Shear Genius: Here Comes the Challenge

No post from last week's episode of Bravo's Shear Genius, but I'm back this week with a recap. Last night was a pretty good episode, too. The show started out with the contestants meeting renowned stylist Jose Eber in a mall, obviously. He explained to them that their challenge was to pair off and convince people in the mall to get a haircut. They could charge whatever they wanted for the cuts, and the team who made the most money would win. Pretty simple!

Tabatha and Tyson won the mall challenge by doing fewer cuts for more money per cut. They ended up making over $700, which was more than the other two teams combined. Daisy and Anthony didn't do a bad job, but Dr. Boogie and Ben came in last... possibly because Ben was dressed like a ninja (don't ask, because I don't have an answer.)

The elimination challenge asked the contestants to stay in their pairs and create wedding hairdos. They had only a few hours to style the bride, mother of the bride and maid of honor. The losing team would both be eliminated from the show, so the stakes were high. Daisy and Anthony once again worked very well as a team and make a look that really went well with their party's dresses and personalities. They were the clear winners.

Unfortunately, Tabatha and Tyson did not work well together, and after Tab admitted to the judges that she didn't care for Tyson at all, they were both cut from the show. I think it's sad that they were both eliminated. They were probably the two best stylists on the show, but sometimes when you make model look like she's going to a middle school homecoming instead of her wedding, you gotta peace out.

More clips, videos and blogs over at BravoTV.com

Maura Claire Tiboni *update*

Hello everyone! Exciting news! My cousin Erin, the Princess as she calls herself, just gave birth to her first child a few hours ago yesterday!

The baby is a girl (which we didn't know until she popped out) and is named Maura Claire Tiboni. Hopefully I will have a picture of the baby to post soon, but here's a classic one for now. Uncle Jim sent me a picture of Aunt Freddie (is she Grandma Freddie now?!) with baby Maura. I'm sure she's been in her clutches all day!

Congratulations, Erin! Looks like there's a new princess in town.

A personal update

Hello, Blog readers! Hope you have been well getting by with my limited posts lately. A lot has been going on in my personal life, so I haven't had much time to blog. The good news is that everything that has happened has been a positive change! I recently wrapped up a past job, which was stressful, but really fun at the same time. I started a new job this week and am starting to get settled in. My cousin had a baby yesterday, too... which is very exciting! My mom came for a visit yesterday for a little belated Mothers Day get-together. Nice weather is here, too. All good things...

Now to the real bloggy stuff... Did you watch Shear Genius last week? I had a chance to watch, but not enough time to dedicate a full entry to the episode. Danna (pronounced like Donna... I know) got cut after making her model look like a scary secretary from the 1940s. She deserved to go. Click for her video bye-bye. A new episode of Shear Genius airs tonight at 10pm on Bravo.

It was a beautiful weekend here in New York City and Carolyn's sister and her boyfriend were in town for a visit. We spent the majority of the day outside... walking through Central Park and along Museum Mile. Like usual, I took a million pictures. Here's some of my favorites.

The Amazing Race: All-Stars Finale

Did you have a chacne to see the finale of The Amazing Race: All-Stars last night? If you didn't STOP READING because I'm gonna ruin it for you.

I've been following The Amazing Race since it's first season in 2001, so I was very excited when it was announced CBS would be having an all-star edition. I was really pulling for Rob and Amber to do well, seeing as Amber went to my alma mater, but they were knocked out pretty early in the competition.

The final three contestants came down to Dustin and Kandice, Charla and Mirna and Eric and Danielle. Going into the final leg of the race the beauty queens, Dustin and Kandice, had a pretty large lead, but everything evened out in the last bit of the action. Charla and Mirna actually scooped the other teams and found a faster flight to the second-to-last destination, but they lost their lead after Charla's short legs (sorry!) slowed her team down in a foot race.

After a few low-excitement final challenges (the home stretch was a taxi ride to the finish... pretty uneventful, even with some red light/green light drama) a winner stepped onto the welcome mat for the last time. Eric and Danielle were the big winners of the race; taking home the $1 million prize. Of course, all the elminated teams were standing at the finish line with their forced cheers of encouragement for the winners.

I really thought that Dustin and Kandice were going to come out as the winners because they seemed to work the best together, and always made smart and calculated moves during the race. Unfortunately they finally butted heads during one of the final challenges and it might have cost them the victory.

No word yet on how the next season of The Amazing Race will shape up, but for more video, pictures and cast member playlists you can check out CBS.com

Spider-man 3

Like everyone else in the free world, I had a chance to check out Spider-man 3 this weekend. A few hours ago, actually. I'm not going to write a lengthy review for fear of spoiling anything, but I will say that it was pretty good!

The film had really great action sequences (like you would expect) but to my surprise it had a lot of "laugh out loud" moments, too. Unfortunately the audience LOL'd at a few moments that were supposed to be sad... mainly because Tobey McGuire makes really weird facial expressions when he's crying. There is also a really weird dance sequence that seemed really out of place for the film, but that was probably the only awkward part. Good movie over all, though, and lots of great special effects!

The movie has only been out for three days and has already earned $148 million dollars! It also broke the single-day box office record (previously held by Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest) by earning over $59 million bucks in ticket sales! I'm sure someone's spidey sense was tingling over that!

The producers must not have anticipated such a learn opening weekend, because they had an alternate version of the film prepared. The unreleased version is filled with popular products that advertisers must have paid a pretty penny to drop in. Check out this secret footage from our friends at Black20.com
Spiderman 3 - Product Placement