HOT POOP: Things I Liked Last Week 061310

01: Ice Cube w/ The Roots: "Straight Outta Compton": Ice Cube appeared on Jimmy Fallon's show last week, and did the old NWA chestnut, "Straight Outta Compton" with The Roots. And it was goooooood.

02: Owen Pallett: "Game Of Pricks": The Onion's A.V. Club has been doing an ongoing feature called Undercover, in which contemporary bands do cover versions of older, more classic songs. In this week's installment, Owen Pallett (aka Final Fantasy) covers "Game Of Pricks" by Guided By Voices. It's a great rendition (love his voice) that really showcases Robert Pollard's knack for writing awesome melodies.

03: The Cat On The Silver Mountain: Not much needs to be said here - cats are fucking awesome, and this one's climbing a mountain.

04: Dunder-Mifflin floorplan: While The Office isn't quite as good as it used to be, it's still a quality show that delivers plenty of laughs. That doesn't matter though, because this is merely the floorplan for the Dunder-Mifflin office. I love floorplans. I wanted to be an architect when I was a teenager, but my math skills weren't good enough to get me into the program at UW-Milwaukee. Such is life.

05: Keebler Townhouse Flipsides: It's a pretzel shaped like a cracker! It's a cracker that looks and tastes like a pretzel! Will wonders ever cease? I've been putting cheddar cheese spread and sliced Manzanilla olives on 'em, and that's another wonder.

06: Jim's Pancakes: This is a website all about a guy named Jim who makes insanely awesome and inspiring pancakes for his daughter. Must be seen to be believed.

07: Hell's Kitchen [FOX, Tuesdays 8/7c]: I loathe reality shows. Just fucking hate 'em. Hell's Kitchen is the one exception. I believe I like this show because I've had several cooking jobs in my life, and I understand the dynamic of a working kitchen, and how the job is much, much harder and demanding than it might first appear. There's the heat, naturally, combined with the pace of a busy restaurant, that makes the job a bitch. Even with an able staff, there's always alot of different things going on at once, making one's timing perhaps as crucial as one's cooking skills. It's a very delicate balance that can get shot to hell in a heartbeat, and once that balance is gone, it's sooo hard to regain. One of the elements I like best about Hell's Kitchen is how the contestants brag about how great and skilled they are, which is ALWAYS followed by a segment showing them fucking things up royally, betraying their own egos and exposing their questionable skills. Seriously, I oftentimes think the producers pick some of these contestants just to humiliate them. Risotto and scallops are two mainstay dishes on the show, both being excellent barometers of the contestants skills, and almost every contestant who has appeared on Hell's Kitchen over it's seven seasons has fucked up both dishes. And then Chef Ramsay goes ballistic. I find this hilarious. People who have never worked in a kitchen think Chef Ramsay is an asshole. That's debatable, of course, but I can say that his demeanor is commonplace in the restaurant industry. Most chefs I've known and worked with over the years ARE assholes. I can't say that being a prick is a job requirement, but it is a high-stress job that tends to bring out the worst in people, and I just love when Chef Ramsay calls somebody a "useless donkey" or worse. Maybe it's nostalgia. Anyways, I consider myself a pretty good cook, but I don't think I'd fare very well on this show, so as moronic as I think most of the contestants are, I don't know if I could do any better under the circumstances.