Amazing Race 32 contest

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Yes it’s still going strong! Dan pointed out that season 32 was coming up, and we are all in on another round of betting! How old is Phil now, anyway? He looks exactly the same.

  • Pick the team you think will win, and pick the team you think will be eliminated next.
  • For winners, start with 11 points. If your winning team is eliminated, you lose a point, and you have to pick another.
  • For losers, start with 0 points. If your losing team is eliminated, you score a point, and get to pick another.
  • Contest winner is the one with the most points after the final episode!

Winner gets a prize! TBD, ha. Also:
If Dan wins, Mike hauls his shit to the dumpster.
If Mike wins, he gets a TOP SHELF VO from Danno.


Coach & Son
Jerry & Frank
Glasses
Leo & Alana
Purple
Will & James

Orphans
​Kaylynn and Haley
Olympians
Kellie & LaVonne
Fucking Smart
Eswar & Aparna

Parents
Hung & Chee
Volleyballers
Riley & Maddison
Footballers
DeAngelo & Gary

Cajun Asians
Michelle & Victoria
Catfishers
Nathan & Cody

RESULTS

Ep01
Ep02
Ep03
Ep04 N/A
Ep05
Ep06 N/A
Ep07
Ep08
Ep09
Ep10

WIN PICKS

Ep01Ep02Ep03Ep04Ep05Ep06Ep07Ep08Ep09Ep10
Dan–
Mike–
Larry––
Jane––
Winner

LOSE PICKS

Ep01Ep02Ep03Ep04Ep05Ep06Ep07Ep08Ep09Ep10
Dan–
Mike–
Larry––
Jane––
LoserN/AN/A

SCORE

Ep01Ep02Ep03Ep04Ep05Ep06Ep07Ep08Ep09Ep10
Dan11111111111111
Mike11121313131313
Larry–111111111111
Jane–111111111112

Never heed the forecast

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I almost bailed on a bike ride to get Indian takeout on the other side of town, because the forecast was for rain. They oversell it! I’m so glad I went, the ride was gorgeous, the food delicious, and I continued to blast away at my DVT. :-)

Yes I carried all this on the back of my bike… With lots of rope!
Dork patrol

9.0 Pride and Prejudice (2005)

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Rosamund Pike, Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan in the same frame, acting side by side? Yes please. Not to mention Judy Dench at her most wicked best, world-class Donald Sutherland, Talulah Riley of Westwood fame, and Tom Hollander, the quintessentially damaged supporting actor. Great cast executing a classic story.

9.0 Toni Erdmann

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A bracing still life of moments between a dad struggling to use humor to connect with his daughter, and the daughter caught up in the priorities of “success”. Sometimes it’s heavy work finding the lightness of being.

9.5 Picard

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This is the best space opera since Star Wars: A New Hope. Yes I went there.

It doesn’t have the sheer thrills and explosive pioneering of George Lucas’ master story, but it is a more mature story that deeply and believably develops all the ensemble’s motives, interweaves them, and delivers an epic ride. The execution is brilliant, with powerful performances all around. Wow. I’ll be rewatching this one as much as LOTR, Blade Runner 2049 and the Star Trek reboots.

To get a better handle on the source of its brilliance, peruse the Wikipedia page of the screenplay author, Michael Chabon. So much to mine there.

9.0 The Peripheral

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Intentionally, sadistically dense stuff, every single page its own literary sudoku, like only Gibson can get away with. Let it wash over you, rereading the page with the context of its contents. Once you’re comfortable with the ride, it’s good solid fun with some real payoffs. Quite explosive, actually.

Thanks Dan for the gift! You helped me rediscover my favorite author. Now on to the sequel, Agency….

9.5 Upload

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Like a one night stand rebound, this show stepped in to save me from Westworld. By Greg Daniels, who works with Steve Carell and Mike Judge, it’s a near-future sci-fi comedy that walks well trodden ground with off-the-charts freshness.

From comicbook.com:

Daniels started writing the series right after The Office ended and it’s taken the past six years for the show to finally come to fruition. “It’s been a long time coming,” Daniels tells us. “I was writing episodes in 2017, and then we shot a pilot in 2018. And then we shot the series in 2019. There were so many special effects, that it took another year to do all the visual effects. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s great fun.”

This is how deep art happens.  It’s why bands have a hard time reproducing the depth of that first “Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!” release.  It’s why the strike in the middle of Bladerunner let it refine like wine.  It’s why the fire that destroyed all master tapes and forced Meat Beat Manifesto to rerecord its first release was such sweet good fortune (wait, Jack made that up? Genius).  It’s how Phoebe Waller-Bridge gradually turned her Fleabag stage production into the most powerful and sublime television, a fully-formed vision.  I am grateful for these gems, I hope you like them too, my friends.

Kurt, Curb, Burger Barn

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In a lot of pain lately. Thankful for my black comedy friends, there is no better medicine.

Only discovered Curb Your Enthusiasm a month or so ago, binged every last episode.  Larry David has definitively proven that the perfect length of a joke is 38 minutes.

Once in a while, an old gem reappears, thank you John C. Reilly you are a genius.

And Kurt. My life would be so much poorer without you…

From Breakfast of Champions, published 1973. The more things change, the more they stay the same…