Girl Friday

Congrats to Andrew Zimmern!

A big hug and congratulations to Andrew Zimmern for winning the James Beard Foundation Media Award for top TV Food Personality. Andrew's show, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, is in its 5th season on The Travel Channel.

I was chatting on the phone with Chandrew the week before the Media Awards weekend and there was no doubt in his mind that Alton Brown or Rick Bayless (both also super dudes with super shows) would win in his category. He didn't think he had a chance.

Goes to show what you know, Lil' A. Congratulations!

Thank you, Taylor.

For forwarding this.

Happy Notary Public Day (Tomorrow)

Yeah, that's right. We get a day, too.

November 7th is Notary Public Day, so make sure to say what up to your favorite notary public.

So the day after I moved into my new apartment, I got swine flu. I finally left the house yesterday and worked and socialized like a normal human being, even though I'm not quite sure I feel normal yet. After three days of 101 to 103-degree fevers and four straight days of watching "Lost" on DVD, I'm not sure I'm fully immersed in reality.

I'd never seen this show before and now I've cleared the first three seasons. I was shocked, absolutely shocked, to learn that it's still on the air, concluding this spring. Seriously?! They are not off the island? And they still don't know why they're there? I don't know if I could even handle the frustration of watching three more seasons.

And the nominees are...

Cast of TNG on Family Guy This Sunday

Holy mole, the cast of Star Trek: TNG reunites on this Sunday's episode of Family Guy.  They even made a trailer for the episode and it's hilarious.  I can't wait to catch the show.

Seth McFarlane is a huge Star Trek nerd; you can actually spot him in a cameo role in two episodes of Enterprise.

Getting Sexy with Andrew Zimmern

Tune into the Travel Channel tomorrow (Tuesday) night to catch me on "Sexy Food," a fun spin-off show I shot with Chandrew.  We'll drink, we'll dine, we'll provide interesting bumpers for what is essentially a clip show to segue into the new season.

Here's a little photo slideshow from the shoot.  That rockstar-looking gentleman pouring cocktails is, of course, Johnny Michaels of La Belle Vie.

The show will air back to back at 9:00pm and 10:00pm CST.

[Edit: Here's a sneak preview from the website.]

Speaking of cocktails, it's worth noting that I discovered a cure for hangovers over the weekend: Trace Minerals Electrolyte Stamina Power Pack.  You can read what I have to say about it over on vita.mn.

TPT Create becomes TPT LIFE

I just opened up my cable bill and just happened to notice a little sidebar with some devastating news: "Effective 2/17/09 TPT is eliminating Create Ch. 204."

What?!  This is my favorite channel!  All cooking, crafting and travel shows all the time, but with no commercials.

The notice also states: "Also, effective 2/18/09 TPT-17 (Ch. 13) will become TPT Life."

Is this the new Create, then?  Oh sure, here we go.  From TPT's Digital Channel Updates page: "... we are launching our own new channel tpt LIFE, that will include most of the lifestyle and how-to programs shown on tpt Create. Prime-time on tpt LIFE will be almost entirely devoted to this genre of programming, and with much higher picture and sound quality than shown on Create."

Whew.  Carry on, everyone.

Oops

Apparently, the episode of HGTV's Decorating Cents I was on just aired and ended 8 minutes ago. 

I can only imagine it'll be rerun several dozen times over the next year.

But oh, you can catch me on February 10th on the Travel Channel with Lil' A.  It looks like the "Sexy Food" special we shot at Hell's Kitchen will be airing at 9:00pm and 10:00pm?  Someone may want to confirm that.

Protesting, Rioting, Blogging: The RNC

I have not set foot in St. Paul--nor have I ventured into downtown Minneapolis since Saturday night when Cristina and I went to Barrio, the details of which are forthcoming--and I don't plan to until this RNC crap is all over.  Actually, even then I probably won't be over there for a while because, well, it's St. Paul.

I have a lot of media and media-loving friends, though, and they've all been over there.  Naturally, you have Chuck with The Uptake, then Coco was down there catching some riot cops on camera and of course Steve, my favorite local writer, journalistic and otherwise, is all over the convention.

Aaron also experienced the RNC protest movement and all its glory, writing about it in a slightly disturbing blog post.  One that made me think twice about my previous belief that, if the cops weren't walking around in preemptive riot gear and spinning their batons, the protesters wouldn't be acting so insolently.  But now I don't know; these protesters seem, as Aaron calls them, "fairly unorganized" without any agreement on their goals.  And what's with the senseless destruction of personal property?  Smashing car mirrors, throwing bricks through retail buildings.  What a bunch of dicks.

But then again, these people are angry for all the right reasons.  Hell, I'm angry.  So angry my eyes well up when I think about soldiers being deployed and stop-lossed, unlawfully detained prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, and the fact that the Administration has somehow convinced Americans that undocumented Mexicans are not only a recent phenomenon, but are somehow a severe threat to our economy.  ($340 million dollars a day spent on combat efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan sounds like a threat to our economy, if you ask me.)

So I get it, I get feeling so angry that you can't even contain it, that you have rage inside of you.  But I also think the anger might be a little misdirected.  Rich seems to share my opinion here in that protesting and basically rioting in the streets of St. Paul with not much of an audience is just sensationalist overkill.  Yes, we have the bloggers, dutifully posting to YouTube and Flickr, but every time I turn on CNN or any other news source watched by the majority of Americans, they're talking about Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston.