6 posts tagged “qotd”

What books are on your nightstand?

What is your favorite cover song?
Question submitted by Ray.

I really love Shudder to Think's "So Into You". I'd heard it for years before I heard the original Atlanta Rhythm Section version while shopping at a Revco at the foot of Signal Mountain. I knew that I recognized it, and could not figure out where I'd heard it before. It isn't a very faithful rendition, and that's what is so great about it.

The Atlanta Rhythm Section version has a lyric that I just now heard correctly. I've always heard it as "When you walked into the room / there was doodoo in a bag". The internet tells me that's not quite right.

If you could be on any reality TV show, which one would you pick and why?

Hell's Kitchen, easily. I hate most reality shows, unlike Brittney, who is looking forward to catching all of Season 1 of Laguna Beach as soon as I burn it to disc for her. Hell's Kitchen is dramatic and contrived like every other reality show, but in the best way. The contestants are competing for a restaurant and a job. They are working their asses off for the opportunity to work their asses off. Compare this to, say, Big Brother, which seems to be about a bunch of douchbags under house arrest.

For the most part, Chef Gordon Ramsay does a good job deciding which person to send home (and by that, I mean that he picks the person I would have picked). There aren't many people capable of making it through the whole season, and in both seasons, there have been some contestants who I wouldn't hire to cashier. They don't last long, and I kinda wonder how they ever got onto the show. In real life, Ramsay has a staff retention rate of something like 80% over the last 10 years, so he must be pretty good at identifying and hiring people with talent.

If you like cooking or food yelling, the show is really engaging. Brittney gets uptight when they are cooking and things go horribly wrong because she's been the server, having to apologize and see her tips go down in flames when the kitchen screws up. I get fired up when the yelling starts, probably because I spend many days at work biting my toungue.

Channel 4 across the pond had a very different show with Chef Ramsay called Kitchen Nightmares, which I've been watching on the laptop lately. It is even better. It is a sort of cross between Super Nanny and Extreme Home Makeover; he goes to a failing restaurant and watches the kitchen and tries some dishes, and then tells them what they are doing wrong and works with them for a week to fix it. In the ones I've seen, he's gone to a variety of places with very different problems, and his solutions vary, but usually involve doing more things from scratch, reducing prices, getting the owner to show some backbone, and shrinking the menu. It is quite a contrast to see him using very different approaches to teaching people and getting them to understand their situation better, as compared to the yelling that is the focus of Hell's Kitchen.

I would love to work for someone who yelled at me for doing stupid things, but he also listens to these poor lost restaurant owners and boosts their confidence while telling them that they've been serving crap. That's skillful.

What's your favorite drink or cocktail? What's in it?
Question submitted by charm.vox.com

Jack and Diet Coke. Both originally bottled here in Tennessee.

"What did you do this weekend?"

I hadn't been to Red Door East before, but it seemed fine. Nothing really stood out about it, but I also sat on the deck, facing the parking lot, so I didn't really even give it a chance. It was nice to spend more time with people from work but not at work, which was something I once did almost exclusively and now do almost never.

Went car shopping with Brittney. We went to one place, she bought the third car we looked at without even popping the hood, and she signed the financing for more than she had originally expressed a desire for without sleeping on it, spending all day on Google, or writing down numbers on index cards or making spreadsheets. Not my style. As long as she can make rent, it doesn't affect me, and we might even cook more often, which I would prefer anyway. We keep our finances about as seperated as roommates, and we haven't fought about money so far in three years (as of yesterday). I think that's pretty good.

I missed having World Cup games on the TV.

Did some dishes and laundry, had sushi, bought groceries, ate fried ice cream

Called my sister to tell her Happy Birthday, never heard back...

What's the oldest digital camera photo you have on your computer? When is it from? Let's see it!

Picasa says it is one from this folder. This is brittney getting ready for work or something at our first house in Murfreesboro.