Bobby Big Wheel

Bush Joke of the Day

Former President George W. Bush praised the progress SMU has made in excavating the foundation of his presidential library in an attempt to show that, yes, he does know his ass from a hole in the ground.

Handicapping the SHOTY Nominees

If you’re a Deadspin reader, the end of November means one thing: Sports Human of the Year nominations!  This year I’m going Joe Lunardi on their asses and predicting the sixteen final nominees and their seeds.  Here’s my first prediction

1.  Sean Salisbury

2.  Steve Phillips

3.  Lenny Dykstra

4.  Erin Andrews

5.  Plaxico Burress (shot himself last year just after SHOTY voting started)

6.  Karen Sypher

7.  Alex Rodriguez

8.  Chad Ochocinco

9.  Josh Hamilton

10.  Jay Mariotti

11.  Michael Phelps

12.  The Door

13.  Artie Lange

14.  Charles Barkley

15.  Mark Mangino

16.  Elizabeth Lambert

Did I miss anyone?  Who’s ranked too high or too low?

Top Chef Week 12: Where's my F*ckin' Turducken?

And we’re back.  Oh man, I can’t wait for Brad and Darrell’s fight.  Wait a minute, I was supposed to do a Top Chef recap?  OK, fine I’ll watch it at 11:00.  Gotta be careful to tune in at 11:00 on the dot or those asshole Bravo programmers will ruin the ending for you.

Mama’s Boy is the protege of Richard Blais and was the best man at his wedding.  Which is kind of odd because Mama’s Boy’s food reminds me nothing of Blais’s.  Also, his head is too potato-shaped to support a fauxhawk. 

Apparently they’re going to Napa for the Final Four.  And their guest judge was the U.S. representative at the Chef Olympics.  Bravo can make the Real Skankwhores of New Jersey, but they don’t show the Chef Olympics? Dios mio, man, why can’t you send a decent TV crew there?

The quickfire challenge is a protein inside a protein inside a protein.  Walk of Shame jokes about doing turducken, but lets me down.  What, a high class turducken wouldn’t win a challenge?  That shit is a Big Wheel family tradition, along with yelling and lots of scotch.

Well, her seafood dish is a hit, and Padma winks and says “welcome back.”  Glad to see she has her edge back; a four man Final Four would create an annoying girlpower dynamic for the next season.  Regardless, Walk of Shame wins and her prize is an extra 30 minutes to cook her elimination dish.

The elimination challenge is a regal presentation, including a protein and two garnishes.  Like when you go to Wendy’s, get a spicy chicken sandwich, fries AND chili.  Decadent.  The only limit is you must us lamb or salmon for the protein, and they expect highly refined sides.  So, super-fries and super-chili.  Like Ben’s Chili Bowl.  I see where this is going.

Kevin thinks about doing sous-vide.  FUCK.  That’s what sank Hootie Hoo, doing a sous vide when her strength was delectable Southern cuisine.  This is bad news.  Foreboding.  I’m terrified.

I checked the Chef Olympics out online (Bocuse d’Or, if you’re one of those fancypants who also insists on calling his carhold a garage) and the U.S. has never won.  We’ve never even medaled. That shit is run by Scandanavians.  It looks like a list of Olympic biathalon winners.  We need to find a way to engineer another Soviet boycott.

Frere Mike says Redheaded Santa cooks food that he would cook on his day off.  No, Redheaded Santa cooks food people want to eat.  Go home and stick your dick in a black cod.  Oh wait, you can’t because black cod is fucking mush.

The winner gets $30,000, which goes a long way toward owning a restaurant.  Beats the fucking bottle of wine they got in the last episode.  I gave my roommate a bottle of wine after I puked on the carpet.  And my puke didn’t taste nearly as good as what the chefs cooked this season.  Except for Jen Z.’s seitan.

Toby Young tries to make himself remotely likable by cutting a tap water PSA.  It’s too late to put up a Patrick Bateman-esque, facade, douchebag.  Also, Alyson Hannigan is doing Mastercard Christmas gift commercials.  You know what I’d get her for Christmas?  A flute.

Gail has a low cut dress!  Oh, Redheaded Santa could lose and this episode would be saved.  But he seems to nail his dish, even though Keller criticizes him for being too simple.

Frere Mike’s dish is Mediterranean flavors.  Umm, the Mediterranean is fucking massive.  That’s like saying you have Atlantic Ocean flavors.  The judges seem to agree with me.  I might consider Wendy’s fine dining, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the foodies figured out.

Quaalude’s running a bit late, and there are a few mistakes on his platter.  One of the judges actually ends up loving his presentation.  But his lamb was undercooked, so he or his brother might not make the Final Four.

Mama’s Boy has some type of foam with his dish.  What is it with foam being a big deal for foodies?  I’ve eaten shaving cream; it leaves much to be dsired.  But Mama’s Boy seems to mess up his lamb even worse than Quaalude.  He looks a goner.

Walk of Shame uses truffles and caviar; no wonder she went over on her budget.  Keller and some other snob complain about their pieces of salmon being undercooked, but she seems to escape.  Her and Redheaded Santa seem the only ones who could win.

The winner gets to represent us in the Chef Olympics.  I haven’t heard of any of the prior winners so I thought it was limited to culinary school types.  Maybe this is like the U.S. ramming the Dream Team down the world’s throats.

Mama’s Boy says he’d be proud to lose to any of the other ‘testants.  Translation: thank fucking God that Cancer Girl isn’t around any more, I could never live down losing to her.

Everyone goes to judges’ table at once.  It’s a judgerfuck!  Colicchio asks Frere Mike how caviar is Mediterranean, a good question since that shit is Russian.  He should have sad it was Caspian instead.  Redheaded Santa has one of the best ever judge smackdowns, noting that his dish wasn’t outwardly complex but it was subtly balanced and difficult.  Bullethead wraps things up by praising everyone for the jobs they have done.  No small feat, considering how often he berated the cast last season.

Redheaded Santa for the win!  He gets 30K, and we’re sending him to beat the Swedes at the Chef Olympics.  He’s Jim Fucking Thorpe!

And Mama’s Boy is sent packing.  And for the first time in Top Chef history, all four number one seeds make the Final Four.  Eli is magnanimous in defeat, realizing he lost to superior competition.  Tune in on Thanksgiving for my next Top Chef recap.  I just need to post it before we open the first bottle of Cutty Sark.

As The Go-To Bengals Fan For Many People...

thejerkstore:

…I have been asked my thoughts on the Larry Johnson signing. He was released from the Chiefs for being an asshole generally, and specifically for calling someone a ‘fag’ via Twitter. The ‘fag’ thing will be fine; Cincinnati is generally not a favorable environment for gays, so that won’t offend anyone. On the other hand, Larry is black, and Cincinnati has had race riots as recently as 2001, so…yeah. In order for a black athlete to be accepted in Cincinnati, he needs to either never say a word to anyone ever, or talk and act like the crows in Dumbo. My advice to Larry: Keep your mouth shut and it’ll be okay.

Sage advice.  Doubt he’ll follow it.

Top Chef Week 11: Gambling and Losing

And we’re back.  Only six burnertestants remain: Frere Mike, Human Quaalude, Redheaded Santa, Mama’s Boy, Walk of Shame and Cancer Girl.  I’m so happy Laurine is gone, my nickname generator was powerless against her blandness.

Quaalude talks about how he misses his children in monotone.  Somehow, he shows human emotion on the phone with his kids.  He says this is security for his family, but he’s already been finalist for the fucking James Beard Award.  I’m pretty sure you’d need to develop a crack problem if you want to be poor after that. 

This has to be my favorite quickfire yet; serving food to Padma Lakshmi and Nigella Lawson in their bathrobes. Top Chef is normally one of Bravo’s more highbrow shows, but this is straight out of a Real Housewives episode.  I’d try to make some sort of oysters breakfast, since they’re an aphrodisiac.  There’d be only one layer of clothing between me and naked Padma; I’d have to go all in.

Mama’s Boy says he’s never up this early so he can’t cook breakfast very well.  For those of you keeping score, he lives at home and doesn’t get up till 11.  Ladies are probably trying to bust his (well his mother’s) door down.  Nigella says it’s a good hangover breakfast, which makes me wish I could go out drinking with her.

Redhead Santa’s making a steak and egg.  That was the specialty of the greasy spoon near my college.  I have fond memories of that place, including:

• Me punching over glasses of soda as a waitress brought them to me.  Amazingly, she kept bringing them.  Probably for humor’s sake.
• A huge fraternity fight in the parking lot, which included my friend roundhouse kicking two Deltas.
• Another friend getting so baked before going there that he started freaking out about the place closing in on him and went home before finishing his pancakes.
• Finally, we saw some high school kids there and struck up conversation.  One of them was a guy named Vince who had gotten wasted for the first time in his life.  He was catatonic and mumbling.  My friends and I started taunting him, trying to get him to say something.  “Viiiiince!”  “Hey, Vince,” etc.  Finally, he lifted his head up, and threw up all over himself.

So, thanks for the memories, Santa.

Walk of Shame pisses off the Bravo censors by making shit on a shingle.  I’m a little worried for her;  creamed chipped beef is gross no matter which time of day it is.  Even the name sounds terrible.  “Shit on a shingle”  is actually an improvement.

Eli wins, no immunity but ends up in the cookbook.  Way to go cheapskates, other winners would get a nice fat gambling chip that they could double by betting against the Rams.

The chefs have to make dishes inspired by different casinos.  All of the chefs inevitably praise the casinos they draw, so Excalibur (Walk of Shame), Mandalay Bay (Human Quaalude), Bellagio (Cancer Girl), New York New York, Mirage (Redheaded Santa) and Circus Circus (Mama’s Boy) get some free pub.  Even though Eli looks less than pleased to be stuck at the biggest dump of the six sponsors.

Frere Mike wants to give a tribute to the firefighters.  Eh, of all the stuff in New York City, you might as well do that.  Beats the urine stench, the Triboro Bridge, or the tranny hookers.

Cancer Girl says she thinks of herself as an artist first and foremost.  Like a Subway sandwich artist!  She chooses the art at the Bellagio to inspire her.  I would have gone the easy way out and done Northern Italian cuisine, but I must be too left-brained.

Redheaded Santa thinks people see him as a redneck.  Hey man, the only problem I have with Atlanta or Atlantans is your Fifth Ring of Hell airport.  Every guy I’ve met from Atlanta has been a chill dude who likes to drink beer and talk baseball.  And they usually  have hot lady friends. 

So, Frere Mike decides New York firefighters = deconstructed buffalo wings.  Someone needs to tell him that Buffalo is like 7 hours away from the city.  That’s like trying to make authentic Miami cuisine and doing shrimp and grits.

Toby says Eli “gambled and lost” on his circus peanut soup.  Someone tell him that in America that means you pooed your pants.  Of course, the judges reactions evince that there is a poo-type quality to the soup.  And even though he doesn’t use circus peanuts, the thought of them alone makes me wretch.

Quaalude, Frere Mike and Redheaded Santa are on top.  Tom likes the Buffalo wings concept.  Hey Tom, next time you’re at Craft, try making it to Buffalo by car.  Experience the lovely New York Thruway in its entirety.  Frere Mike wins, and Nigella gives him a bottle of wine and I thought “wow, they must have blown through their budget early,” but she tacks on a trip to Napa.

Jennifer Zavala is a contestant for fan favorite, even though she was only on one episode.   She better hope there are a lot of people who LURVE chest tattoos.

Walk of Shame admits she’s ready to go.  As much as we all want to see Cancer Girl go, Walk of Shame is miserable.  Of course, the second I start rooting for Cancer Girl not to get eliminated, she gets the boot.  Apparently a pro shouldn’t be screwing up panna cotta.  Hopefully Walk of Shame breaks out of her funk somehow, but to say she’s pouty right now is an understatement.  Though if Mama’s Boy sneaks into the final four, maybe he can finally get a place of his own.