I got lucky Sunday night and caught a Sneak Peek of Food Network’s new series Food Detectives.  Your host is Ted Allen, whom you might remember from Bravo’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.  Given he was always my favorite of the guys, to say I was interested in the show would be an understatement, and seeing it tacked on to the end of The Next Food Network Star made me happy.

What is Food Detectives?  Think of it as Mythbusters for foodies.  They take everyday food thoughts, like the “Five Second Rule” and explore them through trial, error and science.  Sunday night they covered the aforementioned Five Second Rule, Capsaicin Relief, the Negative Calorie Effect of Celery, and Refrigerator Odor Elimination through Baking Soda.  The show is a delightful mix of food education and fact while debunking food myth.

To test some of these items they tortured Food Techs.  Made these five people eat a salsa made from Habanero peppers then test various methods of dealing with the resulting heat pain in their mouths.  I truly felt sorry for these folks, but was laughing my ass off at the same time as they chugged water, soda, beer, milk and ate bread.  The expressions on their faces were priceless, particularly since I know I’ve made that face before.

Food Detectives premieres tonight (Tuesday July 29th) on Food Network at 9 pm Eastern.  It’s quick and quick witted; only 30 minutes long and something I can see devoting myself to.  Being a bit of a foodie myself it was fun to learn things about these food myths that are out there.

And what did we learn on Sunday’s episode?  Well, I can’t tell you that now can I, it would spoil the fun of the show.  Let’s just say that I’m off to the pet store to pick up some activated charcoal and call it good.  I hope all the foodie readers will tune in and share their thoughts on Food Detectives with us.

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Okay, so, when I was a wee little dragonling living in Germany with my family on an US AFB.. We used to watch Doctor Who.. the Tom Baker ones.. I loved them.  Always have, and would watch as much Dr. Who as I possibly could.  Well, needless to say, I nearly crapped myself when I say that they’d started up a new series, and it was airing on SciFi!

Well, it became my life’s ambition to watch every single Dr. Who episode.. EVER MADE!

Enter NetFlix.  I have, like 180 movies in my queue.. and about half of those are Dr. Who.  I just got done watching DVD 1 of a collection from the ancient, ancient, first doctor series: Dr. Who, The Beginning, (starring William Hartnell as the first Doctor) which I thought would be SUPER cheasy and dumb, but fun.  Actually, it was freakin’ awesome!

Every dang shot is composed, balanced, framed and executed with loving care and an artistic eye.  I was glued to the TV.  Watched every episode through in one sitting and am crying tears of blood that I have to wait for the next DVD.  It’s no wonder that this show is such a freakin’ phenomenon!

It is black and white.  It’s a LOT of fun.  The acting is.. about.. maybe 90% not cheesy.. The plot is easy to follow, and pretty much everything we’d expect..  It’s just fun!  I lurved it, and can’t wait to see the REST of the series.

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Was reading through TV Squad this morning and came across an article that essentually said, “For those of you who enjoyed the Knight Rider movie that aired in February… fugetaboutit.”

What I got out of the article was that they were scraping the whole idea behind the movie and have brought in someone from “The Fast and the Furious” movie chain to pump the show up.  I’m not going to give up on the show, I like Knight Rider and I like what I saw in the tv movie they did in early 2008.  But I didn’t see a lot of promise in what I read.

You can read the article yourself here.

Anyone who’s read this blog knows I’m a CSI fan, or they do if they’ve seen the archives.  To say I was displeased with the way they wrote out Gary Dourdan’s character Warrick Brown is an understatement.  Now to see that William Petersen’s contract allows him to leave after this coming season’s tenth episode just makes me sad.

I have to wonder how CSI will manage without having Grissom regularly.  It didn’t do too badly during his hiatus in 2006, and Petersen is staying on as an executive producer, he just won’t be a regular on the show anymore.

I will admit I’m very interested in what he’ll do now.  As for the rest, you can read Michael Ausiello’s article on is here.

There’s nothing in the world that will wake you up faster than reading about death.  Be it someone you have known all your life or someone that you admired from afar.  In this case it’s George Carlin.

According to CNN, Carlin went into the hospital yesterday afternoon complaining of chest pains and died at 5:55 pm pacific time.

Even with all the comedians in this world I can’t help but feel comedy and laughter died a little yesterday.  Sure, we still have humor, but Carlin helped engineer much of what we hear today.  Particularly with his Seven Words bit and his long winded rants.

The gods must be producing a one awesome show with the number of people they’ve taken this year.

Today celebrates the 30th anniversary of Jim Davis’ Garfield. 

Perhaps my all time favorite of the funnies, a comic I’ve followed since I was old enough to read and subscribe to now through RSS.  But I gushed about all of that on the 19th of January.

In the end, to keep this short, the only thing left to say is Happy Anniversary/Birthday Garfield.  Thank you for thirty years of entertainment, and may you have decades more for the masses.

I turn –GULP- thirty next month.  That said I had the privilege of growing up in the ‘80s and having reliable Saturday Morning Cartoons.  Being a kid in this era rocked.  Entertainment out the wazoo, and while we had the Atari and the Coleco-vision and eventually the Nintendo, but I was most interested in my cartoons.

I remember spending my mornings watching The Chipmunks, Smurfs, Snorks, and later Captain N the Game Master and Jem and the Holograms.  I still have fond memories of Shirt Tails and don’t even get me started on He-Man and She-Ra.  Gah!

Of all of those at I admit to enjoying most was my first known dose of Anime.  Sure, there was G-Force, but I never missed an episode of Voltron.  The rest of them were easily forgotten while the Lions filled a half an hour of my childhood mornings.  I loved watching the sequence when the Voltron crew would get into their Lions, from the zip lines to the lift chair with that pounding battle music in the background.  I could easily envision the victory that Voltron would bring.

I never felt bad for Lothor, always got fed up with the Princess, though I’ll admit she was pretty cool considering she drove Blue Lion.  The minute Keith called to “Form Blazing Sword” those poor little robeasts should have tucked their tails up and taken off before they were sliced and diced.

Confession time – I found out Boomerang is showing Voltron again.  I haven’t missed an episode since I found it.  Nearly thirty and I still enjoy an 80’s cartoon about mechanical Lions; still cheering when they descend into the depths to board their Lions, and grinning like a fool when the blazing sword comes out.

Ah how I miss the hours lost as a child, glued to the adventures of the Saturday Morning Cartoons.  Is there one you miss?  One you’ve found playing again after all these years?  That one guilty pleasure of animation?  Confess yourself here and share your geekdom.

I have come to love that term. There’s something special about it, it keeps people coming back for more. Too bad you can’t really cliffhanger someone in a blog.

But, that’s not the point. Point is that I’ve said a lot about the podcasters nailing their fans with cliffhangers. They excel at it. That is not, however, saying that books or movies can’t do the same thing.

I’ve read very few novels that have an excellent cliffhanger in them. A primary, and my favorite, example of one is Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop. When I recommend this book to people I tell them, emphatically, do not but this book alone. Since the whole series is out, that’s certainly possible, and if I hadn’t had my hands on Heir to the Shadows, Daughter of the Blood probably would have looked nice sailing across my room.

Seriously I don’t throw books as often as I make it sound. I think I’ve thrown three in my life. I digress again.

Books, movies and television can do the cliffhanger thing. Movies are better at it. They can end a film with the hero, evidence in hand, ready to go after the villain and the film ends. They don’t do it often, and usually it’s done in three part fantasy films (Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars), but it does happen. Television excels at it. That is, after all, what season finales are all about, keep them hooked and ready, eager, for the new season to begin. Woe to the station that turns a season finale into a series finale without warning, FOX being the most notorious of the offenders.

Podcasters, however, have it made and they treat their fans better. Sure we may have to wait months between podcast novels, but if someone like Scott Sigler hands you a cliffhanger this week, you can count on the resolution the next week. We’re not left wanting and waiting for months in-between doses of chapters. Mur Lafferty did it yesterday with the conclusion of Wasteland. Sure it’s not the killer cliffhanger she dumped on us in Earth, but now we’re left wanting like little junkies for the next story in the series.

Maybe I’m biased. Maybe my vision of the entertainment world has been clouded by how nice the podcasters have been to me. I just happen to think that in the world of cliffhangers, these people have it made.

Do you have a favorite “Oh my god they did not just leave that hanging” moment from a book, movie, show or podcast? Share it here.

My first thought when thinking about New Amsterdam is “please don’t let this show be doomed because it’s on FOX.” My second one is, “They’ve already screwed it around by delaying it, it was just filler for the writer’s strike, and it’s probably already doomed.” I would love to see where it’s ranking in the Nielsen ratings. Which, according to Zap2it it’s number 6 out of 20, a strong showing for FOX considering it’s not American Idol.

Now, I watch this from my DVR, which probably doesn’t help any, but I don’t really want to see ads for the aforementioned American Idol either. The show, in my opinion, is strong enough that I’m anxious to get the story moved on, and it’s even thrown in a nice little cliffhanger while we’re only on episode three.

The story is about John Amsterdam, age 365, who came to the colony of New Amsterdam 1642. In return for risking his life to save an indigenous Native American woman he was given immortality until his soul is married to that of his soul mate. He has seen New Amsterdam grow into the thriving city of New York and honed many skills over the years. He’s worked primarily in law enforcement, either behind the badge or in the courtroom (at least as far as I can tell having seen three episodes.) Few know of his secret, but he’s not real shy about saying he did something over 300 years ago that most around him take as simple sarcasm.

The character of John Amsterdam (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is every bit as intriguing as Forever Knight’s Nicholas Knight (Geraint Wyn Davies) without the hang-ups about blood sucking and melancholy. And comparisons can’t help but be made between the two shows, especially with the main character being a good standing detective. I’ll go out on a limb and say that if you liked Forever Knight there’s a very good chance you would enjoy New Amsterdam. The show is very well pieced together to include modern day happenings intermingled with Amsterdam’s past, but there’s no jerkiness involved with going between the two. Instead you get a great deal of relevancy to the current issue at hand.

Give it a shot, I think you would enjoy it and it’s definitely an enjoyable hour to be lost. You can catch it Monday nights at 8 central on FOX and here’s hoping they don’t screw it like they tried to do Firefly.

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