American Idol - 10

What a boring night. First of all, we got Sober Paula tonight, and she's just no fun to pick on when she isn't high. She enunciates her words, both her eyes are open at the same time, and she makes sense. Really though, what's the point?

Everyone looked like an amateur tonight. My take:

Lisa: Better than she's been lately. I don't know the original tune, but I bet Kelly Clarkson's version is way better and made Lisa look not so good. She took the judges' criticism well, considering her age and the fact that it was probably her last night to perform.

Kellie with an "ie": Sorry... soon as I heard a fiddle, I could not turn the volume down fast enough. I have no idea what she ended up sounding like, but I had plenty of time to study her face. Something's wrong with it tonight.... is it swollen? Different make-up?

Ace: He was doing okay vocally for a little bit, and then he pulled out the cheesiness card and tugged his shirt open. Very much an eye-rolling moment. Oh wait, it turns out he was trying to show the audience an actual "scar" on his chest to coincide with the lyrics. That's a double-cheesburger, I believe... with extra cheese.

Taylor: Volume UP!! Goddamn I love this guy! Randy's an idiot for thinking this wasn't good. Paula hit the nail on the head with her comment about Taylor doing the right thing by standing in one place and just singing tonight. It startled me for a moment (I'm always startled when she makes sense), but I agree with her. I LOVE his usual whacky moves, but just standing there might have earned him some new fans.

Mandisa: Gospel?? Uh-oh. Careful, girl. I think you just pigeon-holed yourself.

Chris: Didn't work for me. I love this song, but I think he roughed it up too much. He doesn't have the voice to pull off Creed. And the flashy lights are distracting... made the whole performance look overdone.

Katharine: Is this a joke? She's all over the place! It's as though she can't find the right key, and she's almost yodelling her way through this song. She looked great, though. Less like a slut. The judges thought she did well. Well, we know who they're pulling for.

Bucky: There goes my mute button again. Is he doing a one-legged twist? I hope he goes instead of Lisa tomorrow.

Paris: I can see what she intended to do here, but the band is actually not "loud" enough. They sound underwhelming. She's the only one who showed any energy tonight, but it's a little over the top; too mature for her, maybe? The moves are distracting... not sexy at all, but almost disturbing, like seeing Jon Bonet made up like a Playmate. I liked her better when she was cute.

Elliott: Love it!! Lots of energy, great song, great voice. I'm not crazy about the gangsta-wannabe moves, though. They don't suit him at all. But I like Elliott, so I'll overlook them.

Put a little muscle into it

Here's a headline from Newsweek:

"African women reshape a broken continent"

Wow. I wonder how many women it took? I once tried to reshape a spoon after scooping some too-hard ice cream.

The earth has spoken

See? See?? I just knew one day the earth would run out of patience with our ignorant asses and take things into her own hands!

Seriously though, that's a really big pothole. Really, really big. Or it's a really, really small SUV, I'm not sure.

NYC, photo from WNBC-TV

Go get 'em, Tiger!

A couple of weeks ago I said that thanks to A.I., Kevin Covais would get laid before the summer. That was because I thought he'd be stuck in Hollywood for a few more weeks...

Now that he's been given the boot, Chicken Little's free to go back to Long Island and find himself a little Cornish Hen. Dude'll be the envy of the chess club.

Below is an image of what that first lucky Cornish Hen can expect to see on C.L.'s face the first time she removes her training bra.

Bitch in heat

So Paris Hilton's on the prowl again.

That's it. That's all I had to say. This is really just a warning message to all eligible guys with hefty trust funds.

American Idol - 11

Oh great. Paula got a hold of Randy's cold medicine. She could barely open her left eye, and her lips were frozen. I don't think I heard her actually pronounce the letters "p" or "b".

This woman's yapping has become so useless and insignificant that I will from now on quote her as the adults sound on the Charlie Brown specials: "wanh wanh, wanh wanh waaaaanh wanh."

I have petitioned Fox to ask that Paula be replaced by Sammy, Ryan's 7-yr-old assistant from the audience. She made waaaay more sense, and both her eyes were open the whole night.

And now... my take:

Mandisa: Wow!! Damn she's good. And I love how un-stuck-up she is. Did anyone else catch that little humble shoulder shrug she does when the crowd is standing and cheering?

Yucky: Wait... was that a sharkskin-wannabe denim jacket?? Oh for crying out loud!!! (sigh) During his pre-performance interview, he said, "laaaguyyhsyoeeeiiiaao, aaaayeol buupehlw ooofaaallyaaannn." And then the audience clapped, so I guess someone out there understands what the hell he's saying. I muted his performance after the first few lines of his countrified Buddy Holly song, so I got to pay closer attention to his stage presence. He reminds me of a guy doing a bad air guitar rendition of a bad 80's glam-rock song. Enough about him... I've already wasted too much time.

Paris: tssssssssssssss!!! WOW! This girl's on fire! I'd watch that performance over and over again. She redeemed herself this week. Jazz is SO her thing.

Chris: You can tell the band just LOVES this guy, 'cuz they can let loose and rock it out when he performs. Especially the guitarist... he just lets it rip! This was an amazing cover of Walk the Line. Here's another one I could hear over and over again. Oh, and I finally realized who he reminds me of... Ed Kowalczyk, the lead singer of Live. The voice, the bald head, the charisma. As of this week, I finally get what everyone else has been freaking out about.

Katharine: Girl, get thee to a lingerie store. You need some support; the double-sided tape just ain't cutting it. I realize Simon was a bit horny this week and couldn't resist making "stripper" and "sexy" and "hot" references about all female performances, and he was all into this child's jiggliness, but I found her look and performance anything but sexy. She was strutting too much, and it didn't flow... it was cheesy, that's what it was. Paula said "wanh wanh waaanh, wanh waanh", which translated into "you're the only one here who could pull off Ella Fitzgerald." WHAT????? Gtf outta here!! Helloooo...?? Mandisa? Paris? Hell, Elliott could have done a better Ella than this chick. She did NOT do the song justice.

Taylor: Too bad he didn't have much substance in terms of lyrics, but my goodness... that energy! Those moves! That voice! Sooo much fun to watch this guy! And dare I say.... he's startin' to get a little George Clooney thing about him. (Ha! Ryan just said that too).

Lisa: Mon. O. Tone. Bleh. Goodbye, Lisa.

Chicken Little: He did okay, I must admit. Thankfully, not too many s's in this song (can we all remember "thtarry thtarry night?")... Lucky for him, Lisa did worse. Now, what was up with the hand in the pocket? Was it stuck? Were his pants falling down? Was he, uh... happy to be singing?

Elliott: Holy crap this guy can sing!!! He doesn't quite have Taylor's stage presence, though. But I love his humility.

Kellie with an "ie": I KNEW it. I fucking KNEW she'd sing Patsy Cline. I didn't like the performance at all, but the judges loved her. She's talking to Ryan after the song, and my ears are hurting. I can no longer take her stupidity. Please make it stop.

Ace: Girls, please please PLEASE stop voting for this guy!! (sigh) I hate his voice... way too Michael-Jacksony for me. Why do the judges keep fawning over him?? He sucked so badly this week. Wtf are they hearing that I'm not?

Talk to my lawyer

So this guy in California last week slammed a dump truck into his own car, then tried to sue himself for damages.

It didn't work. I knew it wouldn't, because I tried it once too.

This bitch (me) swung a shovel into my windshield and cracked it. I said it was an accident, but I didn't believe me. I called my insurance company, but they just kept hanging up on me.

I tried to settle out of court, really I did, but I was being so unreasonable and couldn't agree on anything. Finally, I had to get the lawyer involved. After a while, I couldn't seem to get him to return my calls.

I tried one more time to settle with me, but the discussion turned bad really fast, and next thing I know, I get bitch-slapped. Bitch-slapped!! Right there in front of me! Aw man, I was SO pressing assault charges now. Oh yeah... you bet. Like I was gonna let me get away with that???!!

Anyway, I finally just drove down to my lawyer's office, and had my lawyer speak with my lawyer. I ended up having to pay for the damn windshield out of my own pocket.

Hmmpff. So much for victim compensation. What a joke. I hate her.

And from the bottom of the barrell....

Have you seen this?? New Line Cinema is releasing a film about snakes on a plane, apparently.

Yeah, snakes. On a plane. And they're all really pissed off.

Mind you, they're not real snakes... at least not according to this trailer. The "snakes" seen here look like cheap cartoon versions of themselves.

And the movie appears to star Samuel L. Jackson. (Sammy... say it ain't so, hun!). Samuel appears to be as pissed off as the snakes.

I'm having trouble believing this is for real. Will someone PLEASE tell me this is just a joke??

Exclamation marks

Whatever happened to the word "egad"?

Okay, you probably don't recognize it. Here, try it this way: "Egad!"

I used to come across it all the time in literature, and I don't see it anymore. By literature, I mean Archie comic books. I've never actually heard anyone say it, but Ronnie's dad used to use it a lot, with lots of exclamation marks.

And "Eureka!". There's another one that's disappeared. I wonder what happened to them...

American Idol

Yeah, that's right... I'm still watching. Here's my take:

Chicken Little is getting cocky. He was cute when he was wide-eyed and innocent, but now he's starting to show some borderline arrogance. It's not sitting well with me.

Ace needs to go away and wait for the agents to come knocking on his door for a role in a primetime teenage soap... something, anything that has the word "Beach" or "Paradise High" in the title. He'll fit right in.

I used to be a big Lisa fan, but now she reminds me of the Hawaiian chick that stuck around too long. There's just no power to her voice. She *looks* like she's putting in all kinds of effort (according to her eyebrows), but it's not coming through.

I have nothing to say about Bucky. I get up and check my email when he performs. (And why oh why do country singers automatically get into the "riding a really big saddle" position when they sing?)

I could watch an entire Taylor concert RIGHT NOW.

The others were good or a'ight. I know everyone's freaking out about Chris, and I like him 'n all, but I'm under the impression that most viewers were not aware that he didn't invent the rock version of Higher Ground... he did not make that song "his", like the judges said... that performance was totally a Chili Pepper cover, only tamer.

How will they tell the kids?

Chef is leaving South Park. Isaac Hayes quit, claiming the creators of the show are writing stuff that leans too much towards bigotry and religious intolerance, and he just can't take it anymore.

The creators, on the other hand, claim he's quitting only because they recently focused on his cult religion - Scientology. (I saw that episode... "Tom Cruise is in the closet and won't come out!".... funny as hell.)

I've been pondering how they'll handle Chef's departure. They'll probably have some aliens come to reclaim him...

On advertising creativity...

I'm flipping through a directory and found tons of companies with the name "Creative" in it. I'm thinking, if you're trying to sound creative, shouldn't you have come up with something a little more, uh... creative?

Chickens? What chickens?

Oh my god I love my new camera!!! I'm so over the fact that I can't afford it.

I've decided that I will become a famous sought-after photog by the end of the year. Last year, when I took up golf, I decided that I would go pro by 2007. I may have to put that off another year, on account of the whole becoming a famous sought-after photog in the middle of this golf season and all. It'll surely cut into my practice time.

This is my first high-tech digital camera, and I can't believe how much it can do! Now I just need to learn it all, and after spending this Sunday morning identifying the eight million buttons and knobs and dials, I was hit with a case of information overload and had to put it away.

Yesterday, the temperature warmed and the snow melted. The driving range at my golf course opened for the day, and My Man and I raced over there with clubs in hand. MM hit some beauties, like he hadn't even taken a break from last season. But I was all over the place. And worse, I was awakening muscles that apparently went into deep, deep hibernation last October.

Today, I'm stiff as a board and couldn't swing a golf club to save my life. That's when I decided that I should focus (no pun intended) on my photography career for now. But I guess I pulled some brain muscles in the process.

So now, I'm completely useless. I can't move, and I can't think. I'll just sit around and wait 'til it passes...

My chickens didn't hatch

I thought I was being pretty damn smart by overpaying income tax by a few dollars each week during 2005. I had it all planned out, how I would file my tax return, and stick it to the man by getting a nice fat refund this season. I've been giddy for weeks, waiting for my accountant to finish crunching the numbers.

"I'm gonna get over a thousand dollars!" I thought. I've been thinking this for a whole year. I had a little dance and everything. I even went out and spent over a thousand dollars just the other day on a nifty new camera I've been drooling over since last summer... that's how confident I was.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

This afternoon, I sat in my accountant's office and felt my stomach churn as he went over my tax return. My ears got a little flushed, then my hands started to shake a little.

The conversation went something like this:

Acc: "So here's what you earned."

Me: "Uh huh." (wow, really?)

Acc: "And here's what I was able to deduct."

Me: "Uh huh" (um... really?)

Acc: "So here's your net income."

Me: "Uh huh" (oh crap)

Acc: "And here's the refund you're getting"

Me: (blink... blink.)

Acc: (blink... blink.)

Me: "Is that it? I mean,... is that it?"

Acc: "Yeah."

Me: "Oh." (blink... blink.)

It turns out it's not a thousand dollars. It's so not a thousand dollars. I totally miscalculated (which is why I have an accountant in the first place). I know about counting chickens before they hatch and all that wisdom, and I'm usually pretty good at ignoring non-hatched chickens and not spending in advance. It's just that the camera was new, and shiny, and I swear it was calling my name.

(sigh) Oh well. Lesson learned. At least I have a fabulous, expensive new toy to console me. Oooh, and I suppose I could post some pics here when I figure out how to use my fabulous expensive new toy.

Yeah, that's what I'll do.

She cleans up good

Well I'll be...

Paula was sober tonight. She was coherent. She finished at least two sentences. In a row.

I was so thrown off by this development that I barely paid attention to the girls' performances. I will say this, though: I predict that Kinnik and Melissa will go home on Thursday.

Other points worth mentioning about tonight: Now mind you, I'm all for Mandisa. The girl ROCKS, and I think she's awesome. But Paula had to pipe up and say to her, "You sang your butt off!" Omg. That was funny, given Mandisa's famously ample derriere. I think I detected a couple of facial gasps on the set, too. You know, the silent type of gasp, like when your eyes widen for a moment, but no sound comes out of your mouth. Too funny.

The golden moment, however, goes to Kellie with an "ie". Holy crap she's stupid. She's confused as to why Simon calls her a "mink". And with some prodding from Ryan, she announced that she ate "sallimon" for lunch today. Move over, Jessica Simpson!

And then the boys sang...

The talent pool clearly lies with the guys this season. While the girls produced a yawn-fest last night, the guys brought their game tonight. My take:

Taylor Hicks: I just love this guy! He's real, he's weird, he's original, he's incredibly talented. And the one thing that Simon griped about during the auditions (the gray hair) turns out to be his endearing trademark. Kind of like Barbra Streisand's nose. I just need him to go easy on the "Wooo"s. Once or twice is cool... but after every sentence is just disturbing.

Elliot Yamin: I take back my prediction yesterday about this being Paris' season. This guy will be right up there during the finals, giving her a run for her money. His voice captivates my attention 100%. He starts to sing, and the crowd goes wild. His voice is sexy, sexy, sexy, and he's a nice guy to boot.

Pretty boy Ace: I remember a Partridge Family episode where Keith is completely infatuated by some chick who can't sing her way out of a paper bag, but he hears her through biased ears, and to him she sounds like an angel. Well.... I think Ace should stay clear of paper bags. Seriously, he's got a girly voice that's not always on key, and I think the audience is simply entranced by his looks. The judges are fighting hard to keep him in for as long as possible... they smell $$$$ with his looks. But seriously, Ace... please stop with the lost puppydog looks. I'm not buying it.

Gedeon: Like Taylor, this guy's a natural performer who's into his music. He lives it, breathes it. You can tell. He's all of 17 years old! Unbelievable. Very authentic; can't help but like the kid, goofy-creepy as he looks sometimes.

Kevin "Chicken Little": First of all, I can't believe they did the Chicken Little bit. They just buried him by doing that, and by his alarmed facial expression, he knows it. Anyway, he's this year's geeky underdog, and while he's destined to get laid before the Spring is over, there's no way he's winning this. Watching him sing Marvin Gaye tonight was just weird... it was like watching Radar from M*A*S*H "get down". He was hopping around on his heels like a muppet, for crying out loud. Problem is, though, that he's gaining a bit too much confidence. His geekiness is only cute without the confidence.

Sway: I can't figure out why no-one likes this guy. He's likable, he's smart, he's got a good voice, and he's good looking. There's just something missing, and I can't put my finger on it. I don't think he'll last much longer.

Will "Brady": This guy's jail bait. Simon says his target audience is 11 year-old girls. Simon clearly doesn't know women. I think I actually saw Paula drool a little. It's creepy... this kid has to go.

Bucky: Wha...?? What did he say? Oh God no... don't talk, honey. Just sing. Shhhhh.... no! Stop it. (sigh) I can't understand a word he's saying. Anyway, he sang a country song. I got bored.

David the Crooner: You know, I very quickly got sick of the last crooner that hung around way too long, and this guy's no exception. Plus I think he's a robot. In fact, I'm sure of it.

Chris: He's this year's bonafide rocker. He's intense, and sexy as hell. The judges love him, and he's a very likable guy. His voice is not nearly as smooth or refined as Bo Bice's, but he's got Bo's charisma. He's here for a while.

Paula's pet word for the day: "Zone". I'm not sure she's ready for the letter Z yet. Maybe she's being a tad too ambitious, but a valiant effort nonetheless.