Food and Interior Decorating

Nowadays I don't watch very much television. Sometimes I will catch an episode of X-Play on Tech TV, or perhaps the Daily Show on Comedy Central. I really enjoy watching Nickelodian GAS, which is a channel devoted to showing old, embarassing 1990's Nick gameshows. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about... Legends of the Hidden Temple, Finders Keepers, Nick Arcade. Hell yea! But there are currently two things on TV that really make me keep coming back to watch them... Food Network and TLC.

I've been watching the Food Network for the past two and a half years now. It all began back when I first discovered Iron Chef, which has quickly become one of my favorite shows of all time. I fell in love with the Iron Chef and its goofy voice acting, intense culinary action, and its ridiculous challenge of making a chef wrestle a squid and kill it with a knife before serving it. And of course, the Iron Chef acted as a gateway drug to the rest of the network's fantastic programming.

The Food Network is an intruiging and welcomed blast of original entertainment that happens to circle around the subject of food. Really, with the exception of the annoying Emeril and some other pure-cooking shows, there isn't a show on there I don't like. I will sit for hours watching Unwrapped-- with everyone's favorite obsessive compulsive Double Dare host Mark Summers!-- Good Eats with Alton Brown, Top 5 with that host who has questionable sexual orientation, and Best Of... Now I could go on listing this fantastic shows for hours, but you really have no idea how great they are until you go and watch them. Definitely check out Date Plate (which combines a dating show with a cooking show... genius!) and Dweezle and Lisa, starring the amazing Lisa Loeb and her awesome black glasses.

The other day this thought crossed my mind-- and whenever a thought crosses my mind I make sure to write it down because they don't come around often-- What if you were stranded on a deserted island with a small TV and the only station you could pick up was Food Network. That would be pure hell... you would definitely starve three times faster than if you were alone. However, if you were there with some sort of coconuts or pineapple, any deserted island food, you would treat yourself to some amazing cuisine. Then you wouldn't really have to leave the island at all!

Now if you aren't convinced as to how pathetic I am, check out the second part of my obsession. This would be TLC.

Back when I first stumbled on TLC, I thought of it as just that crazy channel that showed surgery and the occasional show on sex in Egyptian times. I started really watching TLC to see their "Story" shows. Mainly A Dating Story, which was a purely innocent dating show, unlike Elimidate and 5th Wheel. But then they started making these other shows, shows that were really getting them decent ratings, known as Interior Decorating shows. The first of these marvelous shows was Trading Spaces-- a show that would go on to cause numerous copy-cats and spinoffs.

I've never thought twice about interior decorating, keeping the stereotype that it was something that was only for house moms and confused boys. But then I started watching this crazy show, which showed me how creative it can get, and how stupid some of it can actually be. I also really enjoy when people FREAK OUT because they hate the room. Aside from Trading Spaces, I also enjoy While You Were Out and Clean Sweep. These shows are all basically the same, but each has its own charm and quirkiness about it.

I am really hoping that someday the men of Havey will feel daring and want to do a little Trading Spaces of our own. I can definitely picture me and my roommate,Puff, going to another student's room and totally redecorating.

Woah... did I just say that? Wow... I'm sorry. I gotta go. It's time for the Top 5 Food Innovations of the 20th Century!!!

Posted by MikeRubino at January 18, 2004 7:17 PM