A Few Quickies

RIP Gary Gygax. Despite being a prototypical nerdy teen, my major D&D period was in adulthood. For 6 years, I interacted once or even twice weekly in a group that combined the best parts of writing, improvisational theater, and performance art, while eating Doritos and laughing our asses off. Our group eventually broke up for the most adult of reasons: one group member, the DM's wife, was having an affair with the brother of a fellow player; she and the DM got divorced; and the group split amid mutual recriminations. But it was a fabulous, creative period in my life and for that I will always think of Gygax kindly.

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RIP Arthur C. Clarke. To be truthful, I was never that big a fan. Like many of the so-called Golden Age science fiction writers, Clarke had some great ideas but was too concerned with gadgets, not enough with characters. However, his Hugo-winning stories "The Star" and "The Nine Billion Names of God" are both filled with a numinous sense of wonder and are among the finest short stories I've ever read.

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How weird is it that within the same week I read two books that couldn't be more different -- Christine Falls and Flight Lessons -- but whose plots both hinged on the fact that, at some time in the past, a guy married the wrong sister because Sexy Sister would sleep with him and True Love Sister wouldn't?

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My sister and I once took a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to LA. Along the way are miles-long stretches where there's nothing but the ocean on one side of the road and on the other, grazing cows in meadows that any sane person would build a dream house on. Every time one of those happy cow California cheese commercials comes on, we look at each other and say, "It must be the million-dollar views."

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I thought Hung already won Top Chef season 3. What's he doing back this time, masquerading under fellow competitor Dale's name?

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A Bellini. A blini. Not the same, Valerie, thank you very much. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, and say hi to your equally annoying sister Melissa when you get home.

Delicious Anticipation

Yay! Hell's Kitchen is back. Another fun season of watching British super-chef Gordon Ramsay bellow, bully, and abuse a group of chefs hoping to land a quarter-million bucks and a great job. I'm not aboard the Ramsay-is-so-hott! train (he actually does, as loudmouth Vinnie said, look like a shar pei), but I find him vastly entertaining. No one of the contestants really stands out for me so far, but I'm solidly behind Waffle House Julia, whose colleagues treated her with inexcusable rudeness and snobbery to their own detriment (well, duh, wouldn't you think a short-order cook would be the first choice to fry eggs?).

I'm also looking forward, with some trepidation, to the third season of Top Chef, which starts tomorrow with a face-off between the top finishers from Seasons 1 and 2. After their nonstop pettiness and accusations of cheating, not to mention the outright assault, the entire cast of S2 (aside from Marcel) is dead to me; they make even S1's Stephen and Tiffani look good by comparison. Plus, Ilan isn't fit to flip Harold's burger. So you know which team I'm on.

S3 proper starts next week. It looks like they have made some needed changes, including hiring Lee Anne Wong to coordinate the challenges and adding Ted Allen as a judge to bring some warmth to the rude and dismissive Tom Colicchio. Let's hope the producers learned their lessons from what went wrong last time, cast the cheftestants for talent rather than personality, and keep the focus on the food, not the drama. (In other words, follow the example of Shear Genius, which managed to be remarkably professional, pleasant, and conflict-free.) But if it starts to look like S2 all over again, I'm out of there.

It'll be interesting to watch the two shows side by side. Although both are cooking competitions, they really call for different skills. TC stresses creativity, thinking on your feet, and doing your own thing; HK values consistency, organization, and teamwork. Not to mention a thick hide when Ramsay unleashes his blistering tongue on you. Ah, yes, this should be fun.

Edited June 7 to add re: TC S1/S2 Smackdown: what I said.