DownTheShore

I looked at that link and agree with you. If anything needs a phonetic translation, it's "pasta e fagioli" (containers of which I have in my freezer, after following Lidia Bastianich's recipe, whose TV show I prefer).

That one seemed to have digressed into a "who will be taking over for him" topic, but if it's better to combine the two threads, I have no problem with that.

I liked that one episode set in Mexico where the people chose that condo in a tall thin building on the beach where they had the entire floor to themselves. They were dithering about it, IIRC, because the husband didn't like the white tile floors, saying that dirt would show on it easily. I mean, they were on their fourth floor, I think. How much dirt was going to survive on their shoes from the outside up to that point? ----- To anyone who's lived abroad - why does it take so much more time for remodeling to take place there? I'm thinking about some of those "where are they now" episodes where it's taking years to complete work. Is it just that they hire a local guy who does all the work himself and doesn't hire subcontracting crews? It can't be a matter of getting general building supplies in the majority of the instances.

@NYGirl - IIRC, their budget was $175K. What I constantly find interesting are what herd animals the young couples are when describing their ideal kitchen. It's always either white or dark wood cabinets, black or some bland neutral light granite counter top, stainless steel appliances, and some sort of neutral-toned backsplash. I mean, haven't any of these people ever heard of color? I'm not talking garish, but when they come across a kitchen where there's a bold pop of color in one aspect of it such as the upper cabinets or the backsplash or an accent wall, they draw back in horror as if Satan himself had just popped up through the floorboards. Are they all just designing things for what they think the next buyer of their house will go for? If so, I think that's the saddest thing. I have a sibling who did that - boring white walls, boring white cabinets, boring white subway tile blacksplash, solid black granite countertops, neutral tile flooring. Everything monochromatic and as neutral as possible. The kitchen and the bathrooms were all redone with the thought of what other people would like. More money was spent on it than it was worth, all so that it would be appealing to the broadest amount of buyers when they sold the house in the future. So their kids were growing up only knowing a sterile kitchen. Well, they sold the house - and the new buyers tore the whole house down. Buh-bye boring kitchen.

I just wanted to start a general thread about him because I wanted to make a comment about his literal appearance at ComicCon: I think he really needs to put the black t-shirts behind him. While it's probably a comfortable article of clothing for him, that combined with the black leather jacket IMO makes him look like an aging wannabe cool guy. He's reached the age and has the personality to carry off a Rat Pack coolness, I think he should play up that and dress that part in these public settings. (Craig's probable reply to DownTheShore: ~FLAG~ you!) :-D

Personally, if I was willing to go to the restaurant and shell out the money for food there, she should be happy however I pronounce the pasta names. Perhaps she thinks that if people can't pronounce it, they won't order it? Many a time I've just pointed to an item on the menu and just admitted that I wasn't sure how it was pronounced. But I mean, who in America can't pronounce those basic pasta names? It really comes off as condescending to me.

I find the show virtually unwatchable. There is no chemistry between the participants and they all come off as trying too hard. If they were trying to recreate The Chew on HGTV, I think that they failed. I like the idea of a show like it on HGTV, but this show just proves the maxim that "too many cooks spoil the broth". They need to get rid of Jeff Mauro and Katie Lee - those two add nothing to the presentations, and to tone down the energy levels of the rest because they approach manic at times. As much as I questioned the inclusion of Clinton Kelly and Daphne Oz at the beginning of The Chew's run, those two really act well as the glue between the other three larger personalities (Carla, Mario, and Michael). And can someone explain to me why TPTB think that it's appetizing to have all that long hair swinging around over the food when it's being prepared? The first thing my grandmother taught us when we were cooking or baking was to pull our hair back, so that none of it would fall into the food.

You have to watch the Create channel now, to see those craft, sewing, painting and gardening shows. That's the only channel that fully carries that type of programming. http://www.createtv.com/

LOL! I thought the same thing! That was a sweet deal she had going for her. I, too, miss the "G" in HGTV. I always liked Landscaper's Challenge. I liked seeing what the different designers came up with for the same space. I'd like to see them come up with a show for doing a similar thing, but on a budget, because the show was trending toward just straight/gay couples with no kids and a lot of disposable income toward the end there; it seemed to get away from just making the space look good. I have a friend who needs her front yard and driveway spruced up but the quote she got from a landscaper put that out of her range. I'd like to see them have a designer do a full plan for a front yard or a back yard with all the bells and whistles, and then do one with the bare minimum that the homeowners can tackle themselves. I don't need to see flaming waterfalls or outdoor pizza ovens (which while neat, have got to be the biggest waste of money). I want them also to explain to me whether or not the people who own the houses have to take the cushions off all that outdoor furniture when it rains, and where do they store it? And those sheer curtains they love to hang outdoors - don't they mildew and/or get all stained from dirt splashed up by rain? Show us the latest in fencing styles, and compare them to older styles. Show us which works better with various architectural styles. Teach us about various architectural styles - what differentiates a Queen Anne from a Victorian, a Georgian from a Colonial, etc. What defines a mid-century modern and show us comparative examples from the leading architects whose work defined the style. Get back to basics and give us a true gardening show, where people actually plant and grow vegetables. Teach us what type of soil mix is best and what grows best in which climate. There's a reason why The Victory Garden on PBS has been going strong since Jim Crockett's days. Promote community gardens as an additional way of providing food to local food pantries - that way we learn how to create and participate in one, and shows how it can benefit not just the gardeners and their families but the community as a whole.

Ah, thanks for that HGTV forum link; I didn't know there was one. I thought of starting a forum for the show in question, but I couldn't think up the three required topic threads, because I don't know that I care enough about the show to make the effort. I just needed to vent about the bathtub - lol.

@Amethyst - Thanks for confirming my impression about Genevieve's new show. I think it must be written into her contract that she has to say "it's just me and my kid now" at least three times per show. She lost me when she was complaining about her tight budget (after buying the adjoining apartment in a NYC townhouse ~insert eye roll~) and was shopping for new bathroom fixtures and went to a Southampton NY designer showroom to look at bathtubs. I thought to myself, "Hon, if you're on a budget you go to Home Depot first, not some showroom in the Hamptons".

I enjoy the episodes set in Mexico, probably because I only know generalities about it, since my neck of the woods has so many immigrants from so many areas of the world that Mexicans are just another group without the onus they seem to have in some of the southwestern states. The views seem beautiful, the food looks tasty and the buildings are interesting. Give me an old colonial in Merida and I'm there - lol. I remember really liking the housing in Loreto Bay in Baja California. The first episode set there had stressed the green/renewable energy living of the project that the developers were hoping to accomplish. I follow a few of the blogs from the residents in the area and was interested to find out that the project's developers went bankrupt when the financial crash happened and all that planned construction came to a halt. A lot of the people who had bought in there seemed to be snow birds from the Northwest and from Canada. I wondered how that HGTV young family (originally from California, IIRC) made out after that. I think that the project is now on its second or third developer but I don't think that the "green" aspect of it has been fully realized. There were other housing developments in the area too. The last time they had an episode set in that area it looked as though things were picking up a bit.

Isn't that the truth! It is real estate porn - lol. I like to see what housing styles are like in other countries, what importance is placed on the various rooms and facilities, what the views are and what the towns are like. The real estate agents I watch to see when they reach the point of exasperation with the unrealistic desires of the buyers and how they manage to rein in the comments we all know they'd love to make. The buyers themselves are the least important in my eyes, other than trying to guess whether the couples will be together five years from now, or whether the now-angelic children who are enjoying a new country will be viewed so rosily once they hit their teen years and are more integrated into the foreign country than their parents are.

I can't believe that the Toledo couple chose that condo. And what was that fascination with having a bar in their living room? One part of me says, "oh, don't be such a fuddy-duddy, be happy for them that they've found a common point of enjoyment, they're young, they can afford to drink and party" and the other part of me says, "another stupid young couple who are trying to extend their teen years as much as possible, and think that they are cool because they have a bar/air hockey table/pool table/etc." I can't remember, did they get or already have the obligatory "young couple's faux child", i.e. a dog? This is just an aside, because there isn't a forum set up for this show yet, but is anyone watching the show "Genevieve's Renovation" on HGTV, starring Genevieve Gorder?

I actually felt sorry for the Polish guy. He finally hit life's jackpot with an expensive house with land in the American suburbs, and his wife decides to take a job move to Romania. Talk about not passing "Go" and not collecting the $200! He makes it out of Eastern Europe and she brings the family right back there. And what was with their obsession with tennis? I liked that family from Seattle who were relocating to Barcelona; they were just so American but in a nice way. I was glad the wife finally realized that she could take public transportation into that all-important city center so she and the kids wouldn't miss one single cultural moment. It looked like the older daughter is just at that age where a change of location will probably benefit her.

Adib: "The toilet right next to the tub - that's nasty!" What??? If you've got a small bathroom, where else is it going to go? Where's he from - one of those countries that puts the toilet in a separate room by itself without a sink? Now, that's nasty! (Not to mention it being extremely convenient in an emergency if you've got an illness that includes nausea and diarrhea. ;->)

I like that when they find a structural or utility problem and they call the customer about it, they don't play the "we're going to have to cut some other design element out of the budget", and that the prices they quote for the fixes seem reasonable. I also like that their customers trust them enough to give them the okay right over the phone.

In my eyes, the master bed/bath with the double closets trumped the other one. You can never have too much storage space, while you can always use the main bath in the house to soak in a tub. I don't think that what's-her-name's design skills were that good; puke-green is not "zen". I am of mixed-mind re Eric - my instinctive reaction was to dislike him, but I think I do him a disservice by that. Adib, while seeming a nice guy, always took on more work that could realistically be completed within the time frame. What really surprises me with these shows that stress "the new value of the home is...." is how they don't subtract out the cost of the renovations to get what the real value-earned is of the remodeling. A lot of those renovations don't add a whole lot of value, even the kitchen ones, if the house footprint isn't being changed also.

Thanks for that info. I'll be looking for it. At least on PBS there won't be that fast scene cutting to try to drum up drama and excitement as was done in Yard Crashers. That has always annoyed me - it seemed aimed solely at people with ADD. I always wondered, too, if a lot of people turned down his offer of help in a knee-jerk response simply because he wasn't white; I could easily see that happening. Perhaps that's why they switched hosts. Hopefully the new show will move beyond putting firepits in water fountains...

Oh yeah, I remember that one. She was moving to Australia to be a coordinator for a one-time event, and just happened to find true love with that guy. I mean, how much coordination did it need? Go outside, make sure no trees block your view and look up at the sky. That's why those Australian ones really bother me. The basis for the trans-location to Australia is unbelievable right from the start, with people moving there to leave their old jobs in their home countries and start new jobs such as: coordinating eclipse-watching, being a masseuse, teaching para-sailing, selling Mom's Caribbean swimwear collection while being able to surf, starting a travel resort in the jungle when one is afraid of bugs, starting a charter cruise business from scratch, etc.

I think it's more a lack of imagination on HGTV's part. They're concentrating so much on "H" part of their name in regards to selling and buying, with very little on the "G" part now. I miss shows like Curb Appeal and Landscaper's Challenge, or the shows where we actually learned why certain design choices were made in the home decor. Instead, they're giving multiple shows to Jonathan & Drew, and to Scott McGillvray (sp?) to rechurn their schtick, do multiple versions of Love It Or List It, similar shows involving first time homeowners, multiple versions of HH, etc. I want to see a show that's akin to PBS's Victory Garden - where people actually grow a garden with vegetables. I want to see a show about planting beautiful gardens for full sun, full shade, desert climates, northern climates, etc. I want shows set in places other than southern California where the weather is fine and everything seemingly grows year-round. I want gardening shows set in places where people have to deal with quirks of nature like weather and deer eating the plants and squirrels digging up the flower bulbs. I want them to do a show on decorating rental apartments (not condos) that are plain boxes as they are in real life - none of those apartments that have quirky sunrooms or beautiful crown molding/baseboards or windows and doors that are fully trimmed out with white-painted or natural wood. I want to see what they do with a plain rectangle of a living room with a metal & glass sliding door as its only light source. Or an apartment bathroom with no window and a noisy exhaust fan. Or old and ratty cabinets and appliances in a narrow kitchen.

I think what we see on a lot of these episodes are princes and princesses living out on their own for the first time. Their only experience in home remodeling probably was when Mommy and Daddy asked them what color they would like their bedroom walls painted, because that and carpeting are the first things they seem to focus on. They obviously have no conception of how annoying it is to keep stainless clean, not to mention that you can't use magnets on the refrigerator. And they always want so much counter space, yet all we ever see them do is cut up fruit or vegetables and grill a piece of meat outside. I have to give props, though, to that one episode where the young woman wanted counter space in the kitchen because she and her family made pierogies at Christmas. Now, that's a real reason to need counter space (I make them with my sister and we use all the counters and take over the dining room table too.) And I cannot stand those women who are enamored of a house because it has a sweeping 1 1/2 story staircase and they can just picture their imaginary future daughter gliding down it in her prom dress. I mean, you're going to buy a house on the off-chance that you're actually going to have a female child and that she's going to want to go to a prom? You're buying a house for a potential one-day event seventeen years in the future? It just seems to me that these women have spent too much time in their lives playing with their Barbie dolls.

I was wondering, as I often do with these Americans-in-Asia episodes, when they talk about their budget for housing, are they talking about a stipend from their company or money out of their own pockets? Seems to me that if your company is giving your a 5K or 6K housing stipend, then coughing up an extra thousand or so shouldn't be a deal-breaker. And if you have a job that pays you enough that you can afford $60-72,000/yr in rent, then why are you quibbling over an extra thousand? The Chengdu couple annoyed me. It was another one of those "we want to live close to spouse's work location and in the center of the city so we can take full advantage of it", but God forbid any of their children should have to double up in bedroom or one of the adults can't have their home office, in those center city locations. And I was thinking to myself, "Who moves from country to country bringing treadmills with them?" I knew just from looking at her that she was going to go for the American style home in the ex-pat suburb, no matter what she was saying to the camera. As for the ladies from Perth, I too was wondering why the dinner parties weren't being held in the friend's home. And I agree that the friend's voice was beyond annoying; but I felt sorry for her too. Imagine having to go through life like that, with a toy doll's voice. Emerald seemed like she came from money right from the start; she looked like she would be able to pass for a Parisian after she lives there for a couple of months. The whole premise of her quitting a good job in Perth and starting up a home dinner party business in Paris - an extremely expensive city - was ridiculous, though. No regular person could afford to do that, unless they were hosting parties every night. And I mean really, you're in Paris with all that great food and those great restaurants and cafes, and you're going to book a dinner party in someone's cramped apartment - someone who's from Australia not France, and isn't a trained chef to begin with? And you're going to be eating with the strangers who cooked your meal, as if they were some sort of experts on Paris and France? I looked up Eileen Bond. Definitely Emerald's grandmother, definitely money, and a lot of scandal in that family: http://www.divorcesolicitors.com.au/legal-news/1992/4/11/why-alan-bond-split-with-eileen/

IIRC, Eric is from Staten Island. I've watched all the episodes, but I'm not vested in any of the contestants. The show has become predictable to me - which isn't good for something just in its second season. There's always going to be someone who doesn't budget properly. There's always going to a female contestant who is too non-confrontational to make sure she gets the project she wants. There's always going to be one guy whose estimation of his own capabilities is wildly over-inflated. There's always going to be one person who can't put the pedal-to-the-metal and speed up their work. There's always going to be one person who takes on a huge built-in project. There's always going to be one person who designs a laundry space while apparently never having done any laundry in their life. There's always going to be one designer in love with the blue-sliver-gray color palette. There's always going to be a contestant who goes by a single nickname. There's always going to be someone who gets sick/injured.

That reminded me of the commercial with the kids who stared at their mom because she had on "spooky eyes" makeup! Those pop-up graphics are even worse on kids' channels. There's always leaves blowing across the bottom of the screen or flowers popping up, things sliding in from the left or right - very annoying. ---- Anyone else think that it was very odd that a Miami music producer was changing jobs so completely to starting up a technology firm in Andorra, and his wife was giving up her singing career for him, just to do voice overs? The first thing that popped into my mind was "no extradition treaty", so out of curiosity I looked it up and, nope, the US doesn't have an extradition treaty with Andorra - lol. There is, of course, no hint of any illegality regarding either of them; just too many mystery novels on my part. :) She actually has a Wiki page - she is apparently quite well known: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alondra It's a pretty country and it was interesting to see the show set there. Way too many hills to climb, though.