Man, what a week – Miss Alli’s recap for last week’s TAR episode went up a couple of days ago : Television Without Pity » The Amazing Race » Recaps & Extras » Season 5 Episode 5 And then there was tonight’s leg! Holy crap, another great, exciting, funny, sharply edited episode. Plus, the shots in Egypt at Karnak and the Great Pyramid and the other temple were really beautiful, especially the early morning sunrise shots. So many satisfying little moments watched, so many snarky cackles to make. Also, a few bombshells: after weeks of listening to Mirna’s Desperanto (which…

Saving Miss Alli’s recaplet for posterity: After universally unfortunate use of the word “choo-choo” on the way to The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the teams learn that it’s time to go to Egypt, yet another interesting new country that it seems like they would have gotten to before now, but haven’t. Colin and Christie kick the crap out of the airport strategy and stake themselves to a multiple-hour lead getting into Cairo. Once there, they decide to take the Fast Forward while it’s there for the taking, and they wind up getting to the pit stop while everyone else is…

Yep, let the screaming and note-taking begin: it’s TARsday today. In the previews last week, it’s obvious that everyone will scurry way down in Egypt land, because the pyramids and Sphinx shots are kind of hard to miss. I don’t know if they’ll stop off somewhere first, as in pick up a route clue at some intermediate point like Frankfurt, but I decided to copy from schedules from a few typical dates in late January or February to try to make sense of the inevitable airport scramble. I’ve stashed them in the extended entry for easier readablity. I have no…

Kaufman leads a crew of misfits, some lovable some downright annoying, who work on CITIZEN TOXIE. The standout is “Stunt Master” T.J.. Glenn, a big guy with a salt-and-pepper mullet and handlebar mustache who, in one of APOCALYPSE SOON’s funniest sequences, performs a extremely unconvincing “full body burn” where one’s entire flame retardant gel covered body is set ablaze and the fire extinguished after a period of writhing and screaming. Hey, I’ve seen T.J. Glenn in person! Jeebs, that takes me back. He did a martial arts demo at the first Highlander convention in Denver 10 years ago. I think…

Miss Alli’s got her recap up for the notorious caviar-scoffiing Russian Roadblock episode of TAR. Whee!!

Alton Brown doesn’t update his “Rants and Raves” page very often, so you’d best head on over and see what all his diet and exercise make him look like in his souped-up Speedos.

Now this is a punishing leg. Start with 20 hours on a bus (oy), and follow it with flying all the way from South America to Russia. Then choose between being pelted with hockey pucks and downing a shot, and just when you think you can’t get any queasier, you get to choose a member of your team to eat two pounds of caviar — an item intended to be ingested by the teaspoon. What begins as bus-station jostling over some very bizarre notions of racing (“Can we agree that you won’t try to get ahead of me?” “Uhh…”) matures…

Miss Alli has posted her recap for the third installment of “Berlitz Desperanto On The Go” at TWOP. Expect me to pretend to look busy at work for the next 10 minutes as I read it here.

Ther’s a Thai kickboxing movie out called Ong Bak! – the trailer is in Japanese with fantabulous stunts, including Flaming Feets of Whoopass and an exploding tuk-tuk. At one point in the breathless Japanese commentary, you can hear the words “Akushon speedo! (Action Speed!)” I think this is my new favorite phrase. And though I likely won’t see this film, it also plays like a particularly violent episode of Amazing Race – on steroids, crack, and Sterno. There are more links and background information here. Via BoingBoing.