My fav show -- I demand that y'all know what it is -- is back, woohoo!

Meet the contestants:
Bilal & Sa'eed -- best friends and fathers. Fathers as in, of their respective kids, not together -- just so we're clear. Are they the first Muslims ever in the history of the show? I think so.

David & Mary -- husband and wife. Or as the caption says, coal miner and wife. Err, OK. David -- one good thing about an inter-gender team: you can be sure who's who -- looks physical, Mary looks like a coal miner's wife. Not that I've ever met one in my life, of course.

Duke & Lauren -- father and daughter. According to the team's bio, he rides Harleys. And she's gay. And they're in the show to (try to) bond and overcome their differences. Well, if the show's illustrious history is anything to go by, father-daughter teams seem able to achieve that, so I guess the odds are pretty good.

Dustin and Kandice (or Vipul and Arti, says their bio -- at least for now) -- beauty queens. The reigning Miss California and Miss New York, to be exact. All right, I'll reserve my comments until later.

BTW, I went to www.missworld.com to try to vote for Indonesia -- whose representative I have yet to see -- but couldn't work out how. Never mind, then.

Erwin & Godwin -- brothers. They remind me of Daniel from Survivor 6. For their sake, however, I hope they have more brain -- individually, I mean, not collectively.

Kellie & Jamie -- cheerleaders. IMO, they have more beauty than the beauty queens. Maybe it's one of the rules in pageant shows, no cheerleaders need to apply. And they somersault! Which shows that not only are they cheerleaders, they're somersaulting cheerleaders! Better watch out.

Lyn & Karlyn -- single parents/friends, caption says. And leave very little impression on me.

Peter & Sarah -- recently dating. Also Ironman competitors. Which is, whoa! And she's got an artificial leg on. Which is, whoa, whoa! I sincerely wish this team good luck. I mean, I am 100% sure she's very strong and competitive and not a liability and all that, but still... One functioning leg? Come on! What if -- God forbid -- something happens to the artificial leg?

Rob & Kimberly -- dating. As quoted from their bio, they join the race "to see if their relationship can withstand the intensity and pressure of traveling around the world at such a frantic pace." Well, given the recent history, good luck with that.

Tom & Terry -- boyfriends. Nothing against gay people, but the last thing we need from the show is another Lynn & Alex. And from this first episode at least, already they're hovering dangerously too close to L&A's territory. I sure hope Terry is nicer to Tom than Jerry does.

Tyler & James -- best friends and models. In that order, according to the bio. I have a thing for straight all-male teams, so they're my fav. Yup, I'm that shallow. Just don't ask me who's who at this point -- or ever.

Vipul & Arti -- married. She's pretty. And that's about the only impression they leave me with.

The race around the world started with Phil promising surprises along the way. Oh well, at least he didn't use the word twists, so one could hope. Teams had to travel to Beijing on two pre-arranged flights, scheduled to arrive an hour apart. The first flight was delayed, so it turned out not too bad for teams on the second plane.

Oh, and in one instance, Erwin & Godwin tried being funny by shooting at the other teams with water guns. Be careful, Guys. Remember what I told you about having more brain than Daniel? You're not showing that now.

In another instance, Lyn & Karlyn commented rather rudely on Peter & Sarah being able to board the plane first due to Sarah's physical disability. From then on, I wished for a physical task just before Pit Stop where Sarah would kick the single moms' behind.

Beijing. It's nice to see that they chose to show Chinese taxi drivers speak English, instead of the usual faux drama created by the language barrier. Teams arrived at a restaurant and it was a Roadblock -- another of those local delicacy type of challenges. Fish eyeballs! The editors tried to cook -- pun intended -- some suspense here and there, but everyone did all right.

One of the beauty queens -- no, not that one, the other one -- did especially well. Woohoo, go Beauty Queens! Who knew beauty queens dug fish eyeballs.

And then, the first of Phil's surprises. The last team to reach the kiosk with departure times (7:00, 7:15, and 7:30) was immediately Philiminated. Damn, didn't see that coming! I mean, I did, but I refused to believe it. But Philiminated from the race Bilal & Sa'eed were. I felt for them, it was hardly fair. Anyone following the show religiously would have taken their time, it was not even the first Pit Stop!

In the morning, according to the departure times, teams left on motorbikes with sidecars. Detour. Labor or Leisure? Majority went for Labor. I would. Pedicabs -- see how reality shows enrich your vocabs -- took the teams to their respective destinations.

In Labor, each team put together bricks on a pit, following a pattern. The usual yelling and growing impatient with partners ensued, most notably from Rob & Kimberly. In an interview, Rob said how 99.9% of the time he was in love with her, but the other 1% drove him nuts. I bet Maths did, too.

In Leisure, chosen by the cheerleaders -- names aren't really important when you're cheerleaders -- and Tom & Terry, teams had to perform some Tai Chi routines correctly. Something involving -- what are those, pingpong balls? Whatever those were, looked complicated to me.

But guess what, the motorbike carrying Vipul & Arti was seemingly lost! WTH?! Wasn't the transport pre-arranged? Either they got screwed badly or I missed an important detail. Judging by the show's track record and mine, the latter is way more likely. In all accounts, they arrived at their Detour choice last.

Having finished their Detour, teams found out they had to scale the wall to get to the Pit Stop. On the one hand, I got my wish for a physical task. On the other hand, dude, how unfair can the game be?

Sarah, as expected, struggled. Peter kept shouting encouragement. You're a good boy, Peter. Finally, and don't ask me how, she managed to reach the top of the wall. Whoa! Get those tissues out, People!

Lauren also required tissues during Duke's climb. You could see she was genuinely proud of the old man. I would love to have a strong daughter like her -- I just hope it won't take me scaling a vertical wall just to have her be proud of me. Nonetheless, a very touching segment. The Amazing Editors did it again.

One by one, teams managed to climb over. No surprises, as the models -- my fav team, remember -- checked in first and won 20,000 bucks or something. Vipul & Arti never recovered and were Philiminated, no surprises there, either.

What surprised me was how well the beauty queens and the cheerleaders performed physically. Good job, Ladies. Also good job, Mary the Coal Miner's Wife and Lyn & Karlyn. It's really one thing to be able to perform well in a physical task; it's a totally different thing to complete the task when you have to overcome your physical limitations.

Mark the time, People. Monday is TAR Day now, not the usual Wednesday. All the more reasons to leave work early. Monday blues? What Monday blues?

Current music: Deep Purple - Hush
Current mood: happy