Amazing Race: Trickery, Then Victory, Then Bitchery

Because it's the finale and because I'm writing about this tonight, rather than waiting a few days, I'm going to begin with the ever-so-popular SPOILER ALERT!!!

You've been warned.

Amazing Race: Morons, Cops Get Their Wish

Our first episode without Steve Smith. Yep, I'm still watching even though the tenuous Phillies connection is gone. So, I'm just gonna start right off with this: Caite, the former Miss Teen Whatever and one-half of Team Moron, is the epitome of what RuPaul refers to on "RuPaul's Drag Race" as Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent.

Except for the "harisma," "niqueness," "erve" and "alent" portions.

The whining about Carol and Brandy continued almost nonstop. She sounds like Yosemite Sam, except she's not talking about Bugs Bunny: "Oooooooh, ah hates them lezzbeens!!!!!" As the teams made their way from Malaysia to Singapore via bus and train, the teams knew that a U-turn was ahead. Gee, I wonder what Brent and Caite would do if they got the chance? Let's ask Miss Teen Moron: "I’m a hundred percent U-turning the lesbians if we get there first." Similar phrases poured out of her mouth throughout, to the delight of the detectives, Louie and Michael, who've made nice with the Morons and fed their anti-Carol/Brandy hysteria. (So I sort of enjoyed seeing Caite trip and fall running out of the train station. Karma!)

Amazing Race: Thank You, Steve Smith

There's a function through Google AdSense where I can get reports on how many "page impressions" my blog gets. A page impression is a view on a page of my blog where one of the Google ads appears. I don't get millions of hits. Let's face it, I'm not exactly famous. The count generally runs from the teens to, on a decent day, upwards of 40.

I happened to look at it today. A week ago Sunday (March 28) I had 75 hits, and this past Sunday and Monday I had 160 and 98, respectively. To say I was shocked is an understatement! So I did a little checking.

You may have noticed a Feedjit box on my page -- the box that shows the live traffic feed. It shows the location of people arriving on my page and what site they came from, and if they go to a specific post of mine. If you click on this link you can see an expanded version of that box, with a little more information, including the search terms entered into Google that led to my site. For example: "Fullerton, California arrived from google.com on "The Joe In Philly Experience!: My Trip To Southland" by searching for tnt southland."

I looked down the list. Apparently many people have been doing searches on Steve Smith, the former Phillies third-base coach who, with his daughter Allie, was just eliminated from "The Amazing Race."

Amazing Race: Better Than A World Series Ring?

The worst part of the show last night: the local CBS station ran commercials in full, then cut in with a "Breaking News" update on the Donovan McNabb trade. Bastards! They could have run a crawl! I only missed one or two minutes, though.

Once again, a long flight -- this time from the Seychelles to Malaysia -- put the six remaining "Amazing Race" teams on equal footing beginning the next leg of the race, but it didn't lead to Team Moron (Brent and Caite) taking the lead as it did on last week's show. At one point, though, they passed Carol and Brandy, to Caite's extreme delight. Her continued harping on "getting rid of the lesbians" is getting ridiculous. And their new buddies, detectives Louie and Michael (or, as Caite called them, "the Daddies") are encouraging it. The EW.com recap seems to think L&M are using the morons strategically to try and get C&B eliminated. I can definitely see that.

Adventures with taxis caused upheavals at various points. At first, headed from the airport to their first clue box, Dan and Jordan's cab zoomed ahead of the other teams' rides. But when the brothers got their clue and returned to the street to head for their Detour, the driver had left.

Amazing Race: Oh, My Gravy!

A funny thing happened on the way to the Seychelles...well, actually it was mostly after they arrived. Teams kept leaving something where they shouldn't. Coconuts, bottles, backpacks...and I get mad if I leave an umbrella on the bus...

The teams flew from France to the Seychelles, islands in the Indian Ocean. Since it was such a long trip, all teams were on the same flight. When this happens, whatever teams are in front immediately and arbitrarily lose their advantage. Thus, thanks to their reserving seats at the front of the plane, after the flight landed, we were treated to the sight of the incorrigible morons, Brent and Caite, in first place as they got to the clue box. How I hate them. (I'm not even going to bother referring to them as models. To me, they're morons, plain and simple.) They were thrilled, though, and Caite reiterated her main feeling from last week: "I just wanna get the mean lesbians out."

The "mean lesbians" in question, Carol and Brandy, may not be so popular. When the moron team and detectives Louie and Michael arrived at the pit stop, Phil Keoghan asked if they wanted to see a particular team eliminated. Both teams replied that they wanted the lesbians out, and Brent helpfully added, "From what I heard, it's pretty anonymous amongst the teams." Oy.

The attitude of teams that screw up is fascinating. There was a Detour in which teams had to either: load a cart with coconuts -- without leaving any behind -- and drive the cart (pulled by an ox) to a fruit vendor stand; or lure a tortoise along a race path and across a marker.

Three of the five teams that chose "Ox Trot" somehow managed to leave a coconut behind when they left for the fruit vendor stand: the morons, the lesbians and the cowboys. (More after the jump, including the ever-popular shirtless pic.)

Amazing Race: Champagne Misses And Duct Tape Dreams

This week "The Amazing Race" teams continued their adventures in France. The teams had to drive themselves to Reims, find a statue of Joan of Arc and get their clue from a musician playing a "singing" saw. I didn't know France was so impoverished that they couldn't afford real instruments. The clue was a cork from a champagne bottle with "Champagne LeClerc-Briant" written on it. The cowboys, Jet and Cord, drove off in search of a town named Champagne because they saw that name on the map and the cork said "champagne." Ummmmmm....okayyyyyyyy. The rest of the teams asked around and went to Epernay, where the winery was located.

But that wasn't the only driving-related misdirection. After completing a Roadblock task at the winery, the next clue give the teams was a label that read "Tattingers - LaMarquetterie." This is a castle in Pierry, where the teams had to go to complete a Detour. Unfortunately, Tattingers also has headquarters in Reims. Again asking for help from various locals, only two teams -- detectives Louie and Michael and annoying lesbian couple Carol and Brandy -- were sent to the proper location. They completed their Detour and headed to the Pit Stop, with L&M finishing first for the third week in a row and the lesbians surging into 2nd place from 5th last week.

Four teams -- including Steve Smith and his daughter Allie (he got bad advice, just like those Phillies baserunners he sent home to be tagged out...karma?) , and the cowboys (driving to the wrong town for the second time) -- were given directions to Reims, only to have Tattingers employees keep having to send these weird Americans away. And then there's the case of Brent and Caite. They weren't able to find Tattingers, and ended up driving around until spotting Carol and Brandy driving. They decided to follow, and ended up following C&B...to the Pit Stop! The morons were sent back to their car, with Caite, Miss Teen South Carolina bimbo, whining: "Damn, I want to get the stupid lesbians out. I hate them." Bitch, whose fault is it that you two are the dumbest people in the Race? They pretty much spent the entire leg sniping back and forth at each other.

Meanwhile, as Steve and Allie arrived at Tattingers in Reims, they ran into another problem. They ran over something and wrecked the front right bumper of their car. When they left for the castle in Pierry, the plastic bumper was dragging along the tire and they had to stop. Steve tried to break it off, to no avail. Then he remembered the duct tape that his wife packed in his stuff, and used the duct tape to repair the bumper enough to resume their trip. Oh, the wonders of duct tape! They still managed a third-place finish.

The two Detour tasks were: find a specially-marked bunch of grapes in a vineyard, or stack champagne glasses into a tower (15 levels high) and pour a giant bottle of champange into the top glass (so it could flow down into the glasses below) without any breakage. Only the brothers Dan and Jordan completed this. It was time-consuming, what with their somehow having 3 single glasses remaining with 3 levels still to complete. They had to stack them on top of each other, and still pour the champagne successfully. Combined with their being sent to Tattingers in Reims in error, this caused D&J to drop from 4th to 5th, one spot behind Jet and Cord. The moron couple, arriving from the Pit Stop, tried to find the grapes, got frustrated, tried to build the tower, broke some glasses, and went back to the vineyard, bickering all the way. Yet they managed to find their grapes and finish 6th, ahead of Big Brother couple Jordan and Jeff, who were eliminated.

I have to admit that Jordan and Jeff weren't really annoying to me at all this week. I actually enjoyed them, and wish they had managed to beat out Brent and Caite, the moron couple.

Amazing Race: Still All Good For Steve Smith

I'm not sure which qualifies as better news: the fact that Steve Smith, the ex-Phillies coach, and his daughter Allie are still doing well in "The Amazing Race," or the fact that they're getting some more screen time -- enough that they've won over the Entertainment Weekly recapper:

(T)hey're proving to be one of the most adorable racing couples ever on the show. They're funny, competent, charming, and supportive. And, by the looks of the past few weeks, they're going to be around much longer.

This week's episode featured a bus trip from Germany to France, where the teams had to perform tasks involving a reenactment of a World War I battle (complete with explosions and old-style planes overhead). Every team chose "Under Fire," in which they had to crawl under barbed wire to get a message from a "soldier" in order to get their next clue, over "In The Trenches," which involved deciphering Morse code for a message. Last week's leaders, cops Louie and Michael, retained their lead position (with Steve and Allie again in second place) and got the benefit of a Blind U-Turn: they got to pick one of the other teams and force that team to do both Detour tasks. They chose Joe and Heidi, apparently because of comments from Joe during the bus trip bragging about how well he and his wife were doing, even with his leg bothering him at the time, and how they weren't worried about the other teams.

The two teams annoying me the most are the Big Brother duo and the models. This episode's editing (not to mention the duo's commentary) really plays up the fact that Brent and Caite are bimbos. Failing to go south, as instructed, they neglected to pick up their clue after completing "Under Fire" -- they somehow found the next task, to ride bicycles to the next pit stop, by accident and had to ride back to the clue box to get the clue, then return to the pit stop.

And the obnoxious Jeff and Jordan from "Big Brother" got lost immediately after getting off the bus, where each team had to take a car and drive to a bakery to buy a baguette (in which they found the instructions to head to the battlefield), and they had a Speed Bump (an extra task because they hadn't been eliminated last week after finishing last). And still both of these teams finished ahead of poor Joe and Heidi, who never could figure out the Morse code message properly. The Jon Gosselin-lite and his wife fell from 3rd place all the way out of the Race. The model bimbos were 6th both times they got to the pit stop (they started in 7th), and the BB duo finished 7th.

Cowboys Jet and Cord moved from 4th to 3rd, with brothers Dan and Jordan up from 6th to 4th. Lesbian couple Carol and Brandy (who are pretty annoying in their own right) remained in 5th place. I'll be surprised if these two haven't broken up after they're done with the show.

Amazing Race: Steve Smith Is A Homer...Homer Simpson

Last week on "The Amazing Race" we learned that former Phillies coach Steve Smith was in pain, possibly from having fallen while running or from moving a wooden horse around, but probably because he's 57 years old. This week, the show provided him -- and everyone else -- something to relieve any pain he might have been suffering.

Oh, all right. Spoilers follow. Continue after the jump.

Amazing Race: Smiths Surge

I'll be kind and put a SPOILER ALERT here. Don't read further if you don't want to know who's out of the Race.

 

When we last left Steve Smith and his daughter Allie, the former Phils coach was practically invisible on "The Amazing Race," and were 7th of the 9 teams still alive. This week, the Smiths got a little more screen time as the teams moved from Chile to Argentina. (With the powerful earthquake devastating Chile over the weekend, a brief message of acknowledgment from host Phil Keoghan was shown at the start of the episode.)

In Argentina, teams had a choice of Detours -- a task they had to fulfill before receiving their next clue. The Smiths chose the one that nvolved playing polo but with wooden horses instead of actual horses. Steve (who was shown falling down while running earlier) was groaning in pain while helping move the horse to where they had struck the ball (teams had 9 shots to move the ball down the field to score; if they failed they had to start over). Allie asked him what it was that was hurting, and Steve said something like "I'm 57, what doesn't hurt?" However, not only did they complete their tasks successfully, but thanks to troubles other teams had, Steve and Allie were the second team to reach the next pit stop, following cowboys Jet and Cord.

The rest of the field, in order of finish: Carol and Brandy (lesbian couple), Joe and Heidi (married couple, he looks and acts a little too much like Jon Gosselin), "Big Brother" couple Jordan and Jeff, brothers Dan (straight) and Jordan (gay), models Brent and Caite (the former Miss Teen South Carolina), and police detectives Louie and Michael. Eliminated this week: "moms/attorneys" Monique and Shawne.

Amazing Race: Smith Still In There (Plus: I'm Famous)

I won't bother with the big SPOILER ALERT!!!!! warning here. If you haven't watched Sunday's "Amazing Race" by now, well, as Scott Rolen once said, "Sorry about your luck." Former Phillies coach Steve Smith and his daughter Allie, in 4th place starting this week's show, are still alive but have dropped to 7th place out of the 9 remaining teams. How this happened is hard to tell because they got virtually no screen time. I guess the EW.com writer is right about them being too boring.

She does have a good point in her latest recap, regarding Jet and Cord, the cowboys who currently hold the lead:

The one truly disturbing moment of the episode for me came when Jet and Cord were on the boat going to Isla Margarita. They were gabbing about how they didn't bring swimsuits and Cord says "I've been skinny dipping once or twice" at which point Jet scoots away from him as if his partner were a leper. I have lost all patience for this kind of jokey homophobia. What's wrong Jet? Would swimming with a naked guy make you gay? If you really think that or feel you need to make that "joke" you have bigger problems than a plastic bag on your cowboy hat. And Berty V-M, let's nix the homophobic jokes in editing, shall we?

Totally agree. It's possible that it was left in because of the gays in the race. Perhaps there's a bit of foreshadowing of a future conflict with the lesbian couple (currently in 3rd place) or the gay guy teamed with his straight brother (8th)? Meanwhile, last week's leaders, "Big Brother" couple Jordan and Jeff, are now in 6th place and the team that includes the ditsy former Miss Teen South Carolina are 4th.

By the way, since I hadn't seen anything in the local papers about Steve Smith being on the show, I decided to share my "scoop" with them. I emailed the TV critics and the local features/gossip columnists from both the Inquirer and Daily News. I got nice replies from all four writers. Both papers reported the story and one, the Inquirer's Michael Klein, was kind enough to mention me and my little old blog. I'm a rising star, baby! ;-)

Amazing Race: Good Start For Ex-Phils Coach

As I previously reported -- apparently exclusively, since as of this writing neither the Inquirer nor Daily News has mentioned this in their papers or at philly.com -- former Phillies third-base coach Steve Smith and his daughter Allison are contestants on the new season of "The Amazing Race" on CBS. The series debuted on Sunday night, and since I'm writing about it I can use this phrase for the first time on this blog...

SPOILER ALERT!!

THAT'S RIGHT -- DON'T READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED YET!!

THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING, DAMMIT!!!!

There. Wasn't that fun? At any rate, the racers were off to Chile, where at one point they had to grab some paint, brushes and a ladder and run to the house whose outside matched their color to paint an unfinished wall. Some of the teams had trouble finding their house. Among them was Steve and Allie, who at one point went inside a building and began painting, to the confusion of some local workers. It was edited out of the broadcast, but the Smiths eventually completed their task well enough that they finished in 4th place when they arrived at the first pit stop.

Alas, in the EW.com TV Watch recap for the show, the writer has already declared that Steve and Allie are one of the teams she's "already feeling bored with." Phillies fans had a different feeling when first experiencing the work of Steve Smith (see my previous blog).

I have to decide whether or not to continue watching the series. It's on at 8 pm, the same time as "The Simpsons," which means I'd have to DVR one of them and hope for no delays due to sporting events running late -- especially since I have "Family Guy" and "Desperate Housewives" at 9. But it could be entertaining. Among the participants are a lesbian couple, a gay man with his straight brother, former "Big Brother" contestants Jeff and Jordan (she won on that show, apparently) and the former Miss Teen South Carolina who brought us this magic moment:

Ex-Phils Coach Steve Smith On Amazing Race

Have you been wondering what former Phillies third-base coach Steve Smith has been doing? Wonder no more. Smith and his daughter Allison will be contestants on the new season of the CBS show "The Amazing Race." Smith joined the Phils in 2007 and was let go by the team just six days after the Phils won the 2008 World Series. He was hired by the Cleveland Indians this past November to be part of new manager Manny Acta's staff.

Smith wasn't really a favorite with the fans. There were a number of times during his two years as third-base coach, particularly early on, where baserunners either were thrown out at home when they shouldn't have tried to score or were held at third when it seemed they could have scored easily. There were reports at the time of Smith's firing that manager Charlie Manuel wasn't happy with him, in part because of on-field incidents that caused Smith to be suspended twice by Major League Baseball in 2008.

In case you haven't seen the show, on "The Amazing Race" teams of two, usually related or best friends or otherwise connected, travel to exotic locales around the world and complete a series of tasks, with the winning team receiving a $1 million prize. The new season, it's 16th, debuts Sunday, February 14.