Men of Iron

Iron Chef is the greatest cooking show ever created.

There I said it. And I mean it. It is the greatest cooking show ever created. And one of the most influential.

These days, the Food Network's schedule is made up of competition shows like Next Food Network Star and Chopped etc. That all began when Food Network imported Iron Chef to America in 1998. It grew a cult following and showed a new way on how to present food related topics to the masses.

And thinking about it, only the Japanese, in their over the top, medieval, dramatic ways could pull off this show. The American version is watered down and sleek. The Japanese version is meaty and theatrical. That is where the show really separates itself. There are storylines interwoven into these competitions. The chefs like to show off what they can do. And the music sets the tone perfectly (the soundtrack of Backdraft, which I have on my playlist, is masterful)

When this show was on the Food Network in the late 90s-early 2000s, I was obsessed with it. It was on Friday nights at 10:00 PM so I got to watch it. My family will attest to the fact that I made little drawings of the Iron Chefs and cut them out to male paper figurines. I was that into it. And frankly still am.

Random Thoughts #2

Haven't been on here a while but feel the need to today.

1. Have you ever been driving behind somebody and they are going slower than other cars and you pass them and you look to see who the person is that was going slower? And it turns out, 90% of the time to be an older person? That happened to me today. It happens on occasion but today it just struck me as funny.

2. This seems to be "The Year of Mister Rogers" as I alluded to a couple of posts ago. Well I just watched something very interesting. It was a short film called Mr. Rogers: A War Hero. It spins a tale of the often mentioned urban legend that Fred Rogers was in Vietnam as a stealth sniper who got tattoos (hence the sweaters). It's completely false, but this film acts as if it is true. It was really not bad for a low budget short film and I teared up a bit at the end. However, the Fred Rogers Company put out a copyright claim on it, so it will probably be taken down quickly. The people behind the film are fighting the claim. I think that because they used his intro song towards the end of the film, so that will be the legal way out for TFRC, but I hope they don't see it as a threat. It's a story and it is pretty well told.

3. Baseball season is back and the Yankees have opened up mediocre after one week. Fans and media are accordingly going nuts. I don't think I can watch every single game, but my will is weak enough that I will probably pay attention and get emotional. That's a secret reason why I believe baseball is struggling in this modern era. It's too long of a season and you just can't put emphasis on every single game. You would die or feel like it. I'm fighting through that notion. But in this era, we are an instant gratification people so, however small the sample size is, we live in that moment. We can't fast forward through it. So while it may be 1 out of 162, it feels bigger being in the moment. And that, at least to me, is not healthy. And I don't really know how to combat it. To prevent myself from getting too emotional at one unit. Or to let the outside noise affect me. You can try and block it out but it's tough now with information in the palm of your hands. If someone can tell me how to do it, please let me know.

4. While I am a fan of television news and try to keep myself updated. I don't watch much serialized television. The reason for this is because I can be obsessive about it. The prime example of this, and I mentioned it before on my Facebook, was the NBC series Chuck. I watched it religiously when I was in college and it really permeated my brain. The biggest facet of this was the "will they won't they" relationship between Chuck (Zachary Levi, who is going to be Shazam) and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski, who is currently Serena Waterford in The Handmaid's Tale). This was the first fictional couple I "shipped" as the young folk say. And it got to me emotionally seeing them. And I discovered the concept of fan fiction through them. And it really scares me how attached I got. Not in a psychotic sense, but how my brain focused on them and would go back to them. And it's something that I don't really want to go through again. So I don't really try to get attached to TV shows. Instead I'm attached to sports teams. HAHAHAHAHA.

5. I have heard from others that they have tried to comment on my blog and weren't successful. If you really have something important to say to me about the blog piece, please Tweet me @UnitedWhofans, Facebook me "Gregory Eckes" or E-mail me at eckesg2@gmail.com To tell you the truth, I would really like to know what you guys think because it might spur more thoughts in me to write. So I will presume that people will take this as a threat and will not respond. Again, haha.

Thanks guys.