“The Next Food Network Star” ended last weekend, but I just got around to watching the finale. I’ve never really liked reality TV, so I’ve really got no excuse for getting sucked into that show. Of course, I can’t cook more than hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches, so I’ve got no excuse for watching so much of the Food Network, either.

The show had the Marc Summers taint all over it: it looked like a real reality show, but it was overwhelmingly safe. Every time it seemed like there was going to be some drama, it quickly cut away. Everybody pretty much got along the whole time, they were all pretty supportive of each other and seemed genuinely sad when another person got eliminated. And whenever anyone did get eliminated, they learned something valuable from the whole experience. It was kind of like “Seventh Heaven,” but more boring.

Still, I was all over that. As soon as they introduced everybody, my favorite to go all the way was Jess Yang, who would’ve been great because she’s young and seems genuinely nice and enthusiastic, and she would’ve taught people how to cook Asian food, which nobody else on the network ever does. So she was the first to get eliminated.

After that, all my favorite choices got knocked off, right down to the final three. I thought it should’ve been between Carissa, who’s hot, and Guy, who seemed like a nice enough guy and charismatic enough to have a show. But she got eliminated. At least Guy won; it’ll be like every other show on the Food Network, but then pretty much every show already on the network is like every other show on the network. And at least he’s better than the annoying couple that won last year.

Watching enough of the contest convinced me it’d be a bad idea to enter with my “Bachelor Chef” series idea. It’d still be a good show — fat, lazy guy has thirty minutes to make a meal for one with only what he has on hand, meaning we finally see some interesting variations on hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. I just don’t think I’m the guy to host it.

But it did make me realize what is the big gaping void in the network’s programming. They don’t have a comedy. Alton Brown tries to be funny on “Good Eats,” and George Duran gets a little closer on “Ham on the Street,” but they’re both more corny than genuinely funny. “Good Eats” relies too much on Atlanta-area community theater performers, and “Ham on the Street” relies too much on random people freaking out when he’s made them eat something with French cheese in it.

The network doesn’t have any original programming that’s nearly as compelling as “Iron Chef.” Their attempt at an American version of “Iron Chef” just proves that they don’t get what makes “Iron Chef” cool — it’s not really a cooking show.

So here’s my totally free pitch for the next Food Network breakout hit: it’s called “In the Night Kitchen.” It’s a combination of “Iron Chef” with “Dark Shadows” and “Passions.” (Food Network’s main audience are women and geeks; geeks love “Dark Shadows,” women love soap operas. It’s Science.) The main character is The Baron, who was considered the greatest chef in the world until some mysterious scandal ruined his career. He fled to a castle in the Czechoslavakian countryside, where he broods and cooks. If you want, you can make him a vampire or a ninja. He’s got secrets, is the thing. Sometimes, in the dark of the night, you’ll find him in his kitchen, preparing some of the most amazing dishes imaginable, and cursing the fact that only he will be able to enjoy them.

The Countess Porcheska is really hot and secretly an agent of Interpol trying to expose The Baron’s secrets. She frequently visits with ingredients. She’s drawn to the charms of the Baron as much as she tries to deny it and stay focused on her task. There’s assloads of chemistry there.

Occasionally, a challenger comes to the Night Kitchen, seeking to overthrow The Baron. The Baron must win the contest without revealing his true identity to the Countess. The loser of the battle (it’s never the Baron, obviously) must commit ritual seppuku with a ladle.

There are also frequent visits by aliens, werewolves, ronin, turn-of-the-century explorers with some rare theme ingredient, and pastry chefs. The other big drama on The Food Network is their pastry competitions, where you watch for an hour just to see somebody drop the sugar sculpture while trying to take it to the table. So there’s that.

And the real genius? Val Kilmer. The real genius about this idea? It’s only thirty minutes long. He never finishes an entire recipe in one episode. You have to keep watching to get the whole thing. I can’t imagine why they haven’t done that before.

This idea is pure gold, and I’m giving it away for free on the internets. It’s got cult hit written all over it.

A couple of blogs have linked to this movie critic’s list of 102 Movies You Must See Before You Die. As far as I can make out, it was written in 1999 and brought back to life in response to this book of 1001 entries. Mac has a copy of that book, and from what I saw, it’s missing some key movies and includes some others that I would’ve left out.

The shorter list is a lot easier to deal with, though. I’m going to copy Emerson’s list and mark the ones I have seen in bold. I’m kind of surprised I have so few problems with the list — I don’t agree with it 100%, but as far as the nebulous concept of “movie literacy” goes, it seems to be pretty dead-on.
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Pretty much every single one of my hobbies, and for that matter most of my professional career, has the taint of arrested development around it. I like videogames and theme parks enough to get jobs working for them, at least half of my TiVo season passes are on Cartoon Network and the Disney Channel, and I’ve got almost as many comic books as I do gray hairs.

So I’m familiar with the whole “but blank isn’t just for kids!” argument. So familiar, that I’m pretty sick of it.

First, it’s pretty dull at this point. The people who matter have already caught on, and those who are still convinced that it’s all inherently juvenile are never going to be convinced otherwise. “The Simpsons” and even “South Park” have been on for so long at this point, they’ve already gone through their cycles of being dismissed/cult favorites/popular favorites/tired sell-outs. There are still flare-ups here and there, especially around videogame violence, but for the most part it’s background noise. Big business doesn’t care one way or the other as long as there’s money involved, and at the moment, there’s a lot of money in videogames and animation.

Second, the argument is always being made by people who are a little too desperate to believe it’s true, and who somehow always end up shooting the argument in the foot. They’ll start quoting statistics and end up saying stuff like, “Research has shown time and again that the median age of videogame players is 25 and rising, and to dismiss it as juvenile is just — hey, look! Boobies!”

This list of “15 Animated Films For Grown-Ups” from The Onion AV Club manages to do both. (Of course, it’s The Onion AV Club, so it’s “Animated Films” in the title, but if I started going off about the Pompous Hipster mentality, I’d never stop). The AV Club used to do round-ups of “The Most Inessential Albums of the Year” (maybe they still do); this list feels like a candidate for Most Inessential Pop Culture Commentary On the Internet.

For starters, the whole concept is stupid on two fronts. First, because it distinguishes animated movies from the live-action ones, which is a distinction only the Academy Awards makes nowadays. And we’re hipsters, right? We’re supposed to hate the Oscars. Second, because as it tries to assert that animated movies aren’t just for kids, it starts with the assumption that people still think they are just for kids.

Then, there’s the apparent criteria for entry. Read enough of the comments, and what do you see pop up again and again? Porn. Sex. Boobies. Violence. All of which are aces in my book, but is that what makes something “adult?” What about concept, tone, message, or execution?

What’s heartbreaking is that the author seems to be aware of the basic distinction, but not enough to compile a simple 15-item list based on it. There are frequent mentions of “teen raunch” and “the old sex-and-violence tropes,” but except for three of the entries, that old sex-and-violence is the only thing that seems to be required to be “adult.”

And the list itself is so damn boring. Fritz the Cat? Seriously? Does anyone out there, anywhere still think this movie has any value at all? I could go on for another 10 pages about all the ways Ralph Bakshi sucks, but I was under the impression that at least he’d used up all of his pop culture cred from making a cartoon movie about cartoon cats screwing each other. I thought even the most knee-jerk simple-minded hipster had already accepted long ago that the movie had no value even as an anti-Disney novelty.

The list makes a long disclaimer about not including more than one anime movie on the list of “films for grown-ups,” and then includes Akira? The movie about teenagers on street bikes fighting each other with psychic powers? Yeah, it’s a great movie, but whenever I think of it, “adult” doesn’t spring to mind. The list mentions Perfect Blue; what about Millennium Actress? That’s one of the most mature, moving animated movies I’ve ever seen.

I don’t really need to say any more about the inclusion of Heavy Metal, right? The author makes another long disclaimer about how adolescent a movie it is, but includes it anyway. And — here’s the kicker — also includes Rock and Rule for good measure.

The whole thing is just dumb, and it pushed my “animation” and “pompous hipster” and “stupid generalization” buttons all at once, which automatically generates a blog post. And it’s been said so many times that it’s become trite itself, but it’s still true: the best movies aren’t ones that are made for kids or for adults, but don’t pander to any audience and just stay true to themselves.

Now, it may seem like a cop-out not to include my own list, but like I said, I think the whole idea is stupid; both for making distinctions between animation and live-action, and for not making a distinction between “adult” and “adolescent.”

Plus I just tried to, and realized I haven’t seen enough feature-length animation to come up with 10.

Man, I’ve got to stop reading the internets. There’s no way in hell I’ve got enough time to make it through TV In Japan. It’s like being on a commuter train and the passenger before you left a box full of candy and Star Wars toys under the seat and you don’t find it until five minutes before your stop so there’s no time to play with it all but still you can’t just leave it and come back to it later.

All I’ve had time for so far is Bob Sapp is Fire, which is “Hey Hey Hey Music Champ” Variety Show-style wacky with a big black guy rapping. I don’t know who the dude is (I guess he’s featured in other videos), but he seems jolly enough.

It all got me wondering what life is like for advertising people in Japan. There’s a stereotype about Japanese companies being stressful anyway, and at least if you believe “Bewitched,” working for an advertising company in the US is stressful enough. Are the guys who work on Tokyo’s equivalent of Madison Avenue just killing themselves every day to find a way to top the last ad? Do they have gruff, fat-cat bosses who threaten to fire them if they don’t come up with something by tomorrow that’ll top the three guys dressed as canteloupes jumping on trampolines with singing raccoons? Or do they all have magic wives who come up with genius pitches at the last minute to cover up some wacky family hijinx?

Inscrutable.

Oh yeah, and I’ve seen this commercial a while ago, so it’s probably old news. But it does have a tanuki in it, which means I’m a fan.

I just got my bill in the mail from my three-hour long hospital stay.

I’m getting on the phone with Blue Cross right now to get medical insurance. It’s funny how all the times I thought “I never used the insurance when I had it from work, and it’s too expensive to pay that much monthly for something I’ll never use” seems… short-sighted.

And it’s funny how my opinion about socialized medicine and standardized health insurance can change from the capitalist “it’s not my problem” to the liberal “everyone has a right to proper health care!” so quickly, once it’s my capital that’s being affected.

As for how much it is: I could’ve gotten two new computers. I guess it’s just a good thing I didn’t have to stay overnight. Still, did I really need three whole bags of IV solution? Couldn’t they have just given me one and a bunch of Gatorade?

Update: Oh, that’s right. Now I remember why I didn’t sign up for insurance before, and it’s not just because I’m lazy and a cheapskate. It’s because insurance companies are all bottom-feeding pederasts who exist solely to make money, and will do everything in their power to avoid having to provide their customers with service.

The friendly folks at Blue Cross — yes, the same ones who’ve sent me one letter a week for the past six months begging me to call them and set up a plan — have turned me down. Turns out that if you’ve been to an emergency room in the past three to six months — in other words, if you’re the type of person who could benefit from having medical insurance — you’re not eligible to get medical insurance.

My options? The guy told me he couldn’t stop me from applying, but that it would be rejected. So in other words, no options. I just get to go without doctor visits, dentist visits, or new glasses for at least six months, or pay out of my own pocket. God forbid I get another case of stomach flu.

What gets me is that it’s such an obvious protection racket that it should be criminal, but it’s not only allowed, it’s encouraged. What about the people who really need health care, not just check-ups and the occasional emergency?

I finally got my computer dual-booting into Windows, and everything I need for work installed on the Windows partition. That only took two days.

It’s not Apple’s fault; BootCamp couldn’t be simpler or easier to use. And I guess it’s not Windows’ fault either, since once I had an official install, it worked without hassle. It’s just that it’s been so long since I’ve used a machine that didn’t already have everything pre-installed, I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass it is to get everything up and running. Even if it is just a matter of clicking “Next” and waiting an hour.

So far, everything’s worked pretty much as expected. A couple of crashes and failure to boot, but that’s included in the “working as expected.” I installed a virus scanner (and on its first scan, on a clean install of Windows XP I’d done just one day ago, it reported four viruses found — no joke) and Firefox and everything I need for work, and it all works fine. For yuks I installed Civilization IV, and that works fine.

I also tried out that Parallels Workstation. Even in beta, it works exactly as advertised, allowing both OS X and Windows to run simultaneously. I’ve already uninstalled it, though, since at least in the Beta version, it can’t access any of my Mac files or even the Windows files on my other partition. Which makes it, at least at the moment, a non-functional novelty. (But a very solid one, I’ve got to admit).

And I got out of Windows as quickly as possible. Call me an OS snob; that’s a fair accusation. Windows just feels all underpowered and ugly now. Maybe Vista will improve the experience, but everything I’ve seen just looks like Microsoft trying to do OS X. Even if they succeed, why should I care? All of the apps I need that are Windows-only are still going to be as ugly and kludgey in Vista as they are in XP. And the home-user stuff that Vista’s emphasizing — photo viewers, music players, etc. — don’t promise anything I’m not already getting from iPhoto and iTunes and the like.

The internet is full-to-bursting with self-important nerds who are simultaneously obsessed beyond reason with the minutiae of their chosen hobby and convinced that they could do a better job than the people currently in charge of that hobby.

This isn’t breaking news. It happens with movies, comic books, television series (somehow, Joss Whedon remains exempt), and I imagine it happens with stuff I’m not a nerdy fan of myself. I’ll bet that the world of Civil War re-enactments has its own little dramas playing out, with people resentful at the ego-maniac glory hound who insists on playing Grant with copper buttons on his uniform although any real devotee of history knows that Grant insisted on bronze buttons because of an incident in a copper mine when he was three.

So if this behavior is all just part of the natural gestalt of the internets, why does reading The Re-Imagineering Blog make me want to hit the writers of that site repeatedly over the head with a manure-filled sock?

Because, as we’ve learned from Robert Louis Stevenson and countless Lifetime TV movies, we fear the darkness that lives within us all. And I hate the Walt Disney World version of the Enchanted Tiki Room, and I think that the WDW version of The Tower of Terror is infinitely better than Disneyland’s.

I just don’t think you’ve got to be such a damn douche about it.

These guys call their blog “Re-Imagineering,” but they don’t do much other than bitch and moan, and parrot back public-relations quotes from Walt Disney about magic and imagination as if they’d just won some kind of argument. You could make a pretty convincing argument that the greatest talent of Disney (the man) was in selling himself and his ideas. As much as we like to believe otherwise, the real world doesn’t reward you with such a long-lasting legacy and reputation based on talent alone — you can be the greatest visionary the world’s ever seen, but it’s not worth anything if no one listens to you.

So all the Disney quotes and truisms that get passed around do have some genuine value. It’s just not so much value for making a theme park, but selling it. Of course, that’s not all that Disney did — he had great ideas and very importantly, knew how to find the guys who knew how to make those ideas work, and get them on his side. Any idiot can just say, “Disney theme parks should be magical.”

And they do, repeatedly, all over the internets. There’s all kinds of moaning and hand-wringing and people saying, completely without irony, “What would Walt think?!?” But if the guys on this blog are putting themselves forward as “Pixar and Disney professionals,” it’s not enough to just complain about how things just ain’t like they used to be. They need to put up or shut up.

And, incidentally, stop being so long-winded, pompous, and sanctimonious. Everything I read from the writers of that site reminds me of the Achewood strip where they prank call Garfield.
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As it turns out, I’m weak. The lure of a faster Mac and a laptop that runs Windows was too much for me to resist. I ended up getting a MacBook Pro.

What finally sent me over the edge was realizing that I wasn’t just making some rationalization — it really is a legitimate business expense. That I can write off on my taxes and everything. Every time I go Down South I’ve got to make excuses about not being able to run stuff on my laptop because it’s Mac-only, and if I’m going to be at the theme park for weeks at a time at the end of the summer, it’s going to be essential to have a Windows machine.

For now, though, it runs World of Warcraft really well. (Note to auditors reading this blog: I’m only going to write off half of it as a business expense). Everything else seems slightly faster, but that may just be my imagination.

As for actually running Windows on the thing: I can’t report on that yet. Turns out that they’re serious when they say you need to buy a full, dedicated Windows XP SP2 install. I imagined that I had tons of Windows discs lying around, but was unable to find one. (Something tells me that there’s going to be some future crucial bit of Mac tech that relies on having an AOL installation disc, and I’ll need it right after I’ve thrown out the last spare one I have…) The version that came with my old Dell got me all the way through the two-hour-long install process, only to fail at the end because of some missing USB driver file.

So I ended up having to buy a new copy of Windows XP, which I swore I’d never do. (At least the dual boot thing qualifies for the license of the OEM version, so you don’t have to buy a full blown retail version). Once it comes in the mail, I’ll be able to say whether I have any success with it.

One thing I did notice during my installation attempts last night: Windows sucks. Sure, I use it every day for work, but that’s in an OS-agnostic IDE. And I use it mainly for games, which don’t care about the OS anyway. Actually using Windows — in particular, setting up network connections and organizing files and such — is just unpleasant. I was wondering if that was part of the impetus behind BootCamp in the first place, to take all of us complacent OS X users and remind us just how good we have it.

I can’t even put my finger on what it is exactly that bugs me about using Windows now; it just has this vague off-brand feel to it. Like eating a bunch of Oreos and then biting into a Hydrox. Or seeing an episode of “Alias” with Hilary Swank instead of Jennifer Garner. Or watching a movie for Natalie Portman and then realizing you got one with Keira Knightley instead. [and btw, thanks to NBC for saving us from having to search the web for "borrowed" NBC highlights!]

Still: hot damn! I got a new computer!