Monday, March 30, 2009

Room 1303: The F Word


More specifically, Gordon Ramsey’s The F Word. (He means “Food”; wash out your brain!) The F Word is my new obsession. And I should know by now not to watch even one minute of a new BBC America show because I’ll be hooked. (I haven’t done an in depth analysis yet so I don’t know whether it’s the accents or I’m easily entertained.)

So a little background. Very little because I don’t much about Gordon Ramsey except that he’s English, a chef, a former footballer or rugby-er, and he yells at people. And I’m not 100% on the sport thing. Besides The F Word, he has a show called Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares that is also addictive. This is where he goes to run down restaurants and kicks everyone in the ass and makes the restaurant fab. There’s always one employee of the restaurant who tells the camera that Ramsey can go fuck himself. That employee either ends up crying or quitting. The criers always thank Gordon at the end. The quitters are just bleeped a lot.

So. The F Word. I never had any desire to watch any Gordon Ramsey show but I caught the credit sequence. It’s Ramsey walking down a brightly lit hip restaurant corridor in a suit which he takes off in slow motion and dons his chef coat. This is all done to the tune: The F Word’s here and the F Word’s there. Laa la lalalala. That’s what did it. I watched the entire hour. I was just thankful it wasn’t a marathon day…

The main story of The F Word is that 50 guests come to his restaurant and he replaces his staff with 4 amateur chefs. They prepare an app, an entrĂ©e and a dessert. With each course, Jean Baptiste, the maitre d’, comes back and tells Ramsey and the amateurs how many of the 50 guests are paying for that course. Ideally, they want all 50 to pay up. After the dessert course, they add up the “pays” and that’s their score. And I guess (and I say “guess” because I haven’t been watching from the beginning and I’m watching out of sequence) that the highest “scorers” get supreme bragging rights at the end of the season.

And in between the courses and Ramsey yelling at the amateurs, there’s some fun food stuff: like teaching various East Enders how to cook for friends, feeding his pigs beer to give them a better flavor, testing Cliff Richard’s wine palette, and asking some Brit foodie to guess which animal’s testicles he’s eating.

Need I say more? Laaa la lalalala…

Amenities of Room 1303: Expletive laden hotel directory. Complimentary chef coat. Mini bar filled with Cliff Richard Cabernet.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Room 693: The Four Twitter Agreements

1. Be impeccable with your tweet.
2. Don’t take any tweet personally.
3. Don’t make any assumptions about tweets.
4. Do the best tweet you can.

You were put on Twitter to be happy and have fun.

Amenities of Room 693: Radio tuned to the Mash-up station. The Holy Bible in 140 characters or less.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Room 1274: I Am a Metal Pig


I cannot remember the origins of this but one day at work I asked everyone what their Chinese Astrology animal is. You know, being born in the Year of the Rat, etc. My co-workers would either look at me quizzically or say "I'm an Ox!". Well, it goes even beyond that: apparently, besides the animal, each year has an element as well. Earth, Water, Wood and Metal. Hence, Metal Pig. (Contrary to some Facebookers belief, it does not mean I'm into Megadeth and I'm messy. Oh, yes. The words "Metal" and "Pig" found their way into my Facebook status. I love statuses. Where else can you say you watched a Lakers game with Voldemort?) Now, I won't go into what Metal Pig means (besides being awesome!) but it brings up in me another obsession: books/websites about astrology/personality types. I'm not obsessed in the sense that I take stock in it or live my life by what some random stranger "says" is me, but I do have love for reading my type/animal/sign/archetype and going "huh."

Besides Sagittarian Metal Pig, I'm also a Comfort Seeking Nine with a One Wing ("The Dreamer") and I won't go into my Archetypes because, well, that's personal (Fun Fact! Everyone has twelve archetypes and four that everyone has are The Child, The Victim, The Saboteur and The Prostitute. The whole world is one-twelfth whore!). I'm now looking into what my Star Wars sign is (I'm guessing I'm a Han Solo with a shade of Jawa) and which of my Seven Dwarfs is the most dominant. Right now, it's Sleepy.

Amenities of Room 1274: Constellation mapped ceiling. Extra storage space for all personalities. Comfort bedding for the comfort seeking.