I’m referring to, of course, the first team eliminated last night from The Amazing Race. Eleven teams began the race at the Santa Monica Pier and began the long, torturous 16-hour journey to…LAX. Once there, the teams hopped on one of two flights to Uruguay. BTW…I checked American’s website and couldn’t find a flight 248 flying anywhere. Dennis, the self-proclaimed “nice guy”, managed to tick the other teams off at the airport and, in a critical mistake, decided to become a nice guy again (this time in the Southern Hemisphere) which got him…nothing except a plane ticket back to New York.

I was surprised. I had tagged Charla and Mirna to go first, but not for the reasons you might think. Although I found Charla’s hypocritical attitude of “I expect to be treated the same as everyone else but I’ll manipulate and capitalize on my…ahem…situation…to get ahead” drove me seven ways of crazy but WHAT IS UP with Mirna? She’s whiny, helpless, dressed up far too much for the 1st leg of the race and…I just saw this at the CBS website…she’s a lawyer. I have a feeling Charla is going to be picking up more of Mirna’s slack as we continue on. Charla’s an ass-kicker which I think is great as long as she doesn’t pull a Lauren Graham Celebrity Poker Showdown and get all girly and helpless as her strategy. During the 55-lb. Slab of Beef Challenge, I swear Charla was toting around twice that weight in backpacks while Mirna complained about carrying what appeared to be a rather small slab of raw meat. Boo hoo, sister. By the way Mirna…you’re in Uruguay, NOT Italy so cool it with the “grazie” and “bellisima”. Their bio says they’ve traveled extensively and know several languages so my only bit of advice is this…recognize what country you’re in and choose the language accordingly.

A close second in my “who will go first” personal competition were the Bowling Moms, Linda and Karen. I think I had flashbacks to the Soccer Moms and NFL Wife/Moms of seasons past and made the snap judgment that they’d be annoying and were doing all of this for the children to show them that they weren’t vacant stay-at-home-moms! When I saw both ladies jump right into the “Zips” part of “Zips and Chips” I started rooting for them! They’ve got spunk, they’re fun but…ladies, don’t ever wear white t-shirts again just in case we have another water-related challenge.

I’m also rooting for the father/daughter team of Jim and Marsha…if for no other reason than Dad had to get stitches in his leg before they even left the U.S. Sure, they came in second to last but that’s pretty darn good for an old guy with a bum leg!

Marshall and Lance…they own/operate Cafe Nostra here in Dallas. After watching last night, I hope I never go into their restaurant because the constant barrage of arrogant jerks on reality shows who have “Dallas” in their hometown names is starting to embarrass me.

Brandon and Nicole…”we’re putting this in God’s hands”…yeah, good luck you two.

I guess Alison of Team Big Brother was a big troublemaker but since I don’t watch Big Brother, her antics are lost on me. Everyone else was pretty boring…dating couples, couples trying to “work back towards love”…blah blah blah…twin sisters (how original)…yadda yadda yadda.

This should be a fun season. Just listening to the opening theme song gives me warm fuzzies and I’ve said it before but The Amazing Race is the best reality show on television.

Oh yeah…there were other things on last night. Ant was voted off (eliminated? sent home broken hearted?) of Last Comic Standing and Alonzo Boden delivered a great roast to Jay London. The crusty old Roasted Friars were grumpy and griped about “blue” humor but hey guys, this ain’t vaudeville.