January 03
A Gothic Tragedy
Last Sunday, I wanted to dress all in black after watching "The Amazing Race."
Because Kynt and Vyxsin, the Goth couple, got eliminated when they made a couple mental errors after racing really hard to come back in contention.
Because they came in last in the previous episode, they had to do a Speed Bump -- a task only they had to perform. And yet they managed to get ahead of the bickering couple Nate and Jen. If they had only U-Turned them, Kynt and Vyxsin would still be racing.
Alas, they chose to pick another team.
Even so, if Kynt had perfectly executed a Roadblock that involved deliveries, they might have won. Unfortunately for them, Kynt didn't realize the requirements of the task fully.
Here's what the Pinks had to say about their Racing experience:
MSN: You guys were my favorites going in, so I'm sorry to see you get eliminated on Sunday.
Kynt: Aww.
MSN: I thought you guys were going to get right back in it and then you just ripped my heart out.
Kynt: Believe you and me, we ripped our hearts out too. We didn't want to go home.
MSN: First of all, how'd you guys meet?
Kynt: We met four years ago. I handed Vyxsin a flier for a Goth Night event, and man did that flier work. ... It was a club night with a DJ spinning and stuff like that.
Vyxsin: He handed me this flier, and I was like, "Oh, this looks like a fun event." Then I looked up and was like, "Oh, what a cute guy. He's really adorable." Not long after that, we were pretty inseparable.
Kynt: We had a lot in common so we wanted to hang out almost instantly. And here we are, almost four years later, sprinting around the globe. Our friendship has only flourished. Vyxsin and I share everything -- the same goals, the same life outlook, the same cosmetics. (laughs)
MSN: So what made you decide to do the Amazing Race?
Kynt: Well, "The Amazing Race" has always been one of our favorite TV shows, one of the few programs that can hold our ADD-attention span. Because of that, I thought it was perfect for us. We both love to travel. We get severely claustrophobic if we stay in the same place for too long. We're road-trip junkies.
MSN: Let's get down to business. What were you thinking, trying to U-Turn Nick and Don?
Kynt: As a viewer, you're very privileged to have an omnipresent view of where everyone is and what everyone is doing. The only team we had visual contact with was Nate and Jen, who we saw very clearly pass us by about at least 10 minutes. So when we went to the sign, we thought about the teams and who we could eliminate from consideration. And Nate and Jen seemed like the first ones not to consider, because they had passed us. It seemed really strange that the U-Turn hadn't been activated yet. That to us was a clue that not many teams had passed the thing yet because how could no one use the U-Turn in this crucial of a leg, this close to the end? Especially when there would be no repercussions, you know what I mean. It's toward the end. It's not like using it at the beginning and people getting mad at you. But we saw them pass us. When they got to the U-Turn, you saw the footage, they remarked, "How'd they get here?" Like, "We were ahead of them. How'd they get here?" They thought the same thing as we did. They thought they were ahead of us. We thought they were ahead of us as well.
MSN: But wasn't the fact that they didn't use the U-Turn on you a sign they hadn't gotten there before you?
Vyxsin: But by that rationale, the other three teams could have been behind us.
Kynt: Right. Because there were three other teams that could have U-Turned us or another team as well.
Vyxsin: It seems really unlikely ... that the other teams could have been behind us. However, it seemed really unlikely that three teams would have gone ahead of us and not U-Turned us or each other.
Kynt: That blank U-Turn sign seemed very virgin to us. Like, how could no one have used this if they had the opportunity in this tight and crucial leg where everyone got bunched up together at the newspaper stand? It felt very untouched. It felt like no one has been here yet. It felt like we must be the first team to play.
Vyxsin: It seems clear looking back, hindsight being 20/20. Once we reached the Roadblock, we began that challenge and Nate and Jen arrived. That was the moment when we realized, "Oh, no! We U-Turned the wrong team." Of course, that was a sinking feeling because we knew what had happened and it became clear to us. At the time, we did what seemed logical to us. It obviously wasn't the correct decision. But it was a decision from the information we had at the moment seemed to us to make the most sense.
Kynt: There were just two clues. Number one, the sign hadn't been used, which indicated that no one had gotten there yet and number two, the fact that we saw Nate and Jen pass us.
MSN: I have to tell you, I'm not sure if I'm disappointed more because I wanted you guys to stay in the Race or because I wanted Nate and Jen gone. But man, there was some yelling and screaming in the house when they came back from commercial and you put up Nick and Don's picture there.
Vyxsin: That commercial was such a cliffhanger because it ended on their photo, didn't it?
Kynt: Their photo was the first one we pulled out of the box. We went through them and thought about the other ones.
MSN: So you pretty quickly dismissed the possibility of U-Turning them, though.
Kynt: They were the first possibility. Then we thought, they're the only team we've seen. They left at least ten minutes before us. And the U-Turn destination was really close to the flowers. It wasn't that far away. There wasn't that much room for a team to get lost. I still to this day don't understand how they got lost.
MSN: I think they just got stuck in traffic pretty badly. But when it got to the Pit Stop, how far behind them were you?
Kynt: Just a matter of minutes. I don't know the exact number but I know it was really, really tight.
Vyxsin: Very close.
MSN: The other question is about the deliveries. Now you forgot about getting the receipts back from people or some such?
Kynt: What I did was, whenever a delivery occurs, they give the recipient a receipt and they take a receipt with them to make sure both parties have confirmation of delivery. Which is exactly what I did. I obtained a receipt from them and left the other one with them as proof of delivery. I didn't realize I was supposed to bring it back. I wasn't the only one to make that error, because if you watch the footage, one of the recipients actually says to a team you forgot something, meaning the receipt, and the person goes back and they get it. It was...an idiosyncrasy of the task.
MSN: So what was the best part of the Race for each of you?
Vyxsin: For me, the best part of being on the Race was to see these places and meet these incredible people that we got to meet, have this adventure, really challenge each other with things we never dreamed of doing before, really watch each other blossom under the intense pressure and really thrive. I was so proud of Kynt. I just feel he was the most wonderful teammate I ever could have imagined. My favorite thing about the Race was getting through it with him.
Kynt: "The Amazing Race" is such a beautiful concept. On one hand, it's a typical reality show. It highlights interpersonal conflict and conquest. On the other hand, it's a lot like National Geographic. Every show showcases a different country's landscape, scenery, architecture, culture, and people. There's nothing else like it on TV. We're so proud to be a part of it. And like she said, the chance to travel the world. We don't look at it as loss. We look at what we won. And we won the opportunity to go on a globetrotting adventure across eight legs. We don't feel bad about it. We tend to focus on what we did right as opposed than what we did wrong. Every team in the game is going to come home with that "I woulda, I coulda, I shoulda" story. Every team is going to have that one moment where if they only turned left instead of right...
Vyxsin: Why didn't I, Why didn't you? Why didn't we. You can drive yourself crazy with that attitude.
Kynt: Our moment was more dramatic, with the U-Turn. But everybody's going to have that one consequential error that costs them the game.
MSN: What would you say besides the U-Turn was the toughest moment of being on the Race for you?
Kynt: The India leg in general was definitely the toughest, because we had to contend with the additional Speed Bump, and even then it's not just the task itself, but the travel time that we lost traveling to and from the Speed Bump location. The Speed Bump itself wasn't right there next to the sign. That was just the Speed Bump clue. We had to get in a taxi and go to another destination completely. That leg was just rigorous. It was a fight for life from the beginning of the day to the end, gasping for air.
Vyxsin: We arrived there first but we didn't get much of an advantage for getting the first flight because we all had to wait for the newspaper stand to open in the morning. We didn't really get any sort of a lead that way.
MSN: How would you describe the strengths and weaknesses of the remaining teams?
Kynt: I feel the four teams in the final have all earned their spot. I think they're all very competitive in different ways. They deserve to be where they are. All four of them need to focus on as much teamwork as possible to get ahead because things are only going to get harder. So they'll well-deserving of their position, we wish them the best of luck.
MSN: What's the future hold for you guys?
Kynt: 2008 is a big question mark at this point. But I can tell you we've never been more excited. We've never been filled with more anticipation. I've a feeling we won't be going away. This adventure may be over, but the Pink-and-Black Attack will never stop racing.
MSN: Vyxsin, any final thoughts?
Vyxsin: I think overall, Kynt and I feel just so appreciative for an opportunity of a lifetime. Whatever the future holds, I'm sure we'll find some new and exciting stuff to get ourselves into. Whatever it is, we're never bored. As long as Kynt is around, there'll be some excitement in the New Year.
MSN: Two other questions: What's up with the spelling of your names, and was it hard to keep up your makeup on the Race?
Vyxsin: Vyxsin is a nickname. Makeup was difficult to do under outdoor conditions, it's true. Especially in the warmer climates, our makeup got a little bit melty. But we did our best to maintain as well as we could. We got really good at drawing on trains and airplanes and in turbulence.
Kynt: We did it so often we're pretty adept. ... The morning before the Race, we'd put our game faces on. Because when we look our best, we play our best.
- posted by Raoul
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