Culturally Preconditioned

I don’t know. I’m just not as enthusiastic over this finale this time. Possibly cause it’s a no-brainer as to who’s gonna win it this time, but I still like the fact that an unpimped contestant made it to the finals (Oh speaking of no-brainers, they should totally fire the person who writes subtitles for Star Movies… dialogue was “Oh take Brad Pitt, that’s a no-brainer”.. subtitles “Oh pilih Brad Bitt. Dia tu bodoh”. ZOMGWTFLOL! SRP English F9 ka?). Anyway, back on topic, contestants had to sing 3 songs each (1) Their favorite performance of the season (2) A song chosen by Simon Fuller (3) Same coronation song written by Kara.

Adam - Mad World by Tears For Fears

I liked this version a little more than the one from the previous show. Maybe because he kept he shrieking to a bare minimum? It was good. And when Simon compared him to something out of Phantom Of The Opera, I’m inclined to agree. (Randy’s retort to Simon’s Phantom reference -  “No.. No.. TWILIGHT!” - was that supposed to be a compliment? Cause Phantom of The Opera >> elephant shit >> Kara’s cooter juices >>> Everything and anything related to Twilight >> Twilight fantards). And ZOMG Hannibal Lecter sighting in the audience appreciation!!! 7.5 out of 10

Kris - Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers

I didn’t think this song was his personal best when he sang it a few weeks back. But this actually sounded better than the first time around. I still didn’t like how the end note went, though. It was just odd. 8  out of 10.

Adam - A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke

Apart from the excessive shrieking, I actually liked the performance. But seriously though, I don’t think even Steven Tyler shrieks this much. There is such a thing as too much of a good shouting. The high notes were awesome, but personally it was a little too much for me. ZOMG Tom Cruise’s Stepford Wife sighting in the audience non-appreciation!! 7 out of 10.

Kris - What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye

Love this classic song. Love Kris’s guitar playing, but for a finale performance, that just didn’t quite cut it, in my opinion. It was good, but not spectacular. Fuck you Randy for echoing my thoughts on this. 6.5 out of 10.

Adam & Kris - No Boundaries

LOL Worst. coronation. song. evah. Stupid bubble gum filth. I bet Kara wrote this song with Danny in mind. I can’t get around to the fact that this is the same bitch who wrote Kylie’s awesome Spinning Around a few years back. The song.. sucks. And between Adam and Kris, they both sung it quite bad, but if I had to choose who did better, I’d give the slight edge to Adam, cause we all know America loves the excessive theatrics.

Congrats to Adam for winning American Idol Season 8! Even if the biggest upset in the history of mankind happens and Kris wins, I’m guessing Adam will still definitely trump everyone else post Idol in terms of sales, airplay and exposure.

I didn’t feel like writing a recap cause (1) I’m a little bitter that Allison went out during Rock Week, and that she did so much better than the two other contestants left in the competition. (2) I was so knackered last night that I crashed in front of the tv, and only managed to catch the show (eyes half open) during the 8am-9am rerun this morning (3) I thought they were all equally good. Well that’s a lie… Adam was a lot better than the other two. Danny was simply shrieking in the first song. And I thought Kris was gonna butcher Apologize.. but luckily he didn’t. Anyway the results :

Show Me The Spoiler

I don’t know if I’m more pleasantly surprised by the outcome of TAR14, or the fact that The Duke is no longer on AXN. Anyway, teams started off from Beijing and are asked to fly to their final destination city, Maui in Hawaii. I was kind of surprised to see the big gap between the teams at the start of this leg. Tammy/Victor started this leg at 9:15pm, Luke/Bob started off at 11:24pm and Jaime/Cara started off at 2:04am. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter since the producers have pretty much guaranteed the airport bunching as the earliest flight leaves at 9am the next day.

After the 18 hour flight, teams had to go to Beach Access 118 (whatever that means) where they had to season a whole pig on a roast, and carry it 200 yards to a luau. They really should’nt have bothered with the seasoning as they all keep dropping the pig into the seawater and sand. Yum. I’m actually more surprised that Astro didn’t censor the pigs.. LOL so much at the selective and incoherent censorship by our local tv.. but what else is new.

Once they’ve finished with the task, teams head to McGregor Point where they had to ride a mile out to sea (on a speed boat thingy) and search for their clue among 100 buoys left afloat in the middle of the ocean. Luke/Bob made a lot of grounds on this, as they were the first ones to finish it. Then Jaime and Cara.. and finally Tammy/Victor. They next had to head on to Hana Highway and search for a Surfboard Fence for their final detour.

At this point, Jaime reared her fugly head and bitched once again to the taxi driver. I totally loved it when the woman on the phone told her that she was not Jaime’s personal concierge. Fuckin hell.. if I was the taxi driver, I’d ask those bitches to get the fuck out of my cab. Rude fuckers. Anyway, karma always bites you in the ass.. and it was very sweet to watch them get fucked over once again by taxi drivers, especially in this final leg.. and especially by an American in their homeland.

Anyway, at the final roadblock. teams had to remember everything they’ve done on the race, find corresponding symbols on hundreds of surfboards, and line them up in the correct sequence : (1) church (2) gondola (3) gymnastics (4) dam (5) vintage cars (6) nose flute (7) tiger (8) boats (9) china birds (10) reflexology (11) scorpion satays. And the people who performed the challenges were Luke, Victor and Jaime (wha-hey! the three bitches from the respective teams).

At first Luke breezed through the roadblock but he didn’t get the last two ones correct. Victor overtook him and finished the roadblock first. Jaime was the next one to finish, and Luke was the last *neener*. However, huge kudos to them for remembering all those details… I was totally lost on that one. Well, perhaps one would remember it better if one were to actually perform all the tasks in actuality. Anyway, once it’s done.. teams head to the final pitstop.

There was no surprise here : Tammy and Victor wins this season of the Amazing Race. The nasty cunt and her friend finished second. And the Professional Victim and his enabler came in third. I’m so fucking sick of the whole “deaf people are the same bla fucking bla deserve same treatment fucking shit bla” but the moment someone calls you a BITCH, not because you’re deaf - but you’re actually acting like a little whiny bitch, then you bring up the “ITS NOT NICE TO CALL A DEAF KID ‘BITCH’” card.. then you are officially on my shit list. Forever. And if you need more vomit inducing reasons to hate this team more, just read up any of their post-race interviews. Seriously most vile team ever.

Other than that, I couldn’t have asked for a much better ending (well I could, but I think the producers would want ALL THREE TEAMS at the pitstop in one piece). And surprisingly this photo that was posted at RFF a day before the episode was shown - proved to be an accurate spoiler after all (we see Victor holding up the number 1 with his finger). Good job!

This week’s theme was Rock.. and right off the bat, we know who’s gonna rocked this one out, and who’s gonna be screwed :

Adam : Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)

He was certainly in his (glam) rock elemt. I actually enjoyed the performance. Dudette can really bring down the house at a rock concert. I actually think this might be the most enjoyable rock performance on an Idol show. 8.5 out of 10.

Allison : Cry Baby (Janis Joplin)

It was good, but not as good as Adam. But still, it was still really good. And I do agree with the song choice though.. not the best she could’ve come up with. 7 out of 10.

Kris : Come Together (The Beatles)

LOL this was so like watching Carrie Underwood singing Love Is A Battlefield. Hahaha rock is definitely NOT his genre. 5 out of 10.

Danny : Dream On (Aerosmith)

The last note? Oh just fuck off, Danny. He shoulda known better and pick a Christian Rock song or something (something from Creed comes to mind).. but that note.. wow.. seriously fuck off. 1 out of 10.

The “Renegade” duet between Kris and Danny was lollertastic. My ears. They bleed. As for the “Slow Ride” duet between Adam and Allison, that was pretty awesome and I think Allison did better during the duet than she did in her solo. Let them be the Final Two please.

Best of The Night : Adam

Worst of The Night : Danny

Boot : Kris.

I have to confess that I normally watch the last five minuted of The Duke, just so that I won’t miss the beginning of The Amazing Race (Astro/AXN’s clock has definitely gone way off.. I’m glad we don’t have TiVo here yet). But it never fails for me to see how incredibly uncomfortable their guests on the show are.. and how incredibly (badly) scripted their dialogues are. And LOL so much at their constant self-reaffirmation on how real men should be. alol so much.

Speaking of alol… this episode of TAR was extremely funny in my opinion.

The episode continues from last week’s To Be Continued leg, where Cara and Jaime were surprised by Phil that the race will continue and that it was a pseudo-pitstop. Teams had to make way to another route marker where they had to search shops to find the Travelocity Gnome. Once they found the clue, the gnome will lead them to the next task - which was to ride electric bicycles, past The Forbidden City, and to a station for their next clue. There was one moment where Jaime showed the gnome to the taxi driver (because the clue was attached to the bottom of the gnome), and he kinda freaked the flying fuck out. LOL

Their next clue is a detour, and teams had to choose between (1) Beijing Opera - where teams had to put on Chinese make up on their faces and don costumes, or (2) Chinese Waiter - where teams had to take and recite orders from dining patrons in Mandarin to the chef. Keisha/Jen, Luke/Bob, Jaime/Cara all did task (1). Some funny comments by Keisha : “You gonna scare a lot of children”, and Luke : “Bob, I’m not a girl” (no you’re not, you’re a bitch). Tammy and Victor did the second task and seemed to breezed through it. I was actually kinda surprised that they had to redo it once because of some mispronunciation.. if they did the mistake, what hope is left for everyone else in the race? Anyway, Tammy/Victor finished first and had the option to U-Turn a team.. and they U-Turned Keisha/Jen (Good call, in my opinion)

After the detour, teams had to go eat some Chinese delicacies (fried grubs, scorpion, grasshopper, starfish WTF?) at a street food stall. And next was a pitstop. Tammy/Victor finished all this in advance and were the first team to arrive at the pitstop at the Bird’s Nest Stadium. In the mean time, the other three teams finished the detour within minutes of each other. Luke/Bob was the second team to finish the grub eating task and was the second team to arrive at the pitstop.

In the mean time, Jaime/Cara and Keisha/Jen were having problems finding the U-Turn clue place thingy. Jaime said they spent three hours looking for it, when the place is actually at the Opera House itself. Keisha/Jen too had problems but they managed to find it a couple of minutes before Jaime/Cara did. Unfortunately for them, they had to perform the other detour task since they were U-Turned. So they went back to perform the Chinese Waiter detour. OMFG the way they mispronounced the orders, and the translations were fucking hilarious. A shame I didn’t jot them down, but it was too funny.

Keisha/Jen finished the detour and arrived at the street food stall before Jaime/Cara did. Unfortunately the bitch had to drink down 20 liters of water to get those insects down her throat. Lame. If a million dollars was down the line, I wouldn’t be taking my sweet fucking time to finish those. Just chug, chug, chug! (well maybe it’s easier for lard asses like me to do it). Anyway, both teams finished the tasks within minutes each other, and arrived at the stadium at almost the same time.

Keisha/Jen arrived there first, but because of all the drinking, she just HAD to stop for a pee-break, which led Jaime/Cara overtaking them. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. I don’t like Jaime/Cara.. but for fucks sake. a pee break? for real? This totally reminds me of an acquaintance I had a couple of years ago.. when we went for a holiday. She keeps going for these pee breaks during a vacation. It’s okay if it’s because she’s got a bladder problem or something.. but every 15 minutes or so.. she wants to find a Starbucks and drink some coffee. I mean she MUST have her coffee. At THAT FUCKING INSTANT. So after 10 minutes of coffee.. yet another pee break. I was so fucking annoyed, I ended up ditching her for the rest of our vacation. LOL Tough shit.

Anyway, so the three teams going into the finals : Tammy/Victor, Luke/Bob, Jaime/Cara. I’m kinda hoping Tammy/Victor will win. Someone posted at Sucks and said that he might Phil somewhere, and he told Phil that he hoped Luke/Bob doesn’t win.. and Phil gave him a total WTF look as though he’s saying “why the fuck don’t you want the most lovable team ever to win?”. LOL anyway, good episode. I don’t know if I’m looking forward to the next episode or not.. although I have to say I’m looking forward to the part where the taxi person tells Jaime off by saying that she’s “not her personal concierge”. LOL

I have to confess that I normally watch the last five minuted of The Duke, just so that I won’t miss the beginning of The Amazing Race (Astro/AXN’s clock has definitely gone way off.. I’m glad we don’t have TiVo here yet). But it never fails for me to see how incredibly uncomfortable their guests on the show are.. and how incredibly (badly) scripted their dialogues are. And LOL so much at their constant self-reaffirmation on how real men should be. alol so much.

Speaking of alol… this episode of TAR was extremely funny in my opinion.

The episode continues from last week’s To Be Continued leg, where Cara and Jaime were surprised by Phil that the race will continue and that it was a pseudo-pitstop. Teams had to make way to another route marker where they had to search shops to find the Travelocity Gnome. Once they found the clue, the gnome will lead them to the next task - which was to ride electric bicycles, past The Forbidden City, and to a station for their next clue. There was one moment where Jaime showed the gnome to the taxi driver (because the clue was attached to the bottom of the gnome), and he kinda freaked the flying fuck out. LOL

Their next clue is a detour, and teams had to choose between (1) Beijing Opera - where teams had to put on Chinese make up on their faces and don costumes, or (2) Chinese Waiter - where teams had to take and recite orders from dining patrons in Mandarin to the chef. Keisha/Jen, Luke/Bob, Jaime/Cara all did task (1). Some funny comments by Keisha : “You gonna scare a lot of children”, and Luke : “Bob, I’m not a girl” (no you’re not, you’re a bitch). Tammy and Victor did the second task and seemed to breezed through it. I was actually kinda surprised that they had to redo it once because of some mispronunciation.. if they did the mistake, what hope is left for everyone else in the race? Anyway, Tammy/Victor finished first and had the option to U-Turn a team.. and they U-Turned Keisha/Jen (Good call, in my opinion)

After the detour, teams had to go eat some Chinese delicacies (fried grubs, scorpion, grasshopper, starfish WTF?) at a street food stall. And next was a pitstop. Tammy/Victor finished all this in advance and were the first team to arrive at the pitstop at the Bird’s Nest Stadium. In the mean time, the other three teams finished the detour within minutes of each other. Luke/Bob was the second team to finish the grub eating task and was the second team to arrive at the pitstop.

In the mean time, Jaime/Cara and Keisha/Jen were having problems finding the U-Turn clue place thingy. Jaime said they spent three hours looking for it, when the place is actually at the Opera House itself. Keisha/Jen too had problems but they managed to find it a couple of minutes before Jaime/Cara did. Unfortunately for them, they had to perform the other detour task since they were U-Turned. So they went back to perform the Chinese Waiter detour. OMFG the way they mispronounced the orders, and the translations were fucking hilarious. A shame I didn’t jot them down, but it was too funny.

Keisha/Jen finished the detour and arrived at the street food stall before Jaime/Cara did. Unfortunately the bitch had to drink down 20 liters of water to get those insects down her throat. Lame. If a million dollars was down the line, I wouldn’t be taking my sweet fucking time to finish those. Just chug, chug, chug! (well maybe it’s easier for lard asses like me to do it). Anyway, both teams finished the tasks within minutes each other, and arrived at the stadium at almost the same time.

Keisha/Jen arrived there first, but because of all the drinking, she just HAD to stop for a pee-break, which led Jaime/Cara overtaking them. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. I don’t like Jaime/Cara.. but for fucks sake. a pee break? for real? This totally reminds me of an acquaintance I had a couple of years ago.. when we went for a holiday. She keeps going for these pee breaks during a vacation. It’s okay if it’s because she’s got a bladder problem or something.. but every 15 minutes or so.. she wants to find a Starbucks and drink some coffee. I mean she MUST have her coffee. At THAT FUCKING INSTANT. So after 10 minutes of coffee.. yet another pee break. I was so fucking annoyed, I ended up ditching her for the rest of our vacation. LOL Tough shit.

Anyway, so the three teams going into the finals : Tammy/Victor, Luke/Bob, Jaime/Cara. I’m kinda hoping Tammy/Victor will win. Someone posted at Sucks and said that he might Phil somewhere, and he told Phil that he hoped Luke/Bob doesn’t win.. and Phil gave him a total WTF look as though he’s saying “why the fuck don’t you want the most lovable team ever to win?”. LOL anyway, good episode. I don’t know if I’m looking forward to the next episode or not.. although I have to say I’m looking forward to the part where the taxi person tells Jaime off by saying that she’s “not her personal concierge”. LOL

This week’s theme : Classic American Songs. Let’s jump straight right into this

Kris -  The Way You Look Tonight

It was nice. His vocals were crisp and clear. He’s a good singer, but I don’t think he’s an extraordinary one, that’s all. The end note was a nice touch. But I wouldn’t be crying any rivers if he goes home tomorrow. 7 out of 10.

Allison - Someone To Watch Over Me

I like this song a lot. And I like the performance. This was a zillion times better than the last. She still managed to keep it raw, with twists of tenderness for this ballad (Paula totally stole my adjective, that bitch). Very good. 7.5 out of 10

Matt - My Funny Valentine

It was good. I kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting.. for that single moment that was gonna make me go.. whoaaa dude.. but sadly, it never came.  6.5 out of 10.

Danny - Come Rain or Come Shine

I really liked the beginning. And I liked the ending. But separately. The transition in the middle didn’t sit too well for me. Is it just me? I just find it … weird. I still don’t get the excessive overpraising for this one. 7 out of 10.

Adam - Feeling Good

I am so accustomed to Nina Simone’s version, so personally I hated the fact that he rocked it up too damn much. It was blasphemous and an utter disrespect to the song. Such a shame that none of the judges have the balls to call him out on that. I can accept an Adam win but I just cannot accept the slaughterfest that classic song just went through. 1 out of 10.

Overall Rankings :

1. Allison - 7.5 out of 10
2. Kris - 7 out of 10
2. Danny - 7 out of 10
4. Matt - 6.5 out of 10
5. Adam - 1 out of 10

Predictions :

Top Three : Adam/Danny/Kris

Bottom Two : Matt/Allison

Boot : Allison

A brief recap from last episode showed Luke saying “calling a deaf guy a bitch is not nice”. Okay, that may be so.. but they were calling him a bitch, because he was a pussy bitch. Ain’t nothing to do with his deafness. And all these talk about handicapable people demanding equality and stuff… that, my friend, does not give one a free pass to become an asshole and a total momma’s bitch boy. All these Luke supporters out there, I can’t help but think they’re just trying to be all PC about it. A bitch is still a bitch whether s/he’s deaf or not.

Anyway, teams fly out from Beijing to Shanghai.. minor airport drama, and once again, Luke pulling a Chris Brown on one of the girls upon arrival in Shanghai. Once there teams head to a detour where one must endure a 10 minute foot massage. I didn’t think that would be out of the ordinary, until I saw the pained expressions on their faces. Is it really THAT bad? Wow.

After the detour team quickly head to a Natatorium for a roadblock where they had to choose between (1) sink - where they had to participate in synchrinized diving, or (2) swim - where they had to go on a 100m x 4 swim relay. That fucking Michael Phelps plug-in was as almost as cheesy as the product placements in TARA. Shame on you, TAR peeps. I’m no expert at swimming (and I’ve never ever attempted diving before), but I was totally laughing my ass off when I saw Jen/Keisha leap frogged off the diving board. Hilarious. Although I must give kudos to Jen for actually not bailing on the roadblock (unlike a certain F/F team in TARA3 at the Final 4 challenge - unforgiveable that one).

So Jaime/Cara were praying they were the first ones to reach the pitstop.. and they were! Only to have Phil tell them that it was a non-elimination leg. Burn.

<< to be continued next week >>

LIl - I’m Every Woman

Whaddefak was that? Seriously? After all the harsh criticism from the past weeks, she brings that performance forth? alol. She has sooo overstayed her welcome in this competition. She can take her inner goddess and shove it up her hemmoraging (sp?) mouth. I loved her mom’s (?) reactions to the judges comments. Priceless. And Kara made a funny with her “I’m not sure it was worth waiting for you singing Chaka Khan” comments! Haha. 4 out of 10.

Kris - She Works Hard For The Money

REally? Weirdest song choice ever. But colour me surprised. I thought it was a brilliant arrangement. Personally, I’m actually so bored of Kris now, but I have to give him major props for that performance. His rendition was awesome. If Santana was the one performing that, EVERYONE and their grandma would be creaming over it. And Kris reminds me a lot of Jason Castro from the previous season. He’s one of a kind, but he can get boring rather quickly. 7.5 out of 10.

Danny - September

I hate this song. I fucking loathe it. So much. My hate was amplified a million times after Anwar Robinson sang it a few seasons ago. Danny didn’t make it any better. He practically screeched the second half of the song. That was nasty (both the performance and the ass-rimming by the judges). Please be the surprise boot tomorrow. 5 out of 10.

Allison - Hot Stuff

She turned disco into a rock performance. I did not like it as much. Vocally, she was superb, but that was probably my least favourite Allison performance so far. I hope she’ll still be here next week. 6 out of 10.

Adam - If I Can’t Have You

I’ve resigned to the fact that Adam will win this thing. I will probably go to his concerts, but probably not buy his CDs. I mean, if he shreaks in every one of his songs, my ears will probably bleed. His performance was uber calculated, rightdown to the mock tears. I have learned to expect these from a broadway pro.  7 out of 10.

Matt - Staying Alive

It was okay. Uninspiring. Was it worth using the save on him last week? Absolutely not. I will give him props for actually sticking to the disco theme though. 5 out of 10.

Anoop - Dim All The Lights

Very very nice vocals. I liked it a lot actually. I wasn’t truly wowed by the performance but it was still kinda cool. 6.5 out of 10.

Overall Rankings :

1. Kris - 7.5 out of 10
2. Adam - 7 out of 10
3. Anoop - 6.5 out of 10
4. Allison - 6 out of 10
5. Danny - 5 out of 10
5. Matt - 5 out of 10
7. Lil - 4 out of 10

Predictions :

Top Three : Adam/Danny/Anoop

Bottom Three : Kris/Lil/Allison

Boot : Lil

Wow…seriously? If there’s any Margie and Luke fans still backing them up after this episode, you’re fucking cunts too. Luke is a fucking sackless pussy bitch who cries home to mommy everytime something happens to him. And Margie is an overbearing, overprotective mothering cunt who’s really the reason why Luke turned out like the pussy immature bratty bitch that he is. News to Margie : It has nothing to do with your son being deaf, you stupid dumb bitch. Seriously, please crawl back to your fucking holes and never come back. I seriously hope they win this shit and never be eligible for TAR:AS2 so we don’t see their fugly mugs ever again. Assholes. Most loathsome team in the history of TAR ever.

And Marge actually said this to Keisha/Jen :

“You should understand oppression, you’re black and you’ve lived with it.”

what in the fucking fuck did that come from, you fucking racist fuck. Fuck them both, the Racist Enabler and Professional Victim. Please break your fucking legs or something.