Ramblings about entertainment and other things
If you’re at all interested in World of Warcraft you should be listening to “The Instance” podcast for news, tips and general info on the game.
I’ve been recording a segment that’s been running at the end of that podcast called “Ask Buxley”. If you’re interested, you can listen to it at the website.
Kitchen Nightmares – Giuseppi’s
Gordon visited Giuseppi’s in order to get the restaurant turned around, and it looked like it wasn’t going to be easy. The restaurant was opened two years ago. The state of the restaurant was that there weren’t many customers. The parents, Joe and Kathy of the head chef had opened this restaurant in the hope they could pass it down to their son, but it just wasn’t working out. The parents were working 20 hours a week, Joe didn’t have faith in his son Sam, and the food was terrible.
Gordon tried the food – the octopus salad was rubbery and he thought his eggplant had been nuked in the microwave (it had). Gordon questioned the whole idea of having potato skins on the menu too. (And they weren’t good either). After telling everyone what he thought, Gordon left until later that afternoon.
When he came back, Gordon went to the kitchen and immediately insulted one of the waitresses by calling her a Cucktoo. When the customers started to come, the microwave went into overdrive and the food was going out quick. The food started coming back – it was either cold (and re-nuked), or just not seasoned correctly. The kitchen sure seemed to have two head chefs – Joe and Sam… but nothing was working. Joe finally kicked Sam out of the kitchen.
Gordon’s assessment at this point is that Sam and Brian (the sous chef) were doing OK, but were cooking a bit fast. Then Joe would walk in, bark some orders and leave, after treating Sam like dirt, which Gordon called “sad”.
After the dinner service, Gordon critcized the use of the microwave. Sam spoke up and told Gordon that he wanted to cook fresh. Gordon asked “Is Sam a good chef?” Joe’s response? “He likes to cook”. Joe’s weakness? “You’re not comitted”. At this point, things broke down and it came out that Sam has been trying to get Joe’s attention since he was 13.
Gordon sat down with Joe the next day, and they discussed Joe’s diabetes. Gordon told Joe that he had to slow down.
Next, Gordon challenged Joe and Sam to make any dish they wanted, and the winner of the tasting (by the staff) would have that dish go on the menu. Sam made salmon, and Joe made a stuffed center-cut pork chop with seared scallops. The score ended up being Joe, 4 and Sam, 2. Gordon decided that BOTH dishes went on the menu. Afterwards, it seemed that everyone was pretty fired up about the new dishes.
Gordon took Kathy aside and told her that he’d never quite run across a restaurant with such bad communication. He told her to write a letter and tell them exactly what she felt, but not to show it to them.
Next Gordon took Sam aside and told him to write a letter to his father. Gordon said he would take the letter.
At food service that night, Joe was to be expediting, and Sam was to be working the line. The food started going out to the customer’s satisfaction, but soon Joe started taking over the kitchen and cooking. Gordon called him on it and told him to expedite. Gordon finally got Sam to get Joe to get off the line.
The service finishes well. Gordon told Joe to write a letter to Sam, but to make sure to keep it for Gordon.
Gordon got everyone together and told them they’d relaunch the next morning. The Kitchen Nightmares crew went through and changed the place completely. It was a GREAT improvement. It looked great!
Gordon decided to market the relaunch through a “Giuseppe’s Bowl-A-Thon for Diabetes”. They raised money, served samples, and had a great success.
That afternoon, Gordon presented a new menu and it looked like everything was going to go well.
That night, Sam was on the line, and Joe was given the task to expedite. Orders started coming in. Thirty minutes in, and Joe was back on the line. Food started coming back, and Sam kept trying to get Joe off the line. Joe kept trying to get back, and they kept telling him to rest.
The kitchen was deterating, food came back, the sous chef was goofing around. Customers weren’t happy. Gordon tried to correct it, but, Brian told Gordon, “I blame this all on you”. Well, that went over about as well as you think it probably did… it didn’t go over well AT ALL. Gordon called him on it, and Brian walked out. (So did the customers).
It turns out that was just the thing that was needed to bring Joe and Sam together. They finished service and ended with a successful service. Joe told Sam, “You did an excellent job today”. I think that meant a lot to Sam.
It was a successful end of the night. Gordon got Sam, Kathy and Joe together, and told them to each read the letters they had written. They were all heartfelt letters, and they all were pretty broken up. It brought them all closer together.
Just got the following:
ATTENTION ALL RECRUITS
RE: RELEASE OF TEST 5 AND
CLOSING DATE OF RECRUITMENT PROGRAMNamaste.
I am pleased to announce the release of the fifth assessment in the Dharma Initiative’s Volunteer Recruitment Program is now available at www.dharmawantsyou.com.
The latest test in the program is a Numeric Projection Evaluation. It will assess a recruit’s ability to recognize a variety of patterns in numeric series.
In response to the impressive progress of a number of recruits I have devised a number of particularly challenging questions in this latest evaluation.
IMPORTANT: CLOSING DATE OF RECRUITMENT PROGRAM
Please be aware that the Volunteer Recruitment Program will officially close at 12:00PM PDT on October 7, 2008.
All testing procedures, including Recruit Created Assessments, will be inaccessible after this date.
All recruits are advised to complete their assessments by this time.
Following the completion of the program, the Recruit Evaluation Panel will collect all assessment data for processing and analysis in order to determine final volunteer roles and group allocations within the Dharma Initiative’s latest research project. This information will be collated in a personalized Volunteer Assessment Dossier for each recruit.
Having supervised the recruitment program thus far, I am extremely optimistic that the ranks of the Dharma Initiative will soon be greatly enhanced by the new recruits.
Namaste.
Hans Van Eeghen
Head of Recruiting
The Dharma Initiative
What the heck is going on here? Has someone been downing Pangalacticgargleblasters? A new Hitcherhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy book? What?
Yep, it’s true. BBC is reporting that Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series, has been commissioned to write “And Another Thing…“, the sixth book in the Hitcherhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Series.
“I feel more pressure to perform now than I ever have with my own books,” he said, adding that he was “determined that this will be the best thing I have ever written”.
Via BBC
Some random thoughts about “The Same Old Story”, Fringe’s episode tonight.
After watching tonight’s Fringe episode, “The Same Old Story”, I’m not sure if the show is going to be a huge hit, or whether people are going to turn away from it complete disgust. I refer to the complete lack of a warning that should have said “WARNING! EYEBALL SURGERY! BARF-O-RAMA! REALLY! IT’S GROSS!”. Yeah, I rewound to check… Nope, no warning like that.
I’m not sure what to make of this episode. Nina Sharp, the apparent spokesperson for Massive Dynamic, talking with Phillip Broyles, the guy from Homeland Security? Are the people at Homeland that stupid that they don’t suspect Massive Dynamic? Maybe it’s a case of “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” – I don’t know.
Then you have the whole “I wonder what Scott was up to” thread that Olivia is following. You have Walter acting crazy milking cows, and doing eyeball surgery to get retina pictures. On top of all that, you have the mystical, magical computer laptop that can take an image, correlate it to a 3D wire frame, and pinpoint within a block where a building in Boston is.
And, just when you might have thought they’d be subtle and imply that Peter (that’s Walter’s Son) might have a relation to Walter’s work, they go the extra mile and slap you right in the face with “I assume you read about Peter’s medical history – You didn’t? Oh, nevermind”. Up to that point, when Walter was describing what working back during his original work was like, they dropped enough hints that there might be more to Peter than meets the eye. They really didn’t need to hit us over the head with it.
Finally, they had a half-second glimpse at a lab somewhere in Massive Dynamic (probably) that showed THREE versions of the same guy that killed those women. Ok, we can infer that maybe the guy that died of old age at the end wasn’t the original guy that Olivia was chasing all those years ago. The killings did stop for a while, so it’s reasonable to assume that whichever clone did that, he ended up dying. Otherwise the killings would have continued because of his need for the pituitary glands.
If it were me, I wouldn’t have shown that. I would have shown them in that lab a few shows later, just briefly, as someone walked by that lab at Massive Dynamic. That would have at least given fans something to find, and make the connection. People are pretty good at seeing things like that and talking about it. LOST fans are REALLY good at this sort of thing. They don’t need to be hit over the head with hints, the way Fringe is doing.
I just get the feeling that Fringe is trying much too hard to jam the backstory and weird things that are happening down viewers’ throats too fast. This show’s been compared to the X-Files. At least on that show, there was a slowly developed storyline that drew people in. On Fringe, it’s all about the “Hey! Look! We’re doing weird stuff! Check out the huge evil corporation! Weird, huh! Look at the eyeball surgery! Ha! We should have warned you about that, but too late!”
OK, ok, ok… we get it. Just give the viewers a bit more credit.
First restaurant of the new season! The Handlebar. Before I get into the summary of what happened, I need to say something. Parts of this write-up are a bit disjointed and seem to jump from situation to situation…. well, that’s because that’s the way the show was.
Bill and Carolyn his wife bought the Handlebar in Mount Sinai, New York a year ago, seeing it as a good business opportunity. A year later, they were in trouble because the restaurant wasn’t filling with customers.
Gordon arrived, tried the food, and immediately realized that was the problem. In the sit down with Bill, Carolyn, and Melissa the head chef. Much to Gordon’s surprise, Melissa says that she’s really not interesting in being a head chef!
The food being served later that night wasn’t good. Frozen broccoli was served, radishes being served with steak, and burnt French Fries.
A good look at the back rooms was a surprise, it was really, really filthy. Billy really didn’t want to hear any of Gordon’s criticism, and walked off. Billy was REALLY mad at Gordon for speaking to hi in what he felt was a disrespectful way. He ended up driving off, after calling Carolyn to say he was going to throw in the towel.
The servers and chef ended up cleaning the refrigerator, and they got a plan together to get things going again. Gordon gave Melissa a quick demonstration on how to make clams with a homemade tartar sauce, and home made potato chips.
During dinner service, Billy returned. Service started to stack up, and the customers were waiting quite a while. The customers even started yelling at each other.
Finally, Billy and Gordon talk about what happened that night, and decided to have a staff meeting after dinner. They cut down the menu to make it simpler.
The Kitchen Nightmares team went in that night and revamped the whole restaurant. (I have to say, I’m pretty impressed to see how much they did).
They transformed into a Gastropub, the first on Long Island.
As a way to relaunch the restaurant, Gordon got Dee Snider (from Twisted Sister) as part of a motorcycle rally promotion, and they handed out fliers for the relaunch with a simplified menu.
The restaurant filled up and the food was going out well to start. They had a quick break and Dee Sinder came in on a motorcycle they want to auction for the March of Dimes.
After that, the kitchen started to fall apart. Food was coming back because it was undercooked, and things weren’t looking good. The main problem was the Melissa wasn’t using the other two cooks in the kitchen. Once she did this, the kitchen started working better. The restaurant ended the night on the high note. The next few days were busy too, and they started to do better.
By the time Gordon left, the Handlebar had turned the corner.
I was happy to see that the restaurant turned around, but it really seems like the show needed to go into a bit more depth about how they changed the menu and got the kitchen going again.
Visit the Handlebar website here. Hope they’re doing well!
A message from Hans Van Eeghen on the Dharma Wants You site explains that recruits to the Dharma Initiative can now start writing their own tests. It involves writing 10 questions, and having other recruits complete your test for which you’ll get 50 Dharma points. You can also achieve “Instructor Status”:
If your test, or one of its questions, is of an appropriate quality it may be selected to form part of the Official Volunteer Assessment Program. For this you will receive 500 Dharma Points and be awarded Instructor status.
You have to have your test created before Sept 17th, 2008
ATTENTION ALL RECRUITS
RE: EXPANDED ROLE FOR RECRUITS
Namaste.
As a result of the outstanding assessment results delivered in recent weeks I am pleased to announce an expanded role for recruits in the Volunteer Assessment Program at www.dharmawantsyou.com.
This new activity will draw on the impressive knowledge base of recruits and will offer the opportunity to challenge your colleagues in a friendly intellectual competition.
You have the potential to earn significant Dharma Points with this new activity, which will contribute to your overall assessment results.
Log in and consult your “Progress” page for details.
I look forward to another inspiring display of initiative from you all.
Namaste.
Hans Van Eeghen
Head of Recruiting
The Dharma Initiative
Update
ATTENTION ALL RECRUITS
RE: TANGENTIAL JUDGMENT ANALYSIS IS NOW LIVE
Namaste.
I am pleased to announce the release of the fourth assessment in the Dharma Initiative’s Volunteer Recruitment Program is now available at www.dharmawantsyou.com.
This new test will assess your ability to formulate imaginative solutions to a range of conundrums.
Many of you have already demonstrated your ability to think “outside the octagon”, so to speak. I am sure you will find this activity suitably stimulating.
I am also happy to report that a great number of you have enthusiastically embraced the recently released “Recruit Created Assessments” (RCA). Industrious recruits are devising for their colleagues a dizzying array of examination topics that will, no doubt, significantly expand the knowledge base of the Dharma Initiative.
These talented recruits not only stand to significantly increase their Dharma Points but will also be eligible for promotion to the position of “Instructor” in the Volunteer Recruitment Program.
On behalf of the Dharma Initiative I would like to thank these conscientious recruits for their efforts.
Keep up the good work.
Namaste.
Hans Van Eeghen
Head of Recruiting
The Dharma Initiative
Zuleikha Robinson has been chosen for the role of “Ilana” in the upcoming season of LOST. The character has been described as “dangerous as all get out”.
From the picture, she kinda reminds me of Ana Lucia…
Anyway, read more about it at EW
The role of “Caesar”, in the upcoming season of LOST, has been cast. The actor Saïd Taghmaoui received the role after impressing the producers.
“He has an innate intelligence, intensity, and danger we really responded to,” says Lindelof, who declined to specify whether Caesar is good or bad. However, Cuse teases that the character will be playing “an important part of the setup for the final act of the show in season 6.”
Via EW