We’ve got fashion and cooking in this TV review post. Project Runway is a hit fashion design reality contest now running full speed on Lifetime TV. There’s pics of winning, losing and mediocre fashions plus some critiques, comments on the contenders.
Running now we’ve got Hell’s Kitchen as well as BravoTV’s Top Chef Vegas. We’ve got reviews on the shows, the food and the contenders.
Finally, we follow up on Melissa D’Arabian, winner of this past year’s Next Food Network Star. Her food is cheap to make but read what the real cost is.
All with pics and video you’ll find nowhere else on the Internet.
Pic of the Day
Lifetime’s “Project Runway” A Fashion Hit
I have quite enjoyed “Project Runway” now featured on Lifetime. As I understand it, this series of a reality show for fashion designers was featured on another cable network and just changed over to Lifetime this week. I daresay this is an indicator that the show has been very successful as Lifetime is a network for women and women are probably the base audience for this series. Alongside our fine homosexual brethren I add with a smile.
So far I’ve been busy compiling pic montages of the series and have little verbiage to add. I think this is a great series but it is definitely for fashion afficiandos let’s not kid ourselves.
I have a few comments on the remaining nine contenders as it’s a bit dizzying to keep up with all the fashion designs, who did what, as well as observe personality quirks of the contenders.
Epperson, now here’s an odd fellow. He has about thirty pounds of hair on his head and once he had to wrap all the dreadlocks up in a scarf and he looked like one of those fellows who ride around on flying carpets. Epperson does do rather unusual designs and one thing to note about this show, the ordinary is not where you want to go. The show doesn’t cotton to out-of-this-world fashion designs either, be cautioned. But it is a show designed to capture the designer with a fashion flair that would still be acceptable to your ordinary female.
A couple of very young females are very much in contention this season, to include Shirin, Althea and Carol Hannah. I’m talking young women in their early to mid-20’s here. Quite impressive to be in the top ten on this American Idol of fashion design.
Finally, somebody tell Gordana to please find some shampoo and wash her damn hair. Gordana is NOT, ahem, one of the younger females in this contest. She’s not such a bangup fashion designer either.
On to the pic montages and join in for additional opinions, caveats, brickbats and unrequested opinions.
2009 Contenders for Project Runway Christopher
Johnny-sent home
Louise-sent home
Irina
Ari-sent home
Nicolas
Mitchell-sent home
Shirin
Gordana
Carol Hannah
Ramon-Lawrence-sent home
Logan
Malvin-sent home
Qristyl-sent home
Epperson
Althea
Lewes Delaware's Bethany Blues restaurant gets lots of pluses like its Bethany Beach parent. But the eatery loses because…why no baked potatoes?
And what's so weird about its smell?
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In THOUGHTS this week we have an update on the monarch butterflies for a chrysalis has been found!
We've got lots on Van Jones, Obamercare and a new sinsister item found in the proposed health care bill.
Plus a Georgetown Delaware cop killed in action, a tragic local story with national implications.
Much more.
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Update on a few ongoing reality TV shows.
Hell's Kitchen keeps on cussing and smoking. A new reality cooking show, Bravo's "Top Chef Vegas" premieres.
Lifetime's "Project Runway" has maternity wear and beach attire and narrowing down to a grand finale, "America's Got Talent" going down to a top 10 although Obamer will pre-empt it this coming week.
All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.
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Pic of the Day
Because We Can Never Have Too Much Obamer
On Tuesday, 9/8/09, Obamer will be addressing school children across the fruited plains, read details in World Net Daily HERE.
Because we cannot, ladies and gems, get too much Obamer. It’s time to indoctrinate the chilruns.
Below, the Obamer song, really written, sung and recorded for posterity, no tongue in cheek.
My daughter checked with Kaitlyn’s school and was assured that the school will NOT be covering the President’s speech. I pray this is true.
And don’t give me that bit about President Bush did it. First, he did not. He gave a speech directed at school children but he did NOT have it broadcasted in schools during the school day. Second he sure as hell didn’t have lesson plans drawn up, including requesting of the children to list how THEY can help President Obamer reach his goals.
It never stops with this Communist dictator, does it? Can the man go a day or two without being on TV, without it being all about ME, ME, ME.
Because I wouldn’t have a problem with the President addressing school children of the country if he would use the time to talk about our history, the wonder and importance of our constitution. We know Obamer will never talk about a constitution he regularly trashes and ignores.
And no I don’t trust that man why the hell should I? He made fun of the nationwide tea parties, he’s called us names who question his health care reform with his death panels. I sure don’t want him talking to my grandchild. Soon enough Obamer will have her wearing a burqua, for now give her just a little more freedom to be a child, huh?
Coming up this Wednesday night, to pre-empt America’s Got Talent because like the saying goes, we can never have too much Obamer, the president will have an address to the congress which will convince us that we need Obamacare, yes we do folks, we desperately NEED Obamacare.
Before listening to Obama, here’s something new and not yet reported allegedly in the House health care bill as proposed. Yes folks, we will now be implanted with a chip that will contain all of ou “data” on it. Dogs have these things now but thanks to Obama, we’ll all have a chip implanted in our ear.
The Obama Health care bill under Class II (Paragraph 1, Section B) specifically includes ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable." Then on page 1004 it describes what the term "data" means in paragraph 1, section B:
‘‘(B) In this paragraph, the term ‘data’ refers to in
formation respecting a device described in paragraph (1),
including claims data, patient survey data, standardized
analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of
data from disparate data environments, electronic health
records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the
Secretary"
So for now, let us end the Obamer section with a video of Tim Hawkins telling us who can solve all our problems.
Warnings About the Rapidly Cooling World From 1975
Yes folks it a rapidly cooling world warned about in the 70’s and I forget what political party stood to make money from that scam at that time. I’m guessing it was the Democrats because they are famous for this.
Heh. Now we have the latest and greatest scam…GLOBAL WARMING.
And someday granddaughter Kaitlyn will have her own Blog and she will, like her grandmother before her, post a link to the hysteria about the warming globe, even as in her day some loser like Gore will invent yet a NEW form of lies to scare money out of the people.
As of the morning of this writing, 9/6/09, Jones was still a member of Obamer’s Czar kingdom but the story was floating around even though NOTHING was mentioned on the matter by the state-controlled media, not the Washington Post, definitely not the very, very gay NY Times…NONE.
Blogs, Beck, Fox news….but guess what folks, the fine, fine self-confessed communist who “mistakenly” signed a petition that alleged the attacks of 9-11 were government orchestrated, RESIGNED.
Proving, as important a fact as the resignation itself, that we NO LONGER NEED THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA.
Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, CBS, Newsweek, the Washington Post…NOT A SINGLE WORD ABOUT A US PRESIDENT HAVING A COMMUNIST AS ONE OF THOSE ILLEGAL CZARS OBAMER SO LOVES!!
Once upon a time such stuff was news!
Does anyone think Beck’s going to stop here? For I watch Glen Beck religiously and I know the Lamestream likes to make fun of him because that what Saul Alinsky advises in his “Rules for Radicals”…reduce those who criticize to objects of ridicule. But Jones resigning vindicates Glen Beck and folks he’s got a whole lot more going on about those thugs…er, “czars” Obamer keeps appointing.
First, where in the constitution does it say a president can appoint 34 czars? What the hell is a czar anyway? We have a cabinet that must be approved by the congress and there’s a reason for this. We don’t want one man having too much power in our country’s government and while the president is the country’s leader, those who control the rudder that steers the ship of government are to have the oversight of a congress elected by the PEOPLE.
Except for Obamer, evidently, who has appointed 34 of these czar fellows and poor ridiculed Glen Beck of Fox news brought him down. 33 to go, Beck, and we’re rooting for you all the way.
Sean Hannity for President?
We understand that when queried popular talk radio host Sean Hannity wouldn’t rule out a run for office. Per World Net Daily/
Sean might have to compete against Glen Beck for the honor.
The National Tea Party
The National Tea Party continues to travel around the country with reception in towns across the country in the thousands. These are NOT Obamer’s union thugs paid to bite off people’s fingers. These are ordinary Americans and for three days beginning this Friday they’ll be in the nation’s capital. They are sick of our government’s tax and spend and they’re taking it to the streets.
Heh.
Obamer, poor guy, he really wanted to be the King and what with Fox, talk radio and God knows those awful thugs called citizens who carry this country on their backs now taking it to the streets…
NOW WE KNOW WHO MAKES THIS COUNTRY GREAT AND IT AIN’T THE SEIU!
The stars of our favorite childhood TV series-“Leave It To Beaver”. Can it really be?
The People of Walmart
It’s all the rage. In fact, for over four days last week the web site the people of Walmart.com simply could NOT be accessed so overloaded were their servers.
The gimmick here is to take pictures of Walmart shoppers. Not ordinary Walmart shoppers, mind you, but pictures of weird and unusual Walmart shoppers. Below I’ve made a montage of a few of the Walmart shoppers photographed and uploaded onto the site.
I have mixed emotions about it but the Internet is as accurate a guage of pop culture as most anything. Indeed, heh, Walmart shoppers often include the strange.
The thing to remember here is that weird folks can be found in most ANY store but maybe not in Saks.
The Wise I has remarked on other THOUGHTS about the many, many Walmart shoppers that take to riding around the store in one of those little motorized carts. Again, these little carts are available in many other stores so this is not unique to Walmart. But in Walmart, as I’ve been intrigued, these folk are a)usually extremely overweight…I’m talking minimum of 300 lbs, b)often aren’t buying much of nothing, just looking, and c)are in the store for hours at a time, just riding around.
Anyway, I’m sure the above doesn’t apply to everyone using the motorized cart, probably very few. But I’ve noticed it often enough to be amused by it all.
Monarch Chrysalis Found!
I told the story of the Butterfly plant and the saga of the monarch caterpillars on a recent Blog post HERE.
So we’ve got a follow-up in that while there was, by my estimation, about 50 very fat and handsome monarch butterfly caterpillars happily munching my butterfly plant to oblivion, they began to disappear. Our research revealed that the caterpillars will travel 40 to 80 feet away to set up shop in a chrysalis where, in a period of around a week, they will become a monarch butterfly.
We looked everywhere. Finally, we found one! Below a pic. The caterpillar set up shop on the underside of a leaf of my indoor plant, popularly known as a Rubber plant. How cool is this?
The Rubber plant is a handsome plant that, except for its summer outdoors, might never have known the joy of sponsoring a monarch butterfly chrysalis on its broad leaves. Which I know has me crazily indicating that my rubber plant has feelings but yon reader knows what I mean.
I am a certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat specialist, trained in Virginia by the National Wildlife Federation. The goal of a Backyard Wildlife Habitat specialist is to train people how to invite nature into our own backyards by providing plants the birds and critters can use for food and cover, offering water and places to nest. Thus we will have a mini-ecosystem that will help endangered species survive and a place to teach and show our own children about the natural world.
And what better way for me to achieve this goal than providing the monarch butterfly a plant on which it will lay its eggs (monarch butterflies only lay their eggs on milkweed) and my fine INDOOR plant on which the caterpillar’s chrysalis can grow big and strong?
Georgetown, Delaware Police Officer Killed on the Job
This is a local story I understand. But it’s a compelling one and reached a sort of national stature in that Vice-President Joe Biden came and spoke at the memorial ceremony for Georgetown Delaware police officer Chad Spicer, killed in action.
Georgetown Delaware has never lost a police officer in the line of duty. Indeed Georgetown is just a small town, picturesque, a quaint village type of town that visitors to Delaware’s eastern shore drive through to reach Delaware’s coast and the Atlantic ocean.
I went outside on my porch last week and was puttering around, checking on the caterpillars. I heard the sirens. These were serious sirens. I went inside and told my husband that a summer tourist must have wrapped his car around another tree because the sirens aren’t stopping.
A few minutes later husband came outside and told me that it’s on the local radio station that a Georgetown police officer had been shot. I couldn’t know it then but I did indicate the sirens I was hearing were going from Georgetown TOWARD the beach.
Those were the sirens taking Officer Spicer to Beebee Medical Center. Officer Spicer died en route to the hospital. His partner was also injured in the same incident. All evening there were sirens blaring but they were heading towards Georgetown and it was all part of the hunt for the killer.
They caught the creep who did this. Three creeps actually although one of the criminals didn’t run off when his partner shot Spicer in the head but stayed to help. Another thug ran away and was not apprehended until just yesterday. The whole Georgetown area was wary as this fellow was on the loose and goodness knows what a desperate fellow would do.
Delaware DOES have a death sentence but I will note that Delaware’s most famous criminal, Thomas Capano, STILL sits on death row all fat and happy now many years after her brutally murdered Ann Marie Fahey.
We shall see if this wanton cop killer gets the death penalty.
Officer Spicer has a three year old daughter.
Ending With a Smile
Bethany Blues-Lewes
Husband and I had visited the coast of lower Delaware’s most famous rib joint, Bethany Blues, a few years ago. Bethany Blues, named after its original home town base, Bethany Beach, moved up to Rehoboth, closer to our home here in Serendipity Shore in the swamps of Delaware.
Bethany Blues is a rib joint and as such I give it an overall grade maybe a C+, possibly a B-.
It’s not that their ribs are bad. Bethany Blues does serve both baby
Back ribs, husband’s personal favorite as well as “St. Louis pork ribs”, the larger ribs that I ordered and found very tasty.
There’s something a bit too sterile, too clean, too ordinary about Bethany Blues, especially the one here in Rehoboth. First, the place has NO smell at all. A rib place that doesn’t smell like ribs? I find it odd and I wonder where the hell the ribs are cooked.
Because as husband pointed out, they also do not serve baked potatoes. The restaurant does serve cornbread with a meal but I’m betting this cornbread wasn’t made in house. It wasn’t warm at all and was way too sweet. A decent cornbread should have a bit of a gritty texture to it from the cornmeal and really shouldn’t taste like cake.
The French fries served with the meal were fine as French fries go.
I had an interesting little side dish known as Sesame Ginger Slaw, essentially cabbage with a bit of shredded ginger doused with a sesame flavored dressing. While it was different, frankly I’d lean toward a more traditional slaw. The baked beans side dish weren’t so much either, okay but not filled with meat as promised.
I got an appetizer, six bucks, that blew my mind. It was billed as a tray of “meat sticks” with cheese cubes and it was so small as to be almost laughable.
The meat sticks were just beef jerky type affairs. They had a good taste but the entire appetizer looked chintzy although six bucks for the thing was probably a fair price. The cheese was very good I must add. If I owned a restaurant I’d be too embarrassed to serve that appetizer. No matter how fair the price, if it looks cheap and chintzy it’s just bad business.
The ribs, in both cases, were very good. Husband grouched that the baby pork ribs could have been meatier but hey, he ordered, and ATE, an entire rack. The St. Louis ribs were very meaty and very good. They were by no means spicy but I liked them and would give them a solid B+…maybe an A-.
Bethany Blues is not the best rib restaurant I’ve ever dined at and I’m very suspect about how food is prepared at that joint. One should be able to smell a rib restaurant a mile away. You can’t smell ribs cooking even while INSIDE of Bethany Blues.
Bravo’s Top Chef Vegas slipped by with two full shows before I even knew it was running!
This is BravoTv’s most successful series and they run several a year, each in different cities. I watched the two earlier shows and the one aired on 9/2/09. The same as always, there is a Quickfire challenge which often provides the winning contender a prize of some sort and always immunity from elimination for the elimination challenge.
The Top Chef Vegas competition began with 16 contenders, goodness this is just too much for yon average Blogger read by two to three people every day to track, especially with yon Blogger three episodes in arrears.
What stands out in my memory is the one contender from the Isle of Lesbos who got all in a snit over the elimination challenge. Said challenge being for all the contenders to prepare food for a bachelor AND bachelorette party.
This snippy little witch griped that it seemed unfair to require the contenders to participate in this elimination challenge what with THREE of the contenders unable, by law, to participate in the ceremony that normally follows such bachelor celebrations.
She was talking about gays getting married. Something most Americans think, silly, silly them, that should not be allowed because we have definitions of things for a reason. We don’t let humans and dogs marry and we don’t let two females marry and two males marry because we define a marriage as between a man and a woman.
Boo freaking who.
Anyway this nasty snit got sent packing on the episode aired on 9/2/09 so goodbye and moving on. We’ll be following Top Chef Vegas on a bi-weekly basis until the competition narrows down a bit.
Hell’s Kitchen
On the HK episode aired on 9/1/09, it was a typical cussing, screaming and smoking bonanza. The production and serving of sorbet in Hell’s Kitchen seemed to be a big deal on this episode but I don’t know why.
The girls won the initial blind taste test challenge but for the HK service on that episode the boys pulled in the win.
Tenille seems to be a focal point contender during this competition. These sorts of shows always have a controversial and colorful contender always popping up in various manners and situations.
Tenille is one such colorful character, always expressing an opinion on other contenders with no bother of tact and often duking it out with Chef Ramsey. This sort of thing is scripted. It keeps viewers interested in the drama.
This episode had Tenille, always an object of Ramsey’s wrath, as being the heroine of the losing girl team. This fact had the tough-talking Tenille swelled up with great pride. Tenille was charged with nominating two females for elimination.
Suzanne and Sabrina were offered up for elimination by Tenille. Chef Ramsey nominated Amanda, something he does when whoever he has charged with nominating potential losers doesn’t choose who HE would have chosen.
I love fashion shows. I did review Bravo’s Fashion Show a few times but once Project Runway got picked up by Lifetime TV I was on it.
Which is not to say that I am any sort of fashion icon, not having the body or youth for such a thing, but I like any show which features fashion makeovers or design.
So I review them although few folks read it.
2009 Contenders for Project Runway Christopher
Johnny
Louise
Irina
Ari
Nicolas
Mitchell
Shirin
Gordana
Carol Hannah
Ramon-Lawrence
Logan
Malvin
Qristyl
Epperson
Althea
Super model Heidi Klum and classy guy (insert an A for the U if desired in that word) Tim Gunn are hosts of the show and the show protocol pretty much follows fashion show protocol. A bunch of wannabe designers are selected to contend for the winning slot. The winner receives bunches of money and a chance to have an exclusive show of some sort. The first part of the hour has the contenders being given their challenge for the week.
For the show’s first half hour we witness the contenders making their designs. While a viewer might get a glimpse of the fabric or design feature a contender is going to enter for the challenge, the complete frock is not aired until time for the parade on the runway.
Giving the viewer a peek into the various designs tends to keep the interest up; the viewer often wants to know what that thing’s going to end up looking like as Tom Gunn asks questions about the design in progress while the camera only gives quick, secretive glances to the design in progress.
For the Project Runway episode aired on 8/27/09 the challenge was to design a maternity outfit for a modern pregnant woman.
A pregnant female in this early twenty first century does pretty much everything non-pregnant women do as might be expected. Mammals’ bodies were designed to bear children as life goes on so outfits designed to clothe a pregnant female human need mostly to accommodate a big belly with no effort to disguise what it is. Looking pretty is definitely as important to the pregnant as to the non-pregnant but comfort and ease of movement is very needed.
The wannabe designers came up with some clever and attractive maternity wear. One designer came up with ugly shorts for his pregnant model and he got sent home for that ill-conceived effort. It wasn’t that shorts were verboten for the pregnant but this contender’s shorts were flappy, too short and of bad construction.
Two of the female contenders designed truly beautiful outfits. Shirin Askari won the design challenge for her handsomely smocked maternity dress with a matching coat. Louise Black came through with an almost negligee-looking maternity dress that was very feminine and pretty.
America’s Got Talent-Five Go Through Out of Ten
And so when all is said and done it is the singers or singing groups that have the edge with this show. Of course this is not always the case but it is enjoyable watching the magic acts, interesting dance and exercise routines, pianists and other novelty acts until a singer or singing group eventually wins America’s Got Talent.
This past week, on the episode aired 9/1/09 the following acts performed:
Kevin Skinner-bluesy type singer
Acrodunk-acrobat team
Grandma Lee-senior comedian
Arcadia Broad-classical pianist
Drew Thomas-Magic Act
The Texas Tenors-barbershop type group
Pardizo Dance-unusual novelty act
The Fab Five-dancing sisters from Utah
Voices of Glory-siblings sing in harmony
Tony Hoard-dog act
The following five made it through:
Kevin Skinner-bluesy type singer
Grandma Lee-senior comedian
The Texas Tenors-barbershop type group
The Fab Five-dancing sisters from Utah
Voices of Glory-siblings sing in harmony
Of the five that made it through on this episode, I’m not at all sure about Grandma Lee. She’s 75 years old, has good comedic timing but how many jokes can you make about being old and having sex? And at age 75, how long can you keep on doing it?
The Fab Five is the clogging type dancing sisters from Utah. They’re good, yes they are, and they practice hard any viewer can see this. But a winner in this thing? I just don’t see it.
Below, still performing in the 2009 America’s Got Talent Competition:
Kevin Skinner-bluesy type singer
Grandma Lee-senior comedian
The Texas Tenors-barbershop type group
The Fab Five-dancing sisters from Utah
Voices of Glory-siblings sing in harmony
FootworkZ-an "urban" dance team
Jeffrey Ou-pianist
Hairo Torres-single dance act
Lawrence Beamn-bass singer beautiful and unique voice
Mario and Jenny-novelty fire act
Barbara Padillo-opera soprano singer, cancer survivor
Eric and Rickie-preteam dance team
Drew Stevyns-singer
Recycled Percussion-novelty act plays drums on trach
EriAm Sisters-sister song and dance team
Below a remix of the winning acts from this episode along with mine own fine commentary spliced directly onto the video for reader rumination.
