Two 'Dumb Girls' and Blond, James Bond

I didn't plan on writing about The Amazing Race Asia three times in a row in this space, but I didn't think the two Filipino teams would be eliminated one after the other either.

Right on the barely cool heels of the first-to-be-eliminated Team Lopez was the team I formerly called Team Kikay, but now christen as Team "Dumb Girls." I've put it in quotation marks to acknowledge their dumb blonde, Paris-Nicole tactics. Even now, I'm still giving them the benefit of the doubt.

With Ernie and Jeena out, like many viewers, and out of my sense of pop-nationality, I put my money on Aubrey and Jaq. They did well in the first leg, arriving a close fourth, and while I didn't see any winning traits in them (and would have, in my heart of hearts, thought it wrong and unfair if they won by virtue of looks alone), I was prepared to be surprised. Isn't it that the prettiest girls can be the most manipulative too?

In the third leg of the race, the teams went to Kuta Beach in Bali, Indonesia. The Roadblock required a team member to dig in a marked area of sand for a small wooden surfboard token buried 40 centimeters below. Aubrey volunteered to dig for Team "Dumb Girls." Jaq showed moral support by chanting "Dig, dig, dig!" and dancing.

This Roadblock turned out to be particularly difficult. After the first couple of hours, the diggers became disheartened because of the heat and because they had no idea what they were digging for. The portly Indonesian brothers Mardy & Marsio and Thailand's adopted residents Andy & Laura made the early decision to quit the Roadblock and suffer the four-hour penalty for not doing the Roadblock. They figured out that four hours could just as well be time spent digging, and they were right. A couple of hours later, three other teams opted for the penalty, including Aubrey & Jaq. This penalty meant that after arriving at the Pit Stop, penalized teams would have to wait four hours before being officially checked in.

Because of the delay from the particularly difficult Roadblock, most of the teams arrived at the Ubud Monkey Forest, where clues for the Detour were, after closing hours. The next morning, seven teams combed the forest for less than ten of the correct clues among hundreds hanging from the trees. Any time advantages teams enjoyed were leveled, except for the four-hour penalty hanging over some of the teams' heads. You'd think Aubrey & Jacq would be working extra hard because of this, but while all the teams were running around the forest, they horsed around, fencing with sticks, walking around leisurely, and being girly-girly around the small, apparently harmless monkeys.

They were the last to leave for the Detour, and you'd think they'd try their best to rush through the rest of the tasks, but no. They just went their merry way, as pretty as you please. From Ubud Monkey Forest to the Tanah Lot Temple Pit Stop, I was grunting and rolling my eyes and sighing out of frustration at their performance. When host Allan Wu gave them the "You're the last team to arrive" spiel, and Jacq looked surprised, I was just about ready to scream, "Well what did you expect, airhead?"

But that's the end of that. I don't think I'll be following the race as closely now that the home teams are out of the running-the risk of a game that involves teams from different countries is to have nationalism come into play-but I'd like to see if Team M&M would win despite their, er, physical shortcomings.

Daniel Craig, 007

I only became a follower of the James Bond franchise when Pierce Brosnan came into the picture, and only because I couldn't possibly miss the golden age of my first crush's career. I remember kissing the television as a child during a Remington Steele!

I saw Daniel Craig in Munich, and remember being impressed, but when he was announced as Brosnan's replacement, I wasn't convinced. He didn't look like an elegant British spy, with his blond and blue-eyed rugged looks.

Despite being skeptical, I went to watch Casino Royale last night and was blown away. To say that Craig is great as James Bond is an understatement. He has practically reinvented it. The new James Bond is charismatic and dangerous. His arrogance is both threatening and sexy. This new Bond wants to be taken seriously. Moneypenny and Q are missing, being that this one covers Bond's earlier years-and includes, in fact, a love affair that ought to have lasted-but the absence of the playful, flirty banter and the staple "toys for the big boys" scenes have been replaced by action scenes like the mind-blowing foot chase that introduces us to Bond for the first time.

This early, I'm already anticipating the next Bond films.

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