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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
[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]
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?
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?
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?
“Designed” may not have been teh best word. No, I don’t think that they came up with a set of tasks just to mess with Joe’s knee. Any more than it was coincidence that South America pretty much perfectly meshed with the ranching skills of the cowboys.
Maybe a better way to say it would have been “they could hardly have designed a leg that would more screw with Joe’s knee.”
The only time I ever saw the producers obviously cheat on tasks* was that like 3-leg stretch in Asia where the annoying Asian brother/sister team (he was annoying, her not as much) who just happened to speak the language fluently and who just happened to be obvious favorites of the producers who just happened to leave them in China(?) longer than they’ve ever stayed in any other single country (like 3 full legs) and where the tasks just happened to be tasks involving reading/writing and speaking the particular dialect that the brother/sister just happened to speak. In 17(?) seasons there’s never, EVER been another “You need to speak the native language to do this task in less than a few hours” task like the "take the order at the restaurant…in Mandarin-f you don’t get all the tonal inflections absolutely perfect you have to do it again from scratch. " task. And either the previous or the next episode there was the “Write a letter in Mandarin (pr whatever dialect)” task.
Outside of that, I’ve never seen tasks obviously designed to favor only one team.
*There was also the whole “cheating by having a plane turn around for a contestant” thing
I have distinct memories of Team Cha Cha Cha going shopping with their “spare” money and spare time while waiting for something to open, in either Hong Kong or Singapore. They bought pricey cologne and got food at McDonald’s. I can’t remember if that was on their original Race or on All-Stars. As for taking food along, when they were Mandatorily Impoverished (in the season when non-elims meant giving up all of your money but not your belongings) the Bowling Moms team had a variety of fruit in their bag that they hinted that they’d specifically snagged from the Pit Stop in order to sell to make money for the leg.
Not only can’t they explore the city once at the Pit Stop, they can’t even roam too far within the grounds of wherever the Pit Stop is, if it’s a resort or something they’re confined to the specific rooms/spaces assigned to the production.
I guess I didn’t understand the rules, (Pit Stop vs. a mid-leg break in the action) because I also remember teams going to various cafes and businesses (usually to try and get on the internet to get a leg up on the other teams) while waiting around for a train or a flight, or until some attraction is to open up for the day.
I didn’t know the Pit Stop is like a enforced quarantine zone, because my natural inclination would be to check out the new city for a bit, until it was time to start up the race again…
A lot of the Pit Stops are only 12 hours. My natural inclination[sup]*[/sup] would be to wash some clothes in the sink, hang them to dry, have some food, set the alarm, set a backup alarm, and go to sleep.
Well, my natural inclination is almost never to clean things, but in the Race I think that would be the most productive way to spend 12 hours.
This generally only happens while they’re racing, i.e. after their “release time” and the reception of their first clue for the leg.
If you remember, Dandrew couldn’t go back to the theater to get their shoes after they got to the Pit Stop after they had to dress up in the cow costume in…wherever they were.