logisticslad

I'm deep in the midst of several reality shows that I am mostly enjoying. Here's the rundown:

Top Chef: New York - This season has been pretty good, with a number of interesting challenges and impressive celebrity judges. I'm not warming up to the nasty British replacement judge for Gail. We're down to the final four contestants: Stefan, who has dominated in the challenges, Fabio, who has a winning personality and won the last challenge despite having broken his finger, Carla, who is endearingly wacky and has finally found her creative voice, and Hosea, who has been off his game since he let things go too far with another contestant. I predict that he will be the one out next. While I like Fabio and Carla better, I suspect that Stefan will win. We'll see!

True Beauty - This is a new show that can probably be done only once. The contestants think they are in a beauty competition, but they are actually being judged on inner beauty. Unfortunately, what the judges define to be inner beauty is a bit farfetched, but it makes for an amusing show. I'm rooting for Billy, the thirty one year old blond man, who is a Chippendales dancer from Idaho. However, everyone left seems pretty fake.

Ru Paul's Drag Race - This is also a new show and it's quite a scream! Santino from Project Runway is one of the judges and he and the other judges hold nothing back. The contestants are totally over the top and the challenges are hilarious. In the end the bottom two must Lip Synch for Their Life, after which Ru decides who shantees and stays and who sashays...away.

Survivor: Tocantins - Not much to say about it, yet. There are a lot of strong personalities, but no one has come through as particularly likeable after the first episode.

I'm also looking forward to the new seasons of Make Me a Supermodel and Dancing with the Stars coming soon...

On Thursday, I went to NYC to spend the day with my friend moltvikh, who was visiting NYC on his own for a few days. I drove to Trenton and took NY Transit to Penn Station. Whoever thought that it was a good idea to name Newark's stop Penn Station, too, should have their head slapped. I almost got off there, but quickly realized that I was not in New York. I made it there by 1:00 and due to the magic of cell phones, moltvikh and I met at the station. If I remember correctly, in the days before cell phones, we would have specified a meeting place; but I admit, it was loads easier this way. We had lunch at a Jewish deli named Ben's. I had an authentic corned beef on rye with spicy mustard and it was wonderful ! (If anyone remembers, that was what Captain Sheridan was poisoned with in the torture episode of Babylon 5, and thinking of that makes me enjoy the sandwich all the more :-)

Since we were in the Fashion District, I decided that we should take an impromptu tour of the locations for Project Runway. So we walked by Parsons School of Fashion and Design, we stopped in Bryant Park, and we went to Mood, where they often buy their materials. Mood is located on the third floor of a large building, and access is by an old fashioned elevator, complete with an operator. There is a poster of Heidi Klum introducing the show on the door, but other than that, there were no other touches from the show. It turned out that the store has three floors and is basically wall to wall fabrics, with one floor dedicated to upholstery. The aisles were not wide, and it is hard to imagine how they maneuver the cameras and lights to film the designers selecting fabrics for the show. In any event, it was fun to see where the magic happens!

Next we went to the Whitney museum of contemporary art, where they had a display on Buckminster Fuller. They had is specially designed car in a showroom, and models of his ideas for houses and the geodesic dome. There was a whole display on how he developed the mercatur projection map. It was much more interesting than I would have expected. Also in the museum was a gallery of Maplethorpe's early Polaroid photos, where one could see that he was exploring elements of lighting, subject matter, and composition that appear in his later work. There was also a room of moving architectural art, the idea being that one expects architecture to be stable, so having it move challenges one's expectations in a disturbing manner. It certainly did. There was a floor platform with four walls that swung away from the base and each had a door that opened and shut with a bang! I felt sorry for the poor attendants who had to stand there all day listening to the commotion. The regular collection had some interesting pieces, including some paintings by Hopper, that I now recognized after having seen his exhibit in the National Gallery last Fall. This was all very cool to see with moltvikh, now that he has been studying art.

We walked through Central Park and had dinner at a Vietnamese/Thai/Asian fusion place, which was quite yummy, hung out for awhile more talking and catching up, and then I caught the train home. I had a fun time, and I'm delighted that the timing worked out so that we could both be there together.

I'm home watching Dancing With the Stars and they just had a featured encore dance with TWO MEN dancing the Tango!!! Steve Guttenburg's partner Anna was sick for most of last week and had asked her husband Jonathan to help out in practice. Since Jonathan's partner had just been eliminated, he had the time to do so. They had shown a funny clip of their practice on the performance episode. Steve performed the dance with Anna last night, and did ok, but not great. So tonight, the judges asked to see the whole thing with him and Jonathan. They were hilarious!!! At the end they did fake manly things like chest bumping and fist knocking in order to crack the audience up even more. But they actually danced a hot Tango together on national TV!!! WOW!!!

( It's no April Fool. Click for spoiler. )

Today began my 10 hour trek to the 12th International Symposium on Neural Regeneration, which is held at the ASILOMAR conference center in Pacific Grove, CA. I got up at the unjedly hour of 5:00am in order to drive to the airport for my 7:50am flight to San Francisco. The highlight of the trip was bumping into Jeffrey Sebelia, the winner of third season of Project Runway, who was buying breakfast at the Au Bon Pain in the Philly airport! I recognized him by his distinctive neck tattoos. Other than that, the plane ride was long but uneventful as I travelled with most of my research group. Once we arrived, we claimed out bags and my colleage Scott and I rented a car and drove 100 miles south to the conference, stopping for lunch and to by a map along the way. The facility reminds me of a summer camp on the beach. There are lots of small buildings with a dozen or so rooms. The rooms have no tv or telephones. Cell phone signal is sparse and there is wireless access only in the main building (although my room is close enough to get a faint signal). Apparently, this is intentional in order to create a more personally interactive atmosphere. There is a dining hall and we are all on a meal plan. Tonight we had dinner and then a talk followed by a social (which I ditched, being too tired). The conference has programming from 8am to 11pm each day, with these group meals scheduled inbetween posters and talks. There are about 200 people here and it looks like it could be pretty intense. On the other hand, we are in a park right next to the beach, which is beautiful, and I've already seen seabirds, deer, and a racoon. There is a sign posting advice on how to scare off a mountain lion in the event that we see one. Walking on the beach trails is a traditional conference pastime. Overall, it should be fun, but it's going to be work and not a vacation.

A number of shows I'm looking forward to seeing will premiere soon:

Tim Gunn's Guide to Style on Th 9/6 at 10 on Bravo
Torchwood on Sat 9/8 at 9 on BBC America
Survivor: China on Th 9/20 at 8 on CBS
Heroes on M 9/24
Project Runway Season 4 on mid Nov

I'm setting my DVR to record!!!

I was wiped out today from the changes in the weather affecting my sinuses. I couldn't concentrate on much at work and so spent most of my day meeting with my staff and students about their work. Then I came home and crashed in front of the TV. I vegged with the latest episodes of SYTYCD and Top Chef and I finished rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (I had wanted to see how things had been changed to make the movie, and I must say, I agree with every single departure from the book). My cats have been very snuggly with me tonight (I think that they found an old catnip toy that still had some oomph left in it).

In their honor, I found a new icon. I've named it "Nermal" :-)

I watch Reality TV. Some would say that I watch too much Reality TV, but I find it entertaining in a way that does not expend much mental energy and that totally works for me after a hard day of work. I realized that I am currently watching 4 of them each week. Since I usually record the show and watch it later, I don't actually vote for any of the contestants, so there may be hope for me yet...

1) Grease, You're the One that I Want This one has turned out to be more fun than I thought. Theater hopefuls attempt to fill the roles of Danny and Sandy from Grease, set to open on Broadway in the summer. The show has the contestants sing and dance to music of the Grease period to compete as well as throwing in some Grease production numbers. Having been in a production of the show myself, I find it endlessly enjoyable. My favorites are the Max and Laura, the Danny and Sandy with the most unconventional looks, but the most talent.

2) Top Design I'm not really loving this show because I think that they should not put the contestants in teams nor give them such short times to produce their designs. I realize that this format has worked for both Project Runway and Top Chef on Bravo, but I think that it falls flat here. My favorites are sophisticated style Matt (who seriously pings my Bi-dar, not just because I think he's cute), construction creative Goil, and down to earth Andrea.

3) American Idol I couldn't agree more with the judges this season - the boys as a group are not nearly as good as the girls. Of the boys, only Beat Box Blake and Chris Sligh stand out for me, whereas all the remaining girls (except Haley) have been terrific. Melinda clearly has an advantage given all her experience as a background singer, but it really is different singing lead and I am definitely rooting for her.

4) Survivor Still my favorite concept for a reality show, but I don't like the way they are executing it this season. They divided the tribes into the Haves and the Have Nots, and to no one's surprise the Haves are kicking the Have Nots' collective asses. Plus, many of the contestants are pretty annoying. I like the two smart people on the Have Nots' tribe, Yao Man, who thinks his way through every problem, and Michelle, who started a fire with her reading glasses. I cannot even remember half the people on the other tribe. Hopefully, they will switch up the tribes soon and make things more interesting.

Need I say that I'm looking forward to the new seasons of Dancing with the Stars, Project Runway, and So You Think You Can Dance?

Interesting article on why so many men are watching Project Runway:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2003276424_projectrunway27.html

At this point in the So You Think You Can Dance? competition, I think that the top couple, by far, is Benji and Donyelle. IMO, the strongest most versatile dancers remaining are Travis, Heidi, Alison, and Dmitry. That being said, I enjoyed last night's show and thought that all the couples did very well. Cat's been showing better taste in dresses, but the L'il C krumping exhibition left me cold. I thought that Travis and Martha did a much better job a few weeks ago than the supposed expert krumpers, but maybe I just don't understand the style. I think that at this point, popularity and personality play a major role in the competition, even over talent. This week, everyone was basically out of their comfort zone of dancing, and as Nigel said, "some were still outstanding."

Loved Benji and Donyelle's Viennese Waltz (and had a great laugh with them about calling it the Vietnamese Waltz!). Liked Alison and Ivan's West Coast Swing, Ashlee and Dmitry's Contemporary number (and Nigel's joke about Dmitry making his partners disappear), and Heidi and Ryan's Hip Hop attempt. That leaves my bottom three: Jaymz and Jessica, Natalie and Musa, and Martha and Travis. However, here's where popularity may pull some reversals so Heidi and Ryan may very well end up in the bottom three. My guess for who goes tonight is Jessica and Ryan, but it could be anybody.

Looking forward to the results show!

My new mindless TV/reality show obsession is "So You Think You Can Dance?" Last night they had the top twenty dancers paired off for the first time. My favorites were Benji and Donyelle who did an amazing HipHop routine and Travis and Martha who did a classic Broadway routine. They are the couples to beat, IMHO. The three couples with the lowest number of votes will be in danger of elimination tonight. My picks for the bottom three are Ivan and Alison, Dmitri and Joy, and Ben and Ashlee. Ivan and Alison did a Salsa and he stood there like a pole while she did great. Dmitri and Joy did a HipHop number which was a new style for both of them. Ben and Ashlee were stuck with an 80's Disco number and poorly executed it. One boy and one girl from any of the bottom three are picked to go and I think it will be Ben and Ashlee. Results show is tonight!