But Seriously, is there?!
Note here: I've been very clear with my shortcomings as a blog writer and my inability to take notes while watching TV -mainly because of the douchieness of that action. Also, I'd much rather blog than work, but generally wouldn't much rather blog than do whatever it is I do with my weekends. We all know these things about me. Plus, I'm dynamic.
The point is, I watched Top Chef Thursday night... maybe? Did I watch it Friday morning? No. I watched Project Runway Friday morning -and let me say this about that, as ridiculous as that show is, if I were looking for a gay father, I'd hire Tim Gun... what a good guy! The point is, I'm limited by my ability to remember crap from Top Chef, even more so than usual.
But Seriously! Is there?! This is why I ask; Top Chef's quick fire challenge this week had each chef cooking a dish with a set number of ingredients (salt, pepper, and oil were gimmes). How did aforementioned chefs determine aforementioned number of ingredients? Craps table! If you'll remember back to this week's Hell's Kitchen -and seriously, how sad is it that a significant portion of my mental capacity is used to make comparisons between two TV reality cooking shows. Anyway, yes Hell's Kitchen plays craps like this, Top Chef plays craps like that... Hell's kitchen be like this, Top Chef be like that. End of blog.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
More to Love than depressing me
Odd night of TV watchin' last night. Watched the last half of More to Love and the first half of Top Chef. I think I'm going to leave Top Chef alone for now, we'll see if I break my streak of no weekend blogging to talk about it tomorrow.
Oh but fat women be cryin'!!! Nah, that's too far, that's hurtful. But seriously, this More to Love show is getting out of hand. Last night contained the mother of all trainwrecks. See -well, some context first. Here's the problem at the center of this show; the majority of these girls are not crazy enough to be on reality TV. Most of these girls are here, or appear to be here (maybe I'm a patsy) because of very low self esteem. I'm pretty convinced (again, maybe a patsy) that most of these girls really think this is their best odds of finding love (most of them are pretty young too). Add to this the Fatchelor (I can't believe I did it... but I did. I can't take credit for that name either, I don't know where I heard it, but I'm sure it's not my own) So the Fatchelor may or may not have incredibly low self esteem, but I assure you of this; never in his life has he had two, let alone twelve (or how ever many they started with) women fighting over him so right now he's feeling like a total stud, and that's a lot for a man to handle. Also Fatch (short for the Fatchelor... that is my own creation) Fatch loves the make-out. It's totally clear within 12 minutes of any episodes start that Fatch is aimin' for the make-out. So Fatch is saying whatever it takes to get some make-out, and the girls are eating it up. Where am I going with this? Well, it's this equation that has made this show ripe for trainwrecks... and I guarantee that we'll see plenty more over the next few episodes.
So the two -well, fantastic doesn't work, because I'm feeling a little dirty about all of this already. If I call it "fantastic" I'm going straight to hell. Umm... the two stand-out moments in this show were the following; One- There's a pair of reasonable -or relatively reasonable- women left on the show. Blonde one (we'll call her Shirley) Shirley gets told by crazy mixed-race girl (we'll call her Ali) Shirley gets told by Ali that she (Ali) "Has fallen in love with [Fatch]" and Shirley has a crisis because she's afraid that Fatch will reject her because these other girls love him, and she doesn't. Two things about this a) The statement puts into contrast how crazy the idea of people "falling in love" on TV is; and b) It points out the absurdity in a show that makes someone feel like the have to fall in love with someone in order to win... him... see, I'm feeling ridiculous even writing it.
The second stand out moment involves Ali also (she's all over this episode). Ali decides that it's time to tell him how she feels (eek). So she starts off by saying "I'm going to say the same phrase in 3 different languages". Ugh. Now we all know how cumbersome it can be to tell someone that you love them. The girlfriend could attest to my own issues in delivering that news (and I pray she won't)... but yikes! That poor girl! So she goes through them and the last one is Spanish, which he translates to "Ummm.... you are my love?" (brilliant). Then she breaks it down English style and tells him that she's "fallen in love with" him. What follows is exquisite in it's awkwardness... it's so horribly awkward that it's terrible, but at the same time part of me is saying "I may be watching the pinnacle of human achievement in awkward moments right now". Moral conflict, thy name is More to Love.
Needless to say, she gets sent home -along with someone else I don't remember- and she tells him again as she's leaving that she loves him -seriously, it was so awful, the stress from recounting the events is upsetting my stomach... awful- then she leaves (sobbing) and he runs out after her. His running after her threatened to be the straw that broke my proverbial "camel's back" but he actually had a bit of a moment of redemption where he told her that he thought she was a great person but that they weren't right for each-other. Of course she's bat-poop crazy, so she didn't get a word of it. End of episode.
Honestly, recounting this has got me down a little bit. I think if next week is like this week (and it threatens to be) I may just not write about this show anymore. Ugh.
But I don't want to leave you on a down note. Here's a little inspiration, this one gets the girlfriend fired up. Girlfriend be paintin'! (not really, just calling back to the beginning of the blog... it's a tool of the trade)
Oh but fat women be cryin'!!! Nah, that's too far, that's hurtful. But seriously, this More to Love show is getting out of hand. Last night contained the mother of all trainwrecks. See -well, some context first. Here's the problem at the center of this show; the majority of these girls are not crazy enough to be on reality TV. Most of these girls are here, or appear to be here (maybe I'm a patsy) because of very low self esteem. I'm pretty convinced (again, maybe a patsy) that most of these girls really think this is their best odds of finding love (most of them are pretty young too). Add to this the Fatchelor (I can't believe I did it... but I did. I can't take credit for that name either, I don't know where I heard it, but I'm sure it's not my own) So the Fatchelor may or may not have incredibly low self esteem, but I assure you of this; never in his life has he had two, let alone twelve (or how ever many they started with) women fighting over him so right now he's feeling like a total stud, and that's a lot for a man to handle. Also Fatch (short for the Fatchelor... that is my own creation) Fatch loves the make-out. It's totally clear within 12 minutes of any episodes start that Fatch is aimin' for the make-out. So Fatch is saying whatever it takes to get some make-out, and the girls are eating it up. Where am I going with this? Well, it's this equation that has made this show ripe for trainwrecks... and I guarantee that we'll see plenty more over the next few episodes.
So the two -well, fantastic doesn't work, because I'm feeling a little dirty about all of this already. If I call it "fantastic" I'm going straight to hell. Umm... the two stand-out moments in this show were the following; One- There's a pair of reasonable -or relatively reasonable- women left on the show. Blonde one (we'll call her Shirley) Shirley gets told by crazy mixed-race girl (we'll call her Ali) Shirley gets told by Ali that she (Ali) "Has fallen in love with [Fatch]" and Shirley has a crisis because she's afraid that Fatch will reject her because these other girls love him, and she doesn't. Two things about this a) The statement puts into contrast how crazy the idea of people "falling in love" on TV is; and b) It points out the absurdity in a show that makes someone feel like the have to fall in love with someone in order to win... him... see, I'm feeling ridiculous even writing it.
The second stand out moment involves Ali also (she's all over this episode). Ali decides that it's time to tell him how she feels (eek). So she starts off by saying "I'm going to say the same phrase in 3 different languages". Ugh. Now we all know how cumbersome it can be to tell someone that you love them. The girlfriend could attest to my own issues in delivering that news (and I pray she won't)... but yikes! That poor girl! So she goes through them and the last one is Spanish, which he translates to "Ummm.... you are my love?" (brilliant). Then she breaks it down English style and tells him that she's "fallen in love with" him. What follows is exquisite in it's awkwardness... it's so horribly awkward that it's terrible, but at the same time part of me is saying "I may be watching the pinnacle of human achievement in awkward moments right now". Moral conflict, thy name is More to Love.
Needless to say, she gets sent home -along with someone else I don't remember- and she tells him again as she's leaving that she loves him -seriously, it was so awful, the stress from recounting the events is upsetting my stomach... awful- then she leaves (sobbing) and he runs out after her. His running after her threatened to be the straw that broke my proverbial "camel's back" but he actually had a bit of a moment of redemption where he told her that he thought she was a great person but that they weren't right for each-other. Of course she's bat-poop crazy, so she didn't get a word of it. End of episode.
Honestly, recounting this has got me down a little bit. I think if next week is like this week (and it threatens to be) I may just not write about this show anymore. Ugh.
But I don't want to leave you on a down note. Here's a little inspiration, this one gets the girlfriend fired up. Girlfriend be paintin'! (not really, just calling back to the beginning of the blog... it's a tool of the trade)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Musings on the various kitchen's of the afterlife
Hello undetermined number of reader(s),
While watching Hell's Kitchen last night, I started thinking about the name, and whether it was a reference to a proverb, or folksy saying or something like that. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that it was none of these, and it was just a name meant to say "Hey! This show's centered around a kitchen, and boy, that Gordon Ramsey sure is tough to work for!". But it also occurred to me that the restaurant's name would have a completely different context for the diners. Stripped down, they're really just paying a lot of money to eat dinner in a place with a horrible tense atmosphere and a screaming British man where their food may or may not ever arrive. Sure, I'd imagine the kitchen in Hell would be infinitely worse, you know the food wouldn't be any good, there'd be no lemon slice in your water, etc... but no one would call their restaurant Purgatory's Kitchen -just doesn't ring right. Neither does Kitchen for People Who Didn't Use Their Turn Signals But Otherwise Lived An Acceptable Life So They're Only Being Punished In Death With A Less Than Preferable Dinning Experience. So Hell's Kitchen is what we get. But enough with my musing about the level of service in kitchens of the various levels of the afterlife, I've got a show to talk about!
The big question of this weeks episode, the question on everyone's mind: "Hey, does this episode seem 500lbs lighter?" Too mean? Alright. How about "Hey! Where the hell's Ralphie (Robert)?!" So everyone wants to know where Robert (Ralphie) is and whether he's alive. Well, we're just going to have to wait. Other stuff happened first.
But before we get to the other stuff. There's something that's been bothering me. Van and Beanie-hat guy (don't know his name... he's Anthony today). What's the deal with Van and Anthony? Could both of these guys be highly functioning Autistic? Personally, I think Anthony's deal is that he's done way too much of some heavy drug, and it's left his body unable to produce emotions... like maybe he spent a summer on Ecstasy, or maybe he's a high functioning heroin addict... I don't know, but there's something wrong with this guy. Van! -Seriously, you could tell me anything violent/illegal/dangerous that Van has done, and I'd believe you; You:"Van beat up his grandmother" Me:"I'd believe it"... see? Anything!.
-Important note: you have to stick through this one to get what I'm saying... it's the last 30 seconds or so that are worthwhile.
Now that's out of the way. This weeks reward challenge was Vegas themed, you know because this season's based in Las Vegas. No? That's Top Chef, you say?. Oh, well then it must be because Whistler B.C. is a well known gambling location. It's Not? It's a ski resort? Oh. Well then they just like craps. Underrated line of the episode; upon revealing that the reward challenge would involve Craps, Amanda (really her name, I know!) said "Oh Crap!". So the deal is this, they each role the die? dice? I don't know, I think it was like 12-sided -who remembers Dungeons and Dragons?! Just me? OK then. So they role this die with letters it and whatever letter comes up, they have to name an ingredient that starts with that letter, then that ingredient will make up their dish. So the women go first, and it's boring... they do really well coming up with ingredients that will go well together. The guys go and end up with Haddock (it's a type of fish), fig, angel hair pasta, apple, and tomato. At first glance, this looks awful, and the guy that chose apple (Kevin, I think... bald guy) said that he chose it because everything was already screwed. I disagree. Take the apple out, you can make a nice tomato sauce with fig. Turns out that's exactly what they did. Chef Ramsey somehow missed the fact that there was no apple in their dish, and awarded them the win (strangely enough, no one else noticed they were missing an ingredient. I felt like I was taking crazy pills.) So the boys get to go to Vegas -that's why they did the craps!!!- and they have fun and bond and decide that they never want to see Ralphie (Robert) again. Oh, but guess who returns immediately upon their arrival home! Yup, good ol Robert (Ralphie). Robert tells his team that the doctors said his heart was too small for his body. I have to say, I loved the deadpan delivery by Ralphie (Robert) you could watch the realization that he was joking run through the room like 'the wave' at a baseball game (For the record -FTR- I hate the wave. Sit the hell down and watch the game!). So they had dinner service, and because Hell's Kitchen is way into things that haven't happened on Hell's Kitchen before -Next week they'll be serving dinner from low-earth orbit- they have two chef's tables. It appears the purpose of these tables are to distract the chefs and provide each kitchen with it's own Statler and Waldorf.
So the men's kitchen got off to a strong start, but kind of fell apart when the entrees started going out. Van kept leaving paper on the fish. I'll write that again. Van kept leaving paper on the fish. Also, Robert (Ralphie) tried to send out rabbit that was raw -Gord-o said it "Still had it's fur!" Needless to say, Chef Ramsey got super angry and shut down the kitchen. It looked like he was just shutting down the blue side, but they didn't show anything more about the women... so I don't know how that works.
Clearly the blue team lost, and Gord-o decided that Dave was the "best of the worst" so he was tasked with picking two of his team to go up for elimination. He put Ralphie (Robert) -Seriously, let's talk about commitment to a gag!- and Van up for elimination. But, just to remind us that he can, Gord-o also brought up Dull Chef Mopey Face (obviously I don't know his name). He put Van back in line pretty quickly, and left it to Robert and Dull Chef Mopey Face to argue their way out of elimination. And boy did they argue! Robert went on a tirade about how he was insulted to be standing up there with Dull Chef Mopey Face, and Dull Chef said something dull back to him... Finally, Gord-o decided to send home Robert. Robert left with some talk about how we'd all see him again (yeah, cus I totally keep track of professional chefs). So, here's the thing, I've got a theory. I think the producers and lawyers of the show realized last week that Robert actually had a decent risk of dying on their show and decided to get rid of him. Not to say that he didn't allow them to do it this week, but I think it was coming one way or the other.
So that's all I've got for today. I'm going to try to get a More to Love column in tonight or tomorrow morning, but no promises.I've already embedded a couple clips, so I'm leaving you with a link. The top picture is the English version of this add the bottom is the polish. We can't blame them, I guess, it's just the way they were raised.(also, check out the dude's hands... they forgot that part)
http://pokazywarka.pl/msmurzyn/
While watching Hell's Kitchen last night, I started thinking about the name, and whether it was a reference to a proverb, or folksy saying or something like that. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that it was none of these, and it was just a name meant to say "Hey! This show's centered around a kitchen, and boy, that Gordon Ramsey sure is tough to work for!". But it also occurred to me that the restaurant's name would have a completely different context for the diners. Stripped down, they're really just paying a lot of money to eat dinner in a place with a horrible tense atmosphere and a screaming British man where their food may or may not ever arrive. Sure, I'd imagine the kitchen in Hell would be infinitely worse, you know the food wouldn't be any good, there'd be no lemon slice in your water, etc... but no one would call their restaurant Purgatory's Kitchen -just doesn't ring right. Neither does Kitchen for People Who Didn't Use Their Turn Signals But Otherwise Lived An Acceptable Life So They're Only Being Punished In Death With A Less Than Preferable Dinning Experience. So Hell's Kitchen is what we get. But enough with my musing about the level of service in kitchens of the various levels of the afterlife, I've got a show to talk about!
The big question of this weeks episode, the question on everyone's mind: "Hey, does this episode seem 500lbs lighter?" Too mean? Alright. How about "Hey! Where the hell's Ralphie (Robert)?!" So everyone wants to know where Robert (Ralphie) is and whether he's alive. Well, we're just going to have to wait. Other stuff happened first.
But before we get to the other stuff. There's something that's been bothering me. Van and Beanie-hat guy (don't know his name... he's Anthony today). What's the deal with Van and Anthony? Could both of these guys be highly functioning Autistic? Personally, I think Anthony's deal is that he's done way too much of some heavy drug, and it's left his body unable to produce emotions... like maybe he spent a summer on Ecstasy, or maybe he's a high functioning heroin addict... I don't know, but there's something wrong with this guy. Van! -Seriously, you could tell me anything violent/illegal/dangerous that Van has done, and I'd believe you; You:"Van beat up his grandmother" Me:"I'd believe it"... see? Anything!.
-Important note: you have to stick through this one to get what I'm saying... it's the last 30 seconds or so that are worthwhile.
Now that's out of the way. This weeks reward challenge was Vegas themed, you know because this season's based in Las Vegas. No? That's Top Chef, you say?. Oh, well then it must be because Whistler B.C. is a well known gambling location. It's Not? It's a ski resort? Oh. Well then they just like craps. Underrated line of the episode; upon revealing that the reward challenge would involve Craps, Amanda (really her name, I know!) said "Oh Crap!". So the deal is this, they each role the die? dice? I don't know, I think it was like 12-sided -who remembers Dungeons and Dragons?! Just me? OK then. So they role this die with letters it and whatever letter comes up, they have to name an ingredient that starts with that letter, then that ingredient will make up their dish. So the women go first, and it's boring... they do really well coming up with ingredients that will go well together. The guys go and end up with Haddock (it's a type of fish), fig, angel hair pasta, apple, and tomato. At first glance, this looks awful, and the guy that chose apple (Kevin, I think... bald guy) said that he chose it because everything was already screwed. I disagree. Take the apple out, you can make a nice tomato sauce with fig. Turns out that's exactly what they did. Chef Ramsey somehow missed the fact that there was no apple in their dish, and awarded them the win (strangely enough, no one else noticed they were missing an ingredient. I felt like I was taking crazy pills.) So the boys get to go to Vegas -that's why they did the craps!!!- and they have fun and bond and decide that they never want to see Ralphie (Robert) again. Oh, but guess who returns immediately upon their arrival home! Yup, good ol Robert (Ralphie). Robert tells his team that the doctors said his heart was too small for his body. I have to say, I loved the deadpan delivery by Ralphie (Robert) you could watch the realization that he was joking run through the room like 'the wave' at a baseball game (For the record -FTR- I hate the wave. Sit the hell down and watch the game!). So they had dinner service, and because Hell's Kitchen is way into things that haven't happened on Hell's Kitchen before -Next week they'll be serving dinner from low-earth orbit- they have two chef's tables. It appears the purpose of these tables are to distract the chefs and provide each kitchen with it's own Statler and Waldorf.
So the men's kitchen got off to a strong start, but kind of fell apart when the entrees started going out. Van kept leaving paper on the fish. I'll write that again. Van kept leaving paper on the fish. Also, Robert (Ralphie) tried to send out rabbit that was raw -Gord-o said it "Still had it's fur!" Needless to say, Chef Ramsey got super angry and shut down the kitchen. It looked like he was just shutting down the blue side, but they didn't show anything more about the women... so I don't know how that works.
Clearly the blue team lost, and Gord-o decided that Dave was the "best of the worst" so he was tasked with picking two of his team to go up for elimination. He put Ralphie (Robert) -Seriously, let's talk about commitment to a gag!- and Van up for elimination. But, just to remind us that he can, Gord-o also brought up Dull Chef Mopey Face (obviously I don't know his name). He put Van back in line pretty quickly, and left it to Robert and Dull Chef Mopey Face to argue their way out of elimination. And boy did they argue! Robert went on a tirade about how he was insulted to be standing up there with Dull Chef Mopey Face, and Dull Chef said something dull back to him... Finally, Gord-o decided to send home Robert. Robert left with some talk about how we'd all see him again (yeah, cus I totally keep track of professional chefs). So, here's the thing, I've got a theory. I think the producers and lawyers of the show realized last week that Robert actually had a decent risk of dying on their show and decided to get rid of him. Not to say that he didn't allow them to do it this week, but I think it was coming one way or the other.
So that's all I've got for today. I'm going to try to get a More to Love column in tonight or tomorrow morning, but no promises.I've already embedded a couple clips, so I'm leaving you with a link. The top picture is the English version of this add the bottom is the polish. We can't blame them, I guess, it's just the way they were raised.(also, check out the dude's hands... they forgot that part)
http://pokazywarka.pl/msmurzyn/
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Dating in the Dark take 2
Hello reader,
I'm probably being overly confident with "reader". Truth is, I'm probably the only one reading this. Do I count as a reader while I'm reading or will I always be the writer? If it has been determined that while reading I am a reader and not always the writer, and I'm the only one reading, am I a reader or am I the reader? If I am the only one reading, is there any point to putting my thoughts down in writing, or should I just think them? If I'm not the only one reading, is there any point to putting my thoughts down in writing? Who am I asking these questions to if I expect no one to read this?
Also, I'm pretty sure the girlfriend will read it, she's very supportive, and attractive. Speaking of attractiveness, let's talk about Dating in the Dark!
This is my second go at watching this show. The experience was similar to my second time through Toddlers and Tiaras -I didn't blog about that show, but I mentioned it a couple of times- and similar to my second time watching Event Horizon; Once you're past the shock that someone would actually create it, the whole thing rings a little hollow. It also might be possible that both this weeks episode of Dating in the Dark and this weeks episode of Toddlers and Tiaras were sub-par. That might be it, might not. We won't know until next week. Regardless, there's no point sitting here and treading water. Time to blog!
Last weeks episode of Dating in the Dark brought on a police sketch artist to sketch what each side thought of the others. This weeks episode had a former FBI profiler -who had worked on the Timothy McVay case and other cases that were confidential. (translation: he only did the one case... he wasn't very good- how else do you end up on Dating in the Dark?) His best line of this show; "She describes herself as hot-tempered and blames it on her ethnicity". You see, she's Italian. Which, of course translates in the realm of normal people as "White". She -Suzy (made up name)- was a lot of fun though. Let's talk about her for a minute. Suzy was this week's "I need someone with a strong personality because I have a strong personality" woman. Except in her case it was "I need someone with a strong personality because I'm Italian". And was she ever! She's really only Italian in that people of Italian heritage tend to be Caucasian... and she is too. Italian or not, Suzy was popular with the guys. I think it was mostly luck of the draw -I'm imagining that this is the case the majority of the time that you put 6 people willing to date on TV in a room together with the lights off. The first guy Suzy had a date with was Dave (yup, made up name). Dave and Suzy hit it off. They were way into each other. Then Suzy found out that the white t-shirt Dave had slept in the night before had -brace yourself- pit stains!!!!! OMG!!!!! Conversely, the guys were way into the fact that Suzy's pajamas were small. Suzy wasn't so much. She also wasn't her advertised age, I'm sure of that. Anyway, the point is this; she's on a TV dating show, if pit stains on a slept-in t-shirt are as bad as it gets for this guy, he's freaking Tom Selick! (yuh huh). Anyway, after the pit stain debacle, she decided she liked Ramone (not his real name) so they met in the dark room, and Ramone had decided that he was too bashful with the ladies -side note: I'm legitimately worried that the girlfriend would leave me for this guy. She was oohing and awing over him like he was Tom Selick! He really was quite sweet, though. I might even leave me for him... or Tom Selick. So Ramone decides he's been too bashful with the ladies and plants one on Suzy. Well, Ramone is a great kisser and we know this because Suzy said so, and kissing is very important to Suzy. Because she's Italian. So then Ramone kissed someone else and Suzy got way jealous (because she's Italian) and kissed Pit-Stain guy... what did I call him? Dave! So Suzy kissed Dave, and Dave's a great kisser too! So now Suzy doesn't know what to do! Because she's Italian. Ultimately she chooses Dave, gets disappointed when she sees him (he was scruffy, and had a round face!) and leaves his ass sitting on the balcony alone. Sad times.
Also there were a few other people. Ramone didn't get his date, poor Ramone. I'm pretty sure she didn't like him because he wasn't white. The other two people got together, I was a big fan of her, Raeann (not real). But there was something funny about him, Jason (also not real). Raeann thought Jason was way hot, but he wasn't really attractive at all, maybe it was the camera angle. I don't know. Maybe faux-hawks with obviously died gray highlights are what the kids are into (seriously, I'm positive that this guy died his hair gray... positive).
I'm probably being overly confident with "reader". Truth is, I'm probably the only one reading this. Do I count as a reader while I'm reading or will I always be the writer? If it has been determined that while reading I am a reader and not always the writer, and I'm the only one reading, am I a reader or am I the reader? If I am the only one reading, is there any point to putting my thoughts down in writing, or should I just think them? If I'm not the only one reading, is there any point to putting my thoughts down in writing? Who am I asking these questions to if I expect no one to read this?
Also, I'm pretty sure the girlfriend will read it, she's very supportive, and attractive. Speaking of attractiveness, let's talk about Dating in the Dark!
This is my second go at watching this show. The experience was similar to my second time through Toddlers and Tiaras -I didn't blog about that show, but I mentioned it a couple of times- and similar to my second time watching Event Horizon; Once you're past the shock that someone would actually create it, the whole thing rings a little hollow. It also might be possible that both this weeks episode of Dating in the Dark and this weeks episode of Toddlers and Tiaras were sub-par. That might be it, might not. We won't know until next week. Regardless, there's no point sitting here and treading water. Time to blog!
Last weeks episode of Dating in the Dark brought on a police sketch artist to sketch what each side thought of the others. This weeks episode had a former FBI profiler -who had worked on the Timothy McVay case and other cases that were confidential. (translation: he only did the one case... he wasn't very good- how else do you end up on Dating in the Dark?) His best line of this show; "She describes herself as hot-tempered and blames it on her ethnicity". You see, she's Italian. Which, of course translates in the realm of normal people as "White". She -Suzy (made up name)- was a lot of fun though. Let's talk about her for a minute. Suzy was this week's "I need someone with a strong personality because I have a strong personality" woman. Except in her case it was "I need someone with a strong personality because I'm Italian". And was she ever! She's really only Italian in that people of Italian heritage tend to be Caucasian... and she is too. Italian or not, Suzy was popular with the guys. I think it was mostly luck of the draw -I'm imagining that this is the case the majority of the time that you put 6 people willing to date on TV in a room together with the lights off. The first guy Suzy had a date with was Dave (yup, made up name). Dave and Suzy hit it off. They were way into each other. Then Suzy found out that the white t-shirt Dave had slept in the night before had -brace yourself- pit stains!!!!! OMG!!!!! Conversely, the guys were way into the fact that Suzy's pajamas were small. Suzy wasn't so much. She also wasn't her advertised age, I'm sure of that. Anyway, the point is this; she's on a TV dating show, if pit stains on a slept-in t-shirt are as bad as it gets for this guy, he's freaking Tom Selick! (yuh huh). Anyway, after the pit stain debacle, she decided she liked Ramone (not his real name) so they met in the dark room, and Ramone had decided that he was too bashful with the ladies -side note: I'm legitimately worried that the girlfriend would leave me for this guy. She was oohing and awing over him like he was Tom Selick! He really was quite sweet, though. I might even leave me for him... or Tom Selick. So Ramone decides he's been too bashful with the ladies and plants one on Suzy. Well, Ramone is a great kisser and we know this because Suzy said so, and kissing is very important to Suzy. Because she's Italian. So then Ramone kissed someone else and Suzy got way jealous (because she's Italian) and kissed Pit-Stain guy... what did I call him? Dave! So Suzy kissed Dave, and Dave's a great kisser too! So now Suzy doesn't know what to do! Because she's Italian. Ultimately she chooses Dave, gets disappointed when she sees him (he was scruffy, and had a round face!) and leaves his ass sitting on the balcony alone. Sad times.
Also there were a few other people. Ramone didn't get his date, poor Ramone. I'm pretty sure she didn't like him because he wasn't white. The other two people got together, I was a big fan of her, Raeann (not real). But there was something funny about him, Jason (also not real). Raeann thought Jason was way hot, but he wasn't really attractive at all, maybe it was the camera angle. I don't know. Maybe faux-hawks with obviously died gray highlights are what the kids are into (seriously, I'm positive that this guy died his hair gray... positive).
I don't really know what to tell you about this show. I don't see it becoming a long-running series. Even by Fox reality show standards. Regardless, the important thing is that I think we learned something here today: There's only one Tom Selick.
Tomorrow: Hell's Kitchen!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Design Star's gayness just became slightly less overt
R.I.P slightly overweight gay Will Ferrel character. You will be missed. Mostly by the girlfriend, though I was a fan too.
This was an entertaining week on Design Star. Each contestant had their own project this week -Quote from the very odd British host "This week, you'll be working in teams of.""One."
They were given a carpenter and expected to "host" the remodel (they presented the room HGTV style, on camera, to the judges). Everyone got a "Child's room". Weird setup, though. Two contestant got 17 year-old's bedrooms. The Aforementioned Jason, and bland woman #1. Jason's 17 year old girl wanted a "pretty pretty princess room". I actually missed that whole thing, I thought she said she wanted "elegant" or something like that. But both the Girlfriend and Jason heard "Princess room". In a pretty hilarious sequence, gay Will Ferrel left his carpenter to tape and prime the walls -I have to assume he was gone at least an hour, maybe two, but when he got back the carpenter was standing in the middle of the room holding a clipboard. Nothing had been done. So Jason fired him and got a new carpenter in what seemed like a ridiculously short turn around -I'm pretty sure they found these guys betting on cock-fighting in a Home Depot parking lot and had a bunch of them backstage in case this happened.
Bland woman #1 got the 17 year old boy who likes baseball and hardwood floors. That's all. Oh, and his friends hang out there. She actually did a pretty good job, and is bland in just the right way that she could actually pull this off, despite the fact that I'd rather watch How it's Made -How it's Made is that stock-footage show that the Discovery channel runs during off hours. It shows how various things are made; Hockey pads, Twinkies, stock footage documentary shows, etc... The point being, she's very boring.
There were also two 7 year old girls who -as far as I could tell- were the same person, except one was an "environmentalist" and the other wanted an "artist's loft". Someone needs to crush those girl's spirits FAST. Anyway, Bland lady #2 got the Artist. Bland lady #2 is what happens to the little Texan girls from Toddlers and Tiaras when they grow up -that is to say, she's what happens to the ones that don't grow up to be strippers. Side note; Toddlers and Tiara's was, again, a magnificent train wreck of a show this week, though it's not nearly as good when they're in California as when they're in Texas, I know; duh. Anyway, Bland lady #2 lived up to her name, except a ridiculous fabric wall with the girl's name in big letters- Quoth the girlfriend "How funny would it be if she spelled the little girl's name wrong?" Answer -very funny. Very funny indeed. She didn't though. She just sucked.
Big eye-lash dream-boat carpenter got the other 7 year-old girl and was really excited to meet her. Really? She was an environmentalist. Apparently no one in the house throws anything away without her approval -I'm sure she's not insufferable in the least. She wanted an "eco-friendly" room. From where I stand there's not a whole lot you can do in the realm of unnecessary remodels that is particularly eco-friendly. Really, isn't the most eco-friendly thing to not use any materials at all? Of course what they mean is "More eco-friendly than another way we could have done it". And by that definition I'll concede that it was eco-friendly. For instance, they used Bamboo flooring... everywhere, on the desk, on the floor, everywhere that bamboo flooring could be used and not look totally ridiculous. Also, cutting the legs off of her dresser and spray painting it is eco-friendly. I have nothing more to say about it.
Finally, our design-carpenter from Jersey got a 5 year-old boy who had, apparently, been given 5 Red-Bulls prior to the taping. At one point, ummm... let's call him Antonio, that works for a Jersey Design-Carpenter, right? At one point Antonio was asking the little boy/future president about his interests. Apparently the little boy was interested in using his tongue to stop the twirling blades on what appeared to be a battery powered toy helicopter. I can't possibly do it justice in writing, if only I were a poet. Anyway, the kid was out of control, but seemed to like dinosaurs and spaghetti. Antonio did a good job with absolutely no guidelines, there were some fake rocks and dinosaurs, the kid liked it... there you go.
Overall, I thought it was an odd challenge; a) I think it would be an odd child, aged 5-17, that would register a complaint with the room remodel; b) the age ranges 5, 7, 17, are three totally different scenarios. Maybe different enough to be three different challenges; And c) Four of the contestants were in one house, one of the Bland women (I think #1) was in a separate house, does it matter? dunno, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
When all was said and done it was, in fact, the blonde judge who came out ahead in this episode with two fantastic lines; First, she told Antonio -Note, I don't think that's his name- that he was "the Tony Soprano of design" then did the worst stereotypical Jersey/Italian accent in the history of stereotypical Jersey/Italian accents. Second after Jason's outburst of "I'm SO gay!" she responds with something along the lines of "You're just a little cream-puff! I want to carry you around in my purse and snack on you!!"... classic.
I'd love to leave you with a clip of our future president and his helicopter. Alas, I couldn't find any. So I'll leave you with this; Groundbreaking? No. Old News? Yes. Of questionable taste? Oh yes. Still, it makes me giggle, and I'm still all excited that I can embed youtube videos in my blog.
This was an entertaining week on Design Star. Each contestant had their own project this week -Quote from the very odd British host "This week, you'll be working in teams of."
They were given a carpenter and expected to "host" the remodel (they presented the room HGTV style, on camera, to the judges). Everyone got a "Child's room". Weird setup, though. Two contestant got 17 year-old's bedrooms. The Aforementioned Jason, and bland woman #1. Jason's 17 year old girl wanted a "pretty pretty princess room". I actually missed that whole thing, I thought she said she wanted "elegant" or something like that. But both the Girlfriend and Jason heard "Princess room". In a pretty hilarious sequence, gay Will Ferrel left his carpenter to tape and prime the walls -I have to assume he was gone at least an hour, maybe two, but when he got back the carpenter was standing in the middle of the room holding a clipboard. Nothing had been done. So Jason fired him and got a new carpenter in what seemed like a ridiculously short turn around -I'm pretty sure they found these guys betting on cock-fighting in a Home Depot parking lot and had a bunch of them backstage in case this happened.
Bland woman #1 got the 17 year old boy who likes baseball and hardwood floors. That's all. Oh, and his friends hang out there. She actually did a pretty good job, and is bland in just the right way that she could actually pull this off, despite the fact that I'd rather watch How it's Made -How it's Made is that stock-footage show that the Discovery channel runs during off hours. It shows how various things are made; Hockey pads, Twinkies, stock footage documentary shows, etc... The point being, she's very boring.
There were also two 7 year old girls who -as far as I could tell- were the same person, except one was an "environmentalist" and the other wanted an "artist's loft". Someone needs to crush those girl's spirits FAST. Anyway, Bland lady #2 got the Artist. Bland lady #2 is what happens to the little Texan girls from Toddlers and Tiaras when they grow up -that is to say, she's what happens to the ones that don't grow up to be strippers. Side note; Toddlers and Tiara's was, again, a magnificent train wreck of a show this week, though it's not nearly as good when they're in California as when they're in Texas, I know; duh. Anyway, Bland lady #2 lived up to her name, except a ridiculous fabric wall with the girl's name in big letters- Quoth the girlfriend "How funny would it be if she spelled the little girl's name wrong?" Answer -very funny. Very funny indeed. She didn't though. She just sucked.
Big eye-lash dream-boat carpenter got the other 7 year-old girl and was really excited to meet her. Really? She was an environmentalist. Apparently no one in the house throws anything away without her approval -I'm sure she's not insufferable in the least. She wanted an "eco-friendly" room. From where I stand there's not a whole lot you can do in the realm of unnecessary remodels that is particularly eco-friendly. Really, isn't the most eco-friendly thing to not use any materials at all? Of course what they mean is "More eco-friendly than another way we could have done it". And by that definition I'll concede that it was eco-friendly. For instance, they used Bamboo flooring... everywhere, on the desk, on the floor, everywhere that bamboo flooring could be used and not look totally ridiculous. Also, cutting the legs off of her dresser and spray painting it is eco-friendly. I have nothing more to say about it.
Finally, our design-carpenter from Jersey got a 5 year-old boy who had, apparently, been given 5 Red-Bulls prior to the taping. At one point, ummm... let's call him Antonio, that works for a Jersey Design-Carpenter, right? At one point Antonio was asking the little boy/future president about his interests. Apparently the little boy was interested in using his tongue to stop the twirling blades on what appeared to be a battery powered toy helicopter. I can't possibly do it justice in writing, if only I were a poet. Anyway, the kid was out of control, but seemed to like dinosaurs and spaghetti. Antonio did a good job with absolutely no guidelines, there were some fake rocks and dinosaurs, the kid liked it... there you go.
Overall, I thought it was an odd challenge; a) I think it would be an odd child, aged 5-17, that would register a complaint with the room remodel; b) the age ranges 5, 7, 17, are three totally different scenarios. Maybe different enough to be three different challenges; And c) Four of the contestants were in one house, one of the Bland women (I think #1) was in a separate house, does it matter? dunno, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
When all was said and done it was, in fact, the blonde judge who came out ahead in this episode with two fantastic lines; First, she told Antonio -Note, I don't think that's his name- that he was "the Tony Soprano of design" then did the worst stereotypical Jersey/Italian accent in the history of stereotypical Jersey/Italian accents. Second after Jason's outburst of "I'm SO gay!" she responds with something along the lines of "You're just a little cream-puff! I want to carry you around in my purse and snack on you!!"... classic.
I'd love to leave you with a clip of our future president and his helicopter. Alas, I couldn't find any. So I'll leave you with this; Groundbreaking? No. Old News? Yes. Of questionable taste? Oh yes. Still, it makes me giggle, and I'm still all excited that I can embed youtube videos in my blog.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
They called me MAD!!!
Holy Crap Jesus!!!
See, this is how it starts... first they make us ramen and do amusing tricks! Mind you, the fact that one of their "amusing tricks" is just a thinly veiled cover for hand-to-hand combat training isn't lost one me! Next thing you know they're riding motor-scooters and stealing our women!!! Where will it stop?!?!?!?
Classin' it up with Top Chef
Top Chef is in Vegas! And there's show-girls! And they're wearing a combined 180 ft of red feathers! And they're doing that thing where they stand there with their soulless smiles and kinda bounce up and down in time with each other... but there's no music. I can't find them arousing. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to, but I can't get past the... surrealness? surreality? I can't get past how surreal it is to have an entire chorus line standing in the kitchen wearing all those red feathers, and bouncing.
Top Chef starts the season off on the surreal foot. I have to assume this is not the usual. I'm watching my first ever season of Top Chef at behest of the girlfriend, who swears I'll like it... I think she's trying to class me up by getting me away from FOX reality shows. I also think it's working.
Within the first 10 minutes Top Chef was able to separate the contestants I can give funny names to -and therefore remember, and the contestants I don't care about. Also, most of these chefs have won an award of some sort, or studied under someone special. I found it interesting that the first contestant they showed received the James Beard award, and has a giant beard. I'm going to call him Beard-O. One of the interesting facts about Beard-O is that he passed up a full scholarship to MIT in order to go to cooking school because the advancing our species means nothing to him. He just wants to heat things up and watch people eat them. Also, he has a huge beard.
Aside from Beard-O, there's Frenchie-Red-Kerchief -He was originally just Frenchie, but then he showed up at the house wearing all white with a red handkerchief tied around his neck boy scout style and a red belt - now he's Frenchie-Red-Kerchief. There's also Neck Tattoo, Gay Chef, Ed Hardy -Ed Hardy and Gay Chef may be the same person... I'm not sure who Gay Chef is, actually... I just know that he's "the only chef here with a boyfriend... a same sex boyfriend". Clearly I was looking away from the TV when he said that. If he's not Ed Hardy, then I'm not sure he deserves a nickname. I'll pay more attention next episode. We've also got Hector (that's actually his name, he's a giant from Puerto Rico. He doesn't need a nick name, and I'm afraid to give him one), Haitian Lavell (He reminds me of the comedian Lavell Crawford for some reason), Evil Twin and Boring Twin (Boring Twin benefits from Evil Twin's presence, without him he'd be just a guy), and Fat Kid.
So there's a lot of them, and I don't have the time or attention span to remember them all. Also, it's a week until the next episode, so I reserve the right to change nicknames, forget who people are, or completely miss the next episode at my discretion.
The girlfriend explained to me -then the TV reiterated- that they do it like this; There's a rapid fire challenge, which results in someone winning immunity from elimination. Then there's the bigger elimination challenge from which elimination is judged. Seems simple enough. Also, this week involves Wolfgang Puck, who is interesting in his own right, but didn't call nearly enough people "Fat Cow" for my taste.
The rapid fire challenge this week was a relay- a some-french-word relay. They split the 17 contestants into groups of four... Wait! 4 doesn't divide 17 evenly! What gives?! Well, they pass around a hat with poker chips in it... there's five colors of chips, 4 each of the colors I don't remember -except green, because Haitian Lavell got green and was real excited, but I can't understand anything he says, so I don't know why. One of the chips was gold, and gave the receiver instant immunity. That chip was selected by an older woman who I find annoying and have no desire to give a nickname to. It was then revealed that the winner of the French-word relay would not only win immunity, but also win $15,000. Because the show strives to be fair (I think.. maybe that has nothing to do with it), they gave the old lady with the gold coin a chance to relinquish her immunity for a 1 in 16 shot at $15,000 and a 1 in 16 shot at going home. She didn't like those odds. I think it was Ed Hardy that summed up her obvious lack of confidence by saying; "One less old lady for me to worry about". Thank you Ed Hardy.
The Rapid fire French-word relay challenge is three seafood preparation challenges followed by a steak preparation, because -clearly- their list of "Things in the ocean that can be prepared as food" only had three items on it. I
Station 1 was clam shucking. Station 1 separated the four teams into two groups; teams competing to win and teams that wouldn't finish station 1. My favorite moment of station 1- As the teams were deciding who would work what station, a chef I didn't bother to remember -who had been assigned clam shucking- said to her teammates "Is shucking a clam just like shucking an oyster?" Teammates: "Not at all"... nothing else was said. Guess which group that team ended up in. Also, neck tattoo cut the crap out of her fingers... I don't know what else happened with that, though. There was one quick shot of her bloody fingers, then no mention of it from there. Maybe they gave her a glove, or maybe she has regenerative powers.
Nothing exciting happened in station 2, I think it was shrimp peeling. Nothing really exciting happened in station 3 either -It was Lobster preparation. Frenchie-Red-Kerchief was very good at it, but I don't care. Lastly, station 4 wast the steak preparation station (hehe). There was a mad dash to prepare the rib-eye steaks (I think they were rib-eye... maybe they weren't). I believe Hector was involved. I picture him smoking a cigar while he's doing it, though, so maybe I'm making it up.
Once the French word relay was done, they had to pick one of the four members of the wining team. So each of the members had 30 minutes to prepare a dish using the ingredient they had prepared in the French word relay. The clam lady won, but I didn't care. Clam lady is insufferable, but will probably be one of the finalists. Still I'm not into her enough to give her a nickname. So there that is.
The food challenge theme (there has to be restrictions to the food challenge, or at least the appearance of restrictions) was "Vices", because they're in Las Vegas, our country's capitol of hedonism. When the girlfriend and I realized that this was the theme, we both immediately saw the huge obvious flaw; the Chefs could just say something like "My vice is food" or something else that didn't limit them in any way. Oddly enough, non of them did this, though a few chefs missed the meaning of "vice"... some of them went instead with "personality flaw"... some -OK Haitian Lavell went with "Harrowing story of defecting to America on a raft" but he gets a pass from me (and apparently the judges, though the man-host did twice point out that he wasn't "sure how that's a vice) because I can't understand what he's saying, and he defected on a raft! One of the boring chefs went the Michael Scott route with "My vice is that I'm too complicated"... I'm not sure how that's a vice or a flaw, but thanks to the Girlfriend for the kick-ass Office parallel.
Finally they chose the four best and four worst dishes.
The four best; Beard-O: Procrastination, Ed Hardy: Don't remember, Clam-lady: Also Don't remember. I'm pretty sure Haitian Lavell was there. Doesn't matter. Beard-O won nothing. At least nothing that I saw. He get's a D- in "understanding what 'vice' means." But I like Beard-O, so congrats to him for having the best "vice" dish, receiving the fewest scathing comments from Wolfgang Puck and "winning".
The four worst were Hector -who was there because he deep-fried his steak, which I guess is a cultural thing- Complicated Woman, Neck Tattoo, and a woman with a lot of mouth piercings (I think I'll grow to like her enough to give her a nickname, but it hasn't happened yet). Ultimately, it came down to Neck Tattoo and Complicated Woman and they both gave Terrible long (I know, who am I to talk?) rambling defenses of their food. Ultimately neck tattoo left. And not a moment too soon! She had those ear-ring things, you know, where they keep putting bigger and bigger rings in their earlobes and stretch them way out? Nothing makes me feel like I'm old and un-hip more than ear-rings, they freak me out. I mean, how do you recover from them?! Your ear lobes don't go back to their original size! Can you do reconstructive surgery on an ear-lobe? Do we have any examples of what happens when ear-ring people hit middle-age?! Are they all just assuming they won't make it past 30?!
OK, this blog is at approximately 38,000 words. Most of them don't matter -Who am I kidding? None of them matter.
Top Chef starts the season off on the surreal foot. I have to assume this is not the usual. I'm watching my first ever season of Top Chef at behest of the girlfriend, who swears I'll like it... I think she's trying to class me up by getting me away from FOX reality shows. I also think it's working.
Within the first 10 minutes Top Chef was able to separate the contestants I can give funny names to -and therefore remember, and the contestants I don't care about. Also, most of these chefs have won an award of some sort, or studied under someone special. I found it interesting that the first contestant they showed received the James Beard award, and has a giant beard. I'm going to call him Beard-O. One of the interesting facts about Beard-O is that he passed up a full scholarship to MIT in order to go to cooking school because the advancing our species means nothing to him. He just wants to heat things up and watch people eat them. Also, he has a huge beard.
Aside from Beard-O, there's Frenchie-Red-Kerchief -He was originally just Frenchie, but then he showed up at the house wearing all white with a red handkerchief tied around his neck boy scout style and a red belt - now he's Frenchie-Red-Kerchief. There's also Neck Tattoo, Gay Chef, Ed Hardy -Ed Hardy and Gay Chef may be the same person... I'm not sure who Gay Chef is, actually... I just know that he's "the only chef here with a boyfriend... a same sex boyfriend". Clearly I was looking away from the TV when he said that. If he's not Ed Hardy, then I'm not sure he deserves a nickname. I'll pay more attention next episode. We've also got Hector (that's actually his name, he's a giant from Puerto Rico. He doesn't need a nick name, and I'm afraid to give him one), Haitian Lavell (He reminds me of the comedian Lavell Crawford for some reason), Evil Twin and Boring Twin (Boring Twin benefits from Evil Twin's presence, without him he'd be just a guy), and Fat Kid.
So there's a lot of them, and I don't have the time or attention span to remember them all. Also, it's a week until the next episode, so I reserve the right to change nicknames, forget who people are, or completely miss the next episode at my discretion.
The girlfriend explained to me -then the TV reiterated- that they do it like this; There's a rapid fire challenge, which results in someone winning immunity from elimination. Then there's the bigger elimination challenge from which elimination is judged. Seems simple enough. Also, this week involves Wolfgang Puck, who is interesting in his own right, but didn't call nearly enough people "Fat Cow" for my taste.
The rapid fire challenge this week was a relay- a some-french-word relay. They split the 17 contestants into groups of four... Wait! 4 doesn't divide 17 evenly! What gives?! Well, they pass around a hat with poker chips in it... there's five colors of chips, 4 each of the colors I don't remember -except green, because Haitian Lavell got green and was real excited, but I can't understand anything he says, so I don't know why. One of the chips was gold, and gave the receiver instant immunity. That chip was selected by an older woman who I find annoying and have no desire to give a nickname to. It was then revealed that the winner of the French-word relay would not only win immunity, but also win $15,000. Because the show strives to be fair (I think.. maybe that has nothing to do with it), they gave the old lady with the gold coin a chance to relinquish her immunity for a 1 in 16 shot at $15,000 and a 1 in 16 shot at going home. She didn't like those odds. I think it was Ed Hardy that summed up her obvious lack of confidence by saying; "One less old lady for me to worry about". Thank you Ed Hardy.
The Rapid fire French-word relay challenge is three seafood preparation challenges followed by a steak preparation, because -clearly- their list of "Things in the ocean that can be prepared as food" only had three items on it. I
Station 1 was clam shucking. Station 1 separated the four teams into two groups; teams competing to win and teams that wouldn't finish station 1. My favorite moment of station 1- As the teams were deciding who would work what station, a chef I didn't bother to remember -who had been assigned clam shucking- said to her teammates "Is shucking a clam just like shucking an oyster?" Teammates: "Not at all"... nothing else was said. Guess which group that team ended up in. Also, neck tattoo cut the crap out of her fingers... I don't know what else happened with that, though. There was one quick shot of her bloody fingers, then no mention of it from there. Maybe they gave her a glove, or maybe she has regenerative powers.
Nothing exciting happened in station 2, I think it was shrimp peeling. Nothing really exciting happened in station 3 either -It was Lobster preparation. Frenchie-Red-Kerchief was very good at it, but I don't care. Lastly, station 4 wast the steak preparation station (hehe). There was a mad dash to prepare the rib-eye steaks (I think they were rib-eye... maybe they weren't). I believe Hector was involved. I picture him smoking a cigar while he's doing it, though, so maybe I'm making it up.
Once the French word relay was done, they had to pick one of the four members of the wining team. So each of the members had 30 minutes to prepare a dish using the ingredient they had prepared in the French word relay. The clam lady won, but I didn't care. Clam lady is insufferable, but will probably be one of the finalists. Still I'm not into her enough to give her a nickname. So there that is.
The food challenge theme (there has to be restrictions to the food challenge, or at least the appearance of restrictions) was "Vices", because they're in Las Vegas, our country's capitol of hedonism. When the girlfriend and I realized that this was the theme, we both immediately saw the huge obvious flaw; the Chefs could just say something like "My vice is food" or something else that didn't limit them in any way. Oddly enough, non of them did this, though a few chefs missed the meaning of "vice"... some of them went instead with "personality flaw"... some -OK Haitian Lavell went with "Harrowing story of defecting to America on a raft" but he gets a pass from me (and apparently the judges, though the man-host did twice point out that he wasn't "sure how that's a vice) because I can't understand what he's saying, and he defected on a raft! One of the boring chefs went the Michael Scott route with "My vice is that I'm too complicated"... I'm not sure how that's a vice or a flaw, but thanks to the Girlfriend for the kick-ass Office parallel.
Finally they chose the four best and four worst dishes.
The four best; Beard-O: Procrastination, Ed Hardy: Don't remember, Clam-lady: Also Don't remember. I'm pretty sure Haitian Lavell was there. Doesn't matter. Beard-O won nothing. At least nothing that I saw. He get's a D- in "understanding what 'vice' means." But I like Beard-O, so congrats to him for having the best "vice" dish, receiving the fewest scathing comments from Wolfgang Puck and "winning".
The four worst were Hector -who was there because he deep-fried his steak, which I guess is a cultural thing- Complicated Woman, Neck Tattoo, and a woman with a lot of mouth piercings (I think I'll grow to like her enough to give her a nickname, but it hasn't happened yet). Ultimately, it came down to Neck Tattoo and Complicated Woman and they both gave Terrible long (I know, who am I to talk?) rambling defenses of their food. Ultimately neck tattoo left. And not a moment too soon! She had those ear-ring things, you know, where they keep putting bigger and bigger rings in their earlobes and stretch them way out? Nothing makes me feel like I'm old and un-hip more than ear-rings, they freak me out. I mean, how do you recover from them?! Your ear lobes don't go back to their original size! Can you do reconstructive surgery on an ear-lobe? Do we have any examples of what happens when ear-ring people hit middle-age?! Are they all just assuming they won't make it past 30?!
OK, this blog is at approximately 38,000 words. Most of them don't matter -Who am I kidding? None of them matter.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
File under "shocking revelations"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32463904/ns/technology_and_science-games/
Is just posting a link lazy? Yup.
Is just posting a link lazy? Yup.
Say it... Out loud!
Why must I be blessed with these incredible powers of perception?! Maybe if I'd asked what the over under on Ralphie -Side note: I know these are incredibly distracting, but stay with me- Side note: Turns out I was making up his name -but not just willy-nilly name fabrication. His name is Robert. Ralphie, as in Ralphie May was the fat guy on Last Comic Standing a number of years back. Maybe if I'd asked what the over/under on Ralphie (Robert) losing 150 lbs and running a marathon were, we'd have a whole different show on our hands. But that is not the way that the divine forces moved my prophetic fingers. Instead, this week, Hell's Kitchen saw Robert (Ralphie) wisked to the hospital in the back of a ambulence leaving the men's team woefully short-handed -we'll get back to this, but let's talk for a minute about the fact that the show directly caused Ralphie's (Robert's) medical problems. I should say, they didn't cause his medical problems, but certainly they directly agrovated them. See, the challenge this week -for those not familiar, the format of the show is Challenge->Reward->Dinner Service->Elimination or CRDSE -The challenge this week was to create a three course meal under 700 calories. The men had a hard time with it... a really hard time -Note for the men's team: Pasta contains a lot of calories and tastes like crap without more calories added to it. So the men lost. Their punishment? Because this show was about watching weight, or something, they had to ride this crazy 6-person bicycle to the market to get potatoes and onions to prep dinner with while the women went and did something, I don't remember what. The market, as it turned out, was on top of a huge hill. Two things I was left questioning at the end of the sequence; 1) Did they really not realize that this would kill Robert (Raplhie) and possible another team member -they're hauling Ralphie (Robert) Up the hill on this bike... and at two packs a day, none of them are particularly healthy. 2) I didn't see any brakes on that contraption, that was a steep hill, how did they get down the hill without killing themselves or rolling into traffic? Of Course, neither question got answered. I was able to sleep last night, though.
So the men and the women faced off at dinner service again -the teams even in people because of aforementioned medical issues. The Whoopi Goldberg v. Chef Ramsey ticket was a bit boring, honestly. Here's the recap; He's a bit of a twat, she doesn't get that he gets to be a twat because it's his show and America wants to see him be a twat -For the record (FTR): I would never, in my normal life, call someone a "twat". I'm using it here because it sounds very British to me, and this is my blog. Anyway, she leaves the kitchen and Gord-o follows her. They proceed to fight in the part of the kitchen that I will -from this point forward- refer to as the fighting/pep-talk/redemption room -They don't always fight in there, but two of those three must happen before they leave the room. So Whoopi and Gord-o, fight and find redemption. Whoopi comes out of the fighting/pep-talk/redemption room redeemed and full of vigor and gets to cookin'! "Get out of my station!" she growls as she storms out of the fighting/pep-talk/redemption room! Note: she was on the garnish station... I'll just leave it at that.
Wrapping up, the service is awful, Ramsey shuts down the kitchen before service is over and both teams lose. They must now go upstairs and nominate one from each team to go up for elimination -which means absolutely nothing on this show, as Chef Ramsey will eliminate whoever he wants (foreshadowing!). So the teams nominate Jane and Phillip (I made up those names, I don't know who they nominated) to go up in front of Ramsey and plead their case. They both do awful AWFUL jobs... I would have eliminated them both. Ultimately Ramsey eliminates.... Jim! (I didn't make that name up). I'm left conflicted;
a) Jim was a crack up, a legitimately funny man. An actual quote (maybe a paraphrased quote, I can't be bothered with accuracy): "It was a kitchen-pocalypse, like a grenade went off in a cow's ass".
b) I always enjoy Ramsey deviating from the nominees and demonstrating that this particular reality show is run strictly on the whims of one Gordon Ramsey
c) As Jim was such a crack up, he was a legitimate threat to steal possible zingers from me. We can't have that.
Final judgement; he'll be missed, but I think it was for the better.
The next show was More to love. Needless to say, between Ralphie (Robert) and More to Love, there were an unfair number of fat jokes flying through the parlor last night... I feel kinda bad. Kinda.
So, for anyone who hasn't seen this show, let me sum up everything every woman on the show says with this; "I've never experienced anything like that before... you know, because I grew up fat. People usually just hurl rocks at me." And let me sum up everything -I can't remember his name, and I can't bring myself to call him "The Fatchelor"... I'll call him Steve. Let me sum up everything Steve says;... ... ... "Cliche cliche cliche. You're beautiful. Cliche cliche. Let's make out". Something about this guy is WAY slimy... and I know, it's a Fox show about a guy picking through a pack of fat women with terrible self esteem, so it's probably, really, only half his slime, and half the ambient slime from being on this affront to decency. That being said; WATCH IT!
There's really not much more to say about this show, if you haven't watched it yet, you missed out on the 21 year old who had never been on a real date (seriously, someone messed her up... she was big, but she was pretty. She definitely wasn't a "never been on a date" candidate.) and the road construction flag holder, who hated everyone. OK, so that wasn't her job, but she was way trashy... and way catty... good watchin'.
I'm done. I'm leaving you with some of the finest acting of our generation. Say it... out loud!
So the men and the women faced off at dinner service again -the teams even in people because of aforementioned medical issues. The Whoopi Goldberg v. Chef Ramsey ticket was a bit boring, honestly. Here's the recap; He's a bit of a twat, she doesn't get that he gets to be a twat because it's his show and America wants to see him be a twat -For the record (FTR): I would never, in my normal life, call someone a "twat". I'm using it here because it sounds very British to me, and this is my blog. Anyway, she leaves the kitchen and Gord-o follows her. They proceed to fight in the part of the kitchen that I will -from this point forward- refer to as the fighting/pep-talk/redemption room -They don't always fight in there, but two of those three must happen before they leave the room. So Whoopi and Gord-o, fight and find redemption. Whoopi comes out of the fighting/pep-talk/redemption room redeemed and full of vigor and gets to cookin'! "Get out of my station!" she growls as she storms out of the fighting/pep-talk/redemption room! Note: she was on the garnish station... I'll just leave it at that.
Wrapping up, the service is awful, Ramsey shuts down the kitchen before service is over and both teams lose. They must now go upstairs and nominate one from each team to go up for elimination -which means absolutely nothing on this show, as Chef Ramsey will eliminate whoever he wants (foreshadowing!). So the teams nominate Jane and Phillip (I made up those names, I don't know who they nominated) to go up in front of Ramsey and plead their case. They both do awful AWFUL jobs... I would have eliminated them both. Ultimately Ramsey eliminates.... Jim! (I didn't make that name up). I'm left conflicted;
a) Jim was a crack up, a legitimately funny man. An actual quote (maybe a paraphrased quote, I can't be bothered with accuracy): "It was a kitchen-pocalypse, like a grenade went off in a cow's ass".
b) I always enjoy Ramsey deviating from the nominees and demonstrating that this particular reality show is run strictly on the whims of one Gordon Ramsey
c) As Jim was such a crack up, he was a legitimate threat to steal possible zingers from me. We can't have that.
Final judgement; he'll be missed, but I think it was for the better.
The next show was More to love. Needless to say, between Ralphie (Robert) and More to Love, there were an unfair number of fat jokes flying through the parlor last night... I feel kinda bad. Kinda.
So, for anyone who hasn't seen this show, let me sum up everything every woman on the show says with this; "I've never experienced anything like that before... you know, because I grew up fat. People usually just hurl rocks at me." And let me sum up everything -I can't remember his name, and I can't bring myself to call him "The Fatchelor"... I'll call him Steve. Let me sum up everything Steve says;
There's really not much more to say about this show, if you haven't watched it yet, you missed out on the 21 year old who had never been on a real date (seriously, someone messed her up... she was big, but she was pretty. She definitely wasn't a "never been on a date" candidate.) and the road construction flag holder, who hated everyone. OK, so that wasn't her job, but she was way trashy... and way catty... good watchin'.
I'm done. I'm leaving you with some of the finest acting of our generation. Say it... out loud!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Dating Merekats in the Dark
I was mostly finishing up shows I already wrote about last night -I have nothing to add about the end of Design Star except that it appears that the judges make their decision based solely on what looks to be a highly edited "highlight reel" of the room and the contestants ability to convincingly throw their teammates under the bus.This leaves me with little confidence in their judgement... especially Vern Yip... what's the deal with that guy? Also... end of Marley and me? Well, you know how when you eat American Cheese you can tell that it was created to taste like cheese? The end of Marley and me feels like it was created to feel like sentiment. The most effective thing that movie does is remind you of the fact that your dog will die, that makes me sad without Owen Wilson. Also, when she puts her necklace in the dogs grave before they bury it... are you kidding me?! Where do these people live?! Honestly, I almost expected Owen Wilson to yell out "Did you just throw your necklace into the Dog's grave? Are you out of your mind?!". It seemed almost too sappy even for a movie so clearly aimed at making you cry that it should have been called "Remember the dog you had when you were growing up? He was a great dog, wasn't he? Remember when your parents put him to sleep? Remember that? boy that was sad! I bet you're sad right now just thinking about it."
When I wasn't finishing watching something I wrote about yesterday -and let's be honest, my most astute observations are based on movies or TV shows that I haven't finished. We watched "Dating in the Dark" -is that what it's called? Doesn't really matter, here's the premise; they find six relatively abnormal people -these people were surprisingly unattractive for TV. I mean there's ugly, and there's TV ugly. Clearly this show is not abiding by the standards of "TV ugly". So they take the weird looking people and put them in a house for a few days... I say a few days because I didn't catch any indication of how long they were there, but it was clearly more than one day, also clearly not long enough for the majority of the reactions the contestants(?)gave to the results. There were a few times last night that the girlfriend said "it's only been two days!". I'm not sure if she caught something I didn't but it seems like there's a good chance of that being the case. So The house is split into two halves with a room in the middle that's totally dark (where they date... get it? Dating in the Dark... get it?). So first they introduce all six people to us and show them going into the house, etc -here's a hint; if someone says "I need someone with a strong personality because I have a strong personality. I don't want to walk all over them, but I will"... probably not an incredibly stable person, I'm just sayin'. So then they take all six people and put them in the dark room together. Immediately the crazier of the people will take control of the conversation and call the quiet ones out for being quiet -I've only watched the one week, but I think it's a safe bet that this happens every week. I could keep going, but there's just so many holes in the show, it actually turned the girlfriend from "I don't want to stop watching this tonight, but let's not watch it next week" to "Now I have to watch it next week!"... my point being it's a superior car wreck of a show, just humanity at it's worst. One more highlight... they have them look through the other side's cars -"we're hiding their faces because we don't want the matches to be superficial, but here! look what they drive!". So they're looking through the cars, and one of the guys has a box of condoms in his cup holder!!!! Seriously! How do the condoms even get there in order for him to forget to take them out of the cup holder?! I have never been in a position where I could possibly forget a box of condoms in my cup holder... never.
That's it for this thrilling installment of "I watch too much TV". I'm going to leave you with this, courtesy of the girlfriend -who greatly dislikes the fact that I call her "the girlfriend", I'll come up with something better, I promise. Anyway, here's a British commercial... enjoy, and ask yourself why we ever left.
When I wasn't finishing watching something I wrote about yesterday -and let's be honest, my most astute observations are based on movies or TV shows that I haven't finished. We watched "Dating in the Dark" -is that what it's called? Doesn't really matter, here's the premise; they find six relatively abnormal people -these people were surprisingly unattractive for TV. I mean there's ugly, and there's TV ugly. Clearly this show is not abiding by the standards of "TV ugly". So they take the weird looking people and put them in a house for a few days... I say a few days because I didn't catch any indication of how long they were there, but it was clearly more than one day, also clearly not long enough for the majority of the reactions the contestants(?)gave to the results. There were a few times last night that the girlfriend said "it's only been two days!". I'm not sure if she caught something I didn't but it seems like there's a good chance of that being the case. So The house is split into two halves with a room in the middle that's totally dark (where they date... get it? Dating in the Dark... get it?). So first they introduce all six people to us and show them going into the house, etc -here's a hint; if someone says "I need someone with a strong personality because I have a strong personality. I don't want to walk all over them, but I will"... probably not an incredibly stable person, I'm just sayin'. So then they take all six people and put them in the dark room together. Immediately the crazier of the people will take control of the conversation and call the quiet ones out for being quiet -I've only watched the one week, but I think it's a safe bet that this happens every week. I could keep going, but there's just so many holes in the show, it actually turned the girlfriend from "I don't want to stop watching this tonight, but let's not watch it next week" to "Now I have to watch it next week!"... my point being it's a superior car wreck of a show, just humanity at it's worst. One more highlight... they have them look through the other side's cars -"we're hiding their faces because we don't want the matches to be superficial, but here! look what they drive!". So they're looking through the cars, and one of the guys has a box of condoms in his cup holder!!!! Seriously! How do the condoms even get there in order for him to forget to take them out of the cup holder?! I have never been in a position where I could possibly forget a box of condoms in my cup holder... never.
That's it for this thrilling installment of "I watch too much TV". I'm going to leave you with this, courtesy of the girlfriend -who greatly dislikes the fact that I call her "the girlfriend", I'll come up with something better, I promise. Anyway, here's a British commercial... enjoy, and ask yourself why we ever left.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Some thoughts on things
The inevitable decline in post frequency happened much quicker than I had assumed it would... such is the way of things.
Part of the issue is that there is very little good TV on. Another part of the issue is that I can't help but feel that keeping a note-pad with me to write down witty thoughts for a blog nobody reads while I watch TV with my girlfriend would make me a huge douche-bag.
As such, for the time being, I feel like there's going to be a lot of blogging about nothing in particular.In that spirit, we move forward! TV!;
First off, I'm tickled by the return of Hell's Kitchen. So much anger! So much smoking! At this point I'm convinced that all chefs listen to Kid Rock, Smoke two packs a day, and have decals on their car/truck of Calvin peeing on either "tweekers" or a NASCAR car number. Does this make me classist? Yes. Yes it does... but this isn't about me, it's about the fact that this season of Hell's Kitchen features Whoopi Goldberg and the return of Ralphie (is that really his name? I feel like I might be making that up. Also, what's the over/under on how many episodes he lasts before causing or experiencing a serious medical problem? Does this make me a fattist?). Also, this week we get a special guest of honor...that special guest of honor?!? Some lady!!! That's right, the special guest is no one in particular. Her husband appears to be a marine(?) but other than that, she has no specific characteristic that separates her from anyone else. Let's make her some dinner! Last thing before I move on; apparently next week Whoopi tells chef Ramsey that he's "Crap"! I'm on the edge of my seat!
I love reality TV... and reality TV loves people in the military. Really... they love doing whatever it is their show does for people in the military. Because they're heroes. And there's a lot of them. Design Star this week takes on the living-room of two military families. One of them has a father abroad, and the other one likes video games. I have nothing else to say about this week's episode as I haven't finished it yet, but I can -with confidence- say that this show is fantastic! Three things to watch for 1) The guy doing his best "Will Ferrel as a slightly overweight ambiguously gay man" impression 2) The guy from Jersey (I don't know when it happened, but approximately 1/3 of the population is now from Jersey. It's know in the scientific comunity as the the "Red Sox Fan phenomenon") 3) The ridiculous product placement -in fact, this is commonplace throughout HGTV, and consistently awkward throughout HGTV... well worth any time you put into it. One more important point about this, and this applies to "Toddlers in Tiaras" too -also highly recommended- as this show is on a cable channel, it is much more respectable than any similar show on network TV -Case in point Hell's Kitchen v. Top Chef.
A couple notes on recent movies:
- District 9 is fantastic! Contains no disappointment... FAN-Tastic!- So I know I'm the last horse to cross the finish line on this one, but I saw Marley and Me last night, or at least a good portion of it... so there's a part in the middle that's -seriously- like 10 minutes of Owen Wilson speaking in sentence fragments over a montage of their life with the dog... It's like the film was originally an hour and 45 minutes too long, and to deal with this they took a two hour chunk of the movie, made it into a montage and had Owen Wilson narrate it... but then the movie was still 35 minutes too long, so they cut the first half of every sentence of Owen's narration. Too far fetched? I challenge you to watch the movie again with my theory in mind, it's the only answer that makes any sense!
Also, I get these Wiki-how's on my home page for just such occasions as this; This one should be titled "How to be make choices your grandparents would be ashamed of" or "How to become the punchline of an amusing anecdote":
http://www.wikihow.com/Convince-a-Girl-to-Buy-You-a-Drink
Part of the issue is that there is very little good TV on. Another part of the issue is that I can't help but feel that keeping a note-pad with me to write down witty thoughts for a blog nobody reads while I watch TV with my girlfriend would make me a huge douche-bag.
As such, for the time being, I feel like there's going to be a lot of blogging about nothing in particular.In that spirit, we move forward! TV!;
First off, I'm tickled by the return of Hell's Kitchen. So much anger! So much smoking! At this point I'm convinced that all chefs listen to Kid Rock, Smoke two packs a day, and have decals on their car/truck of Calvin peeing on either "tweekers" or a NASCAR car number. Does this make me classist? Yes. Yes it does... but this isn't about me, it's about the fact that this season of Hell's Kitchen features Whoopi Goldberg and the return of Ralphie (is that really his name? I feel like I might be making that up. Also, what's the over/under on how many episodes he lasts before causing or experiencing a serious medical problem? Does this make me a fattist?). Also, this week we get a special guest of honor...
I love reality TV... and reality TV loves people in the military. Really... they love doing whatever it is their show does for people in the military. Because they're heroes. And there's a lot of them. Design Star this week takes on the living-room of two military families. One of them has a father abroad, and the other one likes video games. I have nothing else to say about this week's episode as I haven't finished it yet, but I can -with confidence- say that this show is fantastic! Three things to watch for 1) The guy doing his best "Will Ferrel as a slightly overweight ambiguously gay man" impression 2) The guy from Jersey (I don't know when it happened, but approximately 1/3 of the population is now from Jersey. It's know in the scientific comunity as the the "Red Sox Fan phenomenon") 3) The ridiculous product placement -in fact, this is commonplace throughout HGTV, and consistently awkward throughout HGTV... well worth any time you put into it. One more important point about this, and this applies to "Toddlers in Tiaras" too -also highly recommended- as this show is on a cable channel, it is much more respectable than any similar show on network TV -Case in point Hell's Kitchen v. Top Chef.
A couple notes on recent movies:
- District 9 is fantastic! Contains no disappointment... FAN-Tastic!- So I know I'm the last horse to cross the finish line on this one, but I saw Marley and Me last night, or at least a good portion of it... so there's a part in the middle that's -seriously- like 10 minutes of Owen Wilson speaking in sentence fragments over a montage of their life with the dog... It's like the film was originally an hour and 45 minutes too long, and to deal with this they took a two hour chunk of the movie, made it into a montage and had Owen Wilson narrate it... but then the movie was still 35 minutes too long, so they cut the first half of every sentence of Owen's narration. Too far fetched? I challenge you to watch the movie again with my theory in mind, it's the only answer that makes any sense!
Also, I get these Wiki-how's on my home page for just such occasions as this; This one should be titled "How to be make choices your grandparents would be ashamed of" or "How to become the punchline of an amusing anecdote":
http://www.wikihow.com/Convince-a-Girl-to-Buy-You-a-Drink
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Funny People
Let the high volume blogging and inevitable decline in post frequency begin! No TV yet... I watched the first half of the hour of "Better of Ted" this morning... I like the show very much, and encourage anyone who doesn't like sucky crap to watch it. That being said, I don't feel compelled to write anything about it. So... movie!
The girlfriend and I went to see "Funny People" last night. First off, let me say that I'm a pretty big fan of Judd Apatow, I've been pleased with the vast majority of movies he's directed. I love "Freaks and Geeks", I enjoyed "Undeclared". I'm a pretty big fan.
As a second bit of context, I didn't see the end of the movie. Why? Short answer; we walked out. I'll get to a longer answer in a second.
I don't feel great writing about a movie that I didn't see in it's entirety, however, there seems to be an important fact missing from every other review I've read about this movie: This movie is long... like really long... we left, by my best judgement, 14 hours into the movie, and I could see no way -short of stopping mid-scene and rolling credits- that it was going to end anytime soon.
For the most part, the first half was executed in a warm funny way, it wasn't quite funny enough, nor was the contrast between the two halves stark enough to classify this movie as suffering from "Stripes syndrome" but the symptoms could certainly produce a wrong diagnosis. Instead the movie flows more like a conversation with someone in which you're initially interested but at some point realize that you haven't been paying attention, you're not really sure what they're getting at, and you can't find a way out without exposing that you don't really care and haven't been paying attention.
As the first half ends, the movie becomes dark, and rambling... mostly rambling as darkness peaks in spurts throughout the move. It slowly becomes clear that Sandler's character shows the potential (I say "shows the potential" because I don't know how it ends... I'll watch it on DVD in a few months and write an addendum to this post... for now I'm turning a blind eye to my glaringly obvious ignorance and pushing ahead) to be just as shallow and unfortunate as we've all hoped he's not. Rogen's character stands by and watches, seemingly powerless to do anything, as Sandler's character encourages others to make the same mistakes he's made.
Apatow's movies work because his characters are funny and likable. There's plenty of funny -again, in the first half- but none of the characters are especially likable, and any goodwill they had built in the first half was very quickly squandered in the second. Luckily we had my girlfriend's mono to use as an excuse to not sit through another... well, I don't know how long. Doesn't really matter. The point is that I wasted at least 30 minutes of my evening watching the movie fall apart last night, and another half hour of work writing this today... Only one of those was regrettable.
The girlfriend and I went to see "Funny People" last night. First off, let me say that I'm a pretty big fan of Judd Apatow, I've been pleased with the vast majority of movies he's directed. I love "Freaks and Geeks", I enjoyed "Undeclared". I'm a pretty big fan.
As a second bit of context, I didn't see the end of the movie. Why? Short answer; we walked out. I'll get to a longer answer in a second.
I don't feel great writing about a movie that I didn't see in it's entirety, however, there seems to be an important fact missing from every other review I've read about this movie: This movie is long... like really long... we left, by my best judgement, 14 hours into the movie, and I could see no way -short of stopping mid-scene and rolling credits- that it was going to end anytime soon.
For the most part, the first half was executed in a warm funny way, it wasn't quite funny enough, nor was the contrast between the two halves stark enough to classify this movie as suffering from "Stripes syndrome" but the symptoms could certainly produce a wrong diagnosis. Instead the movie flows more like a conversation with someone in which you're initially interested but at some point realize that you haven't been paying attention, you're not really sure what they're getting at, and you can't find a way out without exposing that you don't really care and haven't been paying attention.
As the first half ends, the movie becomes dark, and rambling... mostly rambling as darkness peaks in spurts throughout the move. It slowly becomes clear that Sandler's character shows the potential (I say "shows the potential" because I don't know how it ends... I'll watch it on DVD in a few months and write an addendum to this post... for now I'm turning a blind eye to my glaringly obvious ignorance and pushing ahead) to be just as shallow and unfortunate as we've all hoped he's not. Rogen's character stands by and watches, seemingly powerless to do anything, as Sandler's character encourages others to make the same mistakes he's made.
Apatow's movies work because his characters are funny and likable. There's plenty of funny -again, in the first half- but none of the characters are especially likable, and any goodwill they had built in the first half was very quickly squandered in the second. Luckily we had my girlfriend's mono to use as an excuse to not sit through another... well, I don't know how long. Doesn't really matter. The point is that I wasted at least 30 minutes of my evening watching the movie fall apart last night, and another half hour of work writing this today... Only one of those was regrettable.
First blog entry/Mission statement
This is a critical moment in a man's life; his first blog entry.
This moment is by no means critical. I'm bored at work, that's all. I'd imagine the majority of content posted here will be posted in similar moments. I started this blog as a trial for the creation of a shared blog with my girlfriend... I assure you that blog (whatever it will be about) will be at least 150% funnier than mine.
I did not want to start a blog for nothing -I feel I should stop here and be honest; the "girlfriend blog" excuse is only to cover up my deep seeded narcissism. In truth, I did this to nurture the delusion (it could be argued that this could kill the delusion, but it's a strong delusion and failure is easily deflected) that my wit is somehow above that of the rest. That my blog will separate from the crowd and large masses of people will converge to get my opinion on the latest episode of "Hell's Kitchen", or some other such crap.
So, what do I have to blog about? I'm afraid I already gave it away; I watch too much TV. Not only do I watch to much TV but I have strong, informed opinions about the TV I watch. Not only do I have strong, informed opinions about the TV I watch, I firmly believe that those opinions are somehow better or different than the opinions of the millions of other people blogging their opinions about TV.
It's easy to have informed opinions about TV. To have informed opinions about current events or the like, I'd have to know all sorts of related information. TV is a medium in which I can claim expertise without any sort of qualifications, other than being able to program my DVR. It is in this spirit of superiority, narcissism, and mental laziness that I launch my blog.
I have not yet decided what shows I will bother to blog about, I'm feeling that "Hell's Kitchen" will be blogged about as it's running new episodes right now and doesn't have much competition for my attention. I'm also intrigued by "More to love" because of the high "freeway accident" factor it seems to be touting. I imagine I will also occasionally blog about movies, music, really anything I feel like. I'm pretty sure my massive audience won't mind.
-Mike
This moment is by no means critical. I'm bored at work, that's all. I'd imagine the majority of content posted here will be posted in similar moments. I started this blog as a trial for the creation of a shared blog with my girlfriend... I assure you that blog (whatever it will be about) will be at least 150% funnier than mine.
I did not want to start a blog for nothing -I feel I should stop here and be honest; the "girlfriend blog" excuse is only to cover up my deep seeded narcissism. In truth, I did this to nurture the delusion (it could be argued that this could kill the delusion, but it's a strong delusion and failure is easily deflected) that my wit is somehow above that of the rest. That my blog will separate from the crowd and large masses of people will converge to get my opinion on the latest episode of "Hell's Kitchen", or some other such crap.
So, what do I have to blog about? I'm afraid I already gave it away; I watch too much TV. Not only do I watch to much TV but I have strong, informed opinions about the TV I watch. Not only do I have strong, informed opinions about the TV I watch, I firmly believe that those opinions are somehow better or different than the opinions of the millions of other people blogging their opinions about TV.
It's easy to have informed opinions about TV. To have informed opinions about current events or the like, I'd have to know all sorts of related information. TV is a medium in which I can claim expertise without any sort of qualifications, other than being able to program my DVR. It is in this spirit of superiority, narcissism, and mental laziness that I launch my blog.
I have not yet decided what shows I will bother to blog about, I'm feeling that "Hell's Kitchen" will be blogged about as it's running new episodes right now and doesn't have much competition for my attention. I'm also intrigued by "More to love" because of the high "freeway accident" factor it seems to be touting. I imagine I will also occasionally blog about movies, music, really anything I feel like. I'm pretty sure my massive audience won't mind.
-Mike
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