The End… For Now

Blogdate: July 27, 2008; 10:03 PM

In eleven hours, I will be taken to a torture chamber where they’ll sedate me and rip out my budding wisdom tooth with horrific implements of death. But, before I undergo that ordeal, I underwent another…

The fourth Next Food Network Star was finally chosen. This time, three finalists managed to force the judges to do something different – there was no vote, I think. Instead, there was one final challenge – a pilot audition done with one of the best producers of the business.

Each pilot was presented perfectly. Lisa, as I had said, was awesome. Of course, I could be biased as I am a fellow Texan, though my birthplace is in the southern tip and not the Panhandle.

Adam Gertler got the geeky part of me. A show where you could converse with the chef via webcam, like they do those virtual audiences on G4 while he cooks? Brilliant!

However, I think somehow my pity reached out and dazzled the people who saw Aaron, the bald black guy. While there is already a bald guy(Iron Chef Symon) and a black family(the Nealys), somehow Aaron’s Motown Big Daddy personality clearly screamed “I have a dream!”

He wasn’t Aaron McCarrough Jr., he was Martin Luther King Jr.

And thus, he won his own show.

This is my final blog in this category, though I never got any feedback from anyone. I guess this is just a journal of my experiences. I seriously hope that Jason McCarrough, whereever he is or whatever he’s doing, can see the premiere episode of “Big Daddy’s Kitchen” and realize what an idiotic jerk-hole he was by running away.

But then, if he hadn’t… Aaron might not have gone through with this. It’s sort of like how Amy felt like she was a failure, but in the end, she won. Though her show was a one-trick pony, she got the courage to become a foodie and travel to France at long last.

I hope that Aaron might be the next Guy Fieri, but whatever happens, all is well with him now.

Which makes me wonder… should I send in a tape next time? Sadly, I can’t afford to go to New York. I’m sure I’m in the red this month, and my folks won’t pay for me to go to New York just to come home a failure. They see me as a failure now because I wasted my talent.

Well, no longer. I may have failed at being a great cook, but I will try hard to make an excellent computer game which will bring back the happy days of computer gaming.

Dreams will come true, as Aaron has shown me. Yes, I must start working on my dreams…

…right after I finish this Apocalypse Challenge, I swear. ^_^

The end is in sight…?

Well, last night was an very exciting night. My parents are out of town to pick up my sister and her husband and move them back down here to Texas – which is good, as I would love to chat with her again – and the “final” challenge of the Next Food Network Star this season has been completed.

The three contestants left out of all the eight are Lisa Garza(a fellow Texan and very chic), Aaron McCourough Jr.(a black bald guy who has camera issues), and Adam Gertler(which I don’t care about any old way).

Guy Fieri, the now celebrity chef who had won Season 2’s contest(you know, the one my favorite Jess Dang got kicked out immediately?), hosted the challenges. The mini-challenge was doing a 30-second TV promo. The main challenge was making a lavish buffet for the most famous performers and celebrities of Sin City, and three of the eliminated(Kelsey, Shane, and Jen[yay!]) were the sous-chefs.

The surprising news was that the judges were deadlocked even after the challenges. Each contestant had good points and bad points.

* Lisa’s promo was hard for her, she couldn’t do things on the fly and she was being towed on a cable all the time. Her buffet was hurt because she had dropped half of the fish she wanted to serve[meaning she had to shrink potions] and her pork got toasted, meaning her foods were served in sample portion. However, her intro performance was beautiful – she should forget about being a Celebrity Chef and be a Rock Goddess!

* Aaron did really really well on the promo challenge. For having trouble with the camera all this time, Bobby inspired him to fight it and he dazzled everyone. Sadly, his intro was horrible and uncomfortable, and his buffet was 80% pasta dishes, which was bad news.

* Adam did excellent on both the promo and buffet. He surely won the challenges. It didn’t hurt that he was skilled on the stage. Still, his intro needed a little more dazzle.

Eventually, the judges decided that it was impossible to eliminate anyone now, so they brought all three back to New York. What this means, I do not know, but I assume they’ll do a tie-breaker challenge to kick off someone.

While I am supporting Lisa, I know how dangerous bias is – there’s still a chance Lisa is eliminated on the final challenge, leaving me two men I don’t really like, but then again, I didn’t really like Guy Fieri and he won me over, so maybe if it’s just the guys again, I might support Aaron, just because I pity him and want his runaway son to see him on TV and come back home. I dunno, Adam’s really doing well to make up for his lackluster performances all this time.

It’s anyone’s game right now, but Lisa still has my vote, because Kelsey and Shane were ousted.

At this point, I’ve run out of funny titles.

I apologize for not updating on The Next Food Network Star progress. Since it’s only two days before the seventh episode, I decided to put this brief summary up

I had to say goodbye to two of my favorite contests the past two weeks.

First, Jen was axed. I felt sorry for her, but it was inevitable. Her confidence issues had struck again and killed her there and then. I really wanted to see a cooking show focused on kids, but she disappointed her daughter badly. Hopefully the tyke won’t bawl her eyes out because mommy won’t be on TV. Sorry, Jen.

My fave Iron Chef, Cat Cora, was the host of that week. The mini-challenge was doing a taste review of someone else’s dish in one minute’s time. Everyone did poorly there. The main challenge was re-inventing a complex dish into a simple dish. The three lucky monsters were Beef Wellington, Coq Au Vin, and Turducken. Kelsey and Shane, who picked Beef Wellington, tore through the challenge and won the spot on Bon Appetit’s recipe list for the August issue.

The previous episode, aired last Sunday, had a lot of stuff going on. The guests did a guest segment on Rachael Ray’s talk show, again, but there was a twist. The contestants worked with Brownies, a branch of Girl Scouts who are for very young girls, and would do their segment alongside the Brownies.

Needless to say, each of the contestants had their problems. Lisa clammed up like a Cloyster when she was with Rachael, Kelsey bossed Rachael around, which was a negative in my book. I’m a big Rachael Ray fan and people who boss her around get cowplanted!

Aaron stupidly turned his back to the camera to wash his hands. I know there was no way to wash your hands there because the sink was positioned wrong, but never turn your face away from the camera, ever. Adam probably won the challenge because I read in Tuschman’s blog that Rachael loved his food and the way he interacted with her and the Brownie.

Sadly, Shane had completely neglected the kid. Worse, he confessed that he has never been to France and only wanted to be a French chef because of a class he took. Kelsey may be the worst off in experience, but Shane was axed because FN doesn’t like people who claim to be ethnic culinaires and have never been to the country their cuisine was born from. I’d never say I’m a Japanese foodie, because I can’t afford to go to Tokyo for even a day!

Shane, do us a favor – either forget about French Cuisine and do some American culinary point of view, or save up your nickels and dimes and take a three-day-two-night vacation to gay Parie! Sadly, you aren’t even going to get to Las Vegas like the remaining four contestants.

This Sunday, Bobby Flay is going to challenge Lisa, Kelsey, Aaron, and Adam to a throwdown in Sin City. I only hope that the four keep up to good work. I’m rooting for the girls, but if they get eliminated, I might pick Aaron for the vote. Yeah, he’s black and bald, but better him than bad chef Adam – unless Adam can get his A+ game on fast.

Still, I have high hopes Kelsey might be in the final vote. She just needs to stop worrying about being inexperienced and prove that young people can make great cooking show hosts too! Lisa, I’m sorry not to support you, but you need to stop being all frou-frou and connect to the viewers, who don’t care crackers about fine dining. You need to show them that fine dining isn’t expensive or difficult.

Everyone is on thin ice now, so please please please, don’t disappoint me. 😦

Stinky grumps: The Sims 2 and “The Obsession Legacy”

I’m so sorry about not having the next blogs of Episodes 5 or 6 of The Next Food Network Star. Recently the power went out, then some nasty incident forced us to live without the Internet for a whole week. I wasn’t able to put up any blog last Monday. I’ll try to put up a compilation of my thoughts on the last two episodes.

In the meantime, here’s a little story: Once upon a time, a princess called Lucy got bored of her posh life, so she downloaded The Sims 2 on her posh computer and loved the ordinary peasant Sims and their lives. But since her daddy gave her a TV and the Harry Potter books, she became a crazy Trekkie and Potterhead who also was a fangirl of a really lame action TV series about terrorism called 24. In her rabid fangirly rage, she booted up the Internet on her computer, learned about the Legacy Challenges for playing The Sims 2, and started her own legacy with Sims named and looking like her favorite characters from her obsessions, naming it… The Obsession Legacy. (rim shot)

She was so vainglorious and obsessed with certain characters in the series she loved, she made many Sims that looked like her and now one of them is married to a Sim based on Remus Lupin.

I never watched 24. A TV series about terrorists never appealed to me. All I know about it was that this guy was supposed to pretend to be dead for 24 hours(the name of the series is based on the 24-hour time period of faked death) and there were a lot of explosions and car chases. Yawnsville.

I have watched episodes of the original Star Trek and The Next Generation, and read about characters from the other two series(Deep Space 9 and Voyager) – I know who the Borg are and how they threatened the Star Trek universe, so I have some experience there.

The most experience I have is with Harry Potter, as I have read all seven books and seen all the movies, two on DVD, three in theaters.

So, what do you get when you turn Sims into characters like those from those three series? Hilarious chaos.

You see, the Legacy states(but I may be wrong) that you are forbidden from dictating your Sims actions. These virtual dollies must act under the randomized control of the computer AI. While the Sims of Sims 2 are far more intelligent than their ancient predecessors, they still tend to go and do stupid things.

For example, in Chapter 37, Lucy whines about the autonomous reaction Sims do whenever a fire breaks out – they run to it and scream and flail in horror, while the ashy fire decimates their needs like hygiene and energy. I have sigged her rant in a forum that dedicates itself to Legacy challenges.

A legacy is where you start with a Sim, marry them off and make them have three or more kids and raise them to adulthood. Then you pick which kid is the heir, move the other children out to the SimBin, and start over, rinse and repeat until you hit the quota number of generations.

The Obsession Legacy is an Alphabet Legacy, meaning that the quota is 26 and each child in each generation is alphabetically named with names starting with that letter. “A” generation babies are named Alice, Ashton, etc.; and B-generation babies are named Betsy, BooBoo, etc

The founder and any family members can remain untill they die from old age or are kicked out.

I applaud the hard work, Lucy. I’m just sure you started this last November, but this story is great. It’s sadly also unfinished, as she tends to play through the game to a point, pausing for photo moments.

Go to the address I gave in my last e-mail. No not that one! The other one! Go and vote if the vote opens.

Also be sure to read the Legacy story, if only for the crazy dialoge, chapters you can skipp, and what not.