Survivor: The not-so-glorious return

Hmmm. . . does last night's episode merit comment? Not really. Terry may be a great competitor, but his "I'll give you two nickels for your dime" offer to Cirie and Shane was lame and got him about as far as you could reasonably expect. Nick, a.k.a. "No Camera-Time Guy," goes home. He'll be missed by someone. Not me.

Memories of Amazing Races Past

The Palamino, er, Palermo leg just proved what we already know about this season's crew: The Hippies and the Frats are way, way better than all the other teams. Rolanda are strong physically, but it doesn't make up for their weaknesses in other areas, i.e. everything else to do with the race. Lake is more strange than evil. Franimal does just fine when the leg is stupid easy and involves no serious physical challenges (now if only the producers would stop hiding those darn clue boxes in plain sight. . . ). Nerd Love are in lurve, but that doesn't change the fact that they are s-l-o-w. Monica is blonde and not dumb at all, no matter how she's edited (did you giggle when her voiceover about not being a dumb blonde was dubbed over footage of her mispronouncing "Palermo" repeatedly? I did.) And the Pink Ladies had no business being in this race. And now they're gone.

Watching the Pinks mutilate the clutch on that Eurotrash pseudocar, I couldn't help but think that if a) I knew I was going to be on the Amazing Race, and b) I didn't know how to drive stick, I'd spend every waking moment between the time I got the news until I left to start the race doing nothing but PRACTICING DRIVING STICK! (I think the same kind of thing when I see yet another season's worth of Survivors struggle to make fire. If you knew you were going to be on the show, wouldn't you run out to the back yard and figure out how to make fire? It seems like a no-brainer.) Anyway, since they couldn't even drive a fracking car, there was no hope for those two. Adios. Surprisingly, it did take a yield by Lake and Michelle to knock them out. But it's funny that the yield actually served to keep a team in the game that, despite running one stinker of a leg this time, is probably slightly more of a threat to Lake and Michelle over the long haul. Oh well--it really doesn't matter. None of the other teams can compete with the Frats and the Hippies.

Speaking of the Hippies, they won major points this episode with their "Bowling Moms" t-shirts, a fun shout-out to a great team from one of the Race's best seasons (I think it was season 5). And I say that as someone who's seen every episode of every installment of this series (minus Family Edition, which I stopped watching after a few episodes). Man, that season had it all. Good (Chip & Kim) vs. Evil (Colin & Christie) in a race to the very end, with bumbling Good celebrating an improbable and immensely satisfying triumph over the ruthlessly efficient Evil ; big-haired eye candy ("The Dating Christian Virgin Models"), the self-esteem team that was also competent (the aforementioned Bowling Moms, who finished 4th), and a trash-talking, sh*t-kicking midget and her bad-attitude, Russian Mafia cousin (Mirna & Charla). Now THAT was a cast. Also, they had to spend a lot of time slogging through Third World countries, which this season's crew hasn't faced yet. In short, I've seen better from The Amazing Race than what we've seen so far. Maybe things will pick up soon. If not, well, I guess I could always start buying the DVD sets of previous seasons, when The Amazing Race truly was amazing. But it's still a good show, so I'll keep tuning in religiously.

What's on?

Henry has a new favourite TV character -- himself. Lately he's enjoyed looking at his baby pictures, so we started showing him our home videos from last year. He's quite fascinated watching his younger self, and even laughs out loud at some of his antics. Now he's just as likely to ask for "Bay-bee" as "Bob" when he wants to watch a disc. And he'll only watch DVDs now--no regular TV shows. He likes to load the disc on the tray and push it into the slot. I'm sure he'll figure out how to hit play pretty soon.

Don't worry--Henry does more than watch TV all day. The weather's finally warming up and we've been spending hours outside, scooping up dirty snow and moving it to parts of the yard where it will melt faster. It's amazing how much faster the day goes by when we can hang around outside. Henry's also taken up colouring with crayons, which is helping him learn his colours. He's got red, blue, black, purple and orange pretty much down, but is struggling with green and yellow. Hopefully this little stumbling block won't hurt his chances of getting into Harvard (kidding, kidding).

Amazing Race: Worst. Roadblock. Ever.

Last week I was thinking about how taxing the race must be after you've been dragged halfway across the world. Last night we saw the toll it can take. Man, Wandiree hit the wall hard. I could almost feel their mental and physical exhaustion as they sped along the Autobahn headed in the wrong direction--twice! It hurt because I know that's the kind of thing I do when I'm feeling out of it. I'm not sure how much Wanda's rampant Spanglish really contributed to the team's demise, but Desiree sure didn't help things by letting her Inner Teenager take over her personality. I'm not saying I'd behave much better under those conditions. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have found it so hard to complete The Lamest Road Block In The History Of This Show. Man--I've seen children's Easter Egg hunts that took more skill than that Travelocity product placement monstrosity. All the tasks/detours/road blocks in this episode were stupidly easy ("Take a ride in a fancy car while someone else drives." "Slap your knee three times while wearing lederhosen."), but "Find one of the many gnomes hidden under a very few clearly marked containers in a small field" was so terrible I'm officially boycotting Travelocity to protest.

Anyway, watching Wandree bumble through the Germany leg, the big question I had was why on earth the Pink Ladies would continue to follow a team that was obviously going in circles. The answer, of course, is that the Staten Island girls are simply terrible racers. In fact, the Frats' first lucky break in their remarkable string of lucky breaks through Moscow and Munich was when the Pinks forgot their bag at the pool and had to get out of the Frats' cab. Dumping that deadweight helped set them up to win yet another leg. I have to say, they didn't seem too psyched about the safari they won. I think the question on their minds was, do any women in Africa have breast implants, and if not, are we still obligated to take this trip? Boorishness (boobishness?) and luck aside, they're clearly the strongest team so far. That doesn't mean they'll win (just ask Rob & Amber or Colin & Christie), but at this point it's hard to imagine how they and the Hippies won't be in the Final Three.

Also observed:

• Did anyone complete that dance detour correctly? It didn't look like it to me. Those judges were the opposite of that hardass Russian trolley cleaning supervisor.
• We got to see Franimal's one strength: navigating with a map in a car. Kudos to them. Too bad so much of the race does not involve navigating with a map in a car, but instead requires skills they do not have. Like performing traditional German beerhall dances.
• I did not know the city of Munich had erected a gigantic monument to peace back in the 19th century. Given what went down in Germany in the 20th century, I think it's safe to say it turned out to be the least influential/inspirational monument in the history of monuments. But hey--still a great place for a pit stop!

To summarize, it now looks like there are two excellent teams and a bunch of other pretty bad teams, one of which will make it to the finale. I think it's more likely to be Rolanda, Michelle/Lake (who really needs to step it up if he's going to play the designated psycho role properly. I find him more annoying than eeeeevvillll) or MoJo than any of the others, but who knows? I just hope the tasks get more interesting.

Spring is here!

According to the calendar, at least. In reality, the temperature's been several degrees below freezing for the last two weeks, and we even had a dusting of fresh snow on Sunday. My previous experience in Toronto and Wisconsin taught me that the toughest part about living in a cold climate isn't the frigid temperatures in December and January, it's the endless winter effect you get in March and April, when you start looking for signs of a spring that never quite seems to get started. I'm trying to keep my thoughts of warm weather locked away in one of the many unused portions of my brain, but it's hard. Next year we definitely have to go on a tropical vacation during Reading Week (the Canadian term for what is known elsewhere as Spring Break. They know better than to tease like that.)

In other news, my half marathon training has suffered a minor setback due to some pain and swelling in my knee. No biggie--it's a problem I've had for years that flares up fairly regularly. It actually feels okay to run on it, but I don't want to push my luck. So I'm scaling back my long runs until the knee feels a bit better.

Some warm sunshine sure would be a great motivator. Sigh.

To be continued?!?!

Well, that was anti-climactic. Here I was all busy trying to figure out if the bus washers were actually behind the lagging doll searchers and who was really in danger of being eliminated and it all turns out to be irrelevant. Hrumph. Lack of a proper ending aside, this episode was full of good drama, bad mistakes and rising frustration. I like seeing the panic that settles on the better teams when luck takes over from skill in determining who gets ahead and who gets left in the dust. It reminds everyone that no matter how well they're doing overall, they could be just one bad cab driver away from elimination.

Legs like this one also make me stop and appreciate how hard it must be to compete in this race. How long was that flight from Sao Paulo to Moscow? The teams must have been wrecked by the time they landed. I think about how I feel whenever I get off a plane that's been in the air for more than four hours, and how easy it is to lose your cool when you're exhausted, and then I try to imagine what it would be like to drag myself and a teammate through a strange city under those conditions while other teams chase us. Tough stuff.

That said, man, lots of dumb moves to go around. I mean, how hard is to figure out that if you're at a public pool, and the Road Block clue asks "who's ready to take the plunge," then maybe, just maybe, the task will involve swimming? And that maybe the teammate who can't swim very well and is deathly afraid of water isn't the right person for the job? It ended up being a meaningless delay, but Yolanda/ Ray ("Rolanda" from now on) and Wanda/ Desiree (Wandiree), what were you thinking? And let's not even get into the whole, "whoops, I left our money, instructions and passports in the changing room" stunt. The Pink Ladies are lucky that stuff was still there when they returned. Could have been a long layover in Moscow for the Bridge-and-Tunnel girls.

Since I have no idea if and when someone will get eliminated before they travel to Germany (from the looks of the previews), and we don't know how much of a time gap there is between the teams doing the two different road blocks, I won't bother speculating about what will happen next. With no further ado, my random thoughts of the week:

• Why was Michelle so freaked out about donning a bathing suit in front of Russians? Is her body a state secret?
• The Hippies dropped their shtick pretty quickly when the pressure rose. I'm not convinced their wackiness will survive the remainder of the race. Let's hope not, anyway.
• I'm beginning to think the Frats are all a big act, too.
  
• What's with all the charter buses? I imagine the producers are trying to keep the race competitive by taking out variables like local transportation that could create big time gaps between the teams. Understandable from a big-picture perspective, but I think they should leave the racers to their own devices more often.

Sunny day weekend

Finally, we got a break from what had been a two-week run of seriously cold weather that culminated in a freezing rain storm on Wednesday. The sun came out on Saturday and the temperature shot up to 8 degrees Celsius (about 46 Fahrenheit). Woo-hoo! Yes, mid-40s feels warm to me these days. In fact, the day felt like a tropical vacation after the bone-chilling temps we've endured lately. I took advantage by going for a long run in shorts and a long-sleeve t-shirt, rather than my usual getup of thermal tights with track pants over top, fleece sweatshirt, running jacket and various other layers. Man it was a treat to run in shorts. With warm sunshine to motivate me, I ran to Mooney's Bay and back along the canal and the Rideau River. The run was somewhere around 13-15 km (I'm really bad at judging distances), and it took me just under 1:18. I felt strong the whole way, so my training is coming along. It will be much easier to add mileage every week if the weather isn't awful. But I have a feeling that this weekend was just a temporary reprieve and that we're sure to have some more cold weather and probably some snow before spring settles in for good.

Was it really in the mid-80s this weekend in Richmond, or was Yahoo weather just screwed up?

Barry Bonds: Point-Counterpoint

Tom is a big Giants fan, so the Barry Bonds steroid saga has been on my mind this week. For the finest commentary on this sordid story, click here or here.

Survivor: Ground Control to Major Dan. . .

Well, let's all shed a tear for Astronaut Dan and the poor boys' club that was so cruelly forced to boot him out of the game before his time.

Snoooore.

Heaping serving of male sentimentality aside, the whole thing came off more like a corporate downsizing than a Survivor vote-out. I'm surprised Terry didn't arrange to have a HR rep at Tribal Council to give non-answers to pertinent questions about the decision, remind everyone of the S.O.P. for unexpected exiling, and give Dan an empty cardboard box for the personal items in his cubicle. After all, he did describe booting his friend as "a managerial decision." Bleech. Is Terry a robot? Is Dan? Why didn't he at least try to convince Terry and The Tall Dude Who Gets No Screen Time to vote out Austin, instead of weakly hoping for that meaningless "2-2" vote? Or at least act a tiny bit peeved when they kept describing him as the weakest member of the alliance? Or something? And finally, why did he keep his history as an astronaut secret at first, then tell everyone about it after a few weeks? Strange.

Anyway, I totally called the faux military "salute to the fallen" the Boy Scouts shared as Dan left Tribal Council. Just ask Tom. That move was as predictable as Casaya sending Sally to the safety of Exile Island after pulling out another improbable challenge victory. Which is exactly what I was hoping would happen. What a great twist! I like Sally and was glad to see Terry's alliance take a direct hit. But mainly I just want all the Casaya lunatics stay in the game for as long as possible. Not that I ever believed Danielle and Courtney would keep it together long enough to actually vote out Shane, but still--that guy is shaping up to be one of the greatest nutjobs in the history of the show, so let's hope he sticks around for the entertainment factor alone. Unfortunately I think Aras has figured out that it won't be safe to take unstable Shane into the merge, and since Aras likes to play leader, I can see him engineering Shane's ouster. Unless, of course, he swore on Shane's kid not to vote against Shane.

Man, that poor kid. Enough said.

So, overall it was a good episode. Too bad we have to wait three weeks to find out what happens next. With only three of the ten remaining players in a solid alliance, things are getting interesting. I have no idea who will get voted out next. Unless there's no merge and La Mina loses again, in which case Sally is doomed. But until then, basketball, I guess.

The Amazing Race: Save Fran!

I thought last night's Amazing Race was an average episode that lacked drama. The strong teams did well, the average teams did average, and the weak teams sucked wind. The promo for the episode could have been, "Sure, Fran survived breast cancer. But will she survive THIS?!?" Seriously--were the producers trying to kill her? Sometimes the road blocks and detours are so physically demanding that I find myself rooting for the Oldsters to be eliminated just so I won't have to see them suffer anymore. That staircase climb must have been brutal for even the young, fit racers (can you climb four flights of stairs without feeling winded? How about 40!). And then they throw in a rope climb up a waterfall for good measure. It hurt just to watch some of those teams at work. Even thought the inept Glamazons ruined the mercy elimination of the Oldsters, I won't complain about that outcome. As for the other teams, here are a few thoughts:

• The Hippies: Obviously they're a strong and generally likeable team. But I'm starting to feel like they're forcing the whole "dude, we're totally flaked-out hippies" angle. The play-acting could become tiresome.
• The Frats: Ick.
• Lake and Michelle: This guy was clearly cast to be the show's requisite Control Freak Lunatic. He's got great potential, but he needs to start racing better if he's going to play his designated role effectively. The best race villains are both psychotic and effective. Wearing a motion sickness patch on dry land is a nice touch of crazy, though.
  
• Maureen and Joseph: Did she really cheer him on during the rope climb by yelling, "use your MoJo!" Yes. Yes, she did. They're dead to me.
  

The Hippies and the Frats look like the teams to beat, but it's way too early to call the final three. All the other teams have to do to stay competitive is just not finish last. Finishing first may get you a prize, but beyond that, it doesn't really matter where you end up after any given leg, because the show never lets any team get too far ahead. Even an hours-long head start will get wiped out in the next leg when all the teams have to wait for something to open, or get forced on the same plane/bus/train, etc. As the weak teams get eliminated it gets harder not to finish last, obviously, but no team's going to put the race away until they actually cross the finish line. Once the Oldsters and the Pink Ladies are gone, it will be interesting to see how things shake out every week, because all the other teams seem pretty competitive.

Is it spring yet?

Oh heck no. How long do you think it will take the pile of snow in our front yard to melt? I'm thinking we won't see the grass until mid-April.

Henry's new favourites

On her recent visit, Grandma Eileen brought two gifts (supplied by family friend Judy N.) that were very well received by our Resident Toddler. The first is a set of "Bob The Builder" (BTB from now on, since I'll have to write about him a lot) PJs that Henry wants to wear 24-7. Luckily it's a shirt and pants set, and while he's happiest wearing both pieces, we can avert a tantrum by letting him wear either the top or the bottom while we wash the other half. The other gift was a plastic replica of "Scoop," the big digger character from the BTB show. Man, Henry loves this toy. He calls him "Toop" and takes him everywhere he goes, including his crib. He also brings Toop with him when he comes into our bed at 6 a.m. for his early morning cuddle. I tell you, there's nothing like being beaned in the head repeatedly by a chunk of yellow plastic while you're trying to get a few more minutes of sleep to really make you reflect on how having a kid changes your life.

Henry digs his red rain boots, too. There have been several days where he happily spends the day in the BTB PJs and the red rain boots. Carrying Toop, of course. It's a good look.

Survivor: 3+2+1+1 =Fun!

Wow. I really have to hand it to the Survivor producers for coming up with a cast that exhibits such a diverse array of personality disorders. If we hadn't witnessed the total abandonment of all the shopworn strategy usually employed in this game at tribal council, that would have been a very dull episode indeed. The challenges were the worst I've seen in awhile, Bobby's virtuoso performance in dismantling the fish notwithstanding. And the action at one camp was limited to a too-long depiction of the bean-related G.I. distress. Please. Unless it's performed as a deliberately antisocial statement interlaced with some choice slang (i.e. Bobby "dropping the deuce"), I'd rather not hear about the messier consequences of life in the jungle.

About that vote. When was the last time more than two people got votes at a tribal council? Pre-merge Season One? I can't believe the outcome essentially was decided by a thrown vote for a fringe candidate. It was like the 2000 Presidential election all over again. And it could have been so simple, if only these people weren't so dumb. I mean, the women decide to go against Aras and vote off Bobby instead of Bruce. But they need a fourth vote. So they ask. . . Shane? Why not ask, like, BRUCE to vote with them?!? I can't be 100% certain of this, since he's as irrational as the rest of them, but I suspect he would have been a guaranteed vote against Bobby if he knew it would keep him in the game. You get your 4-3, and a new alliance to boot. But no. . .gotta make it interesting. And for that I thank them.

Bobby's open contempt for his tribemates meant he wasn't going to go far in the game. But he did come up big for Casaya in a few challenges. I wonder if his ouster will hurt the them in that respect? Plus, given their personality disorders, idiocy, and mutual animosity, it's tough to see any kind of Casaya "alliance" holding up, even if they go into a merge with a numerical advantage. Terry and whatever allies he brings with him should be able to pick them apart. It could be interesting. Or it could get dull in a hurry.