Project Runaway

I once pitched an idea for a fake show called Project Runaway where you had to pick the best Runaway. But this isn't about that. This is about the new season of Project Runway and how they've totally gone overboard on these people. The new crazy is Suede. Suede is a Saturday Night Live version of a Project Runway contestant but he's real. He's bi-sexual and with crazy hair, fake blue faux-hawk, refers to himself in the 3rd person, and likes to make catty, impish comments.

In short, he's destined to win. But he's annoying as all get out. If you thought Christian from last year was bad, prepare for Suede. But there's not just Suede. There's Blayne. Blayne likes to declare things 'licious. Anything can be -licious. Girliscious. Suedeliscious. Timlicious. It doesn't seem to matter. He also decided Heidi is Darth Vader. Reasoning? Because she's all shiny and put together and then cuh-razy on the inside.

How does Blayne know Heidi is crazy? Is Heidi crazy? Am I crazy for not knowing this? I don't think so. And I don't think Heidi is crazy. I think we know who's crazy. Blayne is crazy.

But I will keep watching. Because I am addicted.

In other news, I was excited for Kitchen Nightmares. But alas, it was a repeat. Fall TV, I miss you. I will wait for you. I will walk the widow's walk in anticipation for when you come home and round the bend into the bay that is prime time. I will be faithful. Do not worry. I'll be true to you.

The Dublin Commercial

Here is what I went to Dublin for...

TWIB Notes

I cannot stand that commercial that is for some drug where the guy works on models. And then he asks the doctor how they can shrink the problem? The thing that upsets me? His model of the universe is soooo shitty. I mean, this is this guy's job. And yet his model of the universe looks like something I could do in 5th grade. Sidenote: I always hated those kids who did diagrams and models of things. Those aren't science projects! You didn't test anything!

Anyway, and everyone in the thing is ooing and aahing like it's this big accomplishment. Verdict: Dumb commercial.

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I placed two bets for the Preakness today and lost. It was exciting and then not in such a quick period of time. I guess that is what gambling is. It's over so quickly.
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I hate David Archuleta so much. I think I just have a problem with people that seem like everything is great with them. That it's all just smiles and happy faces. I like people to look like they have a little misery in their life. They seem like a more genuine person then. Is that a really awful thing to think? But I do. So I'm down for David Cook for the finals in American Idol. If Archuleta wins, it's a win for Pollyannas everywhere and I think we know that is one more point for evil.
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Huck Slim is up again tonight at Sidewalk Cafe. I am aiming on those people that read my blog incessantly and so will see this an hour before the gig and decide to go. It's going to work. I just know it!

New Favorite Awful Commercial

There's a new winner in the awful commercial search. It's these Gas X ads. Some sample dialogue from man at a job interview:

INTERVIEWER: Impressive resume. Flatulent in three languages. Graduated top of your gas...

then an assistant breaks in...

ASST: Your son Rip is on line Toot.

Brilliant people. Brilliant.

Injustice

Today, I woke up to two scenes of wicked injustice in America.

#1 The Sean Bell Verdict. All the police dudes go free! Yikes, hopefully there are no riots.

#2 Carleigh is voted off American Idol. WHAT? What of Jason? Brooke? Yeesh.

Hopefully, there are no riots.

Big Irish Baby

I've just returned from Dublin where I filmed a commercial. (It's only playing in Ireland. But hopefully I'll get a copy and post it here. Anyway...)

The last time I was in Dublin was like 10 years ago. It's changed a lot. For one, the country's doing a lot better. And two, our country is doing a lot crappier. This combines to make things crazy expensive! And they have a lot more American and European stores there. Which makes sense, in that the city is a lot more cosmopolitan. But makes shopping for something uniquely Irish a little bit more difficult! Still, it was a great time and everyone was really charming, funny, and friendly as you'd expect. The River Liffey still flows through town and produces the lovely lovely pints of Guinness. People still flock to Temple Bar. And the Molly Malone statue still sports an impressive amount of cleavage. So life goes on in Dublin town.

I got in early on Monday at like 5 am. Had time to sleep in my hotel for just a couple of hours before my first costume fitting. I was worried I was going to be in a giant diaper. (Because I was playing a man baby.) But luckily, I was just wearing the world's most expensive pair of pajamas. Seriously, people--these pajamers cost 200 euros. That's like four hundred dollars! Yikes!

Anyway... I ended up wearing this little vest as they called it what we would call a tank top and the WMEPOP bottoms. And because my chest was showing had to get some makeup on my chest and shoulders too. I'm glamorous, what can I say?

So the whole thing is I play a guy who just won the lotto and has his new life so I am in a swanky bed with my jammers and a rolex watch and surrounded by all these irish nurses. Take a look!
Here is the whole shot of the military hospital which was converted to a maternity ward. Apparently, there was a baby that was six days old that was on the set too. So that way I guess no one can complain that the newborn babies don't look like newborn babies. No flies on these guys, right?

Irish nurses and me. (Elaina, Claire, Caroline, and Bridd)

And the nurses who were at the foot of the bed(Clair and Liz). Missing from these are the two other nurses Mary and Cheryl. It was all of the nurses' jobs to make me laugh so they took turns doing dinosaur impressions, snufflelufagus, and pretending to flash me. Not a bad way to spend a couple of days, right?

Actor Input?

Was watching one of the countless Law & Orders on tv this week and saw one where the blonde chick, Serena, gets fired because she is too emotional about her job and then she says, "Is this because I'm a lesbian?" Fred Thompson says "No! Of course not, No!" Serena says, "Oh, good. That's good."

This smacks of something the actor was like, I think it's important that I'm lesbian even though(correct me if I'm wrong) it's never in the show. Weird.

Customer/Butt

That For Eyes commercial I did finally surfaced on YouTube. My appearance really is mostly butt which is hilarious. Check it out...

D List Moment

Last night, Kathrine and I went to the ESPN The Magazine 10 Year Anniversary Party. Kenny Mayne had invited me so that was pretty cool. We took a cab and as we pulled up we saw there was a red carpet. I thought we should figure out how to not walk on the red carpet so we got in the line where normal people were walking in. They wanted you to have tickets for that. So we then had to go to the red carpet line which was for "Media" and "Talent". They found my name and then in front of us was some starlet chick who was getting all of these pictures taken and slinking back and forth. So they asked us to wait.

Then, they said ok, can you keep moving. First, we need to wait but now we need to move? Make up your mind red carpet handlers! Finally, we are trying to make it through past the slinky starlet when one of the handlers comes up and says sorry Nate, this is Nate Skelky from the Mayne Event and holds up a piece of paper with my name. Nice. Shelkey, I corrected her. And then she told them the same thing. I guess she trusted her paper more than me.

The photog crew begrudgingly took a photo of me. And then an ESPN camera crew interviewed me for a second where I got to tell of my fabulous fame as Goat Dog.

Nate Skelky: Famous Person.

TWIB Notes

APT
Dear Reader, I know you are waiting with baited breath(sidenote: the concept of baited breath is pretty gross, right? And how dumb do you feel to get baited by someone's breath? I wonder what smell on someone's breath would reel me in.. Must protect myself from future attacks). Pretty much finished painting the living room. So that means if I don't paint the bathroom or the kitchen, I'm done! The new couch arrives this week. Hopefully in time for the Oscars. Anyway, Feb 19th and one NY resolution? DONE! I'm working on the gym and website design next I think. And some character ideas.

AROUND THE HORN
So... Clemens. Clearly, he's lying. It makes you sad. Because there's no reason for Andy Pettite to lie right now. He could have done the same thing that Bonds, Palmeiro, and others have done which is to lie or just hope that it goes away. But no, he admitted he did it. And then answered truthfully about one of his best friends.

Who smells mini-series or tv movie of the week? (Do they still do those?)

More crazy to me was the assertion of another ballplayer that they were missing hundreds of players who used steroids/HGH. HUNDREDS! I like Pedro's assertion that he dominated that era and he was clean. He's right. And no one would ever say Pedro was on the juice. Dude has been injured more than anyone save Mark Prior.

Also, hopefully you guys watched or listened to some of the hearing. I was livid at the pandering to Clemens from some of the congress peeps. "Which uniform are you going to wear when you get into the hall of fame?" "You're going to heaven, I know that" What??

MICHAEL, THAT RESPONSE IS ILLOGICAL
Ten thousand years ago, in my youth, the show known as Knight Rider premiered. I still maintain it was one of the best pilots of any show ever. 2 hours! And at the end the guy's face is redone with plastic surgery and out comes Hasselhoff as Michael Knight. Pretty brills.

Well, I watched the new Knight Rider this weekend. And it wasn't as good. It was 2 hours long. And the best part was towards the end where Michael Knight's son(who will drive the new KITT) is at his mother's funeral. And off in the distance you catch a glimpse. Could it be? Is it? Are you sure? YES! It's the Hoff! And he has a brief exchange with the kid.

Here's something else... the voice of KITT is Val Kilmer, but it was slated to be Will Arnett! How awesome would that have been? But nope. We're stuck with Val. Who was fine. But I'd either want that St. Elsewhere guy from the first one or this new idea with a zany KITT.

LEMING OFF THE CLIFF
Speaking of illogical, my AI fave, Joshiah Leming, got kicked off before the final 24. This is total b.s.! He was the most interesting out of all of them. He was the first AI contestant that I actually looked him up on the internet b/c I wanted to get some of his music. Of course, he writes his own songs so that's part of it. But he's got an interesting lilting voice. Not the pop power r&b voices that most of the AI crowd has. Still, Joshiah said he sold 800 albums after this so I suppose he's still doing well. Is he really living in his car? What is that fake accent? I don't care. I like him.

But now, I'm rooting for the Austrailian guy and the Irish girl. Outsiders all the way!

PLAY REPORT
We saw THE SEAFARER on Saturday. It was good but not great. [SPOILER ALERT]I think mostly I was unprepared for the appearance of Ciaran Hinds as the devil. Up till then, I was enjoying the good times of the Irish dudes. The crack, as they say. Still, all the acting was really good. David Morse's accent was solid. So, I was content if not satisfied. Kathrine's pronouncement: Too much yelling.

We're Just Like Everyone Else

Last night, I went to my favorite bar Jimmy's to hang out with Siobhan and when I walked in I saw this woman who looked really familiar. She was looking at me too so for a bit I thought I knew her. I felt her name was Gail. I don't know why.

Then I sat down and Siobhan said that they had to save some of the items on the menu for the reviewer from Food & Wine. Then it hit me! It was Gail. Gail Simmons from Top Chef! NICE.

I had the cassoulet and the Aventinus. I'm pretty sure Gail tried everything on the menu. But it just goes to show you, both Gail and I have great taste.

TWIB Notes

Some notes from around the league. Err.. of Nate.

GIRL POWER
This is my newest guitar pupil. Look at Polly rocking out! Polly took guitar lessons when she was 10 years old so her guitar is 3/4 size. And hasn't really touched it since then. I started teaching her a month or so ago. She's getting better. And we changed her strings. Which were 10 years old. Those strings were older than all of my nieces and nephews. Speaking of...

CAT SCRATCH FEVER
This is my niece Caroline. Pretty cool cheerleading outfit right? Wonder what sort of cool uncle got her that? Sidenote: They play Ted Nugent's song "Cat Scratch Fever" at Panthers' games. Because they are panthers. Still, I feel like it is the first time I have heard that song since being a child growing up in the 70's.

YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME, MONETARILY
Jason Garrett, the Cowboys' offensive coordinator, was given a raise by Jerry Jones, the Cowboys' owner. He now makes 3M a year. What is interesting about this is not only is he the highest paid assistant coach in the land. He also makes more than the head coach, Wade Phillips. I thought this would be remedied by a new contract for Wade. But it hasn't happened yet. This was a month ago. How awkward is that?

IDOL WATCH '08
Since there is not much new on the airwaves these days what with the WGA strike, I have been watching American Idol. Ok, that's a load of b.s. I would have watched it anyway. They are really amping up the whole this contest is a life changing experience for people with sob stories galore. "Singing on American Idol will bring my dad home from Iraq!" "This is my version of 'Funkytown' to let my sister with cancer, I am thinking about her." It's ruthless. And tasteless. But it makes for good trashy television. Still, I'd rather we just cut straight to the awesome and pitiful performances. I've said it before, I'll say it again--Ryan Seacrest earns his $ on that show. He has to keep a straight face talking with the crazies and show genuine compassion to the cry babies. He does it all. And he's able to keep his smarm factor down which was off the charts in season 1 and 2.

SUPER JACKED FOR SUPER TUESDAY
I'm pretty excited for Super Tuesday to roll around on Feb. 5th here in the NYC. Because it's the first time it really mattered. Get to make a real difference on who might run for the Dem nom. You want to know which way I'm voting? Here's a hint: I'm going with the young man.

PICTCHAS
Because I pride myself on being a good uncle, I did some research the other day. I netflixed "High School Musical". For youse not in the know, kids everywhere are crazy about HSM and Hannah Montana. They are really batshit crazy about this stuff. I got my niece Kayla this Wii game where you can sing all the songs from HSM. I wanted to do some duets with her but I didn't really know the words. Well, later I made a mix of the songs and then I watched the movie. Now, I'm ready!

But you know what? The movie's not half bad. The one thing is disturbing is they have this brother/sister team and their relationship is a little weird I think. They sing a song that the main love interests sing too. Until I saw the movie, I didn't realize they were brother/sister. Ummm... creepy. Still, it's a good song.

In other movie news, I think they are going too far with the "Computers Are Cool" notion. And just general technology. It's one thing to have a sci-fi movie. It's another to have current technology and spin a thriller from it, ridiculously. Enter ONE MISSED CALL. This movie is the evolution ripoff of The Ring. You'll remember in the Ring, people watch a video tape of some weird scattered grainy images. 24 hours later, they die. Then there was that movie where if people visited some website, 24 hours later they'd die. Well, now, apparently someone leaves a voicemail on your phone and it's your death. You're listening to a recording of how you die. And then ho hum. 24 hours later you die.

Come on people, it needs to have sort of thread of reality if you're making it out to be a modern day picture. What sort of voodoo is being done so someone can travel back in time with a recording of someone's death? I don't buy it.

Still, maybe this is more exciting than in the vast number of movies where you need some sort of exposition to take place, ,or plot development, and it takes place in front of a computer, normally Google.

APT
I start painting this weekend for the living room. New Year's resolution here we come!

Tim Gunn For Men

I was just reading some of the blogs on Bravo and came across Tim's very first entry for Tim Gunn's Guide To Style. And there was something I've talked about from the very first day.

WHAT ABOUT THE GUYS?

And he answers it! He says that he's working on a men's version of his book. So that's very comforting. Also, he says that many of the 10 essential items work for guys too. Including:

--the classic white shirt
--dress pants
--blazer
--trench coat
--jeans
--cashmere sweater
--sweatsuit alternative
--suit

I'm wondering what a sweatsuit alternative is for a guy. I have everything I think save the trench coat(really? I think guys look like detectives or g-men with these on. they look great on girls though), the blazer(i have one from h.s. wow, tim gunn and company would murder my closet), and the cashmere sweater.

Anyway... exciting. I look forward to the book!

I Am Santa

I just saw Lathum donned the Santa outfit this weekend, so did I! I shot another bit for ESPN. This will open the Sunday Countdown show on (duh) this Sunday at 11 am. So if you want to see me dressed as a gung ho sports fan Santa, check it out on ESPN then.

Still need to knock out a few gifts too. The clock is ticking!

TWIB Notes

FOUR EYES
Glasses. I done got new glasses. A pic for this to come too. Also, if you happen to spy my For Eyes commercial please let me know! Or if you see it on the interwebs please forward. I really want to see it. If I haven't told you about this before, it involves a dude trying on glasses and when he does, laser beams shoot out of his eyes and go around the store destroying things. The very last thing the laser hits is my butt. Which causes a small explosion and smoke. I had to wear a special pair of explosive pants for this(which had wires going up and down the whole thing which set off the little squibs(explosives).

This is a little scary as you'd imagine. Especially when the pyrotechnics guy says to you: "This is going to feel like a little warm(referring to my crotch). If it feels a lot warm, let me know." I could make some sort of joke about my crotch always feeling a little warm because of my unit. But I won't. I will just let you fill in the joke for yourself thus saving us both the trouble.

Anyway, there was also a nurse on set that made sure everything was alright with my pants and me after each take. We shot it a bunch of different ways as far as ouch that hurts fanning the flame shenanigans to indifferent New Yorker attitude to laser in pants encounter.

The best part is the contract which I have suitable for framing. The line for my part says, "Customer/Butt".

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SILVER BELLS
It's December 3rd and remarkably, I'm prolly 85-90% done with my Christmas shopping. Pretty exciting! I basically knocked out all of my nieces and nephews. Because I discovered something sad this year.

I am going to be the only sibling home for Christmas. Everyone else in the ol' Shelk fam is done married. So they are spending Christmas with the other side of the family. It makes for some lonesome times. Because normally they'll alternate with Thanksgiving. So you get a good Christmas or a good Thanksgiving but never both. Oh complexities of modern life!

But it's much lonelier when it's Christmas. And I thought, well if I'm buying all these gifties for these kids but they aren't going to be here, what's the point of bringing them home? I should just send them.

Which means, wow, the Christmas tree is going to be pretty bare this year.

I still need to get something for the girlie and some other people, but the bulk of it is done. So there's that.
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BACK IN THE SADDLE
The Cowboys are 11-1. Pretty sweet! This means with a little bit of luck, they will prolly get home field advantage in the playoffs. Which is good news for a possible Super Bowl run. Of course, this still means they'd likely face the Patriots. But we'll conquer that when we come to it. I'm just happy the Cowboys are finally relevant again. This might seem whinerish a bit like a Yankees fan complaining, but we Cowboys have gone through lean times before. We just have also had fantastic highs too(the 70's, the early 90's)but between those periods. It's been a funk. I think that after the 90's superbowls it was a bit like the fall of Rome. Everybody got so happy with themselves that the team because ridiculously self-confident and begain to fall apart. My big brother used to call that team the Crack Wagon.

But now, we've emerged with a young plucky Tony Romo to lead us to the promised land and watching Cowboys games are fun again.
Sidenote: How bad do you feel for Joe Gibbs? He makes the big blunder call in the emotional game after Sean Taylor's murder. Yeesh. Poor Joe.
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BEDROOM OF A DIFFERENT COLOR
I've been on a home improvement kick lately. The first task has been the bedroom. It's got all new furniture, plus a brand new paint job, and some other new stuff too. Next will be the main room. I'm gonna post a whole little photo tour of everything in a bit.
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TIME OFF
Going to Charlotte this week. So I'll be sure to take lots of pics of Linus and Anderson. And when I go home from Christmas I think I should be able to get some of Dylan and Kayla. Just not on Christmas proper. Then I will take some of me and my parents being lonely at the siblings who've abandoned us. Sniff. Sniff.

But I'm excited for this month because I have a lot of vacation time that I have to use or lose it. So I have two four day weekends and then the whole 22-New Year's off.

Big Bird Inspiration

I finally dug out some Netflix last night. I've had these discs just sitting somewhere in my apartment. I had been on a documentary kick lately. And I have "March of the Penguins" (which I'm halfway through) and "The World According To Sesame Street".

The Sesame Street doc is amazing. It covers the process behind bringing a Sesame Street show to three new countries--Bangladesh, Kosovo, and South Africa. It's pretty cool how they don't just pump out dubbed versions of the Street to foreign countries. They try and develop a whole new show based on the culture and identity of that country. So the characters are often different. For instance, in Bangladesh--they have a tiger because that is their national animal(the Bengali Tiger). (Also, I am completely ignorant and didn't realize that Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan[they are on separate sides of India])

The Kosovo and South Africa segments were particuarly interesting. In Kosovo, they were trying to teach kids not to hate each other. And you have some very tense meetings between the Serbs and Albanians involved in the creation of the show. That was heart breaking. Because they would ask the creatives if they should have one name for the show for Serbs and Albanians or two different ones. And everyone was agreed it should be different. To have one that was the same wouldn't seem right apparently. The producers also asked about doing something on empathy. They asked for any thoughts on the subject. Complete silence. So they moved on.

Then they asked a bunch of kids if they would want to know what Serb kids did for fun and vice versa. Some kids were curious but some kids were defiant and angry at the mention of the other ethnic group. This one kid screams, "Albanians burned our house down!"

In South Africa, they decided to create a character who was HIV positive. And that was pretty heart warming. But then you saw all the backlash that was in the U.S. about it. Kathrine is in Lesotho right now for Habitat for Humanity. So I was thinking about her while watching this. Apparently, South Africa has one of the highest infection rates of HIV in Africa(and the world), and Lesotho has an even higher one. As a result, you have a lot of orphans.

And perhaps not uncoincidentally, Kathrine was building a orphanage this weekend.

They showed a clip of the HIV Muppet, Kami, and she is holding a memory box that her mom made her so that she can remember her after she died. It's pretty poignant.

Anyway... if you are a Sesame Street or Muppet fan, or just like interesting documentaries, check it out!

Aspen

My dvr is exploding these days. There's too much to watch!

Right now, I have these shows being recorded:

--Prison Break
--Top Chef
--Tim Gunn's Guide To Style
--Heroes
--Mad Men
--The War(PBS doc)
--SNL
--Mad TV(to watch Kula(!) and Dipps' work)
--Colbert
--Daily Show
--Journey Man

Wow. I think that's it. I taped Journey Man because I like that actor from Rome. But I snoozed through it. So it's coming down. But last night, I finally got a chance to plow through some of the muck. Still not through it all but I got a chance to watch Top Chef finally.

So one of the things I like to do the day after I watch Top Chef is to read Gail's blog and Anthony Bourdain's blog. I just noticed there are other blogs. Which I knew before because I on occasion will read Tom's blog and Ted's blog. Then I realized that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Because you could still read Padma's blog. But don't forget Rocco DiSpirito's blog. And Barton G's blog. Oh and what about Harold Dieterle's blog? And lest we neglect Lee Anne Wong's blog.

Or Ilan's blog. Sam Talbot's blog. Marcel Vigneron's blog. Carlos Fernandez's blog.

And Andy's blog.

That's right, they have FOURTEEN BLOGS about the show! That's completely overkill. They have like say, 3. Maybe 4. Do we really care what Padma thinks? Personally, I only care about Gail and Anthony, and then occasionally Ted and Tom.

Anyway... the final in Aspen is going to be Dale vs. Casey vs. Hung. It's prolly really just Casey vs. Hung. I'm rooting for Casey. It's a lot like Hell's Kitchen really. The technicians versus the artists. These chefs are so much more accomplished though than the Hell's Kitchen folks.

Who you got?
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Also, I want to know how to get a note to Tim Gunn. I want to know what the 10 staple items for men's clothing would be. What do you think?

I'm thinking:

--All Purpose Suit
--Fun Or Seasonal Suit(different color, or different fabric)
--Dress Pants
--Classic Dress Shirt
--Casual Pants aka Khakis
--Jeans
--Sweater
--Sportsjacket or Blazer
--Casual shirt
--Polo or similar(I hate the real polo shirt, I like a modified polo)

I need a new sweater I think, a sportsjacket/blazer, and a fun suit.

Based on Heather's recommedation, I'm going to start taping Kitchen Nightmares tonight.

Ebersol, What The F?

Okay, so NBC has a revamped Sunday Night Football show. And it's exec produced by Dick Ebersol. This is the guy who MADE Saturday Night Live work again. (Yes, there was a time when Lorne Michaels wasn't involved!) This is the guy who created Monday Night Football. This is the guy who made the Olympics interesting to watch.

But this is also the guy who created a piece of prime time crap for Sunday Nights.

A couple of new features for the show this year:

--The Player's Room vs. the Commentators. For some inexplicable reason, they have separated the ex-players from Costas and Olberman. They are only a few short feet away and they talk to each other but it's so strained. What's the idea behind this one? Also, Jerome Bettis, great bus, bad analyst. Tiki Barber? Media Savvy! The Bus constantly makes analysis based on the running game. I suppose that's what you would expect. Defensive coaches always focus on defense, offensive, offense. But that's what makes Tiki cool---he sees the whole game. Not just the run.

--"Lost In Translation". Horrible little segment where they have something a coach or player says and then someone translates what that means. You can tell that the commentators hate this segment. Plus it lasted for all of two seconds. Do you even bother to name something if it is that short? Also, can a segment be that short? There should be a name for something shorter than that. A segmentette or something.

--The Best Plays sponsored by Sprint. These are highlights, and they maintain this squiggly line art the time it's playing as a border around the clips. It's distracting. It's unnerving. It has no point!

--The theme song. Apparently, Ebersol decided it worked for MNF so why not just repeat it by having another country artist do a big cheesy theme song. Only this time let's make it three times as long and pepper it with lots of shots of people watching football games on cell phones. I like this little bit of fairy tale. Does anyone watch football games on cell phones? I didn't think so.

The only thing that they can't screw up is Madden and Michaels. Thank God. But other than that, this show blows! Who's with me?

TV Dinner

Dear Reader,

I forgot to post some thoughts on the finale of Hell's Kitchen this week. Forgive me! I know you were curious. Last night, I watched Top Chef too so I can offer some thoughts about both. Double Bonus!

Okay, so it went as expected with HK. Who won? Rock did. I felt bad about this of course because Julia turned a bit traitorish on the girl's side. She was surly and sullen and gave Bonnie quite a bit of attitude. It got to the point where they ignored each other at times. So you knew at that point, she wasn't going to be great as a head chef. You gots to communicate, girl!

Look at Rock, he had Josh weighing him down big time. Josh keeps maintaining he can cook and he's a great cook, but I've never seen him cook something successfully in the entirety of the show. Maybe he cooks well at home. That's prolly it. He also cooked a bunch of stuff at the same time AGAIN. When we know that in a fine restaurant, things are cooked "al menu". I learned this from Hung on Top Chef. That means, made to order. One at a time.

But Rock dealt with it, he switched Josh to a station of just having things be warm(the Warmelier?), which he was able to handle. I think he put Vinny on fish, which seems just as dicey, but he made it work(Hmmm Tim Gunn?).

So what's the morale of the story? Never give your restaurant to a nanny.

Okay, on to Top Chef. This week, they had Daniel Boulud. He has the uber fancy (and expensive) french restaurant Daniel in NYC, which vies with Jean-Georges as one the best restaurants in the city(as well as chefs!). Everyone's expecting haute cuise but...

The quickfire was making burgers. I thought that Howie was a bit of an ass kisser in this b/c he went all truffles which I guess is a signature dish of Daniel's(a $120 truffle burger). So instead, CJ won. I like CJ a lot. He's a likeable guy and according to Top Chef is the chef the viewing audience would most like to share a midnight snack with. I could see that. I think I'd prolly rather spend it with Casey. But if CJ was there too, to chat it up, I wouldn't mind.

So no longer does the quickfire winner get immunity. Instead, he gets to pick his team. So he picks the team with the least drama queens. It's him, Brian, Casey, and Tre. Then you've got the team of the fireballs in the other side, with Howie, Hung, Sara, and Dale.

It wasn't as clearcut though as you'd imagine. So they have to divide up because it's the Restaurant Challenge. And (Restaurant April)CJ put Tre in as Executive Chef, Ceej takes sous chef, and Brian is front of house. I forget what the fourth position was. Hmmm... Anyway, on the other side(The Garage), Sara nominates herself as Executive Chef, Howie is sous, Dale is front of house. And again, oops can't remember what Hung is.

So Dale rocks the front of house except he can't smell and puts some stinky vanilla candles out. But Brian is a mess as front of house on the other side. Both meals come out inconsistent. The Garage is too winter-y and robust. And April overcooks their's.

In the end, they decided to do a redo no-fairsees next week. Which makes sense to me. This time you'll really get to see who can get blamed for what. I would have booted Brian. However, he's never done that before so you have to cut him some slack. But next week, he better be on his game!

TWIB Notes

A few things...

--I went to San Loco today where they had 20 cent tacos in honor of their 20th anniversary. YUMMMM!! I had three tacos and it was less than a dollar. That's what I call a deal.

--In the process of writing that first sentence, I realized that the cents symbol is no longer on the keyboard. This is sad as it means it is no longer useful. Oh Inflation! I hate you.

--Watched a whole special on Houdini today and saw something amazing. No, it wasn't something Houdini did(although he did a lot of amazing things.) No, it was the fact that one of the talking heads on the program was Teller from Penn & Teller. Yes, THAT Teller, the one who's whole bit in that magic duo is that he never talks. So I heard Teller talk. As you might expect, it's not that exciting. If you thought that he had some sort of screeching banshee wail of a voice? Well, he doesn't. The funny thing though was that they blacked out his face. As if that saved the secret of him talking, and yet they still had the little byline underneath his blacked out form saying he was Teller. Weird, right?

--The most interesting thing learned about Houdini is that he always said that no one could ever hurt him by punching him. I guess he had really strong abdominal muscles or something. So when he's over 50, he gives a speech at a college and later that day, some college students come by to visit him. And one of them wants to test his lifelong challenge and asks if he can punch him. Houdini agrees. And the dude punches him. Not once but three different times. And apparently Houdini wasn't ready for one of the later punches, he hadn't tensed his stomach muscles. And as a result of this he has appendicitis.

Well, Houdini has a show to do. And he refuses to go to the doctor, he decides to finish the show first. And he ends up dying as a result. Some people say he would have died anyway. But the punch story is interesting.

--In the topic of most annoying cheapie cable commercials, there is a new contender in the field. I was at an audition the other day with Anthony and he mentioned the Sir Charge(Surcharge) commercials for Time Warner. And yes, those are ridiculous. But there's also commercials for Daisy Mae BBQ. Now, if you haven't been to Daisy Mae, it's some tasty 'cue. Let me get that off my chest, before I trash their awful commercial. They must spend all their money on tastiness and none on ad budget. Because the commercial has this lame theme song that I suppose is supposed to sound like the Pogues or some sort of Irish band. But that's not the worst part. No, the worst part is this girl who is playing I guess a waitress and she's using this really weird lame faux put on Southern accent. It's actually hard to tell what sort of accent she's using. It's the sort of Southern accent one might encounter in 7th grade while taking Speech & Dramatics or something like that.

Which makes me wonder about these commercials, and the actors in these commercials. Who are they? Are they really actors? I am hoping instead that they are friends of these places. I hope that Sir Charge and Daisy Mae girl are just good friends of Time Warner and Daisy Mae BBQ. Maybe they work there. I mean, we KNOW Nino is invested in Nino's because he's NINO. So that makes sense to me. But when it's someone that isn't easily identified as belonging to the company?

I also wonder about all of those testimonial commercials. Because after awhile you realize that a lot of times, commercials are just filled with actors, even when they say or seem to represent normal people. But I can't believe that the person who was in those famous Broadway commercials("we laughed, we cried, it was better than Cats") are actors. If they are, they are awful. And if they are awful, why are these companies hiring them? But maybe they can't tell? I don't know. The whole thing just bothers me.

Geeking out with Blake

Last night on American Idol, Seacrest asked Blake how he came up with these remixes and he said he uses a program called Ableton Live. I realized that I have that program too! I normally use Pro Tools proper but that comes as a plug-in with the gear I got. So I fired it up last night and it is indeed pretty cool. So begins a summer of experimenting with "beats"! I'm trying to figure out how you import a song first though.

The Malakar Cocktail

I've been watching Idol. And are people abreast about what's going on here? This kid, Sanjaya Malakar, has been surviving on the show when clearly he's the worst of the top 10. And why? Some people say it's because Howard Stern has been mounting a campaign to vote Sanjya to be the winner. And furthermore, there's speculation that this will ruin the show and eventually cause it's cancellation.

But I don't see how this is possible. First, some numbers. There are six million Sirius subscribers right now. There are routinely 20 million that vote for American Idol. Even if all six million subscribers 1) listen to Howard Stern and 2) watch American Idol, and 3) vote for American Idol, and 4) vote for Sanjaya, there's still another 14 million votes to be tallied.

So will he win? Will American Idol be cancelled? Doubtful. It's the most popular show on television by leaps and bounds. TV networks are not normally known for being graceful about retiring a show. Instead, they run those horses into the ground.

Also, what does it prove if Sanjaya does win? My co-worker says it will prove that Idol is b.s. and the best singer won't have won and it will prove it's a big crock. But they never said that the best singer would win. They said it would be who American wants to be American Idol.

I told her it's like the Presidential election. Does the best person always win? No way. It's just based on votes. (And stealing elections.) And you can't make people vote for the best person. People are going to vote how they are going to vote. Just like when they vote for the President, they might vote for someone who is charming instead of smart, someone who's good looking, instead of qualified.

And that's why people might vote for Sanjaya. Just for the hell of it.

(In case you're wondering, I'm rooting for Jordin Sparks. Come on, that name just sounds like a star. Plus, the girl can SANG. And she's super cute too.)
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In other news, the Nats won a game! This is surprising because I think the Nats are going to lose over a hundred games. It's going to be a rough season. Hopefully though, in 2008, when the new stadium opens--all will be worth it.

The Nats also have something new this year. They have a race akin to the famous sausage race in Milwaukee. Only instead of sausages, it's Presidents! I like this. Plus, apparently Teddy Roosevelt watched the game from the top of the stadium.