Monday, September 25, 2006

Wild Wildebeasts and Crazy Horses

A day late, but as promised, here is my Amazing Race re-cap...

Just for the record, I seldom pay attention to the location of where the teams are racing each week, unless they happen to come to Canada, but I can tell you I think this week they were in China and Mongolia or something like that. Because two teams were eliminated on the first episode last week, we were whittled down to ten teams competing for the eventual grand prize of $1 Million. This year, there are a lot of teams I don't like - but my favourites are, of course, the hot boys, Tyler and James (I think. They're hot, their names don't really matter).

The first part of this leg was rather uneventful, with everyone taking a train somewhere...I can't really remember. They had to ride horses somewhere (sorry, not good with the details here for some reason). One of the couples - and of course, I don't know their names - consists of a young man and woman who are trying to decide if they should get married. The man is a mean, selfish jack-ass, and if I were the girl, I'd get rid of him. Especially after she hit a tree branch and got knocked off her horse - I mean, that's not just a little accident, that's kind of serious - and he just sits up on his horse, saying something like, "I don't know what you want me to do, babe. You gotta get up." Some other girl also fell off her horse and got dragged around by her ankle. Yes, this is serious shit, people.

Teams then hit the detour, where they had to choose between leading some sort of indigenous wildebeast to some body of water, load up 4 big cans, take them back to the start and fill a bucket, or tear down a tent-like structure, pack it up carefully, and saddle it up onto a camel. Most people chose the wildebeast adventure, and while the girl with the artificial leg seemed to have some trouble, it didn't hurt their time much. I had to laugh, though, watching their wildebeast run away from them like a maniac every few minutes. That thing was nuts!

Car trouble seemed to be the biggest problem for teams. My hot boys blew a tire, and then when their jack wouldn't work, nobody would stop to help them fix it. The coalminer and his wife got stuck in a mudhole and had to get a new car (but it was funny listening to her telling him to stop spinning his wheels - and he just kept on spinning 'em. If he'd burled much farther, he would've been back in America...'cause they're already in China...haha). And then two teams had cars that wouldn't start, and they had to crank them to get them going.

At the road block, one team member had to shoot an arrow that was on fire into a pot that must've been filled with explosives or something, because everytime someone hit it, it fizzed and shot fire up in the air. Very flashy. Anyways, I thought this challenge had "bad news" written all over it. If it were me, I probably would've shot my arrow into somebody's eye or up my own nose or something. Fortunately, no such tragedies occured. The cheerleaders got lost, and by the time they got there, everyone else was already finished. They tried valiantly to complete the task, but once night fell, they gave up and tearfully turned up on the mat to have Phil tell them they were last and that they had been eliminated. Meh, whatever. They were cheerleaders. Did anyone really think they were going to win?

I thought this week was actually kind of boring. There were no more of the unexpected twists that Phil pimped so hard in the premiere last week, and aside from a lot of car trouble, the on-going saga of Sarah's leak in her hydraulic knee, and some whacky horse accidents, there wasn't all that much action. And yet I've still managed to write a long, rambly blog. Ah well...I'll note here that my boys finished second, and they're going strong, despite their tire problem. That's all that really matters!

Take care, dudes!