Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Sara Douglass

It is a sad day - one of my favourite fantasy authors, Sara Douglass, has passed away after a long battle with cancer.

She wrote an excellent blog post/article a bit ago entitled The Silence of Dying. A worthy & thought-provoking read
The Silence of Dying

I will miss looking forward to her new books but will re-read & enjoy the ones I have.


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Sunday, September 25, 2011

Watching TAR19 with Wannietta part I

Wow - there are some really strong-looking teams this season!! I think that Ernie & Cindy, Justin & Jennifer and Liz & Marie have their work cut out for them. My early faves are Andy & Tommy and Bill & Cathi.

And Andy & Tommy are the first to find the TAI umbrella to complete the clue that their first destination is Taipei Taiwan.
The show girls "with it going on up here too" are the last and have an additional task to complete - a Hazard. Oh, and they drop a passport at the gas station and didn't notice.
Ron & Bill, Ethan & Jenna, Ernie & Cindy are the first 3 teams on the early flight along with Amani & Marcus, Laurence & Zac, Justin & Jennifer, Andy & Tommy and Jeremy & Sandy.
The Showgirls didn't find Kaylani's passport at the gas station so they took a chance that one of the other teams stopped at the same gas station & found it & brought it with to the airport. Is anyone else surprised that this didn't work out? Now we see the cracks in the friendship.

So Ethan & Jenna think that no one is going to know they were on Survivor and won?
Holy freakin' lucky!!! Some guy found Kaylani's passport, tweeted about it, got tweeted back about how he should take it to LAX and now Kaylani & Lisa are bffs again!!! <3
Once they land the teams need to find Ximendig Commercial District & "figure out" that they need to find a billboard that will reveal chinese characters that are their next clue. This is not going to be an easy race!!
And Marcus is deciding to skate the edges of truth & not reaveal that he was a pro football player.
"Everything here is race colours; the people working on the streets have yellow & red hats on. It's like practically the national colour here." Jenna. Yeah, think about it.
No one is cluing in on the red & yellow balloons on the billboard, especialy not Amani & Marcus who look right at it, comment on it & discard it.
Justin & Jennifer firgure it out first & are on their way to the the Confucius Temple.
Kaylani & Lisa think that it would be more obvious than the giant LED billboard.
Tommy doesn't think it could be the balloon billboard b/c "it's always stripes".
In this Roadblock teams need to dial 1-800-Confucius & memorize the Confucian proverb then recite it word-for-word to get their next clue.
Marcus thinks that all of the girls are doing the Roadblock b/c "all girls like phones". wtf?
Yeah, this is a lot harder than they thought!
Cindy got it first and she & Ernie are on their way to Daijia Riverside Park, followed closely by Justin & Jennifer then Jeremy & Sandy.
The Showgirls & Twins finally figure out the balloon billboard but Bill & Cathy are totally clueless.

Andy & Zac are struggling; Ethan finally got it.
Ernie & Cindy are at the next Roadblock - rowing & beating out a stroke rhythm with a dragon boat team.
Amani & Zac finally got all the words right follow closely by Bill.
Andy and Tommy are finally on their way to the dragon boats.
I think that Sandy needs to pick up the beat a bit.
Ernie & Cindy are the first on the way to the sacred grounds of the Martyr's Shrine.
Jeremy & Sandy and Jennifer & Justin are heading to the pitstop.
The Twins aren't so good at the memorizing but the Showgirls are on their way to the Core City Pacific Mall to complete their Hazard;
Kaylani is going to do the bungee jump.
Bill & Cathi are still struggling to find the billboard clue.
Laurence & Zac, Ethan & Jenna, the 'Boarders (snowboarders Andy & Tommy) and Amani & Marcus are putting the paddle to the water!
Bill & Cathi have the billboard clue figured out and if Liz keeps blowing the memorizing they stand a chance. Of course, Marie is being as supportive as the team member watching usually is. LOL!!!

50th time's a charm!!
Cathi is doing the Confucius memorizing & unless they just edited it hard she totally nailed it right off!!
A non-elimination leg right off - BIll & Cathi live to race another day but will have to complete a Speed Bump.
And for the first time ever there will be a double elimination next week - they've got their work cut out for them but other teams have come back from behind.

#1 - Ernie & Cindy - they get the Express Pass
#2 - Jeremy & Sandy
#3 - Justin & Jennifer
#4 - Ethan & Jenna
#5 - Amani & Marcus
#6 - Laurence & Zac
#7 - The 'Boarders
#8 - Ron & Bill
#9 - The Showgirls
#10 - The Twins
#11 - Bill & Cathi