The Amazing Stripped Down Race

The Amazing Race has spent a lot of this season's race in Russia. The Sunday's episode was, I think the second week in a row of being stuck in the Siberia part of Russia.

Siberia is known for being cold. And where you got sent if the Soviets thought you were an enemy. The Soviets sent a lot of enemies to Siberia.

The Detour and Roadblock tasks on this season of Amazing Race seem not to be up to the caliber of seasons past. Or so it seems to my memory.

Like last night's Roadblock. Host Phil Keoghan introduced the Roadblock while standing in the sub-freezing temperatures in his underwear. I did not like seeing Phil in his underwear. Could he not have chosen to wear baggy boxers if he had to do this?

And why did Phil take his clothes off? Well, that's what the teammate who chose to do the Roadblock had to do. And then run 1.4 miles to the Pitstop at the Novosibirsk Ballet & Opera Theater. Novosibirsk was the Siberian city they were racing in. It was amusing listening to the teams try to read their clues with all those Russian names with "too many consonants," as one teammate put it.

Deaf Luke and his mom, Margie, made it to the Pitstop first. Margie said if it had been her who had chosen to do the Roadblock, that the game would have been over for them. I guess that meant she would have refused to run the Siberian streets in her unmentionables. Luke said it was embarrassing and that he looked down the entire time because he didn't want to see anyone looking at him.

The last 2 teams to arrive at the Underwear Race were sister's Kisha & Jen and the previous leg's first place winners, Christie & Jodi. Jen does not wear underwear, she told us. So, she was given some. She looked good in her borrowed undies, saying of herself, "Don't I look hot in my underwear?"

Christie did the run for her team. Christie had her own underwear, but they were thong/g-string type undies. This made for a lot of blurring. I don't get why if it was okay for Christie to run down a Siberian street in front of hundreds of Russians, all able to see her thong, why was this not considered something appropriate for us viewers to view?

One of the racers wondered, "Is it legal to run around in your underwear in Russia?"

Christie and Jodi came in last. But Phil did not tell them they were eliminated from the race. Next week the pair of flight attendants will come up a Speed Bump with a task only they have to do. Speed Bumps usually turn out to be easy. Unlike last week's cruel Blind U-Turn.

Next week it looks like they are heading to India. Again. The previews showed Luke sobbing hard after seeing the extreme poverty.

The previews for next week showed everyone keeping their clothes on, including Phil.

Kelly Clarkson Pregnant On American Idol Results Show?

On last night's American Idol results show, Kelly Clarkson sang her new song from her new album. The song, called something like "My Life Sucks Without You," shot to #1 on the Billboard charts faster than any previous #1 song.

By morning dark corners of the Internet were sparking rumors that Kelly Clarkson is pregnant. I assume these rumors were sparked by how the profile of her midsection looked from some angles.

But, watching her sing last night it never crossed my mind that she looked pregnant.

Kelly sang while Anoop and Jorge were kept waiting to find out which one was being sent home. Prior to those two being kept waiting we'd seen Jasmine sent tearfully home.

Eventually Jorge was told to pack his knives and leave, but not before the Judges supposedly consulted as to whether or not to use their new rule. Which turned out to be lame, in that if the Judges unanimously decided that someone should not have gotten the boot, they can save that person. And then boot 2 the next week.

The logic of this new rule escapes me. Apparently it was an American National Tragedy that Jennifer Hudson, Tamyra Gray, Chris Daughtry and that Aussie Michael Johns supposedly got sent home before they should have been, thus sending waves of shock and anguish across the country.

Saving a person who should have been the one to go is just going to annoy people, causing the person saved to likely get sent home the next week. Then again who knows? Maybe somehow this new rule has some entertainment value that I'm not currently getting, like when the Hidden Immunity Idol first appeared on Survivor, it took awhile for its entertainment value to reveal itself.

American Idol should have a Hidden Immunity Idol. That'd be fun to watch. Or not.

American Idol: Rule Change

I don't recollect an over the top anointing of the expected winner on the first Final 12, uh, 13, American Idol, like what happened on Tuesday with Adam Lambert.

And then the announcement by Simon Cowel at the end of the show saying there was going to be a rule change. And it involved the judges.

Of course, the Internet is abuzz with rumors as to what this change might be. Rumors like the judges will pick who gets sent home from the bottom 3. That rumor and the one that has the judges giving immunity to one of the bottom 3 are the only two rumors that seemed remotely possible.

Then we had Ryan Seacrest say something like "if we do this, then we'll have to change the name of the show." I guess meaning it was no longer America's idol, it'd become Judge's idol.

Anyway, I'll likely fast forward through American Idol tonight and learn what the big change is.

Oh, one more thing, high definition TV is definitely not everyone's friend. Maybe we don't need to see everything crystal clear. Like the next American Idol's skin.

Below you can watch a YouTube video of the new American Idol, Adam Lambert, singing "Crazy" at the Upright Cabaret last year....

Nielsens ratings for March 2 - 8

The Nielsen Rating's Top 20 TV Shows for March 2 - March 8. The first number is the ranking, the second number is the season average, then the show name and network. The last number represents the number of viewers in millions. An 'x' indicates non-series special programming. An asterisk * indicates a tie.

1.	1	American Idol (Tues)	Fox	24.3
2.	1	American Idol (Wed)	Fox	22.8
3.	X	American Idol (Thurs)	Fox	21.5
4.	4	CSI	CBS	20.9
5.	X	Bachelor: After the Rose	ABC	17.5
6.	27	The Bachelor	ABC	15.5
*	11	Two and a Half Men	CBS	15.5
8.	6	NCIS	CBS	13.7
9.	9	Desperate Housewives	ABC	13.6
10.	14	CSI: Miami	CBS	13.4
11.	10	60 Minutes	CBS	13.3
12.	24	Cold Case	CBS	12.6
*	8	The Mentalist	CBS	12.6
14.	25	Eleventh Hour	CBS	12.1
15.	17	Survivor: Tocantins	CBS	11.9
*	20	Rules of Engagement	CBS	11.8
17.	20	24	Fox	11.1
*	42	How I Met Your Mother	CBS	11.1
*	32	Ghost Whisperer	CBS	11.1
20.	X	Bachelor: After the Rose 2	ABC	10.9

The Bachelor's Melissa and Jason Emails Tell All

That Jason Mesnick Bachelor serial girl dumper guy really annoys me. There is a lot of funny stuff out there in Internet World from other people who find both Mesnick and his show, The Bachelor, appalling.

So, there was a lot of talk among those of us with nothing better to talk about regarding the way Jason dumped the love of his life on National Television, and then started smacking lips within minutes with the new love of his life.

A lot of speculation as to what Melissa knew heading into the "Dumping." And whether the new love of his life, Molly, knew. Well, there were some email exchanges between Melissa and Jason, after we saw her get dumped and tell him no more texting, no more emails. The "Dumping" show was taped about a month before we saw it. That explains the dates on the emails below.

I heard it confirmed on Dallas radio today that Melissa will be dancing live tonight on Dancing With The Stars. Maybe she'll be able to hook up with Maksim, though I read somewhere he is hooked up with another of the dancers.

Below the email exchanges between Melissa and Jason is a YouTube video of Mesnick on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Jimmy Kimmel gets in some pretty funny digs.

From: Melissa
To: Jason Mesnick
Sent: Mon Jan 19 08:18:10 2009
Subject:

So last night didn’t go NEAR how I thought. I didn’t think I would be that angry (I’m not sure I’ve EVER been that angry to be honest with you….), but I’m sorry for how heated I got. At the same time though, I’m not. I still can’t believe how you can’t give reasons other than ‘It changed.’

In relationships (especially ones where commitments are involved), you FIGHT,you TRY, you COMMUNICATE to make things work. You know as well as I do that you didn’t give 100% to me or the relationship. And I don’t understand how you can walk away from something without giving it your all - but I am walking away knowing I did.

And getting confirmation about Molly in front of people like that was a complete classless move if you ask me - how could you do that to me after I repeatedly asked you about it??? I’m not stupid, I knew about Molly…knew you guys had been talking….and you lied to me about it. For you to choose to b e with someone who most of the girls in the house didn’t get a long with, and bashed me when she left, then more power to you both. You owed it to me to tell me this before last night…and I can’t believe you did that to me publicly. I can’t even tell you how much respect I lost for you….but it makes this whole process from here on out much easier for me.

Please don’t respond…I really just wanted to apologize for getting so angry last night - but I hope you understand why I did….

From: “Jason Mesnick”
To: Melissa
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 08:52:58 -0800
Subject: Re:

The producers had a lot to do with it. I am so sorry. This is so horrible.

From: Melissa
To: Jason Mesnick
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 9:11 AM
Subject: Re:

(This coming from the man who told me not to trust producers…..) Then congratulations on being produced….but I don’t believe you. You are a grown man, and perfectly capable of making your own decisions. Own your actions and stop blaming this process..

From: “Jason Mesnick”
To: Melissa
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 01:37 AM
Subject: RE:

I wish we could have had that same conversation away from cameras. You are so right about feeling everything you do. I deserved everything you said.

They really didn’t want me to say anything to you until the cameras were there and you know that I couldn’t do that. I tried and I hate what I have done to you. You don’t deserve any of it at all. I wish there were more that I could say. Its just things really felt different and I didn’t want to be thinking about her and wish I could control it. I want to take all of your pain away and put it on me. If you are talking about Karma, I slipped and fell and had a huge gash in my leg 3 inches wide and to the bone. I deserve so much worse for what I am doing to you. Obviously you know more about me now and you just deserve so much more. I hate that I had to say that to you, and you had to hear that. You do need to heal and if that means never talking to me again or if that means, you getting angry with meas often as you want, I will do it all.

You do not need to give me any reasons for your actions; I think you did what you had to do.

-J

From: Melissa
To: Jason Mesnick
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 8:24 AM
Subject: RE:

I do hope you understand my frustrations then. The fact that even after ‘production’ was wrapped, you still let producers manipulate our ‘relationship’ is frustrating. At what point do you say, “Hey, guys…you did your part, and now it’s our turn to have a real relationship without you meddling and telling us what to say and do?” When I look at it that way, I’m thankful I found this out now. And I’ll just say, the Molly thing wasn’t a secret….just wish you’d had the decency to tell me before I was put in front of TV cameras - regardless of what Martin was telling you, as a person, a friend, etc…you owed me that. Especially since you were the one who kept saying you didn’t want any surprises at this thing……ironic, eh? Seeing the person that you became, you are right: a relationship between you and I would never work out - and that’s why I’m thankful this happened sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, you were not the person that I thought you were - and that’s ok….just a little embarrassed I fell for it I guess. I do think it’s a little ironic, though that you kept telling me, “morally, how could I ever get back with DeAnna after what she did to me?” And I agree….just seems like a very similar situation with your new lady….. Just a little irony I guess.

Anyway, I’m not mad…I’m not hurt - seeing how things were handled,helped me get over things very quickly. I do wish you both the best though.

Take care.

From: “Jason Mesnick”
To: Melissa
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 1:23 PM
Subject: RE:

I understand everything and I wish more than anything I didn’t let them get in the way. I handled that part so poorly. It sounds like you are doing well and am so glad. Just know that I feel so horribly about this. It is a pain I will live with forever. I will not make any excuses you are a wonderful person and I am sorry for everything. I do want you to know that when I proposed to you it was from the heart and wanted to be with you forever.

-J

Dancing With The Stars: Jewel & O'Dell Out, Jilted Melissa In

One week after some of us with nothing better to do watched the now almost universally reviled Jason Mesnick dump Melissa Rycroft due to a chemistry imbalance, Melissa returns to our screens tonight on the ABC show taking the slot formerly taken by the show that broke Melissa's fragile heart, that being The Bachelor, with Melissa taking the Dancing With The Stars slot formerly taken by Nancy O'Dell.

Both singer Jewel and TV host Nancy O'Dell were injured to a degree serious enough to make them stop dancing. E! Online is claiming Holly Madison of E's Girls Next Door will replace Jewel.

Jewel's husband, Ty Murray, a professional rodeo worker, who I've never heard of, will continue to dance with a new professional dancer named Chelsie Hightower.

I've not heard of most of the "Stars" in this edition. Julianne Hough, she being the pro dancer who has won a couple times, is dancing with her boyfriend, Chuck Wicks, he being a country singer I've never heard of.

I know who the Go-Go, Belinda Carlisle is. She dances with Jonathan Roberts. I last saw Apple Billionaire Steve Wozniak on Kathy Griffin's My Life on the D-List show. I don't know if he'll be amusing enough to cause me to watch.

I like Cheryl Burke. This time she is dancing with another one unknown to me, he being Gilles Marini. Marini's claim to "Star" fame comes from the Sex and the City movie where he was seen acting with no clothes on.

Lacey Schwimmer is dancing with Steve-O. I have seen Steve-O before. He does stupid stuff on MTV.

Denise Richards is dancing with Maksim Chmerkovskiy. I have seen this Richards girl in a thing or two. She won the honor of being voted the "Worst Bond Girl of All Time."

Shawn Johnson is dancing with Mark Ballas. Johnson won an Olympic gold medal. I did not watch the Olympics, so she is unknown to me.

Julianne Hough's brother, Derek, is dancing with someone named Lil' Kim. She is a rapper and ex-con. I've heard the name before, that's about the extent of Lil' Kim's "Star" power for me.

The requisite pro sports slot this time is taken by a 50 year old NFL player named Lawrence Taylor.

Another of the few who I am familiar with is David Alan Grier. He's a comedian who is dancing with Kym Johnson.

It seems like a pretty weak list of "Stars" this time. None of them would seem to have Cloris Leachman amusement potential. Maybe Steve Wozniak will fill that role.