I'm watching a rerun of Top Chef's boxed lunch episode. I haven't really been watching this season, just keeping up through this thread and the Bravo site.

Spike, Lisa, and Andrew are the bottom three, and holy god, these people are assholes.

you have no idea, Dana!

TC - The thought of Stephanie/Richard/Antonia top 3 makes me very, very happy. And my girl, Antonia is really showing out, so I'm also very, very happy about that. I still think Richard and Stephanie are probably gonna beat her out in the end, but I sure hope this serves as a great launching pad for her career.

SYTYCD - I had to miss last night because of work, but it's just auditions, so I can't say I was crushed. I guess I'm a talent show reality competition completist, because I usually watch every audition round of AI and SYTYCD. And the worst SYTYCD audition show is soo much better than the best AI audition round that I can't even start to complain.

As for tonight, Tasty Oreo is proving to be not a horrible judge. He actually has some salient comments about the contestant's dance ability, Nigel. Watch and learn. The bad auditions are still a travesty. The performance artist pretending to be a transvestite was ridiculous. And I've had about enough of the African American "skreet" dancers who sass the judges. However, I loved the twins (totally thought they were tappers fromt he commercials) and am glad they made it to Vegas, although I'm not sure that either one of them has what it takes to make the top 20. The one in the red shirt was definitely a better, cleaner dancer even though he thinks his brother is.

I'm enjoying tonight's auditions much more than last night's. I don't know if it's because they are showing a larger proportion of good ones to bad or what, but it's keeping my attention better.

Oh! One more Top Chef note: Antonia basting and basting and basting that steak in butter was one more reminder of why restaurant food tastes so much better than home-cooked food.

Mine,too. And normally I hate sob stories and the contestants that go along with them, but I'll be darned if the first DC girl who was there with her aunt and the hip hop guy whose mom passed away didn't completely suck me in. And they were good dancers to boot. (Although the girl needs a little bit of seasoning, to be honest. Very immature dancer)

And then Brandon(?), the formerly underage, now of age, dancer was phenomenal. Amazing, amazing. Couldn't take my eyes off of him amazing. Yeah, I think they're definitely showing more good auditions tonight than they did last Wednesday.

Brandon(?), the formerly underage, now of age, dancer was phenomenal

Hell, yeah. Head and shoulders above anyone we've seen so far. I can't wait to see what he does on the show. He'll need an equally strong partner, I'd hate to seem him go early for a poor one.

Aww. I feel so badly for Anthony, our lovely ribbon boy. He is a beautiful dancer with flawless technique, but he should go someplace where they will love him. Nigel is a dick and a huge homophobe and he could go in there and dance better than some Cortez/Thomas/Baryshnikov/Nuryev hybrid super-dancer and he still wouldn't get on the show. And it was evil to put him through to the choreo because they knew good and well that he wasn't going to Vegas.

Crappy way to end, but a great show overall.

I have no gaydar to speak of, but there were a number of male dancers who pinged me besides Anthony. And Nigel let them through. I'm not saying he's not a big ole homophobe, he is. I think he either has a stricter set of criteria or a quota system and Anthony was too late in the show.

If you can "dance like a dude," you're OK.