TV Tidbits 88 - Project Runway

If you didn't see last night's episode - and you haven't yet stumbled across one of the many articles regarding it - and you don't want to know what happened, this post is not for you.

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If you DID see it - or you don't mind spoiling it for yourself - read on! Actually, it's not even really that juicy but EW.com posted a Q&A with self-ousted designer Maya. Sort of enlightening insofar as her motivation for quitting but nothing super mind-blowing. Still, I like to be informed so you will be, too!

(I'm very meh about this season of PR. I don't really have a favorite... I liked Anthony a lot but I agree that he was sort of a one-trick pony. Mila needs to be GONE (and soon, please!) and Jay and Jonathan are both sort of bland, blah, there. Emilio is... lispy. And anti-Tim. So, I guess I'm rooting for Seth Aaron. Maya's departure really does not rock my boat in any way, shape or form.)

Project Runway’s Maya Luz had an excellent shot at making the Bryant Park top three. This season’s most consistent designer, she earned high scores six times and never landed in the bottom. But as we all witnessed on tonight’s episode, the 22-year-old New Yorker opted to leave Runway altogether. EW was the first to speak to Maya about her controversial choice. In fact, we spoke to her before she’d even watched the episode herself.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So, how are you feeling about your decision all these months later?
Maya Luz: I feel good. From the very beginning, I had reservations about doing [the show], just because I didn’t know if it was really me, the whole TV thing. But it was amazing to be offered this opportunity, so I decided to take it. In the very beginning, I really did want to win and I wanted to go to Bryant Park. But as time went on, I decided it just wasn’t my time yet to go all the way. I’d just graduated from school this past May. I did an internship with another designer, but I haven’t had a full-time design job yet. Those kinds of thoughts were wearing down on me during the show, so I decided one morning, out of the blue. That’s what felt right to me.

How long did it take you to make the decision?
I really only started thinking about it the day before, after the print challenge. When I thought of having my life back, it seemed appealing to me. I didn’t talk to anybody about it because I wanted to stay strong and not get emotional. I talked to Tim first and he understood what I was saying. When I said, “I think I’m still searching for who am I as a designer, I’ve just graduated, and I have a lot to learn about this industry,” he agreed with me. He said, “I can see that. And I think it’s very brave of you.”

But you had such a strong chance of making it to the top three.
We’ll never know, but I have a pretty good feeling that I might have made it to the final three. But that’s why I decided not to go through with it. There’s so much at stake. When I come out with a line, I want it to be something dignified, something that I’ve had time to work on in a way that I didn’t through these circumstances [on Project Runway]. I didn’t want to bottom out. If I won, I didn’t want to be a one-hit wonder and fade away slowly. I felt like I would be getting into [the industry] in a naïve way, not really knowing what I was doing, not being able to handle the business aspect of it.

Tim asked you if you if you could stick it for out one last challenge. Have you had any pangs of regret — like, maybe I should have hung on?
I don’t regret anything because it felt right at the time. It still feels right. Certainly I wonder what could have happened had I gone all the way. But I still feel like, I’m a baby. I have a lot to learn. Later down the line, I would love to see myself on the show again, competing at an older age at a higher level, with more experience under my belt. I think I have what it takes — the talent and the drive.

At the end of last week’s episode, you seemed disappointed that you didn’t win. A lot of people were wondering, what does she have to do to win? Did that influence your decision to leave?
I think subconsciously it did on some level because I had been in the top so many times at that point. It was going pretty well. It was making me wonder, what is it that I’m missing? I’m almost there, but there’s always something that’s not quite right for the judges. And on the same note, they’re just three eyes—or four, whatever, counting the guest judge. [Laughs] There’s a lot of other people in the world.

And it is just a TV show, after all.

Exactly. That’s the other part of it, too. It is about fashion, but it’s also about making a show and having a story. That turned me off initially. There have to be people who are really attractive, or really quirky or really funny, or all those things. But in the fashion industry, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how cool your personality is. If you make good work and if you can sell it, then you’re gonna do well.

In tonight’s episode, there was a flashback to Nina telling you that your work was too referential. Did that critique influence your decision? The editing made it seem like it did.
Mmm… Well, that’s unfortunate to hear. That is not the reason. It’s an extremely ridiculous thing to say. Not that I don’t respect Nina’s opinion, ’cause certainly I respect it. She gave me a lot of good feedback. But you could say that about every single person on the show — most specifically, the print challenge with Emilio. His print was Louis Vuitton, who’s done [a similar monogram pattern] for several seasons. The only reason why Nina said that [to me] was because Jay had said it in the workroom, which I don’t think they showed on the episode. He said [about my open-weave jacket], “Oh that looks like Yves Saint Laurent.” Because Yves Saint Laurent did these shoes — they were shoes, not a jacket — which had the same cage effect. So he said that and then all of a sudden it turns up on the runway. It was magic!

A case of a producer slipping something to the judges?
Yeah, a little man behind the curtain. I didn’t say any of that on the runway because I felt like, What’s the point? Sometimes I wish I had. But it’s just not worth battling it. I always like to be respectful on camera, especially to the judges.

How do you feel about your departure allowing Anthony to come back?
Well, honestly, it just refuels that kindling flame I had about [the show] being about personality. Obviously I love Anthony — who doesn’t? He’s hilarious. I couldn’t even write the things that he comes up with. I think he will be successful because he’s got this really charming charisma, but his dresses — he did make a lot of the same type of thing over and over. That’s what he’s good at. He’s a dressmaker. He can do that and be successful at it.

Seth Aaron and Emilo had very different reactions to your departure. Seth Aaron defended you, while Emilio called you a quitter.
People are going to say a lot of things and I can’t let that get to me. I never thought Emilio was ever very warm and fuzzy. I think he was there from the very beginning to just bang it out and win and not worry about anybody else. But when you’re not around anybody else, you need some human compassion, so we all kind of became friends with each other. I didn’t see a lot of that from Emilio, really. He had his moments, but for the most part, he really stuck to himself, in no-b.s. mode. So it doesn’t surprise me that he would say something like that. You can call it what you want. I wouldn’t call it quitting.

Who are you rooting for now?
I’m rooting for Mila. I really liked Jonathan too. They were my good buddies. And Amy. But I’m definitely rooting for Mila. Go girls!

What was your favorite design of the season?
My favorite design was [my outfit from] the hardware challenge, definitely. The necklace was probably my favorite piece because it is totally me: it’s beautiful and classic but also a little punk rock.

What’s next for you?
Right now, I am working on my handbag line — the spiky stuff, the ball-and-chains, all that stuff. I’m working on orders for boutiques and personal orders. Then I’m working on a collection for StyleWeek Providence in June. Jonathan and I are both showing. My collection is called Creature and it’s inspired by monsters. I’m also looking for a job in the design field and applying for my masters in London. I just want to gain more experience. You’ll be seeing more of me. [Laughs] Project Runway is just one little notch in the resumé, one little thing. I’ll be back.

The 2nd Plague

Okay, so since Cesar Chavez's selfless actions afforded me the luxury of a day off yesterday, I finally got around to uploading the photos of the the sink overflow aftermath. (It's too bad there isn't a scratch-and-sniff option because the aroma of manky swamp water that has since permeated the house really adds a little zest to the photos.) Let me start back at the beginning...

Since we've lived in the condo, we have had 3 different people/families occupying the unit above us. It wasn't until the 3rd family moved in about 6 months ago that we started having plumbing problems. The sink would just start backing up at random; we quit putting anything other than liquids down the disposal after the first backup so we were confident it was a problem with the people upstairs. Before the overflow last Wednesday, there had been 3 earlier incidents of sink pluggage. We were (luckily) home for all 3 of those occurrences, though more than 1 of them required Robert to chop up our hose, shove a section down the drain, suck on the other end to start the flow and defile one of our old garbage cans with grody water emptied from the sink. Biji and Carissa were at our place during one of these hose parties - they can vouch for us. (Poor Robert... I don't know what all he's accidentally ingested against his will while sucking on the hose.)

Cutting to Wednesday: When I got home from work at about 5:45 I saw that the sink had backed up about halfway. The water level didn't change while I changed and grabbed my tap shoes so I called Robert at work, left him a message and ran out the door. Robert usually comes home a little earlier on Wednesdays to grab the dog from my parents' house while I'm at class, so I figured I was safe heading to class. (Plus, let's be honest - I am so useless in those kinds of situations. Would I have done a lot to rectify the situation had I stayed? No. I just would've watched the water level to make sure it was static. If it started overflowing, I probably would've called my dad!) Unfortunately, Robert had already left by the time I'd left the message (which, in my defense, was quite out of the ordinary. The man NEVER leaves before 6, even if the house is burning down. I swear!) and since I didn't leave a duplicate message on his cell (see previous sentence) he never got the memo. Long story less long: miscommunication on both ends led to disaster.

By the time I got back from class at 7:30, I knew as soon as I opened the door that we were in trouble. The back door was all fogged over, the room was crazy humid and the smell was already bordering on rank. From 6:15 (when I left) to 7:30 the sink had gone from half-full to completely overflowing onto the kitchen floor. So much so that there was a half-inch of standing water in the kitchen that was slowly seeping into the living room carpet. Water that wasn't just water but water full of weird food remnants like oatmeal, cilantro and some kind of bean residue. So, of course, I stood there like a deer in the headlights and called Robert. He, of course, hadn't gotten my message and so had no idea what I was talking about; I, on the other hand, thought he had received the message and thought he was a #1 bonehead for going to the dog park when the sink was clogged. Anyway, he came home, grabbed the wet/dry vac (which I didn't even know we had... see? Useless!) and got to work. (Oh, I should add that when he went to the upstairs neighbor and told him about what was happening and asked him to refrain from showers, etc., the neighbor balked because he needed to shower before work. Douche. Robert made it quite clear that was not an option.)

The soaked carpet at the kitchen floor/living room border

The kitchen cabinets started absorbing water...

And the water actually started seeping outside from the kitchen/living room floor

As Robert ran out to the patio to start dumping the siphoned water over the ledge, he noticed that a bunch of water was leaking out onto the patio from the kitchen. Nice.

The water actually made it into the living room proper - the worst was right in front of the fireplace.

Summing up the aftermath: We had to go through the HOA and they got a plumber and a restoration crew out to the house by 10 or so Wednesday night. The plumber said he pulled a bunch of vegetables and a big wad of celery from the pipe. (I should add that the pipes in our complex are all completely level - there is no slope. Every time we've had to call a plumber out for the sink, they've all complained about the stupid pipe set-up.) So it's clear that the upstairs neighbor is a COMPLETE moron. Who puts celery of all things in a disposal?! Good grief. Even the plumber, when we asserted it was not us who had put the crap down the sink, said "Yeah, the first floor people rarely do. Because they know what can happen." Indeed.

The restoration guys did their thing (removed the manky carpet padding, baseboards, etc.) and set up a combination of fans and dehumidifiers. Here is one fan (and a very pleased Robert) trying to dry out the carpet:

Ah, the old Lava Eruption peel-and-stick tiles that the previous owners slapped down all over the house. How nice to see you again...

The restoration guys came back Thursday to check on the progress. Not good. They said the kitchen floor was much wetter than they thought it would - and should - be. So, they told us they'd be back Friday to rip up the floor. Robert and I were both bummed by this news because the kitchen linoleum was the only floor in the condo that we really, really liked! It was great! Even the restoration guys asked us if it was new because it was in such good shape. Suck.

Unfortunately, the restoration peeps left 3 gigantenormous dehumidifiers running all throughout the weekend and that really sucked. So very loud. SO very hot! We tried to be out of the house as much as possible and when we were in, it was shorts and flip flops all the time. (As I said in the earlier post, it got up to 81 degrees in the condo so I'm not exaggerating here, people!) They came back Monday morning and said the cabinets by the fridge were still wet, so they took 1 dehumidifier away and left the other 2. I had stayed home in the morning to catch the restoration guys and so when my dad stopped by later to pick up the dog, he was kind enough to wheel the fridge out as far as it would go to dry those puppies out as much as possible! Luckily for us, when the RPs returned on Tuesday they deemed everything dry enough and took the last 2 demon boxes away. YAY!

Now the condo is back to normal temperatures and this is what we have:




As much as I don't like them the HOA has actually done a pretty okay job on getting everything done as quickly as possible. The maintenance guy called us up yesterday to set-up an appointment with the flooring people and they are coming tomorrow to assess the damage. We'll hit their showroom on Saturday to pick out our new flooring and then I guess they'll install its sometime next week. The HOA also called the upstairs neighbor to inform him he's an idiot and not to shove everything but his couch down the disposal. I don't know what he said to them but he hasn't come and said anything to us yet, which is not impressing Robert too much. I just hope the dude heeds their warning and refrains from putting anything down their disposal! I don't have a lot of faith, though. Keep your fingers crossed.

(Oh, and just FYI, I called the post 'The 2nd Plague' because I kept making the joke that on Monday we had the power outage and on Wednesday we had the water damage, so by Friday the locusts should arrive. No one got my joke, though. It's sad.)

Flood Update

I realize this is sort of putting the cart before the horse but since the majority of you already know about our water woes (and it's taking me forever and a day to post photos of the mess), I figured it'd be okay to post a little update. The restoration dudes came bright and early this morning and FINALLY took the last of the dehumidifiers away. We have had them running since Wednesday night so Robert and I are ecstatic to have the demon boxes removed. We can finally hear ourselves talk! And now maybe it'll drop below 77 degrees in the house! (It was 81 degrees when we went to bed last night... Ridiculous! Seriously. I've never been so hot and so dry in my life. We've been going through water and lotion like it's going out of style!!!) I promise to post a more thorough account of the disaster soon but I wanted to let you guys know that we are surviving. Installation of new flooring TBD...

Amazing Race 16: Week 7

Ugh. Sunday's episode should've been awesome - Brent and Caite and Brandy and The Other One both had rotten luck and I was giddy with glee watching them drive their oxes back and forth. (Especially since I was super pissed that B and C went from last to first in a matter of moments! Stupid faraway exotic locale with limited flights.) But then the cowboys were boneheads not once but twice and it made me sad. Will they be able to survive their Speed Bump next week? Oh, my gravy I hope so!!!

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The Race switched hemispheres last night, and the trip south turned the game upside-down. In the middle of the Indian Ocean, the last would become first. Black would turn into white. Pigs would fly. Hell would turn into a popular ski resort. And the phrase ''Currently in First Place'' would float onscreen underneath the pouty faces of Brent and Caite.

The promos for last night's episode made light fun of the teams' various pronunciations of ''Seychelles.'' My favorite was how Jet and Cord made it rhyme with ''Achilles,'' though I also admired how Caite said it with a bizarro-Spanish inflection. (It sounded a bit like ''Say-HYELL-ays.'') All the racers were set to depart on the same airplane. We saw the Cowboys and the Detectives set off to find food at the airport, which seems like the first tactical error in a rough day. All the other teams managed to book themselves precise seats in the airplane. Team Dating Models were up in front in row 7, followed by Steve and Allie in row 15 and JorDaniel in Row 15.

That meant Brent and Caite were the first to find the clue waiting for them in the island of Mahe. It was a day of island-hopping. The six teams would be flying by helicopter to La Digue. The first three teams flew off immediately; the next three would have to wait an hour for the copters to return. That left Team Detective, Team Cowboy, and Team Adorable Squabbling way in back. ''The three strongest teams were in fourth, fifth, and sixth,'' Carol said.

Now, that's not quite fair. The Detectives are a proven quantity, but a winning streak doesn't mean much in this game. The Cowboys are lovable but erratic. And Brandy and Carol didn't exactly dominate Europe. Plus, Carol was discounting Steve, who might be the best all-around player this season.

But without a doubt, it was weird seeing Brent and Caite in first. They both rejoiced in their own particular ways: Brent started talking like an idiot savant from a Terrence Malick movie — ''The views are sick. It's like something from a postcard'' — and Caite ignored him and started making battle plans. ''I just wanna get the mean lesbians out," she said.

The competition choice was between Turtle Toddle or Ox Trot. Given the amount of alcohol-related competitions this season, I was hoping ''Turtle Toddle'' would involve getting a century-old tortoise drunk on rice wine. But unfortunately, the game was just luring a century-old tortoise across a marker, and then carrying a mountain of bananas to the fruit merchant. Ox Trot was, I think, the clear choice here: load a cart with coconuts and drive an ox cart to the harbor. Everyone knows that oxen are more obedient than tortoises! Snooty tortoises, they think their ability to outlive the rest of existence makes them sooo cooool.

Brent declared that Team Plastic would ride an ox cart. Dan and Jordan followed suit. Steve made an aggressive move when he chose the shelled centenarian. ''I never met an ox that I could trust,'' he said darkly. ''Turtles are cool, man.'' Allie discovered some kind of turtle-whispering skills, and charmed their hero in a half-shell over the finish line. Steve: ''That's what her mom does to me all the time. Maybe with a beer or something.'' If season 16 of The Amazing Race had its own drinking game, ''someone mentions how much Steve likes beer'' would be worth a shot of tequila.

Props to the cameraperson covering Caite and Brent on this episode: he or she got a pair of awesome shots, first of the Detectives' helicoper flying over the models' pretty heads and then of the telltale coconut they left behind. Here's what Brent and Caite said to each other as they drove away, still in first place:

''You're a dummy!''
''You're a dummy!''
''You're a friggin idiot!''
''You're a friggin idiot!''

Their ox rebelled against all the inanity and stopped in his tracks. A little ways behind them, Dan and Jordan named their ox Box, in honor of their father's company. Box apparently found this charming and sped up.

Steve and Allie arrived at the fruit merchant first, covered in banana gunk. They were sent off to a boat. Success! Except then they realized they had left their backpacks behind. Failure! Meanwhile, Brent and Caite arrived at the harbor. Success! The fruit merchant took one look at the models' cart and said, ''It's not enough coconuts.'' Failure!

The two teams each dealt with strife in their own way. Steve joked with Allie about how she didn't need makeup, and then noted, ''It'll make us faster, that's for sure.'' Brent threw a fit and announced that he was going to go home and cry about it: ''I quit. I quit. I quit.'' Viewers, he lies!

While Brent and Caite were going backwards, the stragglers arrived on La Digue. The Detectives and the Cowboys both chose Ox Trot. Cord: ''Usually we're loading feed, instead of whatever these things are.'' Brandy and Carol chose the tortoise thing, which turned out badly (their tortoise wouldn't move) and then turned out badly-er (he would only move in the wrong direction.) They also ended up piling coconuts in the ox cart.

Far, far in the lead, Steve dived down to a submerged case of bottles. (Phil charmingly explained the rules of the competition while talking underwater. Is hosting The Amazing Race the coolest job in show business?) Inside of the bottle was some kind of map that had to be assembled — the show seemed to purposefully hide the map-assembly part, probably because it was a little bit silly (as we saw, one team found their way to the pit stop without even putting the map together.)

''My dad is a great swimmer,'' said Allie. ''When he goes to the gym, he'll swim for like an hour.'' Viewers, I've been a bit tough on Allie, and I realize that it's only because her papa-teammate seems like such a one-man band. Like, what can't this man do? (Okay, he can't make the Indians win the pennant, but maybe he just needs the right players.) Steve and Allie finished first for the day, and got lots of 7-themed presents from 7-Up. Phil: ''7-Up is giving you $7,000 each! And all the 7-Up you can drink!'' Allie: ''God has a plan!''

Jordan and Daniel (who everyone in the Race refers to as ''The Brothers,'' indicating that not even their fellow players can tell them apart) arrived in second place. Not bad for a team that many people (myself included) had been discounting.

Louie and Michael were making good time. So were Jet and Cord, although we saw them leave a coconut behind. Carol and Brandy made a point of checking, and they still left a coconut behind. That meant half the teams in the Race ran afoul of the Telltale Coconut. I have to say, this was a bit dispiriting — it didn't seem that hard to do a spot-check. But I enjoyed the random guy whose job was to stand by the Telltale Coconut and point. The fruit merchant, for his part, seemed to grin wider and wider when he told teams they didn't have enough coconuts.

The Cowboys responded with a nonchalant ''oh, my gravy,'' and turned around. Brandy and Carol took it harder. Carol: ''I think when you threw some in…'' Brandy: ''When I threw some in?'' Jet and Cord seemed to brighten when they passed the ladies. ''There's still hope, man! There's still hope!''

Brent and Caite got their latest bit of good luck when their boat passed the Detectives' boat. Brent dived for Team Superficial, while Michael dived for Team Bogart. They decided to do a superhero team-up when they hit the shore (though Louie looked like he was about to drown in two feet of water for a second there). Said Caite: ''There's more strategy. We wanted them to make it.''

Hmmm, but who was being strategic here? The teams arrived right behind each other, models in third and detectives in fourth. Phil played some Question Master with them. We learned that Team Model likes the Detectives and the Cowboys, but that (apparently) no one likes Brandy and Carol. Michael said, vaguely, ''You wanna be negative, be somewhere else.'' I suspect that Louie and Michael were playing up the hatred to appease Brent and Caite. Caite said, ''They just keep being mean to me,'' still upset by a ''tiara joke.'' (''Um, I've only been in, like, three pageants,'' said she.) Brent nodded. ''It's pretty anonymous amongst the teams.'' Phil's response gave last night's episode its title: ''Anonymous?''

Jet and Cord were cruising for an easy fifth place. Cord was even kind enough to offer the ship's captain his bottle. Read the directions, guys! They left the bottle behind, swam to the shore of Praslin Island, and found Phil Keoghan using only their sense of smell. They laughed a little bit as Phil flashed them a quizzical expression. For me, the moment of the night was the look on Cord's face as Phil explained to them that they would have to swim back to the ship, get the bottle, and then return. The music got crazy. Like, industrial-rock crazy.

They had to swim about 300 yards or so, and they were halfway there when Carol and Brandy showed up. Said Cord, for the second time in the episode, ''I'm not giving up until Phil says you have to go!'' I'm a big Cowboy fan — with Jeff gone, they're the season's reigning one-liner kings — so I thought this climax was a genuine nailbiter. Race, Cowboys, race! Race for your life, Charlie Brown!

Well, the Cowboys lost, but Phil didn't send them home. I'm always a bit suspicious of the non-elimination episodes (funny how it's usually the most viewer-friendly teams who benefit, huh?) but I breathed a little sigh of relief. The Cowbros will have to do a speed bump next week, but they took the news in stride. ''Champions aren't necessarily the people who ride the most bulls,'' said Jet. ''They're the people that get bucked off and still pick themselves up.''

''When you hit bottom, the only place to go is up,'' concluded Jet. ''You should write a country song,'' said his brother.

As for the standings, I'm inclined to think that we'll be back to Detectives vs. Steve next week, but I'm intrigued to see what Jordan and Daniel can do with a big lead. Since it's always possible that a blind one-legged man walking across a desert planet will find a wormhole leading to a dimension made of water, I suppose it's vaguely possible that Brent and Caite will accidentally do something right (or at least not do too many things wrong).

At this point, the only team who I've really had my faith shaken in is the Cowboys. I figured that a trip to slightly-less metropolitan surroundings would do them good. But they had to go backwards twice this week, just like last week's ''we went to the wrong town again'' mishap on the French freeway. I still think they have the best attitude of any of the teams. But attitude only goes so far. Right?

How'd you like the episode, Racers? Were you surprised to see that Cord didn't keep his hat on when he went swimming? Do you agree that Steve is just crushing it this season? Are your hearts warming to Brent and Caite? Are you confused by all the Carol/Brandy haterade, or do you think that ''tiara'' comment will come back to haunt them? And is it just me, or does Brent look exactly like Finn, Meadow's boyfriend from The Sopranos?

Was Josh Hartnett Ever Handsome?

Okay, so I know this skit came out a looooong time ago (in Entertainment time, anyway) and I really wrestled with whether or not to even post it. But then I thought my week has been PRET-ty crappy so if this made me laugh, damn it, I'm gonna post it! So here it is.

The first video is of Jimmy Kimmel's post-Oscar 'Handsome Men's Club' skit; the second is a short bloopers reel.

Funny or Die: Weird Al

Oh, Weird Al. How you make me laugh.

"Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" from Aaron Paul

Music Minims 09: a-ha

I bought Robert and me some el cheapo nosebleed section tickets to a-ha's 'Ending on a High Note' tour last week and everyone I've told* has had the same reaction: " 'Take On Me' a-ha? I didn't know they were still around!" And while I am far from an a-ha groupie - I can't name the other two dudes in the band and I am only truly familiar with a handful of songs - I do enjoy the songs I know and thought catching them on their final tour would be kind of cool. Robert was surprisingly amenable to going so I snatched up the tickets and we're off to see them in May. (They're only playing in NY, Chicago and L.A. and we're seeing them on the final date of their final stop in the U.S. Lucky! Plus, the L.A. show the night before ours is sold out so there are some closet a-ha fans out there.) So! Just so you know there are lots of other songs in a-ha's repertoire, here are a few that I especially like. And, conveniently, Morten looks hooooooooooooooooooooot in most of the clips so, y'know, win-win.

(Oh, Morten is so dreamy in this performance. Yummers!!!)

(This is the video for the title track of their most recent album)

*Except for Work Mel. When I told her she said "a-ha?! But they only had one song! "I wear my sunglasses at night..."" To which I responded, "That's not a-ha, stupid! That's Corey Hart. Duh." And it is. See?

Power Outage

We haven't had a power outage that lasted for more than 5 minutes in a long, long time. (We didn't get our power back until 9:30 so it looks like we were on the late end of the restoration.) As I read my book by the light of my LED flashlight and Happy Hour Fun Time Margarita candle, I was reminded how happy I am to live in modern times and not during the days of the pioneer. Oh, and I was pissed off to miss Chuck. Now I'll have to watch it on Hulu... I hate that!

Amazing Race 16: Weeks 5 & 6

Oh my goodness! As I started to dive into this week's recap, I realized that I completely forgot to post last week's! Sorry (Robert and John)! I must admit I did read it myself in a timely fashion but I think my actually being busy at work coupled with it being one of the most boring recaps in history allowed it to slip through the cracks. So, without further ado, here's the recap to last week's episode:

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Wow. Do you think when the teams signed up for this season of Amazing Race they knew they'd be ''shot at'' or have to crawl under ''barbed wire'' that could tear their skin apart? Holy waiver! No, I'm joking. The family-hour version of World War I looked more like a Nickelodeon take on battle, with really messy piles of dirt blowing everywhere and wire about as dangerous as that Pamela Anderson movie. Which is not to say this week wasn't a battle because it was.

And kudos to the show because by halfway through the episode I thought we were going to see the exact same results as last week with Jeff and Jordan headed home. But, you never know when that Travelocity gnome will show his dark side and someone will forget to pick up a clue and someone else will get U-turned. Okay, the gnome had nothing to do with it, but he scares me anyway.

Let's go pre-war when the teams were on a bus headed to a secret location. Joe and Heidi were in the back, Joe's knee on a vat of ice. ''The race has put a toll on my leg,'' he said. ''I've been running with one leg.'' Um, did he see season 10? Someone named Sarah ring a bell? That's called running the race with one leg. But I can't really diss Joe so much because he actually redeemed himself as a decent guy tonight. Not sure why he insisted on being a jerk every other week, but the hobbled knee made him a lot kinder to Heidi. Even Heidi went on about their ''unconditional love and patience toward each other.'' Too bad everyone didn't feel that unconditional love for them. And by everyone I mean Louie and Michael.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Teams got off the bus and headed to Saint Menehould where they had to find a boulangerie and buy a fresh baguette. Okay. Yum. How good did those loaves look? Kind of loved Steve and Allie and their bread banter about which one of them did or did not know what a baguette was. Now that Berty Van M. is actually showing them for more than 1.2 seconds an episode, they're proving to be one of the most adorable racing couples ever on the show. They're funny, competent, charming, and supportive. And, by the looks of the past few weeks, they're going to be around much longer.

A few other teams have a hard time wrapping their heads around the word ''baguette.'' It's not that hard a word to master, guys. Haven't you ever been to Au Bon Pain? Jet calls it something like ''bay-gou-ette'' and I'm instantly understanding why French people don't like when Americans speak their language.

But when it came to speaking in tongues, the award of the night has to go to Brent and Caite. Brent's brilliant moment would come later, but when embarking on this leg Caite says, ''We're doing everything great. We like to think that we know where we're going when we really don't so we need to stop being so hard at it.'' I have absolutely no idea what that means, but it's still a notch more coherent than her Miss Teen USA days, so I guess we should applaud her.

Poor Jeff and Jordan left seemingly hours later than the rest of the teams and they didn't get off to a good start. Jordan couldn't seem to figure out traffic circles, Jeff couldn't seem to figure out why Jordan couldn't figure things out. When they finally made it to the boulangerie, Jeff looked so confused I was worried he'd eat that carbo-clue bite by bite. Thankfully, he figured out the ol' ''Clue baked in the bread!'' concept.

Of course, by this time plenty of the teams are at the detour at Le Main des Massiges. Teams had to decide between ''In the trenches'' or ''Under fire.'' It's so obvious that ''Under Fire'' (crawl under ''barbed wire'' to retrieve a clue, crawl back) is much easier than ''In the trenches'' (decode message using Morse Code). Sure enough, all the teams go that route. It looked like it should look kinda scary, with the ''soldiers'' flying those cool vintage planes and firing things and sitting in dugouts. But of course, all the people that get to do cool stuff are the paid extras. Crawling to get the clue is just a drag and one that gave Louie quite a hard time. (Maybe Louie is not such a badass cop after all. Michael compared the race to being detectives earlier by saying ''We might get some sleep. We might not. You don't get to wash your clothes. You go dirty. We live that life every day.'' Maybe so Michael, but your buddy almost passed out from a little belly crawl and some dirt in his face.)

The other teams seemed to fare better than Louie (except for relentless gripers Brandy and Carol). Joe had no problem assuming the position because of past experience. ''At home, I play horsey with the kids so that's the position I'm in a lot.'' And now, let's all thank the heavens the phrase ''with the kids'' was in that sentence. Jordan got into role-playing, even asking some extra if he's okay, as if they're in battle together, and Caite seemed psyched for the ab workout.

When Louie and Michael easily finished first, they didn't seem to think twice about using the blind U-turn (which is totally not blind because they were the first team so it was obvious who was doing it). ''I didn't come here to make friends,'' Michael said. Sure enough, he put up Joe and Heidi's sticker (after debating whether to U-turn Steve and Allie) and we were given a flashback of Joe saying he wasn't threatened by the other teams.

As predicted, the Morse code challenge was really damn hard and Joe and Heidi, who now had to complete their second detour, kept getting the stern soldier's ''no'' when they came up with ''vive la liberty'' (which, hello, is half English and half French) and ''Vive la victoire.'' Things were looking bleak.

But, oh yeah, there was still Jeff and Jordan. And never overestimate the intelligence of Brent and Caite!

Jeff and Jordan completed their ''Speed Bump'' which was basically fixing up part of the trench, a task they seemed to complete in 3.2 seconds. As they were finishing, I was saying out loud to my TV, ''Don't do the Morse code! Don't do the Morse code!'' I got even more worried when Jeff told Jordan it was up to her to choose which detour task they'd do. Thankfully, she went for ''under fire'' and we were treated to Jeff's awesome instruction of how to climb under ''barbed wire.'' ''Put your boobs on the ground and drag ‘em over to here.'' Hear that, women of the military? When they finally finished the task Jeff had my favorite line of the night when he said, ''Is the war over cause of this message or cause it took us so long to get here?'' I was starting to give up hope that Jeff and Jordan were going to make it to the finals. She just didn't seem to want it as badly as Jeff did. She's the Dan of the couple and Jeff is the Jordan. Boy, Jordan. Sorry, that was confusing.

But let's pause for a moment for a line of idiocy from Brent who was trying to figure out what it meant to ''walk south,'' as it was written on the clue. ''I wonder if they meant just south like a direction or just south as in like go that direction.'' Um, what?

Eventually, all teams stuck on their faux mustaches, put on their awesome turn-of-the-century gear, and got on their 1903-esque bikes (except for poor Joe and Heidi who were huddled in a little nook holding each other and crying as if they just lost their entire battalion) to ride to the pit stop. I could've done without the crotch shot of Louie getting into his biking gear, but you have to admit that he and Michael ran a great race this week and they deserved to come in first. ''We're representing law enforcement all around the world,'' Michael said, which is admirable, except that he had a fake mustache hanging off his face.

Steve and Allie stayed strong, coming in second. Jet and Cord arrived third because Jordan and Dan didn't hustle. Carol and Brandy miraculously arrived fifth and brainiacs Brent and Caite came in sixth.

I can't deny that I'm happy that Jeff and Jordan have lived to see another week. But I did feel bad when Joe and Heidi couldn't even finish their task. At least there's dignity in finishing the leg but coming in too late to earn a spot on the next leg. There's little to cheer about when Phil has to come to you, long after the sun has set, to tell you that you've been booted because you can't tell your dashes from your dots.

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Now! On to this week's recap! It's definitely better than the previous (there was a LOT to work with this week so a stinky recap would've really sucked) and while I appreciate the recapper hating on Caite (because I wanted to punch her in the mouth yesterday - good GRIEF is she annoying!), I thought more would be made of not one but two teams thinking Joan of Arc had something to do with animals. C'mon, people! You are doing nothing for America's reputation abroad (especially when you keep complaining about French people... in France... not speaking English well. Gah!). This episode really made my brain hurt. Oh, and if the cowboys don't get it together and do better next week I will be very upset. Oh, my gravy they are too sweet! They have to get back into the top 2 because I don't want to have to root for Steve and Allie or Brandy and the-one-whose-name-I-never-remember. I won't!

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The Champagne province of northeastern France has seen its share of great battles. Way back in year 451, the Romans, the Visigoths, and the Franks did a superhero team-up to defeat Attila and his Fighting Huns. A thousand years later, France and England fought over Champagne; a century after that, the region saw a knock-down drag-out fight between the Catholics and the Huguenots. On last night's episode of The Amazing Race, Champagne was the setting of still another great conflict: the terrifying battle between Team Newly Dating and Team Dating Models to decide who would be the most blockheaded pair of human beings in the history of traveling.

Okay, I'm being a little bit harsh on Jordan and Jeff. The dearly departed CBS Reality All-Stars never seemed to find any traction on Race, but at least they had a robust sense of humor. When Jordan kept on insisting that Joan of Arc was the man who built a ship for the animals, Jeff softly said, ''That was Noah,'' and followed that up with a Jim Halpert-esque wink to us viewers: ''I wonder why we're in last.'' Sure, the Big Brother couple had a minor touch of travel ADD. In this episode, we saw them get distracted by some kind of S&M fashion shop, which is probably just the French version of Macy's. But it was the first time that Jordan ever traveled outside of America (and perhaps outside, period). Who can blame them for being a bit overwhelmed?

You know who's not overwhelmed? The freakin' Detectives. Riding high off of two straight first-place finishes, Louie and Michael were feeling fat and sassy when they started the day at 7:47 am. Louie: ''The other teams are like chickens with their heads cut off.'' Michael: ''We're gonna own this continent.'' (Careful, Michael, you're not the first guy to say that.) The first instruction was pretty straightforward. The teams had to drive 37 miles to Reims, France, a city liberated by Joan of Arc. There, they had to find a statue of Saint Joan in front of a Gothic cathedral, where a lady playing a singing saw would hand them their next clue. (If you're like me, your first question was: Wait, since when can saws sing?)

Steve and Allie were the next to leave. Last night's episode finally illuminated the secret genius of their team: Steve is insanely good at doing absolutely everything, and Allie is extremely good at staring blankly into space and saying mouth-words. Allie: ''Maybe Jeanne d'Arc is actually Arc de Joan, like Arc de Triomphe is Ark of… Triomphe.'' Jet and Cord talked adorably about trying to find a 7-11 in Verdun to ask for directions; Brandy and Carol talked adorably about the wonders of French living. ''Little country house here. Little flat in Paris,'' said Brandy. Dear Bravo: I've got a charming fish-out-of-water reality show for you!

Quick Trivia: How do you pronounce Reims? The Detectives called it ''Reems,'' the Cowboys called it ''Rayms,'' and the Brent & Caite Toxic Revolution called it ''Rems.'' (The answer, according to my sources, is actually ''Rance.'')

Steve and Allie were the first to arrive at the Joan of Arc statue, and so they were the first to receive a champagne cork from the Singing Saw Lady. The cork sent them to Leclerc Briant, in Epernay. The Detectives and the Cowboys arrived soon after. ''You know there's a town about forty miles down the road called Champagne?'' exclaimed Cord. Dan and Jordan arrived fourth at the statue, but they managed an impressive surge, and were the first to arrive at Epernay. (Steve and Allie were caught in a roundabout, and the Cowboys drove half a country in the wrong direction.)

''How do you make champagne? Is it like wine, and then you add club soda?'' asked Jordan. (Or maybe it was Dan? Let's just call them ''Jordaniel.'') Phil gave us a fifty-second history of the sparkling wine, and then explained the challenge: teams would rappel ''down in the aging caverns of winery'' to search for a specially marked bottle. Then, ''like officers in Napoleon's army,'' they would saber off the cork of the bottle. (I have actually done this. It is awesome.) The Detectives arrived second, followed by Steve and Allie. (Said Michael: ''Steve, this is your kind of place!'')

Meanwhile, several miles away and several brain cells removed, Brent and Caite further demonstrated the deplorable state of American education. ''Joan of Arc is a guy,'' said Caite, although unlike Jordan, she backtracked just in time: ''Never mind, just kidding. I was thinking of someone else.'' The models arrived in Reims, where Brent insisted that every statue of a woman was a statue of Joan of Arc. ''You seem to have one of those attitudes right now,'' said Caite when Brent started to sound frustrated. ''You need to stop with your attitude.'' When they got back in the car after finally asking for directions, Caite complained, ''You scooted the chair further back.'' Caite, I think I speak for America when I say: Would you turn six, please?

Brandy endured the rappelling challenge: ''Somehow, I get all the height things.'' Carol: ''Hopefully, she finds it quickly. Hopefully, she's not in a piss-a-- mood when she gets back up here.'' The Cowboys were the fifth to arrive: ''That's not good, we started out in third.''

At this point, there was a massive rumble in the game that rocked half the teams in the race. The direction was simple: ''Taittinger La Marquetterie,'' a chateau in the countryside. Unfortunately, half the teams were misdirected; when they asked for directions to ''Taittinger,'' the French people sent them to the headquarters of Taittinger, a champagne company, back in Reims. (Dear Amazing Race producers: I love you, you tricky rat bastards.) The ramifications were serious: Jordaniel's brief moment in the number one spot ended and the Cowboys put the cherry on top of a miserably day of competition by going to their second wrong town.

The Detectives caught a lucky break: They found an utterly charming French couple who tried to explain the way to the chateau, and then just asked, ''Would you like us to take you?'' (''We are professional cop followers,'' Louie said.) Actually, scratch that. I've been saying a lot this season that the Detectives have gotten lucky, but I'm starting to think that they genuinely have a skill for (A) picking the right foreigners to ask directions to, (B) knowing how to ask for the right directions (i.e., not just yelling ''Taittinger? Taittinger!'' in every French person's direction) and (C) utterly charming those foreigners in the process. Remember how every woman in Los Angeles wanted to sleep with Bogart in The Big Sleep? It's like that. Plus a mustache.

Steve and Allie caught a not-so-lucky break; right as they pulled into Taittinger headquarters, Steve hit something and totally wrecked the right bumper of his Mercedes. (Aside: You have to love how the same Taittinger employee told every Racer the same thing: ''This isn't La Marquetterie. La Marquetterie is a castle. Like a big mansion.'') When the car was making some funny bad sounds, Steve pulled over to the side of the French freeway for some battlefield medicine. Allie threw a predictable fit: ''Dad! You're not gonna rip it!'' But Steve triumphed, with a little pre-race aid from his spouse: ''Duct tape. My wife, before I left, says you can fix anything with duct tape.''

At the REAL Taittinger, the Detectives arrived first. The challenge choice was Tower or Terra. Tower: Use 680 champagne glasses to build a tower 15 levels high with only one glass on top, and then fill it with champagne. Terra: Search a square kilometer for a cluster of grapes marked with race colors. Gotta say, for me, this would've been a no-brainer. I'm a World Series Jenga player (or would be, if such a thing existed), but the notion of balancing almost seven hundred fragile glasses seems nearly impossible.

Michael had the same idea: ''I'm a bull in a china shop. He's a bull in a china shop.'' Yet again, the pair of gumshoes proved that they earned their Detectives' License: ''Eagle Eye'' Michael tracked down the grapes. Dan and Jordan, who arrived in second place at the Chateau, went with the Tower: ''When you have a luck challenge and a skill challenge, you go with skill. It should be easy, after all the bar and bat mitzvahs we've been to.''

In a day that saw a lot of ups and downs for the brothers, this would prove to be a pivotal mistake. It just took a long darn time to stack all those glasses up. While they stacked, Carol and Brandy passed them by. (Brandy to Carol: ''You have the best eyes ever.'') So did Steve and Allie — yes, Steve found the telltale grapes. Is Allie just Steve's imaginary friend?

That put the Detectives in first place for the third week in a row. (Enjoy Cancun, boys!) Phil, who apparently found himself a pet mime, congratulated them. Europa has been good to these two. Meanwhile, Carol and Brandy jumped into second place for the day, and in what amounted to the most blockheaded move of the episode, Brent and Caite squandered their lead over the Cowboys by following Carol and Brandy away from the Chateau… before they had even performed the Detour challenge! ''We actually caught up to the lesbians!'' squawked Caite.

This led to the hilarious moment when B & C arrived for their second-place win, and Caite had to just mumble to Phil, ''We didn't get a clue for the detour.'' Phil's pet mime looked confused and a little bit sad about her cluelessness. ''Damn, I wanna get the stupid lesbians out now,'' said Caite. ''I hate them.'' What a charmer this girl is! Quick, Government, can you revoke her citizenship while she's out of the country?

Steve and Allie arrived third. Steve smiled, and said, ''I hope you guys are insured.'' The look on Phil's face was hilarious; it seemed to say, ''Laugh it up, Steve. Guess what: The cost of that bumper is coming out of your hide!''

Caite and Brent returned to the Chateau, still doing eerily well in the game despite their partial lobotomies. The Cowboys were still recovering from the faux-Taittinger confusion, and Jordaniel were taking their time building the most beautiful Champagne Pyramid in history. Ken and Barbie, this was your moment! Seize the day! Become useful! Alas, the Model Couple chose this point to implode. Brent, reasoning logically that ''the glasses could break and fall,'' opted to ''look for Terra.'' Caite said something like, ''Blah blah blah Brent, blah blah blah Stupid,'' and refused to look for the grapes.

While she was pouting, the Cowboys rolled in, found a set of marked grapes, and rolled out. Brent, exasperated, said, ''I'll follow you. Where do you wanna go, baby?''

Caite: ''All your decisions are usually wrong.''

Brent: ''You push the blame onto everybody.''

Snip-snap! They opted to build the pyramid, and they arrived just in time to admire Jordaniel completing their masterpiece. It was pretty nifty. Somehow, the brothers ended up with three extra glasses at the end, and they managed to stack four cups on top of each other at the top. The brothers had to work together to empty ''the gigantic humungous bucket of a bottle'' into the pyramid. (I think that bottle was a Jeroboam of wine, but it might have been a Nebuchadnezzar: collect them all.) Dan and Jordan celebrated by drinking a little bit of champagne. Mmmm, fizzy!

The visual was pretty beautiful. Brent and Caite don't see beauty unless it's in a mirror, so they quickly descended into squabbling. Brent: ''I might as well let you do it. You're Ms. Perfect.'' Caite: ''I know. That's why you date me.'' They actually managed to build the pyramid, but while Brent was mid-pour, the glasses fell. Now THAT was an awesome visual. Schadenfreude!

Back to the grapes went Caite and Brent… and that's how, completely by accident, they ended Jordan and Jeff's chances. J&J arrived at the Chateau and saw the Models searching for grapes. Jeff: ''Maybe we should do the thing, because they can't find it.'' Viewers, is it just me, or do you think that Jordan and Jeff would have been better served to go grape-hunting?

But no, they tried (and failed) to build the pyramid. Caite and Brent manage to find the marked grape, and zipped over to Phil. He held up six fingers. Caite: ''Fi… Six!'' How can someone who looks so much like a young Britney Spears be so airheaded? Don't answer that.

That left Jeff and Jordan running around with flashlights in the middle of a field of grapes. Jeff had one last hilarious one-liner: ''What are we doing this for? To teach kids to stay in school?'' Double J: you will be missed. Phil summed it up rather adroitly to the couple: ''Maybe now you guys will get some time to be alone.''

How did you feel about last night's trip through Champagne, viewers? The Detectives have certainly owned Europe, but I wonder if they'll lose their way when the race moves on to slightly more exotic locations. (I'm pretty sure the Cowboys will have the opposite reaction: after some tough days navigating the back roads of Western Europe, they'll probably surge ahead when things get a bit more rural.)

I'm getting a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race vibe from Brandy and Carol; without necessarily being awesome competitors, they seem pretty good at staying in neutral while other teams implode around them. My money's not on Jordan and Dan; I get the vibe that they're a bit too hasty. That can be a good thing: it means they follow their instincts. But it also means they follow a pretty French girl's directions, without checking to make sure there isn't more than one place in France called ''Taittinger.'' Steve, of course, might just be the best player in the game this season. If only he didn't have that daughter-sized weight on his shoulders…

As for Caite and Brent… well, I think the betting game here isn't ''are they going to win'' but ''is their relationship going to survive another episode?'' What did you think of last night's episode, viewers? Do you think Carol and Brandy are beginning a mid-game surge, or did they just luck out when everyone went in the wrong direction? Were you, like me, waiting for Jet and Cord to turn to the statue of Saint Joan and say, ''How d'you do there, Ms. Of Arc!'' Between the Champagne trip to France and the Beer-themed trip to Germany, can a vodka-heavy trip to Russia be far behind? And is ''Cathy Drone'' the most hilarious thing you've heard this week?

Movie Morsels 59: Just Say No to JLo!

Gah!!!! If you are a regular blog reader, you already know my thoughts on a potential Overboard remake. However, let me just restate that I would be appalled at any such remake of a most beloved 80s movie! The doofy plot was elevated to something much better by Kurt and Goldie's chemistry and charisma. And let me just tell you - when I think of charisma, I do NOT think of Jennifer Lopez! This EW.com reporter is being far too nice.

Overboard is the kind of ’80s movie I’m okay with Hollywood revisiting in theory. It’s beloved — but it’s still just Overboard. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Lopez is in talks to star in a remake of the 1987 Goldie Hawn-Kurt Russell classic* for Will Smith’s production company. No word on if she’ll play a rich woman who falls off her yacht, gets amnesia, and then is tricked by the sweaty carpenter she previously pissed off into thinking she’s his wife/housekeeper/babymaker/mini-golf course artist. But per the trade, Leslie Nixon, who wrote the original film (as well as Outrageous Fortune!), is among the scribes who’ve worked on the script, so fingers crossed.

What do you think? If I can’t watch Lopez in a role as good as Karen Sisco in Out of Sight, then I’m fine with her making another movie that I could very well end up watching some Saturday afternoon on TBS’ Movie and a Makeover (see: Monster-in-Law, The Wedding Planner, Maid in Manhattan, and the upcoming The Back-Up Plan). I do think she has her work cut out for her though: She’ll need a costar with whom she has as much chemistry as Hawn did Russell (Matthew McConaughey could be shirtless as a carpenter, yes?), as well as a way to top Hawn’s deliciously dry delivery.

There isn't a single movie on that list that I watch* on TBS. In fact, I never even saw Monster-in-Law because by that point I'd realized that any like for JLo that I may have had buried deep inside at one point was now dead. Jennifer Lopez = Toxic in my book. Bleh. I wish she'd stick to ruining music and leave movies I like alone!

* in its entirety, at least