New "Amazing Race" lineup announced

Ahem. So. My life sort of got flipped around earlier in the year, but I am getting things more under control and back to normal, which includes a healthy dose of Phil Keoghan, so imagine my uncontrollable excitement when I discovered that The Amazing Race 13 starts on Sunday, September 28th @ 8pm (7pm central)! YIPPEE! CBS.com has their official TAR webpage up, and an article about the new teams made it into my Yahoo! news front page this morning. No word on whether we will ever see a Detour called “Flotillas or Chinchillas” but as always, I continue to hold out hope.

(It’s early, yes, but considering that my life is pretty much diapers and Blue’s Clues and cheese sticks right now, I’ll take whatever diversions I can get, and Phil is one of the better ones out there.)

Info here. Phil likes the frat brothers – I’d root for the hippies but they’ll probably be out in the first two or three legs.

Mods: This was my second effort to post this – could you delete the empty thread, pls?

Are Marisa and Brooke really twin Paris Hiltons in disguise? I can’t wait, but it’s going to be hard with two little ones and my damn DVR not wanting to fast forward.

If the website header is to be believed, they will be offering full episodes online this year. It’s about damn time says I.

Early prediction: Terence and Sarah will either win it all or get knocked out early in a spectacularly stupid fashion.

Not sure. I am reserving judgement on any teams until I can see them in action, but I am sure about one thing: I am just about done with the teams of cloned blondes. And I say that as a blonde myself. Maybe (hopefully) this team will be different.

Hopefully Justin_Bailey’s report is correct and you’ll be able to catch episodes online. I got the same impression from the website.

WHEEEEE! I’ve been waiting for a new Race since…well, since the last Race. When was that, again?

Dibs on the first “Rapido, rapido!” spoken to a Russian cabbie. (Or even better, “Arriba! Arriba!”)

Wonder who’s going to be Team Bittercakes this year?

I sure hope so. I don’t have cable anymre, and just hooked up my digital converter boxes, and haven’t been able to tape stuff. I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong, but I need to get it fixed before TAR starts. It would be a lot easier to watch on-line.

I’m going to be calling Mark & Bill “Team Mythbusters”, I swear…

Okay, Nick & Starr are going to be the Warring Sibs. I’m placing bets on Nick’s orientation right now. I say “Not straight”.

Team Hippy Grandparents looks cool. They’ll probably be annoying as all get-out, though.

Oh, great. We have THREE (count them, THREE) Teams Prove-Our-Love. Ugh.

Damn, missed the edit window.

I pick Ken and Tina as the team to Get Knocked Out In Spectacular Fashion.
They’ve been separated for nine months and are the “We’re going on TAR to work on our relationship” team. That NEVER works.

There are THREE of those this season. Or at least “We’re going on TAR to test our love” teams.

Ooooo…hippies! And I see I’ve been beaten to the punch on Team Mythbusters. I hope those guys are as fun as Adam and Jaime. I have a feeling that Terence & Sarah is going to be Peter & Sarah from season 10 all over again without the missing limb.

Go Mark & Bill! It’s good to hear of a team that actually prepares for the race beforehand.

Sorry.

Well, whaddayaknow? There ARE straight people in the New York theater! (Yes, I knew there were straight people in the NY theater already…I’m joking…)

That makes it a game, then…which one(s) are the gays? I’m trying to remember if there has ever been a season of TAR that didn’t have at least one gay racer…

Yeah, I didn’t fully read all the bios. I should really stop doing that, because I’m always wrong - I think, “Oh, I like these two teams, and this team is nuts, and this team will lose in a big way.”
And I’m always mistaken. I remember reading the bio for The Hippie Team a few seasons ago, decided I didn’t like them and thought they’d never make it. They ended up winning, and I LOVED them.

Have we ever had this many “test-our-love” teams in one season? It seems to be surprisingly common for people with either new love, only-dated-long-distance love, or we broke up a couple months ago and now we’re back together love, to decide that the best way to see if it’s going to endure is to go cold-turkey into a situation that is possibly the most stressful, least private, most culture-shocking, least reflective that they’ve ever been in, with Killer Fatigue dumped on top. Admittedly, if your love can survive that, it’s pretty damn strong. But it’s kind of like taking out a wasp in your lawn by nuking it from orbit. Yeah, if your love survives this thing, it can probably survive almost anything else, but a love that can survive most of the usual ordeals life will throw at you might not survive this thing, because it is HUGELY stressful in a way that you’re not going to find in any normal 30-day period unless you have the worst luck that’s ever been given out to a human being.

Is it unfair to judge these people by a website bio and their pictures? Of course it is, but it’s too fun not to!

Terence and Sarah - She’s a Wall Street… something. He’s a “real estate agent” that sounds more like a kept man. In their favor is that he coaches runners. While the running part won’t save them I could see this team holding out quite a while.

Marisa and Brooke - "They want to prove to the world that they’re not just cute blondes and that they can be athletic, cut-throat competitors. "

Ahem.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

They’re so dead. A few “we’re not just hot” teams have held out for a while but I’ll predict they’ll be in the first three to go.

Andrew and Dan - They offer degrees in “tourism management”? I guess it’s better than an English degree for getting a job, but still…

So they’re frat boys. I predict relaxed attitudes will keep them in longer than expected but a physical task will take them out. I anticipate them to be the dark horses who don’t make it to the finals but everyone will be expecting to get eliminated each week.

Aja and Ty - They’re the long distance relationship which is only one step up from being on the race to work out their problems. I sense passive-aggressiveness ahead! These teams tend to start out strong and then fade so I’ll put them in as an early second half elimination.

Mark and Bill - Team Nerds whose plan is to “be strategic”. My money is on them wavering on “strategy” and cracking when something goes bad. Since on the Race nothing goes according to plan I’m going with a very early elimination for them.

Toni and Dallas - The mother and son team that doesn’t have a lot of information on them. If they’ve got a healthy relationship they could stick things out until near the end. If they start bickering the moment they hit the race they’re gone before the mid-point.

Nick and Starr - Despite the stupid name this brother/sister team has plenty going for it. Stage actor and professional cheerleader, plus I’d give siblings an edge on being able to deal with the personality problems that inevitably come up since they’ve already done that before. I’m putting them down for final three.

Anita and Arthur - Hippies. Not just hippies but old hippies. I’m counting on my bad vibes to eliminate them early.

Kelly and Christy - Best friends who don’t really have an interesting theme. The fact that one of them says that they can “do anything they put their mind to” is a bad sign since in the Race that usually translates to “We suck at racing but our pluckiness counts for something, right?”

Ken and Tina - Not just “wanting to spend time on their relationship” but an actually separated married couple? Keep the knives away from them. I suspect they’ll grit their teeth and hold out for the money to pay for their divorce attorneys giving them the motivation to go to the final three.

Anthony and Stephanie - There’s our more traditional dysfunctional couple.

Reading the yahoo article makes me really curious as to what “including a mistake that ultimately prohibited one team from joining their fellow racers at the finish line” means.

What did they do? Did they horribly break the rules of the game? Break the law in some country and get tossed in jail? Or maybe they made a mistake that got them hurt and in the hospital?

And it’s a month away!

WOO HOO! What a day … my mechanic cuts me a deal on my repair AND I learn that TAR is scheduled again. Happy me!

These are the teams that they chose instead of me? Scandal! Outrage!

The gentleman want’s to know how come we’re not competing in it. I told him it was his job to send in the application.

OK, so obviously I’m rooting for Team Geek and I’m looking forward to the two pairs of beauty queens face real hardship. The older hippies remind me of some friends of mine, so I’ll be cheering them on, but I don’t think they’ll last long.

I can’t wait to see what happens!