Rob and Kimberly are dating, and they're from California, and they have these conflicts because headstrong in-charge bitch bastard my way or the highway blah blah blah butt heads see how our relationship works out critical point in the bling bling blee Kelly Jon Chuck Millie Colin Christie Ron Kelly BLECH. His head is very pointy, or else his hair is worn in a way designed to make his head look pointy. And come to think of it, both of their personalities seem kind of pointy.

Dustin and Kandice are friends and beauty queens, and you know what? You can tell that they know perfectly well that this makes a certain number of you want to hate them right off the bat, and they don't mind. It's probably nothing new. It turns out that they met at the Miss America pageant, where Dustin was Miss California 2005 and Kandice was Miss New York 2005. I'm betting there were many, many high-level conference calls regarding the decision about whether to put them on the show, huh? "Hmm, Miss California and Miss New York. They're okay, but I'm still drawn to the socially inept marine biologists with the forehead acne. They're so interesting." Dustin says that it's their competitiveness that holds them together as friends. One of the things I like about casting them is that they haven't been friends forever, apparently -- I like the idea of including some pals who might still be forging their friendship, rather than it always being best friends who claim to have sprung from a single acorn of the soul.

David and Mary are a married couple, and he's a coal miner. And for all you'll hear about the "diversity" in this cast, this is probably their most creative and unexpected piece of casting. As screwy as we are about race and ethnicity in this country, we're even worse about class, and as unlikely as you think you were to see, for instance, Indian-Americans on the race, you were less likely to see David and Mary, and I'm very happy they were included. David says that he thinks they're "tougher than most people," given that he goes underground every day and tries not to die, while they go out and, say, practice for the swimsuit competition. Not to encourage people to be self-congratulatory, but I'll buy that. Mary also tells us that she didn't believe at first that David really was interested in her because he was so cute (and boy, I hear that), and he admits that she made him pursue her pretty aggressively before she went out with him. Cute!