TARXII: LIVE BLOG

(SPOILER ALERT - I thought the words "live blog" would suffice and make it pretty obvious, but there it is.)

I already hate the goth couple's cute little comments. EVERYDAY IS HALLOWEEN! Oh boy, I turned off the very end of the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror 18 for this, so it had better be good.

Phil introduces us to "entertainment mecca" Los Angeles where we start it all off. Did they run out of ideas?

Nathan and Jennifer, from Huntington Beach, the ultimate Cali couple. "He broke my heart." Oh good, should be a slap fight before too long.

As for the black couple from Nawlins, one of them has Hank Azaria's last name for a first name. They claim to be "more intelligent", and swirling around green fluid in a beaker proves it. Oh god.

The results are in: Jason and Lorena are officially annoying.

Kate & Pat, married lesbian ministers. The less I say about them, the better.

Ari and Staella. STAY-luh! STAY-luh! Ari is gay, I'm guessing? Or just effeminately annoyeriffic.

Shana & Jennifer, posing on Rodeo Drive. HOLY CLEAVAGE. We have our annoying whores who are going to "flirt" their way to the blah blah blah.

TK & some hottie. Newly dating, and one of them is a bearded, bandanna wearing schmuck (I won't tell you which one). I predict he says "dude" 14 times each week.

And it's host Phil Keoghan, my hero, giving out the instructions (8 legs out of 11 will be elimination legs this time, which contradicts previous reports). "GOOD LUCK. TRAVEL SAFE . . . GO!"

For the first pitstop they're visiting a country new to TAR: Ireland. Shannon, specifically, and I'm surprised they haven't been there yet.

One of the goths actually said, "Oh my Goth, where are we going?" Sweet fancy moses, that's dumb.

And we hear The Zither (as TWOP calls it, "The Frenetic Zither of Mistake-Making"), the musical indication that a team screwed up: this time, twice in a row! We also have our first "women and directions" comment.
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They have to go to Innismore Island from Shannon, and SURPRISE, it's raining lightly.

And they are calling the team with the bearded wonder "The Hippies", even though only one of them looks the part.

The fiery Latinas from Miami might claw each other's eyes out. MARRRRRIANA!!!

And already we have people stealing taxis!

Team Saint Lesbian says that TAR is "a love letter to the planet". This might be annoying after a few weeks.

Lorena said, "That was the hardest thing ever to do!" She walked for 2 miles in the rain. Wow, she must have led a rough life.

The Goth kids, and I quote, "ROCKED IT". They are much more lighthearted than I thought they'd be, thank god--uhm, thank goth. But let's see how committed they are to an HOUR of makeup application every morning during this race. Essentially, they are not any different than any of the other teams except for the makeup and hair, so STOP PLAYING UP THE GOTH THING. I blame the editors of this show, who make sure they get every single time they mention the word "goth" into the episode. The only reason they're here is for the other teams to call them "freaks" and "punk-ass goths", I guess.

The grandpa got his shoe caught in a mud hole and fell down, and is already bleeding. Yikes.

The "flirt their way to the finish" girls don't realize that they're going to sweat and stink and look ragged more often than not. Guess what? You can't win simply because you look good. It's never worked before, and won't this time either. "We did awful." "I just want to cry." Bingo!

"We're not supposed to go towards GALLAWAY!" (Uhm, that's probably Galway.) "Lorena is intense", meaning "She's an incredibly emotional pain in the ass." Breaking down only 40 minutes in. Beautiful.
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We always make fun of places like Ireland and England for their horrible cuisine. During this show, I've seen commercials for Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Papa John's. So what exactly do we have to offer from our restaurants that's any better?
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The first roadbloack is a high wire bicycle, something I don't remember seeing while in Ireland. Immediately followed by carrying turf on a donkey--THAT'S more like it.

Ari just threatened a donkey, says to it "I'm going to cut you up and eat you". I really hope this is one of the eating road block during the show-- you ride it, you EAT IT! Actually, I hope they don't have some nasty Fear Factor-like eating contests like in past years.

Team Nawlins (Hank & Azaria) made it to the mat first; the Bunnies are all emotional over finishing 6th; the Asian Couple is cute, a little TOO cute. And I don't mean that in a porn-y way. As Karl said about the "Asian Trio" on the Rainbow Grill menu: "It's not what you think."

Nathan & Jennifer seemed to spend the entire day trying to get a donkey to move. You don't really know how long it actually took, but it had to be pretty excruiatingly long since 5 teams passed them and they spent 15 minutes of airtime on it. Nathan must have screamed "YAAAA!" 4,000 times before getting the beast to the finish line.

Is it really a footrace to the finish between them and the Latinas for elimination? No, but they think it is. They're actually teams 9 and 10, making Ari & some chick about whom I've already forgotten the last team to arrive, and thus the first eliminated team.

I think they've used the same Phil sound clip, "Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode", for all 12 seasons. It never changes. I've even got his stilted, trying-to-hide-my-New Zealand-accent delivery down at this point.

I already like this tons more than the All-Star show from last year. I think this is going to be a good season, even though it's a shorter series this time around. Okay, that's it. VIVA LA TARXII!

(I'm not live blogging this again. That gave me a headache.)