TAR: I don't know. I just think it depends on cultural standards, I suppose, how obligated the person in question feels about helping out a desperate-seeming (albeit with full crew & camera) stranger. Do the producers take them back to where they were or want to be? I know it's their choice to go along for the ride, but it just seems so brusque and somehow indifferent to that person & their day. I'm sure they just think it's fun and odd and whatever, but it just seems off to me, somehow.

AWESOME.

Strangely enough, it was not a spam message about Viagra.

(albeit with full crew & camera)

S and I have talked about this re TAR before -- That it's not just racers asking a local for assistance, but racers and their HOLLYWOOD CAMERA CREW!

We feel this is particularly advantageous when racers are trying to talk airport personel into getting them on to planes that are supposedly full or have their doors closed for departure already.

George Clooney's pet pig has died.

As for finding a successor, "No," Clooney insists. "I think Max covered all my pig needs."

Heh.

I'm sending an APB out for Strega. If you see her in some thread, being contrary, please send her my way.

KTHXBYE

We feel this is particularly advantageous when racers are trying to talk airport personel into getting them on to planes that are supposedly full or have their doors closed for departure already.

I dunno. On one hand I can see it, but on the other, I can see an employee not making any allowances that aren't officially sanctioned for fear of having it air and getting them in trouble. Or for that matter, running into a customer who has seen TAR and pulling the "but you let them do that!" Gah. If someone came at me with a camera, asking for special treatment, I'd be very inclined not to do it.

You know, Clooney was a lot less attractive in 1989 than he is now (IMO). Damn him - who has the right to be better looking at 45 than at 30?

That it's not just racers asking a local for assistance, but racers and their HOLLYWOOD CAMERA CREW!

They get an "If you help us, you'll be on American Television" bump from that, but no actual help, according to the racers and producers I've spoken to. (Ditto with getting release forms from everyone they speak to who appears on camera -- the racers have to do all of that themselves, so asking for directions, while helpful, can be much more time-consuming than what we see onscreen.)

Jessica, I'm with you on the local guide thing. I kind of wish they wouldn't do it so much because it makes things a little less interesting, but I have no other objection. And as we saw with that woman in China, it's not like there's no chance it'll backfire on them anyway.

The beauty queens annoyed me sometimes (especially with the asking to come in first thing - WTF?), but for the most part I really liked their game play - I'm not sure I really get the objections to it. They've been much more focused on the race aspect than most teams, and that's a good thing.