Sunday, February 28, 2010
ROPIN' THE WIND: Given the gaucho theming of tonight's leg of TAR, it's not altogether surprising which team dominated from start to finish, and I'm still not entirely clear how the teams near the back of the pack switched around, given that we barely saw most of them beyond the Roadblock. Truly frightening that none of the teams seem to be able to navigate (any "drive yourself a decent distance" task, much less the more complicated (but still pretty basic) orienteering that was one side of the Detour, seems to be a pitfall), and perhaps most frightening that the legendarily map-challenged Caite thinks she'd be a better navigator than driver. Right now, while things could always change, sure seems like there are 2-3 teams that have the skills to go the distance, while other teams just hope someone else screws up more than they do in a given leg. Not sure how interesting a season this makes, especially since none of those 2-3 teams is really a strong narrative voice.
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I cannot understand why a team would choose needle in a haystack over the rather simple polo task -- simple once you watch the pros and realize that you hit the ball with the end of the mallet.
ReplyDeleteSpoonfed busses, but happy to see local navigation still matter. Still, that "poker" task was "sit at a table until they tell you you've won." No skill. But loved the dealers and the Lead Bandit.
Well, it's not a needle in a haystack task. It's actually a really fast task (especially if you have a compass watch or even a half decent sense of direction). But they had such an utter lack of direction. And the polo task appeared trickier than it was because the clue just said "practice horse," which made it sound like the team members had to ride an actual horse.
ReplyDeleteBut you have to be so exact on the length of the paces and the angles. I'd pass.
ReplyDeleteSeemed like the bags weren't really "buried," and you'd be close. Easy way to do it without a compass other than the one provided? Have team member A stand by the compass and point the right direction while team member B walks it out. Repeat as needed.
ReplyDeleteActually, the easiest way to do it is to look at the four directions as vectors, add them up, and simply walk in one direction for the right number of paces to find the clue. Shockingly, the COPS looked like they were trying to do exactly that, but clearly didn't actually get it. I give them props for at least graphing the problem though.
ReplyDeleteOverall, man, these are some lousy racers. At this point it looks like the Cowboys are smarter, better racers, and way calmer, than almost all of the other teams. I still have some hope for Father/Daughter as I picked them at the beginning and they still seem to have potential.
If you aren't going to start incorporating the phrase "Oh my gravy" into your everyday life, I don't even know you anymore...
ReplyDeleteIt didn't look like teams that took the right approach (that is, tried to follow the coordinates) had too much trouble actually finding the bags. Team Big Brother had trouble (again) reading the clue and knowing where to take the bag, leading to my favorite line of the night: "We definitely should not reproduce." Team Bicker and Argue were doing fine until the one teammate (Brandy? Carol? I still don't know which is which.) decided that seeing a nearby shovel required them to abandon their approach of actually following the directions. Joe and Heidi would have found the bag more quickly if they had bothered counting paces. Etc. Lou is right about the Cops -- it's just that they are the worst cops ever. Seriously -- Mahoney, Tackleberry, and the sound effects guy were better cops.
ReplyDeleteBut once you read the coordinates on a bag, you could pretty quickly narrow in on your target. Never a good idea to take the needle in a haystack, but this one had a lot of supplemental information.
ReplyDeleteI just want to know why we're three episodes in and still in South America. Get on a plane already, dammit.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, yeah, there's just a startling lack of racing skill being displayed here; a lot of these teams just seem to be on vacation, and if they win, yippee.
NYMag: "The moms frequently declared that they were out there to prove what mothers could do, and the answer to that question has historically been 'get eliminated within the first three legs.'"
ReplyDeleteHow does that work, anyway, when different people have different pace lengths? I'm a short woman, and my paces are definitely not the same as those of a tall man.
ReplyDeleteWe were rooting for Father/Daughter (Steve and Allie) as well as the always entertaining and sensible cowboys, and we were very pleased to see Steve and Allie move way up from 6th to 2nd (if I got that right). We figured Steve, as a baseball coach, might be good at a task that involved figuring out how to best hit a ball with a stick, and it looked like their speed on that task helped move them up. Plus maybe good navigating - we wouldn't know, because they aren't showing enough of them.
ReplyDelete"I just serve warrants!" said one of the Cops. That could explain things.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid who learned to rope on a cow head on a hay bale during many, many county fairs, I LOVED the cowboys reaction to the roping!
ReplyDeleteBoth being embarassed that he had to do two tries, and what he said, "When I saw that rope rack, I didn't know what we were doing but I knew I would like it." Priceless.
And, I am not coordinated or very strong, but it was not that hard to learn roping while standing on the ground and roping something that was not moving (now roping moving cattle, while moving yourself WHOA). The people who struggled needed to pay better attention to how the rope was held and how to let it leave their hand .
"Pay better attention" was a big theme last night. I mean, really - you bring two bags to a guy who looks at you like you have three heads, then another team asks you where the train station is, and you STILL don't bother to reread the clue and see if you missed something???
ReplyDeleteHa. Makes me look back fondly to the days of the (4th-place?) Bowling Moms.
ReplyDeleteGermany next week.
ReplyDeleteThe bags were so obvious though. It's not like they were totally buried underground. So once you got to the general area, just do a scan, pull up all the ropes until you find the right numbers, and voila. If Team BB hadn't misread the clue they would have finished the task in a really short amount of time and would have come in second place.
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ReplyDelete<p>i'm loving the cowboys and their witty cowboy banter: the rope commentary, the gnome jokes "that gnome is good! he's got a poker face... i could never tell if he was bluffing... he should go to vegas." i'm waiting patiently for a perfectly timed "yeehaw."
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