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October Television Habits

I've been watching a lot of television lately.

Most of all, I've been watching the Red Sox during the playoffs. Sadly, they are now on the brink of elimination. I'll probably still watch a lot of the World Series, but it's not as much fun without the Red Sox.

Katie sometimes watches baseball with me (or reads a magazine while I watch), but Jon Stewart is the main show we watch together. We've even been to see him live recently. Most of our friends seem to like Steven Colbert better, but we enjoy how Stewart injects a lot more of his (liberal) politics into the show than Colbert, who offers more unthinking (though still quite funny) satire.

Last night, our friends Christy and Gabe threw a huge party to watch the finale of Project Runway. I knew nothing about the show but knew plenty about the soirees that Gabe and Christy throw. The champagne was flowing freely and compensated for the fact that I didn't really know what was going on. Katie and I feel a little embarrassed that we watched a show about fashion rather than the fourth Presidential ticket debate (we'd caught the first three), but we couldn't turn down the party!

The big television event of the season is something my family does annually. We all watch The Amazing Race, where 11 duos with some "relationship" compete in a bunch of strange contests all over the globe. It's an elimination style reality game, with a winner crowned at the end of the season.

We each picked our favorites after the second commercial break. We rolled dice to determine choosing order. This is the order in which teams were chosen:

Tina picked Mark and Bill (nerd friends)
Jeremiah picked Nick and Starr (siblings)
I picked Terence and Sarah (newly dating)
Mom picked Anita and Arthur (married beekeepers)
Katie picked Andrew and Dan (fraternity brothers)
Missy picked Kelly and Christy (divorcee friends)

So far, we've watched episodes 1 and 2. In the first episode, Mom's team bit the dust. She probably picked Anita and Arthur because she felt a closer kinship with what was by far the oldest team on the show. In the second show, Anthony and Stephanie were eliminated (no one had them). My team is a highly dysfunctional partnership, but they seem intelligent and in shape. We'll see if that propels them to victory despite Terence's constant whining.

Comments

  1. Hi there... this is Sarah of Team Terence & Sarah. Someone sent me your blog thinking I'd get a kick out of your family's Amazing Race game, and I did! I'm thrilled to see you're rooting for us, even though I'm not entirely clear on the selection process and whether it was 100% voluntary :)

    I obviously can't reveal anything about the results but at least we provide lots of drama and excitement (more than we ever expected!)... and at a minimum we've kept you in the game longer than your mom or Tina, whose teams are out already (which by the way is a huge shame - they were some of our closest friends on the Race)

    Enjoy the rest of the Race!
    Sarah

    ReplyDelete
  2. You might enjoy the podcast "RFF Radio" -- Rob and Trevor banter about many reality shows, including Amazing Race. They feature post-boot interviews with the racers -- Mark and Bill were on the most recent show, and they are hysterical. Funny guys.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Really? Your favorite reality show is the Amazing Race? I would not have guessed that...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think that Survivor is more strategic and is more interesting from a gaming perspective, but The Amazing Race is my sisters' favorite, and it also was conveniently shown on Sunday evenings, when we used to have family dinner regularly. Family dinner is no longer scheduled so regularly, but we have stuck to The Amazing Race as our television habit.

    ReplyDelete

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