Top Chef:

Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons have blogs over at Bravo site, and man, they reeeeally disliked Stephen. Colicchio's last paragraph is a masterful put-down.

Stephen truly believes that he will single-handedly "raise the bar" for the rest of us. And indeed he may – to heights of culinary and oenophilic rapture that mere people can't hope to appreciate. And when that happens, there may be diners somewhere who will happily pay to be hectored, lectured, and reminded of their inferior knowledge. But if those guests are out there, in twenty-five years on the job, I haven't met them.

On a totally shallow note, Harold, who's mostly just pleasant-looking ordinarily, transforms himself into a stone-cold hottie whenever he puts on those glasses. Yowza.

On a totally shallow note, Harold, who's mostly just pleasant-looking ordinarily, transforms himself into a stone-cold hottie whenever he puts on those glasses. Yowza.

You're not wrong about that. Mrowr.

Venus Rising

Very lovely!

And OMG I can think of easily a dozen Buffistas (definitely including myself) who really, really need the dress Salma Hayek is wearing in this picture.

Vibing for you and Mister Kitty and all the good kind people caring for him, sarameg.

In my experience, water heaters are pretty simple. You probably need a new one, but they're relatively cheap and easy to install by the reasonably handy.

Ooh, that sounds awesome, Robin. The Ellen VIP situation, not the water heater. That sounds sucko. I'm still wondering why people were knocking on my door this morning -- I kind of figured it was a water issue, since I didn't have cold water for a bit yesterday, but no, everything seems fine. Weird.

On a totally shallow note, Harold, who's mostly just pleasant-looking ordinarily, transforms himself into a stone-cold hottie whenever he puts on those glasses.

Oh yeah.

Also, Chef Tom delivers the smackdown! Heh. I have a bit of a crush on him, too, I think.

Water heaters are generally pretty easy (to repair or give up and replace) so you should be ok, Robin. My family goes through them pretty quickly because the water where they live is so freaking hard. Well, that and there was this time when dad knocked one of the magnets he had on it off and sheared off the drain pipe. Water spraying everywhere, dad cursing, mom on the floor laughing so hard she was crying.

I jumped to the end-- What is happening with Mister Kitty??

I love Tom's blog -- Gwen was pretty hard on Stephen too. But Tom's blog is just better then Gwen's.

I think it's worth noting that out of all the eliminated chefs so far, Stephen is the only one who hasn't thanked the judges for the honor of having been allowed on the show in the first place. I loved Wooden Host Lady's "Do you have anything to say, Stephen?" challenging him to get all arrogant and poncey on them, or at least just say "thank you."

And Stephen's gallingly hubristic "I'm going to raise the bar in this country." By lecturing, sneering and condescending to your clientele, Stephen? I don't think so.