Now, here at Chez Krudman we love us some Food Network--especially Iron Chef and Alton Brown, but there is much to smack. And Rachel Ray gives me the willies.
We caught the first few minutes of some kind of Food Network Awards show the other night and changed the channel right quick, just after spotting the California Raisins--I kid you not.
Amazingly, Anthony Bourdain, he of the vicious right-hook sneer and left-uppercut of sarcasm, watched and blogged the whole thing.
With a deft back-hand he manages to destroy the star of a show we've watched a couple of times for the sheer guilty pleasure, Dinner: Impossible:
The overmuscled fuckwit from DINNER SLIGHTLY DIFFICULT delivered the best line: something like "This is the greatest night "ever!" If that was his greatest night ever, I suspect he would say the same thing while being publicly butt-slammed by the San Diego Chicken.
(If you've ever seen his show, by the way--it's hilarious. It's "Knight Rider Meets Leonard's Of Great Neck "" Can four professional cooks make onion dip for 40-- in time?!!!"
Uh oh, another work post. That makes about 4 in the past couple of years. I almost need a category for it.
I'm starting a new job today. Something almost like moving to a new school as a kid. I'm working on the right clothes, the right attitude, the right policies. I want to succeed, I want to be liked, I want to be accepted.
It's been hard to realize that so much of my personal happiness is wrapped up in my job. This wasn't my intent when I got into the technology biz. I was just supposed to be marking time until my book got published. Now, working on my third book, and realizing that I'm still searching for a real voice, it's clear that work is my exit strategy. Another ten years, some careful saving, a little luck, and maybe I can afford to be a full-time writer by the time my kids hit college.
So, here I am, starting again.
For those (many, according to search stats from mybloglog), who've come looking for "Yahoo Product Manager"--that ain't me any more. Try this guy, or this one. Both good guys, BTW.
The outpouring of genuine good wishes and friendship from many quarters at Y! has been extremely gratifying, so I feel like I'm off to the next thing without the usual burning bridges in my wake.
So, goodbye Paid Search and Project Panama, it's been a trip.
Next stop, Technicolor. Online Media can't be so hard, right?
Huh, leave it to the New Guy to be so frickin' naive...
Kurt Vonnegut was the first "serious" writer I ever really embraced on my own. Sure, I had read Dickens and Twain, but never really realized how serious they were, and Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair had been foisted upon me in 11th grade, and Frank Norris, too.
But when I got to college and soon began trading books with my dorm mates, I soon found Vonnegut. I think I read all of the novels in a few weeks. Such was his work, that you could devour it quickly, and the consistency of voice, tone and subject matter (that some people criticize) would just envelop you in a sense that there were folks in the earlier generation who got it. (At the time, I didn't realize that he was more in my grandfather's generation than my parents.)
I think most people get pulled in by the humor, but for me it was the despairing humanity, the bleak view of our culture that resonated.
I love his curmudgeonliness. And that he never stopped being a pain in everyone's ass. And, of course, I love Kilgore Trout. We all need to get more in touch with our alter egos.
I haven't read Vonnegut in twenty years, but I think I'm going to reread Mother Night this weekend.
Happy Birthday, Me. And thank god for that curmudgeon.
So it goes.
There've been some rumbings in the off-stage cockeyed caravan that is my life and I've nearly regained the will to blog. While I actually figure out how to turn my brain back on, enjoy this video. It's an employee training film commissioned by Universal Studios from the South Park guys. For some reason, they never actually ended up using it...