WEP '12, Day 76 - Amazing Race 20 Analysis, Ep. 5

You should know the drill by now.  Spoilers for episode 5 of season 20 of The Amazing Race.

There's something that occurs at the beginning of most episodes of The Amazing Race that can be a big clue as to what's going to happen in that leg of the race.  It's what veteran race watchers call the Loser Edit.  In a Loser Edit, the team that's going to be eliminated at the end of the episode is given some interview time at the beginning of it to explain a little more about who they are and why they're racing and so on.  Presumably every team gets interviewed like that all the time to provide Loser Edits for whichever team actually loses, but the one they show is a clue as to who's going out.  The reason they do it, especially for teams who haven't had a lot of screen time, is to try to make that team more sympathetic, so that you feel bad for them when they leave the show.

This week's episode had a Loser Edit for Kerri and Stacy.  Let's see how it turned out, shall we?

First off, we have some travel.  There's a huge eight hour gap between the Fast Forwarded Team Border Patrol and the saved by non-elimination Bopper & Mark, but almost all of it gets eaten up by various travel related delays as the teams take trains across Europe to Bavaria.  Most of the rest of it is lost by a good old fashioned Hours of Operation Bunching, so pretty much everyone is all caught up as they finally pick up clues and get rolling again.

That leads to the first decision point, a Detour.  What's faster, sculpting an old German's beard into something really complicated, or following a trail of gingerbread then using it to complete a gingerbread house?  It turns out that, like all the very best Detours, the answer is "it depends on who's doing it!"  And if they're representative of the breed, my respect for the Border Patrol is growing in leaps and bounds.  Who knew they were such good hair stylists?

Art & JJ prove to be good at beard sculpting, gnome curling, and perhaps most importantly, not getting lost, and manage to come in first.  Again.  That's three in a row for Team Border Patrol, and if that doesn't solidify them as the favorites to win it all, I don't know what does.

The rest of the leg plays out with relatively few surprises.  A few teams get decoyed by the wrong castle, there being two on either side of the highway they're all travelling along, but in the end it comes down to  race for last between Team DEA and Kerri & Stacy.  Kerry & Stacy manage to finish the task, sliding a gnome along ice into the middle of a circle, first.  Nery of the DEA girls has a horrible time of it, just being unable to get it right despite something like two hundred attempts, but to her credit, Jamie doesn't get down on her, and instead is encouraging as team after team races past them.  They finally pull it off by a millimeter and rush to try and catch up with Kerri and Stacy, which any veteran race watcher will tell you almost never works.

Except that this time it does.  Kerri & Stacy managed to get lost for the very last time, letting a relieved and nearly broken Team DEA hang on by their fingernails.

Loser Edit confirmed.

1st - JJ and Art (Border Patrol) 
2nd - Joey "Fitness" and Danny (Jersey Boys)  
3rd - Vanessa and Ralph 
4th - Blonde Rachel and Dave 
5th - Red Rachel and Brendon 
6th - Bopper and Mark

7th - Nary and Jamie (DEA)  

OUT - Kerri and Stacy (Cousins) 

OUT - Eliott and Andrew (Twins) 

OUT - Dave and Cherie (Clowns) 
OUT - Misa and Maiya

Dead Team Obituary: Kerri & Stacy

Kerri & Stacy had a pretty quiet race, all things considered.  There was a brief fear of heights thing when they got fooled by the first Roadblock about who had to jump out of the plane, but other than that, they were rarely interesting enough to earn much in the way of screen time.  What we did see of them was reasonably pleasant, certainly there was little of the overblown drama that infects the couples teams on this season.  But that doesn't mean that I'm really upset to see them go.  It's like that sometimes.  With twenty two people racing around, the edits favor the most dramatic people and situations.  Kerri & Stacy never had much drama.  That's good for them in a way, because the drama is almost always ugly on this show, but it costs them the chance to be seen very much.  C'est la vie.  

WEP '12, Day 75 - Old Republic Log XXVII

The funny thing about this log is that I canceled my Old Republic subscription last Monday so I wouldn't have to pay the $15 on Tuesday.  And yet, here I am, writing a new log...and not even a epilogue either.

I suppose I should explain how we got to where we are.  Morgan canceled his subscription with three days before the next payment.  He just wasn't enjoying his character, and it was impractical for him to get another one up to speed.  Besides, as Bioware must have feared when they moved it back to March, Morgan decided he'd rather play Mass Effect III.  And frankly, if my 360 weren't dying and I thought my PC could handle it, so would I.

The funny thing is, this is a Free Trial Weekend for Old Republic.  So I was able to create a brand new account yesterday and I can play through Sunday.  I'm not going to play all that much, to be honest, but I wanted to give the Imperial Agent storyline another try.

So now I've got a fifth character, Alisera, the Chiss Imperial Agent.

All told, while her story ain't bad, it ain't exactly thrilling so far either.  What's more, I'm not a fan of the cover based combat, which can get really frustrating very quickly.  I may squeeze in a few hours more today or tomorrow, but there's been nothing here that really compels me to stick around.

I guess we'll see.

Alisera, Level 7 Imperial Agent, Hutta

WEP '12, Day 74 - Amazing Race 20 Analysis, Ep. 4

With episode six on the air tomorrow, I really need to get my ass caught up on this one.  Same deal as always, read the recap at TWoP or view the episode itself at CBS.com.  Oh, and spoilers.

Episode four of season twenty involved three major race concepts, one of which we've discussed before, the Travel Fail.  That came up before when the second bus blew a window and re-shuffled the teams.  This time, though, the Travel Fail was self-inflicted, with Mark and Bopper failing to read the part of the clue that told them that they need to get their plane tickets to Italy at a travel agent instead of at the airport.  That costs them time.  So much so that they end up on a plane an hour and change behind every other team.  The big question to this leg of the race was whether or not they could manage to erase that deficit.

I'll save you the suspense, and anyway you should have already seen the episode or read the recap, right?  No, they can't.  To their credit they do manage to get within line of sight of one other team, but it's as that team is leaving the location of a challenge that the boys from Kentucky are just arriving at, and they never get even that close again.  So our beloved boys from Kentucky come in last.  I'll deal with the fallout of that at the end of the analysis.

The second concept we have to talk about is the Fast Forward.  The Fast Forward is a game mechanic that allows teams to try to complete a side challenge.  If they pull it off, they can skip all other tasks and head right to the Pit Stop.  The catch?  Only the first team to complete the challenge gets the benefit of the Fast Forward, and each team can only use a Fast Forward once per race.  In the first few races there was a Fast Forward available on every leg of the race except the last one.  When you used your Fast Forward was a big part of the strategy of racing.  For the most part, the Fast Forward was used defensively.  In other words, you saved it until you were in danger of getting eliminated.  Then you gambled that no one else had tried to use it ahead of you.  It was a moment of tense decision making for teams that added to the drama of the show.

Alas, that drama is dead now.  Why?  Because in the more recent races they've cut the number of Fast Forwards down to only a couple per race.  That means that whichever team is in first place when they get to a Fast Forward just grabs it and pads their lead.  Rather than an interesting strategic choice, the Fast Forward's been reduced to a reward that guarantees the team in first place will stay there.  That's what happens here, letting Team Border Patrol surge to a second first place finish in a row.

So we know who came in first and who came in last.  Was there anything else interesting going on?  Not really.  Both teams with Rachels in them had inter-personal breakdowns, showing once again why it's a bad idea to race with your spouse/dating partner.  Other than that?  No, not really.

At the end, then, Mark and Bopper came skidding into last place.  There they got a couple of surprises.  The first was Art & JJ, having heard that Bopper was racing for money for his sick daughter, deciding to split the cash they won for coming in first with the Kentucky boys.  Which was cool of them, I have to admit.

The second surprise was today's third and final concept, the Non-Elimination Leg.  You see, sprinkled tow or three times per race is a Non-Elimination Leg where coming in last doesn't kick you off the show.  The first such leg in Race 20 was this episode.  That means that Mark &  Bopper live to race on.  However, they will have to do an extra challenge on the next leg, called a Speed Bump, as their penalty for failure.  That's well worth it to have a shot at staying in the race, though.

I should also point out that for a veteran race-watcher it was obvious that this was Non-Elimination when Phil didn't eliminate them right off the bat.  The man's not an asshole.  If you're gone, he doesn't drag it out to make you suffer.  He gives it to you right to your face.  If he tells you you're last and doesn't immediately follow it with "I'm sorry to tell you but you've been eliminated from the race," then either some other team fucked up worse than you did or it's Non-Elimination, as it was here.

It does lead to an interesting scenario, though.  If Mark & Bopper manage to beat the odds and win the race and the million bucks, are they going to give Art & JJ their money back?  Hopefully, we'll get to find out.

Episode four standings:

1st - JJ and Art (Border Patrol) 
2nd - Blonde Rachel and Dave 

3rd - Joey "Fitness" and Danny (Jersey Boys)  

4th - Vanessa and Ralph 

5th - Nary and Jamie (DEA)  

6th - Red Rachel and Brendon 

7th - Kerri and Stacy (Cousins)  

8th - Bopper and Mark 

OUT - Eliott and Andrew (Twins) 

OUT - Dave and Cherie (Clowns) 
OUT - Misa and Maiya


With no team eliminated, we'll be skipping the Dead Team Obituary in favor of an updated look at the surviving teams.

Blonde Rachel and Dave

Alas, after a promising start, Blonde Rachel and Dave have degraded into bickering.  Mostly, at least as far as what we've been shown, this is Dave's fault.  The Army pilot keeps insisting that they need to "communicate" better, but what he seems to mean by that is "you do what I say."  That's perfectly acceptable in the Army, less so with your wife.  Likability: Medium.  (And dropping fast if they don't quit fighting.)

Despite a terrible third leg where they came in 6th, we can't ignore the back-to-back first place finishes, and even with the in-fighting, they still came in second on this leg.  Survivibility: High.

Bopper and Mark

They've done nothing to cancel their initial hero status, they don't fight among themselves, and they're friendly and interesting to watch.  Likability: High.

On the other hand, they've been 9th and last in two legs, while 3rd and 4th in the other two.  That's not a recipe for long-term success, but they're better off than some other teams.  Survivibilty: Medium.

Nary and Jamie (Team DEA)

I've gotta say, I've been expecting more from this team.  Certainly they've been pleasant enough for what little screen time they've gotten.  They've done or said nothing to change my initial appraisal of them as people.  Even the whole "going undercover as kindergarten teachers" bit is more cute than insulting.  Likibility: High.

However, they might as well be kindergarten teachers for all their performance to date has shown.  They've come in 4th, 6th, 5th, and 5th.  That's a pretty middle of the road showing, so that earns them Survivibilty: Medium.

Brendon and Red Rachel

With the last couple of legs, this team has proven to be increasingly fragile.  Unfortunately, that's manifested by Rachel whining and screaming at Brendon which in no way endears to me a team that I didn't much like in the first place.  Likability: Low.  (And if I had a more flexible system, I'd call it Non-Existent.)

That fragility has hurt them in the last leg in particular, with them threatening to quit.  Those kinds of teams almost never survive for long, as a desire to quit makes you less likely to give the kind of effor that's required to stay in the race.  Still, they do have a pretty impressive record with two 2nd place finishes to go along with a 4th and a 6th, so we can't count them out entirely, as much as I'd like to.  Survivibilty: Medium

Joey "Fitness" and Danny (Team Jersey Boys)

To my surprise, I haven't found the Jersey shtick as annoying as I thought I would.  Maybe they just look better in comparison to the Rachel teams, but they just aren't on the Hate 'Em List anymore.  That doens't mean that I want them to win, though.  Likability: Medium.

 After a rough start, 10th and 8th, the Jersey Boys have picked it up lately, coming in 3rd for the last couple of legs.  Split the difference.  Survivibility: Medium.

Kerri and Stacy

Still haven't seen much of this team.  Still seem nice, if uninspired.  Likability: Medium.

Can't say I'm impressed with their performance, though.  Coming in 7th, 5th, 7th, and 7th doesn't suggest you're long for the race.  Survivibilty: Low.

Vanessa and Ralph

This team presents a quandary for me.  On one hand, they seem to be petty people, fond of insulting other teams over things like dress sense and the way they wear their hair.  On the other hand, the team they lash out against most is Red Rachel and Brandon, a team I don't care for either.  Still, Ralph and Vanessa's behavior aggravates me.  Likability: Low.

If trends continue, I won't have to worry about it for much longer.  Coming in 5th, 7th, 8th, and 4th doesn't inspire much in the way of confidence.  Survivibility: Low.

Art and JJ

They've cut down on the boorishness, and the offer of cash to Bopper and Mark was pretty redemptive.  Not my favorite team, but they're rising in the standings.  Likibility: Medium.

As far as actual racing goes, they've been awesome.  Third, 2nd, 1st, 1st is a great record by anyone's standards.  Survivibilty: High.

WEP '12, Day 73 - Time Management II, The Cycle of Sloth

Something I've noticed as I've carried out the time logs I mentioned last week is that my time expenditure seems to be cyclical.  And borderline obsessive, for that matter.  It's not the one and done time expenditures like the webcomics (10 minutes today) or a run through the blogosphere (23 minutes) that really consumes my time.  It's the things I do over and over that really wastes minutes.

For example, today my email inbox was unusually full, and I had to type out a couple of responses.   That took 34 minutes.  Then I browsed my selected forums over at Something Awful.  There wasn't much going on, so that was only 3 minutes.  I took care of some one-and-dones, including Dominions 3 and my webcomics and blogs run, then checked my email again.  There was something else there to take care of and that was another 16 minutes.  Then I hit Something Awful for another couple of minutes.  Then I browsed past the War of the Clans site and there was something going on there, and that was 26 minutes.  So then I looked at my email another time, and that was another 15 minutes.  At long last my inbox was empty again, there was no new posts at WotC or SA, and I finally was able to get down to the business of writing this post.

What's more, even as I write this, I have to force myself not to glance at my email...damn, there's another email there.  Going to have to ignore it for now.  I get a little twitchy, though.  I want to head over to SA to see if anything new's popped up, but dammit, I'm busy.

So what's there to do about all this?  We'll I've been trying the gradual weaning process.  I've declared more and more things to be spam.  I've reduced the number of SA forums I'm tracking from sixteen to five.  I'm playing fewer Dominions 3 games.  I'm also trying to get more sleep.  They say that you have more willpower available to spend if you're well rested.  That's why Interrogation 101 involves disrupting the target's sleep cycle.

But it's still a struggle.

One solution would be to try and go cold turkey.  Except that I need a lot of that stuff.  Email is how I coordinate much of my life, for example.  Facebook and Twitter are potential markets to sell to, as are the Something Awful forums, actually.  Maybe I'm just rationalizing...that's always a danger...but it seems I've cut down quite a bit already.

Maybe I just need to go to bed earlier?

WEP '12, Day 72 - Hanging Ten off Google Beach

So I was reading an article online, as I often do.  This particular one was about ways to increase your creativity, and one of the suggestions was not to get out of bed right away after you wake up, but rather, to lie there and contemplate before getting going.  The idea is that the urgency of leaping out of bed stifles creativity and replaces it with a more directed fight or flight state that may be good for getting you to work on time, but isn't as good at allowing you the luxury of thinking up new ideas.  Along a similar vein, the same article recommended taking baths rather than showers.

The stay in bed idea seemed like a low cost way to stimulate the creative mind, so I gave it a try this morning.  After I awoke, I lay in bed and tried to relax and let my mind enter a more creative state...

And woke up for a second time an hour and a half later, having fallen asleep again.

In its own way it was a valuable lesson, though.  The internet is an incredibly powerful tool.  You can find vast amounts of information on virtually any topic you can care to name.  Whole books, movies, and television shows are only a handful of clicks away.

The problem is that there's so damn much of it.

Take my Twitter feed.  I'm following some 220 different people, most of whom are entertainers of one stripe or another.  But there are also political ones, the Real Time World War II feed I blogged about, oh, and a few actual friends and family who also use Twitter.  But I almost never see that, anymore.  These days Twitter has become a way to get interesting links from different people, and almost never a source of actual communication.  Plus the volume of tweets makes it impractical bordering on impossible to keep up with anymore.  There's too damn much.

Facebook is much the same way these days.  Sure, of the 78 Facebook friends a much higher percentage are people I'd actually consider friends, but there's a lot of people I've never met on there too.  And again, there's too much of it.  I can't keep up with all the posts and game requests and what nots associated with Facebook anymore.

(On the other hand, the Google+ ghost town has the opposite problem.  No one's there.  I see posts there from four people on a regular basis.  Two of them I know, the other two are Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day.  No one else is home.)

So, you say, do the obvious.  Cut down on who you follow or friend, right?

Not so fast.  Because, as a writer myself who would like more people to read (and, eventually, pay for) my work, it behooves me to have as wide a net as possible.  Besides, that brings up a second problem with the 'net.  Quality control.  If I did want to trim the hedges of my social network, who would I choose?

Or, taking it to the broader question, how do you know what you find on the internet is worth your attention?

Not only is it possible to run into random advice that sounds good, as I did, but it's also possible to be completely unable to find the article for linking purposes only a few days later!  Even sites that get used every day like Wikipedia are considered so unreliable as to be ineligible for legitimate sourcing in any kind of respectable journal or magazine.  Yes, there's a huge amount of information out there, but how much of it is fact-checked or edited properly?

This all makes me think that if we're going to reform the educational system in this country, and God knows we really should, then maybe we need to be teaching our young people less about what to know and more about how to find what you need to know.  Data mining over rote memorization, in other words.  Because it sure seems to me that the former is more useful than the latter where anyone can get a bullet point summary of the Hundred Years War in moments from their phone.

With so much information out there, victory goes to he (or she) who can find it.

WEP '12, Day 71 - Old Republic Log XXVI

Here's to the session that wasn't.  Luke and I both use Wide Open West for our cable and internet, so when a major fibre-optic line in Schaumberg got cut and disabled WOW's service for much of the Northwest Suburbs, we were both screwed.  They finally got the 'net and phone back online around 2am, and cable around 4am, some 14 1/2 and 16 1/2 hours after the line was cut.  Sounds like they weren't prepared for a disaster of that magnitude, and I find myself wondering how a major line like that gets cut in the first place.

But this entry really isn't about all that.  After all, between Luke and I having no 'net and Matt having a house full of sick kids, only Morgan was even able to make our Midnight Runner game, and odds are, he just played Mass Effect 3 instead.

No, what I'd like to talk about is the degree to which The Old Republic starts to waste your time after you've completed your first story.

As you may recall, I've adopted a "log it as you go" system of time management.  That means I've been jotting down how long I spend on various endeavors, including how I game.  And that includes how much time I spent playing Old Republic last week.

Last Thursday, for example, I got Kelynn back on track after a couple weeks off playing Tasia.  I finally restarted my vicious Trooper's main storyline.  That involved heading back to my ship and contacting my boss from the holoterminal on board.

Now you have to understand that, despite my best efforts when buying the damn thing in the first place, my machine seems to be on the low end vis a vis playing Old Republic.  In particular, my loading screens seem to take much longer than everyone else's.  Pretty much every time we're doing a Guild run that includes a conversation, everyone else loads first and gets to the first dialogue option, then waits around for my slow ass machine to catch up and get involved.  Once I've loaded the conversation, we're good....everyone moves at the same pace until the end.  But that first load is a bitch.

What's more, that extends to every load screen.  I'm always the last to arrive at a Flashpoint and, because it takes so long for me to load back to the fleet and then back into the instance if I die, standard procedure during a wipe is to just wait around as a corpse and get revived by one of my guildmates when they get back in to the zone.

In other words, every load screen I see is a serious pain in the ass, even more for me than it is for most other players, and it's no picnic for them.

Right, so load screens suck.  Let's count how many I had to go through to get my story started again, shall we?  There was the one going from the main part of Carrick Station to the hanger.  A second from the hanger to my ship.  I have a conversation with General Garza, and she tells me to meet her on Coruscant.  So load screen three gets me from my ship to the Coruscant hanger.  Four gets me from the hanger into the spaceport.  I talk to Garza and get my mission.  I need to go back to Tatooine.   Fine.  Load screens five and six take me back to my ship.  Seven and eight get me from my ship and out of the hanger onto Tatooine proper.  I rescue my contact without any more load screens, but getting into the hanger of my ship where my other contact is waiting is number nine.  I find out what I need to know and get back on my ship with number ten.  Garza wants to debrief me on Coruscant.  Despite the fact that she was perfectly willing to discuss the disposition of known Republic traitors over the holoterminal before, this mission needs a face to face.  Okay, so eleven and twelve get me back onto Coruscant.  Garza tells me to get my ass to Balmorra.  Thirteen and fourteen to my ship, fifteen and sixteen to get to the surface of Balmorra proper where I can finally get shit started.  At which point I'm too tired to actually do anything and just park in the cantina and call it a night.

I've got it logged.  That whole runaround took two hours and sixteen minutes!  In that time, I scored a tiny fraction of the experience points I needed to level up.  I spent all but a handful of minutes of that time either staring at load screens or running around through places I've already been.  What's galling, however, is how unnecessary it all was.  If they'd just had the decency to put the contact on Balmorra and have Garza brief me onboard my ship, they could have eliminated 75% of the load screens and not wasted so much of my time.

And maybe I'd have played Old Republic since last Thursday.

Gabe from Penny Arcade had the same complaint about the bullshit runaround.  When I first read his post, I thought he was being overly dramatic.  Now that it's happened to me, I can see his point.  My time is precious.  I've become even more aware of how precious lately.  Have I got time for a game that thinks my time is valueless?  I don't know anymore.

This question comes to me at a crucial time.  My paid for time runs out one week from today on March 20th, and I'm not sure if I'm going to renew.  Old Republic holds a lot of attraction for me.  I like the stories.  Granted, I like Tasia's story more than I do Kelynn's, but keeping up with the Runners demands that I play Kelynn more.  And there is the guild.  We've had some fun times Flashpointing our way across the galaxy.  Hell, we came up with our own bullshit tactic!  As a subset of the guild is the fact that I get to play with my brother once a week.  Time being what it is, especially on his end with the 4 1/2 year old and 1 1/2 year old underfoot, my ability to game with Matt is pretty limited.  Being able to shoot shit up in Old Republic together is a pretty rare thing.

On the other hand, there are other games.  Guild Wars 2 is on the horizon.  So are Mechwarrior Online and Mechwarrior Tactics.  Lord of the Rings Online, Star Trek Online, and Dungeons & Dragons Online are all free to play and available now.  So it doesn't have to be Old Republic.  


The question is, do I still want to play the game?

Kelynn, Level 36 Vanguard, Balmorra

Tasia, Level 29 Sith Sorceress, Alderaan

Alia, Level 12 Jedi Shadow, Coruscant

Leanra, Level 3 Imperial Agent, Hutta

WEP '12, Day 70 - Offline

Great things, bundles.  You get your phone, cable TV, and internet all from one provider with a discount to all three services.  What could possibly go wrong?  I mean, unless they all go down at once or something, but what are the chances of that?

Today?  Those chances are 100%.  I'm typing this at a local library.  It's like old home week.  I feel like it should be 1999 or something.  Anyone want to watch The Matrix?

I'm reminded of that big blackout we had last year.  You don't really notice how much you rely on things, especially the 'net, until they're gone.  I mean, look at the things I was going to do today.  Blog?  Nope.  Write fiction?  I've got it stored as a Google Doc, and that needs me to be online to access.  How about playtest that game I'm in the beta for?  Oh, wait, that needs Steam to use.  Can't Steam without the 'net.  Watch TV?  No, cable's down and I can't get to Hulu or Netflix.  Bulls game?  That's on TV, which is down.  Play Old Republic with the guild?  You must be joking.

At least there's still lights, heat, and water.  And since I'm in a library I can borrow a book and maybe a DVD or two and still have something to do tonight.  And with luck WOW (the cable company, not the game) will get their shit together and get everything back online sooner rather than later. 

How is it that we live in an age of such wonders, and yet can find it all so frustrating?