Kynt & Vyxsin went from a good team to a bickering couple in The Amazing Race 12 Episode 7 but lucked out and were greeted with this season’s first non-elimination leg. In a new twist, they must complete one extra task that the other teams don’t have to do.

As usual, the show is delayed due to a football overrun, about 40 minutes or so tonight. I will begin a live blog once 60 Minutes is over.

Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.

First: Nicolas & Donald (10:12PM)
Second: Nathan & Jennifer (11:55PM)
Third: Ronald & Christina (1:06AM)
Fourth: TK & Rachel (2:11AM)
Fifth: Kynt & Vyxsin (3:23AM)

Teams must fly almost 4000 miles to Mumbai, India, a leg of the race typically known for breakdowns, not that some of these people aren’t already close to breaking down as it is. Given the starting times, bunching’s likely.

Jennifer doesn’t want to be disgusted/embarassed by her and Nathan’s behavior any more. Ronald is hoping he’s a new man.

All teams start off together when the airport opens. Ronald & Christina have already reserved tickets. Kynt & Vyxsin walk around to various offices to see what they can get.

First flight (arrives 10:35PM): Ronald & Christina, Nicolas & Donald, Nathan & Jennifer
Second flight (arrives 10:50PM): Kynt & Vyxsin
Third flight (arrives 1:00AM): TK & Rachel

The first flight is delayed, and Kynt & Vyxsin arrive a bit ahead of everybody else.

Not that all the drama matters, since the hours of operation start at 6AM, so everybody’s even again. They must purchase a newspaper, where an ad will tell them where to go next (yeah, they waited all night to buy a newspaper). The next stop is Chauhan Tailors. Jennifer’s distracted by… everything. Nicolas & Donald are more interested in watching the other teams for hints rather than doing their own searching.

Before they can do the detour, Kynt & Vyxsin must first do the speed bump, where they perform a series of yoga poses.

The detour is a choice between paste ‘em or thread ‘em. In paste ‘em, they must paste a 6 panel Bollywood movie poster to a wall. In thread ‘em, they’ll go to a flower market and create wedding garland, threading 108 flowers in a pattern.

Paste ‘em: Nicolas & Donald, Ronald & Christina
Thread ‘em: TK & Rachel, Nathan & Jennifer, Kynt & Vyxsin

Rachel has experience with flowers and feels confident about the thread ‘em task, which they complete pretty quickly. Nicolas & Donald likewise finish quickly. After starting the poster off too high to reach, Ronald mostly feels confident in his ability to yell at Christina, followed up by yelling at the judge. He reluctantly lets her take charge so it can be done right. Nathan & Jennifer very quickly get back to bickering. Kynt & Vyxsin appear to be back on track. Both of these teams finish within a couple minutes of each other.

TK & Rachel choose not to use the U-turn since they’re in front of the pack. Nicolas & Donald also choose not to U-turn. Ronald & Christina would have U-turned Nicolas & Donald but aren’t sure whether Nathan & Jennifer are ahead of them, so they choose not to use it. Whoever finishes first of the other two at the flower detour will probably be the one to use it. Despite finishing the final task last, Kynt & Vyxsin arrive at the U-turn first and foolishly waste it on Nicolas & Donald instead of Nathan & Jennifer, who they know for a fact are close to them. They pretty quickly realize this was a mistake.

The road block is navigating the streets delivering tanks of propane on a bike.

Road block: Nicolas, Ronald (despite his hernia), TK, Kynt, Jennifer

The pitstop is Bandra Fort. Nicolas gets sick on the way due to the physical exertion on the road block, even more reason why I’m wondering why the heck Jennifer’s doing it. Oddly, though, the physical part of the task doesn’t seem to be a problem for her. It’s actually reading the clue, which tells her to get receipts for deliveries (she also didn’t read the part of the clue about how to finish the detour). Lucky for them, Kynt is misled to believe the person accepting deliveries keeps a copy of the receipts, so he, too, has to go back and get all the receipts. Either way, Jen continues to whine and whine and whine.

First: TK & Rachel (win a trip from Travelocity)
Second: Nicolas & Donald
Third: Ronald & Christina
Fourth: Nathan & Jennifer
Fifth: Kynt & Vyxsin (eliminated)

Kynt & Vyxsin had a chance to turn this thing around but chose to U-turn the wrong team.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 12 Episode 9 I Just Hope He Doesn’t Croak on Us, which airs Sunday at 8:30/7:30c on CBS.

Nicole Kidman has told the Daily Mail that she and her husband of 18 months, Keith Urban, are expecting their first baby. This is her third child (the first two she adopted while married to Tom Cruise) but the first she has given birth to. Shortly after her divorce from Tom Cruise, she claimed to have suffered a miscarriage.

By the time High School Musical 3 comes out, there will certainly be no shortage of scandals surrounding its cast, although I don’t think this particular one will have the mileage the nude photo scandal did. According to Fox News via BuddyTV, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, who may or may not be dating this week, were seen at Lola’s in Hollywood, where they were sipping martinis and cuddling. They’re not overly young any more but are still shy of being 21. Zac is 20; Vanessa just turned 19. While I’d hope they would show a bit more discretion (perhaps that’s expecting too much), at least they’re not drinking and driving like half the celebrities their age.

The Amazing Race Asia 2 Episode 5 was a to be continued leg. With all teams onboard the same train heading to what we were deliberately misled to believe was a pitstop, everybody’s pretty bunched up, but there likely exists a few minutes between the teams. Now that we’re heading out of Japan, it’ll be interesting to see how it impacts Daichi & Sawaka, while Terry & Henri’s dysfunctionality should continue to hamper them regardless of country.

First: Ann & Diane
Second: Rovilson & Marc
Third: Adrian & Collin
Fourth: Paula & Natasha
Fifth: Daichi & Sawaka
Sixth: Terri & Henry
Seventh: Vanessa & Pamela

Teams must head to Hakata Port international ferry terminal, where they will catch a ferry to Busan, South Korea, a journey of 320km. So all teams are once again even.

Rovilson & Marc have decided to disguise themselves so the other teams can’t tell where they are. Oddly, the massive fake moustaches in random moving places isn’t working, though.

When they arrive in South Korea, they will travel by taxi to Jongro Taekwando Academy, where they will kick their way through three boards each in Korea’s national sport. Marc & Rovilson get the first cab and stop to get directions. It’s a one way street with no passing, which means that all the other teams must wait while they find out where to go. Natasha yells out the window that their cab driver knows where he’s going, so they should just follow them. Even though Natasha’s not actually sure her driver knows where to go, the boys fall for this and follow them anyway. It’s not long before they’ve lost all the other taxis, though, but that’s not a bad thing because all the other taxis are in chaos as well. Like in some parts of the US, the traffic lights are considered optional by some. At one point, Rovilson comments on his taxi driver, “He may not know where he’s going, but he’ll run at least 15 red lights to get there.”

Despite the trouble, Rovilson & Marc are the first to arrive at the taekwando school, for a task they’ll likely finish faster than most other teams. As much as there’s a theory that it’s not all about strength, a bit of strength doesn’t hurt any. Adrian & Collin are a couple minutes behind. Ann & Diane are just dropped off at some random location. Vanessa & Pamela arrive third. Spelling out the name of the street (Unro) makes Paula & Natasha’s cab driver think they’re going to the United Nations (UN). They eventually find it fourth by dumb luck (they spot it… the cab driver has no clue he’s passed it), and they bump into Daichi & Sawaka near the destination, who then arrive shortly after. For some reason, Daichi wants to use this same clueless cab driver again, but then again, all the cab drivers seem pretty clueless where this place is, so it might not be such a bad idea. Terri & Henry are the sixth team to arrive, which means Ann & Diane are in last and apparently nowhere near finding the school.

From there, teams must travel by taxi to the Jagalchi Market and search for a golden pig statue, symbolizing the Chinese year of the golden pig, which comes once every 600 years. As they’re leaving, Marc & Rovilson believe that their cab’s been stolen by Adrian & Collin. Marc & Rovilson are willing to play this as a race but think karma will come back to play a role. Their plan is to use the yield on Adrian & Collin if they arrive first. They believe that if someone arrives before them, they’re definitely going to be yielded, but Collin discusses how they don’t want to antagonize anybody, which is probably wise because yielding a team at the head of the pack probably won’t matter anyway.

Adrian & Collin choose not to yield. Now that their choice for a yield is not an option, Rovilson & Marc also choose not to yield anybody. Not knowing how far behind Ann & Diane are, multiple teams suspect them as being the ones who will yield people. Vanessa & Pamela don’t yield either. Daichi & Sawaka don’t realize Ann & Diane, who they would have yielded otherwise, are behind them. Terri & Henry throw away the yield on Rovilson & Marc, who are way ahead of them as usual. What sense does this make? When they arrive, Paula & Natasha can’t figure out what the heck happened here any more than I can. However, this does give Ann & Diane some false sense of security, as they believe that by some miracle Terri & Henry were actually ahead of Rovilson & Marc.

The detour is a choice between slither or deliver. In slither, teams must get two tokens from a tank of octopus. In deliver, teams must deliver food in the traditional manner (on their heads) to three addresses, potentially problematic since not all streets have names. Of the two choices, the slither task appears to be ridiculously simple by comparison. If they’re going to setup a detour, at least make it so the choices are remotely even.

Perhaps knowing just how much easier slither is, all teams choose to do that detour, with the exception of Daichi & Sawaka. After a while of doing deliver, dropping from fourth to sixth in the process, they switch to the slither detour as well.

The next stop is Nurimaru APEC House in Hyundai Beach. It’s late at night, but it appears the location is being kept open specifically for the teams, as there is no hours of operations problem.

The road block is lock and key in Yongdusan Park, where a gatekeeper will give them a key that will only unlock one padlock. If they break the key, they’ll have to start all over again. We saw this dumb luck road block in The Amazing Race 6, which took teams hours and caused Hayden & Aaron to be eliminated, but this looks like a much simpler version of that (nowhere near as many locks, and they’re not decades old). At this point, all teams are roughly even anyway, as everybody’s pretty close to first place Rovilson & Marc, and even Ann & Diane are still in it, as they arrive ahead of Daichi & Sawaka, who receive directions from Natasha in an attempt to get rid of Ann & Diane. Ann & Diane attempt to pull an Amber by pretending they got the clue in the wrong direction, but Daichi doesn’t bite, though Sawaka suggests they at least consider going that way since they can’t find it otherwise.

Road block: Marc, Collin, Pamela, Paula, Terri (uh, the clue said patience), Ann, Daichi

Marc gets it on the first lock. It won’t be that easy for everybody else, but perhaps this is just another example of this episode’s poor task planning.

The pitstop for this leg of the race is Beomeosa Temple, the most well known and largest buddhist temple in Busan.

First: Rovilson & Marc (they don’t appear to win anything, but they celebrate - quietly - nonetheless)
Second: Adrian & Collin
Third: Terri & Henry
Fourth: Vanessa & Pamela
Fifth: Paula & Natasha
Sixth: Ann & Diane
Seventh: Daichi & Sawaka (eliminated)

Rovilson & Marc continue to dominate regardless of the circumstances. Adrian & Collin, who have been finishing second behind them for a few legs, continue to perform strongly as well. Terri & Henry had a surprisingly good leg, apparently because they weren’t arguing for a change. Ann & Diane, who typically place third, had quite a rough leg after getting lost. Daichi & Sawaka shined briefly with the home country advantage, but that was short lived once they took the ferry to Korea. Still, they remain as upbeat as can be expected in the face of elimination.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Amazing Race Asia 2 episode 7, and don’t forget our live blogs of The Amazing Race 12.

Over the past couple weeks since Jamie Lynn Spears revealed she’s pregnant at age 16, she’s been the subject of much gossip, but this story if true has the potential to propel her to Britney levels. According to Star Magazine via Showbiz Spy, Casey Aldridge may not be the father of the baby after all.

Friends have said they were no longer dating, and “two separate Spears family insiders” believe the real father is an executive on her TV show Zoey 101. The reason behind claiming Casey is the father, they say, is that the actual father would be charged with statutory rape, something that was (foolishly) discussed as a possibility for Casey before we found out he was just slightly less than two years older than she is.

“Casey is being paid off to be the family’s fall guy while the real father remains unidentified,” says Star magazine.

“In Hollywood, little girls grow up fast, and she is no exception,” one of the sources said. “With everything that has gone on in her family, she needed someone to look up to… But the man she found seems to have completely taken advantage of her.”

Another source added, “Some of us have doubts as to the legitimacy of the claim that Casey is the father… Before the news of the pregnancy, how often did you see them together?”

David Letterman’s the last of the late night hosts to announce his return to the air. Unlike everybody else, however, he will be coming back with his writers. Bloomberg reports that David Letterman’s World Wide Pants, the production company behind The Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, has reached an agreement with striking writers that will allow him to resume his show next Wednesday with writers intact.

Letterman’s company agreed to the same proposals that the WGA was prepared to present before talks broke down and the strike began, the WGA said. Since Letterman’s neither streamed online (at least not widely) nor on DVD, I’m not real clear what they really got out of this negotiation, however, with the exception that it’s good PR for the guild and may push some others to act to attempt to resolve the strike. There is some concern that, while this may be a big positive for the guild, there is also the risk that it may divide the members as well.

Unlike most shows, which saw layoffs, Letterman began paying his staff out of pocket shortly after the strike started.

One of the teams that had looked the strongest, Azaria & Hendekea, were unable to work together and fell apart in The Amazing Race 12 Episode 6 and were eliminated after accidentally booking business class seats. Nathan & Jennifer hate each other (more) but still came in third.

Due to the football overrun, the show’s delayed about 25 minutes (as usual). A live blog will begin once 60 Minutes is over.

Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.

First: Ronald & Christina (2:19am)
Second: Kynt & Vyxsin (2:55am)
Third: Nathan & Jennifer (3:45am)
Fourth: TK & Rachel (5:37am)
Fifth: Nicolas & Donald (7:06am)

Next stop is Ancona, Italy by ferry via a bus from Split, Croatia.

Ronald says all the Italian he knows is that prego means please. Christina responds, “Isn’t prego a… spaghetti sauce?”

Bus 1: Ronald & Christina, Kynt & Vyxsin, Nathan & Jennifer
Bus 2: TK & Rachel, Nicolas & Donald

The gap between buses doesn’t matter. Everybody’s on the same ferry to Italy.

The next clue is in Empoli. They’ll receive a message by (product placement alert) Blackberry but can’t use it for any other reason. Nathan & Jennifer apparently get the most direct instructions on how to get to Empoli. The other teams get the most known way but perhaps not the most direct. Rachel forgot the route info clue where they stopped earlier, putting her and TK quite a ways behind, but they’re going a more direct way as well. The message on the Blackberry is a message from home.

To make matters worse, the less direct way is also jammed with traffic, and they can’t even go the exit they needed to go on because the road’s closed down. Nicolas & Donald just stop and wait for the road to open. The others decide to keep going. Kynt & Vyxsin get completely lost. Ronald & Christina seem to be doing okay.

Nathan & Jennifer arrive at Empoli first, waiting for it to open at 7am. Eventually behind them are TK & Rachel, also showing up before 7. While they’re in the air for the road block, Ronald & Christina show up, with Nicolas & Donald seconds behind them.

Kynt & Vyxsin are still completely lost, and she’s starting to have a breakdown.

The road block is to look for the next destination while soaring above the city in an ultralight (sneak peak of the road block).

Jennifer wants to do the fast forward (the only fast forward on the entire race). Nate declines. Ronald has no interest in doing the fast forward and gets very vocal about it, which is upsetting to Rachel, who can’t believe how he’s treating his daughter. Nicolas & Donald opt for the fast forward. They must get a permanent tattoo of FF (for fast forward), which is made a big deal, but ultimately they don’t seem overly hesitant and do complete the fast forward.

Road block: Nathan, TK, Christina, Vyxsin

Nathan finishes the road block easily, as does Christina. TK is unable to finish after 30 minutes and must land and then try again. He lands a second time after an hour. At that point, Kynt & Vyxsin show up. TK still doesn’t get it a third time, but Vyxsin gets it on her first try like the others. On his fourth attempt, TK finally gets it.

The next stop is the town of Vinci, the birth home of Leonardo da Vinci.

The detour is a choice between invention or tradition. In tradition, they must create a replica of a crane designed by Leonardo da Vinci. They’ll assemble it and use it to lift a stone, then place a mirror and read a clue. In tradition, they must learn a local flag routine.

Tradition: Nathan & Jennifer, Ronald & Christina, Kynt & Vyxsin (after immediately switching from invention)
Invention: TK & Rachel

Jennifer takes control like she did with the dancing challenge, while Nathan struggles to pick it up but eventually does with her help.

On the way to the detour, Kynt & Vyxsin get into an argument while driving over, well, it’s not really clear why they’re fighting, aside from being frustrated with all the driving they’ve been doing that day. Kynt forces her to get out of the car and let him drive. Too bad he has no clue how to drive a stick and screws up the car. His response is to keep telling her to shut up. They leave the car there and run to the detour, hoping the replacement car will be there when they get back.

TK & Rachel finally catch a break, after having a horrible leg, and they notice they’re no longer in last… then they get a flat tire. When Kynt & Vyxsin finish the detour, they do have a replacement car, which he wisely lets her drive.

The pitstop for this leg of the race is the Boboli Gardens in Florence.

First: Nicolas & Donald (win a trip to Cancun)
Second: Nathan & Jennifer
Third: Ronald & Christina
Fourth: TK & Rachel
Fifth: Kynt & Vyxsin (non-eliminated)

This is the first of two non-elimination legs. The penalty is a new twist in the race, a speed bump, which is a task that only the non-eliminated team must complete (please don’t blow this up into a bigger deal than necessary like with the U-turn). Nathan & Jennifer finally find out that if they work together they do a lot better (memo to Jennifer). Kynt & Vyxsin, however, who have gotten along the entire time, find out what it’s like when a team fails to cooperate, much like the fate Azaria & Hendekea suffered last week.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 12 episode 8 Honestly, They Have Witch Powers or Something, which airs Sunday at 8/7c(ish) on CBS.

In its first day of release, Jessica Simpson’s Blonde Ambition, which opened at 8 Texas locations, had a per theater average of $48, for a total of $384 on its first day yesterday, according to Fantasy Moguls. The movie will be released on DVD on January 22 and is essentially a straight-to-DVD release, but it appears they were just putting it in theaters just to say they did. Definitely a case of “Why bother?” since only a couple hundred people will actually see the movie before it comes out on DVD.

Preview video of The Amazing Race 12 episode 7 road block, where teams fly over the countryside of Tuscany in an ultralight.

After watching the video, check out The Amazing Race 12 Episode 7 live blog.

Lost returns to ABC on January 31 for an abbreviated 8 episode season 4. Here’s a two minute trailer.