Did he ever have one?

You let your girlfriend pull you around town? KNOWING this will be on TV at some point?

Holy crap.

Jina sent me an article today with a guy questioning how much fun the Race is when people cheat and form alliances like they did tonight. The poor Cowboys had no chance when everyone else was helping each other out.  I don’t know how I feel, but while I don’t mind teams helping each other out, there should be some kind of rule against stuff like what happened tonight.

Now, on to the contest:

Previous Standings

1. Ryann 96
2. Mike 92
3. Adrian 92
4. Steve 92
5. Heather 74
6. Seth&Lisa 57
7. MJ 56
8. Jennifer 52
9. Jina 50
10. Nicky 45
11. Tracy 44

So another leapfrog moment for a few of us…Ryann lost her lead and got passed up by myself, Adrian and Steve.

However, this was the first official NON-ELIMINATION round (unless I’m mistaken, I went back to double-check and didn’t see anything other than the “keep racing”  legs)…so Steve holds the tie-breaker over myself and Adrian, so that basically puts him on top.

Current Standings

1. Steve 114
2. Adrian 114
3. Mike 114
4. Ryann 98
5. Heather 88
6. MJ 88
7. Nicky 70
8. Seth&Lisa 65
9. Jennifer 54
10. Tracy 54
11. Jina 52

Below is the list of picks from the start of the season:

My poor wife was the only one who picked them as one of her teams and above that, she just loves those guys. She may have cried along with them. I love them too, although they really make lousy Race runners. At first I had to wonder if Mike was the one giving up too soon…kind of pining everything on his dad for his wanting to stop doing the challenge…but then his dad’s quote at the end about having to quit for him…perhaps his dad actually would have searched until he died. I dunno.

What you can tell is that those two love each other insanely and it’s been fun seeing them race twice now.

So Zev and Justin are looking like the team to beat right now with two first place finishes already. They are a fun team to root for too….they are just likable.

Also…is it me or did Mallory kind of get an idea that her goofiness from her season was something viewers enjoyed, so now she’s going overboard? It’s either that or she’s on serious painkillers, drugs or something.

On a final note it appears the producers of the Race are out to humiliate these people All-Star style. So many get-ups, so many silly costumes…curious what’s coming next.

The Contest

So Tracy was the only on who lose a team the first week, so she envoked the Adrian Rule and lost 15 points while picking up Zev and Justin. The net result is she went from 4 points to 1, but at least has three teams.

Adrian, Steve and myself built upon our lead as Zev and Justin of course got 10 points for finishing first.  Here is the order of the teams finishing:

1.    Zev & Justin
2.    Gary & Mallory
3.    Ron & Christina
4.    Kisha & Jen
5.    Flight Time & Big Easy
6.    Jet & Cord
7.    Kent & Vyxsin
8.    Margie & Luke
9.    Jaime & Cara
10.    Mel & Mike

Last week’s standings:

1. Adrian – 33
2. Steve – 33
3. Mike -33
4. Nicky -12
5. MJ -12
6. Jina -9
7. Heather -9
8. Seth&Lisa -9
9. Jennifer -9
10. Ryann -5
11. Tracy – 4

Current Standings:

1. Mike 45
2. Adrian 45
3. Steve 45
4. MJ 28
5. Nicky 24
6. Heather 16
7. Ryann 12
8. Seth&Lisa 12
9. Jennifer 12
10. Jina 11
11. Tracy 1

Below is the list of picks from the start of the season:

Sadly for our contest, that means Tracy is already without a team. Tracy, remember you can do the following:

“If you lose a team in the FIRST week, you have the option to continue with only TWO, or take a -15 point deduction and choose another team before the second week of the contest.”

Let me know what you’d like to do!

So…it’s always hard for me to remember what happened a few days after the show airs, but how amazing is it that the Cowboys still ended up third after all that? Certainly all of them catching up helped, but it’s still crazy how they are always in there.

Of course, they probably owe that to Kent and Vyxsin who somehow thought they needed dancing children to help them finish, and whilst doing that watched 2 other teams finish and leave.

I love All-Stars…so much fun, can’t wait to see where it goes.

The Contest

Okay, first off I want to acknowledge that I give Adrian a lot of grief for not doing too hot the last few seasons…even going so far as creating an “Adrian Rule”, which is the one Tracy gets to use this week if she wants to.

But Adrian is off to the best start you could possibly have which is joining two others (including me…of course) with the top three finishing teams…which gives you a 15 point bonus on top of the normal points for finishing a leg.

Definitely a huge lead right away, the rest of you guys will have some work to do to catch up!

Current standings:

1. Adrian – 33
2. Steve – 33
3. Mike -33
4. Nicky -12
5. MJ -12
6. Jina -9
7. Heather -9
8. Seth&Lisa -9
9. Jennifer -9
10. Ryann -5
11. Tracy -4

Below is the list of picks from the start of the season:

(Please make sure your picks look right!)

Of course, awesome is only relative. They weren’t very awesome last night. In fact, they were on my must-pick list before the episode started and plummeted all the way down to “Will ANYONE actually pick them this week?”

Just a few words about the teams. I would have been fine without the Goth couple and whoever the ones are that got the U-Turn and finished second at the not-a-pit-stop mat.

Mirna and Schmirna would have been awesome. Heck, even Rob and Ambuh (although Rob is busy on Survivor). For it being All-Stars, I think they could have done better. Makes you wonder who turned them down.

Also, wouldn’t it suck to work for this show and have to place thousands of flags, only to have teams pluck 12 of them and leave? “Ugh, now we gotta pull these all out…I just got done putting them in the ground!”

I love Phil trying to scare everyone at the beginning with “You think you know the race…but YOU DON’T! BWAHAAHAHAHAAH!”

Only to find out they just had to work for a clue and someone was getting a U-Turn right away. It’s still pretty much the same. Yeah, they didn’t exactly have a pit-stop, but that’s been done before. Nothing new there.

I kind of wonder if they realized the Cowboys were sucking it up, so they quickly changed things up to keep them around if possible.

And I really enjoyed Phil having to tell Mallory to get going.

Well, that’s it…certainly makes things interesting as far as the contest goes.  Quickly again, here are the rules and you make your picks below!

The Contest

This year the prize will be either a choice of any one of my photos at a 12×18 print size, or our standard $25 gift card of your choosing.

Also, this is kind of big in terms of the game itself…but I may possibly throw out 1-2 mid-season pop quizes…like “Who do you think will go home the next leg?” and stuff like that. They will be worth points that can help you get something extra when you may be trailing a bit. Or increse your already gigantic lead (me and Jina last year).

So keep checking back every week for the recaps.

General Scoring:

• Finish 1st on a Leg: 10 pts
• Finish 2nd on a Leg: 5 pts
• Finish 3rd on a Leg: 3 pts
• Finish a Leg: 1 pts
• Win the Amazing Race: 25 pts
• Complete a Fast-Forward: 15 pts
• Get Yielded: MINUS 10pts
• Yield someone: +5pts
• Last team on a Non-Elimination round: 10 pts
• Any time penalty: MINUS 5 pts

Additional Bonus-type Scoring:

• Bonus: 15 points for having the top3 teams on a leg
• If you lose a team in the FIRST week, you have the option to continue with only TWO, or take a -15 point deduction and choose another team before the second week of the contest.
• Worst to First: If a team goes from LAST to FIRST in a single episode, that is a 10 point bonus
• First to Worst: If a team goes from FIRST to LAST in a single episode, that is a -10 point deduction.
• Tiebreaker: Pick the first week that you think there will be a Non-Elimination Leg. There are 11 episodes, so specify which episode from here on out.

So pick your three teams below!

And I think it’s about time right? There have been a lot of great female teams, it’s amazing that none of them have won until now.

The final leg basically came down to Nat and Kat figuring out Studio 7 from their cab instead of having to stop and look it up (Brooke and Claire) or get completely hosed with a ridiculous cab driver. I think Thomas kind of said it best about cabbies in other countries not understanding them, then they get home to Los Angeles and it’s the same language barrier.

I do think the Amazing Race is going to have to switch up that final challenge a bit now though…people are writing down everything in preparation for that thing.

Amazingly, I did like all three of these teams a lot (having picked them all at the start of the season being a slight factor in that), but Brooke and Claire are probably my most favorite team ever. I wanted to see them win…their enthusiasm, humor and fun was probably unmatched so far in this series. Not to mention that watermelon hitting Claire in the face…that is a lasting memory.

Next Season

Now, the best part to come out of the finale was the announcement at the end about next season. First off, it’s going to be in High Definition which is friggin’ ABOUT TIME. I mean, if Survivor can do it on a remote island location, then the Amazing Race should be able to.

Second…it’s the All-Stars edition. My only worry of course is that when Survivor: All-Stars came out, it was the peak of my interest in the show, and then when it was done I pretty much stopped watching Survivor.

I don’t think this will happen here…but either way, I can’t wait. I’m not sure if the previews showed us who would be on or not, because there were at least 4-5 teams from this current season shown, but I do hope Brooke and Claire return, not to mention a ton of other people from past seasons. The ones they briefly showed were all awesome.

Just please no Robb and Ambuh

The Contest

Well, it’s time to congratulate our winner! Which in reality is Jina because she had the most points, never lost a single team and had the tiebreaker over me, who did the same thing.

However, since no Olbinski can win it, we’ll give it to the next person…which is…Heather!

Heather, if you read this, contact me with what kind of gift card you’d like!

1. Mike/Jina – (190)
2. Heather – (148)
3. Dave/Josie/Jessica – (142 close!)
4. Seth/Lisa/Ryann (120)
5. MJ (118)
6. Tracy (79)
7. Adrian (69)
8. Matt (52)
9. Kathy (49)
10. Nicky (43)

A fun season everyone, thank you SOOOOO much for playing…we’ll have to come up with a few new things for All-Stars to keep things interesting.

See you guys back here in late February!

So last week we lost Chad and Steph, a couple I didn’t care much about, and this week we SHOULD have lost another but a darn non-elimination screwed everything up.

Nick has grown so much, loves Vicky so much, that you have to wonder just how BAD he must have been before he “changed” into the better person he is now. I mean, his girlfriend has athsma, can’t run and he’s telling her to stop crying. Wow…back in his bad days he probably just choked you to death instead of the put-downs.

So Nick just went to sleep and decided to quit looking for the boat, which is probably a first for the show. I mean, some entire TEAMS give up together, but this was on side just dropping to the ground and letting the other person do the work.

Which made the non-elimination so lame this time. First off, it’s now the second one for them on the race. But second…could it go to a more undeserving team?

Anyways…I don’t have a ton of time, but my three teams are still in it and two of them are all-girl squads. Never before has a girl team one the race, so I’m pulling for Brooke/Claire or Nat/Kat to pull it off.

The Contest

Okay, so two weeks of standing changes. First off, last week we had two U-Turns, which resulted in -10 for both Chad/Steph and Brooke/Claire. This week there was a bonus for Jina/me for having the top three teams on the leg…plus bonus points for the non-elim for Nick/Vicky.

Since Jina and I are out of the running for the prize…Dave, Josie and Heather are all right there trying to get that gift card for themselves!

Two Week’s Ago Standings

1. Jina 92
2. Mike 92
3. Heather 89
4. Seth/Lisa 79
5. Ryann 79
6. Josie 73
7. Jessica 73
8. Dave 73
9. MJ 67
10. Kathy 60
11. Adrian 55
12. Matt 53
13. Tracy 45
14. Nicky 44

Current Standings

1. Jina 129
2. Mike 129
3. Heather 107
4. Dave 101
5. Josie 101
6. Jessica 101
7. Seth/Lisa 82
8. Ryann 82
9. MJ 80
10. Tracy 76
11. Adrian 64
12. Matt 47
13. Kathy 44
14. Nicky 38

Below is the list of picks from the start of the season:

Apparently CBS just ignored showing it and ignored explaining it. I’ve  been looking at recaps, reader comments, etc., but have yet to find anyone who knows anything. It appears that the Speed Bump just never happened or it was so silly that they were embarrassed to show it on national television. I mean, those speed bumps HAVE been a bit too easy if you ask me. I mean, a team was able to survive by getting a non-elimination…at least make the next leg a bit harder.

So aside from that, the leg was kind of interesting. Poor Michael and Kevin, good guys, a good dad, a good son and I’m actually going to miss them. Michael’s laugh was intoxicating.

Phil made the Gorodki challenge with the sticks out to be very difficult when he introduced it, but it seemed like only 1-2 teams had a real hard time with it.

The Contest

Well, Jina and I promise that we didn’t rig this thing, that we didn’t have fore-knowledge of who might be there at the end, but things are still going our way. Nat/Kat and Brooke/Claire finished in the top2 again, which is helping put distance between our competition.

I do have some bad news for me though…Jina’s tiebreaker will beat me out at the end since we have the same teams

But hey, those of you with Nick and Vicky…they finished in the top 3 for the first time all year! Yay!

On a sad note, this leg was fraught with penalties, including 2 for Michael/Kevin and 1 for Chad/Steph. So not only do those of you with Michael/Kevin lose them as a team, but you are also dinged 10 points on top of it! Talk about adding insult to injury!

Last Week’s Standings

Current Standings

1. Jina 74
2. Mike 74
3. Josie 61
4. Jessica 61
5. Heather 61
6. Dave 61
7. Matt 56
8. MJ 56
9. Seth/Lisa 52
10. Ryann 52
11. Adrian 48
12. Nicky 38
13. Tracy 38
14. Kathy 38

This Week’s Standings

1. Jina 90
2. Mike 90
3. Josie 72
4. Jessica 72
5. Dave 72
6. Heather 68
7. MJ 66
8. Seth/Lisa 58
9. Ryann 58
10. Adrian 54
11. Matt 52
12. Nicky 43
13. Tracy 42
14. Kathy 39

Below is the list of picks from the start of the season:

There are a lot of hilarious moments this season, Nick and Vicki are so clueless and funny, and AMAZINGLY still in the game.

One thing about the contest…Jina and I are clearly dominating right now and the lead is increasing. Will we crash and burn soon? Yes, more than likely. We’ve gotten lucky with Nat/Kat and their Fast Forward, and then Jill and Thomas finally hit first place.

But the thing is…if anyone in the Olbinski family wins, the prize will be awarded to the next in line…so don’t give up hope!

Last Week’s Standings

1. Jina 58
2. Mike 58
3. MJ 55
4. Seth/Lisa 50
5. Josie 50
6. Ryann 50
7. Jessica 50
8. Dave 50
9. Heather 49
10. Matt 47
11. Adrian 42
12. Nicky 33
13. Kathy 32
14. Tracy 17

Current Standings

1. Jina 74
2. Mike 74
3. Josie 61
4. Jessica 61
5. Heather 61
6. Dave 61
7. Matt 56
8. MJ 56
9. Seth/Lisa 52
10. Ryann 52
11. Adrian 48
12. Nicky 38
13. Tracy 38
14. Kathy 38

Below is the list of picks from the start of the season:

And I have to say…I was happy to post these…Jina and I have vaulted up to the top of the list mostly because of Nat and Kat getting 1st place two weeks in a row and then a Fast Forward last week.

I’m sure they’ll flame out next week, but it’s fun while it lasts.

Last Week’s Standings

1. Matt 40
2. Adrian 37
3. Nicky 33
4. MJ 31
5. Kathy 31
6. Jina 29
7. Mike 29
8. Seth/Lisa 24
9. Ryann 24
10. Josie 22
11. Jessica 22
12. Dave 22
13. Heather 20
14. Tracy 13

Current Standings

1. Jina 58
2. Mike 58
3. MJ 55
4. Seth/Lisa 50
5. Josie 50
6. Ryann 50
7. Jessica 50
8. Dave 50
9. Heather 49
10. Matt 47
11. Adrian 42
12. Nicky 33
13. Kathy 32
14. Tracy 17

Below is the list of picks from the start of the season:

A crazy turn of events too, none of the top 3 teams from last week finished in the top 3 this week. Seems like this race is going to be a crapshoot.

I was dying all race long praying Nat and Kat wouldn’t end up last…although if they had, I would have ended up with 10 bonus points for the Non-Elim! Darn you irony! But I just wasn’t ready to lose a team yet. In fact, thanks to the Non-Elim, no one has lost anyone yet. I’m worried about Nat/Kat though…they seemed a lot more competent in the first episode, but since then…bad luck and a serious lack of skill seems to be plaguing them.

Speaking of skill, or lack thereof…how amazing was it that only 1-2 teams figured out where the decoder was for that challenge? I mean…you read the clue, it says a DECODER…but yet some of the teams started drawing circles around the cute African children?

In fact, there was a lot of clue-misreading on this one, especially when it came to the wheelbarrow challenge. Those are always good for some conflict. Namely Vick and Nicky…man did he lay into her for one little mistake. I mean, one slam would have been enough, but he kept going on and on and on…and then it was the self-bashing on themselves for not knowing where Ghana was. Awesome stuff.

It was also the second leg in which Brooke kissed someone along the way. That girl is CRAZY. I wonder if at some point she’ll get to a discouraging part of the race and she actually wont talk for 5 minutes.

Nah.

The Contest

Okay, here are the previous week’s standings:

1. Nicky- 16
2. Matt- 14
3. Jina – 12
4. Kathy- 12
5. Mike- 12
6. Adrian- 12
7. Seth/Lisa- 7
8. Josie- 7
9. Tracy- 7
10. Ryann- 7
11. Jessica- 7
12. MJ- 7
13. Dave- 7
14. Heather- 3

And now the current standings with Jon/Connor coming in 1st, Gary/Mallory 2nd and Chad/Steph 3rd. Also Michael/Kevin got 10pts for the Non-Elim. Congrats to Matt for jumping to the front of the pack!

1. Matt 31
2. Nicky 28
3. Adrian 28
4. Kathy 26
5. MJ 19
6. Jina 15
7. Mike 15
8. Seth/Lisa 12
9. Ryann 12
10. Josie 10
11. Tracy 10
12. Jessica 10
13. Dave 10
14. Heather 8

Below is the list of picks from the start of the season: