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I watched this card over at my brother's house as he wanted to show off his new home theatre, but if he hadn't invited us over, I probably would not have bought it on my own, given that the GSP-Condit title fight was pulled a couple of weeks ago due to injury. If Dana White wants to know why buyrates are down, well, if this had been a WWE show, it would have been headlined by, I dunno, Chris Jericho vs. James Storm, with a semi-main event of Zack Ryder vs. Big Zeke. There's no way that Mitrione vs. Kongo is a semi-main event on PPV. A year ago, that fight would have barely made the Spike TV prelims. UFC really has to start loading up the PPV cards and make them seem special. And when this show was over, basically all I remembered was: 1) Diaz's promo and GSP's "ooh, I'm scared" gesture 2) The apparent retirement of BJ Penn 3) The apparent retirement of Cro Cop ... and that's about it. Don't get me wrong - the main event was a fun f

When we last left our Amazing Racers, the Twins were bounced from the show despite having some of the easiest tasks ever given the racers in the history of the show. (Seriously... feeding fish!? I still can't get over that one.) Tonight promises to be far more fun. Teams all took the same flight to Malawi, to a tobacco warehouse. Smokin! We learned that 60% of the country's income comes from tobacco sales. (I half expect some kind of anti-smoking message yet tonight.) Teams had to move huge bales of tobacco through an Indiana Jones-style warehouse on a little hand truck thingy. Jeremy and Sandy finished the task first, and headed off to Memorial Tower. Amani and Marcus got caught in traffic and were last ones to move on from the tobacco warehouse. The Detour was a choice between stitching a suit at a tailor shop, or go to a school and build toy trucks for kids. Jeremy and Sandy built toys and were the first to complete the task again. Then it was off to a furniture st

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Remember Coke Blak , the short-lived high-end coffee-infused cola drink put out by Coca-Cola? No? Well, I do. I loved the stuff, even at $2.50 a bottle. It was a fantastic combination of Coke with the essence of coffee that had wonderful caramel undertones. It's been gone from the market for, oh, four or five years now, I suppose. But if you're absolutely dying for a taste of what it was like - or you just want to have some again - there's an easy way to make a pretty good facsimile of the beverage. Basically, take a little bit of this: And add it to this: You don't need a lot of the Torani coffee syrup to make it work. "A splash". "Half a teaspoon." Basically, experiment. If you taste more coffee than Coke, you've used too much. Unfortunately, with no actual Coke Blak out there to compare with, it's not like this is a precise exercise in reproducing the taste. And the Torani/Coke Zero combo still misses some of the mor

It's UFC weekend again, and so here's your link to finding a bar to watch Penn vs. Diaz. With the GSP title fight off the card due to injury, I'm not predicting big business for this show (and isn't that going out on a limb?) Still, it should be a fun card.

Wasting no time, the show starts with the duel between Christine and Mikayla, which Christine won. Again. Coach and the tribe prayed that they'd find the idol (which Coach already had) and then, miraculously, they found the idol 5 minutes later! I can't decide if that was funny or blasphemous. The immunity challenge had the tribes painted up in sets of freakish twins. Guess it's the Halloween episode. The tie-in was a movie that isn't getting mentioned because I'm not getting promotional money. Let's just say that the twin-painting thing was disturbing. Coach's team won. At least, I think it was his team - I couldn't tell from all the face paint. Coach's team gathered for a winning prayer, while Ozzy had an angry meltdown. Ozzy wanted to send Cochran to Redemption Island, and everyone basically agreed. But Ozzy also offered himself up to go to Redemption, as part of some big plot to get rid of Christine and get his redemption ahead of the mer

When we last left our intrepid racers, the twins were spared elimination by the generous graces of the producers who wanted to keep two cuties in - er, I mean, it was a non-elimination leg, and it was entirely a coincidence they were saved. Hot dog! Teams had to take a taxi to an elephant river trek. The snowboarders declared that when they get home, they're buying an elephant. (Call it "Stampy.") They quickly made it to the Roadblock, where they had to search for a flautist and search a waterfall for the next clue - which was a ceramic koi fish. They immediately figured out to smash it to find the clue - and I'm betting some teams won't figure that out to our delight and amusement (Note: I was wrong). From there, it was off to ANOTHER roadblock arts and crafts shop, putting together a "spirit house." Justin and Jennifer had their taxi driver take a picture with his smart phone of the model spirit house to help them reassemble it properly. Sneaky. Bu

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So ... Christine won another duel at Redemption Island. Ozzy's team won immunity. Mikayla was voted to Redemption Island in a split vote versus Edna. Next week: Dunno. Didn't see a preview.

Sorry, but the review is delayed tonight due to real life. Hopefully I can watch the show tomorrow night (Video on Demand for the win!) and review it then.

So BlogPress has decided it doesn't like iOS 5 and is going all crashy-crashy on me so I'm posting this with the far inferior Blogger app. The teams headed out to Phuket, Thailand. Oh, the pronunciation jokes ... The snowboarders and father/son sailing team of Laurence and Zac ended up on different flights than everyone else and ended up more than an hour behind. But all the teams ended up bunched at the first task, so it didn't matter. At the Detour, teams had to either build a coral nursery or set up 20 sets of beach chairs and umbrellas. The snowboarders quickly finished the coral task and took a big lead. The other teams struggled with the current and the wind and several teams switched tasks ... just as the wind picked up and knocked umbrellas over. One of the twins got totally bonked in the head. The Roadblock involved scaling a sheer cliff-face. Again, the snowboarders killed it and went racing to the pit stop where they were team 1. "You guys absolute

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Like most of the civilized world, I've been spending my free time upgrading my various iOS devices to iOS 5. Here's some thoughts on the whole process and the new features.... My iPhone 4 was the first device to be upgraded. I did it last night later in the evening (OK, 8 p.m., but for me, that's "later in the evening." Bed time, practically.) It was the longest and toughest upgrade. The install borked after installing iOS 5 when iTunes reported it couldn't find the "pairing file". Some Google work indicated I had to reboot my computer and then manually reinstall my backup. Took about 70 minutes total.  Upgrading my daughter's 4th Gen iPod Touch and my wife's 3rd Gen iPod Touch went a lot smoother and took a lot less time. As far as the new features go: I like the background and wireless syncing. I love the new notification system. I'm slightly confused by iMessage. I mean, I know how it works, but can an iPod Touch use

Thanks to the wonders of digital cable boxes, while I'm not watching this in HD tonight on our big basement TV, I am watching it in the living room with my laptop in tow, so a longer and more detailed review shall be had. First off, how did I not notice before that Stacey is a mortician!? Stacey arrived at Redemption Island and proceeded to tell Christine that her tribemates were going to Hell wearing "gasoline drawers" - a reference that probably went over the head of 90% of the audience for about 15 different reasons. Over at Team Coach, Russell Hantz's Nephew was upset because Mikayla didn't like him because he was Russell Hantz's Nephew. As opposed to when Russell Hantz's Nephew tried to vote her out because she was pretty and he was married. At Redemption Island, Stacey noted that "Benjamin" (Coach) is running the entire team with Albert as his second-in-command. She also said a bunch of other stuff, but quite frankly I didn't un

I was out celebrating Thanksgiving with family tonight and missed my usual east coast timeshift feed, so I had to watch it "live" on the normal Mountain Time showing. Which means it's late and been a long (albeit fun) day, so once again, an abbreviated review. A long leg in Indonesia ended with the Vegas showgirls finishing last and going home. The only real drama of the entire show was Amani and Marcus being behind the entire leg before catching up on the final challenge and passing a number of teams to finish in the middle of the pack. Next week: Thailand

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Wow, what a card last night! Spoilers ahead after the jump break:

This could be the sleeper card of 2011. Edgar-Maynard II was awesome, Aldo vs. Florian should be really good, and the rest of the card looks pretty freaking amazing. So if you're looking for a bar in Edmonton, Calgary or other spots in Alberta to watch this, here's your link .

The duel between Christine and Papa Bear ended with Christine landing 10 bean bags on crates before the former cop. Papa Bear heading back to New York. On Coach's tribe, they started to become annoyed with Edna because she's ... happy and talkative. Yeah. On Team Ozzy, Jim and Cochran plotted to take out Elyse. The immunity challenge was the classic weight bearing game of loading sandbags on to poles carried by opposing tribe members. Jim and Russell Hantz's Nephew set new Survivor records by holding 240 lbs before collapsing. Dawn and Stacey were the final two. Stacey dropped her pole first and Dawn won for Team Ozzy, sending back to camp with immunity and chickens. Back at camp, Edna decided she's on the chopping block as the weakest player. Meanwhile, Stacey emerged as easily the most annoying player of the season. Russell Hantz's Nephew had a melt down at tribal council largely over being Russell Hantz's Nephew. After an otherwise lackluster tr

I'm working on only a few hours sleep tonight, so we're going to cut to the chase. It's a double elimination night, and the teams going home are: Ron and Bill Ethan and Jenna (!!) Next week: A temple maze.

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