Masterchef Australia drinking game

This isn't really a post about a media issue as such. My mum loves cooking shows, and so I've been watching Masterchef Australia with her. Watching the challenges is fun, but what gets me is the formulaic nature of this reality TV. You'd think that after a few seasons they'd be able to mix things up a bit (although they have done that a bit with the challenges this season), but it just gets so irritating when they don't.

So, in order to make the repetitiveness fun, my friends and I have developed a Masterchef Australia drinking game.

I prefer to use non-alcoholic drinks and take absolutely no responsibility for what happens if you don't.

Please feel free to add comments to this as I'm sure I've missed a lot.


Have one drink if:

• fire appears on screen, two if something catches fire that shouldn't.
• a contestant worries about being sent home. *
• a contestant says "I don't want to go home".
• a judge refers to some element of a dish as the hero or a cracker. *
• pasta dough or Mayo is made.*
• a judge makes a bad pun (very small sips for this or you'll be drunk or needing the bathroom within the first 10 minutes).
• George bounces up and down.
• a judge says "Should we try it?", "Should we start eating?",  "Let's try it" or something along those lines.
• George says something grammatically incorrect.
• someone mentions salt.
• someone uses butter in a dish that's not a dessert.
• someone refers to "beautiful food" or "beautiful ingredients".
• George uses his fingers to eat.
• anyone (judge or contestant) makes an inherited dish (eg grandma's).
• "I/She/He have no idea what I/they are doing".
• George has to taste a chilli hot dish.
• blue bandaids are seen.
• a contestant says "food is my life".

Have two drinks if:

• a contestant doesn't make their own ingredient from scratch (i.e. using ready-made breadcrumbs or pasta).
• one of the contestant comments negatively on another contestant's cooking.
• a contestant uses the term "shattered", "devastated", "gutted" or "disappointed".
• you see gratuitous product placement of something the judges have endorsed (don't bother with regular product placement as you'll be drinking constantly).
• someone cries.
• George says "Boom boom, shake the room".
• one of the judges says something about making a tough decision.

Have three drinks if:

• a contestant forgets to turn on an oven/stove or leaves something in the freezer for too long.
• someone has to call for a medic.
• something important falls on the floor.
• a contestant threatens to give up.
• Donna Hay is on the show and doesn't mention anything about food styling.

Drink the whole bottle if:

• Matt Preston breaks down in tears.*
• Matt Preston doesn't wear a cravat.

* indicates a suggestion that I found at http://klaused.blogspot.com/

Image source: Masterchef Australia logo

Creating this weblog

Right, it's time for me to write a bit about what I went through to create this blog. I chose to use Blogger because I've used it before as both a website and a blog for when I've gone on holiday. I've never used tumblr and so didn't want to get into something new that could eat up my time when I could be writing the blog posts.

I've used Blogger templates before, so I wasn't too worried about putting together a good-looking site, but this proved to be harder than I thought it would be. Firstly I had to find the right sort of template to fit the purpose of the blog. Then I had to a adapt the template to be exactly what I wanted (if you want to see the original template, it is called Revolution Lifestyle Two), which meant going into the code and figuring out how to change colours,fonts and other things. It's a good thing that have a degree in computing! If I had stuck with one of the templates offered as standard from the Blogger Template Designer I probably wouldn't have had all of this trouble but I wanted to be different, and I'm also an insane perfectionist when it comes to design. Right now though, I'm not a fan of blogger!

I've learned quite a bit through writing media issues up here. It's made me pay more attention to what's happening in the media, and encouraged me to listen to radio shows like Click and watch television shows like Hungry Beast more often. It's also given me a chance to put my views up without feeling that I'm just babbling uselessly, or wasting people's time by writing up rubbish.

What sort of blogger have I become? I don't think I want to pigeonhole myself at this point, especially since my knowledge is going to always be growing and changing. Let's hope that I'll be a good one.

Image source: Blogger logo