a couch potato on Monday

Actually I have posted a similar post back in March. Just that now I'm spending even more time in front of the idiot box on Monday.

Firstly, you have America's Next Top Model Cycle 7 from 8 p.m. onwards on Channel V. Right after that you have to turn to AXN Channel to watch The Amazing Race: All Stars from 9.pm. to 10 p.m.

Then you have a 30-minute break to do whatever you need to do and come back to your TV set at 10.30 p.m. and tune in to 8TV to catch Prison Break Season 2. By the time the show ends at 11.30 p.m. you have another 15 minutes to stretch your back and make some drinks. After Quickie @ 8TV, you can't wait for the third reality shows of the day, Average Joe: The Joes Strike Back on the same channel at 11.45 p.m. to 12.45 p.m.

I'm not sure if this is only happening to me. So, Monday is not really blue for me because I'm always looking forward to it each week.

no winning streak for Rob & Amber and Roger Federer

Rob & Amber were knocked out of the Amazing Race: All Stars sooner than I thought. The reality stars were favourites to win considering their winning streak in the previous legs. They made a series of mistakes and bad decision which lead to their downfall.

Rob made the wrong choice at the detour by choosing a harder task, then misspelled the word "Philippines" but insisted on hanging on to the task while almost half of the other teams already done with the other task. Luck was again not on their side as Charla & Mirna, who struggled throughout the competition, completed the Road Block first and raced to the pit stop leaving Rob & Amber in the last place. The rest of the teams must be very happy to hear Rob& Amber dismiss. This means that the chance to win a million dollars is wide open now. It's hard to predict who are the favourites to win.

Earlier of the day, Roger Federer also ended his 41-match winning streak. Federer arrived at the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California, having won seven consecutive tournaments and was considered an odds-on favourite to break the record of 47 straight matches. He was beaten by Guillermo Canas in the third round, with the result 7-5, 6-2.

Monday is reality tv day

Majority people of the world hate Monday. They called it all sorts of names: 'Monday blue', 'manic Monday', etc. But I love Monday because it's reality tv day.

I haven't blog about The Amazing Race: All-Stars (TAR) and America's Next Top Model (ANTM) Cycle 7 in any of my post yet. Man, I'm glad the shows are back on Monday. I like the fact that the shows are shown back to back on Channel V (ANTM 8 p.m.) and AXN (TAR 9.p.m.) so I don't need to get out of my seat.

The Amazing Race: All-Star
Hey, I thought Rob & Amber are supposed to be the bad guys. Perhaps they have mellowed down a bit after getting married, eh? After two legs, I'm pretty confident that Rob & Amber team is going to win this thing. It seems that Rob is pretty determined not to end up in second place again.

Since Rob & Amber are no longer the bad guys, the beauty queens, Dustin & Kandice are taking over the roles to be the #1 bad girls on this show. I wonder how America chose their beauty queens. Perhaps we should ask Jennifer Hudson because she knows why the Americans always make the wrong choices.

By the way, someone please tell David & Mary to be realistic a bit because nobody is going to help you all the way in a race that worth a million bucks. In a tight race to the pit stop last week (week 2), Charla & Mirna did the right thing, that is to overtake everyone else and race as quickly as possible to the pit stop. Who wants to be eliminated? David & Mary, the Cho brothers were just helping you guys in the previous season for their own benefits.

America's Next Top Model Cycle 7
How come Tyra Banks become so 'aunty' already? People said that she's getting fat and I guess it is quite true. But she's still beautiful and 'fierce'.

Some of the girls in this cycle are pretty anorexic-looking especially the twins, Amanda and Michelle. They are not really good role models for young girls. Besides, unlike previous cycles, there are no plus-sized model this year.

So far I haven't seen any ridiculous challenges yet. I must say that the scariest and most ridiculous task of all seasons, the previous cycle where the models were asked to walk on high platforms was the scariest moment. Danielle, who eventually won, actually twisted her foot during the task. It sounds easy but you should watch that episode (if you haven't) to understand what I am talking about.

They did mention that Megan resembles Kim from Cycle 5, right? They share something in common. You probably already know about Kim but yes, Megan is gay too. So does Michelle, the twin sister with better potential.

That's about it now. Until further review of the shows.

7 changes I would like to see on the amazing race

Be it the US or the Asian edition, there are a few changes I would like to see on the show.

1. There's a lack of transparency in the non-elimination leg. The producers can eliminate or not eliminate whoever they want. For example, if I'm not wrong, BJ & Tyler from season 9 survived twice from being eliminated and eventually won. In the Asian edition, it's very clear that the producers would like to keep "favourites" Sandy & Francesca from being eliminated in the first round.
2. I wonder why must there be models on The Amazing Race (TAR) and The Amazing Race Asia (TARA)? There are a lot of beautiful people out there and they are not necessary models.
3. Choosing Allan Wu as the host of TARA is obviously a mistake. This guy is so stiff and fake. If you watch AXN Xtreme Macau, the host Alex Niu, in my humble opinion, did a better job than Allan. Well, there's no way to regret now. Looking at the success of TARA probably we just have to accept him and see some improvement over time.
4. I'm glad that season 10 omitted the "strip all cash" from contestants who survived the non-elimination leg. TARA should stop stripping cash too in the future season because I think begging people for money isn't very nice.
5. The contestants rely too much on the locals and taxi drivers to bring them to places instead of self-navigation. Perhaps the producers should implement new rule to disallow locals to ride or join the contestants in their car. I prefer to watch contestants display their navigation skill rather than paying taxi drivers to bring them to places.
6. There are too many advertisement and product placement in the recent TAR. As for TARA, we can see them every week from Ford to Sony Walkman MP3 and MSN. During the last leg on TARA, contestant need to take a picture of their partner while performing the jump at Sky Tower with Sony Ericsson Cybershot camera. And the week before, teams have to record a video with Sony HD Cam.
7. I hope to see alliance being formed in TARA. I'm not sure why no teams form alliance to oust the others. It will be more fun than seeing teams minding their own business. The Six Packs alliance (Cho bros, Kentucky and Alabama) of season 10 did a great job and went really far.

the amazing race crossword puzzle

I was thinking of coming up with crossword puzzles on my blog once in awhile. So for the first time, I'm putting up a crossword puzzle based on The Amazing Race theme here. For this first puzzle, I'm going to put up something simple, easy clues but definitely not for those who never watch the earlier seasons.

The Amazing Race Crossword (interactive version)

The Amazing Race Crossword (pdf version)*

*please come back again if you are not able to download because there is limitation for downloading per day.

Across
1. New twist in TAR Season 10.
4. Two teams from this country participated in TARA.
6. First family.
7. Team Joe & Bill (life partners) from the TAR Season 1 is also known as team ___.
10. New element in TAR Season 5. Time matters.
13. How many participants from TARA are not Asians?
14. In TAR Season 3, participants received their clues from this popular actor in Singapore.
15. "Romber" team finished ___ in TAR Season 7.

Down
2. Which South East Asian country did the participants race to in TAR Season 2?
3. Spoiler. Finish line. (You know this is about TAR Season 10)
5. B.J. & Tyler (winner of TAR Season 9) are also known as The ___.
8. ___ themed challenges - track and field, swimming, water polo, archery. Athens 2004.
9. ___ & Chip (winner TAR Season 4). Long-term relationship with Lance Bass (N Sync).
11. TARA Season 1 has ___ participating teams.
12. ___ hours penalty - "Who Digs the Beach?".

the amazing race 10: fever is on

Again, The Amazing Race proves that they are still the best reality competition by winning again at the Emmy Award last week.

And the new The Amazing Race season 10 will be shown on AXN starting from 18 September! It feels like ages waiting for the show (and I felt just the same way for Lost season 3!) eventhough we just saw BJ and Tyler won season 9 few months ago.

I've just log on to the AXN website that offers to win The Amazing Race goodies by simply giving one amazing reason to watch the show. I've submitted mine. I would loved to win the waist pouch and torch!

"I can give hundreds of reasons to watch the Amazing Race and talk about this show from season 1 to season 9. But above all the good reasons, there is one particular reason why I loved so much about the show. The diversity of the culture in each country the contestants have been to show me how small the world we lived in and yet time is often limited for us to see the entire world. While contestants rushed from one check point to another, they get to explore different countries and continents of the world. Some of the contestants spared time to admire and appreciate the beauty of the places along the race while some just concentrate on their tasks or relationships or even complained about the inconvenience they faced particularly when they were in the third world countries or East Asia whereby English is not a popular language. Therefore, I'm really excited and looking forward to season 10 because this time around we are not only going to see the most amazing and diverse culture in the most challenging cities in countries like China, Mongolia and Kuwait but we will also have the opportunity to watch the most diverse casts (there are Asian-American, Indian-American, Muslims, an amputee and an out-lesbian) ever shown on the Amazing Race."

For more info about The Amazing Race 10, go to:
CBS: The Amazing Race 10
Wikipedia: The Amazing Race 10

And by the way, The Amazing Race Asia promotional tour is coming to Malaysia this Saturday at Berjaya Times Square. They are looking for 10 teams of 2 to participate in some of the challenges and win great prizes. I wish I can join but I gotta work.

AXN Amazing Mall Challenge

My team is acccepted to the Amazing Mall Challenge this coming Saturday. The event is going to be held in 1 Utama and I think my team, the OutREACH team is ready. We are quite familiar with the new and old wings.

So far the only thing that bothers me is the possibility of rock climbing as one of the challenge. We are going for at least one training session one of this week day to see if we are able to do it. Well, my partner, SY tried rock climbing before and managed to climb half way before she gave up. But the thing is that was many years ago when she was studying in uni. We put on a lot of weight since then.

We have no prior experience like treasure hunt or extreme challenge so we have to depend on our good navigation skills and dare to try attitude. I'll use whatever knowledge I have and experience in watching reality tv and game shows to help us pull through this. On the other hand, SY is not really a fan of reality shows but she is one tough lady (she was a PALAPES).

We are not really there to win the $ but more of challenging ourselves and win some new friends. So, our strategy is to struck up with an alliance (like what we usually in on reality tv shows) and enjoy the game!

Amazing Race 8: where are the family values?

The winning family has been predicted correctly. The Linz family won the eighth season. No surprise at all because the result leaked several months ago.

The Amazing Race 8 is a Family Edition. However, very sad to say, I don't see any good American family values in this show. Gone are the Brady Bunch or Growing Pains days. What I saw was a bunch of young people (and even parents) who doesn't know how to respect their family members and other people. In fact, parents never try to do anything to educate the young ones to show respect to one another.

While we Asians can still be proud of our family values, the American are living the nightmares of sarcastic families like the Paolos and Godlewskies.

If you have been catching up with AR8, you know what I mean. The Linzes have been continuously calling Linda Weaver names which I think is totally rude. Yesterday, we saw the Linzes and Bransens completely alienated the Weaver family during lunch (this is not the first time). I was surprised because Dad Bransen did nothing to advise his daughters and the young Linzes. If I'm not wrong, one of his daughter was calling Linda Weaver wacky. Instead of advising her to be more polite, Dad Bransen joined the crowd to sabotage the Weaver family.

I must give credit to Linda Weaver for keeping her family together and race until the finishing line. Despite being sidelined by other teams she was strong, protective and did her best to encourage her kids. She is definitely the Mom of the Year. I have a lot for respect for her.

Can't wait for the next AR in February. I need a good dosage of AR9 to make up for this season which is a complete disaster.

amazing race 8: support the Weaver family!

During the first and second episodes of Amazing Race 8, I thought this family edition will not be as exciting as the previous seasons. I thought it is not wise to sell American history and watching the families spending most of their time racing within their homeland.

But I was wrong. AR8 is different from its predecessors but just as exciting and watchable. I must say that they have an amazing combination of families. Personally I support the Weaver family since the first episode. I particularly love the part when the Weaver family was in the last place in Utah, (they took the wrong route and later yielded (again!) this time by the evil Linz family) enjoying their ice-creams to ease their frustrations thinking that they would be eliminated. I admire Linda for her courage and perseverance in protecting her kids and keeping her family together.

On the other hand, the Linz family is a bunch of pathetic and rude people. They simply don't have respect for others particularly Linda Weaver by calling her names. I don't understand why they hate the Weaver family so much. Rumour says that the Linz family won AR8. That's going to be a very sad ending because bad guys never win the Amazing Race before. Colin, Jonathan and Rob are very good examples.

can't wait for Amazing Race 8!

I rate Amazing Race as the best reality tv show ever. I simply love the format of the show. The adventures and conflicts are always unpredictable which make this reality series so watchable. And now they are coming back with the 8th season: The Family Edition!

I've checked the schedule and it's going to be on AXN channel on the 28th September with a 2-hour premier show. This time there will be 10 teams comprised of 4 family members! I'm sure this is going to be exciting and fun. I can imagine the parents nagging their kids, wives yelling at their husbands or kids getting impatient because their parents are so slow.