Uhhhhhhhhhhhmmm - AI ******SPOILER******

American Idol went long tonight. I think they coulda scrapped a Beatles tribute song or seven in order to announce the winner on time.

If your DVR or VCR (hehehe) didn't record the end and you want to know who won keeeeep on reading. You know I can't tuck my posts so. Stop reading if you don't wanna know...



Elevator muzak.


After 74 million votes...

Moooore elevator muzak.



...the winner is:


okay, dude, it's 10:04pm, ANNOUNCE ALREADY.


lalalalalalalala




winner: Jordin Sparks


BJ? She said BJ! Heeeeee. :) This was totally the right choice. Nice job, America. Blake, go make my album!

Ai, mami

Jordin needs to win. Even THOUGH SHE PULLED OUT THE TEARS. FAkE CrYER!!!

And Blake needs to go do his own album so I can BUY IT. :)

Paula, you are high.

Seriously good makeup artist, seriously high Paula Abdul. I'd probably do the same thing if my nose were chipped by my chi-hua-hua.

Sons of bitches in handbaskets of pie

I'm on this pie kick lately, so my newest profanity is titled above.

Did you know that on this past Monday stamps went up to 41 cents? Which means that whatever urgent bill it was I sent out on Monday is going to be returned to me. I have no recollection of which one it was. Will have to see when it comes back to me...

! (as in not) bad news: Jordin and Blake are going to make a FANTASTIC, perhaps BEST EVER American Idol finale. I am so PSYCHED! 11 weeks ago I could not imagine how Idol was going to keep me hooked on this show because the season was so awful, and now my dreams have come true. I get to watch a 17 year old Jennifer Beals face off against a beatboxer! Bring on the 80s, my friend! I hope there are mashups made of Jordin and Blake...

No hookering!!!!!!!

Blake Lewis sings Roxanne.

"IT WAS FANTASTIC."

Blake Lewis singing Roxanne. I just imploded. Simon, I don't agree.

AI live blogging?

Oh, sure. Why not?

Barry Gibb... Two songs per contestant.

1. Melinda Doolittle - Inside and Out. Blech. Rushing the song, and I agree with Simon that it was a background vocalist performance.

2. Blake Lewis - You Should Be Dancing. Beatboxing is not working for this song, at all. Weird how the wrong song choice can make my favorite performer not be my favorite. It was bad. Agree with Randy and Simon.

3. LaKisha Jones - Stayin' Alive. Good song choice, good makeup, bad outfit, and she kept messing with her hair. But this is the first week I've liked LaKisha at all in a very long time. So, nice job. :) Very good job playing around the melody. Disagree with Randy and Simon.

4. Jordin Sparks - To Love Somebody. What the hell is she wearing? Hot Mama hair and makeup, and she's beautiful. Slow start to the song but started getting very good toward the end. I really can't believe she's only 17.

5. Melinda - How Can You Mend A Broken Heart. Slooooooow song to start with and I just didn't enjoy her version until her crescendo. I also didn't like her stomping around and showing her teeth. Her last note was off. Gotta hit those and leave us with a good taste in our mouths...

6. Blake - This Is Where. I've never heard this song or heard of it so I don't know what to compare it to. It sounds like he tried to Duran Duran it and it didn't quite work. Blake!? Why?! You couldn't have waited two more weeks to screw up?! I'm curious if Dan agrees that Blake is the one going home...

7. LaKisha - Run To Me. I hate the color of her dress but like the cut, hate the song choice but liked her vocals. Hmm. Blew the last note (sounds like she's losing her voice).

8. Jordin - Woman In Love. Gorgeous dress, love the song choice (a favorite Bee Gees song of mine), and I love that she is just standing at the mike rather than walking around with it. Soft, tender, and staring right at us while she sings. Agreed with Randy that it was a little pitchy, but I don't agree with anything else the judges said. Winner.


Is LaK going home tomorrow so we can have a guy in the running, or will it be a ladies top three? Hmmmmmmm....

If Jordin isn't the next American Idol then America got it wrong.


Update: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I just visited the AI site and found out that PARIS BENNETT'S DEBUT ALBUM CAME OUT TODAY! [ iTunes | Target ]

Update 2: If you'd like to ruin the results for yourself, click here. :)

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

Blake Lewis singing You Give Love A Bad Name:



:)

Update: The first one went away. Thanks to K for informing me. Everyone, lemme know if it disappears again, I'll keep finding new ones.

An AI WORTH talking about?!!??!??!

Blake's version of You Give Love A Bad Name fucking KICKED MY ASS. I'm such a sucker. I love that guy. He should win just based on the incredible risk he took totally beat boxing a Bon Jovi classic and doing so with a new hair color. When YouTube catches up to my enthusiasm I'll post the video and half of you can laugh at me while the other half of you are mesmerized along with me. :)

Update: No video yet, but rickey.org has the audio so go listen. :)

Joke's over - *SPOILER ALERT*

I can't tuck stuff with Blogger, so don't look down if you don't wanna know.



Bye, Sanjaya.

(Go, Blake! :)

Weighing in on the Simon "controversy"

Last night Hay noticed Simon rolling his eyes when Chris Richardson used the VT massacre as his excuse for severely sucking last night:

I know for a fact (because once I have an idea in my head it's a fact) that Simon was only rolling his eyes because:

a) this season has been a joke
b) Sanjaya is still around
c) and now CHRIS is throwing around a TRAGIC EVENT to garner more VOTES to keep him around?!

I'd roll my eyes, too. And then I'd figure a way to get out of my contract and only do X Factor where the contestants aren't so fucking melodramatic.

I'm looking for the video. I'll post it when I find it.


Update: I didn't find a video (didn't even look after I posted) but Hay just sent me this article which explains that Simon didn't even hear what Chris said. (Neither did I, by the way.) Simon was rolling his eyes about Chris's performance which he was discussing with Paula while Ryan talked to Chris. What annoys me most is that my local radio station tried to play the "he's not from America, he's a jerk about our news" card. Stupidity.

AI quickie and idiom spotcheck

I am not kidding when I say I was really drunk last night. I watched American Idol's vote-off show but I only remember bits and pieces: Gwen performed a less than enthusiastic Sweet Escape and Chris Sligh got kicked off before his time. He wasn't going to win the whole thing, but he wasn't the worst last night. I enjoyed him while he was around. Such is life.

Did you know that in French the idiom equivalent of "such is life" is "c'est la vie, c'est la guerre"? Idioms are so fascinating to me...

YARRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

The best and only reason to watch American Idol tonight: Gwen Stefani will be there!!!!! How could she not be performing? I will hold out hope that she slips in a song.

This morning's getting ready song was The Sweet Escape. I must be psychic.

AI top 11

SANJAYA IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO STAYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did anybody catch the crying girl?!!?!?!? I am laughing so hard I'm crying with her!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hay thanks you for your support in getting Sanjaya on the AI tour. :)

Edit: Thank you, America, for keeping Sanjaya around! And, here's the video of that little girl crying:

I like pie.*

I have returned. Did you miss me? I missed being here.

At lunch time I actually snuck back to my office for a moment alone and found this MSN search about the male oral contraceptive pill. I like men, I really do. I like you! But if I don't want to get pregnant I'm taking my own damn pill. Just sayin'. You take your pill, I'll take mine, and we'll all feel better about the whooooole thing.

I'm slightly exhausted from my day because I didn't really eat lunch and I was giving or attending presentations all day. They're tiring! I'm having an afternoon Starbucks pre-packaged mocha to get me through until Hay comes to pick me up and take me home. I am actually glad there isn't a new episode of The Office tonight so that I don't have to feel bummed about being tired while I watch it. I like to be well rested for the Jam vs. Jaren war. (You know Jam will ultimately win.)

Oh! If you vote for American Idol, Hay begs of you to vote for Sanjaya next week. He wants the kid to make it to the top 10 so that AI is forced to let him do the tour. :D Just like that red-hedded crooner kid from last year! I fully support Hay in this endeavor.



*What? I do!

mishy

I think Apple and Lisa Loeb have conspired. I have one album from Lisa that I purchased after watching her show "Singled Out" and now all that iTunes wants to play in shuffle mode is 3 songs of varying artists then another Lisa Loeb song. I'm going to delete all but my starred songs from her album and that will solve that problem.

...

For once I planned ahead and actually made a PowerPoint presentation a month ago for a training session I'm doing tomorrow. Yesterday I was reviewing the presentation before printing out the slides with notes (for note taking, because people seem to need to take notes when I talk :) and noticed a term I didn't remember adding so I went to follow the hyperlink and found that it was missing. Huh. I know that I added one, I just didn't remember to where. I started spot checking the other 29 links that I had already spent hours researching and adding to this presentation. They were all missing. I don't normally curse in front of my female co-worker because she's like a mom to me and my mom doesn't like it when I swear so I just transfer the courtesy to my female co-worker, but yesterday I did a lot of "f f f f f f f f f" exclaiming. At least I abbreviated it.

I read online from a Microsoft MVP that there was a known problem with my version of Office and hyperlinks vanishing. The suggested solutions were: update Office; remove Office completely, reinstall, and don't update. I've done both those things. My presentation's links are still missing. Looks like I'm redoing all my research. The thing that really chafes is that I could have sworn I saved every single link to a bookmarks folder in Safari back before my computer was sent in for service. I have all my bookmarks on the computer but I cannot locate any such folder. The backup version of my presentation works just fine, but I made significant changes to it so it's basically useless to me.

I know you're all gloating that bad things happen to IT people too. It's okay to do. Go ahead, get it out of your system. Just know that Murphy's Law applies to you too so make sure to plan ahead and have a backup (whether that be the data itself or a plan for how to accomplish your task if your technology fails you). This advice is rarely heeded.

Update: I finished editing alllll the links, saved the file, viewed the show, and the links are all “off”. For example, if I hover over a Microsoft link I get a link to a Wikipedia definition. The hyperlinks aren't blank, but they're totally useless when they don't point you to the right place. I'm redoing the entire presentation now to see if that fixes the problem. Effing A².

Update 2: That seems to have worked, although I've lost all confidence that the links will stay put. The worst that happens is that people have to play a memory game of matching appropriate links to appropriate keywords. If they don't like it they don't have to come to the presentation ever again. Works for me. :)

Update: 3: Yup, the links reverted to their preferred squirrelliness again. I am officially hating on a certain big company right now.

Update 4: It cannot be said that I am not persistent. I copied and pasted from PowerPoint to Keynote (Mac version of presentation software) then redid all the links then exported to PowerPoint. Magically, all is well now. Well, not magically. The only thing magical about this is that my computers are still on their desks rather than out the freakin' window.

...

This doesn't deserve its own post. AI top 12 was the worst I've ever experienced. I would stop watching the show, but we really enjoy hearing the judges tell almost every contestant what a disaster their performance was. I think this season we need to vote off two at a time until we get to the top 6: Blake, Chris, Jordin, Stephanie, LaKisha, and ... Okay, never mind, top 5. (No, I don't like Melinda.)

What the 1134 was that?

Blake Lewis and Chris Sligh may advance. The rest of you guys: GO HOME. NOW. That was awful. I can sing better when I have laryngitis, f's sake.

Poppy's AI Q&A

Question: How come you never post about American Idol anymore?
Answer: Because this season is crap. Okay, let me qualify: All the guys are crap. A bunch of the women are good, but it's all been done before. We know Lakisha will be voted off by mistake and that will leave someone who shouldn't win to win. The only entertaining thing so far has been that Lakisha tries to dress like Aretha Franklin but ends up looking like a lady of the night. (Sorry, but that outfit last week said “I charge $20.”)

Question: What do you think about the Antonella Barba scandal?
Answer: (This one's for Jen.) That girl does not deserve to be on the show. (Dan, I know you disagree.) Her naughty pictures are inconsequential. The only thing carrying her through so far is VotefortheWorst.com. She will receive no more of my blog time.

Question: Will you ever be reviewing the Idol performances???
Answer: For now, please go see Dan at Steel Kaleidoscpes, Rickey.org, and MJ's Idol blog. All three do incredible reviews of the performances, and I always find myself being able to articulate my thoughts through their analyses. When we get to top 12 I will likely be much more chatty about the performances. I don't have much to say about people in which I am not yet invested, if that makes any sense.

Question: Do you think Paula is drunk?
Answer: I think she is crazy, but her hair was really pretty last night!

AI's top guy of the night

Blake Lewis's rendition of Keane's Somewhere Only We Know made my all giddy. I absolutely melt every time I hear that song, and this was no exception. I really don't want to like him, but he was smart by not doing the beatbox stuff tonight. Don't get me wrong, the beatbox stuff is entertaining, but as he pointed out this is a singing competition. So, singing is a good thing. Please don't listen to Randy and do the beatbox every week.

And for my swooning pleasure, the Keane version:



Update: Rickey always comes through with Idol video. To see and hear Blake perform Somewhere Only We Know go here.

Idol saves another career; TRL cancelled?

I saw Robyn Troup on Ellen last week performing with the other two hopefuls in a competition to take the stage with Justin Timberlake at the Grammys (“My Grammy Moment”). Robyn won that competition so her name has been kinda everywhere. Here's her performance with JT directly after Jennifer Hudson announced her as the winner of the competition:



Last night during group performances on AI I watched Robyn be cut by Paula, Randy, and Simon. Granted, there were something like 3 women to every one man so the judges had a lot of lady cuttin' to do, but I'm always a bit of a conspiracy theorist on things like this and wonder if Idol cut her because this other opportunity came up for Robyn after she already got her golden ticket, or if Robyn's performance just wasn't up to par with the other ladies who made it through group night.

Seems like the biggest stars of Idol are the ones who get cut. (I am not a fan of Kelly Clarkson. I can't do it. She freaks me out visually and I just don't think that her vocals are that interesting.)


Totally unrelated: I just read over at I'm Not Obsessed that Jossip scooped the cancellation of MTV's TRL. I didn't think that show could ever be cancelled. What will MTV do now?! Oh. Right. More episodes of My Supah Dupah Nexted RW/RR Cribs Challenge.