"Do you want a mint?"

The title is the memorable quote from Joyce in tonight's episode of The Amazing Race, following the most disgusting Roadblock...ever. If I'm not mistaken, it's the first memorable thing she has said since the start.

The title was going to be a quote from Gretchen...or is it Meredith? Damned if I can keep 'em straight. No, it was Gretchen, the woman who has trouble not verbally expressing every emotion she's experiencing. That's according to her, mind you. But, in the most disturbing instance of "mental image we didn't need," she claims that, for putting up with this tendency, she makes it up to her husband in others ways. The moment's pause that the producers inserted after this statement told me that it was more information than they needed, as well.

I enjoyed this leg of the race but, apart from that disgusting Roadblock, there weren't a whole lot of highlights. The Roadblock from hell involved eating four pounds of cow parts, from ribs to intestines to saliva glands. Yee-uck. I mean, I love food, but I don't know if I could eat four pounds of something I adore, let alone four pounds of what I will kindly call a "feast of culturally diverse cuisine" from deep in Argentina.

It was a memorable challenge because so many teams decided to take a penalty instead of completing it, led without apology by Rob, who managed to turn it into a strategy that paid off for the team. Even with a four-hour penalty, he and Amber came in fifth...and minus four pounds of cow parts. In fact, all of the teams who elected to not to complete the task made it through to the next leg.

In a squeaker of an ending, the suddenly hapless navigating team of Debbie and Bianca were eliminated, beaten to the mat by the suddenly squabbling (and equally navigation-challenged) mom and son team of Susan and Patrick. I wasn't the biggest fan of Debbie and Bianca, as I found their constant cooing at each other somewhat annoying, but I did have to admire the way Debbie chowed down the "feast" to make it close, after having fallen so far behind.

If anyone was wondering, there were again a mere two lame Survivor references this episode. It's funny to me, because Rob and Amber being "the Survivor couple" is an omnipresent factor -- and apparently enough for almost all the other teams to be looking for a chance to Yield them. The thing is, the other teams are going to have to actually get to the Yields first in order to do that, and I don't think Rob and Amber are going to make that an easy task.

Before I sign off I'd like to say two non-AR7-related things: 1) Thank you to all of you who expressed your kind sympathy over the death of my friend; and 2) I hate March Madness. Every year it comes around, dominates the sports report with stuff I really don't care about and messes with the regular airing of Survivor. Grrr. If you're watching, it's on tomorrow instead of Thursday.