Reality bites

Light blogging of late, I know. But the above title popped into my head and I couldn't let it pass unused as a wrap-up of several points I've been meaning to make:

-- light on blogging = heavy on everything else. Real life is just too busy these days. Everyone bellyaches about late-in-the-semester crunch time, but gosh-darn-it, it's true.

-- Watching Bravo's Top Chef for the first time this season. I like, though it's no Project Runway. I think the biggest problem is the fact that we CAN'T TASTE THE FOOD. It's hard to have a strong opinion on the relative merits of the different contestants' creations when we can't taste them. Yet one can be as opinionated as one likes about the Runway fashions. Fascinated by the emerging tensions between those who cook all avant-garde and those without that sort of training/orientation. Having not watched before, I don't know if one approach tends to win out on this show, but I like the way these tensions about food and taste and cultural hierarchies inform so much of the contest.

-- I think David Cook is my new fave Idol. This is perhaps quite unoriginal, as the judges themselves have begun to fawn of late, but I don't watch this show in an effort to resist the mainstream. But I really wanted to mention the emotional gut-wrench of the tears and hugs these days at elimination time. The end of the elimination eps have been getting me all teary --it's like those speeches from the teams about how much they've learned about their relationships after the Amazing Race eliminations. Tear jerkers all!