Challenge: Cable TV [cough]

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

OK, I know this is a longshot but I really love these guys so what the heck. :D

Challenge: Mike Holmes, Alton Brown

[Angie runs and hides!]

Additional Details: Mike Holmes of "Holmes on Homes" is a Canadian contractor who goes around playing White Knight and helping out people who've been fucked over by their contractor or builder, people who've bought a new house that was a piece of crap and whose builders dragged their feet and messed around doing little cosmetic fixes until the warrantee period was up, or who hired a contractor to do a major repair or renovation or addition and got some incompetent idiot who charged them an arm and a leg (sometimes up into the six figures) and then put the thing together with staples and cardboard, or tore their house apart and then just vanished. Mike comes in with his crew and makes it right, usually better than it was before and better than the clients (all of whom were out a pile of money and some of whom were about to lose their homes and go into bankruptcy) ever thought of requesting. Mike is intense and focused and dedicated to helping out the people who've been screwed over by the assholes of his profession. He's on the Very Short List of guys whose babies I want to have. :D

Alton Brown, of "Good Eats," "Iron Chef America" (he's the announcer for that one) and "Feasting on Asphalt" is IMO the best food-show-host-person around. His combination of quirky humor, broad and deep knowledge of his topic, and passion for the "how" and "why" and "when" and "who" and any other question he can think of regarding food makes him entertaining even when he's talking about some food I don't like. "Good Eats" isn't just a recipe-of-the-week show; he goes into the background of a food, the history and anthropology (a nutritional anthropologist makes regular appearances on his show) and food science and explains how it all works and why. The presentation has just enough tongue-in-cheek, with tacky but effective visual aids, puppets, and weird characters played by a handful of regular actors plus any member of his crew he can throw a costume on and drag in front of the camera. He's not as obviously hero material as Mike Holmes, but he's an incredibly neat guy who knows how to do food shows right, and doesn't assume that the viewers just want to sit there with a notebook scribbling down a recipe.

I'd love to see these two guys together -- Mike Holmes did a special pair of shows in LA once, helping out a couple whose house had been gutted and abandoned, so maybe he could do the same thing in the Atlanta area where Alton Brown is based? -- but even a story about one of them with someone else would be great. :D

Due Date: 1 October 2007

E-mail: angiepen at gmail dot com

Blurb: I'm still Angie. [smile/wave] I'm probably going to hell for this but I really love these shows and the guys who do them. They're not movie-star gorgeous (although Mike is definitely in good shape the way a guy who works for a living is) but the guy inside definitely wins in both cases.