My Review of the Not-So-Amazing Race

Remember last week, when I said that there wasn't a whole lot going on in The Amazing Race, but at least I had some stories about horse accidents and stampeding wildebeasts? Well, this week there wasn't a whole lot that happened again, and unfortunately, there were no horses or wildebeasts, either. So it's sorta hard to write a spicy re-cap when there's not much spicy-ness other than two hot boys named James & Tyler...but I'll try.

The race kicked off with teams learning they were heading to Vietnam. This was a big deal for coalminer David, as his father served for the U.S. army in the Vietnam war. And you could tell that Dave was pretty overwhelmed for the whole leg of the race. However, his wife Mary apparently wasn't in the mood to sympathize with him. Dave was in the midst of sharing some of his dad's stories of his time in Nam with the camera when Mary butted in and ordered him to pay attention to where he was going. Dave was so flabbergasted at her rudeness that he couldn't even utter an intelligible sentence. He muttered some gibberish and just kept on driving.

In the meantime, Duke and Lauren were trying to figure out how to pay their cabbie, as this leg of the race provided them with no cash. With only $11 U.S. dollars to their name (and a rule stipulating that they could not beg for any more money), Lauren was certain they were heading for a stay in some dingy Vietnamese prison. It didn't help that they picked up some local dimwit, who had the cab take her to her brother's house before taking the racers on to their destination. They lucked out with a cabbie who accepted their misfortune, took their 11 bucks, and wished them well with a handshake. Either that, or he had no idea what they were talking about and thought they were gone in search of more money. He may still be waiting there for them to come back with the rest of the fare. Who knows.

At the roadblock, one team member had to ride around on a bicycle wearing a silly Vietnamese cone hat, and selling flowers to the people on the streets. They had to make $80,000 in Vietnamese dollars - which apparently equals about $5 U.S. And we thought our dollar sucked. Ha! The challenge didn't seem particularly difficult, aside from the few people with sticky fingers who thought they could just grab the flowers and run off without paying. Those Vietnamese rebels! It really pissed off the little gay guy. And Erwin or Godwin, whichever one of those Asian brothers has the long hair, seemed to have the most difficulty out of anyone. Odd, considering he was the only one who looked like he should know how to do it. But that's just being stereotypical of me. My apologies. And by the way, who names their kids Erwin and Godwin? Like, is that some kind of mean joke? Poor lads.

At the detour, teams had the option of either making a bunch of coal blocks, a traditional source of fuel in Nam, or puttering away at constructing some bird cages. Coalminer Dave thought this challenge was made for him until he arrived and realized Vietnam's coal is mud, whereas the U.S's coal is hard. One's familiarity with coal really didn't make any difference in the challenge - all they had to do was whack it into this thing that looked a lot like the machine my mom makes riced potatoes with at Christmastime. (If you've never had riced potatoes with gravy, you must try it...mmmmm....) The challenge didn't seem that difficult to me. But apparently it was for that jackass Rob, who kept whining that he was going to pass out. I was glad his girlfriend didn't baby him up too much - sort of retribution for how insensitive he was last week when she was knocked off her horse by a tree branch.

Unfortunately for Duke and Lauren, they got separated from the group while looking for the coal place and they stumbled accidentally upon the birdcage-making station. They chose to stay there and work at that, but the task was a tedious one, and it put them behind. They did have a shot at it after the gay guys made an almost-fatal error by hitching a ride at some point on some motorbikes. It was stated in their route information that for safety reasons, they were not allowed to ride motorbikes in Vietnam. They arrived on the mat in second place, where Phil slapped them with a half-hour penalty, and they had to stand off to the side while every other team landed on the mat. It got kinda tense towards the end, but Duke and Lauren just didn't make it in time, so the gay guys dropped to last place while the father-daughter team was eliminated.

My hot boys weren't in the spotlight much this week, and I'm not sure I like their idea to team up with the Beauty Queens and Rob & Kimberly, but they did finish in second place (thanks to the gay guys screw-up), so I can't complain much. I do, however, wish this race would get a little more exciting. So far the most drama we've had to face is how much more Sarah's failing hydraulic knee can withstand, and how much more of that dumbass Rob Kimberly can withstand.... Ooooo, the suspense!!

One last thing before I wrap 'er up: Big birthday wishes going out to a regular reader of the blog...SHARON! Hope you have a good one, m'dear! Eat some cake for me!

Take care, gang!