I've spent the last hour or so watching the ICA - preview, and now its time get it on
Yukio Hatori has a Ph.D. in nutrition, I believe
Okay, Alton as commentator is ok, but there really liked the Fukui and Hattori interplay better. I really miss BDJ too.
Ha, no surprise that Sakai would bust out the circle mold or that Flay would smoke something.
Great judge selections, I thought, other than Unger
Why didn't the Sous-Chefs get introduced, if they were going to be named during the show?
Morimoto could actually be a good commentator.
Sakai's grilled trout looked totally excellent.
Half-way-through-review. This version of Iron Chef is almost too much a cult of personality show. The original was about the cooking, the various styles of cusine -- the focus was on the technique, the ingredients and the dishes; this is almost seems like a huge ego trip for the Chefs instead. The "very hansome" Bobby Flay, for example. Geeze!
Yes, Alton, there was an Ice Cream maker on the original show. Did you ever watch? Who could forget Cod Soft Roe Ice Cream
I'm left wondering what the actual dishes are at the end of the cooking. That's a different and awkward feeling.
Flay: Tappas, seemed very inventive; Coconut soup looked really good; Panned Trout looked nice; Fried Trout and Tamales seemed good too.
Sakai: Trout custard looked killer; the Tartare looked totally awesome; Spicy Trout Soup made me hungry for Zac's Nabe; and the carpaccio seemed excellent; I think the trout Ice Cream actually worked.
Okay, I see something I'm not going to like. In the original IC, scoring for taste was supposed to be based on how well the dish presented the flavor of the ingredient, it appears that the scoring here would be based on a less objective (well, yes, I know, it's all mostly subjective...) standard of "how much did you like it or not. I don't think that measures a chefs skills quite as well. Based on what I saw, I'd say Sakai clearly won. Not a clean slam, but at least by two or three points per dish.
Chen instead of Morimoto would have been awesome, its too bad that they could have had all four ICs take on Flay, Batali, Puck and Tsai. Oh wait, Tsai seems to be banished to the waste lands of Food Network... Kind of like David Rosengarten.
Yep, I knew it, Sakai got screwed. Ego-stroking all the way. Who ever gave Flay more points for originallity just needs to have their judge status revoked.
Thank God Battle Jinhua Pork was on following this. One of the best IC episodes, IMHO.
I guess its official that I'm now what Microsoft considers a "Community Rock Star." It's a cool honor and I'm very humbled that MS would think of me in that way. It does mean that I'm going to TechEd as MS's guest and that just completely rocks! I'm not sure what else that means though, but as I find out, so will you.
On the other hand, how many other Rock Stars have come from Omaha? 311 doesn't count, really. So, who is left? No really, name one other... Ok, name somebody in the music industry from Omaha that's well known? Come on, I double-dog-dare ya.
Give up?
Chip Davis of Mannheim Steamroller .
Scary likness isn't it?
No, not every male Omahan between the ages of 37 and 57 is an overweight, hairysuited, glasses wearning, techno-geeky bearded nerd. Not even most. Just some. Really.
Once again into the breaches... its so weird here at Wheatfields this morning, there smoke everywhere. It doesn't smell bad, its just very, very visibile.
Lots of thoughts about InfoTec first
- The facility, while nice, felt way too big for the size of the show. Most of the sessions I went to were setup with seating for 40, yet they had 15 to 25 people in them. That makes attendence seem lots worse than it actually was.
- Ok, so you have 16 conference rooms that could reasonable hold 80 people at best. At best, maybe as many as 1 in four them would use wireless access if it was available. What would be so hard about putting a WAP in each room so access would be decendent? I shelled out $10 for a day pass yesterday and got exactly 384 packets out and 122 packets in. Otherwise, the signal was so bad or there was so much cross talk between devices that probably none of them worked well. But then I noticed that I was about that may only five other attendees were even using a laptop or tablet at the event.
- Should I get invited to speak again next year, I want to do a session on Yuko... err... SQL Server 2005. Talked to Bob McCoy too. We might do a joint presentation on Longhorn if that fits. Bob is really good at securing Windows Networks and dealing with the Infrastructure products.
- At next year's show, we should have a different strategy about the Users' Group Booth. The Omaha Linux User's group looked really busy because they were out and engage the traffic. We kind of sat back and let people come to us. We also didn't have really great materials about ourselves and what we do. We need to work on that. It would be interesting to see if we couldn't get one of the meeting rooms during one of the conference nights and have our meeting there. It might attract more and different blood.
- One of the best lines I heard at the conference was: Its not the bandwidth, its the error rate. That makes total sense to me now on a personal level. Sometimes I get into a manic-like state and go about one million miles an hour. Long the way, I make mistakes. I need to slow down a bit and hopefully make fewer mistakes.
Other stuff
- I'm having a little mini-vacation next week. Going to the Twin Cities for a Community Rock Star Meeting (I guess thats what I am now) and am planning on hitting the Summit Brewery on my way over to Black River Falls to see my brother and his wife. Then the following week, Janell and I are driving back up again. I'll be so relaxed by the middle of May...
- It was two years ago today that we burried my Mother. Sad day and I miss her a lot. Its like it was a million years ago yet it seems like yesterday too.
- Does anybody have any recommendations for a fairly good HTML editor for the PocketPC? It would making getting content out into the blog easier. Before heading off to TechEd, I want to find a usable keyboard for the VS37 and lug that around instead of this brick of a laptop.
- I want to learn more about Mono and ASP.NET, just need to prioritize it.
- I've got 22 emails that waiting in my "Do This First" folder. Doesn't look like it's going to be a very pretty day productivity-wise.