In this episode of the race, teams initially made their way to the city of Catania, Italy on the island of Sicily to find their first clue. Thankfully, only the Hippies and the Jocks made it to the amphitheatre when it opened and all the teams didn’t “bunch up” like they normally do. Everyone knows how much “bunching up” makes the race almost unbearable to watch.

The ride to Catania was a long one. By the time the other teams got to the city there was an obscene amount of traffic in the city. It seems that the first two teams managed to get a huge advantage over the other teams by allowing them to complete the Detour and leave the city before morning rush hour. The Jocks managed to make their way back into first place by driving faster than the Hippies to the Roadblock in Syracusa.

All in all, I have to say that this episode was pretty boring. I mean, Sicily is beautiful and all. But the teams didn’t so any tasks that were very adventurous or exciting. I am looking forward to the teams getting to leave Italy and do something a little more exciting. Thankfully, the previews for next week show that teams will be in Greece doing Olympic events and doing bungee jumping. That’s more like it!

Read more

The eliminated Pink Hoes completely deny hooking up with the Jocks on the Amazing Race. They claim to have only flirted and cuddled with the guys and that’s it. According to them, not even a kiss was exchanged. Uh huh, yeah right!

Apple released software today that allows Windows XP to run on Intel-based Macs. I think it is safe to say that Apple’s journey to the dark side is complete.

A Philadelphia man plead guilty today to weapons of mass destruction charges for sending a mail bomb to a Chicago surgeon he said botched his penile enlargement surgery. The man was “extremely unhappy with the results.” I’ll say, unhappy enough to blow someone up! Still, a weapon of mass destruction charge seems harsh for this crime. He is guilty of sending explosives through the U.S. mail, but it is clear that he doesn’t have a weapon of mass destruction. I think that’s why he wanted the surgery in the first place.

Poker players unite in fighting Congress over a proposed online gambling ban. The president of the National Poker Players Alliance is from San Francisco. He’s trying to talk Congress into regulating and taxing online gambling instead of banning it in its entirety.

I just registered fabiangonzalez.net and fabiangonzalez.org–now I own the full trifecta. I would like to thank the other Fabians that owned these for being cheap asses and not re-registering their domains. Gracias.

In the book “How to Be a Rainmaker” it says that “coffee kills deals.” Well, this morning coffee kills driver. A spilled cup of coffee may have caused a fatal accident that closed Highway 121 in Sonoma County for nearly three hours this morning. Distracted after spilling coffee, the driver of a pickup truck veered into oncoming traffic causing a head-on collision.

I just saw a commercial and noticed that the Amazing Race 9 is moving to Wednesdays at 8:00PM, which is its old night, but not its old time slot. Apparently the ratings for the show have been pretty low on Tuesdays at 10:00PM, averaging less than 10 million viewers per episode. For those without TiVo, 10:00PM is awful late to watch the race and I am glad that the race is moving back to Wednesdays at a much more reasonable hour. Watch it damn it!

Industry ratings board approves A-SS rating for bad video games.

We headed off to Tahoe at 2:30PM yesterday and reached Auburn at 6:15PM due to traffic through Sacramento. The news account is not exactly accurate, I-80 wasn’t closed at Applegate until after 6:30PM, since we were allowed to pass the Applegate at that time. When we passed, highway patrol was diverting only large trucks off the highway, but allowing passenger cars to continue. We reached Alta a little after 6:45PM, where the highway was completely closed there.

We were only about 300 yards from the roadblock and probably could have passed the roadblock had we been only 10 minutes ahead. But who knows what would have happened then. There were so much snowfall that multiple accidents happened near Donner Summit. We waited for I-80 to open for almost four hours, until about 10:45PM, and then headed back down the hill searching for food and a hotel room.

Since I-80 was closed at Applegate, there were literally tens of thousands of people looking for a hotel or motel room at the same time. We found food, but no hotel rooms. We searched almost every hotel from Auburn to Roseville and they were all packed because of the highway closure. In Roseville, at about 12:30AM, we decided to head back to San Francisco and abort the whole trip. We made it back at 2:30AM, 12 hours from the time we left. We’re glad to be back home safe and sound.