Zen of Tofu

Final exams are over, Summer weather is in full swing, and sports are just about the only thing to watch on television. The tube has been quite bland lately in terms of sitcoms, reality shows, and even news! The only exciting things to watch have been the NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, and the occasional F1 races and sessions.

Go Boston Celtics! Even though my country’s team is in the NBA playoffs, I still want to see the Celtics take the championship. The ideal NBA finals would be Lakers vs. Celtics, and that means I want to see the Spurs knocked out very soon. I just can’t stand their team ever since David Robinson retired. Duncan is cool, but the rest of the team are just guys thinking they’re clever.

I’m not a huge fan of hockey by any means, but it makes for good television with the fast pace, violence, and high-scoring games as per the rule changes. Overtime is always exciting too. Out of all the teams, I want to see Colorado win it one more time with all those veterans (Sakic, Forsberg, Foote, Smith).

The F1 season is still young and Ferrari is starting to show their dominance with Kimi Raikkonen showing why he was champion last year. He’s driving quite brilliantly and his teammate, Massa, isn’t too far behind. McLaren on the other hand is clearly lagging behind technologically, because their cars seem to be not as quick despite the abilities of their drivers. BMW Sauber on the other hand are making a strong showing, and challenging Ferrari in the standings, but not always on the time sheets. Tomorrow is race day in Spain with Raikkonen at pole position and McLaren drivers down a few spots of the starting grid. Let’s just hope Hamilton can pull some magic out of his helmet!

P.S. You guys should check out YouTube and search for the “Friday Night Project”. It’s absolutely hilarious! Watch out for Alan’s topical barometer!

written by tofu \\ tags: F1, NBA, NHL, TV

Back on the tele is one of my favourite shows, Hell’s Kitchen, featuring Gordon Ramsay and a bunch of aspiring chefs. The first episode of the season, Gordon made a disguised and great entrance. After blowing his cover, he made all the contestants cook their signature “crap” according to Ramsay. One dish even made him hurl! Oh the drama!

After criticizing all the signature dishes, what followed was one of the worst services ever for the show. These contestants are all over the place, and so far no one has really shined. Some may argue Louross did well, but he just seems weird to me. Just because he can spoke up, it doesn’t mean he can cook.

I find it hard to believe Gordon can hire one of the contestants to become an executive chef of some big restaurant. Just a couple challenges on this show cannot makeup for the years of essential experience needed to run a major restaurant. Inspiration is only 1% of the way to seriously earning such a high position. I can understand if these contestants were required to have formal training, but because the directors & producers of the show are the ones choosing the contestants, they are only looking for the ones who can spice up the show — not earn the position.

We’ll see how things go this season, but I’ll surely enjoy the bollocking these contestants will receive from Ramsay. I hope he gets to show some more of his personality this series, because he can be quite funny as shown when he was on the Jonathon Ross show.

Some other British notables that I love to watch are: Jimmy Carr, Alan Carr, Sean Lock, Vic Reeves, Stephen Fry, and Jamie Oliver.

written by tofu \\ tags: Food, TV

Here’s the video I mentioned about Lewis Hamilton driving on Top Gear’s track. Enjoy!

written by tofu \\ tags: Autos, Cars, TV

Last night I was just flipping through the channels on the tube and was pleasantly surprised to see Gordon Ramsay’s latest TV show airing — Kitchen Nightmares. It was a mediocre episode with enough drama and cursing to make it a Gordon Ramsay show, but it still had a bit of the feel of the UK Kitchen Nightmares series. It lacked some of the structure due to the drama, but I think things will return to a more traditional feel once the season continues.

So far I’ve stayed away from the new seasons of the popular TV shows like Lost or Prison Break, and it seems like I’ll mostly just be looking forward to Kitchen Nightmares. If I start watching all these shows, my grades will definitely suffer. These shows just cover too much of my free time (AKA prime time), and all that free time I should be using towards reading, coding, and calculating. When will the math applications end?! Computer science isn’t the same without the math so I better get used to it!

written by tofu

The Hell’s Kitchen finale was on last night, and I’m pleased to exclaim that Rock won! After the first few episodes I really wanted to see this father of two win the big prize. Both finalists were well qualified for the job but it was apparent that Rock had more experience than Bonnie. At first, things didn’t seem so bright for Rock because his service was held back by one of his mates, but after moving him to a different station, food started flying out of Rock’s kitchen and his customer’s were being fed without any “send-backs.”

Overall, it was a pretty good season except for the Asian cowboy chef who broke down during every episode. I look forward to watching next season’s episodes and I’m still waiting to see how FOX’s version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares turns out. At least the Food network seems to be still airing episodes of the original Kitchen Nightmares. (Last night’s was the huge turnaround for a restaurant known as La Parra.)

written by tofu