Spoilers are after the bump.

First, let me just say this. Every season of Hell’s Kitchen seems to get worse every time. It seems the chefs who compete are not chosen for their skills in the kitchen, but instead on the amount of drama they can generate. I understand the entertainment value. I really do. But I like to see a genuine competition between chefs of equal caliber.

Top Chef, for instance makes Hell’s Kitchen look a lot like Jersey Shore. A really big joke. Hell, I’ll even say that Gordon Ramsay’s newest series, Masterchef, makes Hell’s Kitchen look like a joke. I really did not like any of the competitors in Hell’s Kitchen at all. There were a couple of people I thought might be worthy to win, however, a majority of the contestants this season were a joke. seriously. Some of them I’d say you’d easily find them as line cooks in Old Country Buffet. Not to say they don’t belong there. But I have to admit the screening process could be better.

Anyways, enough of my complaining and on to the winner.

Congratulations to Holli as winner of Season 7 of Hell’s Kitchen. Let’s hope she really does end up being the head chef of the Savoy restaurant in London. If you were faithful and watched this season, you’d notice that Holli was a sleeper. At first you weren’t quite sure if she was up to the challenge, but she really did pull through. I thought she did a great job with a lot. I also want to add that she’s from San Bernadino, CA and I used to live in Redlands, which is just about the same place, and it was almost like rooting for a home team.

I also want to say while Jay, her competition, while skilled, did not impress me as a person and came across as a pig. I want to say that 60% of that was probably editing. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and say they probably put a lot of words into his mouth because that causes more ratings and thus, more viewers. It was a bit too bad, however, since he did seem very skilled in the kitchen. Although I have to admit on the pass, when he was in charge, Ben had to lend a hand, which I thought was not a good thing. Let’s not forget the incident where Chef Scott just about lost it and yelled at Ben when he tried to help out with the pass for him. A matter of opinion I’m sure. But honestly, if someone else started doing my job, right in front of me, and breaking my pace, I’d have to yell at them too. And believe me, they would have felt like they shouldn’t have woken up that morning.

I think if Jay had probably concentrated more on his work, and less time wondering if he was going to sleep with Holli, he probably would have won. He totally underestimated Holli, I think, and he paid the price for it by being the #1 loser of Hell’s Kitchen.

Can you tell I was a fan of Holli? I’m gonna go ahead and stop you right now and say it wasn’t because I thought she was attractive or anything. It was because of 2 simple reasons: 1. She was the underdog. I always root for the underdog. 2. She really was a skilled. She actually had improvement as the season progressed. Everyone else thought they were already the shit and didn’t improve as much as they should have.

So there you go. Were you team Holli or team Jay?

If this sounds too good to be true, wait till you hear the best part. The best part: since you don’t have to worry about the hardware, if there is a port for your type of computer OS, you can play it. Currently, Mac and PC are available, with a desktop box with wireless controller available soon to connect to your TV. Now it sounds too good to be true for sure right?

Not quite. In my opinion, it works great. I was lucky enough to join in on the Founding Fathers program and I’m currently getting one year for free and the second year is 4.95 a month. I’m not sure what the normal rates are. It could be 4.95 for all we know.

They’ve only got a few selection of games, probably about 15. (yes I’m too lazy to count the number of games and tell you.)

So far, I’ve no complaints about the service. But keep in mind that I have a very good cable connection with 10mbps of bandwidth available to me. So if you’ve got a very fast internet connection, definitely check this out.

I’m curious to see what other similar type companies (i.e. Steam/Valve) will do that may compete with this. Interesting to see how it evolves.

They are still taking in applications for the Founding Fathers program so if you’re not signed up, go ahead and sign up today!

The other thing was the amount of nothing going on. I understand that you have to develop the story. But you know, there was so much hype about this movie that we already knew the gist of the story, we knew there was a very bad ghost (or demon), and we didn’t need to have about 70% of this movie. The only thing I got from all the boring parts was the fact that the boyfriend was a total ass.

Now, I know I gave the movie 2 stars on Netflix.com, but I was really tempted to give it 1 star. The only redeeming factor to this movie was that there were some really creepy moments in there. And the end? Creeeeepy. But I have to say the creepiness was too few and too far in between.

I think this may be the first movie I’ve seen where the beginning sucked and the last 5 minutes rocked. Normally it’s reversed.

So I have to say I like some of those commercials with Luke Wilson. But seriously, I think you’re representing the wrong company. I’m not saying that Verizon is any better, or hell, I’m not saying anyone is better.

Why did I come to this conclusion? Because for the past few days, Meesh and I have been having issues sending TXT messages. I’ve been attributing it to problems with their network. It happens. So I called customer service today, and found out a disturbing thing. I fully expected to hear that there were some issues with data towers in our area. But then why didn’t it affect internet usage? Well, turns out, they cancelled my Family Messaging Plan.

What?

Yeah, they cancelled my Family Messaging Plan. That means we have unlimited texting. Yeah, that’s right. I asked them how this could possibly be. Why was it cancelled? I wondered if they thought I was abusing it. But it’s unlimited. What did the Customer Service girl tell me? She didn’t know why it was cancelled.

They had no reason for cancellation of the service.

I know I didn’t cancel it. We send a bajillion text messages in a month. We need that unlimited service. She did explain that the computer does go through accounts and there could have been a mix up with the account. Oh ok, that’s acceptable. Computer Error.

NOT.

No computer error is ever acceptable. Especially when it concerns money and service. Then there’s the other possibility. That it was operator error. That is even worse! That means a person was looking at my account and accidentally cancelled my text messaging service. What were they doing in my account? If they were cancelling the service on behalf of another customer, again, why are they in my account? That is just frightening. But I doubt that’s the issue. Because if it is it’s just too frightening to imagine the ramifications.

But all that aside, I have to wonder another thing. Why aren’t my text messages sent out? Or why do I not receive them? What if it was an important situation? Even if I’m not on an unlimited text messaging plan, shouldn’t I at least get the opportunity to pay for additional text messages? I’m really disturbed about this. It makes me wonder what else AT&T is blocking from me. Are they blocking certain phone calls too because it’s “not part of my plan?”

Am I the only one who’s had this problem? I can’t believe that I’m one of the millions of AT&T customers that has had this issue. Needless to say, when my contract ends, I will not be renewing it with AT&T. iPhone or no iPhone. In the 10 years I’ve been with Sprint, I’ve never had this kind of problem. And I haven’t even been with AT&T for a year.

I’ve really been getting into it I think because this is exactly what I’ve been wanting to write about. Not necessarily the “angels vs demons” and apocalypse outlook, however, the ghost hunting and the monster hunting is right up my alley. I’m really looking forward to the end of the series, and excited to see how they do finally treat the apocalypse.

For those of you who don’t know what the series is about, and are not watching it, (shame on you!) the basics are simple: it’s about two brothers who are raised to be hunters. But they don’t hunt animals. They hunt the things that go bump in the night, which are very real. Eventually you learn there are such things as demons, as well as angels. Very well put together. I strongly suggest checking this series out.

Here’s where I say there are spoilers and if you are watching the show on DVR or whatever, this is the point to turn back. The rest of this article after the bump.

Ok, first of all, if I had to choose just by personality alone, who should win it would easily be Chef Garces. seriously. Because Chef Mehta may be an extraordinary chef, but his attitude is really not that of a true Iron Chef. I mean come on, in this last episode, he said something to the effect of  “I don’t care if anyone likes me”, which to me is a very poor attitude. He’s constantly sabotaging other chefs, and making the most outrageous layouts for his dishes. While this may be seen as “creative” or “artistic”, there’s really nothing artistic about his layout when you’re eating his dishes and thinking, “where is the food?” seriously? He really needs to tone down on that. He also needs to listen to the judges. Almost every time, he has been told to tone down his sweetness in the dishes. But has he done it? Nope. Has he grown at all in the entire competition? In some ways, maybe, but really, I don’t think he’s learned anything.

When Chef Freitag was eliminated from the competition, I thought that was it. That was the end of this competition. Honestly, Chef Garces was the only other chef I thought worthy of the title of Iron Chef. Well, perhaps chef Mullen. He really did a great job, but in the episode that eliminated him, I think he really shouldn’t have made that rice. Apprentices in Japan spend somewhere from 3 to 5 years just cooking rice. It’s really a very serious thing. I’ve been cooking rice for almost 20 years, and I have to say I have yet to make the perfect bowl of rice.

Now I’m really looking forward to what Chef Garces will make for the finale of Next Iron Chef. As for Chef Mehta? I really don’t care. It will probably be something outrageous and ridiculous to look at. It may look pretty, but will it really be any good? I suspect that Chef Mehta will probably win the competition only because he’s a “bad boy” chef and they probably want that for ratings.

If he does win? Then I’m no longer watching Iron Chef America. Or maybe even Food Network for that matter. It’s just a shame. Chairman Kaga from the original Iron Chef would be ashamed to have him as an Iron Chef I think.

Oh and a message for Chef Freitag: I’m sorry you didn’t win, I really wanted you to win. But think of this way. Now you can really grind those chefs on Choppped. Hehe.

However, one use I don’t necessarily condone or agree with are the use of psychics. I know there are plenty of people who say they can talk to the dead, or are sensitives, but honestly, a lot of them are probably not really psychics and I’m sure there are a handful of them who are actually fakes. Kinda like how “The Mentalist” used to be.

I’m sure you’re waiting on why exactly I have a hard time believing them. The biggest reason is because my friend’s son, Shawn Hornbeck, went missing back in 2002. I’m not sure if you’ve necessarily heard of the story, so I did link it to his website. During that period of time, they had consulted so many psychics who tried to find Shawn. However, no one had anything of substance. Some actually even stated that he had already passed on and crossed over. Others said he was out of state and he was long gone. But the fact remains that Shawn had never left the state, nor even the city! He was found to be living in Kirkwood, MO, just about 20 miles away from where he went initially missing. Come on now. How can I possibly believe in psychics who claimed to have talked to him from beyond?

I am willing to hear from any psychics who claim to be authentic, or anyone who has met one. Nothing would please me more than someone who can debunk my theory that psychics are either frauds or people who think they have a gift for clairvoyance or whatever. I would just love to hear that there is more to this world, and that there are those that can speak to the spirits of the dead. Convince me!