The Amazing Race 17--Episode 5--No Love or Hate

It's getting hard to work up any enthuiasm for this season of The Amazing Race. As noted in the last blog, there's no one to hate or love. The cutie-pie Glee nerds are gone--I know they were a couple, I just know it! Team Home Shopping aren't obnoxious enough to despise or grating enough to be annoying. Though I do notice the blonde always has the darker-hair one do the challenges, even after the latter got smashed in the face with a melon on the first episode. And like Blanche Devereaux, they will use any excuse to kiss any male, even the tractor guy in England who told them how to get to Heathrow--you would think they would have looked it up the night before. The tattooed bikers are too dumb to hate and they admit their stupidity. Chad is not arrogant enough to develop any strong emotions for. Miss Kentucky is a tad too perky for me. The volleyball girls were so bland I didn't even notice when they got eliminated this week. The father and son are OK I guess, but I got a little riled last week when their speed bump consisted of sitting on giant ice cubes for ten minutes. These speed bumps get easier and easier every year. And whoever heard of a non-elimination leg in the third episode??? That's a new one.

But I digress, this week we saw more evidence of the producers' cheapness by having the contestants drive an hour or two from Swedish Lapland to Norway rather than fly somewhere. The Notre Dame grad bragged about how many gondolas he'd been in while his costmetology-school girlfriend shrank with shame at never having been in one either airborne or on the water. They took the gondola all the way up to some mountain just to get their clue. What a letdown. The doctors took the fast forward--probably the only one on the race, remember when every leg had one? Fast Forward, we hardly knew ye.

While driving to the ff location, the non-diabetic doctor kept saying how she hoped it wasn't an eating challenge since she's a vegetarian. Doesn't she watch the show? Every season there's a gross eating challenge of some kind--tons of caviar, wasabe bombs, crickets, cow lips, etc. She shouldn't have been all surprised when they were presented with the chewy, gummy sheep's head to munch on. In the promos, they built it up as this big deal, but she just eat it with a minimum of fuss.

Having won the ff, they took first place. Then the best part came when Mr. and Mrs. biker chick went for it too and couldn't figure out what "taken" meant. What school you go at? Rule 1 of the Amazing Race: If you are in sixth place, do NOT go for the Fast Forward. It's probably already been taken (and if you don't know what that word means, I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn to sell you) and you will lose valuable time.

Instead of a fun ski down the mountain, the remaining teams had the boring tasks of repelling off a bridge and inching back up, riding bicycles and remembering what color their lock was or taking a boat ride to deliver fish and a buzzsaw. Yawn! Lots of time wasted getting lost and watching Notre Dame yell at Cosmetics U.

At least next week, we get on a plane and head for Russia to see some vodka-soaked peasants make fun of the clumsy Americans.

Day 8--Drive from Swedish Lapland to Norway

Catching Up with Reality--Project Runway, The Amazing Race and The A List

Real life has kept me from keeping up with reality TV. Project Runway is almost over and the Amazing Racers have run from Ghana to the Arctic Circle. Plus those shallow idiots on the A List New York are hot for the most part, but what a waste of pecs. All they do is bitch about what big fame whores the others are and which restaurants they can get into. They're all pretty ridic. Even I, a fame whore if ever there was one, got tired of them after one episode.

Project Runway is just about wrapped up with the final three chosen and fashion week just a few days away. I felt glad for Tim who got to visit Hawaii this time on his home visits. Usually he winds up in some unexotic place like Portland. I just finished reading his new book and he spent a great deal of time in Asia when he was working at Parsons so he must have been to Hawaii at some point. Anyway, he was visiting Andy who had done hardly anything since his textiles hadn't arrived from Laos until a few days ago. He talked a good game, but the results were disappointing for me. What was up with that bikini cape thing? The model looked like she had escaped from Victoria's Secret.

I loved it when Nina called Gretchen's samples from her collection Crunchy Granola. I thought what Gretchen was wearing was a lot chicer and more interesting than anything on her models. Her new look was drab--that green,ugh--and resembled a potato sack. Mondo was the only one who was totally safe. I loved his polka-dot evening gown. Even the little headdresses that Nina and Michael thought were too circus-y I thought worked. I would have aufed either Andy or Gretchen rather than Michael C. The main complaint seemed to be that his clothes were all the same color. That's not so bad. He reacted like they were killing his baby when he lost. "What am I gonna tell my family," he moaned. There seems to be a lot of backstory there what with the kid and the partner and the unsupportive parents who think he should be a truck driver or something. He seems to have been married before then came out as both gay and a fashion desinger.

Meanwhile on the Amazing Race, the budget cuts showed when the teams stayed in Accra, Ghana for two episodes. I really hoped the cute Glee nerds would stay. They showed their intelligence by being the only team to figure out the word-search challenge, but then Johnny's lack of athletic skill tripped them up in Sweden.

I figured out why there are so many blondes. They are probably getting a lot of pressure for an all-female team to win. So they've got a lot of strong women who just happen to be blonde. I think Team Salesmanship has the best chance to take it and I don't hate them. I don't hate any team this season and that takes some of the fun out of it. I guess the only one I kinda hate is the buff boyfriend guy cause he's been so arrogant, but he's not that bad--so I don't hate him like I hated Rob and Amber or the frat boys who lost to the hippies.

Here's a quick summary and if I feel like it I'll go deeper into episodes 2,3, and 4, but it's late and episode 5 is tomorrow, so I'll try to give a better blog on that one.

Day 3--Drive to London, six-hour flight to Accra, Ghana

Day 4--Arrive Accra, sell sunglasses, etc.

Day 5--Remain in Accra, Glee nerds win

Day 6--Flight to Frankfurt

Day 7--Arrive in Lapland

Fashion Observations

Maybe I've watched too many episodes of Project Runway, but I recently noticed a weird fashion situation on an old Golden Girls. It was the one where Dorothy and Blanche bought the same dress and both refused to return it. It was a long flowing, drapey number in champagne. Dorothy looked great because she is so tall. On the other hand all those folds made the shorter Blanche look squat, heavy--and heaven forbid--matronly. The thing is Blanche would have known that and not picked a dress that concealed her best features.

Then to compound the mistake, Blanche bought another dress--the same one Sophia picked. It was fine for an 80-year-old, but Blanche never would have chosen a navy blue outfit with sequins and a giant bow on the neckline.

Also on the subway today I saw this Asian woman who had a perfect look--great black boots, black bag, and a neat white jacket. Her Lina Wertmuller glasses with thick gray frames set the whole thing off.

Then tonight I watched Fashion Police on E! and the stylist George with some Greek last name had a really cute outfit with a gray print shirt and a vest, and a nice tie. The new trend was nerdy glasses. Maybe next time I'll get those instead of my thin frames.

Scenes from the Life of an Amateur Comic Book Collector (18)--A Pro at Two Cons

It's been too long since my last blog post. A lot has been happening--there was a major event I had to organize for work followed by one of my collegues taking a long vacation, then me getting a sinus infection, etc. But enough whining. There were two bright spots--Big Apple Con Oct. 2, followed by Comic Con on Oct. 9. Last year, these two cons threatened to be held on the same weekend this year, but Big Apple Con backed off on that game of chicken and was a week earlier. Holding it in the Penn Plaza made it seem small compared to last year's huge event at Chelsea Piers. There was the usual washed-up celebs selling their autographs and photos to make their Medicare payments--Lee Majors, Adam West, Burt Ward, all three of the Brady boys, one of the kids from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Richard Anderson, Majors' co-star from 6 Million Dollar Man, even Oscar nominee Mary McDonnell.

The comic book pickings were pretty lean, I hoped a lot of dealers were waiting for Comic Con the following week. There was one dealer from Virginia who has some good deals with lots of Silver Age books at about $4-$5. One guy had plenty of stuff for $1; it was all Bronze Age and I was able to fill out the Fantastic Four holes.

The following week I got to Comic Con at the Javitz Center and there had to be at least 20,000 people. There weren't as many people in costume or as many interesting panels as previous years. I did see some repeat costumed people, like the same Batgirl, Black Canary and Green Arrow as at last year's Big Apple Con.

My friend Diane was there and she turned out to be a MacGyver when her sandal broke and she fixed it with a paper clip. The only celeb we saw was Carroll Spinney who plays Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street.

There were plenty of familiar superheroes including lots of Catwomen, Supermen, and Spidermen. There was one guy who had a giant inflatible TARDIS from Doctor Who on his head. But the coolest outfits had to belong to two fellows we encountered once we left the con and started to head to Ninth Ave. in search of a restaurant. They were Unemployed Man and the Master of Degrees, promoting their own graphic novel (pictured above). I asked if the guy in the college grad gown if he was supposed to be Mastermind, a villain from Justice League of America # 28 The Case of the Forbidden Superpowers, who dressed in a college cap and gown to denote his superior brain.

There were lots of great buys at Comic Con and I didn't spend any more than $3 on a book. I did buy Action #368 without realizing I already had it and that the copy was damaged with a rip through all the pages. On top of that I thought I was going to pay $1 for it, but the dealer said "That's a $2 book, it wound up in the $1 box." I should have said, "But it's in the $1 box, so I should have it for a buck." Too late now. The highlights were finding lots of Jack Kirby Capt. Americas, and some good Jimmy Olsens and Lois Lanes.