The Amazing Race March 14, 2010 **SPOILERS**

[notfrommensa]

WWII Reenactment, woo hoo


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And that is why you utilize a U-turn

[MPB in Salt Lake]

Hoping to see more of the father/daughter team this week. (they certainly haven't gotten much airtime so far)

Can the cops keep their lead??? I am not betting on it; to me, they seem like they won't do too well under pressure, despite their occupation.............

[enalzi]

That was a just plain bizarre episode.

Okay, so instead of starting in Germany and heading to France, we're going ship on overnight. Then it's drive to this town, drive somewhere else, crawl a little ways, walk somewhere else, and then ride a bike. Except for the U-Turn, there was really no way to jump in the lead or fall behind. Even the team forgetting a clue didn't lose a spot.

[jayjay]

WWI, actually. It seems like almost all of the teams made the same mistake.

I'm growing to seriously dislike the lesbians. They were just pointlessly mean tonight, and their elitist attitude is beginning to annoy me.

Also, there was no Roadblock this episode.

[Siege]

Except we had two teams who had no sense of direction and two teams who have yet to work out that bragging about how you're the team to beat is a bad idea and might make other teams do whatever it takes to beat you.

What amused me is that it seems like every team referred to World War II, not World War I.

I am glad Louie or Michael got in a comment about how crawling under barbed wire with bombs going off all around you is like every day police life in New York.

Oh, and Brett and Jordan, I hate to break it to you, but it looks like you really are that dumb. Who would have thought Caite would turn out to be the brains of the outfit?

[Siege]

jayjay, I feel the same way about the lesbians. They are proving that you don't have to be straight to be a princess; on the other hand, women who fancy themselves princesses probably shouldn't go on The Amazing Race.

[MPB in Salt Lake]

Heidi seemed like a classy and intelligent woman, but obviously her husband Joe would have done better to keep his boastful comments to himself...........

Both the lesbians (granted the dark haired one is more full of herself than her partner is) and the gay brother are whiny, self-centered and unpleasant people---It's too bad that all three gay contestants are unlikable, as this show may be one of the only ways some people out there (dont laugh, you might be suprised how insulated some places still are) get exposed to a real-life (as opposed to fictional TV character) gay person.

Still dont think the cops are in it for the long haul; they seem prone to physical problems, and I wonder how they will do when faced with a situation that dosen't readily fall right into place for them.

[Fenris]

I hate the lesbians, I'm kind half hating the gay/not-gay brothers. (If the gay one is the one who was kinda getting into the whole reenactment thing, I revise my opinion of him up. If he was the one who was having the hissy-fit about the other one running too fast, not so much)

Remember all I was saying last week about the best way to use the damned U-Turn? This episode proved that....oops....I was waaaaay wrong. I neglected to consider the "Pick a team who'll freak out and just not do the task correctly" idea.

[enalzi]

Originally Posted by Fenris

Remember all I was saying last week about the best way to use the damned U-Turn? This episode proved that....oops....I was waaaaay wrong. I neglected to consider the "Pick a team who'll freak out and just not do the task correctly" idea.

Yeah, they had a pretty decent lead, but they panicked. It seemed liked they were just making random guesses. Except for one "Vive", they weren't even remotely close.

[Robot Arm]

I'm trying to decide if that was a poorly designed task. I understand that they need to be a challenge to complete, but was the morse code Detour really so hard, or were Joe and Heidi just really bad at it?

[Frostillicus]

My favorite moment:

Jordan is running out of the bakery, trying to talk with a mouth full of baguette. The Amazing Race caption: "?????????????"

Also, notice that the top 3 teams really get along well with each other, while those at the back of the pack are constantly bitching and whining? Coincidence?

[BMada]

I wonder how hard it was to determine between letters with Morse Code. Was there a sufficient pause? Is there supposed to be a pause?

Would you have just written out the full sequence of dots and dashes and figure it out from there? Looks like they just tried to hear what they wanted to hear and guess, rather than hear what was actually being blipped and blooped.

[BMada]

I have to agree with the general distaste for the gay brother and the lesbians. The prissy lesbian saying "this isn't what I signed up for", wtf did you think you signed up for? Muff diving? Leisurely strolls on the beach with your partner? like seriously why do these people not get weeded out before the process of choosing contestants happen. Do they really need to fill that gay and black quota so the minority groups don't go ballistic and send hate mail to them?

[enalzi]

Originally Posted by BMada

I have to agree with the general distaste for the gay brother and the lesbians. The prissy lesbian saying "this isn't what I signed up for", wtf did you think you signed up for? Muff diving? Leisurely strolls on the beach with your partner? like seriously why do these people not get weeded out before the process of choosing contestants happen. Do they really need to fill that gay and black quota so the minority groups don't go ballistic and send hate mail to them?

I'm think who ever finds the contestants secretly hates gay people, so they find the most annoying ones they can. Like the brothers last season.

[BMada]

oh yea, the brothers were bad. I thought seeing the gay bro this season that we had another gay bro duo... i was like wtf?

[amarinth]

Originally Posted by BMada

I wonder how hard it was to determine between letters with Morse Code. Was there a sufficient pause? Is there supposed to be a pause?

Would you have just written out the full sequence of dots and dashes and figure it out from there? Looks like they just tried to hear what they wanted to hear and guess, rather than hear what was actually being blipped and blooped.

My guess is that it was "Vive la liberte" since their first guess was "Vive la liberty"

And then they started to doubt themselves, then they just started to hear anything.

When the cops first chose Joe & Heidi, I thought "that was the stupidest use of a UTurn possible." And then it worked. wow.

[Johnny L.A.]

'Mah hat waon't stay ahwn!'

Re: Morse code. The only experience I have with Morse code is listening to it on VOR, and it's slower. But I think even I could get the correct message, even if I had to hear the whole thing for each letter.

[BMada]

Originally Posted by amarinth

My guess is that it was "Vive la liberte" since their first guess was "Vive la liberty"

And then they started to doubt themselves, then they just started to hear anything.

When the cops first chose Joe & Heidi, I thought "that was the stupidest use of a UTurn possible." And then it worked. wow.

I think Phil told them the answer at the end. It wasn't anything like Vive la Liberte. It started with "W" like we won the war, then the french translation.

[BMada]

"The answer was 'We will prevail. Vive le France.'" "Gee, thanks, Phil. Why don't YOU try to translate that under heavy fire?!?

from a post in TWoP forums

addition: some dude in that forums says he knows Morse Code and even for him it's hard because there are the sending individual's dots and dashes that you need to get used to too, like dialect or accent u need to hear and adjust to. Trying to do that challenge with no background of Morse Code to him seemed rigged or impossibly hard.

[panamajack]

I just finished watching it here, and I'm pretty sure Phil said the message was : "We will prevail. Vive la France". There was one edit where they may have had "Vive la France" (They said the first part, then cut to Heidi guessing "France?"). I wonder if it came in two sections and they never realized they were separate. Still, it seems like they ought to have written out the dots & dashes, checked that those were correct, and then translated from there.

I think any negative comment by a gay person on a reality show will always make it to air. I'm reminded of the Top Chef contestant who was offended that straight people would still be getting married and she was forced to observe it.

[Robot Arm]

Originally Posted by Johnny L.A.

Re: Morse code. The only experience I have with Morse code is listening to it on VOR, and it's slower. But I think even I could get the correct message, even if I had to hear the whole thing for each letter.

It looked like they were writing it down, which is what I'd have done, too, but the code was going a little faster than they could write. When they played the audio on the show, it seemed like I could get one letter if I focused just on that. I assume it was on a loop, though. I think the way to do it would be to listen once just counting the letters in each word, then try to get the first letter of each word, then the second; something like that that could isolate little pieces while writing them down.

[BMada]

but when i heard it, there wasn't really a big difference in pause to create a letter. What I kinda heard was a long mishmash of dots and dashes, and I think with an untrained ear, it's a lot harder than it seems.

[BMada]

they shoulda made the message shorter (easier), i thought the average person can't remember a long chain of things in order of up to 7 things. If the message was actually We will prevail, Vive le France. that is a helluva lotta dots and dashes to try and remember. Then trying to hear the part you last left off isn't an easy task to do either. Say you get the first "we will prevail" try getting the start dot/dash of Vive le France isn't so easy, because u need to remember the full sound of the first part to start deciphering the second.

Geez, that task now seems a lot harder than it looked on TV. I feel sorry for Joe and Heidi.

[Robot Arm]

If you could identify the pauses between the letters, and the longer pauses between words, then you could break it down to chunks of (no more than) four symbols.

Write out the pattern of letters, which we now know is

-- ---- ------- ---- -- ------

then just count letters in your head ("one, two; one, two, three, four; one, two,...") until you get to the one you're listening for, and then write it down.

Yes, it's easy to say that, sitting here at the comfort of my keyboard; probably harder to do with explosions and airplanes and the pressure of the Race, but that's how I would have tried to do it.

[amarinth]

Originally Posted by panamajack

I just finished watching it here, and I'm pretty sure Phil said the message was : "We will prevail. Vive la France".

I missed that. I'm still amazed that that UTurn worked though.

[panamajack]

I think the real killer for the Morse code was that some of it was not in English. Even if it was a common and expected phrase under the circumstances, they couldn't quite be sure of it.

If you assume that dots, dashes, and word breaks are easy to hear, but character breaks aren't, you can break the code into four possible 'next letters' at each step (ignoring numbers). There are still an astronomical number of total possibilities in longer words ('prevail' has 24 symbols, for instance). However, it's pretty easy to quickly eliminate huge chunks by going in order and ignoring obvious non-word sequences. But if you can't be certain of the language, it's a lot trickier. You can probably throw out EETTEETTE, but how do you know whether EWIT or IMUN is the word you're supposed to decode?

[Robot Arm]

Originally Posted by panamajack

I think the real killer for the Morse code was that some of it was not in English.

I thought "vive la" was the only part they got right.

[tumbleddown]

Originally Posted by enalzi

That was a just plain bizarre episode.

It really was. Have we ever had a mobile pit stop that didn't involve sleeper cars (on a train or ferry) before? I wonder if the lack of proper, restorative sleep was a factor in so many of the teams being so snippy and short-tempered in this leg. Sleeping on a bus is crappy.

Originally Posted by Frostillicus

My favorite moment:

Jordan is running out of the bakery, trying to talk with a mouth full of baguette. The Amazing Race caption: "?????????????"

That was great, but the line of the night to me was "We have to buy a bag-oo-et. What's a bag-oo-et?" Oh cowboys, never change.

Originally Posted by panamajack

I think any negative comment by a gay person on a reality show will always make it to air. I'm reminded of the Top Chef contestant who was offended that straight people would still be getting married and she was forced to observe it.

To be fair, that TC contestant wasn't offended about observing, she was bothered that gay contestants on a show with gay producers on a gay-friendly network, run by a gay man were made to cater for an event that they themselves could never have in the location where they were (and where marriage is a lucrative part of the hospitality industry in which chefs work).

[Ellis Dee]

Originally Posted by Fenris

Remember all I was saying last week about the best way to use the damned U-Turn? This episode proved that....oops....I was waaaaay wrong. I neglected to consider the "Pick a team who'll freak out and just not do the task correctly" idea.

We both have to eat some crow. Though my recommended strategy for U-Turn is to give it to the strongest team behind you that you're not cooperating with -- which was ideal for this leg -- my stated reason is because there is no actual racing. Well, surprise surprise, this leg was 100% honest to goodness racing. No artificial bunching points, no reliance on cabdrivers, nothing. Everything you did was under your own power.

My premise that the "natural last" would be way behind no matter what was validated, though, when the models finished well ahead of team Big Brother despite having to ride 8 miles out of their way. They probably lost a full hour doing that and still had plenty of time to spare.

But this leg was seriously fucked. I'm a smart guy, good with codes and numbers. For example, I quickly thought up a viable strategy for that gold-counting exchange rate challenge from last season for if you didn't have a calculator. But I would never have been able to finish that morse code challenge in a million years. Just too damn hard; nobody would have gotten it.

And that's what's so fucked up. Putting an impossible detour on a leg is really bad. Adding in a blind U-Turn means you're guaranteed to eliminate somebody strong, since there will be exactly one team forced to do the impossible task. Even worse is that this deadly combination was on a leg with no bunching points.

Add all that up and what do you get? This was they only way to keep the speed-bumped Team Big Brother in the race. I love Jeff and Jordan, and I call foul. FIX! FIX! That speed bump could have easily been thrown in at the last minute no problem, meaning that the NEL last week also could have been thrown in just to save them. And the morse code difficulty was arbitrarily set; make it just one word (in English) and it becomes reasonable.

I'm not much of a conspiracy nut, and this one worked in my favor, but I smell a rat.

[bengangmo]

So um, who was eliminated?

I never have time to watch, just enjoy vicarioulsy from here - but who went home?

Please don't tell me it was the cowboys?

[zut]

I think that's the first time the U-Turn has ever worked to completely knock a front-running team all the way to the back and elimination. Wow.

Taxi Assessment:

Stuck in the Desert and Officially Detained - or, Philiminated with extreme prejudice.
Dana & Adrian and Jody & Shannon and Monique & Shawne - Still eliminated.
Joe & Heidi (down from "Passing") - Crap, was the Morse Code task really that hard? Everyone (unsuprisingly) chose the crawling task, and Joe & Heidi, forced to do this task, simply can't finish it. I can understand how the code can come at out confusingly fast, but they seemed to get "Viva la..." all right, and then couldn't get anything else. On the one hand, this shows a frustrating imbalance in Detour tasks: if one choice is this much harder than the other, then it's really no choice at all. On the other hand, it also demonstrates why all the teams (accidentally or not) chose the right Detour option: tasks with a linear progression, where every bit of effort will get you closer to the goal and won't have to be repeated, are safer than tasks you may have to do again and again.

Flat Tire - or, not likely to get anywhere soon.
Brent & Caite (down from "Stopping") - Another cock-up. "I wonder if they meant just south like as in a direction, or just south, as in just go that direction." WTF, Mr. Teen South Carolina? This screw-up doesn't result in any drop in placement, true, but it's indicative of how dopey this Sad Sack team can be. They're not always that way, and could easily last another two or three legs, but they are, on the whole, the weakest team left.

Stopping for Gas - or, not broken-down, exactly, but not a good sign.
Jordan & Jeff (up from "Flat Tire") - Jordan & Jeff are saved from elimination only by Joe & Heidi jumping in to save them. Even so, they're still well behind the other teams, and Jordan's incompetence is begining to crack the team up. Jeff, although no Einstein himself, has been just enough to keep this team in it, but one ill-considered Roadblock choice would be disastrous. Although they're starting out far behind the other teams, I would expect a major bunch in the next episode, and in a battle for last place I think Brent & Caite come out the worse. So I'm bumping Jordan & Jeff back up a notch, but it's going to be interesting to see how well they perform next week after trailing the rest of the teams for almost two entire episodes.
Dan & Jordan (up from "Flat Tire") - Dan & Jordan come in fourth today, which is their best showing yet by a full two places. However, I still don't see a lot of drive from this team, and I don't see how they can make it into the final three, save for the other teams obligingly eliminating themselves.

"Rapido! Por Favor?" - or, making meaningless ineffectual comments from the back seat, but in no immediate danger.
Carol & Brandy (holding steady) - You know, I'm conflicted about how Brandy talks about how dumb some of the other Racers are. On the one hand, she's kind of right. On the other hand, it's kind of boorish. I know, I know, it's hypocritical of me to frown at someone else for making snarky comments about the Racers, but I'm drawing a bright (and I think defensible) line between snarking on people you watch on a television show and people you know in real life. I know plenty of people in real life that aren't the brightest bulbs in the pack, but I keep my comments to myself, mostly because these people have a bunch of other quality traits (as most people do, when you get down to it), and partly because I'm not a tool. Not usually, at any rate. Anyway, Carol & Brandy, if they keep their act together, have a chance of lasting well into the Race. I don't see them as challenging the best two teams, but they're better than most of the rest when they're not obsessing over having to do icky things.
Louie & Michael (up from "Flat Tire") - Wow; that makes two first-place finishes in a row. And the implementation of a dopey "let's U-Turn Joe and Heidi" strategy that actually worked. Which makes it not so dopey, truth be told. You could quite legitimately argue that this episode, with its lack of bunching, favored lead teams (and indeed, ignoring the U-Turn, the order of finish was almost exactly the same as it was last week.) However, Louie & Michael ran the smart, focused, and nearly flawless leg that I had expected (but not gotten) from them at the beginning of the season. No mistakes, smart racing, out in front by a healthy margin the entire leg. Are they going to step up and actually compete for the last spot in the final three? Are we going to see Team Jeckyll or Team Hyde next week? I kind of doubt that three poor episodes in a row was a fluke, but maybe Louie & Michael are rapidly learning.

In the Passing Lane - or, ahead of the pack, but not quite comfortably.
Steve & Allie (holding steady) - Still not much screen time, but Steve & Allie are developing into a top tier team. No complaining, no father-daughter bickering, just calmly racing and making good decisions.

Cruisin' with Earl - or, drivin' on the shoulder, takin' shortcuts, and generally kickin' butt.
Jet & Cord (holding steady) - A third place finish only, but Jet & Cord were well out of last place, raced smart, and showed some hustle that other teams didn't. Still the team to beat, I think.

_{Props to Mullinator and his Raj Ratings.}

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by enalzi

I'm think who ever finds the contestants secretly hates gay people, so they find the most annoying ones they can. Like the brothers last season.

That wasn't always the case (although it certainly seems to be)

Season One had The Guidos: the best damned "villains" TAR has ever seen*.
Season Two had team "Cha-cha-cha" who were the fucking coolest zen racers ever.
Season Three had Kenny and Girard--gay/liberal, straight/conservative brother who had a blast (as the gay one (big guy) was rappelling down a cliff, the straight brother yelled "Gerard! Just imagine there's a dozen donuts down here for you!" or as they're running across Switzerland trying to find the pit stop, the straight one says "We'll make it! We'll make it!" and the gay one replies acidly "Thank you, Maria von Trapp "
Season Four: Chip/Reichien who were kinda "We're gay! They all hate us!" a bit, but otherwise were damned competent racers and decent guys.

Whichever season had Rob/Amber on it is where the gay players started to become whiny stereotypical "bitchy queens" caricatures...but that's about the same time they started really annoying stunt casting.





*Villains: you admire them/their skills, despite them being dicks as opposed to assholes like Johnathon or the "I'll push you off the building " guy from last season.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by Ellis Dee

And that's what's so fucked up. Putting an impossible detour on a leg is really bad. Adding in a blind U-Turn means you're guaranteed to eliminate somebody strong, since there will be exactly one team forced to do the impossible task. Even worse is that this deadly combination was on a leg with no bunching points.

And two other things:

Normally the Speed Bump is a meaningless time-waster task: no effort at all. Stuff like "Find the sauna bus and sit in it for 4 minutes" or similar. This seemed like a much harder task than that, even though it made no difference.

What's really weird is the lack of road-block. There's always a roadblock following a U-Turn so that the U-Turned team can make up some time. As it was, even if Joe and Heidi had whipped right through the task in 30 minutes, they would have dropped a bunch of places and had no way to make up the time.

I'm not quite as ready to call pro-Jeff/Jordan foul/fix...to me, this seemed more of a pro-cop fix. The producers obviously love the cops and everything in the last two legs was designed to push them ahead. (Why do the cops keep calling each other "baby"? When I was in high school, I didn't call my first real girlfriend "baby" that much and we were pretty icky)

On the other hand, the cowboys moved up like two places, didn't they (5th to 3d?) so talent shows.

[jsc1953]

I thought this was the funniest TAR episode ever. The "??????" subtitle; "they're up in the air in those...flying...things"; Phil dancing with the greeter and the French band; ridiculous bicycle costumes, with mustaches. Comedy gold.

[zut]

Originally Posted by Fenris

What's really weird is the lack of road-block. There's always a roadblock following a U-Turn so that the U-Turned team can make up some time. As it was, even if Joe and Heidi had whipped right through the task in 30 minutes, they would have dropped a bunch of places and had no way to make up the time.

My objection to this episode is that everything was essentially linear. Other than the Detour choice (that everyone made correctly) and the U-Turn, there were no options for the teams, and all the tasks (again, ignoring the other Detour choice) were just "go from place A to Place B." I suppose that's better than having tasks that take teams a specific, consistent amount of time (like bungee jumping); in that at least you can Race whilst going from Point A to Point B. However, I prefer to see tasks that take some time and skill to accomplish so that trailing teams have a chance to catch up by being *better* at something.

[Eyebrows 0f Doom]

It sounded to me like there were pauses between the letters of the Morse code. I don't understand why they didn't just jot down the dashes & dots on the notepad as they heard them and then look the letters up in the book afterwards. Why wouldn't that be easy? It would probably take several tries before they got the whole message, but I can't see why that took several hours or so, judging by it being dark when Phil went out to them.

[obfusciatrist]

The whole leg seemed perfectly designed for taking a person with a bum knee and making it worse.

Walk around in muddy fields, crawl 200 yards. Climb in an out of WWI trenches. If they had moved on walking on slippery muddy trail and then riding a bike. If they'd survived Joe would have been in a world of hurt the next day.

I know they don't ever really show them eating and except for one classic exception you'd assume the racers never need a restroom. But it seemed like they weren't fed between finishing the last leg and starting this one if everybody's comments about how hungry they were and how good a baguette sounded are indicative.

So on top of everything else I wonder when the last time Joe and Heidi had last eaten anything substantial.

[obfusciatrist]

Do we know for a fact that the Morse code we heard in the episode was the same as what they heard in the race? I thought about seeing if I could decipher what was played but decided it was too much trouble and I couldn't be sure it wasn't just a random Morse code sound effect.

[jsc1953]

Originally Posted by obfusciatrist

So on top of everything else I wonder when the last time Joe and Heidi had last eaten anything substantial.

Probably the same time everyone else on the race ate anything substantial.

[muldoonthief]

Originally Posted by Eyebrows 0f Doom

It sounded to me like there were pauses between the letters of the Morse code. I don't understand why they didn't just jot down the dashes & dots on the notepad as they heard them and then look the letters up in the book afterwards. Why wouldn't that be easy? It would probably take several tries before they got the whole message, but I can't see why that took several hours or so, judging by it being dark when Phil went out to them.

It looked like they were each trying to do the code independently as well. I would have had one person listening, and just saying out loud "Dot dot dash, dash dot, dot dash dash" etc. and have the other person write down what the first one said. I think that would be easier than trying to listen and write down what you've heard.

Originally Posted by obfusciatrist

The whole leg seemed perfectly designed for taking a person with a bum knee and making it worse.

Walk around in muddy fields, crawl 200 yards. Climb in an out of WWI trenches. If they had moved on walking on slippery muddy trail and then riding a bike. If they'd survived Joe would have been in a world of hurt the next day.

This task must clearly have been planned way in advance, and probably used a lot of the TAR budget. I don't think either (a) they added it just to screw with Joe, or (b) there's any realistic possibility they would have eliminated such a colorful task just to give Joe's leg a break.

Heck, I suspect it was originally planned for the next race day/episode, but there was a storm moving in or something, so they just bused all the teams there so they could get it in before the weather turned bad.

[Robot Arm]

Originally Posted by muldoonthief

It looked like they were each trying to do the code independently as well. I would have had one person listening, and just saying out loud "Dot dot dash, dash dot, dot dash dash" etc. and have the other person write down what the first one said. I think that would be easier than trying to listen and write down what you've heard.

So then you've got one person listening and talking, and the other person trying to listen and write down what he heard. I don't see how that's an improvement.

Like I said before, I think it was just coming too fast to write down. They needed some way to break it down and focus on one piece at a time, while still keeping the pieces in the right order.

Heck, I suspect it was originally planned for the next race day/episode, but there was a storm moving in or something, so they just bused all the teams there so they could get it in before the weather turned bad.

I was getting dinner ready so I was a little distracted during the first few minutes. Did they say that the teams left on the leg directly after the bus ride (that looked like a comfy little chateau at the start Mat) or even give the start times?

[corkboard]

Originally Posted by jsc1953

I thought this was the funniest TAR episode ever. The "??????" subtitle; "they're up in the air in those...flying...things"; Phil dancing with the greeter and the French band; ridiculous bicycle costumes, with mustaches. Comedy gold.

Don't forget the moment when Jordan went off by herself into the field to fix/adjust her helmet/sock/backpack/whatever and Jeff stood there watching her, and just stuck the barrel of his rifle into his mouth.

and: "Just get your boobs in the mud and crawl!"

[muldoonthief]

Originally Posted by Robot Arm

So then you've got one person listening and talking, and the other person trying to listen and write down what he heard. I don't see how that's an improvement.

Like I said before, I think it was just coming too fast to write down. They needed some way to break it down and focus on one piece at a time, while still keeping the pieces in the right order.

Yeah, your skip a letter at a time plan probably would have been better. But it looks like they didn't try anything useful - from what we saw though, it looks like they were definitely going from listening to interpreting in a single step, which was never going to work.

I was getting dinner ready so I was a little distracted during the first few minutes. Did they say that the teams left on the leg directly after the bus ride (that looked like a comfy little chateau at the start Mat) or even give the start times?

There was no indication how long it was between bus arrival and leg starting, but they did send them off with the normal spacing - IIRC, the cops left at 9:20 AM, next team at 9:55 or so.

[Sweetums]

Is seemed to me that the Morse code thing was not direct transcription, but take the code being broadcast, and check it against the code book for a set number of phrases or words. Notice that they kept coming up with different phrases, some of which were very far off the actual message. If they were simply dropping letter in a direct transscription, it would have been quite different.

[rockle]

[slight hijack]
Just wanted to say: thank heaven for you guys, because after an 18-hour power outage, we got our TV back, only to get no picture at all on our local CBS channel. You're my scoop and my lifesaver and ... yes, I'm melodramatic, but I want my damn hour back! And for my house to not smell like wet basement and litter box.
[/slight hijack]

[MPB in Salt Lake]

Originally Posted by jsc1953

Probably the same time everyone else on the race ate anything substantial.

It showed one team stopping in a French mini-mart to buy a map---that would be a good chance to get a bit of food that they could eat on the run.

The mini quiches that the bakery had (they showed them in one of the shots when a team was getting their baguette clue) looked very tasty..........

[BMada]

but do they risk spending the cash on food or saving it for taxi tips, cab fare/bus tickets and the more essential racing needs? I'm pretty sure they get some sort of buffet table or spread at pit stops. Are they allowed to pack junk food from these food layouts and carry them?

[BMada]

Originally Posted by Sweetums

Is seemed to me that the Morse code thing was not direct transcription, but take the code being broadcast, and check it against the code book for a set number of phrases or words. Notice that they kept coming up with different phrases, some of which were very far off the actual message. If they were simply dropping letter in a direct transscription, it would have been quite different.

I think it was direct transcription. The booklets they were given had on page 1 the numbers in Morse Code, page 2 alphabet, then the rest of the pages were blank for writing down stuff?

[MPB in Salt Lake]

Originally Posted by BMada

but do they risk spending the cash on food or saving it for taxi tips, cab fare/bus tickets and the more essential racing needs? I'm pretty sure they get some sort of buffet table or spread at pit stops. Are they allowed to pack junk food from these food layouts and carry them?

You don't actually believe that the ONLY food that the Racers eat during their entire time circling the globe is what the Amazing Race staff provides???

Money almost never enters the picture in the Race anymore, unless a team does something foolish and wastes a big chunk of their stash.............

ETA---maybe I am way off in left field on this, as I just assume that the teams are free (and expected) to go get themselves food and drink when the opportunity arrives, like for example at the Beatles Bar pit stop in Hamburg---There are a million places to eat and drink on the Reeperbahn, and the first thing I would have done after checking in would have been finding another beer and a herring and onion sandwich on rye.

What else is the money provided for (besides for cab and subway fare) if NOT personal food and drink?

[In Winnipeg]

Caite: "When I get that fresh baguette, I am going to totally eat the crap out of it. I'm going to stick it right down my throat."

Brilliant.

However, I don't think she was talking about a loaf of bread at all.