Hey, sorry I didn’t get the nominations advert up this year, but I would still like for you to vote for the Worst Commercial of 2008. I have five nominees listed, but since I did not solicit nominations from you, if you really want to write in one (so to speak), feel free to do so (though I will remind you that I do not accept movie trailers or political ads). And without further ado, here are the nominees (YouTube links included wherever possible):

1. Axe Body Spray: Specifically, I take issue with the commercial they aired during the MLB postseason. Basically, here’s the plot: A guy sprays the Axe deodorant (or whatever it is) all over himself. There’s a brief cutaway shot, and all of a sudden, the guy is made of chocolate. Now, at first this sounds like it would make for a great joke about Marisa’s dream guy (I kid, of course), but Chocolate Boy is so creepy looking you can’t derive any sort of humor from it. It gets worse. Chocolate Boy takes a stroll around town and every woman he comes in contact with can’t help but lick him or nibble on him (one even takes a bite out of his ass). The commercial ends with his arm getting ripped off and the slogan “As Irresistible As Chocolate.”

2. AT&T: These guys have got a couple different lame ad campaigns going on, but this nomination focuses on the “zero bars” campaign (or, as AT&T's Youtube page calls it, "Alter Ego"). If you haven’t seen these (and I can’t imagine how THAT could happen): The commercial is narrated by the main character’s voicemail (portrayed by the same actor as the main character) telling the “caller” that the person is not going to get the call, resulting in some sort of “sucks to be you” moment for the main character. The ad campaign started out with dumb but fairly innocuous situations: some dude misses a call about going to see his favorite band, a teenage girl’s father misses a text message from her saying she’s spending the night at a friend’s house so he goes knocking on all the car windows at lovers’ lane, etc. Then the situations became more unrealistic (in particular, there was one played during the Olympics in which Michael Phelps’s obsessed teenage fangirl missed out on his autograph session). Recently, though, they’ve become downright life-threatening and therefore kinda tasteless (guy gets arrested cuz he missed the call from his friend telling him the alarm code, news reporter doesn’t get the message that he’s right in front of a building that’s about to be demolished, another guy fails to get the warning not to stick a frozen turkey into a deep fryer and his house blows up, etc). Enough already.

3. Cialis: Because FSN Detroit operates under the belief that I am a beer-drinking Republican man with erectile dysfunction, I must’ve seen these commercials about 8000 times during the baseball season. What I don’t understand (and what no one seems to understand) is the bathtub thing that always seems to be there at the end of the commercial. First of all, the man and woman are in separate bathtubs. If the whole point of Cialis is to have sex, won’t the separate bathtubs kinda defeat the purpose? Second, the bathtubs appear in the strangest of places, such as on the edge of a cliff or in the middle of a forest. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a Youtube video of it. There might be one, but let's face it. When you type "Cialis" into the search bar, you tend to get a lot of porn and parodies.

4. The Charmin Crapping Bears: Obviously, that’s not the official name, but they get called that on message boards all the time and it kinda stuck. These bears have been around a really long time, but in their effort to keep hanging around, their creativity is starting to run into questionable territory. Case in point: There’s a commercial in which Mama Bear is vacuuming bits of toilet paper off Baby Bear’s butt (I couldn't find that one on Youtube, but the one I did find is similar). There IS a bear in the woods, but let’s just leave at that. Please, no more.

5. Arby’s: Yeah, I know they’ve already been inducted into the Commercial Hall of Shame. I usually don’t like to nominate the same ad campaign twice (especially when it’s “won” already), but this time they have gone too far. In this particular ad, a guy is sexually aroused by having his wife/girlfriend dress up as an Arby’s employee, complete with tray that has sandwiches and fries on it (I think you’re supposed to start the commercial believing she’s gonna dress up in some kinky nurse outfit or Catholic schoolgirl uniform or something). Once she enters the room, the guy says “me likey” and Arby’s hat logo pops up over his head in a not-so-subtle symbolic fashion. Ick.

So there you go. Vote away. You have until…let’s say, oh, January 10^th. Have at it and Happy New Year!

It should be noted that I lack the income to be a regular Starbucks consumer, but every once in a while (be it finals week or an early class/work shift) I’ll stop by the one inside Krogers (I generally never go to the one at school because the line almost always nearly goes out the door). As a holiday presentation, I’ll give you my review of several Starbucks drinks that I’ve sampled, and I’ve separated it into two categories: Coffee and Not Coffee.

Coffee

Most of you already know that I absolutely HATE the taste of coffee. However, it seems to be the only kind of caffeine that actually works for me, so whenever I have to get up ungodly early and I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep, I try to select the variety that gives me the best chance of having that coffee taste covered up. Here are three that I’ve tried:

White Chocolate Mocha

Starbucks’ Description: A delicious variation of the classic mocha. Rich, full-bodied Starbucks® espresso is complemented with our proprietary, creamy white chocolate syrup and topped with whipped cream.

My Take: Meh. You can definitely sense the coffee in there, but as it cools, it either blends in better or you become desensitized to it. But I’d stay away from the last sip. You know, the one with all the syrup that’s accumulated on the bottom of the cup.

Cinnamon Dolce Latte

Starbucks’ Description: An indulgent beverage with flavors of sweet cinnamon, butter and brown sugar, combined with our signature Espresso Roast, freshly steamed milk, and topped with whipped cream and Cinnamon Dolce sprinkles.

My Take: Not bad, actually. Most of the coffee taste is sufficiently covered up, and the little bit you can taste is sweetened to the point where you can tolerate it.

Espresso Truffle

Starbucks’ Description: We’ve combined Starbucks espresso with our premium European-style cocoa blend used in our Signature Hot Chocolate and steamed milk, and topped it with whipped cream and a touch of chocolate powder. This sophisticated beverage delivers rich chocolate flavor with a velvety mouthfeel balanced with a smooth coffee flavor.

My Take: With all the other crap that’s in this drink, you’d think the coffee flavor would be thoroughly disguised. You’d be wrong. All I could taste was coffee (and unfortunately I got a medium instead of a small, so I ended up wasting a good portion of it). Besides, the calorie count alone should be enough to scare you off (The thing’s almost 500 calories; contrast that with the Cinnamon Dolce Latte, which is only a little over 200).

And The Winner Is: I’d say the Cinnamon Dolce Latte. But keep in mind that it’s still coffee, so I’m only using it in emergencies.

Not Coffee

My preferred category, though as you’ll find out, I can be quite picky here.

Hot Chocolate

Starbucks’ Description: Choice of steamed milk with mocha syrup, vanilla syrup and whipped cream

A classic hot chocolate - sweet and creamy - made with steamed milk, mocha syrup and topped with whipped cream and chocolate drizzle (optional).

My Take: Considering the price of Starbucks drinks, I was expecting something rather rich. To my surprise, it was rather watery. I’ve definitely had better (Tim Horton’s comes to mind). Please keep in mind that this was the regular hot chocolate, NOT the Signature Hot Chocolate. I didn’t try that.

Salted Caramel Signature Hot Chocolate

Starbucks’ Description: This delicious sweet and salty combination brings together our rich, indulgent Signature Hot Chocolate and the flavors of buttery caramel and smoked sea salt. It is topped with whipped cream, a swirl of caramel and a sprinkle of our sea salt topping - a combination of artisan sea salt and Turbinado sugar from Hawaii.

My Take: I obviously didn’t read the website description before purchasing this, cuz I figured the “salted” part was somehow related to the way the caramel was prepared or something, but no, it actually has salt in it. And it tastes pretty gross (not to mention there are even more calories than in the Espresso Truffle). By the way, I don’t know about the mention of Hawaiian sea salt, but at Kroger, they just used Mrs. Dash.

White Hot Chocolate

Starbucks’ Description: A traditional, hot chocolate beverage with a Starbucks twist of white chocolate and vanilla syrup and topped with whipped cream (optional).

My Take: Maybe it’s supposed to taste like this, but I think the lady waiting on me forgot to put the syrup in, cuz all I could taste was hot milk. Once it cooled down to that lukewarm level, it started to taste kinda gross, so I didn’t finish it.

Hazelnut Signature Hot Chocolate

Starbucks’ Description: We’ve accented our rich, creamy European-style Signature Hot Chocolate with hazelnut syrup to create a classic chocolate and nut flavor combination. It is topped with fresh whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa powder.

My Take: I’ll let you know now that I sampled a lot of these during Exam Week. My goal was to try a new drink each day that I had an exam, which turned out being (in order) Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate, White Hot Chocolate, Espresso Truffle (since my Wednesday exam was at 8 in the morning), and this Hazelnut Signature Hot Chocolate. Now, I absolutely love Nutella spread, plus Kroger’s makes a really good instant hazelnut hot chocolate, so I was really looking forward to trying Starbucks’ version (especially since I had kinda struck out on each of the three previous days’ drinks). Well, as it turns out, it IS better than the other three, but I was still rather disappointed. It’s got an extremely STRONG chocolate flavor, but it’s not very sweet, and it’s hard to discern any hazelnut flavor. But, unlike the other three days, I did drink the whole thing. So if we continue the baseball analogy, you could say I ended up being 1-for-4 in the Exam Week Starbucks Taste Test, but with that “1” being a little infield single or something.

Caramel Apple Spice

Starbucks’ Description: Freshly steamed, 100% pressed apple juice is complemented with cinnamon syrup, whipped cream and our proprietary buttery, caramel sauce drizzle, creating a delicious balance between sweetness and tartness.

My Take: YUM! This has been my favorite Starbucks drink for a long time, and I order it almost every time I go to Starbucks in the winter (There’s this frozen strawberry lemonade thing I like to get during the summer). If there’s any drawback to it, it’s that it’s usually so hot that you have to wait quite a while before you can drink it without it burning the inside of your mouth.

Cinnamon Dolce Crème

Starbucks’ Description:An indulgent beverage with flavors of sweet cinnamon, butter and brown sugar, combined with milk, and topped with whipped cream and Cinnamon Dolce sprinkles

My Take:Actually, it tastes a lot like the Cinnamon Dolce Latte, which I guess is a testament to how well the latte disguises the coffee flavor. The crème has a bit more cinnamon taste to it, I guess, especially when you get to the bottom of the cup.

And the Winner Is: Caramel Apple Spice. Duh.

And so ends the Starbucks Holiday Review. I hope everyone out there has a nice Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever else it is you celebrate this time of year.

I’ve got a couple of different topics for you today. First up, a little bit of hot stove news (Yikes, I can’t believe I’ve been drawn in enough to actually use that terminology). Sometime last night, it seems the Tigers went ahead and eliminated “catcher” off their list of needs by acquiring Gerald Laird from the Rangers. For all their pitching problems, Texas always seems to have had good catching (at least for the last 15-20 years or so), and Laird seems to fit that mold. He’s not an All-Star or Hall of Fame type, but he’s a good defender, an excellent thrower who routinely throws out around 35% or so (always a plus in my book), and a decent enough hitter. And he’s a veteran, but he’s only 29 years old, so he’s plenty young enough that the Tigers could potentially hang on to him for a while if they need (like if Dusty Ryan doesn’t pan out or gets hurt or something like that). I approve of this trade (and considering my usual lack of enthusiasm for American catchers, that’s saying something). Then again, I also approved of the Edgar Renteria acquisition last year, so make of that what you will. Then again, I wasn’t real crazy about getting Kyle Farnsworth, and I turned out to be right about that, regardless of the reasoning behind it. Also, while everyone else was drooling over the big Cabrera/Willis trade last year, I just got a bad feeling that I couldn’t shake (If you go back to the initial posts I made last year on December 4^th and December 6^th, you can definitely sense it). That’s a weird one though, because while the season didn’t exactly work out, I’m not sure if that trade was what did it (unlike Farnsworth, who pretty much sucked from his first appearance, and by the time he was able to put together a decent string, the Tigers were long out of the running). I mean, Cabrera had a slow start, but so did everyone else except Brandon Inge, and Cabrera ended up leading the team in home runs and RBIs AND he won the home run title (and probably would’ve been a serious contender for MVP had the Tigers done better overall), and I am glad that he’s with us for the next few years. Dontrelle Willis didn’t pan out, but his de facto replacement (Armando Galarraga) completely surpassed expectations and was outstanding. If anything, the Renteria deal was more of a backfire than the Cabrera/Willis deal, cuz Renteria struggled offensively until about August and his range factor dipped dramatically. So there’s a little bit more food for thought on how reliable my intuition actually is.  At any rate, as it stands now, I’m feeling good about Laird. Now onto getting the shortstop and closer situations worked out…

I watched the season finale of The Amazing Race last night, knowing full well that it’d be anticlimactic since I didn’t really have an ounce of enthusiasm for any of the teams left. The winners turned out, unsurprisingly, to be Nick and Starr, the brother/sister team whose praise of each other tends to sometimes border on creepy. By the way, I recently learned that their last name is Spangler. Which means the sister’s name is Starr Spangler. Her parents need to be arrested for that. Ken and Tina finished second (though I suspect not as close as the editors would have you think) and decided to give their marriage a second chance (or, at least, they did so as long as the cameras were rolling). For being pegged as this season’s bickering couple, they really didn’t bicker all that much. I’ve seen far worse. I know several people online don’t like Tina cuz she’s kind of a nag, but really, most seasons we get subjected to the Screaming Jackass and His Whiny, Submissive Wife/Girlfriend, so it’s about time the genders were reversed on that archetype (although it should be noted that Ken and Tina, for the most part, were respectful to the citizens of the various countries).  By the way, what was up with the lack of geographic range this season? They never set foot in the Middle East, Africa, or Western Europe. I mean, on any given season, one geographic region (either Africa, Central/South America, Middle East, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Australia/South Pacific) usually gets skipped, maybe two, but never three. And there was a lot of clustering together and several countries that featured two legs. This season’s countries were Brazil, Bolivia, New Zealand, Cambodia, India, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Even that’s a little on the low side (there’s usually nine countries…I think). Geographically, they just about skipped over an entire hemisphere. Was the budget for this season really crappy or something? It could’ve been, cuz last season they went to Japan, and that’s a rarity cuz apparently it’s really expensive to film there. Oh well, hopefully next season will be better. I have to wonder about one thing, though. The producers of The Amazing Race are very, VERY fond of sending the racers to India. India shows up nearly every season. There’s a very good reason for this. Geographically, India is situated at a point in the race where the contestants are all physically and mentally exhausted (usually about one half to two thirds of the way through). Between the extreme heat, large population, and widespread poverty, India is known for being a stressful country even to the well-rested traveler. Add those two facts together, and you’re bound to get what the producers love to refer to as Good Television™ (to their credit, though, they try to expose the contestants to the positive side of India as well, as they try to do with all the countries they visit). However, with the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, I wonder if CBS executives will shy away from sending the contestants back to India any time soon (whether that caution is warranted or not). In previous seasons where they don’t go to India, they’ve used Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam as “stand-ins,” but those countries usually don’t create as much stress as the producers are looking for. Personally, I’m getting just a little bit tired of India (and Thailand, for that matter, since it seems to be the preferred “India stand-in” and I believe there was one season where they went to both countries, but I could be wrong). In the meantime, I’ve kind of gotten on an Iron Chef roll.

I just realized a few days ago that in the combination of Wolfe Hall and Bowman-Oddy, there are no staircases in the middle of the building. All the staircases (and there are many of ‘em) are near the exits. I guess if there’s a fire and you’re in the middle of the fourth floor, you’re just screwed.

I hope everyone had themselves a good Thanksgiving (well, at least to my American readers; to everyone else, I hope your weekend was good). I did watch the parade, but perhaps not as much as I normally do (though I once again accurately guessed one of the performers; this year I correctly predicted Miley Cyrus). You know, I spend so much time on the Internet, and yet I had never heard of Rickrolling prior to this weekend. When Rick Astley showed up on the Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends float, I just thought it was totally random. But funny. Dinner was good, except my aunt got the tiniest turkey possible so there wasn’t much in the way of leftovers.

The Amazing Race sucked last night. I kind of had a feeling it’d be Toni and Dallas who would lose their passports, although what did them in (at least in the short run) kinda ended up being losing their money. Actually, it was the fact that they took the Metro instead of the requisite taxi to the next place. They probably figured that they’d be hit with the standard 30-minute time penalty at the Pit Stop, but it appears that the producers will go to any length to make sure the time penalty is not used as a strategy (It was used once before, though not because of an illegal means of transportation). I find myself wondering what would’ve happened had they not done that (though with the heavy and creative editing this show uses, you can’t be sure how long they were out begging for money). The passport thing probably would’ve done them in instantly once the next leg started, though, cuz they’d probably be spending several hours at the embassy to get new passports and visas (especially when you realize that they’d not only have to get Russian visas, but visas for any other country that may still be on the race). Unfortunately, this team was definitely my favorite amongst the ones that were left, and I can’t really whip up much enthusiasm for the other three teams. Nick and Starr are too smug for my taste (though not nearly as smug as Rob-from-Survivor…both times he ran the race), Ken and Tina are okay but I’m still not crazy about them, and Dan and Andrew have to go down in history as the most inept team ever to make the final three. To their credit, though, they realize this. And as much as other fans are complaining that Dallas’s mistake “gave” the Frat Boys a spot by default, I should point out that they actually finished the leg second, so all other things being equal, it would’ve been Ken and Tina who would’ve come in last (though their mistake is what allowed the Frats to finish in second anyways). One more thing: For most of this season, Starr has struck me as a fairly intelligent girl, if somewhat high-strung. But in last night’s episode, she had a total brain fart. First, there was a clue telling them to go to a certain park and find a woman with a Shetland pony. For some reason, Starr wasn’t sure whether this meant that the woman was with a pony or whether the woman had a ponytail. Later, she kept referring to the Cyrillic alphabet as the “acrylic alphabet.”

A couple of strange things have happened this morning. When I got to the elevator to go up to the third floor, there were three girls standing in front of it talking to one another, but the elevator button was not lit. I eventually decided that their placement in front of the elevator was coincidental and pushed the button myself. When the elevator arrived, though, the girls got on with me and proceeded to go to the second floor. Why did they never push the button? Also, when I got to the computer lab, another girl arrived at the same time as me. I scanned my ID card to unlock the door (since I was closer to it), but as I went to open the door, she pushed it open and proceeded to just look inside. Her arm was blocking my path, and apparently either didn’t hear me or didn’t understand me when I tried to excuse myself. I finally ended up just ducking underneath her arm, much to her surprise.

I have no idea how, but it seems I’ve ended up on MLB.com’s mailing list. Back around March or April, they sent me a pack of 10 baseball cards for seemingly no reason. Now I’ve received their 2008 Holiday Catalog. I’m not sure why they have a catalog in the first place, since it covers pretty much everything they have online, but there you go. At any rate, I decided to peruse, even though I have no intention of buying anything in the catalog. However, upon opening up the catalog to the first page, I was greeted with this unpleasant and rather confusing site. Check out the top left corner:

Now, I could give you several reasons why I didn’t appreciate them using this particular sample T-shirt from a personal standpoint, but this doesn’t even make sense from a business standpoint. If you’re going to illustrate your player T-shirts by using an example, WHY would you use someone who was only with the team for two months, had a rather rough time of it, and almost assuredly will not be with that team next year? It’d make much more sense to use a Derek Jeter T-shirt (or, even better, change that 12 to a 13 and call it A-Rod). And, in fact, nearly all other examples of products in the remainder of this catalog do just that (You can see the close-up of the Joba Chamberlain jersey near the bottom of the photo). They have samples of David Ortiz, Ichiro, Derek Lee, and the like. All of these make sense, as they are mainstays of their respective teams and are unlikely to be going anywhere anytime soon. At any rate, let’s go through some of the other noteworthy items in the catalog (please keep in mind that these are not necessarily items that I would like to own). I’m not gonna break out the digital camera like I did for the first one, though. I’ll just show you the online pictures, first of the particular item displayed in the catalog, then the equivalent Tigers item, if available.

For the record, this is one of those T-shirts I would not want. I have never heard of the Detroit Tigers as “Hitsville.” My dad hypothesized that it is in reference to the Motown music history, but still…

Surprisingly, I’d actually be willing to wear this one, but I possess neither the figure nor the guts to pull it off.

I’ve seen commercials for Fatheads before, and I just don’t get it. I just find the concept of having a life-sized decal of David Ortiz (or anyone else, for that matter) on my wall to be unbelievably creepy. By the way, there is seemingly no Fatheads of Tigers players at the current time, but I know for a fact there used to be (some of you may remember my post objecting to the animated web ad for it).

This one is similar in concept to the Fathead, but is admittedly less creepy. Still, I would think having a giant mural of Yankee Stadium (or Comerica Park or any other ballpark for that matter) above the head of your bed would be rather distracting as you’re trying to sleep. By the way, I keep looking at the Comerica Park mural, trying to figure out who is batting in the picture, but the picture is just too low-res.

I already have a Tigers freezable pilsner that Rachel got me for Christmas last year (and it’s a nice, large one at that), but I’d be interested in purchasing a travel mug to go along with it. Unfortunately, there is no Tigers travel mug, even though almost every team is available. Upon further inspection, I discovered that there are no mugs for the Red Sox, Pirates, Reds, or Braves as well, and there is a common feature among these five teams: Each gave up a player at the trading deadline who was high-profile enough that you would probably put him on a cup.

These are Christmas ornaments depicting three team members celebrating a win/home run/something like that. Here’s my question: Who the hell are these people? The people are different for each team’s ornament, so obviously they’re meant to depict actual team members, but they’re so poorly done that I can’t figure out who they’re supposed to be.

Not surprisingly, the Yankees and Red Sox are disproportionately represented in the action figure department.  What I find kind of amusing is that they chose to portray Mariano Rivera not pitching, but running out of the bullpen. It even comes complete with bullpen gate (There’s also a Johnny Damon figurine of him making a curtain call on the dugout steps). Meanwhile, is it just me, or is the Justin Verlander figurine (which, by the way, is the lone Tigers representative) significantly beefier than the real thing?

I think I’ve saved the worst for last. In this charming little item, you can have your name and favorite number placed on the back of a random guy’s jersey in a picture while the stars of your favorite team congratulate you on the big home run (or whatever). You have the option of getting a framed photo, a mousepad, or a coffee mug (I chose to demo the mousepad just cuz it was the easiest one to see). There must be a thousand different avenues of creepiness in this product. The first thing that comes to my mind is that it looks like fan fiction gone out of control. By the way, there is a Tigers equivalent, and it merits at least a nomination for Worst Photoshop Job Ever:

Yikes. Where do you even begin with this one? The most obvious error is Polanco’s head. I know he’s got kind of a big head in real life, but this is ridiculous. The brightness and color balance also do not match the rest of the body (or the rest of the picture, for that matter). To add insult to injury, that’s not even Polanco’s body (And though I can’t tell you for sure whose body that is, judging by how veiny the arms are and by the fact that Polanco’s head is superimposed onto someone else’s body in the first place, I’ve got a pretty good guess). In addition to the utterly mutated Polanco, we have Guillen (who has light and color balance that actually matches the background but is completely the wrong height in proportion to everyone else in the picture), and some unidentified person to the left of “Your Name.” Seriously, who is that? Am I supposed to know who that is? Is it someone who used to be on the team years ago? If that’s the case, why doesn’t he have someone else’s head Photoshopped onto HIS body)? Is it someone I DO know, but the picture is so crappy I can’t identify him? Perhaps it’s just an overexcited bat boy. I really don’t want to know.

Well, those of you who watched The Amazing Race Sunday night could probably guess that I was a bit disappointed. Not by who was eliminated (It was stupid for Terence and Sarah to try to do a food task if one of them was a vegetarian since most food tasks feature some sort of gross animal part. Besides, Terence was extremely annoying and it was kinda satisfying that all the blame could be laid on him for the elimination. Sarah was kinda cool in that she seems to be able to speak every language on the planet), but by the fact that the powdered dye used in last week’s episode was apparently of the extremely washable variety and Tina’s hair is back to being blonde without a trace of green in it (although a couple of the players still looked slightly pink, but that could also have been sunburn, I suppose). The finishes this season are getting kinda boring, cuz the winner of each leg has always been one of two teams: Ken & Tina or Nick & Starr (a brother/sister team that has a tendency to sound more like a couple than like siblings, which makes an otherwise okay team sound a little bit creepy). And now that we’re down to four teams, the suspense is kinda going down the drain. Along with Ken & Tina and Nick & Starr, the remaining teams are Toni & Dallas (a mother/son team that I’ve kinda taken to rooting for after my favorite team was eliminated; they’ve done a lot better than I expected, but they get surprisingly little screen time) and Dan & Andrew (a couple of frat boys who have somehow managed to stick around THIS long; seriously, they pretty much suck, and yet somehow they’ve gotten lucky time after time and manage to come in second-to-last). Next week’s episode is virtually guaranteed to be a non-elimination leg, since it took them forever to have the first one. Interestingly enough, there hasn’t really been a bickering couple this season, which is actually a refreshing change of pace, especially since the producers must be livid with this development. Ken & Tina bicker a little bit, but not THAT much, and Terence had a tendency to whine a lot, but that’s about it. Aja & Ty (“Long Distance Couple”) had one argument but got along otherwise, and the other couples didn’t last long enough for any definite characteristics to emerge. The other thing this season doesn’t have is a gay person (or, at least, they haven’t been explicit about it). I think that’s the first time that’s happened, which is kinda disappointing, cuz the gay contestants usually (but not always) rank among my favorites (by the way, a gay couple has won before, so there’s not a lot in terms of breaking new ground, although it took them ten seasons before they got a lesbian on the show). At any rate, this’ll probably go down as the season where no one could read the clue properly.

Yeah, I promised I’d get the site layout changed back to my Phantom theme, and I still haven’t done it. I’ll get to it eventually. In the meantime, here’s some randomness:

I have been keeping up with The Amazing Race (the only time I didn’t was the one night where I was trying to watch both it and either the World Series or Game 7 of the ALCS and I kinda ended up heavy on the game). The team that got eliminated on Sunday was one of the teams involved in that personal vendetta issue I was complaining about earlier, so at least that’s over with (and I’m kinda surprised this team lasted THAT long cuz they had a tendency to not read the clues properly all through the race). Anyways, one of the more amusing moments on last Sunday’s episode was the Roadblock. For those of you who don’t watch The Amazing Race, a Roadblock is where one member of the team performs a task by themselves. The task can be anything from eating something gross to washing an elephant, but it’s usually something culturally related to the country they’re in (although they’ve had bungee-jumping Roadblocks a number of times). In theory, they’re supposed to choose who will take the Roadblock based on a short clue printed on the outside of the information pamphlet before they’re allowed to find out what the task actually is. This doesn’t always work. For example, if you’re at a restaurant when you get the Roadblock, you can pretty much rest assured that eating something will be part of the task. Also, there are many instances where arriving teams can see what the task will be before they even get the clue. At any rate, this particular Roadblock (by the way, the teams were in India) involved running through a crowd of people (who were spraying water and throwing some sort of powdered dye at both the contestants and each other) to get to a bunch of raised platforms where they had to find a particular tag that had the next clue inside (the one team who eventually got eliminated made this a lot harder than it needed to be). The funny part about this Roadblock is that if the non-Roadblocking team member (who usually does nothing more than cheer on/berate their partner) stood too long in one place, the hyperactive crowd would start throwing dye at them as well. There’s one team that consists of a separated couple, Ken and Tina (Ken’s a former NFL linebacker, by the way), who don’t bicker as much as you’d think they would (or as much as the producers probably want them to). Ken took the Roadblock for their team in this particular episode, but Tina made the mistake of standing in one place for too long, and the crowd went after her. This would be a good time to point out that Tina has long, VERY light blonde hair, so when someone chucked a large handful of green dye at her, her hair turned bright, glowing, radioactive green. She yelled at the person who threw the dye at her, but to her credit, she didn’t complain after that. What I’m amazed at is how evenly the dye got into her hair. It wasn’t splotchy at all. In fact, it looked like a wig. And when they checked into the Pit Stop at the end of the episode (which had to be several hours later), her hair was just as green as it had been when the dye first got into it. Now, Ken and Tina aren’t exactly my favorite team (actually, my favorite team got eliminated in the third episode, and there are fewer and fewer teams that I actually like this season), but after this episode, I kinda want them to stick around awhile cuz I wanna see just how long it takes for the green to get out of Tina’s hair.

There is someone (I don’t know who) who lives a few blocks away from me who owns a motorcycle. I know this because I can hear it. The thing is, this person never seems to go anywhere on the motorcycle. From what I can tell, they just sit on it and repeatedly rev the engine for hours at a time. And they do this at, like, one in the morning. It’s getting really annoying.

Well, the World Series has yet again not gone my way. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. At any rate, all that’s left for the Total Amateur Analysis until next April is to occasionally chime in on any relevant offseason moves. First thoughts: I don’t want any of our “big guns” to be traded, especially Magglio, but if they MUST trade somebody, I’m a little surprised no one’s brought up Carlos Guillen’s name. He’s only signed through the end of 2010, he’s a decent run producer, and his ability to play multiple positions (first base, third base, left field, and possibly shortstop) would make him attractive to far more teams than Magglio (who can pretty much only play right field). Also, it doesn’t make much sense to trade Magglio for another team’s young catcher or shortstop when the front office has made clear that they think very highly of Dusty Ryan and Cale Iorg, both of whom could be starters in the next couple years. As far as free agents go, apparently Scott Boras has been trying to push Jason Varitek on the Tigers. I do NOT want Varitek. I know he’s got the reputation of being good with pitchers, but he’ll be 37 years old, he had a horrible year offensively and he can’t throw. I also don’t want Eric Gagne, Joe Borowski, or Chad Cordero (though Cordero’s problem is that he just can’t seem to stay healthy). I know the Marlins are willing to listen to deals for Kevin Gregg, and he’s a pretty hard thrower, but he can get himself into trouble with walks and he actually lost his closer’s job late in the season. Those are all the thoughts I have for now. In addition, the site will be reverting to the Phantom design in the new few days, so you’re all gonna have to bid farewell to the Pudge picture, cuz it’ll be gone for good, most likely. Also until April, most of the stuff I’ll post will primarily not be related to baseball.

In Other News: As usual, I’m stoked about Halloween. In terms of decorations and costumes, my mom usually will either go totally overboard or not do much at all. This seems to be one of the more “subdued” years (although she did carve a bunch of holes into a pumpkin and stick a bunch of mice made out of polymer clay into the holes to make it look like the pumpkin was infested with mice). I got a pretty good haul of Halloween candy purchases at both Kroger’s and Wal-Mart, although I’m now kinda wishing I hadn’t bought the bag of “Gummi Body Parts,” cuz they don’t look that appetizing. Meanwhile, tonight I am looking forward to handing out candy (You think 5-year olds like Gummi Body Parts?) and watching Garfield’s Halloween Adventure at some point (that’s kinda become a tradition of mine ever since I found a file of it online). I’ve also discovered the X-Entertainment website and its Halloween Countdown, although I’m still plowing through the archives and I haven’t read the current countdown at all. But that site is why I’ve gone on a yogurt binge. And it’s kids’ yogurt, too.

This World Series is still reminding me of 2006, and that’s not a good thing. The Rays need Carlos Peña and Evan Longoria to come through, and it’s just not happening, kinda like how Polanco went 0-for-17 two years ago. At least we still had the red-hot Sean Casey. The Rays don’t have anyone that’s hot. B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford are “mildly warm,” but no one else seems to have any mojo whatsoever. And things really aren’t going your way when you’re giving up home runs to the opposing pitcher, unless the opposing pitcher was someone like Micah Owings or Dontrelle Willis or one of those who can occasionally run into one. As far as the hitless 3-4 hitters go, it looks like Peña is closer to coming out of it than Longoria. Peña has taken quite a few walks and he’s seen a good number of pitches in his at-bats. Longoria’s just swinging at everything.

This series has also featured some of the worst umpiring I have ever seen. There has been at least one botched call in every game so far. Now, two of the botched calls have gone Philly’s way, and the other two have benefitted the Rays, so it is an equal opportunity botching, but it’s still an issue. By the way, while it is not the end of the world if the Phillies should win, they’re not a team I particularly care for. It’s not that I hate them with a passion, but there very few matchups where I would root for the Phillies rather than the opponent. Now, if they were playing the Indians or the Red Sox, then yes, I would be rooting for them. But it is what it is.

If the Phillies do win, there will be at least a little bit of taint to it cuz of the spot on Joe Blanton’s hat that Joe Maddon brought up last night. I don’t know what that spot is, but I definitely noticed it as well. And it’s not the first time I’ve noticed it. As a matter of fact, he had an identical spot on his cap just about every time he faced the Tigers back when he was with the A’s (and it was a lot easier to see, cuz the bill of the Oakland caps are yellow rather than Phillies red). I did some digging to prove my point. Here’s a screenshot of Blanton from a game he pitched against the Tigers on July 30^th of 2007, and as you can see, there is a very visible dark spot on his hat:

Here’s Blanton (and the spot) again, this time on August 31^st of 2007:

And for comparison purposes, here’s a picture of Blanton from last night (and no, I didn’t put the yellow arrow in there):

I’m not accusing Blanton of doing something illegal (and I’m waiting for them to bring up Kenny Rogers), since I don’t know much about this sort of thing, but if it’s just dirt from his hands, he’s remarkably consistent when it comes to where he touches his hat. But...since I've now demonstrated that it's always there, I wonder why Joe Maddon never noticed it before.