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Happy Friday!

1. So I know that chit chat about Top Chef on a Friday morning, two days after the show aired, isn’t the cool thing to do but what can I say? Tivo has changed my life. Tivo has no flaws. None. It is perfect. Tivo will one day rule us all and I will be totally fine with that.

"I wish the show was called Top Scarf!"

Anyhoo, on to the show. I was sad to see Mattin go, but let’s all face facts. He just wasn’t that fantastic of a chef. Also, that red scarf thing was going to get old.

The clean cut brother, Bryan, won again. He’s got the goods. Also, women sure do love that guy. I have one friend in particular who has fallen in love with him. When he shows up in an episode, which is always, this friend of mine starts shaking like a drug addict. Her drug? Bryan. She’d put him in a needle if she could and fire him straight into her neck. It’s amazing.

In other news, my crush on Jennifer is increasing with every snarky thing she says. She always seems so…disgusted. Were we to have sex (fingers crossed!) she would be all like, “Ugh. Your penis? In me? Whatever.” And I would love it.

Byeee!

Happy Friday!

1. Many, if not all of you have seen me fail with a lower case “f”.  But this Sunday at the opening show of the new Rockstar Storyteller season, I am aiming to graduate to a fail with a giant fucking capital “F”! You see, I will be attempting fiction for the first time this Sunday! Actually, the story I’m working on is pretty funny, and hey, it’s always fun to try something new, right?  We’re all taking on different genres. Mine is westerns. Get ready for glorious descriptions of tumbleweed from yours truly.

I’ve decided to take my solo career a bit more seriously.  Want proof? I’m NOT watching the Bears season opener to do this show. That’s commitment.

Anyhoo, here’s the deets:

Sunday at 7 p.m. (doors at 6 p.m.). Tickets are $12, or $10 if you have a Fringe button.

2.  In other news, if you haven’t caught the BNW’s latest show, The Brave New Workshop Saves The Planet; Or Yes We Can, But Do We Have To?, you really should. It’s quite the delightful ride to funny town.  In fact, I have 5 free comps to the shows this weekend.  To claim them, just let me know in the comments section of this post. First come, first serve.  The tickets are good for any show (Friday @ 8pm, Saturday @7pm & 10)  this weekend.

I am awesome.

3. You may have noticed I have not been live blogging this season of Top Chef.  The reason for this is that I now teach class on Wednesdays. I have one more class left and then hopefully I can hop back onto the live chat train. Unless you guys hate that.  So far, this season is shaping up to be a doozy! I am especially attracted to contestant Jennifer Carroll who is equal parts laid back, hot and mean. Also, she is a good chef.

-Mike

Happy Thursday!

1. Last night’s Top Chef was a great one.

• For one thing, my girl Carla continued her hot streak. I just love her.  After watching the show, I daydreamed that she was my slightly crazy, slightly wise, totally awesome older sister.  In the daydream I asked her for advice about girls and for the best way to cook an egg. My daydreams are not that exciting.
• Stefan remains a giant, giant prick.  You remember that foreign exchange student from high school that seemed cool at first but then you realize that he only came to America to gloat about Europe and sleep with all the hot sophomores? Yeah, that’s him. I bet he went bald not because of genetics, but because his hair got sick of him.
• Did anybody notice Fabio’s slow clap when he announced to the rest of the group that Stefan had won the elimination challenge? It was fantastic.
• Jaimie was never my favorite. I thought she was kind of annoying, but she did not deserve to go home last night.
• Leah will remain on the show for a while. Not because she has any skill at all, but because  she seems to be developing some sort of chemistry with Stefan. Don’t believe me? Re-watch the episode. It’s there. Which makes me hate her even more.  All the sexual intrigue aside, Leah gave up in the quick fire challenge. To me, that was automatic elimination. Boo on her. Boo on the judges.

I can’t wait til’ next week!

Mike

Happy Thursday!

1. Top Chef was a real winner of an episode last night. I’m going to talk about last night’s episode, so if you don’t want anything ruined, skip down to #2*.  Here are the highlights!

- last night’s episode was sponsored by at least 5 billion separate products, including the NFL.

-Padma knows nothing about football. She clearly spent the whole episode trying to figure out why the NFL plays its biggest game in a bowl. However, I would like to encourage her to always wear a ref’s shirt. Holy sweet mother of boner! Hey, I just learned she used to be married to Salman Rushdie. Crazy!

- The little whippersnapper who was kicked off, Jeff I think, tried to do too much.  He would take a simple ingredient like chicken and instead of cooking it in a pan, would launch it into space via the most powerful potatoe gun you’ve ever seen. You know, because he didn’t want to be mundane. Obviously, he’s a pretty talented dude, but I’m surprised he made it this far. Also, did anyone else notice that simply because he was from one part of the South, he claimed the entire southern United States as his home territory.  Very strange.

-Fabio is really starting to get agitated. Over EVERYTHING. From “Bunky” beds to venison, Fabio spent the entire episode teetering on the edge of his sanity. I wonder if that gives him a competitive edge.

-Stefan is a dick. Mostly because he’s super insecure. I just diagnosed that motherfucker! For free!

-Good for Carla. The call for gumbo came at a time when she really needed to hit a home run, erm, score a touchdown. I really like her. I wish she and Fabio could combine and form one super chef. Then I could root for just one of them.

2. There is no number 2 today. I’m sorry. I should have been more honest at the start of this blog.

Happy Day After Christmas! Let’s do a holiday recap, no? What’s that? Whatevs, I’m doing one anyway.

1. My birthday, as I’ve already covered, was a mixed bag. I wasn’t handling the aging thing well and generally speaking, just wasn’t in a very good mood.  In fact, the last thing I wanted to do after a day of fighting traffic and other nuisances (like the reality of my mortality) was to do a show. Well, I’m glad I did. I sometimes forget since we’re always working together, that my co-workers are some of my closest friends on the planet. Anyhoo, they really cheered this son of a bitch up and made me feel like a real ace!  It was a really nice. After the show in what’s becoming a bit of a tradition, we did an Armando Diaz  where I, because I was the birthday boy, did all the monologues. All of this was followed up by some Bulldog NE.  It was great fun.

2. Xmas Eve was something of a let down. I was supposed to head down to Chicago on that day, but a winter advisory kept me off the road and in my house. In a way this was good. The extra time allowed me to wrap presents and watch like ten episodes of Top Chef Chicago.  How did Lisa (was that her name? I can’t remember) make it into the final group? Wow. What a nasty little person she was on that show. Lisa, did however allow me to forget if only for a moment that I had let the Lil’ Chicago Warrior (also named Lisa! Crazy!) down. Oh man, she claims she was mad at the weather and not at me, which would only be true if instead of a person, I were a storm front. I’m not sure what I wrote made sense. She was mad at me.

3. Christmas found me on the road.  At one point my car wouldn’t go over 60mph and shook like it was going to explode.  So I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled into a gas station, filled up the car, and then re-started it. From there it worked like aces. Nice. I should be a mechanic.

Spent the rest of Christmas with the relatives. LCW came with and what can I say? The girl knows how to work a crowd. By the end of the night she was holding babies, making small talk about the erosion of our civil liberties and sitting at the adults table.

4. Finally, if you get a chance, scroll down my sidebar (growl!) and join my blog network. It’s a thing for Facebook. It might give me more exposure. Thanks!

Hope your holidays were well.

Mike