Thursday, February 19, 2009

Male genital and rectal examination

For fans of PNS Explosion, you may wonder when Patrick got a medical degree.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

American Idol Week 1 Performances: A night of Sucktacular Song Choices

Hey Y'all!

We have finally gotten past the horrible auditions, the sad stories, and the ridiculous voices to get to the meat and potatoes of the American Idol season: the performances. Here's where the rubber meets the road and we get to see who is gonna make it and who we'll be forgetting in a month's time. I'll usually cover the performances, the song choices and the critiques to let you know who rocked, who tanked, and who made me cock my head to the side and say WTF?!? So, on with the armchair judgment...

Jackie Tohn (A Little Less Conversation)
She's our fun, rocker chick who got some airtime when during the auditions, the sunscreen collapsed nearly killing Simon.
Her performance was fun, but her vocals were just cheesy and I think the judges called her on it. It wasn't a singer's song and she's gonna get bit for for it.

Ricky Braddy (A Song for You)
Ricky didn't get any real airtime during the audition stage, so his voice was a revelation when he began this soul standard. He has an amazing voice and he did a really good job with the song, making some interesting choices with phrasing. In any other season's performances, this would have been a standout and I hope the voters remember him.

Alexis Grace (Never Loved a Man)
She's the single mother with the shock of pink in her blonde pixie locks that showed impressive soul during her auditions. I'm always impressed when a singer chooses songs by the "greats" because it's always a ballsy move. Forget the judges...they say "Never choose a song by one of the Untouchables," then turn right around to say the song choice was "safe." I say, go balls out or get reamed for being forgettable. She did a good job with the song. Was her voice truly big enough for the song? Nope. Did it do enough to make us remember her? Yep.

Brent Keith (Hick Town)
"Dimples" sent Paula and Kara under the table during the audition round, splitting the judges along the gender lines. He's cute, obviously a singer with a voice that impressed the judges, and he wants to sing country. This song choice sucked. It was "supposed" to have energy. It didn't. It was supposed to be a barn-burner. It wasn't. It was boring and safe. He tried to defend the song as a song country fans would like. Well, I disagree. There are oodles of country songs with more fire and show a broader range than this sleeper did. Snore.

Stevie Wright (You Belong With Me)
Our first WTF?!? moment came from our teen contestant. After getting the mindfuck from the judges that she sang old songs too well and she needed to sing younger, fresher material, she tried this Taylor Swift tragedy. Taylor Swift?!? She writes lovely, teenage angst songs, but IS NOT A SINGER TO MODEL YOURSELF AFTER!!!!! Add to it a performance that was scared, awkward, and pretty hard to watch and we have our first true casualty of Season 8.

Anoop Desani (Angel of Mine)
Indian soul singer decided to go with a Brandy ballad. He did a really good job with the song, but was it the right song to set him heads above the competition? I doubt it. Again, it was a good song and a better song choice than most, but there are better songs for America to be introduced to your voice. This was not boring, but also not truly memorable.

Casey Carlson (Every Little Thing She Does is Magic)
In our second WTF?!? moment, this young girl decided to tackle The Police hit. Credit for balls. No credit for trying to turn the song into some girly, country type of thing. Add to that the pagenty facial expressions, and you get an awful performance that actually made me cringe.

Michael Sarver (I Don't Want to Be)
Our ruffneck from Jasper "We Drag Black Folks Behind our Trucks" Texas, opted to sing a song that had more power than he did. Rarely do the guys get a song that we hear and say that their voice isn't big enough for, but here ya go. He tried to build up to it and it just didn't work.

Anne Marie Boscovitch (Natural Woman)
This season's Katherine McPhee decided to do a combination of the Carole King and Aretha Franklin versions of this classic. She has a really good voice, but something about it was off. I tell you... by this point in the show, I was wondering if the judges really made the right decisions with the singers they chose.

Stephen Fowler (Rock with You)
Our final WTF moment came when our edgy Black singer of the season, who forgot his lyrics at the piano during the auditions, decided to tackle this Michael Jackson classic. Now...I have to say, while there aren't any classics I don't think a singer should try, there are some songs that truly belong in a time and a place and to one singer, because unless you plan on making it fresh and new (FOB's version of "Beat It" for example), you always come off sounding like a sucky version of the original. This was a HOT MESS. It was very "Bad lounge singer" and it will not send him ahead.

Tatiana Del Toro (Saving All My Love For You)
Our Season 8 Sanjaya decided to try out a Whitney original from the 80s. As much as I can't stand the drama queen in her, she actually has a decent voice. Actually one of the better voices of the night. The judges made much of her subdued look and attitude (no crazy crying and giggling tonight...prolly because she went home and watched the tapes and saw just how crazy she looked). Still, just before the break, she managed to show us a glimpse of the crazy, selling herself to America and cockblocking Ryan's close of the segment.

Danny Goeke (Hero)
The widowed choir director who auditioned with his friend and made it to the Top 36 sang this Mariah single and was MILES ahead of each and every singer last night. The arrangement was crappy, trying to fit into the 1:20min time frame, but it was like watching a masterclass on how to audition. Amazing! I already have a favorite for Season 8.

Who should go forward:
Danny and Alexis plus Ricky

Who is in trouble:
Stevie, Casey, and Stephen

Wanna hear the performances? Go to Itunes and again you can purchase or listen to each individual performance or Check out YouTube for the videos.

Kelly Clarkson - Chivas - Sydney, Australia

The reason I go back to this song in my head is it's one of those perfect breakup songs where you just say "fuck you" to the one who really pissed you off and broke your heart. It is alos one of my personal American Idol audition songs (were I able to actually audition for AI).

Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You

I am SO singing this song in the shower daily! Loves it!
If you can't understand why she was the American Idol, you can't appreciate a great singer.

Monday, February 16, 2009

A 15-Year-Old Slut Who Is NOT Miley Cyrus!

A 15-Year-Old Slut Who Is NOT Miley Cyrus!Filed under: Baby Blabber > Wacky, Tacky & True
Remember how we told you about 13-year-old Alfie Patten, who is now a father with his 15-year-old girlfriend?
Well, now 2 other teen boys are coming forward to contest Alfie's paternity!
Um, paging Maury!
But new mom Chantelle Steadman says that only Alfie can be the father because "I love Alfie. I lost my virginity to him. We decided to start a physical relationship because we love each other. There has been no one else."
16-year-old Richard Goodsell and 14-year-old Tyler Barker, however, each claim to be newborn Maisie's father. Barker even said, "It was routine for boys to stay over with Chantelle in her bed. But I only slept with her the once."
Yikes!
Not only that, but the boys claim any number of teenaged lads in the Old Town estate in Eastbourne, East Sussex in England could be the father.
Alfie insists, "I am the only boyfriend Chantelle’s had — and we’ve been together for two years. I must be the dad."
To put the rumors to rest, Alfie has agreed to take a DNA test to prove his paternity, even though he previously had no idea what a DNA test is.
This sounds like a reality show in the making!

Ewwwwwwwww...

That is never gonna be the same again. There is not enough cocoa butter...

Life Update

I haven't posted personal stuff for awhile, so I need to get caught up. Work has come to a level place after the stress coaster that are retail visits. Now, we have had something like 20 visits in the last 2 months (almost literally). These visits are really complete and total disruptions of the workweek, because while we are supposed to be doing things to make the store look great for our customers, but in actuality we spend that time getting the store detailed and scrubbed for the 1/2 hr. to an hour the visitor spends walking through the store. We then get to spend the rest of the day trying to do all the other things that we really needed to do to make our day to day activities go smoothly.

My most sincere wish is that each upper management person who schedules a visit gets to spend a few weeks not just judging the stores, but actually working in a store at our level. All week. Every time a visit is scheduled. Then have someone else schedule 3 visits a week. Then cut their hours. Just sayin'. Leave us alone so we can actually get work done.

We then got audited. Twice. We failed. Twice. Why? Many of the things we would normally do to get the store ready (detail the racks, size merchandise, make sure things are locked properly, etc.) we didn't do because WE HAD 3 VISITS INTERRUPT US! Mind you...the visits were a rousing success. Our boss, he received many many MANY kudos for the way that he runs his stores and us in particular for being the best store in his district (which we are rewarded by receiving EVERY FREAKIN' visit that comes to town). Still, we look like these slackers because we failed to cross every t and dot every i. (sigh)

The husband and I are looking EVER so forward to our vacation. We drive to Galveston and hop on a cruise through the Western Caribbean. 4 days at sea and 3 days in port. Rock on!

The Teen has returned and aside from his decided unwillingness to wash his clothes, it has been good. He's home. He's healthy. He's working. That is our blessing.

So aside from work being a crazytown, life is good.

wicked - popular

I love Kristen Chenowith and she put a wonderful stamp on this show and song. Poo poo it if you dare, the show was really quite wonderful.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

SNL Alec Baldwin Wii Skit

I know a few people who would be CHAMPS at this game. ; )

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Monday, February 2, 2009

Vanity - Pretty Mess

I looked at the long list of albums I have to translate from LP to digital and came across this. I was a serious Prince fan and had everything by him and his protegee's. This shows my lack of discerning taste. Check his hair out.