The Amazing Race

I love this show! Can't wait to watch it tonight! Seems like forever since it's been on. Not even sure who I am leaning towards yet... guess after tonight I'll see which ones I definitely don't want to win.

Thanks for the videos! I'm definitely pulling for Dallas/Toni, Kelly/Christy, & Marisa/Brooke!

awwww Poor hippies!! They just seemed outmatched from the beginning! Ok my early favorite was the mother/son and I still like them....ummmm Dallas is hot! The brother sister team isn't too bad either. Gotta love TAR!!!

1. Nick & Starr | Kelly & Christy
3. Dallas & Toni
4. Marisa & Brooke
5. Ken & Tina
6. Ty & Aja
7. Anthony & Stephanie
8. Mark & Bill
9. Terrence & Sarah
10. Andrew & Dan

I was ok with the hippies going, although it was sad when Anita was crying. :(

Anthony & Stephanie going didn't bother me. I LOVE Kelly & Christy and Nick & Starr. Terrence & Sarah annoy the crap outta me!

Last night's episode was blah to me I really have

Kelly & Christy! <333

Colton wrote:

Kelly & Christy! <333

:O Erika!

I thought you'd be more of a fan of the Southern Belle's......

Nooo! They've always been my faves.

'The Amazing Race': Got Milk?
by Josh Wolk | Nov 16, 2008
The teams roam around a Kazakhstan town in search of milk while dressed in cow costumes, after they searched for golden eggs or ate the local cuisine

SPANGLER VISION Nick and Starr are so focused on winning that not even sheep-butt soup could slow them down

Survivor: Gabon's dull season suddenly turned around with last week's merge, and I'd hoped the same for this season's Amazing Race. Maybe last week's great paint assault heralded a more exciting race! And then BAM! — Kazakhstan. So much fodder for Borat, so little fun for Amazing Race fans. Turns out last week's episode wasn't the miraculous resurrection of a dying man, it was just a gas bubble popping out of a settling corpse.

The entire first segment was devoted to airport finagling that ended up with everyone bottled up at the gate of the chicken factory. Every time that happens on this show, it renders everything that happened before it moot and instantly anticlimactic: It would be as if, on election night, after two years of campaigns, Brian Williams announced, "And now, we've just been told, all votes are moot, and the new president will be decided by coin toss." The only interesting thing to come out of this first part of the show was the long-awaited question to the answer, "Why don't you ever see any Indian-Kazkh long-distance relationships?" Turns out the only way to get from Delhi to Almaty, Kazakhstan, is to go really out of your way by switching planes in Moscow, Frankfurt, or Dubai. And there beginneth and endeth the fun facts. My mother in law, who is a seasoned, adventurous traveler, can't bear to watch The Amazing Race: She always says, "It's just people arguing in airports." It would be hard to build a rebuttal based on this episode.

When the chicken factory finally opened, it was for a roadblock in which one teammate had to don a Wonkavision suit and look for a golden egg among 30,000 chickens. But wait — a fast forward! One which both Nick-Starr and Sarah-Terence went for. Terence seemed rather beaten down this leg, as evidenced by the fact that he couldn't motivate himself to sculpt his usual fauxhawk. Plus, his shirt was emblazoned with the word "LOVEMORE." What, did he no longer have the get-up-and-go to vocally plead with Sarah for affection, so he just sighed, scribbled it on his shirt as a standing order, and slumped down in the back of a cab? Although putting your most persistent grip on a T-shirt could be a very efficient move for many players. Imagine how much energy Tina would save if instead of constantly snapping at Ken, she just wore a shirt with a decal that read, "SHUT UP. YOU'RE WRONG"?

There was something delightful about having Terence shut Sarah down when she questioned trying for the fast forward ("Babe, I don't think this is a good idea." "I do."), and then it ending up his fault that they failed. The task was to eat a nasty bowl of soup made of sheep butt that looked like the winning dish on Top Chef: Bulimia. Unfortunately, Terence was a vegetarian and could only stare at the dish mournfully, as if it had not emotionally supported him. "Be tough, Babe. No one's tougher than we are," said Sarah, which is odd, because the list of people tougher than Terence include, but are not limited to, infants, Dungeons and Dragons addicts, and boys in bubbles.

Finally, after much gagging, he and Sarah bailed and returned to the chicken factory, leaving Nick and Starr to win the fast forward and go straight to the mat. ("Come on, we're the Spanglers!" urged Starr during the task, though that sounded less like a rallying cry and more like the warning you'd hear when agents from the Federal Bureau of Sequins pound on your front door looking to take your old jeans in for BeDazzling.) By the time Terence and Sarah arrived, the other teams had already finished the challenge and had hopped into giant cranes. This is where Dan and Andrew started to fall apart...yet again. It is getting hard to watch these two in action, because they are so joyless in their racing and so bad at it. Their humorless intensity doesn't even manifest itself as skill. And they can't even flame out correctly. They just keep failing at a C-minus rate, so they never quite flunk out. If they were juvenile delinquents, they'd be carrying switchblade sporks: technically a threat, but not enough of one to actually get them in trouble.

NEXT: Make an ass out of u and me


They thought their crane was lost, although once again, it looked like they were doing fine and needlessly panicking. Dan began shouting angrily out the crane window to get directions, but locals looked at him (correctly) like he was just a crazed, angry American and (appropriately) ignored him. "These are horrible people!" Dan shouted. When they finally left the cab to find the Mongol warrior who had their next clue, the two fast friends broke into one of the dullest arguments ever, something about who was the better team player: Andrew, for wanting Dan to slow down and wait for him, or Dan, for trying to push Andrew to walk faster. It's an interesting age-old dilemma. I call it, Which came first: The For God's Sake Will You Nerds Shut Up, or the Seriously, Shut Up, You Nerds!

All teams picked the same side of the detour, which involved donning a two-person cow suit and walking through the town square to find and drink a glass of milk. Frankly, there's something creepy about seeing a cow drink milk: it feels like "Two Girls, One Udder." Tina and Ken, who seemed to be in fine spirits in this leg (oh how they laughed about Ken's "Don't count your chickens..." joke at the chicken factory!), began jocularly, with Ken quipping, "Guess which end I am!" as they got suited up. That's right, Ken, just keep making sure the joke's on you and everything will be fine. In fact, best to keep a banana peel in your pocket at all times. The next time Tina starts to snarl at you just toss it on the ground, step on it, fall and give yourself a near-concussion and hope that cheers her up. It'll hurt less in the long run.

Toni and Dallas seemed to have fun in the cow suit. "Be a good ass!" Dallas hollered as he shunted his mom to the rear end. I do like their relationship, and not just because he can call his mom an ass without worry of being sent to his pit stop without any summer. They both seem to really enjoy each other's company. Dallas practically skipped down the street, calling out "Moo! Moo!," which was in stark contrast to the frat guys, who did the task with all the whimsy of Pat Buchanan in a clown suit. When they first put it on, Dan tried to get in front, telling Andrew, "Bigger guys usually go in the back. Just for weight distribution, there's probably physics behind it." Yes, the man who first invented the cow costume did so only after constructing a very elaborate logarithm. His mathematical brilliance was rivaled only by that great Renaissance inventor, Sir Jonathan Fakevomit.

Though Ken and Tina somewhat botched the task (Tina didn't see the clue on the bottom of her milk glass, and then they erroneously changed out of their cow suit), the frat guys proved that with the divorcées gone, they are now the reigning kings of mess-ups. Not only does every cab driver hailed by them magically forget every single road in his home city as soon as Dan enters the vehicle, but they misread the clue, taking a cab to the pit stop instead of walking. (There were also a lot of foreboding slow-mo shots highlighting the fact that they left their shoes at the puppet theater: Will they never be allowed footwear for the rest of the race? I don't know for certain, but Dan seems like the kind of guy who is pretty particular about washing his feet. Just going out on a limb there.)

But yet again, Dan and Andrew proved that no matter how badly they can run a leg, there will always be someone who runs it ever so slightly worse. Sarah and Terence were never able to recover from their fast-forward bailout, and they were eliminated. Even after eight episodes of Terence's needy whining, they still seemed in love upon their adventure's end. But maybe that's just the healing power of sheep-ass soup talking.< What did you think? Was this episode a letdown? Will you miss Sarah and Terence?

ew.com

I would be furious at Terrence that he is the reason we lost. So what if he is a vegetarian ....it's for a million dollars! The guy is such a pansy ass even when Phil asked him at the end you wouldn't eat it for a million dollars - Terrence didn't even have the balls to say no... I'm sure he realized by vocalizing how dumb that move was he would sound like a major douche but he's still a major douche. It was just dumb to want to go for the fast forward when you know someone else is already going for it and not to mention a team who is so far proven to be unstoppable. And what is with Team Superbad those nerds need to get their act together and quit whinning around like a couple of bitches, they keep coming so close to being the next to go.


Oh and I absolutely loved Christy and the other girl (forgot her name) losing last week. Especially after they were pelted over and over again with the paint! That was my favorite episode this entire season.

How tragic for Dallas and Toni that he left the money and passport in the back of a cab...totally ruined their game and they were on a good roll to possibly winning the race.

I think it's safe to assume that Nick and Star have this game practically wrapped up I can't imagine them losing at this point when they've been doing so well throughout the season.

I definitely do not want to see Ken and Tina win... I just don't like her.

I also can't imagine the other 2 nerds winning... I mean my God they can't even march or dance for crying out loud ... how can they possibly win this race....

Here's to hoping Nick & Starr win! =)

Interview with Toni and Dallas of The Amazing Race 13

I spoke with Toni and Dallas on Tuesday morning, a few days after we saw their elimination. I wanted to personally thank them both for taking the time to chat, it was a blast and I think there are big things headed Dallas's way someday.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: It was great watching you two on The Amazing Race. Start by telling us how you ended up deciding to go on the show?

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: I have been a fan for many seasons and loved the premise of the show. I watched it like everyone else and thought, "I could do that." Then one day I saw an ad for an open casting call and Dallas just happened to be in town and we went in and did it.

A. Dallas, The Amazing Race 13: My mom was certain from day one that we would make it on The Amazing Race, I wasn't so certain but we ended up on the show.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: After the open casting call did someone call you two or what happened next?

A. Dallas, The Amazing Race 13: I have a funny story, I never pick up calls from phone numbers I don't recognize. I received a call one day from a number I didn't know and ended up hanging up on the girl who called. I then got a voicemail, checked it, and realized it was the casting director from CBS.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: That's one way to impress someone in casting, Toni did he tell you about this?

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: He didn't tell me about it, but it is something he would do.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: I may sound like a broken record, but I know some people will be reading my interview today for the first time but isn't The Amazing Race more about the relationship with your race partner than it is about travel? I am trying to toss out casting tips to would be racers.

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: You're right, during the entire process we didn't talk much about travel and the places we stopped. We focused more on our relationship and communication. As Mom and son we tend to bicker a great deal but viewers at home never saw much of that.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Why is that?

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: We told one another if we wanted to win the race we needed to work together and we also wanted to have fun doing it.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: You both did seem to have fun and get things done at the same time. I think I remember Dallas walking down the street making cow sounds when you had to wear the cow outfit.
A. Dallas, The Amazing Race 13: I went into to it to have fun, I didn't even know there was a million dollar prize at first. There are so many teams who focus on the money only and sacrificed who they are.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: I have seen that happen for 13 seasons. What was the hardest part about being on The Amazing Race?

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: I think it's a combination of things. I watched the show before I went on it and said I could do it.
Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Such as?

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: It was a combination of the fast pace, lack of sleep, lack of food and poor cab drivers.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Dallas what surprised you the most sitting at home watching the show?
A. Dallas, The Amazing Race 13: One thing that didn't surprise me was watching Kelly and Christy bad mouth everyone. I knew they were going to be ignorant but I didn't think they would actually dig in the sand for clues.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Mom what about you, can I call you Mom?

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: I loved to watch Dan march, we knew it was going to happen but didn't know how funny it was going to be.
Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: I was rolling on the floor, I can't wait to chat with Andrew and Dan. So Dallas, everyone wants to know if you and Starr are seeing one another?

A. Dallas, The Amazing Race 13: I am going to New York Friday, so I will see her then. We have been dating for about 6 months so far.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Mom, what are your thoughts?
A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: I will say this, I love Nick and Star and we had a great time running with them. When I got home I emailed their mom right away since they are so special and I feel blessed having had the chance to meet them both.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Dallas, did you guys get to go enjoy any of the cities nightlife?

A. Dallas, The Amazing Race 13: I did see a bar in Cambodia near the travel agency but my mom didn't want us to waste our money on drinks.

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: Um, Mark you don't want to ask me about the nightlife?

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Of course I do I am an equal opportunity interviewer and wanted to hop back and forth.
Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Mom, tell me about the whole lost passport and money fiasco.

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: At first I saw Nick show up, then Tina and Tina told me Dallas wasn't too far behind. Time passed and I started to worry since I knew there was a huge language barrier and it would be hard for Dallas, I just prayed he would have some patience. When he walked in and said I don't have anything I didn't think that's what he meant, but I saw the look on his face and knew he was telling me the truth.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: There are future racers that may be reading this, what tips would you pass along to them?

A. Dallas, The Amazing Race 13: Always stay calm, I think we did a great job at this part. Make sure you pack properly and take what you really need. Nick and Starr brought these cool little packs that they wore under their shirts that held their money and passports close to them at all time. Finally, make sure you have fun.

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: Many people may not know this but I think 80% of your success on The Amazing Race is up to cab driver. We tried as much as possible to try and control this situation, but it's very hard to control.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Guys this was a blast and we all enjoyed watching you two. Before we let you go what's next for the two of you?

A. Toni, The Amazing Race 13: We are going back to our normal life but personally I view things a bit differently and don't take things as seriously. I will also hold images from the race I will have forever. Dallas graduates from school in a couple of weeks and he has whole life ahead of him.Maybe this will bring positive things and people into his life.

A. Dallas, The Amazing Race 13: I am excited to graduate in a couple of weeks. I also started a company called Packmydorm.com and working on another venture you can find out more about it at the6trees.com

I'm so glad Nick @ Starr won!

Is it just me or did anyone notice that Dallas and Toni weren't at the end of the show with the other teams? I wonder if it was because of the passport issue... that sucks!
Very cool that Dallas and Starr have been dating for 6 months!

Exclusive: Toni and Dallas Imbimbo talk about 'The Amazing Race'

Reality TV World: So Dallas, just to clarify to start, were you carrying just your own passport or also you mom's also?

Dallas: I was carrying just mine and then the money.

Reality TV World: Last night's broadcast didn't show much of the lead-up to when you forgot the bag [with all of the money and passport] in the cab. What happened for that to happen, were you just rushed?

Dallas: No, what actually happened was when I got in the cab we actually had to do a microphone change, and the microphone is actually around your waist. So they had to undo the fanny pack that was around my waist to change that microphone out.

So they did that, and the cab driver in the cab I was in at the time I [had been] driving with for about an hour in circles, he didn't know where he was going. So I was like 'Hey, pull me over, I'm gonna take a new cab.' He pulled me over and they did the microphone change and unstrapped that pack and I got out. The [cab driver] did not make me pay because he didn't know where he was going.

So I got out and flagged down a new taxi, got a new taxi and went in there for about 20-30 minutes and finally had them take me to somewhere I knew. When I got there that's when I realized I didn't have the bag with me and my passport and my money was long gone.

They made it look like [the cab] was right there and I could run after it but that's not true. If it was anywhere near there I would've caught up to it, I don't care if it was three miles down the road I woulda ran after it. But I had no chance of finding it.

Reality TV World: You said you didn't [notice the missing bag] for about half an hour?

Dallas: I didn't know until I had hopped in a new cab [and gone] a way further distance than I had even started. And in Moscow cabs can be anything, it's not like an official cab in the United States where it's yellow and it's a cab company. Any random car is a cab so I couldn't even say "Oh well it's this cab company" and try to hunt it down that way.

Reality TV World: So, [even though] you didn't have your passport. you guys decided to continue the leg and [try and] not get eliminated. If you hadn't been eliminated, how [were you planning to] have gotten out of Russia for the next leg of the race?

Dallas: (Jokingly) What I would've done is put all my mom's clothes in my backpack and I woulda hopped in her backpack.

Toni: Actually part of what we were doing as we were running around begging on the street, I was sitting there thinking to myself, Dallas had gone back to a hotel with the second cab driver, and maybe they'll turn his passport in there or something, or maybe they'll turn it in to the embassy.

And along this route I'm just gonna keep begging and doing what we can and I'm gonna see if I can find a way to make a phone call to see if his passport got turned in and see if we can possibly get that passport and still keep going and have it to go with.

So part of our strategy in running the rest of the race was "Can we get the passport back as well?"

Reality TV World: And because you didn't have your passport, did you guys end up getting stuck in Russia after you were eliminated? How long did it take to get your passport back?

Dallas: Well, luckily the next day my bag was... well not my bag, my passport was turned in to the U.S. Embassy, so I was actually [able to] get home. I wasn't able to make it for the finale, but we finally got back later, luckily not too much later than everybody else.

Toni: We knew on my visa that I had a little more time than the production crew had in Russia, so we just stayed back and said we're gonna do what we can. Then the next morning when the embassy finally opened and we called them they told us that somebody had turned in the passport late the night before after the embassy had closed and they had it there.

Reality TV World: When you both decided to go out on the street and search for money to try and continue [in the race], it seemed like you didn't have a lot of trouble getting money from people on the street. Were people really that generous, or did the episode just show the people who were willing to give up money and cut out a whole bunch of people who didn't?

Toni: I think that you saw some of the people who were willing to help. There were probably as many that weren't willing to help us as that were. But, we were pleasantly surprised by the number of people that helped because people had not been that friendly to us and there had been a couple men in one of the squares who had worked their butts off to try to get money for us and they were asking and begging all their friends for money. And their friends were saying things to them like "Why are you helping them? They're American," so we were a little bit discouraged, but they kept pushing on and so we thought "Okay, we're gonna keep going."

At one point the man actually tried to pawn his cell phone to get us enough money for the taxi because they couldn't afford the taxi's themselves out there. That was the point where I said to Dallas "No, we're not gonna take this man's money, we're not gonna let him pawn his cell phone."

Dallas: And the other thing is, it does look like we got a lot of money but Russia's a very, very, very expensive city. So though we may have gotten a lot of money, it cost so much money to get anywhere.

Reality TV World: Did you pursue any other possible courses of action as opposed to just going around and looking for money? Had you thought about waiting for [Andrew Lappitt] to come back to try and get some money from [he and teammate Dan Honig]?

Toni: Well at first we went to Dan and thought we'd get some money from him, but he didn't have the money, we knew Andrew did. And, to be honest, knowing how long it would take Dan and Andrew to complete a task was not something we should sit around and wait for because that could take forever.

So I kinda went rogue and said "Dallas, we just need to try to honor the race as best we can, get what money we can and get this leg done. If it means we don't follow the letter of the rules [than] let's just take the penalties as they come and lets just try to salvage what we can out of it and try to get the passport along the way." Waiting for Dan and Andrew wasn't something that we thought was gonna make sense.

Dallas: (Jokingly) I was thinking of taking nude pictures on the corner and selling them to make money.

Reality TV World: Kind of going off of what you just said about not specifically following the rules to get where you want to get to, when you got on the subway [to get the Detour challenge] that led to a whole thing where you had to go back and take a taxi. Were you thinking -- or hoping I guess -- that you would just be assessed some penalty for doing that?

Toni: Exactly. We'd asked a couple of taxis how much it was gonna cost and it was such a large amount of money that we didn't think there was any way we could get that kind of money. So I said "Let's just take the Metro," everybody on the streets said we were crazy to take a taxi [and to] just take the Metro.

So I said "Let's just take the penalty we're gonna get assessed, at least we'll finish this out, and if we get our passport along the way and get assessed a penalty, Dan and Andrew will probably screw up enough that we'll find a way to make it. So it was interesting for us to watch last night to see that it was [Ken and Tina Greene] who had the biggest mistakes.

Dallas: Yeah, and the way we looked at it was that [Mark Yturralde] and [Bill Hahler] in Bolivia had taken a taxi when they were supposed to walk, [and they got] a 30 minute penalty. So that's what we were banking on.

Then we took the subway, we got to that park, and they said no you have to go back. Now we couldn't take the subway back because the rules for the city of Moscow are that you cannot take those video cameras that they're recording everything on [into] the subway after 3PM and it was about 3:15PM at that time. So now instead of taking the subway back to where we had started we had to walk all the way back, which took us about two hours, and that's what killed us.

Reality TV World: On last night's episode, and unlike [the rest of the season], they didn't show the departure times of each team leaving [the Pit Stop]. Do you have any idea how much of a lead you had at the beginning of the leg and how far apart the teams left from each other throughout the race?

Toni: Well, at the beginning of that leg when we got to the submarine there were probably a number of hours [lead] that we had over [Nick and Starr Spangler]. But what you didn't see last night was when we got there it was one of those [locations] where we had to wait until it opened. So we had to wait outside that submarine for three or four hours in the morning waiting until it opened. It equalized out again because we all had to sit and wait.

The only team that hadn't met up with us yet at that point in time when the place opened was Dan and Andrew. We were all just sitting outside waiting for it to open.

Reality TV World: Were you surprised when [The Amazing Race host] Phil Keoghan met with you guys to tell you that you had been eliminated [before you had completed the leg]?

Toni: Well we were a little surprised because we really didn't think it was a Pit Stop and we didn't really know. At the same token, we had been out there for so many hours and it was getting dark and it was getting cold and we were begging everyone who was around, so they probably didn't want people begging on the streets to the level that we were begging so it sorta made sense.

It didn't surprise me that that's what they did because it made sense in the long run, but it was disheartening not to have finished the leg.

Reality TV World: Do you have any idea how far behind Andrew and Dan you were?

Dallas: Well it was actually Ken and Tina who came in last.

Reality TV World: Oh yeah, sorry...

Dallas: But they said we were only a half-hour behind them, which, that's what kinda ticked us off a little bit is that if it wasn't for that rule of not being able to take the subway back to where we started because of the cameras.... if we took the subway there and screwed up because of that, then we should at least be allowed to take the subway back. We got double penalized, and it was only a half-hour back but that thing took us two hours. We would've easily still came in third without a problem because even Ken and Tina were behind Andrew and Dan, we probably would've finished ahead of them as well.

Toni: But we wouldn't have had a passport and we wouldn't have continued, and we wouldn't have met the people that we met begging on the street, and we probably would have thought that Russian people were horrible and we found out that they weren't. There was a lot of things that we learned by that process so I'm not pissed off by anything. I think everything happened the way it needed to happen and we learned a lot from it.

Reality TV World: Toni, During the Roadblock challenge in the park with the Soviet statues, at different point both of you both seemed to express some doubt in the choice of Dallas to perform the challenge. Is that accurate, and would you have chosen to switch places if you could go back and do it again?

Toni: Well you don't always know what the Roadblock is, you just get this one-liner-zinger that says "to solve a mystery literally" and that's all we knew. Part of me sort of said that "Oh, literally? Is this gonna involve reading? Maybe I should do this one" but it had been such a long morning and we had been driving for hours and I was like "I don't think I'm as sharp today as I should be and so Dallas needs to do it."

Then when Dallas opened it up and started reading all this stuff about Lenin and Stalin I was like "Oh no, this could be a problem."

But I think it's really a toss-up because I might have been a little more diligent about the statues, but then leaving there and having to get around Moscow and figuring out the taxis was really difficult, and Dallas has a great ability to manipulate and work situations. I don't know that I would've been as strong at getting that taxi and ever finding that apartment. I had to get there and I thought I would never find my way there, so it's a toss up.