World Hum’s Most Read: Aug. 30-Sept. 5

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What We Loved This Week: Jose Feliciano, Rub’ al Khali and Raw Oysters

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Don’t Be Cruel: Traveling ‘Elvis’ Draws Attention, Groans

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It’s Not Easy Being Green and Crucified

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A Tourist With a Shovel and a Hoe

When she arrived in Kenya to volunteer with the Maasai, Daniela Petrova looked down her nose at tourists there to have a good time. But was her own motivation much different?

How Should I Spend My Time in Spain?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Paul Theroux: Invisible Man on a Ghost Train

Jim Benning asks the author of “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” about his new book, aging and the challenge of disappearing in the age of the BlackBerry

Eat Ceviche in Lima

Grab a Cusqueña and get comfortable. As Nicholas Gill explains, a trip to a Peruvian cevichería can be an all-day immersion in good conversation and raw seafood.

Unsentimental Journeys: Wrestling With Paul Theroux

Bronwen Dickey considers “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: 28,000 Miles in Search of the Great Railway Bazaar”

My Travels, My Feet

After taking one too many headless torso shots of herself, solo traveler Sophia Dembling started snapping photos of her feet around the world, from the Grand Canyon to Red Square

Seven Reasons to Have a Foreign Fling

Sure, having an overseas romance is fun. But Terry Ward points out seven other benefits to cross-border love, mon petit chou.

Bloggers’ Race to Get on “Amazing Race” Heats Up

Posted by Michael Yessis • 8.9.05
Categories: Weblog • Audio/Video • Media Addict

Permalink • Comments (26)

I love it! 

We all need a little extra drama in our lives, right?

I’m really annoyed right now though, that Erica and I didn’t take a photo of ourselves in our matching “I’m Blogging This” t-shirts.

Since we went to the casting call, we didn’t feel the need to make another, separate video.  But should the one we made ever get released, watch out—we made complete idiots of ourselves!  It was awesome!  Awesome enough for me to use the word “awesome” to describe it.

You forget that Erica and Sherri are both attractive babes. Cameron and Damien… well… aren’t.

Advantage: Erica and Sherri

I have a feeling the video would have given you a little breathing room in the final decision, Sherri.

Whatever happens, I think some bloggers could really spice up “The Amazing Race.” Best of luck to you and Erica.

You forget that one of the most popular teams in TAR history is Kevin & Drew, two big, bald guys from New York. The producers know what works and being pretty and catty might actually work against the girls.

*Editor’s note: This comment has been edited.

Sherri and Erica are the team to beat. They will not only get on the show they will win the race. So says I.

I can’t say that I know what the producers are looking for.  They’ve tried duplicating “popular” teams before—did you notice that the last 3 seasons were all pretty much identical team-wise?  It’s getting old and tired.  People have already stopped watching as a result.  I think that’s why the producers are doing the family 4-some next season (which I anticipate will be a total flop) in an attempt to do something different. 

I think they need something new and fresh. Erica and I are entirely unlike any other team of women the show has had before and we don’t fit in to any one formula.  We’re about as different as two people can be while still getting along famously. 

They’d be fools not to pick us, but I’ve seen some of the teams they’ve picked in the past, so my hopes aren’t partucularly high.

Look out for a totally different team of life long friends.  If you think the bald guys had a slick video wait until Sara & Colleen unveil thier video.  Colleen wants to use the money to adopt a child and the two of them have climbed Killimonjaro together!

You forgot to mention that Sherri makes awesome cinnamon buns and that I’m sure she will send some to everyone who writes a letter to the producers begging for them to pick Sherri and Erica.

Hmm. Cut out the middlemen and send them buns to the producers (or better yet, the PAs that have to cull through all the piles of tapes).

Still, it’s hard to deny the advantage (and fan love) conferred by baldness. Besides Kevin and Drew, there’s Bald Snark, too (Ken and Gerard, TAR3).

Plus, it sure helped Chip/Kim and Uchenna/Joyce that at least one teammember sported a slick scalp.

The twins have got the edge. Just take a look at their testimonial page. It’s certainly far more impressive than a couple of low-level blogs linking back to the girls’ blogs. In fact, these girls should be thanking them for getting so much publicity around this idea. Without all of the high-level linkage they have, this discussion wouldn’t even be happening.

I mean, seriously. They twins got press and serious linkage from Blogger.com (the largest blogging service in the world) News.com, ScreenHead, Jossip, and what appears to be almost the entire blogosphere backing them. For chris’sakes, they were even on the front page of AOL.com for a while. It’s no contest. If CBS casts bloggers on TAR9, it should be two geek bloggers (one of whom pioneered blogs years before these girls even knew what blogs were), not two catty girls who are likely to break their nails trying to carry oversized backpacks full of cosmetics and toiletries.

Dave Scranton, for cryin’ out loud, would you please pull that stick out of your ass?

We’re just having some fun.  Sheesh!

And, for the record, I have nothing against the BloggerTwins.  I think what they’re doing is great and I wish them the best of luck.  They seem like pretty cool guys as far as I’m concerned.  Their apporach to the whole process is just drastically different than ours.  And that’s OK.

It’s all in good fun. 

Erica and I are NOT LOOKING FOR PROMOTION.  We’re not professional bloggers.  We’re not starved for attention.  We’ve never once indicated that we’re looking for anyone’s support.  We’re not trying to use TAR to launch any other activities.  We have lives, we have careers, we have a million other things we do, and auditioning for TAR just happens to be one of them.  And since our “low-level” blogs reflect our lives, yeah...we’ve happened to mention the whole audition process. 

If we get picked, great!  It will be a lot of fun and we’ll definitely provide LOTS of entertainment for the viewers.  If we don’t get picked, that’s fine too; we’ll still have fun watching the show and makign fun of the other teams.

BTW, your broken nails comment was so incredibly far off-base, I just had to laugh.  You clearly haven’t performed even a cursory review of either of our blogs.  I could kick your ass in a game of flag-football or in a 80 lb feedsack carrying contest any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Wanna have at it?

Bring it on, sister. I’m just saying you’re acting pretty defensively for someone who’s just along for the ride. Your blogs have certainly gained traffic this week from all of the press the twins have stirred up. You know you’ve been beat by two geeky bloggers and you’re afraid to admit it.

Dave Scranton sure seems to know a lot about blogs considering he doesn’t seem to have one. Either that, or he’s just afraid we might pay him a visit.

beat?
afraid to admit it?
catty?
low-level blogs?

You should really do your homework Dave, before making these wild inaccurate statements.

My site stats haven’t increased much this past week, nor do I particularly want them to.  I like my “low-level” blog just the way it is.  I like that I have real life relationships with about 75% of my regular readers.  If it ever morphs into something that garners readership much beyond what it has now, it will lose something and I will likely shut it down.  I don’t ever want to be a Dooce.

Quite frankly, I’m more amused and soemwhat baffled by this whole “buzz” thing than anything else.  We didn’t realize we were participating in a contest.  I mean, comparing us to the BloggerTwins is like comparing nuns to Vegas hookers and asking who gets more dates.  One pair has launched a relentless campaign for attention, the other pair hasn’t.

Wow, Dave Scranton totally needs his own blog!  Then he can clutter up his own web page with vitriol and leave everyone else alone.

My money is on Sherri and Erica.  Those two bloggertwins look like all they do is blog and maybe never leave their couches.  It does take athletic ability to win the Race or even get past teh first couple rounds.  Sherri and Erica have the Twins beat in spades there.

As far as taking digs at them and their blogs, just remember that you don’t know a thing about them.  That much is obvious from your comments.  They blog for fun and not for profit.  They auditioned because they want to experience something most people don’t and have fun doing it.  They really are not self-promoting, even now with this getting a little attention in the media.  I believe they are still just out to have fun and just hope to get picked and will count themselves lucky if they do.

I wish both teams the best of luck.  It would be a cool angle to have some bloggers on there.  You know they would have to give them a laptop to journal the whole process.

Good luck to all.

I think the TAR producers would be wise to pick both teams.  :-)

And how cool would it be to allow us to blog our experience as we go along, and the they could publish the blog as the verious episodes air?  That would be neat-o!

Yes, this was/is supposed to be fun, dammit! Fun, I say!

Forget just the two blogger teams. Let’s have an all blogger edition of TAR.

All I did was see those guys, and blog about it accordingly. Why wouldn’t I? We decided to go to the casting call and blog about our experience before we knew these guys even existed. We happen to think we’d make great contestants, as does everyone else who applies for the show.

Should we make it on, they’re gonna edit the hell out of us and make us into parodies of ourselves anyway, so a few blog comments hating on us are just the tip of the iceberg. My feelings aren’t hurt.

I still think we’re gonna rock it. *high fives Sherri*

I’d *love* to see the blogger-related teams get on the show (duh, since I’m 1/2 of TheBrothersCramer) and writeposts after each leg of the race. I think The Amazing Race website leaves a lot to be desired. It could only help.

I’d suggest the losers do some commentary throughout the race and post that as the episodes aired too. If the show is already paying to put these people up in a hotel somewhere before they can go home, might as well get their money’s worth and put ‘em to work.

It’d be a blast to be on the show. Bald, sassy, blonde… We can do any of that so bring it on. It would be our pleasure to have one of you come in second. We’d even spring for dinner. ;-)

It seems to me like Sherri/Erica and the BloggerTwins wouldn’t be matched against each other to get on the show anyway. TAR tends to cast different demographics for each slot of a particular run. The BloggerTwins would be considered against other applicants like themselves, same with Sherri and Erica.

True. I remember a season where the majority of the teams seemed to be “actors” and “models” and I did not like it as well as other seasons. It is better when the mix up the demographic more. However, I can’t help going back to something Sherri or Erica (don’t remember which right now) said in that blogging was only one of their attributes. The blogging aspect would be a similarity but I can’t see how the twins and sherri/erica or even my brother and myself would be *anything* like each other. If we all kept personal journals on paper it wouldn’t make a difference. Since it’s electronic, it makes us the same? Nah. Although, it’s ironic that my brother was playing with some of the images of the other “blogging” teams making our pictures look like them. Ha. (all in fun) Personally, no matter who the contestants are I think it would be cool to have them blog/journal/whatever and have the content online as the shows air. I don’t watch Big Brother but I thought somebody told me once that they had online webcams or something that people could view outside of just watching the show. Oh well… back to work.

Gee guys, don’t leave Dan and Bob out of all the fun: http://www.todayscacher.com/2004/nov/tb.asp.

Another TAR hopeful team using the Internet (via geocaching) to promote their aspirations of racing in The Big One.

Good luck to everyone. Okay, mostly everyone, lol! Did I mention I feed my cat goldfish? Just kidding!

Dawn
The Carolina Blondes

Consider the quest of Bob and Dan from Erie, Pennsylvania who are trying to get on the Amazing Race.  We are using the system of geocaching to transport a Travel Bug carrying our application video across the country from our hometown to Los Angeles, California.  We have received email from Austalia, South Africa, Canada and from around the U.S. from people who have seen the video and are wishing us good luck.  Check out our story and watch our funny 3 minute video at the following address.  You have to get creative to get the attention of CBS. 

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=67091

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