The Stand-up Philosopher

Things That Don’t Suck About New Jersey

When I met my wife, she had The Bloodhound Gang’s CD. It listed a track as something like “10 Things That Don’t Suck About New Jersey”. I’m not sure about the exact wording, but when you sequence the CD to the track, it’s about 10 seconds of silence.

I can be very hard on New Jersey in my talking and writing. I got out of the Navy in 1998 in San Diego and started working as an alarm installer, which was the first job I managed to get after 2 weeks of not having an income. It was fun while it lasted, and I appreciate the time I had on that job and the men I worked with. In 1999, I got a job offer to move to New Jersey to work at a development site. This job was to be more inline with my training and experience from my time in the Navy.

One of the Happiest Days of Christina’s Life

I’ve had people ask me to put up pictures for some time now. I’m afraid to put them on Facebook because they claim to own your content. I doubt silly pictures of my kids could be commercialized by Facebook, but still, just because the possibility exists I’m hesitant to take the chance. I know FaceBook just reverted to an older Terms of Service, but still…

In October, I went to the Food and Wine show in Atlantic City with my wife and my father-in-law. My mother-in-law stayed behind to watch the boys. My sister-in-law had tickets that she never got to use, so we went back on Sunday (we used our tickets on Saturday) with the boys.

Kitchen Nightmares

I’m really knocking out the posts tonight. I guess since I haven’t had a chance to blog lately, I have a lot of pent up posts. Over the weekend, I was scrolling through the DirectTV program guide at my in-laws’ house. I came across the last couple minutes of the UK edition of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. I always wanted to see that one. I enjoyed the US version last year. I hope it comes back. In any case, the few minutes of the UK edition didn’t really do much for me. I guess I’m used to the US edition. There is just something about American pride and arrogance that makes for better TV. You know, the kind of “OK, chef Ramsay, who the hell do you think you are to tell me what to do in my restaurant, despite the fact that I’m failing and you’re like a world class chef and owner of 3000 successful restaurants and a celebrity and a respected authority and all that? Who do you think you are to tell me what to do?” Really, it does make for good television. It’s almost like listening to people call Dave Ramsey to tell him that they have a better idea for paying off debt and want to buy a new car and buy a house on an interest-only mortgage. Dave always asks something along the lines of “How many millions of dollars do you have on that system?”

I’m looking forward to the finale of Hell’s Kitchen tomorrow. For some reason, I like that show too.

The Next Food Network Star

I’ve been watching the Next Food Network Star. I watched Season 3, and I’ve been watching Season 4. I’ve said before that in the beginning, I hated reality TV, but I’ve since developed a taste for some of it. I don’t give a ripped fart for American Idol or America’s Got Talent, nor do I watch Survivor. I really did get into The Apprentice, even the Martha Stewart season. Of course, I love Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers. For some reason, I enjoy The Next Food Network Star.

When I think about it, this has got to be really hard. For one thing, the contestants are supposed to have some kind of culinary skill. I don’t think they have to have attended culinary school or worked professionally as a chef, but they certainly need to have some talent. Of course, that’s not enough. They have to be able to work well under pressure. They have to be able to, as my favorite movie line goes, “Improvise, adapt, overcome” (Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge.) But even if they can pull that much off, they have to go on camera and be believable. They have to be able to teach, to explain, to communicate, and to show some authority. It’s interesting watching people try to do all of this. For some reason I find some perverse enjoyment.

I did get to meet two of the Season 3 candidates. My wife, her parents and I went to the Food and Wine festival in Atlantic City last year. Tommy and Adrian were there. They held the camera so we could have our picture taken with Guy Fieri. They seemed like really good guys.

Food and Wine Festival

This prospective blog post has been sitting on my Pocket PC for months. I figured it's time to publish it. That's why I've been testing One Note publishing. I can't get MS Word to publish with pictures, so I'll have to compose on the go with Pocket One Note, then transfer to Windows Live Writer when I get the time.

Last October, my wife and I went to the food and wine festival in Atlantic City. We met some food celebrities like Tommy and Adrien from last season's Food Network Star, and we had our picture taken with Guy Fiere. We sampled some good food and wine and beer. I found a new restaurant to go to the next time we're in Lancaster County.

The celebrity chef was Chef Morimoto. I felt very bad for him. For whatever reason, nothing worked. Here was a world class chef who did not have a properly set up kitchen or a microphone, his sound crew was horrible, and his cameraman did a slightly less professional job than a fifth grade audio/visual club could have done.



The picture was taken by my iPaq 6945 Pocket PC. I'm was just trying to show how bad the quality of the camera work was. You'd think a competent cameraman would have centered the picture on what Morimoto was doing with his hands, but this guy did not.

I wish I had put together this post sooner, while the experience was fresh in my memory. When we watched Morimoto, I had just finished my classes at the University of Phoenix, so I was especially sensitive to the unprofessional work of the camera and sound crew. I'm sure a world class chef like Morimoto would be used to showing up and finding nothing working, and he did a good job of working around it.

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