Pick your Ponies!

The racers have been announced. I'm not sure how I feel about them at first glance, but the fact that there's a pro wrestler named Bolo and a Father/Daughter team named Gustavus and Hera? That's plain cool.

Interesting fact of the day: as I was typing in the racers' names above, Bolo passed the spellcheck. Neither Gustavus or Hera did.

From Dictionary.com, the definition of "Bolo":
A long, heavy, single-edged machete originally used in the Philippines.

If he was actually smart enough to pick his wrestling name based on its definition (and not just something that would sound good when the little announcer dude with the bow-tie and the mike attached to the ceiling said it), he may actually have the smarts to win this thang. He's certainly got the muscles.

Get those picks in and I will post them as I get 'em. More to come this afternoon with info on the racers (hopefully).

TEAMS TO BE ANNOUNCED WEDNESDAY!

Just saw on the CBS.com Early Show site that the official announcement of the teams for Amazing Race 6 will be on The Early Show Wednesday, October 27th. As I will be at work while it airs, as long as they also update the website at that time I will post info about the racers as well as officially open the pool.

Friday update

No official postings of the team yet, but as soon as CBS.com has posted it on the website, I will include information on the teams.

Chip and Kim, the winners of Amazing Race 5, have created their own website. Some of it is pretty funny. Check it out!

In other news, Game 1 of the World Series is tomorrow night. BoSox vs. Cards. The last time the Cardinals were in the World Series was 1987 against the Twins, and the Twins won their first world series against them. Can the BoSox win their first since 1918 against them? We'll see.

AMAZING RACE 6 POOL

To anyone who was in the pool last time, you will know that it required constant vigilance (sorry, I've been listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on CD) in order to keep up with the pack. And, sadly, due to Fringe and stuff, I wasn't as vigilant as I should have been about keeping things up to date.

This time, it's A LOT easier. And it's also loosely based on the CBS Fantasy Survivor.

RULES

1. Each player will choose four teams.
2. Players will receive/lose points based on what happens in each episode.
3. Once one of the player's teams is eliminated, they can not add another one. However, the player can still participate in the weekly bonus questions for points.
4. Before the last episode, players will have the chance to wager points on who they think will win, even if none of their four teams are left in the race.
5. The top three players at the end of the season in terms of points will each win a prize.

See? Easy.

Points (these are subject to change up until November 16th)
1. Episode standings
The first episode points will be as follows:
1st: 100
2nd: 90
3rd: 80
4th: 70
5th: 60
6th: 50
7th: 40
8th: 30
9th: 20
10th: 10
11th (Eliminated): -100
As we do not know where the non-elimination rounds will be I am unable to determine right now what the point values for each place will be on each episode.

2. Using a Fast Forward: 100.

3. Uses a Yield: 50

4. Gets Yielded: -50

5. Screen shows the team "currently in first place" at any point during the episode: 10

6. Screen shows the team "currently in last place" at any point during the episode: -10

7. Team is the only one to choose a detour option (i.e. everyone chooses rock except for one team that chooses roll): 20

8. Team gives up on a detour and goes back to the the other one -10.

9. Team complains about the location they are in or the people there (not other racers): 5

Bonus Points
Each week I will post a bonus question about the episode that just aired. If you get the answer correct, you will receive 40 points. The question might be about a team, a location, Phil, whatever! The answers are due by 4 pm on the airdate of the next episode.

Example: The teams had a layover in East Timor. Name the two Nobel Peace Prize Winners who were honored for their work in the East Timor civil wars.

Answer: Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos Horta.

It's that time again!

CBS has just announced that Amazing Race 6 will begin on November 16th (Tuesday) at 8 pm CST with a two hour premiere. This bodes VERY well for the race. CBS has shunted the previous timeslot holder, Clubhouse, to the Saturday 8 pm time slot that Race was originally supposed to hold, and they are also bumping the Tuesday the 16th episode of Judging Amy in order to have the two-hour premiere.

I'm glad CBS is finally reazlizing what kind of sleeper hit they've had in their back pocket. I guess two Emmys (and this year, CBS's ONLY Emmy win) finally made them go, "Oh. Huh. Maybe watching people run around the world and do cool stuff is more interesting than girls in bikinis on a beach learning how to slice open a coconut!"

This website will include a few different things:

1. Information for the Amazing Race 6 pool. Those of you who are already in it have this address, and if anyone stumbles upon this and wants to join, post a comment and let me know.

2. My recaps of the episode. I do not pretend that they will be nearly as funny or all-inclusive as Miss Alli's fab recaps on Television Without Pity, but you may get a chuckle.

3. Any interesting news articles I happen to find or whatnot about the Racers, the places they are going, etc.

That's all for now! Rules for the pool and information to come soon.