The "Top Chef" Conundrum

Back in March, the cable company forced all of us to go digital.  And by "us", I mean those of us who had been holding out on making the transition - the frugal, the elderly, the otherwise-occupied.  We had our beloved channels removed, one by one, until we were practically held at remote-point and forced to order that darn digital adapter.  We were promised "more channels", and a "crisper image".  What we got: the same channels (networks), but for the DC area.  I can now watch two NBCs, two CBSs, two ABCs, and two FOXs.  Woop dee doo.

And the image stinks.

Anyway, enough complaining.  As a result of this transition (and my refusal to pay any more for cable than I possibly have to), I lost my beloved Food Network and Bravo (home of my favorite show, Top Chef).  We haven't had these channels in seven months, and for the most part we haven't missed them - we can watch both channels at the gym (which is an awesome incentive not to miss a workout), and because we have so few channels to peruse, we tend to occupy ourselves with other things (cooking, cleaning, reading, life, etc.).

However, we now have a problem:

The new season of Top Chef premieres this Wednesday.

I'm serious about Top Chef.  Looking forward to it gets me through the first half of my work week.  I channel the contestants while I'm cooking, sometimes to the point where it gets a bit ridiculous.  People, I almost peed myself when they announced that they'd be bringing some favorites from past seasons back for Top Chef: All-Stars.

So it should come as no surprise to you that I've been scrambling for a way to be able to see my precious show when it premieres this week.

My friends, I believe I have found a solution.  Thanks to my memory of past seasons and a little research on the Bravo website, I am 95% sure that they rerun the new episodes the following day (Thursday) at 7 p.m.  As I mentioned before, I can watch Bravo on the TVs at the gym, but the new episodes come on at 10:00 at night, and considering that I need to wake up at 5:30 the next morning and be fresh enough to mold 20 young minds, that's a little too late to be hitting the treadmill.

But Thursday at 7:00?  That's definitely doable.

Yippee-ki-YAY --- bring on Top Chef: Texas!!