Top Chef All-Stars: Not a Winter Classic

I got a problem with how this season of Top Chef is completing.

The final episodes of this series are traditionally geared for the final group of contestants (3-5 people, this year its 5) to take some time off, prepare, then reconvene at a special location. This year, is All-Stars. Meaning the best/favorite contestants who didn't win in previous renditions of the show. They are branded as All-Stars, so why aren't they treated as such?

The special location: The Bahamas. Really? All-Star Chef's deserver an All-Star culinary destination. How about Paris? Maybe Tuscany or Tokyo? But the Bahamas? I don't get it.

Then the final 5 show up and have to compete in two utterly ridiculous challenges, neither of which are measures of their culinary accumen. Rather, they are challenged on who can best deal with a farcical scenario. Cooking in farcical scenarios is a staple of the Top Chef series and that is fine mid-season when you are trying to find ways to make them fail. But these 5 have been there and done that. They earned a top notch environment, product, and yes even top notch palettes to serve.

Instead, they got the King of Junkanoo and his crew in a fish fry restaurant sporting a kitchen with fryers (even a broken one that started a fire, which was hilarious to watch), a flat top griddle, and little else.

RIP Carla

Next they take a boat to a deserted atol where they find top notch product but are stuck cooking outside with 50 gallon drum grills burning wood, a selection of tools, and a small table each. They manage to dodge the sand-witch (count it!) but inconsistent heat due to wind and poorly constructed grills really hampers them. Then the guests are the local leadership of the Yacht Club? Furthermore, they had to feature conch, but by feature they meant go snorkeling to catch the conch, shell it, and incorporate the meat into their food. If this is All-Star caliber then Derek Jeter is worth 3 years $50 million.

RIP Tiffany

Just give them the world and let them live and die purely on their on merits all ready.

Facebook: I Think I Hate You

I just really dislike using Facebook. To me, it is basically an automated business card storage container on the internet.

Not that it isn't great for stuff, clearly people are doing fine with it.

But for me, it is mostly aggravating.

1. Please don't ever send me a Facebook message/invite/whatever and expect I got it. If you actually know me and it is actually important, then you know how to contact me via Email/chat/cell phone. Doesn't everyone have a email filter setup to automatically dump anything from Facebook?

Matches: from:Facebook
Do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label "Facebook"

2. I don't want everyone I ever met knowing the random thing I might have posted on Facebook while out drinking. Facebook has these Friend Lists, why can't I setup permissions based on them? All I need is a set of people to which I post anything I want, and another set of people who don't get my posts/pictures/whatever. These set of people is really the 'business card storage' group.

3. While I'm not going to lengths to protect my identity/personal info on this blog, I'm not exactly broadcasting such information either. I have no problem with people being anonymous on the Internet. My picture isn't even here. Is nobody else a bit torn about internet anonymity? I don't really want my digital interweb existence to be an extension of my real world life. I want it to make my real world life easier. Maybe I just watch to much Battlestar Galactica, but I really don't need a virtual copy of myself floating around the Internet trying to become self aware and going all MCP on me.

4. I'm not paranoid.

5. I tried setting up a 2nd Facebook account using a pseudonym, but they go to lengths to stop this. I can't link two Facebook accounts to 1 phone number or the same email address! Argh. Plus the confusion of having to figure out which account i'm dealing with is even more aggravating then dealing with 1 Facebook account. This is right out.

6. I use plenty of other social media tools. Like this one I'm typing on right now. Twitter is useful when used appropriately; I like the simplicity. Google Buzz makes my life easier, although its a bit limited at this point. LivingSocial deals are kinda like social media and they save me money! Facebook costs me time. LinkedIn is a boon.

7. Pretty sure I'm not paranoid.

Dear Starbucks Cashier

No, I'm not saying anything in Italian just to get a cup of coffee. You will respond to small, medium, or large or if I'm feeling especially incredulous, simply 'the middle one' or the 'cheapest one'.

Nor will I refer to you as some 'Barrista' which is clearly a made up job title.

And when I order a double espresso you respond 'double espresso', thus successfully verifying what I ordered. I'm not referring to it as some preposterous Euro-centric vowel laden warble.

Outlook sucks. Gmail is better!

Gmail has completely spoiled me.

Being forced to use Outlook at work is like a punch in the nuts. I need to find an email from November but the insane archiving system in Outlook is making this seem impossible. I have these backups of the Outlook Archive file (.pst) but it appears to be empty. What the hell was the point of archiving! Why don't I have everything available to me? I have a 300 GB harddrive, why is anything gone?