Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

Completely. I think it's been a steady softening, though. I DVRed his stuff and rewatched something like fifty episodes over the past four weeks and was disappointed at how many superlatives he uses. Not that I'm a misanthrope, but I just don't think everything we encounter in life is "really good" or "great."

Let's send him a thesaurus
 

Could be his success has meant a bigger budget and better advance work, so he just avoids stuff he would have formerly dissed. Or maybe Legal got to him.

I still like him. When he finds an outstanding mole kitchen or pork barbecue in Mexico, the cuisine may not be haute (who you callin' haute?) but it's 'great' in its own context.
 

I guess I should have also made it plain that I do like the guy. I see the softening as a good thing. The world has enough pissed-off O'Reillys (my father would be one), it's not a bad thing that a guy starts to fall a little bit in love with everything.

Didn't he have a kid, too? That'll make you pull the blinders off. When given a large role in the caretaking of the happiness of a developing human being, I found myself shifting how and what I said. Like when the guy parked in the left lane on I-5 inspired me to yell out something highly derogatory and the passionate intensity with which I delivered my treatise on left lane drivers prompted my kids to say "What's he doing, dad?"

I immediately recognized that I didn't need to create two little Lars Larsons and corrected my behavior with a confession to my children along the lines of "He's okay. Daddy's just a little too impatient."
 

He's been phoning it in for awhile, though Bourdain on a bad day is still better than most on their best.

He still rocks pretty hard when he puts pen to paper...the "Les Halles Cookbook" features vintage TB plus you get to cook.
 

I agree with Greg and Kris; I've been to many of the places Bourdain's TV show highlights and some of the food you marveled at and raved about initially becomes rather pedestrian by the 3rd time around. So, I concluded long ago that much of Bourdain's "really good" or "great" exclamations are just first timer's verbalizations that diminish considerably over time.