Jeter Drinks Wine Coolers!

 Etc  No Responses »
May 072006
 

After the first Red Sox-Yankees game of the season at Fenway last week, when he went 0 for 4, Damon joked that he’s still helping the Sox win games. This got me thinking… what if JD and Theo Epstein (Sox GM) got together last winter and set up an elaborate, Usual Suspects-esque con? Here’s the way it plays out: as a Yankee, Damon shines as the leadoff hitter and does his usual crappy job in the outfield. The Evil Empire makes the playoffs and, with timely hits from Damon and everyone else in that stupid lineup, beats somebody like Cleveland in the first round, and then gets the inevitable matchup with the Sox. Mysteriously, Damon goes cold behind the plate, and starts dropping tough catches in the outfield. He seems to make mistakes or fall short at the worst times, and the Sox dominate the Bronx Bombers and go on to win their second World Series in three years. Asked later about his surprisingly poor play, Damon just looks at the camera and says “I lost the series for the Yankees. Bad luck, I guess…” as he breaks into a helpless grin.

I think this is the only way Damon could ever redeem himself with Boston fans for signing with the Yankees (something he specifically said he’d never, ever do). Plus it sounds like an awesome 80s movie (although if it were an 80s movie, Damon would start out trying to sabotage the good guys and would gradually come around until he betrayed his former team to hit the game-winner for his new teammates).

 Posted by JHW at 11:52 am

Dave, please pack your knives and- wait, what? Leann got kicked off???

 Television  No Responses »
May 062006
 

Okay, let’s talk about Top Chef now. Last week I predicted that Harold, Tiffani, and Leann would make it to the finale, and the hysterical Dave would be ousted. Anyone who watched on Wednesday knows that I was wrong. Dave stepped up to the plate with some sort of goofy macaroni and cheese thing and impressed the judges, while Leann’s shoddy technique proved to be her downfall.

And it wasn’t even close! Dave was the winner of last week’s competition! He and Harold made it through with ease, while the women languished. It’s safe to say I’m surprised. Shocked, even. Clearly, the judgments made on the show are based on actual performance rather than personality (see also: Tiffani), which is really great if you ask me. But seriously, Dave is so temperamental and ridiculous that it’s amazing that he’s made it this far in the competition. I’m sure a lot of people out there agree with me that Leann should be in the finale, not Dave, but as in all of these shows I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that never made it on screen. Plus, we can’t taste the food, unfortunately.

At any rate, Dave will get his 15 minutes (long enough to ensure a few prosperous years for his catering company) and then we’ll never have to endure another of his televised teary temper tantrums. But we all know Harold and Tiffani are the best chefs and ultimately it was going to come down to the two of them anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

There’s some dumb reunion show on this week, in which Dave throws a hissy and somebody threatens to beat up somebody else, and probably somebody cries (could be Dave again). So we’ll have to wait a while before finding out who wins the finale and gets a bunch of money to help launch his or her career. I can’t wait to watch them duke it out in Vegas. Three Chefs Enter: One Chef Leaves. Tiffani, specifically, because she’s going to win. Sorry Harold, but I don’t think the world is ready for a white male master chef yet. Maybe our children will be progressive enough to look past appearances at the gourmet within.

 Posted by JHW at 3:59 pm

Who’s going to be America’s Top Chef???

 Television  3 Responses »
May 032006
 

My most important and difficult final of the year is tomorrow afternoon. But that’s not going to stop me from watching Top Chef tonight.

I don’t know if anyone else in the world watches this show, but I’m shamelessly addicted. Basically, Top Chef is a generic Apprentice clone about cooking. It’s filled with artless product placement and awkward editing and hilariously-arrogant people (both competitors and judges). It’s hosted by Billy Joel’s plastic wife. The best thing about the show, I think, is that there are clearly three excellent chefs and all the rest of the competitors are straw men picked for their wacky personalities rather than their superb cheffery. Anyway, here’s the breakdown of the four people left competing to get to the SHOWDOWN IN LAS VEGAS:

  • Harold: a boring white guy with a potty mouth, who is clearly an awesome chef without any ambitions of being a celebrity chef with fancy weird specialty dishes and a PR agent.
  • Tiffany: a red-haired professional who doesn’t take guff and runs a tight ship. She is practical but creative and her only weakness is that she can’t do pastry. But nobody on this show can, so don’t worry about that.
  • Leann: Leann did a kickass job on the duck-stuffed gnocchi a couple of weeks ago, and she seems very confident and capable of putting together a super menu. But just between you and me, I think she’s a step below Harold and Tiffany.
  • Dave, the effeminate caterer with a Van Dyke and a bad habit of shrieking kitchen meltdowns, will be eliminated tonight. He’s just not nearly as awesome as the other three.

For the sake of completeness, I’m going to predict that Tiffany will win it all. She’s unflappable and doesn’t make excuses and she doesn’t blow up when things get tense (which they always do because the producers of this show know what they’re doing). I imagine Harold will give her a fight, but in the end the judges will decide that Tiffany deserves the hallowed title of Top Chef.

 Posted by JHW at 11:48 am

it stands for “laughing out loud”

 Writing  1 Response »
May 012006
 

I long ago decided that David Sedaris was great at writing the same hilarious book over and over and over and over until all you want to do is punch him in the face and tell him to move on.

Well, I think he finally moved on. This New Yorker piece is hilarious. I LOLed, for real!

[kottke]

Also, the reason I have been a quiet blogger lately is because of school and life. I’m hoping to take a break from both school and having a life very soon, so perhaps I’ll grace you with more than a handful of artless sentences sometime in the next few weeks.

 Posted by JHW at 2:03 pm
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