How I'd make "The Next Iron Chef" cooler

"The Next Iron Chef" is a show on the Food Network that is searching for the ubiquitous 43rd American Iron Chef. If you remember them seminal Japanese version then you'll remember they only had 4, but the Iron Chef Italian never won and wasn't included with the rest. Why America needs so many, I'll never know, BUT I do know how to make the search show infinitely better.


Rivals my ass!

First allow me to introduce you to the suck-fest that is the current format: Iron Chef hopefuls are presented with a challenge, they attempt challenge, whoever wins said challenge gets some perk for the elimination challenge, they compete in elimination challenge, present food to the judges, judges judge then kick one chef back into obscurity. This works well and makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

What could make it better? Direct competition! Skip that first, useless challenge and let the judges at them. Then the judges pick the two worst and they face off in Kitchen Stadium.

Liking it so far? If so, good! If not, bail now cause I doubt anything I have to say from here on out will bring you back.

Here's the kicker: In the judges challenge in the current format they occasionally have to work with weird ingredients (like the OG JDM series did ALL THE TIME!). What I'm proposing is they work with weird (and/or alive cause nothing is better than watching nervous folk have to kill a fish flopping around a cutting board)ingredients in the elimination challenge! Used to cooking with chicken, fish, pork and beef? Well get used to working with insanely rare and impossibly expensive sea urchin! Winner gets immunity from the next week's elimination challenge until there are too few contestants for immunity to work out.

Genius, I know and thank you for recognizing my brilliance.

Verizon Android phones

I went to Verizon today to get something fixed on my bill ($45 for unlimited email and web? I THINK NOT YOU CORPORATE ASSHOLES!) and, while waiting, I took it upon myself to play with the Motorola Droid phone.



It was alright, but I didn't like it. Here's why: It's too clunky. It's small yes, but it doesn't feel like a new phone (specifically one that's competing with the iPhone) should. Having an actual keyboard is cool, but at the same time I'm used to typing on a touch screen that's a lot smaller than that one. Also having to go into landscape mode to view teh interwebz annoys me to no end. I only look at UtahHondas.net in landscape mode, everything else is viewed in portrait mode in my world. I really dig the Android OS, it kicks the shit out of Windows Mobile.

Side note, ever have something on your phone just suddenly stop working? Happens to me about once a week. The Windows start thing just disappears, along with everything along the top of my screen (battery meter, service indicators, volume). It's so much fun having to turn my phone off then back on just to be able to fire off a text.

Android feels more fluid,and easier to use. Windows Mobile makes me feel like either a dunce when something goes wrong, or like I want to throw the phone into traffic

So basically I'm not getting a Droid because I don't like it. I'm also not getting one because it'd run me $200 and I'm not dropping that kind of cash on a phone...on a phone that isn't an iPhone. But there another phone!



It's the HTC Droid Eris. I know it's only running Android 1.5 and it's basically a rebadged Hero, but it felt better. It felt better in my hands, playing around on it felt smoother, and it looked better.

Cnet.com gave both phones 4 out of 5, but I give the edge to the HTC phone. Now all I have to do is count down the days until I'm eligible for an upgrade and save my pennies

Yeah, about what I said last time...

So on the Ruins last week Brad got completely shit faced hammered and picked a fight with Darrell. If you recall last week's (or whenever the hell I posted it) post I said Darrell is a solid fantasy pick cause he flies below the radar and doesn't start shit. In light of everything that transpired I still stand by my statement (cause I refuse to be wrong on this!).

The upside of the beating, and subsequent dual booting, is that they're still on good terms AND Darrell beat his prediction of "dropping you in 3" by annihilating Brad's face in 1 fell swoop. I mean Jesus Christ, look at his face!



The biggest lesson we can take away from this is DON'T PICK A FIGHT WITH A GUY WHO KNOWS HOW TO BOX. Unless you KNOW you can fight better than him, then don't fight him. But this all goes out the window when you've downed a bottle or two of wine.

Unfortunately this week's episode comes when my brother (and wingman for all things TV related) is gonna be out of town. Our University of Utah Runnin' Utes are gonna be in Vegas for the Las Vegas Invitational... Whatever the hell that is. All I know is that he's in Vegas, I'm here alone and Thanksgiving is being pushed back to Sunday the 29th in the Chandler house. My loss is your gain. I'll end up watching it on Wednesday, and I'll probably throw something up soon there after. Probably with a lot more profanity too

TV

Last night my brother and I caught up on our shows. Our shows are Criminal Minds, Tosh.0, and Real World Road Rules Challenge: The Ruins. The first two don't drum up much interesting conversation, but The Ruins (and The Real World) are over analyzed and picked apart by us like we're two coaches breaking down film. Here's what our breakdown produced:


#1 Derrick and Darrell should be your some of your first fantasy picks*.





(Yes, I said fantasy picks. There has to be a reality TV fantasy league somewhere. Hell, Simmons has probably got one going, lord knows he talks about it enough on his podcast.)

(Side note, buy his book. It's 700 pages long, and I only made it through 14 pages before it got ripped away from me but I laughed a lot in those 14 pages. Plus it can stop a bullet. Back to the issue at hand...)

(*This all depends on the scoring system. If it's based on performance in the challenges, then pick these guys. If it's about fighting, getting wasted, flashing and sleeping around then pick up Tonya. She's money in all of those categories, but for the purposes of this blog it'll be about performance in the challenges)

Derrick and Darrell should be your top, if not, #1 picks. They don't cause any drama, they dominate in the challenges and they don't lose the elimination challenges. Most of the time you see them in the background or in the odd interview but they're never getting trashed and kicking someone's face in. They almost always make it to the final challenge and they usually win the final challenge.


#2. Cohutta is a fucking gangster



Why? #1 He was nailing Kelly Ann on his season of The Real World and almost knocked her up. Man's game

#2 He killed a bear! That's where he got the bear claw he wears around his neck. I like to think he killed it either with a bowie knife or his bare hands.

#3 His last name. It's Grindstaff. How fucking gnarly is that? Fucking gnarly, that's how gnarly it is. It sounds like he should be killing hoards of trolls or something while riding a a horse through a lightning storm.


#3. The game is like the mafia

You meet the leaders one one one away from everybody else, you've gotta promise them something and if you don't they throw you to the lions. If anyone is the don it's gotta be Evan (who coincidentally is a great fantasy pick. He wins all the time, he starts a lot of stuff AND he gets around... At least this year he did, but he loses points for plowing Veronica *shudder*)

Those are just some of the observations we've made. All that said, I'd be on that show in a heart beat. Unfortunately I'm not "controversial" (read: not an alcoholic or man-whore) enough, and neither is my brother.

And I'm not athletic enough. I'd drag whichever team I'd be on down. I'd be like Eric, except probably not as funny oand definitely not as fat.

I'll be back next week with a breakdown of episode 8, which looks to make my first point completely useless

the little things

I'm gonna go ahead and say that you bought the shoes you're wearing (if you're wearing a pair, if not go put some on or at least put a pair next to your computer) because they look good and/or they're comfy. I bought all of mine because of those reasons. Except the internet thing. This guy doesn't buy his shoes off the internet cause most of my shoes aren't the same size, but they fit exactly the same.

I digress

I grabbed my Herman 2's, Hsu's and Koston 1's because they looked good, they were comfortable and...

Because the insoles looked awesome.

Seriously. You may think I'm an idiot, but that was the tipping point. And here are the insoles so you can see the awesomeness:

Herman 2's


Hsu's


AL50's


Koston's