For a bit of the entirely non-academic:
The only reality TV show I like is The Amazing Race, which this summer is my non-negotiable TV show - i.e., it automatically gets its place on my schedule, and everything else on Tuesday nights (when it shows on CTV here) has to work around it. In the past I've been a fairly good judge of teams: the teams I've rooted for (I always root for two) have always done fairly well: one always makes it into the top three (usually second place). This year my number one pick is Charla and Mirna, who are just plain amazing; followed by Brandon and Nicole, because I always root for Texans. (Colin and Christie are also Texan, and might very well win, since they consistently do well; but Brandon and Nicole work better together. C & C would be my third pick,if I had one.) Part of the reason I like Charla and Mirna is that the harder the other teams try to outmaneuver them, the more easily they beat them; they're also very funny - they have some acquaintance with a large selection of languages, but not fluency in most of them, so they've managed to get by so far with the most extraordinarily comical Franco-Italo-Spanglish.
