Faithful viewers of "How I Met Your Mother" know that Barney Stinson loves the word "awesome" and everything it represents. Neil Patrick
Harris' suave man about town craves nothing more than to be awesome at whatever he pursues, whether it's laser tag, suiting up for a one-night stand or whatever the heck he does for Goliath National Bank in his corner office.

So it's no surprise that he thinks he's awesome now at relationships, boasting that he and Robin have supplanted Marshall and Lily as the best couple. Naturally, this leads to the introduction of another indispensable term in the How I Met Your Mother lexicon: New Relationship Smugness.

Add "upper body strength" to the list of things you might need to win the Race.

We're down to six teams. First, let's take a step back and marvel at
the wonder that is Dubai. The pit stop is a resort, a man-made island
shaped like a palm tree that is eight football fields big. On the one
hand, it's ridiculously over the top. On the other hand, I yearn to go
there.

But apparently it's wrong to shove her in.

Or is it?

We're still in Dubai. The guy with the tall hair, OK, Cheyne (and how precious that it's spelled that way) and his partner Meghan get a healthy lead because last episode they did the fast forward and arrived first.

It's about that time in the Race when the weak teams are falling by the wayside.

And indeed, the last weak team went bye bye last night.

With the Aspergers team, Zev and Justin, out because of the passport debacle, the gay brothers Sam and Dan start out the Race first.

While Monday night's episode leaves unanswered how many billable hours Marshall wastes uploading slide shows of uncomfortably lame double dates, at least Ted proves he can overcome the romance-killing powers of a professor's tweed jacket.

Call it "Revenge of the Sexless Innkeeper," or "The rare 'How I Met Your Mother' episode where the subplot makes up for an otherwise weak storyline."

Well, we already knew from CBS promos that a team was going to lose its passports.

And then subsequent promos even revealed which team it was. So I guess the suspense was finding out what happened after that.

I was definitely bummed.

We're quickly down to 10 teams in Vietnam and there's another first in AR history.

The pit stop, which is a barge, moves to a secret location and drops the teams off. Their first clue sends them to Ho Chi Minh City, and the Golden Dragon Puppet Theater where they must take the clue from the mouth of a water dragon puppet.

Dad and the pink-haired son are the first to leave.

It's pretty clear that's the message behind CBS's new show "Three Rivers," premiering tonight at 9.

The network has even partnered with Donate Life America to raise awareness; you soon might see a lot of lime green rubber bracelets.

So if you're planning to selfishly covet some perfectly good innards should you die, and you're fine with that position, you probably shouldn't watch this.

The case at the center of last night's episode of "The Good Wife," had parallels to one of our area's most infamous recent incidents.

Yep, the Duke lacrosse case.

Even the characters on the show acknowledged as much, in explaining their trepidation in accepting the civil suit.

It was a clever way of the writer's noting that they were using the real case as a jumping off point.

I know some people are questioning "The Amazing Race's" Emmy-winning domination.

But after last night's episode, I can already see Number 8 on the way.

It was 2 hours of fun.

With 12 teams starting, names are insignificant. But some team descriptions stand out; the Harlem Globetrotters (here's hoping we don't hear that whistling theme too often); the Miss America couple (she's black, he's white); the on-and-off dating couple (the man says she's a fiery Colombian), the guy with Asperger's and his friend; the
poker players; the gay brothers; and the yoga couple ("People think we're Zen, but we're like yoga in the hood.")