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I love Rob and Amber!!!! Appreciation Thread !!
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Amazing' Rob: `Survivor' veteran and fiancee turn reality TV on its ear
By Amy Amatangelo
Monday, April 18, 2005 - Updated: 12:32 AM EST
What hath Romber wrought?
``Boston'' Rob Mariano, along with fiancee Amber Brkich, has given the seventh season of CBS' ``The Amazing Race'' (tomorrow at 9 p.m. on WBZ, Ch. 4) more plot twists than a Shakespearean play. The man famous for breaking alliances has brought his conniving ``Survivor'' ways to reality TV's most dignified competition.
``Rob is changing the way `Amazing Race' is played,'' ``Survivor'' host Jeff Probst said in a recent telephone interview.
``I think it will make for a better show. I like `The Amazing Race,' but I think the show could benefit from a little more of this. The next time people play this game, they're going to be playing with a lot more (gusto) than they have previously.''
The ``Survivor'' lovebirds have dominated the game, and along the way to the pit stops, they have avoided several classic ``Amazing Race'' roadblocks.
For one thing, they have yet to bicker. While couples in previous races have revealed the ugliest underbellies of their relationships, Mariano and Brkich are as happy as two immunity idols at tribal council.
They also haven't yelled at their taxi driver (an ``Amazing Race'' staple) or made xenophobic remarks about the country they are visiting.
But the other teams are brimming with venom for the pair. It must sting that the fame Brkich and Mariano earned coming in first and second on ``Survivor: All-Stars'' has done nothing but help them. Random strangers recognize the duo and eagerly volunteer to help them along the race.
Mariano charmed players to drop out of a challenge when he didn't want to eat the unappealing food and just last week persuaded another team not to yield them (force them to stop) when they had the chance.
``Needless to say, I don't think we're going to be getting any Christmas cards from these people,'' Mariano said in a recent episode.
``People underestimate Rob. The guy is super smart and he's playing really competitive, and the fact that nobody else has thought of quitting a challenge as a strategic move shows you how well he knows that game,'' Probst said.
But the pinnacle (or nadir depending on how you look at it) came when Mariano drove right by another team that had crashed their car.
``Rob certainly put the final nail in the coffin of making him the greatest reality villain ever when he drove past the accident. Even I kind of went, `Whoa, Rob. Wow,' '' said Probst, who continues to stay in touch with the couple.
Reality scoundrels or not, Mariano and Brkich are two of the genre's most recognizable stars and the duo is unabashedly riding the reality show wave. While rumors of their televised wedding circulate, let's take a moment to ponder the couple's next step:
A GAME SHOW: With his winking persona, Mariano easily could host a show. Love him or hate him - he's fun to watch. Perhaps if the man Mariano always referred to as ``pretty-boy Probst'' ever gets tired of wearing khakis, he could pass the, um, torch to Mariano. Something tells us Brkich would be excellent in a Vanna White role.
THE NEXT ``NEWLYWEDS'': Forget the skankfest known as Britney and Kevin. Rob and Amber are the clear successors to Nick and Jessica. The time is ripe for the cameras to chronicle the first year of Romber's wedded bliss. Mariano remains positively smitten with his island galpal. After viewing a palace a man had built for his girlfriend in India, he told her, ``Imagine if I built you a palace, it would look twice as nice.''
``FEVER PITCH 2'': Frankly, we don't understand how Mariano failed to get the Jimmy ``I'm really a Yankees fan'' Fallon role in the first place.
Link~
http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=78949&format=&page=2
puddin:
'Survivor' sweethearts stay ahead of the game in 'Amazing Race'
By Amy Amatangelo/ Boston Herald
Friday, May 6, 2005
"Boston" Rob Mariano and his "Survivor" spouse Amber Brkich continue to dominate the seventh season of "The Amazing Race." Once again, the reality lovebirds, who met and fell in love on "Survivor: All-Stars," came in first in last night's episode.
The love-'em-or-hate-'em duo are now one of three remaining teams vying for the million dollar prize in next Tuesday's two-hour finale.
Meredith and Gretchen Smith, the oldest competitors ever to make it this far in the game, were eliminated. They made their game-ending blunder early in this leg of the race. Both the Smiths and Uchenna and Joyce Agu took the later but direct flight from Istanbul to London. Mariano, Brkich, Ron Young and Kelly McCorkle took a connecting flight through Frankfurt, Germany, and arrived in London an hour and a half ahead of the other teams.
As always, Mariano and Brkich benefited from their brazen combination of luck, strategy and fame. In London, they hooked up with a lovely chap named Stuart who shuttled the pair around the city. "This guy is pumped to be with us. Let's see if we can lure him in and keep him with us all day long," Mariano said. The unapologetic couple keeps on making enemies on their way to the pit stops. They yielded closest competitors and former allies Young and McCorkle.
Young and McCorkle escalated their incessant bickering. Former beauty queen McCorkle appears to think the game will serve as some sort of couple's therapy. "I used to think I could marry Ron. Now I'm just not sure if he is the one for me or if I'm the one for him. That's what this race will show us," she said.
All teams lost it during a "roadblock" that required one member of a team to drive a double-decker bus in and out of orange cones without ever hitting a cone. Even mild-mannered Joyce was pushed to her limits. "I can't understand what the hell you're saying to me," she screamed at her husband.
However, if there were a prize for being the nicest team, the million dollars would easily go to the Agus. Uchenna even tried to help the Smiths with a particularly heavy task until he was reminded that aiding another team was against the rules of the game. *(^
http://www2.townonline.com/canton/artsLifestyle/view.bg?articleid=241190
puddin:
Question Celebrity
By With Hank Stuever
Sunday, May 8, 2005; Page W04
I'm dead last to arrive at "The Amazing Race," the competitive CBS reality show that's been on, uh, forever. I only got hooked last fall, sucked in by weepy Victoria and her verbally and ultimately physically abusive husband, Jonathan. The duo so disturbed viewers' sensibilities--and boosted ratings--that CBS was left with no other choice than to sentence the couple to a public therapy session (scolding, really) with "Dr. Phil" McGraw. And again, I wonder: If "real" people provide so much drama and ready access, if 13 years of reality television (I count back to the first season of MTV's "The Real World") has taught people how to behave like pampered celebrities, then why on Earth do we need actual celebrities?
Or, when did all Americans begin to think of themselves as (and behave like) big stars ? Did it start with winning World War II? Is it rooted in the global triumph of our pop culture? Is it all those modern schoolchildren made to sing "I Believe I Can Fly"?
The current "Amazing Race"--the series' seventh season, which concludes Tuesday--adheres to the basic plot line: couples tromping imperiously and rudely through exotic corners of the (mostly third) world. Viewers quickly learn that the prettier, more telegenic couples are for some reason--confidence? a raging sense of entitlement?--more likely to come in first. And so we have Rob and Amber, "Survivor" alums, blithely making their way to the winner's circle, as if it's the easiest thing they've ever done.
And it's not. It looks hard and unhappy. Everyone is reduced to a shrieking American diva, too busy to take in the details of the world around her. All that screaming at cabdrivers--"Fast, fast! You understand 'fast'? Rapido, rapido," whether or not the poor dude speaks Spanish.
All that use of the word "baby"--"Come on, baby. You can do it. I know you can do it, baby. Hurry up, baby. Please stop yelling at me, baby, or I'll shove this oar . . ."
So, what about you? Are you deliberate, polite, able to ponder unfamiliar cultures and enjoy the unplanned tangent, insatiably curious about what you're seeing and the people you're meeting? Then forget winning "The Amazing Race." You're not traveling like a fast-edit superstar, which is, increasingly, the only way to go.
E-mail: celebrity@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/04/AR2005050401876.html
puddin:
Rombers wedding site @ CBS ]**]
http://www.cbs.com/specials/rob_amber/atlantis/
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RELATED VIDEO:
Watch Video 1
Rob & Amber: With These Gifts 'I Do'
May 18, 2005
"Boston" ROB MARIANO and AMBER BRKICH fell in love amid grueling challenges and scarce food on "Survivor," and they played out their engagement on the small screen as they criss-crossed the globe for "The Amazing Race." So it's only fitting that the TV twosome gets married in front the world in a new CBS special. But before their "I do's" air on May 24 (9 p.m.), Rob and Amber reveal what wedding gift they've picked out for each other!
"There's nothing better than this, Rob's going to die!" Amber gushes.
The top-secret present that "Survivor" winner Amber's been working on for weeks is an original painting of Rob's beloved Boston Red Sox. "Everyone saw him on TV wearing his Red Sox hat wherever he goes," Amber says. "People call him Boston Rob -- his nickname is after the city -- so he's a pretty big Red Sox fan.
To make it even more special, Amber hauled the large painting to spring training to have it signed by a number of the star players, a trip she wishes Rob could have been a part of. "He would love to be here right now, to meet the players," she says. "He's going to be slightly upset about that, but he's going to understand."
But there will be nothing for Amber to be upset about when she lays her eyes on her shimmering present from Rob.
"I designed Amber's engagement ring over a year ago and I thought what would be really cool, and really sentimental and really from the heart is if I got her some diamond earrings that mirrored the engagement ring," Rob tells ET.
He says he feels the diamond baubles are ideal for his lady. "The earrings are definitely a perfect present for Amber because as long as I've known her she's worn fake diamond earrings," he says. "I figured we're getting married and she won't do it for herself. I've got to splurge on my girl so I got her the real deal."
The CBS special, "Rob And Amber Get Married," not only features the pair exchanging vows, but it will also include a behind-the-scenes look at the preparations for the wedding, filmed at the famous Atlantis, Paradise Island in the Bahamas, Amber's bridal shower, their bachelor and bachelorette parties and the rehearsal dinner.
For more on Amber and Rob, watch tonight's ET!
http://et.tv.yahoo.com/tv/2005/05/18/robamberweddingptone/
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