Also, they were fighting to stay in the race. Had they trash talked just to stay in the middle of the pack, it would have come off different. But they knew they were in last and needed something to get ahead of the next team.

If the task was shooting baskets and they were trying to psyche out the competition, would that be okay? All they saw was a person in their way that was hesitating.

Yeah I don't get people who are terrified of heights who go on Amazing Race and people who don't like the outdoors who go on Survivor.

I applied.

I'm terrifed of heights in certain situations, mostly when there is no barrier or tether. This has been a problem hiking, but I'm fine in a building. Something like the slide would be pretty scary (6 stories and almost vertical?), but since you are meant to go down it, I think I would be okay. But I really don't know.

Part of doing the race is challenging yourself. The one thing I told J I wasn't sure I could do is bungi jump.

I certainly put both fears on the application because I'm pretty sure it helps your chances of getting picked.

there are some SYTYCD spoilers out there. i won't discuss here, but just know they are out there.

I think it's mean to taunt people about their phobias, regardless of the situation. It makes my skin crawl the same way taunting someone about a disability would.

On a basketball court, there's a reasonable expectation that none of your fellow competitors have a crippling phobia of hoops. The situations are not comparable.

It's just that I can't remember anyone mentioning it during eating or crawly things challenges and there has certainly been taunting there.

And, as I said, they really didn't see the extent of it.

I also didn't think it was so much *taunting*, per se. They weren't calling her names or belittling her. They were doing that fake concerned thing of, "Oh, don't do it if you're scared, honey."

Which is creepy patronizing anyway, but still.

I liked watching the different approaches to rowing that little rubber dinghy--Big Easy's (what's his real name?) and the other guy's backstroke, Dad's using a kayak-style stroke, and the one guy's rather ineffectual rowing.

Mom was watching the end of the ep with me last night, and couldn't believe that Dad was the father of Pinky, partially because he looked a lot younger to her in his swim trunks, and partially because he was so much smaller than his son.

They kept to the side of line that I'm comfortable with -- no personal taunts, no belittling her because she's a girl. (Whether they'd have done it if Canaan was the one who couldn't bring himself to go down the slide is another question, but completely hypothetically I do believe they would have.)

(Me, in retrospect I'd be: DAMN! I got TRASH-TALKED by a freakin' HARLEM GLOBETROTTER! How cool is that?)

She was clearly very vulnerable, but the Globetrotters comments didn't bother me. My thing is, if Mika were a man, another Globetrotter for example, this is how they would have behaved. This is a high stakes competitive situation. Oh well.

Mika wasn't going to do, I think the other team picked up on this and decided to make a comment about it.

I think if she'd been a man, their comments would have been less patronizing. The "Oh honey, I'll walk you down" shit really rubbed me the wrong way.