Amazing Race 3/21: "It's Not Over Until The Phil Sings"

Cafe Society
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Fewer non-clue bottles, but also fewer clue bottles as each team found one. The percentage is the important thing.

(With two totally irrelevant caveats. As the total number of bottles goes down, the worst-case scenario goes down; if your luck is really bad, maybe you’ll be stuck there for three hours instead of four, but three hours is still enough to put you out of the race so it doesn’t matter. And two teams smashed a lot of non-clue bottles before switching to the dancing, which would improve the odds of any teams after them, of which there were none.)

I was wondering what happens to foreigners who get pulled over in Germany and the officer can smell the beer from fifty feet away.

You’re right, lorene, Boston is a difficult city to drive in. (I still have trouble getting from South Station to Comm. Ave. westbound.) However, if Boston is tricky, ALL OF EUROPE is worse. The cities are old enough that they weren’t planned and build on grids (which is the problem in Boston, too), it’s so built up with small towns that you can’t just orient yourself to the big cities and major highways, and nothing is familiar; autobahn signs are blue, Munich is “München”, and words like “south” or “east” are suspiciouly absent. Next time you’re in a large bookstore, take a look at a roadmap of Germany.

Two small anecdotes, if I may. I was in Nürnberg (as in Judgment At) and rented a car to drive to Nürburg (as in The Nürburgring). I didn’t have my map yet, but the car had a navigation computer. The computer was in German. But I figured out just enough to get to the setup menu and switch it to English, and then it was a godsend. I told it the city and exact place I wanted to go, and it took me right to it. It would have been tricky otherwise, but I was alone. One person to drive and one to read the map should be managable, but they both have to be sharp.

The second incident was at a dopefest. We decided to go see a church decorated with human bones. The original navigator wasn’t doing very well (in fact, we may have made the same wrong turn twice) so I took over. I was cruisin’ with Earl. I got us from one side of Prague to the other, then missed one sign and we were toast. I am convinced that we found a street that no tourist has visited before or since. Maastricht or Coldfire can back me up on this.

I wish I’d have been on that leg last night, I’d have kicked ass.

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I happened to catch Wanda and Desiree on The Early Show this morning, and they explained that they saw all the swimming lanes and figured that Wanda would be better since she swims laps better than Desiree. Then, of course, it turned out to be the diving pool, and Wanda freaked because she couldn’t see how deep the clues were in the water and thought they were all the way at the bottom or something (which they weren’t).

So there actually was some thought to that one. Not good thought, but thought nevertheless.

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They didn’t happen to mention Desiree’s phone number, did they?

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Okay, I’ll agree that Eric & Jeremy’s references to girls and touching hineys is a bit tiresome, but it’s not the worst personality trait ever seen on TAR. I would also suggest that at their worst, they are still better than some prominent posters in past TAR threads here, who have a penchant for drooling over and queing up for sex with certain contestants. :slight_smile:

In principle, I would have preferred that Wanda & Desiree remain instead of Dani and Dani, but the truth is that Wanda & Desiree showed a lot less fortitude than Dani^2. Lots of crying and whining, expressing pessimism about completing a task and just doing stupid things. On the other hand, Dani and Dani seem to respond with a measure of calm even to things like losing their fanny pack, and handle tasks without much drama. Desiree is cuter than the two of them put together, but she and her mother just had too many unappealing race qualities when all was said and done.

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I don’t find driving in Europe all that bad. I find the highway, and between town driving just as easy as it is here. There are times when you can have the same road called two different things and that can get confusing if you have the wrong map. I hate driving in most major cities though, they never seem to name their streets at all. Inside cities I get lost a lot easier, outside, no problem.

I thought it was a great episode, very fun and it looked like a lot of fun. I’m hoping they hit Greece next week since I’ve never been there.

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Would you believe I’ve been so busy this week I just finished watching the leg on TiVo.

MOst of the real good stuff has been brought up already, but I’ll just chime in:

The only thing funnier than tipping Phil was the look on his face while receiving it and holding it like a dead fish as he handed it back to the hippie. Not joining the hippie-hate-fest. They crack me up: “Santa!”

The test track was cool, but from a practicality point of view, just why do you need to know if your Mercedes can ride vertically? Seriously, what purpose does it serve?

I was really behind Team Salsa. Sad to see them go, but probably inevitable. I’m still on the fence about Double-D. They were very unwise to keep following Salsa, but then again, they picked up the dancing instantly, and always seem to keep their heads together. I will make my decision on them when the beginning of next week’s episode reveals if they gave Gonad the cold shoulder.

I have a feeling that the middle portion of this leg, where you had the hippies, Lake and Michelle, and Team Gonad way out in front, vying for first, and everyone else trying not to be last, is an unintentional foreshadowing moment for the latter part of the race.

It seems many of the promising teams just aren’t delivering. I expect more of MoJo and Rayolanda, given their apparent competence. The rest, Team Nerd, the Double-Ds, and Frankenberry are all clearly mid-course cannon fodder.

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Maybe, but if I know the Race, a lot of your fears can be at least partially alleviated by two words: Bun. Ching.

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The point isn’t to demonstrate that the car can go vertical; it’s to allow the car to go fast on a round track. By banking the turns, you can use the magic of centrifugal force to keep your speed up, so you don’t have to build a 10-mile long straight test track. NASCAR tracks have banked turns, although nowhere near as close to vertical as the Mercedes track.

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Not so much the spacing, but the fact that Hippy and Gonad are clearly the teams to beat in this race, and Lake and Michelle are really starting to make a showing here. The rest of the teams don’t seem like they really have the stuff.

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I heard something fun yesterday–my roommate’s coworker’s aunt called her up the other day (the coworker, not my roommate, because the aunt doesn’t know the roommate, naturally).

Anyhoo, Aunt asked Coworker if she watched TAR, and then announced that Fran and Barry are her neighbors. It’s not terribly exciting to us, but it’s one of those brushes with fame that somehow make you feel … no different than before. :smiley:

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True. But, Chip & Kim and Uchenna & Joyce didn’t really look like they were going to do much until about halfway through. In these early legs, they’re racing to not lose more than to win, doncha think? For some pretty memorable teams in the past, the “any place but last” strategy has been fairly effective. Although, the “all-first-all-the-time” teams can be a lot of fun, too, once we get to the Eastern Hemisphere and/or the Third World and the resultant Killer Fatigue that rolls in. (I am thinking in particular of Colin & Christie, and their Adventures in Africa & Southeast Asia.)

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The thing about “Those Guys” and the Hippies is that they havne’t reallymet any adversity yet. How will they react when that happens?