This week's WNTW is nice -- she's a philosophy PhD student, so has the full gamut of issues: I don't know how to do this/it doesn't matter anyway/my hips are so fat! And she looks great at the end.

Next Iron Chef: How fun that they got to use the high tech equipment and industrial chemicals!

How rough to expect them to turn out a really excellent dish using that stuff after only 90 minutes practice.

Also, I really thought that there wasn't going to be a winner because of the way they went through the candidates.

How rough to expect them to turn out a really excellent dish using that stuff after only 90 minutes practice.

And none of the dishes came out excellent or even all that good -- but what made it an interesting challenge was the way it took all of them out of their comfort zones, with none of the usual "oh, yeah, so-and-so's The Seafood Guy" advantages. I continue to love this show.

1. Harold was on Better Half???

2. some tidbits from Grub Street including a video demo of Hung's knife skills.

OMG, Rich's video-in-lieu-of-recap for last week's ANTM might be the funniest thing I've seen all year. [link]

Yay, Danielle. She's still so pretty

Oh, Tyra. Ice skating . . . you do love me.

Lisa really does look like a poodle with that haircut. And Bianca's bitch is back. Right on!

I gotta post about Survivor right now! Even though I've had a glass or so of wine, this demands discussion!

To some extent, I admire the strategy-- taking a big risk in Survivor, playing the game qua game, is really what it's about. But I don't think I would have agreed with Peih Gee (aka P.G.). It assumes way too much-- it assumes that the merge takes place at ten (why not eight or nine?); it assumes Frosti and Sherea don't get turned, and it assumes that Aaron and James can't be turned. I just think it's *always* a mistake to put yourself in tribal council. Your strategy at base has to be to avoid going to tribal, to avoid drawing votes. I've never seen a team come back stronger from tribal-- they always come back stronger after *winning challenges.* Maybe I'm wrong, and this strategy is too conservative.

Just this: never throw a challenge!

Dammit! Still at work. Now I want to get home even more.

Oh, while I'm here, I have two random reality tidbits.

One of Bob Bob's colleagues is a poker player who has played with Jean-Robert. He says JR is not a good poker player-- he takes too many risks. He has no idea how JR made a living at poker unless he breaks even or is a "trust fund poker player."

Reality tidbit #2. This morning I was in the Starbucks in my work building and I saw a young guy in a suit that kind of hung off him, with two other guys. The guy looked really familiar , but I couldn't figure it out-- if I went to law school with him, why did he look so fresh-faced? If he was a first-year associate at my firm, why didn't I remember seeing him before, and who were those other guys? Finally, as I left the S-bucks, I saw he was in a different elevator bay than mine, so not a co-worker. I realized who it was-- Lee, the extremely young observant virgin from The Apprentice! I felt kind of bad for the guy. He must get people looking at him quizzically (like me!) all day.

He says JR is not a good poker player

Color me not at all surprised.