) news as it airs here on the East Coast because I know some West Coast folks love to peek ahead. Sometime late tonight (ET), I'll post a full show review/recap and I'd love to hear what everyone thought of the show.

'Lost' - What We Know

Lost begins its eagerly anticipated third season Wednesday, October 4, at 9 PM ET/PT in most viewing areas. Will we find out more answers to questions posed? Are The Others really a force for good? And, where did that dang huge polar bear go?

It's hard for a mere fan of the show to digest all the clues put forth and I know I miss some every show I watch. If you haven't watched the show, it may be hard to jump aboard the Lost island, but it's not impossible. As a prelude to the new season, I'll go into some of what we know and some of the riddles posed. For every mystery, a new mystery seems to arrive. Are they making it all up as they go along? Well, yeah... it's fiction, you know! But, hopefully, the writers do have resolutions for mysteries posed. Either way, I'm hooked.

Here are the basics:

• Oceanic Flight 815, which could seat over 360 passengers, on a flight from Sydney, Australia, to Los Angeles, California, crashed somewhere over the Pacific Ocean possibly near the Fiji Islands. The crash was due to instrument failure. Although it's not known how many passengers were aboard, we know that at least 70 survived the crash.
• The plane broke into three parts as it went down - the central fuselage contained 48 survivors (believed to be 49 at first, but one was not from the flight), the front section contained only the pilot, and the tail section had 23 more surviving passengers. The three sections landed in various parts of the island.
• In the Season 2 finale, it was revealed that the failure to push a mysterious button on schedule caused an electromagnetic field disturbance which affected the plane's instruments, resulting in its crash.
• Each character, or plane crash survivor, has his own story and some interweave with the lives of others on the plane. The show uses flashbacks to show life events of each leading up to the crash.
• In Season 1, there was a huge polar bear. He has not been seen since and his importance (or lack thereof) is not known.
• The first season focused on the passengers from the fuselage and they were unaware that others from the tail section survived.
• The fuselage survivors determined "Others" were on the island and that the "Others" were an evil lot, kidnapping children and just plain ol' evil nefarious stuff going on. There are also monsters or some unseen force which sounds as large as dinosaurs crashing trees in a dark wisp of smoke.
• There's a mysterious French woman on the island (not a crash survivor) who tells tales of the Others and evil stuff.
• A hatch (one of more than a few on the island) was found on Season 2. In it, Desmond (on the island previous to the plane crash), had been entering numbers and pushing a button every time a timer hit the number 108, supposedly to save the world. The failure to push the button one time is what has been indicated to cause the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Desmond ran away, leaving new crash survivors the task of saving the world on a scheduled basis.
• In exploring the hatch, the survivors found out about the DHARMA Initiative, a research project, from an orientation video. DHARMA stands for Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications Initiative. Okay. The definition of "heuristic" (hey, I didn't know) is: A replicable method or approach for directing one's attention in learning, discovery, or problem-solving. Hmmm.
• The DHARMA Iniative was sponsored by the Hanso Foundation.

Are you confused enough yet? Wait! There's more!

• Mysterious numbers keep recurring on the island and in the backstory of one of the focal characters, Hurley. Hurley believes that his winning lottery numbers brought him bad luck (along with several million dollars). His lottery numbers - 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 - have played a prominent role throughout the show as the numbers needed to input before pushing the button to "save the world" and more.
• Last season marked the discovery of Others who survived the plane crash in the tail section.
• But they're not the only Others, and they're not the true Others about whom the French woman feared.
• The real Others, in pirate-like appearance, kidnapped Walt (a young boy from the fuselage). His father, Michael, will do whatever he has to do to get Walt back.
• It's possible that a real Other has been captured with the find of one Henry Gale who supposedly crashed his air balloon on the island. (Reference back to The Wizard of Oz.)
• In regard to the numbers game of Lost, when they showed Henry's address, he lived at 815 Walnut Ridge - the same number as the flight. Once again, numbers play a huge role in the plot and its clues. And, the 108 timer flip (to save the world) is the sum of the lottery numbers.
• There isn't space, nor the time in the day, to go into each character on the Island, but you can read up on them on the episode recaps on the ABC Official Lost website. There are murderers, thieves, a man who couldn't walk but now can, and a dog named Vincent (as opposed to a dog named Boo).

Are you still with me? Today, Sunday, September 24, there will be an Internet radio show at 11 PM ET (8 PM PT) in which DJ Dan is supposed to "blow the roof off of the Hanso Foundation" exposing new clues as we go into the third season.

LOST. It's more than just a television show. It's a never-ending mind game of clues, adventure, and odd bed-fellows. But, I'm going to be watching.

'Survivor 13: Cook Islands' - Billy Garcia Interviews

Well, well... for someone who conserved energy instead of using it on the island, Billy Garcia (the second castoff from Cook Islands) sure has been busy on the media front.

Reality News Online had an interview <--- to read the whole interview, click on that link. A few points brought up in the interview:

Billy thought that the idea of separating the tribes by race didn't work for him although it seems to work for the show on the whole. He believes it gave a lot of folks from various minorities a shot on the show. He felt that because his music is heavy metal, a type more popular with Caucasians, that his tribemates feared he would eventually flip to side with the Raro tribe. He also claimed his strategy was indeed to conserve energy and then come to save the day when the rest of the tribe tired (I'm paraphrasing).

Billy mentioned that there was indeed a lot of food in the six days he was there -- more than all previous seasons combined. Okay, he exaggerates a bit, but it's not just the viewers thinking they have a lot of food so far. He said that Cristina thinks Ozzy is a "pompous-know-it-all-jerk." Heh. I think he got that one spot on. I think Ozzy really does know a lot, but he certainly has a chip on his shoulder.

He claims that he was "starving for attention" when Candice gave her the "We love you" bit and when he was watching the show, he saw there was really nothing to it. He said he had to laugh at himself when he saw the show.

If he had his choice, Billy would have wanted to be on a tribe composed of all of the "outsider" types - Cao-Boi, Flicka, Sekou. He called them "alternatives."

He knew before the Tribal Council that the vote would go against him. Cristina had indicated it would go down that way. That's why he went ahead and called out Ozzy and JP.

Media Fiends has a rather poorly written transcript of Billy's The Early Show appearance. But, it's better than my own as I was already on my work commute when he appeared on the show.

Billy Garcia's band (Forsakken) has its own website if you want to check that out or you're into heavy metal music.