Oh Man! I Can't Keep Up.

I'm in hog heaven w/ all the fun competition reality shows that are on, right now.  I'd better just get going.

Rachel and Guy's Celebrity Cookoff or something like that, was down to the final four.  This show is kind of stupid w/ some celebs obviously on the show just for exposure.  Some of the celebs try to brag about how good they can cook but when you see their food and hear the description, you're glad not to have to eat it.  Meanwhile, Rachel and Guy run around trying to look like celebs.  Here's a good rule for Food Network producers.  One hyper annoying host can be okay and make the show fun.  2 hyper annoying hosts is just really annoying and you don't know who to aim at first when you shoot your TV.  Anyway, Guy had only Dean left on his team.  Meanwhile, Rachael had Carnie Wilson, Kathy Najimy and Hines Ward (Who?) on her team.  The challenge was to feed a bunch of starving moochers from food trucks.  Racheal's team decided to make food that sounded like tailgating stuff.  Dean had his foodtruck all to himself but had to do all the work too.  He made some kind of wrap that he called a taco.  Okay...  Lou Diamond Phillips returned to be a judge.  Y'know, for a bunch of free food bums, those customers were quite critical of the food.  Hine's had to remind people he was a star by telling people he played football and won Dancing With the Stars.  None of the people were over 80 so just gave him blank stares.  When you play a game where everyone wears the same outfit and helmet, it's hard to tell who anyone is.  People had no clue who he was.  So finally, everyone gave their vote as to who's foodtruck they preferred and Dean pulled out the win.  Yay!  Good thing too cuz if he's gone, it turns into the Rachael's team show.  The final cookoff involved all 3 celebs from Rachael's team and they had to make...  Well who cares?  Carnie won and it will be Dean and her in the finale.  Oh boy!  It should be good cuz Dean has proved he can cook.  You know Carnie can cook cuz she didn't get to be over 300 pounds by eating bad food.

Cake Boss:  The Next Great Baker was down to 5 bakers.  For the taste challenge, the bakers had to make a dessert w/ alcohol or based on an alcoholic drink.  I didn't really hear Buddy say they had to use booze but maybe he did cuz they all did.  The blonde white chick said she didn't drink so it was interesting that she knew what a mudslide was.  Chad made something so intricate, it became cluttered.  In the end, Ashley won.  Everybody can tell Buddy is keen on Ashley so when they have a challenge and there's no clear winner, Buddy seems to give it to her; or so everybody thinks.  Then Buddy split the bakers into 2 teams of 1 guy and 1 girl.  Ashley chose to join the Italian bald guy and the blonde chick.  That left Chad and the white brunette lady.  Oh boy!  The challenge was to make a birthday cake for Kelly Ripa.  Why?  She certainly doesn't look like she's ever consumed any cake before.  So the team of 3 listened carefully to Kelly's co-star and the team of 2 didn't really.  Off they went and like bad little elves, they fought and whined more than they worked.  Chad took the opportunity to blow his own horn whenever he could but he forgot that pride goeth before a fall:  cough, cough.  Finally the 2 cakes were brought before Regis' protege to be judged.  What a freakin' ditz.  It was obvious which cake was the winner.  The one that had her favorite colors, things and looked modern.  Not the cake that looked like a wedding cake for geriatrics.  Whatever.  Kelly tried to be nice to both teams but just came across as wimpy and dumb.  She was probably very glad not to have to eat any cake.  So long story short, Chad was sent to the boxtruck.  Hee hee.  Who's bragging now?  What a big headed dumbass.

Face Off had a fun minichallenge.  The artists had to put facial hair on women.  It was hilarious but clever at the same time.  They all did a good job but this time, Anthony didn't win.  For the spotlight challenge, the artists were shown a Willy Wonka set full of candy.  They had to make a character and use candy in the makeup.  OMG!  I LOL seeing the artists just shoveling candy into their mouths.  It was interesting cuz some of the candy was huge:  gummies, lollipops, licorice ropes, etc.  I have to say, the I thought they all did a good job but there was one glaring bad standout.  People and judges really respect the work more when there's more work put in it.  Just painting a face and sticking a few pieces of candy on wasn't going to cut the mustard in this competition.  I'm not sure what happened because that girl didn't complain about anything going wrong.  One guy had little horns jutting out of his creature's face made out of candy corn w/ candy corn fingernails on the hands.  Wow!  One guy made a melting gummy creature.  Wow!  I'll bet they smelled good too.  A lot of the work was clever w/ epaulettes made out of lollipops and licorice.  I'm telling you.  Project Runway designers could've been schooled by these people.  In the end, Anthony wasn't the winner and the blonde chick who made the lame makeup was sent home.

Joe Schmoe Show:  The Full Bounty is in full swing.  I love the way they make a teaser making the audience think the cover is blown.  Poor Chase is so innocent, he just doesn't suspect that he could be being duped.  The guy has a lot of heart and doesn't catch on, even w/ all the bad acting going on around him.  They had him chained to a prisoner.  That actor did a pretty good job being scary and keeping his background story straight.  They had an escape incident.  You'd think Chase would think the guards were pretty lax and stupid.  It's obvious he's never been to a jail or prison.  But then again, he looked nervous as a cat the whole time so maybe he didn't have time to muddle things over.  The Asian girl must've had another acting gig cuz she wasn't even on the show for half the episode and then was "eliminated" at the end.  The show's producers seem to push the boundaries and almost hope Chase will blow the whole show.  My only gripe is, why don't they re-run the episodes at least once?

Top Chef finally got interesting but it's because they left Seattle.  Wow!  I usually don't use the word super like most people but Seattle was super boring and not synonymous w/ fine dining at all.  First the chefs cooked on a cruise ship making dishes w/ iceberg lettuce.  Can you say lettuce cups?  The Hawaiian guy was on a roll.  He won again.  Then they had to make fried chicken.  Yo!  Stefan!  Chicken Cordon Bleu is not fried chicken. The judges also didn't appreciate chicken planks or nuggets.  So anyway, Josie finally got her just desserts and was given the boot.  I think I heard the whole world cheering.  The curly-q mustache guy made really good fried chicken and won.  Wow.  Really?  For the next quickfire, the chefs had to make the tasties for the Bon Voyage party.  Oh boy!  The Hawaiian guy won again.  Then the chefs had to make a surf and turf dish.  Brooke made frog legs and some kind of seafood.  The judges weren't too picky.  Stefan made pork belly that was too crunchy for American people and about broke Tom Colicchio's teeth.  The hot Aussie chef was back to help judge and he loved the crunchy pork belly.  The Hawaiian guy was judged harshly for making a usual surf and turf dish.  In the end, Stefan was sent to the hold.  Awww...  I'll miss you Stefan, you sexy thing.  The next challenge had the chefs landing in Juneau and cooking sourdough and salmon.  I didn't know Alaskans were so crazy for sourdough but ok.  There shouldn't have been any budget problem for salmon cuz at that time of the year, the streams are crammed full of spawning salmon but it seemed they were still buying it off of the boats and only seemed to get 1 or 2 fish each.  Really?  The bears couldn't share?  Anyway, all of the chefs, except 1, made soup to go w/ their bread.  Lizzie made salmon sliders but was too chintzy on her fish serving.  She got the boot.  Awww... I'll miss her cool accent.  Now it's down to 2 guys and a girl.  I'm wondering if those judges are sick of fish yet?

The crying fatties of Biggest Loser aren't really having those temptations like they used to.  Why not?  I loved them; especially if they were required to eat something.  I wish they'd have the person who consumes the most calories have immunity.  Man, then you'd really see some good eating.  No, the show focused on the kids talking to their peers about bullying.  I'm sick to death of people trying to talk people into not bullying.  Until people are put into their own plastic bubbles, it's never going to end and kids will always be kids.  I do have to say though, the kids are already looking thinner.  Back at the ranch, the challenge for the fatties had only 1 from each team trying to cross a beam over water and match calorie placards to dishes on the other side.  It was quite hilarious and I'll bet it took a looooong time.   They started w/ huge swinging balls knocking the fatties off of the beam.   Then they stopped the swinging balls.  Then the balls were gone altogether.  There was a lot of falling into the water and you know that everytime they did, they had to climb back up again.  I'd be interested to know how long it took to film that.  Finally, the lone wolf on the white team won the weight advantage.  At the weigh in, in order to make things more fair for once, only 1 team member's weight counted for the whole team and it was determined by a roll of a dice.  It was kind of funny cuz they still made Jillian roll a dice even though she only has the girl on her team.  For the first time, the blue team lost the weigh-in.  Lazy Jeffrey paid for his sins this time but it was the older lame guy who was sent home.  I'm just wondering how long Jillian's team can stick around.

King of the Nerds had a debate.  Each person had a different topic and were assigned the pro or the con.  I have to say, it was totally nerdy subjects:  the legality of superhero actions, if the presence of superheroes affects the criminality of the city, etc.  It was really quite hilarious and made even more funny by the fact that the nerds took the whole thing so seriously.  I'm not sure how they studied, but they studied.  The guys who played Jay and Silent Bob helped judge the debates.  The blue team won.  Somehow Virgil convinced the blue team not to vote him into the dual, even though they consider him a strong threat.  Ugly Alana couldn't understand why her teammates keep voting her into the dual.  Hmmm...maybe it's because at the very beginning, you deemed them the weakest team and insulted them.  Maybe it's because she's just freakin' annoying w/ her unfounded arrogance.  She bragged about how smart she was, what a good swimmer she was and how she was so good at this and that.  Then when it was part of a challenge, she sucked.  If I was on her team, I would've killed her while she slept after that first week.  Anyhoo, the Asian girl, who crapped out at the debate, and Alana were voted into the dual.  The dual consisted of comic book trivia.  Alana thought having a room full of comic books gave her enough knowledge and didn't study.  It proved to be her downfall and she lost and was sent home.  Yay!  Bye Alana.  Go get that face and personality transplant that you so desperately need.

Project Runway was a huge never ending commercial for Heidi Klum's perfume.  I love the way Heidi uses this show to sell all her crap.  One season they're making a look for her clothing line, the next season they're making a look for her baby clothes shop, this time they're making looks to go w/ the perfume in public appearances.  Yeesh.  What's next?  A Heidi Klum fertility package?  The designers had to stick to pink, black and gold w/ a hard and soft theme.  The Dream Team made some looks that weren't so dreamy.  That older lady makes a lot of crap and this time she made the crappiest thing out of bright pink shantung shiny.  Ick!  The Aussie blonde guy must've sat on his arse until the last hour cuz boy was he scrambling to assemble a dress that looked like a 2nd grader could've made it in 10 minutes.  It was strapless and so poorly made that I was sure the model was going to have a major wardrobe malfunction on the runway.  I kept wondering how that bodice stayed up.  I liked that that one bitchy lady who always thinks she's so great got totally raked over for her fugly dress.  The Keeping It Real team did a good job of helping each other and critiquing each other.  They had a couple of really gorgeous gowns and of course a couple of duds too.  The Native American lady made a cool checked leather textile thing.  She's really quite the artist and I've loved her work so far.  In the end, the older lady, Cindy, on The Dream Team was sent home.  Bye!  See you at the old folks home.  I'll bet she's great at making culottes.

Well, that's about it for this week.  Sugar Dome had the people do an alien theme and that guy w/ the crazy hair from Ancient Aliens was on to help judge.  How cool was that?  It's also award show season.  Les Miserable, Silver Linings Playbook and Argo seem to be the big winners.  The BAFTAs were hilarious and fun to watch. 

Fun fun fun!  See you next time people.  Until then, stay tuned.

Off The Beaten Path

Man, how time flies.  Sorry for not writing a post for so long.  Because I've skipped a few weeks, I'm going to kind of summarize the shows to the present.  They've come up w/ some new fun shows and revamped old ones.   So let's get to it.

I finally saw the final shows of Redneck Island.  All I have to say is, those Redneck men were smarter than the average bear.  I thought for sure their time was up when it was down to 2 men and 4 women.  Unfortunately, the women worked against themselves w/ their cattiness and grudges.  The men jumped on the opportunities and managed to oust all but 2 women.  Then they had a challenge where they answered trivia questions and w/ each correct answer, got to shoot a plate belonging to another player.  Each player had 5 plates and when all th plates of 1 person were shot, that person was sent home.  I loved it.  Talk about being on the spot.  It gave the people the opportunity to save themselves by being smarter.  Once again, the men played smart by just letting the women go at each other but the last shot was dealt by Justin and he really did show his hand.  That night, the ousted Rednecks returned for a potluck and Kelly was not over her ousting.  Oh boy!  It really didn't matter.  She was still out of the game.  The only thing she did was make the atmosphere awkward.  The final challenge was a huge obstacle course and Wade won by being more fit and stronger.  Way to go dude!  I liked that it wasn't about a final vote.  He totally earned his win.

Face Off is starting a new season and I have to say, it's even cooler than previous seasons.  Micheal Westmore, the god of character makeup, is taking the mentor role and will be on every episode.  He is so cool and it's like having Yoda on the show because his criticisms are wise but not harsh and he gives pointers on how to make the makeup better instead of just telling the artists they need to make the makeup look better.  It's also cool to see the warmth between Mackenzie and her Dad.  The talent on the show gets better every season.   There seem to be more older artists.  There are also a couple of people who seem to be wearing character makeup already.  One guy looks like Wolverine and another guy looks like a goth Comic Con guy.  As always, the challenges do come down to time management and luck.  There seems to be one guy who's the one to beat cuz he's won all the challenges so far.  They've done makeups for Kings of different fantasylands, and Queens w/ different crowns.  It's all so cool and as usual, I can't judge the good stuff from the bad cuz all the looks look awesome.  A couple of the models do a good job of selling the looks and others just stand there.  I think it would be fair to let the artists choose the models every week because those models who really work the look are a huge advantage.  So far, the black guy and the guy who looks like Wolverine have gotten the boot.

Cake Boss: The Next Great Baker was down to 3 guys and 3 girls, last I looked.  There are so many shows on Mondays that I often have to see the show in it's reruns so I'm usually a week behind.  I'm surprised that the contestants are actually better cake decorators than Buddy.  He's always been judged pretty harshly on Food Network cake challenges for uneven piping work, sloppy fondant work,  and unoriginality.  The weird thing is, he's done a few piping demonstrations and you can still see he's not very precise and quite sloppy.  Yet, he brags about how great he is.  Uh huh.  Some of the mini challenges have been quite funny w/ the bakers piping cakes in the freezer or trying to copy party cakes and having them trashed for 1 little mistake.  One challenge had the guys vs. the girls.  The women had to make a cake for a sweet sixteen party and the tall model girl thought a monster would be cute.  Huh?  I think she just wanted to sit down and just mold a character while the other 2 women covered and decorated the whole cake.  It didn't go over well w/ Buddy at all.  This season has a lot of incidences of the person w/ immunity trying to deliberately sink the ship.  That's really not fair.  Oh well.

The crying fatties are back and so is Jillian.  Welcome back to The Biggest Loser in the original format w/ a bit of a twist in the voting.  Finally, the producers have gotten smart and seen the error of their ways.  They started out w/ 2 teams of five and of course have been whittled down week after week.  Poor Jillian, her team has been decimated.  People comment on how she yells and berates her fatties but the contestants they're cranking out don't seem to be as aggressive as the ones in the first few seasons.  I'm so glad they've done away w/ literal teams of 2 w/ either family members or friends.  This season, it's every man or woman for themself and that's the way it should be.  There's no self sabotage, no falling on the sword and none of those people who just hang back and let everybody else fight and do the work.  It was getting to be a joke how the winners of the show were still fat at the end.  Also, it was kind of turning America's opinion of people causing disrespect of fatties, not just on the show but in society too.  This season, the fatties are seen as sincere.  The theme of this season is childhood obesity and it's a nice break to see the kids in their real lives.  It's kind of fake of other kids to be so nice to the show's kids because they're celebs now.   The voting is different too.  Immediately after the weigh ins, they are, one by one, made to vote in a booth.  There's no discussion w/ the other contestants.  No boo hoo, "I need this." or "Save him and send me home."  speeches.  No last minute conniving.  It's kept the contestants more honest and the lowest producing contestants have been sent home.  That's as it should be.  So far, the red team is down to 3 people, the blue team is still at it's original 5 and the white team has 1 lone member.  I also notice there's a lot less product schilling.  Thank you producers, for a much better show.


The Joe Schmoe Show is also back.  This season the fake show is Bounty Hunter and it's hilarious.  The Joe thinks he's competing for a Bounty Hunter job and a prize.  How funny is it that the Joe's name is Chase?  As usual, they've got the usual variety of characters:  slutty flirty girl, stupid innocent girl, dumb meathead guy, the buddy, the nasty hateful guy and the gay guy.  This season, they threw in some fun characters starting w/ Lorenzo Lamas who was totally hilarious but was sprung after the first episode.  OMG, I couldn't believe he was handing out skimpy men's underwear LOL!  He played the stereotype of actors that was making the other actors cringe; the arrogant doofus.  They've also added a deaf girl w/ her signing translator.  It's hilarious but the actress keeps making character breaks and almost gives up the ruse.  Ralph Garman is hosting again and even funnier than ever playing a former bounty hunter w/ his slutty wife who he has no respect for.  He brags and struts like a rooster and I'm LOL the whole time he's onscreen.  The Joe is the most innocent good guy they could find who apparently doesn't watch TV much but has a lot of heart.  Instead of looking like a dumb dupe, he seems more like that innocent altar boy who just doesn't see duplicitousness in anybody.  He evokes a lot of awww.... moments.  They have the funniest and most absurd eviction ceremony you've ever seen and a huge double entendre and the Joe still buys it.  OMG, I can't wait for the reveal at the end of this season.  I wish they'd show more of the fake voting cuz some of the stuff the actors write on their ballots is so hilarious.  One fun fact;  the buddy guy is Jim Belushi's son.  Cool!

TBS has a fun show called King of the Nerds.  Yep, being a nerd has really become cool thanks to The Big Bang Theory and all the technical shows like Numbers, CSI, etc.  They brought together nerds of all kinds from scientists to gamers to Comic pros and split them into 2 teams.  The show is hosted by 2 Revenge of the Nerds actors who are totally playing their characters.  They chose their teams by having each subsequent chosen member choosing the next person.  Alana was the last person standing and rightly so.  She's weird, full of unsubstantiated arrogance and a face only a mother could love.  It got kind of funny when she was told to declare the weakest team and then was assigned to them ha ha ha.   Not only did the blue team have disappointed faces but so did she.  The first elimination challenge was life size chess.  The cutest guy on the blue team put himself up for the challenge and all the rest of his team was like, "Go for it dude."  Alana bragged she was in the chess club.  Whatever.  He chose her as his consultant.  The orange team put up their ugliest nerd.  In the end, the cute guy lost and was sent home.  What did Alana do on her chess team?  Carry the towels?  Then the real shows started and the first challenge of the show is always some nerdy thing like coming up w/ fantasy characters.  OMG, it's too funny and awkward.  Then the elimination challenge is only between 2 people and usually something that takes brains and a little luck.  Alana was able to send the orange ugly guy home just w/ huge luck.  I totally enjoy this show because I get the nerdy jokes, understand how they think and am totally intrigued by their weirdness.  If they're getting rid of the homely people, Alana should be next.

Top Chef continues to be very uninteresting w/ it's stupid Seattle setting.  The chefs had their restaurant wars.  The way it turned out, it was men vs. women w/ the Asians as executive chefs.  Poor Kristen got stuck w/ Josie and par for the course, Josie was no help.  The men had only 3 on their team and Stefan was wearing a lot of hats.  The men made the mistake of giving free wine and ran into the problem of moochers not wanting to leave.  I loved Stefan yelling, "I don't give a f___!  Get them out of here!"  By the time the judges showed up, he was over the whole thing and kind of had an apathetic attitude to everything.  I kind of loved it.  Hee hee hee  I could just see it on Stefan's face:  VIP, whatever.  It took a little air out of the judges' balloons and I was LMAO!  Meanwhile, on Kristen's team, she declared herself to be in control of every dish. At judging, she stuck to it and refused to expose Josie as the dumb dork she is.  Sometimes it's all about luck and Kristen's ran out.  She lost the restaurant war and was also sent home.  Wow!  Unbelievable.  Her main flaw was, she didn't really run her chefs like she should've.  Really?  She told Josie to start roasting the bones the night before and Josie put her off.  At that point, she should've said, "Get it done right now!"  But she let her chefs do their thing and it was totally her downfall.  Then again, if chef means chief, she didn't act like a chief.  She really needed to kick some ass.  Poor Stefan lost his wifey.  I don't know why, but Stefan is really winning me over this season.  He's that cool Senior guy who you just want have around.

Project Runway is back and this season all the challenges are going to be in teams.  OMG!  Most designers hate team challenges.  Yes the designers are in 2 teams but each designer had to do their own look.  Ohhh....   Ok. That's better.  If they're going to stick to that format, they can't have 1 person being the workhorse and 1 person doing nothing but just being bossy.  The teams share the money for the fabric and notions, confer about designs, help each other, critique each other and pay for not helping their fellow designer because if your team loses, no matter how great your look is, you can't be the winner.  I kind of love it.  Zack Posen has replaced Mr. orange glow Kors.  Nina's rat face is still in the judging chair and Heidi is more critical than ever.  The show is showing Swatch at Mood and I love that.  The designers are interesting.  I hear they're going to have to do a men's wear challenge.  Good!  Men's wear is harder than it looks and you can't make a bunch of holes in your design and call it fashion.  I think this season is going to be better than we thought.

After years of competiton reality shows, producers have really honed the craft.  They've gone back to showing the work instead of the drama.  It's great because unlike voyeuristic shows, these contestants should be respected for their work and competitive spirit.  I still hate dating reality because it's not really reality.  Those contestants are so far from real.

So that's it.  Until next time TV fans:  stay tuned.

New Year, New Episodes

Ok, well, the new seasons of the reality shows really haven't picked up.  There seems to be only about 4 competition shows on right now but I'm watching.  So here we go.

The Food Network has a cool show called Sugar Dome.  They make teams consisting of 1 cake decorator, 1 sugar artist and 1 pro in another media field like special effects, costume design, sand sculpture, etc.  3 new teams for each episode compete for one big cash prize.  They start out w/ a basic task like create a fairy tale themed scene or a scene of a Dr. Seuss story or just recently, create a scene from The Wizard of Oz.  Of course the teams know the artistry of each person on the team needs to be seen.  Instead of rounds, they let the people keep working on the scene but add challenges like made a tasting element, make a certain kind of creature, make a figure fly or use fire in your scene.  It's quite cool and fun to watch.  Richard Ruskell won his episode again.  I swear that guy never loses and anybody who competes against him should be scared.  That mean girl from Top Chef Just Desserts was in an episode.  The judges are a little pretentious and I love when they have a celebrity regular guy as a guest judge because most of the time, they just appreciate and are impressed by everything.  Thank you Food Network for not having that sour faced English lady as a judge.  The show is really fun and looks delicious.

On Cake Boss:  The Next Great Baker, the bakers first had to make desserts using Oreo cookies.  The weird thing was, even though everybody made their own dessert, they still were in 2 teams.  That was dumb because there was only 1 winner but I suppose they had to put some competition in there somewhere.  The skinny white brunette chick won w/ her giant cookie made out of Oreos.  Hmmm...  Everybody can tell Buddy likes this chick and the other bakers have noticed too.  For the elimination challenge, the 2 teams each had to make a lifesize cake of a comedienne.  One was Carol Liefer and the other was not as well known to me.  Carol Liefer is such a hoot but she's also very nice.  The bakers actually did pretty good jobs except instead of fixing a problem like a leaning cake, they justified it.  Really?  In the end, the team that did the Carol cake won but not before the 2 ladies gave a little stand up.  Once again, you didn't see anybody eat the cakes.  I have to say, when the losing team is in front of Buddy, he seems more harsh this season because these bakers are much better than they've had in past seasons.  Anyway, I think the fat white guy was sent to the box truck.  Last week was just a clip show which was nice since I missed some episodes.  I didn't even know the show was on until about the 4th episode.

Top Chef: Seattle had the chefs working w/ aluminum foil.  For the quickfire, all their pantry fresh ingredients were wrapped up in foil and whatever they grabbed, they had to use.  How funny was that?  "Is this fish?  No, it's bacon."  "I hope this is a lemon."  Ok, so not only that, but they had to use the foil to cook in too.  Oy!  No frying things this time.  Bart was innovative and made a bowl molding the foil on his head.  Kristen baked cake in foil which came out looking like crumbs.  The dishes didn't look too bad.  Kristen won.  For the elimination challenge, the chefs had to work in teams of 2 and make a dish inspired by a member of a sports team.  The Seahawks?  The Redskins? No, a roller derby team.  That wasn't disappointing at all.  Each lady had a funny name like Jalapeno Business.  Hee hee.  The funnier scene was the people trying not to pair up w/ Josie.  Poor Bart drew the short straw and was Josie's partner for the day.  Stefan had a good chuckle about that.  The chefs got to see a derby match and were really dull.  Josie was the only one w/ any spirit.  The other chefs reminded me of that group of grungy kids who don't really participate and act too cool for school.   Whatever.  Unfortunately, Josie got quite tipsy, the other chefs commented and things got a little loud.  The next day, the chefs were in the kitchen to prep their dishes.  It seems someone includes forbidden rice in their dish in each episode.  It must be the grain of the year.  So finally the chefs served their dishes outside.  Josie and Bart had the forbidden rice and their dish couldn't make up it's mind if it was Asian or Cajun.  John and Lizzie declared their dish to be fun in the mouth.  Ok!  Mr. curly stache and Hawaiian guy made tempura something on a stick which didn't go over well.  In the end, Lizzie and John won and poor Bart was Finnish and not because he's from Finland ha ha ha. Underseasoning was his achilles heel.  Next time, taste the food.  We don't mind.

 Project Runway Allstars had the designers making ready to wear w/ special fabrics.  I'm not sure where the fabrics came from but they had something to do w/ Elie Tahari.  Most of the designers chose fabrics w/ color and patterns but Uli chose white and it was really pretty.  Her end design had nice work that made the dress classic but not plain.  Mr. Tahari visited the working designers w/ Lady Gunn and Ivy was suggested to make her dress shorter.  We didn't realize her maxi dress was actually pretty short due to the length of the cloth but Ivy wanted to use the whole cloth because of the landscape pattern.  She obviously didn't find a way to make it work better.  Her model looked like she was wearing a hand me down gown.  Josh made a bright pink dress that looked cool on the mannequin because the chest wasn't filled in yet.  I thought he'd do a cool chest block in thing but he didn't and it just looked droopy booby. Then, he made a mistake w/ sewing in the zipper and the model had a bubble butt.  Oy!  Anthony Ryan made his usual sheath dress and Emilio made a really cool mustard colored dress that his model, Aminat, worked like crazy.  Stacey Kiebler guest judged.  In the end, Anthony Ryan won, Uli was robbed and Ivy finally got the boot.  Bye Ivy, don't come back.  Your nice girl act this time didn't make up for your nastiness in your season.  I'm glad Michael Costello went a lot farther than you in his Allstar season.

Redneck Island was quite exciting.  It started w/ Justin and his buddy destroying a lot of stuff out of anger and frustration.  I'm sure they wanted to do that to Nick's neck but they're nice guys ha ha ha.   The next day, the rednecks got a chance to win food but it was an all or nothing thing.  They had to recreate a beach bbq scene exactly.  Too bad, they didn't get it right and went back to their part of the island empty handed.  Awww...no beer again.  No worries people, they still had staple food like macaroni and tuna.  You can tell this isn't Survivor.  The rednecks aren't losing weight.  For the elimination challenge, the rednecks each had a huge beer coozy, suspended over water, that they had to hang on to as long as they could.  Justin's Buddy won immunity.  Good for him. At camp, there was some scrambling.  Justin and his buddy feared for Justin's life so they had a visit w/ the 2 brunette girls.  I was thinking it was probably a lost cause but a good try.  At the reckoning, I about fell off my chair when Nick was voted out. Wow!  Y'know, these rednecks play better than those dumb Survivors.

So that's about it.  I'd like to thank the Disney company channels for providing nice movies and shows for Christmas and New Years.  The Rose Parade was really cool.  The floats were mostly done by charitable organizations and cities, there were a lot more horses, there was a soldier reunited w/ his surprised family and a wedding.  Uggie the dog rode one of the floats looking freezing cold but obedient.  He was so cute.

So keep watching and until next time, stay tuned.

Wrapping Up Before Christmas

Merry Christmas fellow competition reality show watchers.  I promised to do some finales and they were quite exciting.  So let's get to it.

The Next Iron Chef: Redemption was one of the most ironic shows ever.  It seemed everytime someone won the week before and then got the advantage the next week, they got the boot.  The only chef who seemed to be immune to that was Amanda Freitag.  The chefs were in Las Vegas and they had to make fusion dishes w/ things like peppermint candy and fish, fruit and fish, gorgonzola and candy and well...you get the idea.  The best part was seeing the grimaces on the faces of the chefs as each pairing was revealed.  Marcelle had won the week before so he got to mete out the pairings to the chefs.  Well, long story short, Chef Meta didn't really do anything w/ his skittles except reshape them and Appleman must have a weird palate cuz he keeps landing on the bottom too.  They had to cook big fat shrimp dishes on a teppan.  Hilarious!  I was fascinated to watch Meta using his bare hands instead of utensils to move his food around on that hot grill.  Wow!  Anyway, Appleman made a sauce inside the shrimp head and the judges loved it. Ick.  Bye Chef Meta.  Drink an energy drink and maybe you won't bore us to death.  So they were down to 4 and the chefs were challenged to do a Vegas buffet but work in 2 teams of 2.  Marcelle and Guarnacelli were on one team and Appleman was chosen by Freitag to be on her team.  I think she was thinking that if they lost, she could easily beat the pants off of Appleman. What a smart lady.  So blah blah blah, Vigneron and Guarnacelli land on the bottom.  It was no surprise that Guarnacelli beat Marcelle in the Chairman's challenge.  Bye Marcelle. No soup for you!  Ok, so finally the finale.  I couldn't believe how much they crammed into 1 hour.  First the 3 chefs each had to make a dish using one of the judges favorite foods.  Whatever!  Eh, so Appleman came in last and he was sent home right off.  Then Guarnecelli and Freitag went to Kitchen Stadium for the last battle and it was kind of just like the real Iron Chef show except they had a lot of different ingredients to choose from cuz they represented the 3 main iron chefs:  Flay, Morimoto and Symon.  Well!  If I were the newer Iron Chefs, I would've been very peeved to be so obviously downgraded.  Well, so anyway, after cooking and tasting of 3 dishes from each Chef Guarnacelli was declared the winner.  Ok.  So who's going to be the soux chef for Zakarian?  Oh well, at least I won't have to see Arpaia's big teeth anymore.

Survivor had it's last episodes too.  We saw the final 5 return to the beach where stupid Abi Maria profusely thanked everybody for keeping her around.  Hmmm...I wonder if she realized she kind of gave away the fact that she didn't have an hidden immunity idol after all.  So she proved she's not only a dumb liar, but really just dumb.  Everybody picked up on it.  The luxury challenge had the survivors balancing and putting puzzles together.  At one point, Malcolm was really behind everybody and he still pulled out the win. He chose Skupie and Lisa to join him and they ate and swam w/ huge whale sharks.  I wonder if they waited a half an hour before swimming after they ate.  Back at the beach, Abi Maria was trying to buddy up to Denise who she's been really rude to all the time.  Also, she was trying to intimate she has her HII.  Uh huh...no fooling these people twice you twit.  You can tell Denise is a mental therapist cuz she is really good at looking like she's listening when you know she can't stand Abi.  We can't stand Abi!  For immunity, the survivors had to do that get the balls on the paddle into their little spots.  Malcolm wins again!  Wow, the guy is on a roll.  Actually, we just didn't want Abi to win.  This time, the survivors were smart and finally gave Abi the boot but not before Jeff let her blather on way too long.  I loved the shot of Skupin dancing back to the beach.  Too funny!!!  The next day, everyone revelled in their Abi free lives.  So no more luxury challenges.  It was time to get down to brass tacks.  They had that stupid fallen comrades thing that's kind of like a suppository; just a necessary thing to get the crap over with.  It was interesting to note Denise knew every single person.  So they get to their final immunity challenge and it's a hold skinny cylindrical sticks together as long as you can.  The weird thing is, Malcolm had won an advantage and it was that he'd get a restart if he messed up.  It was very surprising to see Malcolm use it up and be eliminated first.  Skupin pulled out the win, but kudos to Lisa for coming in 2nd.  So it came down to 2 members of the blue tribe and 2 members of the yellow tribe.  Denise asked Malcolm to stick to loyalty and even the vote and she'd fight it out but Malcolm ho and hummed. Ding!  Denise picked up on the fact that she might be the odd man out so she went to Lisa and Skupin and convinced them that they wouldn't win against Malcolm cuz he's just the coolest guy on the beach.  Yeah...  At tribal, the survivors sounded the most intelligent I'd heard all season.  Surprisingly enough, Malcolm got the boot and he was not happy.  So finale time.  The trio had their fancy breakfast, burned camp and then went to meet Jeff and the jury.  Oh blah blah blah.  Abi and Penner turned out to have the biggest chips on their shoulders but Abi made no sense and needs to work on her English.  Penner revealed to all the youngsters that Lisa was a childstar.  Everybody else was pretty forgettable.  I wish they'd quit asking, "Why do you think you should win?"  Yo, cuz they want the million dollars.  Anyway, in the end Denise came out the winner.  Wow!  I'm glad for her.  She had a tough game, gave every challenge her all and really did a good job of trying to be diplomatic.  I have to say, the reunion show was very unsatisfying w/ a lot of people ignored.

The Challenge:  Battle of the Seasons also had it's finale.  The final teams were San Diego, Brooklyn and little Las Vegas.  They went to Namibia and had to trek through the desert w/ periodic stops to do a puzzle.  Sarah was the hero of her team but you're only as good as your weakest person as other teams from other season have found out.  Devyn proved to be the bag of rocks on her team.  Meanwhile, Las Vegas couldn't get along.  Sam was prodded verbally by her team.  In the end, the guys of San Diego shoved Sam up the last hill and they won.  Awww...I wanted Brooklyn to win and they came in 3rd.  Well Heck! 

Cake Boss:  The Next Great Baker has a really nice and professional bunch.  One lady looks just like Minerva from last season.  I'm sure they put her on the show just to watch Buddy crap his pants.  Everybody hated Minerva.  One guy is totally hot and then there's the usual assortment of small business owners, pity party single mothers, and fresh out of culinary school newbies.  One guy already bowed out of the competition due to illness.  The challenges are exactly the same as other seasons but the cakes are looking cool.  We all watch just to see the work being done.  It's like magic and I wish the show would cut Buddy's talking and show more of the work.  I do like that first there's a taste challenge and then an artistic one.  You never really see anybody eat the cakes from the art challenge.  One skinny brunette lady seems to be the emerging star talent of the show.  I do have to say, they're turning out cakes that look better than Buddy's.

Top Chef keeps proving Seattle cuisine is the equivalent of Jersey Couture.  Both are oxymorons w/ emphasis on the moron.  I'm sorely disappointed w/ this season.  The judges ask for fine dining but yet pick simple dishes.  The chefs can't seem to do the basic cooking right and the challenges are really quite boring.  The only fun thing on the show is Stefan.  Once again, he's flirting and chasing the lesbian.  His arrogance is just hot air and peacock posing.  It totally cracks me up.  One week Brooke won both challenges and the next Kristen won both.  None of it was very interesting.  Maybe the show has become old because now all the food seems to start looking alike.  Nobody does anything cool like the Voltaggios or Richard Blaise.  Nobody cares who gets kicked off.  Zzzzz...

Project Runway Allstars had the innovation challenge.  The materials all came from a Christmas store.  Cooool.  They were warned not to make their looks look like Christmas though.  I couldn't believe the cool looks that the designers made.  Poor Josh literally made his outfit out of ribbon and trim.  Eeek!  It was cool and I liked his hotpants.  Casanova couldn't pull it together and wasted so much time and material that he literally slapdashed a look out of scraps from other designers.  The judges noticed and he got the boot.  Awww...poor Casanova. After being robbed so many times he finally hit the wall.  The next show had the designers make a look inspired by the 1920's.  Hmmm...I was expecting some sack dresses.  The designers embraced the beads and fringe of the flappers and that was about it.  Uli seems to be on a roll.  Anthony Ryan made his usual sheath cuz it's working for him.  This time Laura Kathleen's palazzo pants look didn't work for the judges and she was given the boot.  Yeah...not too many of those big pants were seen in the 1920's.  Ivy's been getting away w/ some fugly designs.  Whatever.

Redneck Island showed the rednecks being homesick and the women getting sick and tired of going natural.  I loved the chicken wire rollers they made.  I think my Grandma had some curlers that looked like that.  The island was down to 4 guys and 5 women.  They were able to win some foods by shooting arrows on a board and it was hilarious cuz the only thing that was hit was lettuce, eggs and lobster.  Top Chef contestants could really go gourmet w/ those items but not these rednecks and I was LOL.  For the final challenge, the rednecks had to do a trivia challenge but the twist was, the loser would immediately go home and there would still be a reckoning (vote out).  I wish they'd do this on other shows cuz it's essentially double elimination but one person really deserves the boot.  The winner got immunity cuz there aren't any teams anymore.  One of the guys got immunity.  The blonde lady proved she was dumber than a box of rocks and was eliminated.  ATV does not stand for American TV.  The final vote looked like it might be totally split 4 guys against 4 gals but everyone was shocked when one of the guys was voted out.  Whoa!  Interesting.  That was better than Survivor.

Ok, well that's about it.  The Christmas movie season is upon us and the running theme is romance.  Ugh.  I like the Groundhog Day, It's a Wonderful Life and Christmas Carol themed ones.  Hey, that's everything else.   Oh well.  Maybe next year.  Merry Christmas everybody and Happy New year. Until next time, stay tuned.

And...There it is

Hello fellow competition reality show watchers.  It's quite the exciting season.  I love the way the reality shows show they've had good planning by ending their shows right before the Holidays bump them or integrate the holiday theme into the show.  Unfortunately, I haven't been faithful w/ this blog and have to cram more than one episode into my synopses.  Oh alright, I'll get to it.

The Amazing Race went to the Netherlands.  The racers acted more like high schoolers and also, it seems they no longer camp together at the pitstop.  The alliance of 3 teams waited w/ baited breath to see who had survived after the double u-turn plan.  Everybody rejoiced to see the goat farmers aka the Beekman Boys.  They weren't really glad that they survived, they were just happy not to see the other white couple whom they didn't like.  Hmm...kinda catty.  The twins really showed they have no grace by yelling out, "We gotta lose these fools."  BTW, after landing in the Netherlands, they had to drive themselves around so it started out like a caravan.  The twins found you do need to actually learn to drive a stickshift and it might take more than 1 lesson.  When they told everybody how they skipped out on things like tennis lessons or driving lessons, it told us a lot about them and it wasn't good.  Maybe it was the editing but the twins seemed more and more immature and less fun.  They may have been having fun but nobody else was laughing.  So after watching the teams fix windmills and watching the taller of the goat farmers hit tennis balls, it seemed the twins had caught up, but to everybody's surprise, the goat farmers hit the mat next to last which isn't bad for a team who had previously been almost 12 hours behind at one point.  So did the twins go home?  Of course not.  Tis the time for a non-elimination leg.  Oh ok.   So then the teams went to France and the funniest thing was, the goat farmers showed their huge advantage by knowing the language.  All of sudden, they were everybody's friend.  Now that is like high school.  I have to say, France was boring.  The teams plowed fields, fed dogs and searched for cultivated mushrooms.  Isn't that what everybody wants to do when they go to France?  The twins had navigation problems and kept showing up last to everything but the speed bump didn't help either.  I think they were hoping their friends would wait for them but they didn't.  Really?  That's why you don't waste time making friends or enemies during the race.  It's a freakin' race not a fight cancer walk-athon.  Yeesh.  The show took the time to showcase it's sponsor and really made the episode all about that car w/ it's cool features.  Whatever.  The great thing was the Chippendales landed on the finish mat first and won a car each.  That was so fun to see.  The twins found the race is kind of hard when you have to navigate yourself and landed on the mat last and were sent home.  Everybody can shut up about cab drivers not knowing where they're going.   I'm saving the finale for the next blog.  All I can say is, we didn't have to listen to those bratty twins anymore.

Survivor was down to 6.  Abi Maria annoyed everybody w/ ill manners and laziness.  She's alone now and tries to connive and sweet talk at the same time.  The problem is, she really sucks at it and the men aren't that dumb this season.  So they had their usual auction.  Surprisingly, everybody but Abi spent all of their $500 on food.  She held out for the advantage scroll.  Now that people can't pool their money, the person who saves their's can snap up that last item if everybody else is stupid.  Abi was kind of smart by telling people it also had a clue to another HII.  It didn't.  I would think people would've suspected something when she couldn't show it.  In the immunity challenge, it was a 3 part event and the advantage Abi got was to only have to do the last phase.  It really was an advantage because by the time they got to the last phase, everybody else was tired and depleted.  Each phase started w/ a trivia question but they only showed 1 round of that.  If they got the answer wrong, they had weight added to them which made it harder to do the physical part of the phase.  Because of the footage deletion, Probst had to do a lot of explaining.  In the end, Abi showed that if she really wants to, she can actually win a challenge.  The question is, did the other Survivors realize she hadn't been trying before?  By that time I was really sick and tired of Abi telling everybody, in really bad English, how she has to look out for herself.  So of course the people had to choose another goat to be butchered.  It turned out to be Penner.  He finally realized his wait and see attitude gave him the quick ticket to Ponderosa.  I'll bet he was sorry he didn't jump on that alliance offering from Lisa.  An offer like that is like getting a sucky present at Christmas.  Even if you don't want it, you smile and act like you love it.  The next show had the family members reunions.  The luxury prize was no prize but Malcolm won it.  The family members got to stay overnight on the island.  Malcolm chose Lisa and Skupin to share the prize.  If I were Denise, I might smell a rat but she seems very secure about Malcolm's loyalty.  Ok, here's the thing.  Loyalty doesn't really matter if you're the only other person from the original tribe and if you're gone.  Man, people are naive this season.  The most fun thing to watch was the family members being told to give up their clothes before they left.  It went like this, "I'm taking your shirt."  Well ok!  The immunity challenge was quite physical and Malcolm pulled out the win.  Lisa's family member had concocted a plan to blindside Malcolm and you know the adage about the best laid plans.  You could see the "Oh crap" look on Lisa's face.  It's a good thing none of the other people told Malcolm about it.  Abi told the tribe she had found the HII and I kept wondering if they would fall for it.  It seemed they did. The white guy w/ the rodent face who's pretty much been a bump on a log the whole season (Carter) immediately got the spotlight. The alliance of 4 stuck together and rodent face was sent to Ponderosa after a lot of stupid talk from Abi and a weak, "Could you just keep me around?" from rodent face.  Yeah, go find your balls Carter.  I think you left them in the corner.  I thought for sure they'd split the vote to flush out Abi's idol.  I suspect Abi's the keep to the end Villain.  I wonder if she realizes she has a snowball's chance of winning.  She thinks she'll get respect for outplaying but that only applies if you weren't a coattail rider.  People should remember that evil skinny twig from Ari's season.


The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons was down to only 2 whole teams and 3 half teams.  They had a bump around challenge which was freakin' hilarious.  Unfortunately, after a brilliant showing by the girls, the boys of Brooklyn dq'd because they couldn't stay on their feet.  San Diego pulled out the powerteam win.  Las Vegas landed on the bottom.  The drama in the house consisted of people grousing that Jonnae hadn't been in the arena yet and the Las Vegas 2, telling each other how much they hated each other.  Yeesh.  Note to Marie.  Don't antagonize the girl on the powerteam, they may send you in the Arena.  Uh, oh...too late.  Team St. Thomas was sent to the arena and Marie then went on to tell how much she hated everyone and would forever.  Everybody sat back and said, "Whatever" and Jonnae just grinned after having been saved by her new boyfriend, San Diego Zack.  The arena teams had to do that puzzle and dunk thing.  Las Vegas pulled out the win and sent the last of the St. Thomas team home.  Bye!  You did a great job, Marie, of making people glad you're gone.

Top Chef is proving Seattle thinks their cuisine is all that but, it's really not.  First they had a challenge to make dishes from a restaurant menu but the twist was, the menu was from 1950.  Really?  I thought the judges wanted fine dining.  I found it hilarious that the winner made sides for the courses.  Har har.  I guess giant potatoes and sherbet were fine dining in the 1950's.  Yeah, there wasn't any jello or chicken ala king.  It was fun to see Naomi Pomeroy judging the quickfire which had the chefs breakdown huge beef carcasses and make beef dishes.  Zzzz...  The Japanese girl chef was sent home for an underdone potato dish.  She did have 4 hours but once again, it was a case of her helping everybody else and not doing her own dish well.  Here's a clue people.  The judges don't care who's the hardest working and most helpful person.  It's a competition and you have to compete for yourself.  I didn't feel sorry for her at all.  The next quickfire had the chefts trying to put breakfast on a stick at a kind of farmer's market setting.  They were able to buy small appliances.  I was wondering why nobody bought a deep fat fryer because anything battered and deep fried can be put on a stick.  Instead, they did crazy stuff like trying to put crepes, breakfast tacos and other fancy stuff on the sticks.  Hello, I smell a whole lotta pretentious.  I think the winners made breakfast sandwich on a stick.  For the challenge, the chefs got dumb unique food items to make their dishes w/ like:  candied salmon, cheese curds, rose petal jelly, spicy pickles.  Really?  I thought the judges wanted fine dining.  Chefs hate pre-made food to cook w/ and even quirky fancy isn't liked.  It wasn't a surprise that the judges didn't really like any of the dishes but to add insult to injury, Colicchio told the chefs that not only would nobody win, but 2 people would go home.  Oy!  It's not like the chefs have been getting fancy prizes for the wins anyway.  In the end, fat ego white giant and his meek cooking partner went home for their burger.  They had thought that if they made a great burger, the pickle (their ingredient) would shine.  Unfortunately, they didn't make a good burger.  In fact, the judges hated it.  Next time, if you're going to use a crumpet for the bun, toast it first.  Yeesh.

Redneck Island had a teabag game for food items and it was hilarious to watch.  I remember playing something like that at camp.  The people were dressed in huge foam teabags and soaked themselves.  Then they squeezed themselves out as much as they could to fill jugs.  The methods of squeezing was the funniest thing to see but I loved that everybody just went for it.  Each jug represented part of a picnic and the rednecks earned themselves a good one except no booze.  Awww...  it was the last jug and they just couldn't get her done.  The big challenge had the teams trying to hold up 1 member hoisted in the air by holding on to the rope.  At time intervals, a team member was taken away.  Unfortunately for one team, they sent home their dumb strong guy.  Ooh, that was too bad.  One girl literally fainted in the harness and it was tricky getting her to shore since she had been suspended over water.  One team won and I can't remember who but the weird thing was, the person sent home was another guy.  I'm thinking the women who are left are playing pretty smart.

The Next Iron Chef: Redemption had the auction challenge.  It went just like last year even the very end outcome.  If you forgot, they brought out food items.  This time the items were huge and the factor was that breaking the food item down had to be considered in the time.  The chefs auctioned time but the increments went down.  Finally, each chef had to make their dishes and the winner from the last week taste tested, critiqued and then wrote down a name to go automatically into the elimination round.  Last year, Anne Burrell met her demise when she wrote down Zakarian, then had the worst dish, had to cook against him and then was eliminated.  This time Faulkner wrote down Appleman and the whole scenarion happened again.  Poor Chef Faulkner; she was devastated to be caught in her own net.  It was a weird deja vu moment.  Lesson for this week?  Go easy on the saffron and not just because it's expensive.

Well, that seems to be it for this week.  The next blog will have a couple of finales.  How exciting!  Until then, stay tuned!

Who's Here to Play?

Hello fellow TV watchers.  I'm so sorry I haven't kept up weekly but instead, weakly.  I chose the title of the post because I noticed people on the competition reality shows have noticed from past seasons that any show of bad behavior will be edited to make them the villain.  Therefore, everybody is trying to be sweet, good and friendly.  The problem is, they forget it's a competition.  Where's the fierce competitiveness that people respect?  Why do they feel the need to be friends w/ fellow competitors?  It's not like they're going to be moving in next door or forcing each other to be put on Christmas card lists.  Jeez.

The Next Iron Chef: Redemption has been really fun to watch.  They have come up w/ original challenges and the chefs are quite competitive.  They have a chairman's challenge and then the 2 or 3 people on the bottom have to cook against each other w/ a secret ingredient.  The only thing about the show is, they seemed to have run out of fresh competitors.  Truth be told, I'm kind of sick and tired of seeing some of these people lose over and over.  Really?  Are they that desperate for this job?  Are these chefs not giants in their field?  Really?  I gotta look at Spike Mendelson's ugly mug again?  I'm really rooting for Chef Liz Falkner.  She is so cool and would be great to see in kitchen stadium.  I do love seeing a chef refuse to share an ingredient.  Most of the time there's plenty but the chefs just don't want to use up time hunting for it if they can just use some of their neighbor's.  Because they're all on the same level, they also encroach on each other's territory, moving pots and pans around and turning burners high and low.  That's when it gets funny because you know they do that to their sous chefs.  They've all competed before so they should know to keep a close eye on their own stuff.  Marcelle seems to have matured or they're not editing the show to make him seem annoying.  So far, it's been a really good season.  I'm already sick of seeing Donatella Arpaia again and again but I can't get enough of Simon Majumdar.  He is so cool and sexy w/ his accent and bald head. 

The Amazing Race has been in Russia.  While in Russia, they had challenges that took place in libraries, university, athletic centers and theatres.  You can tell it must be really cold outside cuz they're keeping everybody inside most of the time.  The twins, Chippendales guys and the white couple seem to not like the other white couple and connive against them.  Awww...the unliked white couple girl cries a lot about it too.   The long hair lawyer/rockers really ran into bad luck w/ their cab driver leaving w/ their bags that had 1 guy's passport.  That's the kiss of death in this game.  The unliked couple buddied up w/ the goat farmers who really lagged behind until the white couple missed their flight and found themselves w/ the goat farmers.  It got weird cuz all of a sudden, they weren't so competitive anymore and actually decided to wait for the guys to finish their tasks.  That was dumb because time means everything in this race.  In the next leg, they got u-turned.  The group of 3 teams had a really great plan.  Those twins are soooo smart.  The first team would u-turn the unliked couple and then the next team would u-turn that first team to use up the double u-turn.  If the unliked couple hadn't ran the race parallel w/ the goat farmers, they would've had time to complete both parts of the detour but nope the goat farmers finally hit the mat before them.  The wussy part was, they felt bad that they had to leave their friends behind.  Awww...WTF?  Are you in the game or what?  I'm loving those Chippendale's guys more and more each week.  They're hilarious and fun.  I had no idea one had a bum ankle in the race so they're not whiners either.  Go dudes!

Chef Race UK vs USA has finally landed on the East Coast.  They're down to 2 guys on each team.  I love that the most hated chefs are still in it but that's the way nature works too.  The predator willing to take down everybody else eats best.  The show has become predictable.  They edit and comment to make one team seem like they're going to win the first challenge and the other team wins.  Then at the cook-off, they edit it so the judges rave about one guy and sound like they're giving a bad critique to the other and then the guy w/ the bad review wins and the guy they seemed to like goes home.  Now all I do is roll my eyes and correctly predict the outcome.  I'm still giving the edge to the US team and I think Cody will win it because of the homefield advantage, his great palate and his competitiveness.  I love the crabby English guy.  He's not there to make friends.  He's there to cook and win.  You go Dude!

On Survivor, we have the group w/ the jury members.  People are finding it's not a good idea to turn on your own people.  Jeff tried to oust Jonathan and found himself booted.  The Yellow tribe booted RC and are now finding themselves on the bottom of the ladder.  Pete and Abi Maria are getting their come-uppance.  Each week Lisa declares she's not good at this game.  Ha!  She's great and plays the innocent girl very well.  I'm glad to see Michael Skupin playing smart.  He plays low key and flips when he needs to.  He and Lisa went to Jonathan first to make an end alliance.  He said he wanted to wait and see.  Wow!  Really?  He lost a great opportunity there because Mike and Lisa then went to Malcolm and Denise to make the end alliance.  I think they really just wanted Malcolm but Denise was there.  There seems to be a funny pattern.  The person voted out has always had the luxury challenge prize the day before.  Meanwhile, Carter sits around like the retarded doofus he looks like.  The Ponderosa scenes are just as fun to watch w/ RC not shy about showing her animosity toward her old tribe mates.  You go Girl!

The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons has finally gotten more exciting.  Team Brooklyn finally realized Sarah couldn't do everything herself and have become the power team.  I love Sarah, she's nice, personable, funny, fun and has that gung ho attitude but is still nice about it.  She's gracious losing or winning.  They've played smart too.  They had a puzzle that had to be replicated at another area quite a rough distance away.  They were the only team to put it together while they had the solution in sight and then transported the pieces in order.  The funny part was, there were extra pieces so the teams who just took off w/ all the pieces were quite confused at the other end.  Alton seems to have forgotten how these challenges  are.  You live w/ everybody, compete and then kick them off one by one.  He complains about living w/ the people and wants to go home but his team keeps him there.  It seems when the teams get cut in half, it's not long before the other half goes too.  Team San Diego keeps putting up the same guy to compete in the Arena and he's not liking it.  I can't wait for him to give his teammates the big finger.  You go Dude!

Top Chef: Seattle has a great bunch of chefs.  They've also brought back 3 vets and one is Stefan.  He's just as brashy big ego as ever.  I love it.  I just think he's totally sexy.  Maybe it's that Swedish accent too.  I like that the vets are proving they're not as great as people think.  They landed in the bottom their first week but they do show their experience in the quickfires.  The other male chefs seem to be too nice.  The women are tough and don't want to seem pansy.  The cooking seems to be pretty good too because the bottom dishes have to be nitpicked.  The newbies better take a lesson from the vets and stop helping each other and concentrate on doing their dishes the best.  I've seen some real kitchens.  I want to hear some cursing people!

Project Runway Allstars had a crazy USA Today promotional episode.  The designers had to do a look based on a picture from...oh who the crap cares?  This was the lamest premise I've seen on the show.  The designers didn't know if they had to incorporate the colors in the photo, the theme, or the feeling?  Oy.  I have to say, the designers just put their heads down and did the task as best they could.  Once again, Casanova was robbed.  Althea made pants that had a crazy crotch.  They were perfect for a drag queen to hide his weenie in the folds.  Kayne seems to have lost his sight because he turns out some seriously ugly stuff.  But...this time, Andre ran out of luck.  Anthony Ryan won again and I didn't really see anything special in his look.  Oh well, what do I know? 

Top Model had their finale.  This time they had 3 girls in the final runway.  That was weird and made the final judging long and crowded.  I loved that none of the girls really liked each other much.  The final fashion show was really weird w/ clothes that looked like aged grave cloths or iguana skins.  Ick.  Then they showed the final photoshoots at the final runway show.  I loved the fight ugly Cutrone had w/ the photographer.  She was imploring people, "Tell him not to treat me that way."  He was standing right there too.  Hilarious!  Leila had a mighty fall on the runway and then literally stumbled right off the runway.  Double hilarious!!!  Laura stumped down the runway and Kiara had a great walk.  I've never seen so much crying backstage.  Yeesh.  I loved seeing John James.  He's gotten older but it's nice to see actors are human and don't always age glamorously.  In the end, the judging was stupid as usual but Laura won.  Huh?  What do I know?  Oh yeah, she was the tallest girl.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders:  Making the Team finally ended their season.  The last few episodes were kind of boring cuz the competition was over.  After that, it was just a love fest.  Ick.  The last episode had the girls trying to be real cheerleaders w/ a show w/ stunting and that kind of choreography.  Oh!  I see.  The DCC are dancers and not really cheerleaders.

Redneck Island continues to be hilarious.  The really funny thing is, they seem to be the most competitive but I think these people truly need the money and don't hide that fact.  The games always seem to have a dangerous ouch factor.  I loved the rednecks in liederhosen trying to carry glasses of beer across a slippery surface.  There was much hitting of rumps and banging of heads on the ground.  It was very cringeworthy but funny.  None of the competitors complained or hesitated in the game.  I'm very proud to see the rednecks voting smartly.  They target anyone they think isn't really in the game or weak.  Right now, that's the way to go.  While you're in big teams, vote off your weakest links.  I like that they vote off the people who whine, "I miss my family and want to go home."  Yeesh.  They didn't think they'd be away from their family?  Do they realize they'll go home when the game is over?  Bye, ya big wussbags.

Well, that's about it.  The Christmas season is here.  Lifetime and Hallmark always have great Christmas movies.  I especially love the ones based on A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life.  This season seems to be more about romance which is kind of sappy and icky.  Oh well.  Happy Holidays anyway.  Until next time people, stay tuned.

Catching Up

Ok, so I missed a week or so.  Guess what, I have a real life where I actually make a living.  This blog is going to be different.  I'm still going to go through my shows but since I missed keeping you up to date for a week, I'll do a run through.

The Amazing Race seems to like to stay in the same country for a couple of episodes.  It may be a sign of the economy because it's cheaper than purchasing those plane tickets every other day.  The racers show less fatigue too because they don't have to fight jet lag as much.  So far they've been in the Philippines and then Turkey.  They had one non-elimination leg which kept the goat farmers in the race.  I wish those guys would stop reminding us of their poor little lives trying to raise goats.  Then they mention they saved their town.  I'm not sure how that happened but whatever.  The Monster truck couple kept trying to go against the flow and got caught by it by taking a flight nobody else took.  Yeah, this time it wasn't in their favor.  I was hoping the Monster truck couple would be the only one in the next country for a few hours.  Oh well.  Needless to say, even though the goat farmers had a speed bump to do, the Monster truck couple still came in last and were out of the race.  That time, it was kind of hard for the editors to make the end a mystery as to who came in last.  The goat farmers and the Monster truck couple did the same delivering baked goods detour.  The goat farmers were finishing up when the Monster truck couple were starting.  Yep, no mystery there.  Meanwhile, the other racers were hauling long bamboo.  It was hilarious w/ much whacking of people w/ the bamboo and many apologies.  In Turkey, some of the racers had a turkish bath that was the funniest thing to watch ever.  The twins are amazing in this race.  They've been doing some of the most physical tasks and doing great at them.  There seems to be some kind of grudge w/ the twins and one white couple toward the other white couple.  I finally figured out, the white couple who's not liked is the one that could win 2 mill if they win.  In the last episode, the teams went to Russia.  I loved how they complained about the cold more than the heat in the last legs.  Maybe it was editing.  This time the goat farmers and the unliked white couple got way behind because of a missed plane.  Oh boy!  I'm noticing there don't seem to be as many airlines and flights as other seasons but there are always plenty of seats.  Or so it seems.  Once again, the tasks weren't anything tourists would want to do.  It was hilarious to see the guys trying to do the synchronized swimming.  It reminded me of that Saturday Night Live sketch a long time ago.  Those Chippendales guys are getting cuter by the week.  They seem to be overcoming their meathead image w/ good senses of humor, niceness and gung ho spirit.  The long haired lawyer/rockers are in the crapper.  Their cab driver drove off w/ their belongings which included a guy's passport.  OMG!  The episode ended w/ no elimination.  We'll see what happens.  The race staying in countries longer may work to their advantage.

Face Off had an awesome ending.  The last 3 standing were Nicole, Laura and Derek.  They picked 2 past eliminated artists to make their teams and then they had to make a fantasy witch and demon.  But wait, the makeup really had to be well done because then those models participated in a stuntshow.  It was so cool but the makeups had to last through crashmats, punches, flipping, swinging on ropes and rolling on the ground.  OMG!  All I can say is, all the makeups were really cool.  Yes, we got the stupid sob stories about why each finalist thought they should win blah blah blah.  Michael Westmore showed up to critique the work the artists were doing.  It's always so cool to see him.  It's like a visit from the king.  They had a reunion show that basically asked everyone what their favorite challenge was which proved the fans were pretty unoriginal.  I'm still wondering if the artists knew the brothers were twins.  Finally, Nicole was declared the winner.  I kind of thought she had the edge w/ Roy on her team w/ his knowledge and experience.

Survivor finally had their merge and the blue tribe of 2 was able to glom back together.  Denise seems to be letting Malcolm lead her around.  The pattern for the challenges, so far, seems to be teams for the luxury and individual for elimination.  The first week of the merge, there was a female and a male winner.  The yellow team seems to be divided and the men of the red team still want Johnathan out.  There were a lot of candidates for the vote but none that I wanted.  Abi Maria is totally detestable and that sometimes means she'll go all the way to the end cuz everybody else knows they're less hated and more respected than she is.  At that first tribal w/ everyone, there were a lot of red herrings thrown around.  Lisa is finding more of a voice and Skupin looked like total weenie.  Johnathan wisely used his HII and RC was voted out.  How come nobody liked her?  Maybe it was her laugh cuz I found it totally annoying on the Ponderosa video.  Last week  Johnathan won the luxury challenge w/ some good people and the B team (bitches and bastards) were left to lay around and grouse at camp.  Hee hee hee.  Gawd, how I hate that Abi Maria and Pete's looking quite detestable too.  Johnathan felt the pressure and stated that he was going to win immunity.  Guess what?  He was right.  That guy's really good at puzzles.   Lisa's trying to run some of the game and it's working a little.  Pete tried to make her look like a liar but at tribal council, it was proved she was right and Pete's a liar.  Haw haw.  We'll see how that works in the next episodes.  Malcolm was put on the chopping block but he announced to everyone before the vote that he was going to use it that night.  He was really smart because that scared people into not voting for him and he didn't play it.  Abi Maria showed everyone her HII.  Now I know why Pete kisses her butt.  Jeff was totally blindsided and voted out.  Next, I hope that crosseyed rat faced blonde guy goes.  He's so homely, I can't hardly take it anymore.

Chef Race:  UK vs. USA headed West.  They had to do BBQ sauce and sell it.  The USA team was savy and sold to stores in cases.  The UK team charged more for their sauce and gave it a kick ass name.  Yep, they won and the USA team was whittled down to just 3 after the final cooking challenge.  Then they had to make pizzas and sell them.  Cody drove his team crazy w/ his laziness but they can't do anything about it as long as he cooks like a champ.   I was wary about the UK teams pizzas cuz they put their cheese on the pizzas in cubes.  Obviously, they didn't know how much Americans like cheese on their pizzas.  The USA team did a better job selling whole pies.  The UK team must be slow in moving the customers.  Maybe they need to stop chatting people up.  I never knew Brits were such yappers.  The USA team won and the UK team was down to 3 also. 

Project Runway Allstars has all the designers getting along but sniping about each other behind their backs.  This season, I find that Casanova is getting robbed.  I've been loving his designs and he hasn't won.  Anthony Ryan seems to be the judges' darling and he keeps making sheath dresses.  Whatever!  One challenge was using 70's type high heels for inspiration.  That ugly chick from the first season made a pre-teen hooker outfit and got the boot.  We found she and Suede bonded; Ew!  Good for them.  Last week the designers had to make graffiti designs.  The show tried to make it sound posh by calling it aerosol art.  Yeah right.  Does that include beehive hairdos and armpits too?  I don't know how Andrae survived this elimination cuz his outfit looked totally like circus clown on Meth.  In the end, Suede joined his BFF in the eliminated group.  I don't know why, but I'm really liking the judges.

America's Next Top Model took the girls to Jamaica.  Does Jamaica have fashion?  I think it was a cheap place to go to.  Leala is back and more fierce than ever.  The bitchy white girl got the boot finally and so did the skinny girl w/ the curly hair.  Laura runs hot and cold and Kiara seems to be getting better and better each week.  They did a shoot w/ the stupid perfume and one on horses.  I still hate the judges on either side of Tyra and that stupid You Tube ugly hippie looking guy keeps showing up.  Ick.  The show is more annoying than cool so I mostly watch it online so I can watch TV while I'm watching some of the show.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are chosen so now we just get stuff like shooting the swimsuit calendar.  Those girls need some walking lessons.  They had a swimsuit fashion show and they either looked like little old ladies missing their walkers or horses and not in a good way.  I find it funny that Kellie Finglass is always saying she wants the girls to come off as All American classy but they barely have any clothes on in public.  I really liked the dietician going to the girls' homes and finding everything from candy to cookies to frozen chimichangas in the freezers.  Hilarious!  Then again, the dietician also gave them a hard time for frozen vegetables too.  Really?  Anyway,the show's not as interesting now that the competition is over.

CMT has a show called Red Neck Island.  I thought it would be something like Survivor.  It's not hard living at all.  The rednecks have an already built shelter, a bar, hammocks, luggage w/ clothes, an outhouse and food.  The only things they don't have are phones, tv's and computers.  The games are rednecky games which are funny to watch but dangerous to do.  They really need to put that, "Do not try this at home." warning on the screen.  I love the vote cuz they write names on cozies on beer cans and then put them in a cooler.  The lady who had told everyone she wanted to go home and then changed her mind was sent home.  Yeah.  Who wants to listen to that again next week?  Those rednecks aren't as dumb as they look.

Well, that's that.  I love this season because Hallmark and Lifetime have really cheesy holiday movies that make me cry like a baby.  Yep.  I'm a schmuck.  Until next time people, stay tuned.