Culturally Preconditioned

I just hate it when the voiceovers in TAR says “Can xxx and yyy’s relationship withstand the pressure of the race?”. For fucks sake, do you really need to get on this race to find out if your relationship is going to last? Hmm.. let’s see. If you can withstand 10 years of your guy shoving you around when he doesn’t get his way.. I’m sure this race won’t do any jackass shit difference to what your relationship is heading into. (Yes yes I’m being over dramatic, but that’s allowed - and very welcomed - on my blog)

But let’s not jump to that just yet. Teams started off at Fort Santiago in Manila for the start of this leg of the race. They had to board a taxi to the GreenStar Bus Terminal and head to Pila Laguna which is an hour and a half bus ride away. Lots of unnecessary bus footage, I almost dozed off. And it was interesting to hear Marc say that “It’s amazing what pretty girls can do (to get what they want) in this country”.. cause I was thinking almost the same thing “It’s amazing what pretty mactors can to get on this show”. Well I guess that’s why it’s called the Amazing Race. Amazing things happen, and amazingly enough, I am still slightly bitter. LOLtastic.

Once they reach their destination, they find out it’s a Roadblock, where they had to go into the muddy rice field and plow a figure of 8 using the carabou. When Allan first explained it, I was like.. WTF is a carabou? I know a caribou… but what the hell is a carabao. It took me several minutes to realize that he was talking about the water buffalos, and interestingly enough.. carabou = kerbau. Duh, right? Yeah, must admit that I was stupid enough not to realize that instantly. I was kinda excited to see this because a few months ago, some spoilers surfaced showing Paula and Natasha finishing this roadblock.

After their roadblock, they next had to go to a Caltex Star Mart (dumbass token product placement of the week) in Manila and deliver 4 boxes of donation using a jeepney to some orphanage. I love the Chong sisters, but man, they really fucked it up by missing the “in Manila” clue, but I guess it could happen to anyone. And I’m not going to go all politically correct here, but the orphanage kids scrambling/attacking the donation package was downright scary/sorry at the same time. Geez! I swear the kids at the African orphanage seemed a lot more civilized than these poor kids. I know that’s not a nice thing to say, but I was just surprised at how the kids were reacting to the care packages. And one of the Chong sisters totally stole my heart for saying this : “given between the kids and the kerbau, I’ll go back to the kerbaus right now”. Again, probably not a nice thing to say, and she’s probably joking, but that’s exactly how I felt. And this is nothing to do with them being orphans. I personally just don’t have the patience around kids. Yeah I’m an asshole. Tough shit.

Okay, next was a detour in Santa Cruz between (1) Heel - where they had to match up 250 pairs of shoes, and (2) Wheel - where they had to assemble a bicycle from scratch. I personally thought matching 250 pairs of shoes would be a total nightmare, but surprisingly the Australian-speaking girls from Thailand did really well on this detour. And finally, the next stop after the detour was the Pitstop for this leg of the race. And in the order of their arrival at the pitstop :

1. Marc & Rovilson - pretty strong team, but after a while, I can’t help but noticed that almost everything these two have to say sounds rehearsed (very much like their audition video). Their likeability is wearing thin, and it’s only been the second episode.
2. Paula & Natasha - I’ll give credit where credit is due, and they did pretty well on this leg of the race, so kudos to them.
3. Anne & Diane - Wow. Third place again. Quite an amazing feat. I’m loving this team more and more.
4. Pamela & Vanessa - Poor girls had a shitload of bad luck in this leg. But hey, 4th place isn’t too shabby. They’re still proving to be one of the teams to beat. I hope they’ll continue to do well on this show.
5. Adrian & Collin - I’m glad their ranking is improving. I like this team, but seriously now, are we going to be preached every goddamn week how they are having communication advantage because they can read body and sign language? God! This is going to be Charla all over again (but then again, I totally heart Charla and Mirna, so that’s okay)
6. Brett & Kinar - I thought this team would continue to be all boring. Oh hang on, they did. However, Kinar literally made me laugh out loud when she wanted to mount the water buffalo. OMGWTFLMFAO! At least she was able to laugh at herself, so they’re okay, I guess. I look forward to seeing more personality from this team.
7. Sophie & Aurelia - “I got ze clue!”. LOL I love it when she sayz zat. And I sincerely believe this will be team to bring us the trainwreck entertainment value this season. You can tell how badly Sophie wanted to strangle Aurelia at the bicycle detour, and how Aurelia was all “oh I’m pretty! look at me! *wink* *flirt*”. LOL. I hope this team won’t go anywhere anytime soon.
8. Daichi & Sawaka - so they’re ‘big’ story this leg was them having a ’small argument’ in the taxi. Mmmm okay.. moving on….
9. Henry & Terri - Not much coming from them this week, but if I was in the same bus with them, I wouldn’t hesitate to shout out “shut the fuck up, lady!” during all the singing in the bus.
10. Monica & Edwin - (eliminated) - Urgh.. I don’t know if I even want to start. The Asian Romber? Dude, Rob doesn’t sit on the sidelines and whine, oh we cant stop cars like that, oh we cant do this, blah fucking blah. Rob doesn’t shove his partner around like Jonathug does. Man, what a douche. I’m so glad, they are off the show.

That said, I do think the editing still has a lot of room for improvement. They didn’t even bother to mislead the viewers at how large the gaps were in between the teams. Halfway through the show, did anyone REALLY think Monica and Edwin wasn’t going to be eliminated? Hmm I thought so.

I must say the “No Chicken, No Check In” was a pretty clever tag line from the TAR producers. Well done. But the episode tonight was just okay.. and actually, personally I think it was a let down. Nothing much to bitch about, so I’ll keep this to a short recap. Teams start off from the last pitstop, where they had to find the tribal chief, who will give them a clue, and a gift. It turns out the ‘gift’ was a live chicken that they had to carry around throughout the entire leg of the race. This actually served zero purpose except to prophesize the clever tag that they came up with - No chicken, no check in. Teams without a chicken at the pitstop at this leg of the race will not be able to check in.

Given that fact, and they were given ZERO dollars for this leg of the race, it was a no brainer that this entire episode will be focused on Burkina Faso still. The next clue led them to a detour where they had to (1) shake your pan - where they had to go mining for an ounce of gold using the local panning method, or (2) shake your booty - where they had to learn the local dance and improvise where they will be judged by ‘local celebrities’ (ie. future racers for The Amazing Race Africa - if Michael McKay has any say in it). The dancing detour was truly painful to see for some of the teams, so I’m not even going to comment.

After the detour, teams are faced with one of the two predetermined U-turn - a new element in this race - whereby teams may force another trailing team to perform BOTH detours. This is.. just plain mean, IMO. I didn’t think anyone would use this at this point in the game, but amazingly enough, the dumb blondes decided to use the U-turn on Lorena & Bobby (who was the last team at that point of the race).

Teams next had to go to the Tampouy Goat Market for their next roadblock - to load a flimsy bicycle with stuff, including a small baby goat (wtf?!) to be delivered to various appointed people in the market. Teams did their thing, and lastly had to take a cab (okay, they were given no money for this leg of the race, and yet, they had to take taxis for no less than three times in this leg) to the next pitstop - the Hotel de Ville in the city. In the order of their arrival at the pitstop :

1. Hank Azaria <3 <3 <3 (What an amazing feat! This team kicks ass - except when the sister went peeing and lost their lead)
2. Nate & Jennifer < / 3 < / 3 < / 3 (when Jennifer started crying about how bad they wanted 1st place and how 'everyone should get a chance to be first' - I was going FUCK YOU, you self entitled bitch. This is a race, get the fuck over it. I hope Hank Azaria will continue to beat your ass at 1st place, just like Nate will continue cheating on you. This team should NOT get anywhere near the top spot)
3. Ron & Chris < / 3 (sorry but I still hate the old Asian fart. I think he almost shut the door on Christina's head during their last taxi ride in this leg of the race)
4. Nicholas & Donald (the grandson is still useless. Urgh.. someone get Mitchell off my screen, please)
5. Kynt & Vyxsin <3 <3 <3 (still love them)
6. Blondes < / 3 < / 3 < / 3 (karma will come in the form of a truck creaming you over in the next episode)
7. TK & Rachel (They’re lagging, but I dunno.. I get winning vibes from them. Can we switch their places with the 2nd team, please?)
8. Lorena & Bobby (philiminated - all in all, I was very disappointed that Lorena was just too calm this episode. I DEMAND A MELTDOWN, DAMMIT. If I knew she was going to be this calm, I would’ve liked to see them eliminated last week. Pffft)

Okay let me be the first one to eat my words. As much as I wanted to watch this show with much despise and hatred, I can safely say that there ARE, at least, a couple of teams on this cast that is worth rooting for. The premiere wasn’t all that great, but it wasn’t as sucky either. Right now, I’m just thankful that we’re getting a double dosage of The Amazing Race on television right now, since a couple of the regular TV shows will be stalled due to the Writer’s Strike (do they fucking think they’re in France?)

SO.. The Amazing Race Asia - Episode 1. Zabrina told me that they were having some sort of gathering at Zouk for the premiere. Unfortunately, I’m working the US shift this week so I had to let that one go. But even if I didn’t, it’s not as if I would go anyway (since I don’t even know if it was a ’special invitees only’ event). Just imagine me scribbling down notes while everyone is watching the show.. and they’d ask me what am I doing.. and I’d go “oh you know.. compiling shit so I can bitch about these media whores on my blog later”. LOL

I found the team introduction helpful, cause even though AXN has practically tried to shove them down our throats for the past gazillion weeks, I haven’t even remember all their names. I’ll try to keep this entry simple for now with a play by play on their tasks and route info in this first leg :

The race started off in Singapore where teams were all given pictures of ornaments/souvenirs. They then had to find a taxi near the Asian Civilisation Museum that holds the ornaments/souvenir to get their next clue. It was kind of funny seeing most of everyone running around like headless chickens, not knowing where the taxis are located. Once they’ve found the taxi, they needed to get their next clue on top of Mount Faber. The clue gives them a Nokia N95 phone which they have to use (using the GPS function) to find their next clue (which turns out to be Suntec City). And holy shit on a fucking stick, batman. Is this some sort of a record when it comes to shameless product placements? Oy.

There is a detour at Suntec City where they had to either (1) Dare - take the elevator to the rooftop and traverse between the two towers, or (2) Stair - climb up over 40 floors up, and then back down again. Not surprisingly, none of the teams took Stair. It’s time like this that I’m thankful that I’m not actually on the show, cause we had to sign an agreement with a clause saying that we can’t sue the production in the event DEATH during the shooting of the race. Well, of course not. You’d be dead. Anyway, it was quite a challenging and fun detour, but I can’t help but notice that they had a similar height-related challenge in the first episode of the first season (oh how I miss watching Sahran cry).

Teams next received a clue to fly to Manila, Phillipines! This took me by surprise cause it seemed like the time they spent in Singapore (the first country) was too short. Anyway, all teams except for Henry/Terri and Monica/Edwin got on the same flight to Manila (and the two remaining teams took a later flight). Once in Manila, they need to go to the Asian Promenade Park to receive their next clue - which is to eat 8 Baluts near Plaza Miranda. I have to say that BALUTs are the most overrated and fucking over-exposed ‘exotic’ food ever. I’m so sick of watching these on Fear Factor, Survivor, Bizarre Foods etc etc etc. I’m still waiting for TAR to have a similar challenge involving the durians. Hmm. After the balut challenge, they may proceed to the first pitstop of the race.

In the order of their arrivals at the pitstop

 (1) Vanessa & Pamela (Team Malaysia) - These sisters surprised the hell out of me! Initially I was very meh on them when the cast was announced. But after watching the episode.. wow. I was very impressed that they were constantly in the top four position at all the challenges/detours/route markers, and was even impressed when they got to the pitstop first. Seeing them gorging down the 8 baluts like nobody’s business impressed me more. This is definitely a team that I’ll be rooting for. This team’s performance is one of the main reasons I’m eating my words right now. Bravo! They definitely showed that they are in it, to win it!

 (2) Marc & Rovilson (Team Phillipines) - I definitely did NOT like this team after watching their badly scripted audition video. However, they seem to actually have a good sense of humour, and that I like. They were some funny quips by them here and there. And it was funny seeing them checking out the hot girls while traversing between the two buildings. They also had an interesting mantra - “You live and die by the hand of the taxi driver” - which is oh so true, given what we’ve seen in most circumstances in The Amazing Race. I also wonder if this will be a premonition to their downfall or victory in this race. I guess we’ll see. That said, I have to say that their inability to gorge down the baluts was fucking embarassing, since (1) they were both Pinoys (2) they were beaten by a girl/girl team. So far, I have no complains about this team. Love or hate, it could still go either way.

 (3) Anne & Diane (Team Malaysia) - They’re pretty cool. I did not expect them to come out near the top, but they did, so good for them. I certainly hope they will last long in this race.

 (4) Brett & Kinar (Team Indonesia) - No strong feelings about this team yet. Still just another boring mactor team in my eyes. They may be this year’s Andrew & Syeon. And does she really not know what Aphrodisiac means? And did she really say LAMB is an aphrodisiac too? Oh fer fucks sake. The only thing LAMB will raise is the blood pressure.. not the peens.

 (5) Sophie & Aurelia (Team Hong Kong) - Shouldn’t this team be called team Singapore/France ? Anyway… Sophie surprisingly had quite a number of funny quips (”There’s Ed.. looks like he’s lost. Hopefully they ARE lost”, “(re Aurelia) I hope she gets too knackered till she wont be able to speak”) LOL. I hope she gets more and more snipy as we go along. And Aurelia.. omg.. can she just STFU? I mean.. watching her speak and eating those baluts? Ew. And this is another one who needs a dictionary.. for a girl who cant stop talking, it’s a wonder that she doesn’t know what an embryo is.

 (6) Paula & Natasha (Team Thailand) - but they sure sound American to me *rolleyes*. Not feeling much on this team yet. At least they show that they have a competitive side  on this race.. so that’s fine with me.

 (7) Adrian & Colin (Team Singapore) - I love this team! They rocked the shit out of the challenges. I liked them pre-show, and I still like them after watching this episode. Definitely a team that I will be rooting for. It sucks that they got screwed by their cab driver, but hey.. shit happens. I just hope their luck picks up soon.

 (8) Daichi & Sawaka (Team Japan) - They’re okay. May turn out to be another Andrew & Syeon. Not much to say about them right now.

 (9) Henry & Terri (Team Phillipines) - I love this team. Their bickering is fun to watch. Terri so reminds me of Sandra Diaz-Twine from Survivor Pearl Islands.

 (10) Edwin & Monica (Team Hong Kong) - please.. he’s Canadian. The Asian Romber? More like the Asian Jonathug & Victoria to me. I hate his nonchalance. I hate the fact that he wanted to give up after they failed to get on the first flight to Manila. And I hate the fact that it seems like he don’t give a fuck about this race. Terri & Henry bickering = entertaining. Edqin & Monica bickering = Not. Meh.. whatever. They got in last at the pitstop.

UNfortunately, this is a non-elimination leg. But if they don’t get into 1st place at the next pitstop, they will incur a 30 minute penalty *crosses finger*

And that’s it. Oh.. and apparently Allan Wu listens to the viewers. NO MORE AWKWARD WTF PAUSES WHEN HE ANNOUNCES THE TEAMS ARRIVAL AT THE PITSTOP! YES!!!

During the first five minutes of tonight’s episode, I thought that the theme for tonight was going to be.. everything is all about karma.. seeing how after calling his daughter fat and useless, the old Asian man got hernia. I know it’s bad to laugh at other people’s misfortunate, but I can’t help it. I felt kinda bad about it.. but I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t laugh when they announced that. Anyway, as the episode progresses along (and especially towards the end), I realized everything is NOT about karma. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

Teams started off the beginning of this leg still in Amsterdam. They were given clues to fly to Ouagadougu (spelling?). It was interesting since the teams weren’t told in which country this location was. It would’ve been better if they were given the town of Springfield (there’s like.. what eleventy thousand Springfields in the States alone?). It would’ve been nicer if they were given the location for Tongkang Pecah. Huh.. bet most of you don’t even know where that is. LOL. Anyway, it was kind of a nice twist. Reminds me of the episode where teams were given the Malaysian flag and they needed to figure out where they were heading to (I remember Zach and Flo immediately recognized it was the Malaysian flag).

Turns out that the town of Ouagadougou lies in Burkina Faso, in Africa. Now, I could’ve sworn TAR has gone on to this location before, but my TAR friends says otherwise. Oh well. There was a little bit of airport drama where teams were divided between two different flights to the same connecting flight in Paris. Blah blah blah… they were once again bunched up in Paris, so all is good. Once they reached the town in Furkina Baso, they had to drive to the train station to get their next clue.

We get a short clip of the ruthless cab driver taking advantage of the Blondes (was it the Blondes?) by taking more money than what was promised to him. I think a similar thing happened to Colin, no? The time when they threatened to put him in an African jail? LOL good times. Anyway, I woulda been pissed as shit too if I was in their position. Fucking ruthless cab driver. And he was fucking grinning from ear to ear. If I was in their position, I’m pretty sure I would’ve said “pukimak haramjadah” to his face (while smiling, of course). What? You think I’m crazy enough to curse him in a language that he understands?

The teams next had to catch a train to BINGO. Haha.. what a name. The train to Bingo leaves the next day, so once again there was bunching at the train station, where they all spent the night there. Did you notice the old Caucasian dude getting all pervy with the Blondes? Eww… but still old White man >>>> old Asian man. The train leaves the next day, and we get clips of the Blondes winning the KKKendra (ie racist) award for the un-PC dialogues regarding the state of the country (and the smell too, mind you). Man, the blondes are truly getting a shitty edit this time around.

It turns out that Bindo lies in the middle of nowhere - an African savannah, where they scurried around like headless chickens looking for the next clue. The clue leads them to the Roadblock where they had to milk a cow.. and drink the milk. God… I can’t even drink regular cow’s milk… let alone camel milk, so kudos to all of them, I guess. And I don’t know why but lactating camels makes me think of my ex-colleague Kelly (she knows why).

Okay, how many of you loved, loved, LOVED Lorena’s meltdown at the roadblock? LMAO! That was totally Flo-worthy. Dumbass bitch.  Screaming does not calm a camel down, fool. Damn, I tell ya. Un-cooperative animals are ever so funny on The Amazing Race. Colin’s broken Ox, Nate’s dehydrated donkey.. and now Lorena’s Camel. LOL the only thing funnier was watching some pooping camel action. No wait.. no Lorena’s meltdown was way funnier.

They next had to lead four camels across the Savannah along a marked path, which led them to the next detour.. to either (1) teach it - where they had to teach an African child 10 english words, or (2) learn it - where they had to learn 10 African phrases. Now, is it just me, or is LEARN IT the more obvious and easier option between the two? I’m kinda surprised they took a gamble with the first option (teach it). I can’t believe the Asian old fart started rambling on and going into descriptions of King Kong for the word ’skyscraper’. Yeah, that will help. Dumbass.

Next comes the pitstop.. but before just that, Mother Nature decided that this episode was going to be boring unless she steps in.. so we get a little Savannah Storm action going on for a bit. So, in the order of arrival at the pitstop (it’s quite amazing that 5 teams - from 2nd place to 6th place - came within seconds of each other at the pitstop) :

1. Hank Azaria <3 (man this team is gooooood)
2. TK & Rachel (meh)
3. Nate & Jen
4. Kunt & Viksyn <3 <3 <3 (omg she really DID call him KUNT in the last episode!!!)
5. Ron & Chris
6. Nicholas & Donald (meh)
7. Blondes
8. Lorena & Jason <3 <3 <3 (for trainwreck purposes only)
9. Latina Sisters

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the Dumb and Dumber part. Obviously, I was referring to Lorena as the Dumb one. The Dumber is referring to the Latina Sister who actually helped Lorena out at the Camel milking roadblock. For fucks sake…. the Sisters are in 2nd last place, Lorena was in last place having a meltdown of the century… And the stupid sister decided to help Lorena out by giving her hints on which camel she should go for. I mean.. what a fucking dumbass. Serves her right that they were overtaken at the pitstop. Actually I should be thankful that she helped Lorena out, cause that means we’ll get at least another week of Meltdown material from the unstable Lorena.  YAY! And yeah, I think Karma did a 180 on the Sisters this week. Well, sucks to be them.

Anyway, I’m too lazy to add pictures to my entry this week.. so have fun viewing all the pictures I took during the Amazing Race All Stars when they were in town last year.

So how many people are going to continue missing this show on AXN? I have failed to see a single advertisement or promo on The Amazing Race 12 despite we’re well into Week 2. Only thing I see is the WIN A TRIP TO SINGAPORE … WATCH THE AMAZING RACE ASIA 2 promo. Lame. Like shoving that into the viewer’s face will do any good.

I honestly thought this was going to be a god awful episode, but it picked up about 10-15 minutes before the episode ended. There isn’t much to talk about for the first half hour, so I’m going to skim through it. Teams started off from their last pitstop. They had to fly to Amsterdam. Despite the 3-hour difference between the first and the last team, the usual airport bunching occuredd yet again. Some airport drama going on.  The tall lanky useless grandson was ‘too abbrassive’ at the ticket counter in Dublin, which somehow cause the Old Asian Fart to  blow up. Didn’t really catch why he blew up, but it was kind of a what-the-hell moment for a bit.

They were split into two different planes, and off they were to lovely lovely Amsterdam. Once they were in Amsterdam, they had to board a train to the Centraal Station and find a particular bridge for their next clue. The clue was for a detour between (1) Hoist It - where they had to use a rope pulley system to hoist furnitures up a building, or (2) Hunt It - where they had to search through thousands of bicycles to find the specially marked bicycles and ride it to a man who was standing awkwardly in the middle of nowhere to give out their clue.

Most of the teams did the hoisting detour, which was personally what I would’ve done (but tying those damn knots sure looked challenging - but I just don’t have the patience to look through thousands of bicycles). And this is where the annoying old Asian fart started to get on my nerves. He keeps second guessing himself (ie. should we do the hoisting? those knots look tricky. Should we do the bikes? but there’s so many bicycles).. and then he had the fucking nerve to tell off his daughter for not making her mind up. I mean.. what in the fucking shit was that?

Okay, enough of that asshole. But oh nooooo.. he keeps harping on the poor little girl on what a disappointment she was to him. Seriously, folks. Going on the Amazing Race with a parent has got to be the WORST IDEA EVER.

Anyway, after finishing the detour, teams had to take a bus to Ransdorp, a rural village, and look for a clue in a field. Okay, who else besides me was excited to see yet another random Shopping Lady in A Field?

Alas, she did not appear The cluebox brought them to a Roadblock where they had to perform the Ditch Vaulting. Oh joy. This totally reminds me of the TAR Asia car washing challenge in Singapore. Or in other words, Pointless. So what happens at Roadblocks? Teams are given a rough ‘clue’ as to what the roadblock would be, and then they had to decide who would be doing the roadblock, before they were given full information of what the roadblock was going to be.

Now I thought Useless Lanky Grandson was smart to stay back and watch what the teams ahead of them were doing, so they don’t have to figure out what the task was going to be. Unfortunately, after watching how the task was done, I still am stumped as to why they decided to let the grandad do it. I think this just proves that the Useless Lanky Grandson is the Mitchell (from Survivor Outback) of TAR. And you all can thank him for giving us this :

So it’s that time of the year again. No wait.. it’s that time of the year again 8 days ago. You can tell from my extra enthusiasm this year that I’m going to fail miserably again for this year’s attempt at NaNoWriMo. NaNo Fucking WriMo. I don’t even fucking know why I put myself through this. DEADLINES ARE MY FUCKING NEMESIS, and if I were to ever fucking finish this fucking NaNoWriMo thingy, I’ll be fucking damned if there isn’t at least 25,000 fucking “fucking” words in the 50,000-word fucking mini-novella. Fucking fuck.

So I’ve been doing this since 2004… then again in 2005… and then 2006… I even made it into one of my 2007 resolutions.. but a chapter a month? Who the fuck am I trying to kid? I don’t have that kind of fucking discipline.. (just like Mulder in Californication - best new show to grace the tv this year). And I think I know why.

I think I may have figured out the reason why I have failed yet again and again and again. I keep harping on Daud… my main protaganist for the past couple of years. Daud in Distress… my ass. (Hey that rhymes!). So this year, ladies and gentlemen… I HAVE DECIDED TO KILL THAT SORRY MOTHERFUCKER.

Yes.. no more Daud In Distress for me this year. My new mini-novella will be called…..

“DISTRESSED DAUD… IS DEAD”

(an excerpt)

“”So this is how I’m going to die. Huh.. I didn’t think it would be this anti climactic. An accident. A fucking random accident.” That was the thought that went through Daud’s mind. In that split second, when you think a person would freak the fuck out when he was about to be greeted by the Grim Reaper, it was surprisingly a serene, and most surreal 5 microseconds of Daud’s miserable, pathetic life”

HAHAHAHA….. I’m so glad I’m killing this character. Take that, you asshole.

Okay, does anyone else think I need some form of medication?

ps. my new NaNo profile is listed on the left-side of this page. Yay!

And by karma, I mean donkey.

So did anyone else missed the debut of The Amazing Race 12 on AXN? I can’t say that I’m surprised since there have been zero advertisement on this on AXN. They didn’t even bother to update the on-air tv listings. Well if you managed to catch it, I think everyone can safely say that the 5 minutes of TAR 12 team introduction >>>>>>> 60 minutes of TARA2 Meet The Racers drivel. When the only team that you’re actually really rooting for in the Amazing Race ASIA turns out to be an AMERICAN couple, it just says so much about the wonderful work that these people are doing at the casting department eh? Let’s see.. me think people Asia like Malay.. like Chinese .. like Hindu.. no speak aahh so good English.. Asian peepel only like watch pretty pretty face on tv. Well fuck you, McKay. Not a single contestant in the Meet The Racers even mentioned that they were really huge fans of the show (convincingly). And a very special fuck you too Edwin. Anyone who claims to be a drama king, and the Asian Romber deserves that fuck you. Buncha mediawhores. BAH HUMBUG.

Anyway, back to The Amazing Race 12 debut. Was it as good as I think it would be? You bet. And like always, I still haven’t bothered to memorize everyone else’s names just yet. Hell, I never figured out which one was Eric and which one was Jeremy, until one of them got on to the Amazing Race All Star. And wha-hey! Eric personally called me douchebag! YAY! I’m totally honored that a half-millionaire called me a douchebag *BLUSH* But everything’s a two-way street over at Sucks, so I really don’t mind that - especially since he admits that Danielle was a useless, whiny whore who didn’t deserve to be on All Stars in the first place.

Okay, okay… Back to TAR 12….

For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be calling them with these nicks.. so deal with it.

I love the mix of contestants this time around. A good mix of dating couples (three, which is just nice).. sisters, grandad and grandson, coworkers, goth freaks, father daughter.. awesome awesome awesome… the same can NOT be said of the TARA2 mix. Unless you’re that shallow and mistaking the show with a Z-grade of Temptation Island.

Okay okay.. I’ll stop. Not. This is just a short preview of things to come when the show starts in three weeks *evil and malicious laugh*

The race started off in the Playboy Mansion (I was kinda hoping that Victoria of Jonathug/Victoria would make a cameo… well not really).. and they are off to IRELAND! How exciting! Have the race been to Ireland before? I dunno.. but it certainly was an interesting first stop. Europe baby! The race had a quite chaotic start, only to be halted by all the cars honking when the team at the front of the pack (team Grandad - I’m ignoring the grandson.. he kinda reminds me of that tool Bicthell from the Outback.. who was just.. there, ya know) blocked their way out of the compound. What an adrenaline killer. LOL. I also loved Kunt & Vixen’s comment - Oh my Goth. Hahahaha they sure are a caricatrue of themselves. And yes, I know it’s Kynt not Kunt.

Then on to the airport for some airport drama. The fastest teams got onto the British Airlines flight (which leaves earlier), and the rest on some other airline which sounded a lot like Cunnilingus Airlines. Oh my.. hmmm… Interestingly enough, the latter flight arrived in Ireland first, which is probably a sign for travellers in the future, to always choose the most filthy sounding airline if you need to come quicker. Oooh err.

Anyway, team Hank Azaria and team Yao Man/Michelle (from Survivor Fiji, for those of you who didn’t watch the show) formed some sort of an alliance by working together to get a cab in Ireland upon arrival. But this wouldn’t be The Amazing Race Asia unless people steal your cab - a task which was swiftly taken care of by Team Karma Bitch (well, in all fairness, Ari did say he was a bigger bitch than karma).

That minor drama aside, teams next had to head to a ferry terminal and head to “the smallest church in the world”. Upon reaching there, they had to sign up for a ferry back to the mainland (the ferry leaves at 30 minutes intervals). Just as I thought this was going to be a great episode, we were faced with our first ever BUNCHING! After all the excitement, all 11 teams were bunched up at the ferry.. which was kind of a mood killer, for the teams.. and for the viewers too, I’m sure.

Next day, off they went back to the mainland, where they have to drive to Cleggam Farm and ride a tandem bike. Nothing much going on here, except the fact that Lorena started bickering and crying in the car… “You’re not going the right way. Listen to me wah wah waaaah”. For fucks sake, am I reliving Ambwhore from Big Brother 8 again?? God, spare me from another whiny crying self-sympathetic biatch, please!

Moving on to the Roadblock. Teams had to cross a beam on high cliff using a high wire bike. Yowza! That looked so fucking unbelievably awesome. I have no doubt that I would be drenching my team mate with piss if I were to do that roadblock. For real real. After the high wire, teams had to bring a donkey some few kilometres off a track to get their next clue.

I fucking laughed my ass off when Nathan & Jennifer (team Cheater - I don’t want to go off on a tangent here, but anyone who goes back to a cheater in hoping that ‘things will get better’ ? … idiot idiot idiot. And that goes to all of you that I know in real life, you know who you are) made the poor donkey hyperventilate.

HAHAHAHAHA That was so fricken priceless (obviously not for the poor mule, but still.. ha ha *points and laughs*). It was incredibly amazing that 7 other teams took over during that challenge. Well it sucks to be them, but it was even suckier to be team Karma Bitch. Their donkey just would not budge. I’m surprised no one shouted out “MY DONKEY IS BROKEN!”. Nah.. that can only be pulled off by Colin and his ox. Anyway, in the end, team Karma Bitch was eliminated. I was kinda bummed because I think they would’ve made the show a bit more interesting.

In order of arrival at the pitstop

1. Hank Azaria <3
2. Kunt & Vixyn <3 <3 <3
3. TK & Rachel (Team Hippie)
4. Jason & Lorena (Team Bobbit) <3
5. Nicolas & David (Team Grandad)
6. Shana & Jennifer (Blondies) - wow what a superb comeback
7. Ronald & Christina (Yao/Michelle)
8. Kate & Pat (Token Lezzies) <3
9. Mariana & Julia (Maria Mariana) <3
10. Nathan & Jennifer (Team Cheater)
11. Ari & Stella (Karma Bitches)