TC: Whenever somebody owns up and takes responsibility for something on one of these shows they get sent home. I don't know why -- but it happens over and over again.

Yeah. But because of budget, the concern about the lychees was a valid one. It just should have been dealt with right then. "Oh, didn't we pay? Check the receipt, we're standing outside of the shop right now."

Also, what did you think about the rice? Was it really only one person's fault there? Because you really ought to be able to freaking cook rice, especially if you're doing an Asian food dish.

And Ming Tsai is hot, ass-checking or no ass-checking.

la la la not clicking la la la

The Top Chef whitefont is taunting me. We haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

If you find quantum mechanics and black holes fun, you might like this. Otherwise, your head might explode. Or it might not. Or mabye both.

If a Buffista reads something about quantum physics on an unknown web page, is his or her head exploded, or unexploded? Can we ever really know, without going to their house/place of business to check, and if we do, does the act of checking fundamentally affect his or her head's state of cohesiveness?

Re: Top Chef:

I agree with all y'all. And on Chef Colicchio's blog, he more or less stated that Otto's sacrifice saved Marisa's ass. It was complete playground bullshit, and Marisa should have gone, anyway.

Also, it's made clear in Chef Tom's blog that Otto made the entire team aware of the extra case of lychees, and a group decision was made to NOT use them, so it wasn't going to be an unfair advantage anyway.

I also got the strong impression that Chef Tom forcing Otto to take the case back to the store was as much a punishment to Marisa, to show her what her petty behavior was doing to the team, as it was a punishment for Otto for letting them all drive away with it. I doubt she got it, but I'm betting that was a good chunk of Chef Tom's reasoning.

I think the rice was a valid complaint -- knowing how to cook rice is BASIC, people! -- but since it wasn't the entire dish, and the pork was so good, it wasn't going to be the sent-home offense.

sarameg, give me my sleep back please.

Jesse, surprisingly, I actually kind of wasn't. I sleep in drips of about 3 hours now. Then up for a bit then back to sleep. It's unhealthy.

Ugh, sorry.

I'm glad for the time change coming (though I hate the light situation in the evening ) because it's been getting harder and harder to wake up.

Seriously. I do not get up early! It should not be dark when my alarm goes off!

TC: oh, the rice. yeah. okay, you should be able to cook rice, but t memfault got off the hook a little from me because you can get shitty rice if it's left over the next day. not always, but often enough that I felt for him. he should have made new rice--with a rice cooker it doesn't take that long, srsly!--but it didn't make or break the dish the way the gelatin did. I was cheering him on, though, because he gave the team the reaming they deserved, and that they didn't get from the judges' table.

Does anyone else think Ilan and Marcel are kind of slashy? Just me then? Okay.

Sean, I agree with you. they all noted that Otto being gone really fucked with their time, and they deserved that because no one took freaking responsibility. But Otto shouldn't have had all the damn weight on his shoulders. Also, if the kitchen knew that the lychees WEREN'T BEING USED, that even pisses me off more that Marisa was such a bitch.

10 Useless or Even Dangerous First Aid Myths

I knew pretty much all of those. Particularly the bit about snake bites. Cutting sucking and spitting is just a bad idea all around for all the reasons they mention, and a tourniquet is basically telling the ER doctors to amputate here.