Happy Birthday Buddy!

Today is the 15th birthday of our cat, Buddy! Actually, since Chrissy was his 3rd or 4th owner, we don't really know how old he is, but based on estimates from his vet records, and pictures of when he was little, we estimated. Also, I'm not sure how, but I seem to remember having some sort of indication that this was the time of year he was born, so we just picked this day... He's getting up there in years, and he's definitely slowed down a bit, but he's still doing pretty well. He's still seems happy. He's still interested in food. He eats, drinks, and uses the litter box. He still sleeps on my chest every night. Actually, he starts on my chest, then moves down to my legs, then (usually) will move on to the bed at some point, but not always. Occasionally, the alarm clock goes off and he's still on my legs. :-) He's so sweet...

Country Week

I'll keep this brief, since I'm home sick. It was country week on Idol, with mentor Randy Travis. Oddly, no one sang a Randy Travis song. Michael sang Garth Brooks. They're always saying they want to see what kind of artist someone will be, and Michael showed it. Good job. Allison sang Blame it on Your Heart. The song was a bit old for her, but at least none of the judges mentioned her age! Woo Hoo! Kris, Danny, Anoop and Megna all kicked ass! Lil was ok, but seemed a bit uncomfortable. Scott wasn't great, but he keeps going through, I think, because no one wants to vote against a blind guy. Alexis did pretty well, but the judges weren't crazy about her performance. Matt did well, but not as great as the judges thought. Adam was just weird. He sang some weird middle eastern arrangement of Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. I hated it, but then I'm biased. I can't stand him. We'll see what America thinks. I'm hoping he goes home, but I could see Allison or Lil going home instead.

What the Hell is Wrong with PETA?

Did you hear about this? PETA wants to make Clooney-flavored tofu, called CloFu. Seriously. Not a joke, people. They apparently got a hold of a gym towel that he had used to wipe down after exercising. Now, normally, what would be your first thought upon finding such a trophy? Sell it on eBay! I'm sure some fanatical Clooney stalker would pay $300 for a hermetically sealed baggie containing a moldy towel dripping with George Clooney's sweat. But no. Some genius at PETA decided a better use for the towel would be... to... take the sweat and make... tofu? Yeah. That makes sense. Aside from the fact that making anything edible from anyone's bodily fluids is enough to make the average person vomit, I don't see the connection. Clooney doing voiceovers for Budweiser? That, I get. He's a man's man. Men want to be him, women want to be with him. So an all-American beer is the kind of product people might associate with him. But tofu? Sweat-flavored tofu? Aye yi yi...

Group 3

I don't know if previous seasons were like this and I just don't remember, or if it's just an odd season. Lots of lackluster performances by very talented singers. Lots of bad song choices. Not a lot of clear cut favorites. Von was good, but still a bit shouty for my tastes. Taylor was ok, I think. Don't really remember, which isn't very good. Alex is nice, and a good singer, but it was a bad performance. Arianna was just a mess, and I think she knew it. Ju'Not was very good, but I don't know if it was good enough to go on. Wild card, maybe? Kristen took all the soul out of Gimme One Reason. In her intro clip, she introduced herself as a karaoke host, and it absolutely showed in her performance. Nathaniel can actually sing, but is very very annoying. Big time Drama Queen. Ick. Felicia, on the other hand, was fantastic. Great performance, great look, great vocals. She's my first pick to go through. Scott sang Bruce Hornsby, big surprise. I think he struggled. Lots of pitchy parts. He seems nice, but I think he gets by in the competition because of the blindness. Based on his performances in Hollywood, I wouldn't have sent him through to the finals. If he could see, I don't think he would be where he is now. Kendall was hot. That's about all I can say for her. Jorge was great. Best of the men's performances, I think. He's my #2 pick. Lil Rounds finished off the show with a bang. Smokin' hot, fantastic voice. She's my 3rd pick to go on. Easily the best of the night.

Second Group of Twelve

Another night of underwhelming performances and poor song choices on Idol. Jasmine started off with a disappointing perfomance of a poor song choice. Matt, the dueling pianist, stunk up the joint. Jeanine, who I never even heard of before last night, struggled through Maroon 5. She did have nice legs, though. Nick... aye yi yi. What can I say about Nick/Norman? Great voice, fun to watch, but definitely should not be going through to the next round on this singing competition. If I were in this competition, singing my heart out, and he went through and I didn't? I'd be pissed. Allison did a serviceable job on Heart, but it's not 16 Year-Old Idol. They must have mentioned her age about 10-15 times. They did the same thing with Jordan Sparks. They should not be judging based on how well the do for their age. They should be judging based on how well they sing. Period. Kris, I thought, did an excellent job singing Man in the Mirror. I thought it was among the best vocals of the night, and liked the arrangement even better than the original. Megan did a fantastic job singing Corrine Bailey Rae. I really like her. She's soulful, unique, memorable. Definitely the best of the night. Matt did ok singing Tonic. I like Matt and he seems like a nice guy. I just don't know if he did well enough to go on. Jesse did pretty well with Bette Davis Eyes, but I can see Simon's point. Not the most memorable. Kai is another nice guy who just picked the wrong song and had a pretty boring performance. Mishavonna did the same. I don't see the attraction to Adam. I think he's very annoying and shouty. I didn't care for his performance at all. I think Kris and Megan were tops for the night and Jesse should be the next highest. That's what should happen. What will probably really happen will be Allison and Adam will get the most votes and Megan will go through in 3rd.

Quote of the Day

From Entertainment Weekly's summary of last night's Idol: "Since my surest bet of the night is that two men will advance to the top 12 on Wednesday night, that means only one woman will be able to join 'em, and I'm putting my money on Alexis Grace, a contestant whose transformation from perky young mom to black-slip-sporting sexpot won't be seemingly complete for the judges until Alexis installs a stripper poll [sic] at center stage and works it like a nine-to-five. Seriously, how many ways can this woman be asked by the judges to dirty herself up, or to make love to her fiancé before she's got a legitimate sexual harassment suit on her hands?"

Too funny! Seriously, though, Alexis was hot. Not just physically, but the performance. She should definitely go through for the ladies. Danny should be a lock for the guys. In fact, he's my early pick to win the whole shebang (not to be confused with She Bang, by William Hung). My money's on Noop-Dawg for the #3 spot. I pray to all that is holy that tonight is the last we see of Hyena Girl (a.k.a. Tatiana).

Star... Wars...?

This absolutely cracked me up! Apparently, this guy found out his friend had never seen Star Wars. He was going to show her, but she decided she had seen enough of it from clips and such, and she didn't need to see it because she already knew what happened. So, like any good friend, he recorded what she said, and created a brief animation showing what she was describing.


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

I think my favorite part is when Amber mentions The Force, and we see the formula F=MA (Force = Mass * Acceleration, for those that don't know). Followed closely by when she mentions the "dark side" and Joe shows the album cover for Dark Side of the Moon. This is a must see for any Star Wars fan!

Ok, Now THIS Really Ticks Me Off

Apparently, some folks are upset with President Obama because he thinks Washington overreacts to ice. Well it's true! People in this town f-ing flip out over one snow flake! Hell, last year, they cancelled schools one day because snow was predicted for the next day. As usual, the weather people were wrong, and it was a clear blue sky the next day. Have you ever had to go to the grocery store and suddenly realized that someone had predicted snow? It's a madhouse! Bread milk toilet paper! Bread milk toilet paper! It's like a mantra that shoppers chant. You would think people would be housebound for a month the way they act.

The worst snow I've seen in this area was the blizzard of '77, when the snow was around 5 feet deep. There were drifts up to the roof of our cape cod. My sister and I dug a maze in our front yard. We dug a trench by the road so we could throw snowballs at cars (at least until our dad came out and yelled at us for doing it). Even then, the roads were cleared by the end of the week. One week! I've lived more or less paycheck to paycheck most of my adult life, and it's been a rare time that I didn't have enough food in my apartment to last me through one week. Granted, it might not have been stuff I would be thrilled about eating. I might have had to live a week off of year-old soup, peanut butter (with or without bread & jelly) and ramen noodles, but I could make it.

I used to work at Blockbuster and it was just as bad there. People would run each other over to grab the last copy of Gator Bait II ("Cajun Justice"!) off the shelf, just so they would have something to watch. These are people that if, a week before, you had said to them, "I will give you $10 if you watch Gator Bait 2," would have told you to take a hike. Seriously. Gator Bait II: Cajun Justice.

I've heard all the criticisms. I don't buy 'em. "It's because he's new here. He just doesn't understand." Well, I've been here 35 years and I don't understand. "People here come from other areas that don't get snow. They just aren't used to it." I came here from Hawaii. "We don't get that much snow here, so we're not prepared for it." I get just as much or as little snow as anyone else in this area and I still think it's absurd. People. Here. Just. Friggin'. Panic. Plain and simple.

Oh, back to what really set me off about the Post article. The quote from the Associate Head of Sasha & Malia's school, "No question, the president is right. The next time it snows, we would like to invite him to help us make the decision. His involvement will make it much easier to explain to our students why they won't be able to spend the day sleeping and sledding." Maybe the president should rethink where he sends his kids if the administration at Sidwell Friends thinks that's what school is all about.

I Am Brilliant

Ok, I know it's not very modest... I'm just feeling pretty good right now. We recently had some computer issues, and had to buy a new one. When we got the old one back from the shop, and had to get our data off it and on to the new one, we had a problem. There were mother board issues with the old one, but the hard drive was fine. We just couldn't get it to boot up. After doing a little research online, I thought it would be possible to move the drive to the new computer and set it up as a secondary drive. Upon opening up both computers, it seemed it might not have been as easy as I thought to access some of the cables necessary to move the drive. However, I was able to unplug the drive on the old comp, disconnect the drive on the new comp, then connect the old drive to the new comp. This allowed me to copy some files onto a flash drive I had purchased, then, upon reconnecting the new comp drive, to move the files there. Granted, I had to move the files in batches, since the old hard drive was 80G and I the flash drive was only 4G. The drive wasn't full, and a lot of what was there was Windows and other programs. I think the actual data took probably 10 switches or so. It was a little slow & tedious, but given that I have virtually no formal computer training, I was pretty impressed with myself!

Post Office

Y'know... usually, I'm the first one to defend the Post Office. I think that, if you consider the number of articles that travel throught the postal system every day, and the fact that you can drop one small piece of paper in a box on one side of the country, and within about 1-4 days, it can reach any address in the entire country, all for $0.41, that's pretty damn amazing. I think most people take it for granted. Really, if you think about the number of letters, post cards and bill payments you send out every day, and the number of letters, fliers, bills and such that you receive every day... when was the last time you sent something that never made it to its destination? Doesn't happen too often. Last month, however, on December 15, I spend %5.45 to send a letter by Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation. I realize it was during the holiday rush, but still. The guy at the Post Office actually took the letter from my hand, entered everything in the machine, and put the envelope into the bin. So I had no chance to screw it up. He did everything for me. Well, guess what? To this day, the track and confirm page only shows that my envelope was accepted for shipping. I have called 3 times to have the envelope investigated. Each time, I have been told that someone will contact me by the end of the next business day. Twice now, I have received no call. My third call was Friday, so they have until COB Monday to call me. I'm not holding my breath. What's even more frustrating is that, when I called yesterday, I asked if I could speak to someone directly, rather than waiting for someone to call me back (since that obviously wasn't working too well). I was told that they couldn't put me through to anyone, but that if I didn't get a call, I could call back and ask for the Consumer Affairs Division. So guess what I'm doing Tuesday? I still think that the Post Office is a good deal in general, but I think the next time I have an important letter that needs confirmation, I'll send UPS for FedEx. It might be worth the few extra dollars.