Party Ovah Heah!!

Wassup, folkses?!

I'm writing you from the Bellagio hotel in the sinful city of Las Vegas, and lemme tell you - this room is awesome! I, or shall I say 'we', have quite a panoramic view from the 16th floor. This room is terribly chic and I'm lovin every minute of it. We arrived here for Jeremy's conference on Saturday morning and immediately hit the ground runnin'! Our room wasn't ready yet, because check-in wasn't till 2 or 3 and we arrived around noon so we checked our luggage and started walking the strip. Our first night was spent at the Imperial Palace because one of my best friends, Steve, works there as a 'dealertainer'; that's someone who deals in the casino and also entertainers by lip-syncing/singing to a famous celebrity's music. He does Toby Keith, the famous country singer. Looks pretty much like him, too.

He hooked us up with a night's stay in a suite for only $39 a nite. Was a suite deal. Get it? Suite...deal? LOL The room had a big Roman-like tub in it. And by big, I mean HUGE! Too bad there wasn't a whirlpool in that thang, but it was awesome nonetheless. So until that was ready we hit the strip and did a little sight-seeing. We've both been here before, so this was nothing new for either of us, but we were both excited to be away from home again. And the weather here has been completely fabulous. It's been in the 60's the whole time and the forecast calls for 70's on Wednesday and Thursday. Looks like we were blessed with an excellent week of weather. After so many negative temperature days in Minnesota, this weather is glorious! So, we ate at Subway, (trying to conserve funds early) and then went to the Miracle Mile mall in the hotel Paris and walked through a few other hotels, taking pictures and slapping a few dollar bills in the machines. We actually won $5(!) on one of the Blackjack games. I know...was only $5, but a win is a win.

Anyway, that night we met up with Marcus, one of Jeremy's ex-es who's now a dancer in one of the shows. He got us free tickets to his show, excellent seats by the way, called Follies Bergere. Was pretty good, but the stand-in chick got to sing that nite, and man was she bad. I never heard Aretha's "Pride (A Deeper Love)" sound so horrible. Other than that, the show was pretty good. Marcus is like a chimpanzee the way he flips all over the stage. I was impressed. That gig takes some stamina, and boy did he have it. He's a relatively cute little Black dude, but nothing to shout about. But it was really quite nice of him to represent by hooking us up with tix to his show.

After the show, he took us out to a coupla clubs, the first one being kind of a dive where he and his friends from the show all go to drink cheaply (right up my crack!) before they head out to Krave, which is the hot spot for the gays. So, we hung out there til about 1 am, then headed over to Krave, where he drops the bomb that it's $30 a head! Luckily, he says that he knows the cat at the door, and if we just pretend to be locals, we'd just walk on in. I'm thinking to myself, "what kinda shit...?", but I submit and go along. Fortunately, it works and we got in free. But what we saved at the door, believe me, we spent in imbibing. Drinks were like $10a pop! It's way to expensive to go out to that club on a regular. Believe me, we would not be frequenting that joint.

We ended up partying till about 3:30 when I'd had enough and Jeremy seemed to catch a second wind, and I decided to let him hang with his friends for a while as I headed back to the hotel. As I walked back, I decided I was gonna go get me a notorious Fatburger. Although I had to wait 45 minutes for it, that thing was a piece of work! I'm still slobbering over that deliciousness. I made it to sleep about 4:30 and Jeremy says he clocked in at about 4:45.

Yesterday, Sunday, we got up and checked out of the Imperial and made our way down the strip to the Bellagio, this awesome room where I currently write you from. After checking in, we searched for a while for food before deciding to eat at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. It was relatively inexpensive and the food was good. That nite, we had a cocktail party/meet and greet with the folks from his company. They gave awards and the highlight of the trip for me was Jeremy winning the Gallup Results award as having the highest employee satisfacton of all the hotels. It was really cool. I was soooo proud, and not surprised one bit. His employees love him. After that, they announced a surprise: They were giving all of us, spouses included, tickets to see the Cirque Du Soleil show "O", which was phenomenal!! We were so excited and impressed with the show.

After that show, he hooked up with my friend Steve who took us to old Vegas or "downtown" Vegas. We had some drinks, walked around and laughed for a while. He spotted us some gambling money, too. I won $20 and quit instantly...LOL. I hate losing. He and Jeremy both lost there fundage. But they played and I think that's all Steve really wanted was for us to sit and play. But I hate losing money, so I took my winnings and cashed 'em!! Before long, we started getting tired, but Steve who works all night anyway, was not yet ready for the night to end. Jeremy suggested we just take him to the room and go out and have fun. I was knda tired myself, but since I don't get to see Steve very often, I thought it would be fun. So we did, and Steve took me to the cheap clubs (he and I are a lot alike!. We went to Piranha, which was a Mexican spot, and to the Buffalo, another little dive where we drank a few more drinks and gambled a little bit more. I made another quick $10 and pocketed that! Steve of course, doesn't know when to quit. We mingled for a little while and went to one other club that was dead, and then decided to grab some food.

We stopped by a Del Taco. Sidenote: I haven't seen a Del Taco since I left Dallas, TX so I was thrilled. We bought food and he dropped me off at the hotel around 4:00 in the morning. We've made plans to hang out again tonite for dinner and a show. That's gonna be 3 shows in 3 days!! How awesome is that!? He should be here in about a half hour. Jeremy is working, but he's OK with us hanging out for the evening. I think we're gonna try to see the Beatles show Love, another Cirque du Soleil show I believe. Anyway, this'll probably be my last post til I get back to Minnesota because the hotel charges $13 a day for internet access, and I don't have no money trees in my back yard! heh heh....can you say country?

Well, I'd better get myself together for my hot date tonite!! :-) The city's calling me!!

Week One Eliminations

Hi, faithful reader(s)!

Welcome back to the wacky pages of my mind! I'm sure you have much better things to do than read the inane stuff coming off my laptop, so thanks for hanging in there with me. One day when I'm rich and famous, we'll both look back at these kooky pages of inadequate, unorganized chaos (which I'm proudly calling my writing) and guffaw like hyenas. But until then, you're stuck with my witless diatribe of crap. So, as we both accept the fact that I'm not yet Tennessee Williams, on to the real cream of my crap, American Idol!!!!!


Last nite was the first nite of eliminations and believe it or not, I was pretty close to perfect with my predictions as to who was the bottom of the barrel. I managed to foreshadow the demise of 3 of the 4 unlucky eliminatees.

The show of course began with a panoramic view of all the contestants looking their most gorgeous, all decked out in their most fashionable black and white outfits. Very sophisticated did they look. You could hardly tell that within the next 10 minutes someone would be saying 'goodbye' to their dreams of a "moment like this". The guys wore nice and natty looking suits and some of 'em even had some nice brims going on! The girls were crisp and classy in everything from glamorous short-shorts to 50's mini-dresses with matching head bands. If nothing else, they looked amazing.

Before I could even digest the fabulosity that I was witnessing, the audience was then shown a pre-recorded segment of all the contestants de-planing as if they were already world class celebrities. As they walked across the tarmac, looking fabulously wind-blown, we got freeze-frames of each, with their names flashed below to make sure you got the full movie star effect. I was really pleasantly taken aback. That was one of the better-produced segments that I've seen so far on the show. Even better, the music of Idol alumni Daughtry accompanied.

But the euphoria of those moments didn't last long, because before you knew it it was time for the group performance. And by performance, I mean perturbance. I guess it's become a staple of the show, but seriously, the group numbers are never any good. Did I say never? I meant never, ever! And last nite proved to continue the trend. I don't remember what they were singing, but they didn't sound cohesive. They hardly sounded good. Even as they got to their solos, it was like singing with the group just made all of 'em sound worse individually. Not cool. NEXT!

So, after one of the 1,003 breaks yet to come, Ryan got right into it. All of the guys were seated in the normal 2-row formation, but he quickly called out Garrett Haley to join him. And right off the bat, sent that sucker home!! YAY!! I got one right! And so did America! That poor kid. He hadda go, though. Unfortunately for us, not until he sang his song again. Because of technical difficulties with my bff's cable system, we were spared the audio on that one. Thank God!

So, now on to the girls. Stronger than the guys? That's what they say, but somebody had to go. Who was it going to be? Hmmmm.......well, my cohorts and I didn't really get to see the lead-up, but when the cable popped back into action, Amy Davis was standing with Ryan in the loser's circle, looking like she'd just miscarried. Awwwww. To myself, I think "yes! 2 for 2!" She looked really cute.....until she started her farewell song. Egads!!! Is it possible that it could sound worse than it did the other nite? It IS!! OMG! Bad I tell ya, with two D's! B-A-D-D! America's got it together tonite! They are on the money. Go Amurrica!

In order to prolong the show to the allotted hour, but also to plug the oddly tantalizing comeback of Paula Abdul, the producers bestow upon us the honor of seeing her new video, produced by Randy Jackson, "Dance like There's no Tomorrow". The video is really, really cute and she looks quite beautiful in it; very wind-blown, very sassy, not so alcoholic. But lemme tell ya what? Forget about dancing like there's no tomorrow. Can we go back to dancing like we did yesterday?! That girl was the consummate dancer back in the early 90's. I mean it's hard to say who was the better choreographer. (I said Paula was before my bff's hubby, Larry reminded me about one of the grand dames of dance, Debbie Allen). But she was definitely the cream of the crop. In the video, you could definitely see her choreography in play and they got the proper folks to direct it too, because there was an awesome segment where it appeared that her dancers were suspended in mid-air. That was completely cool.

Her dancing on the other hand?......As Randy would say (while sucking in air between his clenched teeth) "ssssssss, I don't know, dawg". She couldn't really keep up with the other folks, who were dancing circles around her, but ok, she pulled it off. I was left pleased with the total package until the very last frame appeared. Who did we see? Not only Randy and Paula, but oddly enough Ryan and Simon. WTF? What was that about? Oh well, whatever they gotta do to pay the bills...... Now, on to the second half of the throat-slitting!

This time Ryan called two girls forward: Amanda Overmyer and JoAnne Borghella. One of them was going home. I'm digging the fact that there's notta lotta bull-shitting around. He got right to it. Joanne? Buh-bye. She did a commendable job of covering up her "boo-boo" look this time. I wish I could say the same for her final serenade. Unh-unh. Really? No, thanks. Wow. America is alright with me. I'm thinking America and I are on the same wave-length. Me and Amurrica go waaay back. That is, until we get to the final eliminated dude.

So, I'm 3 for 3 at this point, feeling good, but kinda knowing there's gotta be a surprise lurking nastily in the wings. And then they called......Chikezie and Colton, neither one being someone that I would have chosen to get the boot. My dreams of having a first night sweep were dashed like so much Grey Goose in a Top Model contestant's face. At that point, I was trying to decide which one had the most potential to go the furthest, but before I could hitch my wagon to a horse, BAM!, Colton was out. WTF?! I was pretty stung. Either way, the taste in my mouth was gonna be quite unsavory. I liked 'em both! How'd America get that one screwed up?! I thought we were here!! I was gone introduce America to my moms! How rude! Oh, well....After I thought about it a little more, and accepted the fact that my perfect run was not to be, I flipped to a clean sheet in my journal and switched the tv to Survivor: Micronesia! I knew I hadda be able to pick who was goin home on that one!!

American Idol Gals Week 1

Well, as expected, the girls were better than the dudes had been the night before. But seriously, that's not saying much. They too had to tackle the 60's era. There were some definite highlights, but I was a bit disappointed in some of the girls as well. So let's get down to bizness and find out who is the head of the class!!

Grade: A+

**Syesha Mercado - Man, I waited all night to hear some incredible singing, and gosh although she was next to last, she did produce! Her voice was in tip/top shape. I was so blown away I almost missed Paula asking her what her name spelled again. "Yes", Paula ,"Yes" already!! Drunk heffa!

**Carly Smithson - The final performance of the night and man did they save the best for last. She sounded so professional. (Could be cause she'd released an album earlier in her career, which flopped). But she sounded incredible. Her voice is like butta! Guess what Simon says.....He didn't get it. What a loser. Wonder if they got one way trips back to Britain lined up for him?


Grade: A

**Alexandrea Lushington - My initial impression was the girl sounds good. But once she started performing, she had me. She looked very comfy on stage, and had serious voice control. I think she sang theee shit outta that song! And once again, Simon doesn't get it. Seriously? Wierd. But I guess I have a whole other R&B vibe and he wouldn't get that either.


Grade: B+

**Asia'h Epperson - I have high hopes for this young lady, because her personality is awesome and she's from the hood. A ghetto girl with a great voice. Very comfortable looking on stage. Simon says it's his favorite of the nite. Go figure....


Grade: B

**Alaina Whitaker - Man, 16 years old never sounded so relaxed (well prior to David Archuleta, of course). This girl's voice is clear and strong and she offers some serious pizzazz. Very good performance for this wholesome young Southern thing. Simon says "very good". I guess he's not a complete moron. I'll get back to you on that.

**Brooke White - I liked this girl. I felt her vibe and her voice was smooth. Her performance was really a little affected perhaps, but all in all, I enjoyed it. I thought she delivered when it was necessary. Mr. British Butt-wipe says she reminds him of the girls in the "washing-up liquid" commercials. Where does he come up with this crap?


Grade: C+

**Amanda Overmyer - This is one of my disappointments. I really dig this chic, but the song she picked, didn't really give her a major opportunity to shine. I mean, it was a cool song, but too much bah ba dee ba dah' and not enough actual blowin'. It sounded like the music was drowning her out for a minute. Her rock edge was definitely apparent, but vocally, she left me flat. She was very secure on stage, though. A performer for sure.

**Ramiele Malubay - Now, this is a strange one, cause she sang pretty good. There was just something about her that didn't really propel much excitement. I thought she was confident, but not the best by a long shot. I'm the odd man out here..Randy says she's "like a pro", Paula agrees, and Simon says she's "outsung every single person"....WTF?!


Grade: C

**Kristy Lee Cook - She has a clear voice, but the performance was really kinda 'blah'. She's definitely got the look, but I was bored. Nice, but not nice enough. She's gonna have to bring it next time.

**Kady Malloy - Ya girl was supposed to be all that and a bag-o-chips being from my hometown, Houston. And my lands, she can do an awesome Britney impression. But Lord, she hit some scratchy notes! Her voice is OK, and she's beautiful to look at, but beauty don't win no contracts. Simon says "Night of the Living Dead" and provokes quite a distraught look from Kady.


Grade: D+

**Joanne Borgella - I really wanted to like this girl cause she reminded me of a large Beyonce. ('S why me and hubby call her "Big B"!) Except, argh. Her voice is sooooo thin. Definitely not what you'd expect from such a voluptuous vocalist. I'm relatively disturbed the whole way through. Gosh, by the end, I'm devastated. She's definitely no 'B'. After the judges destroy her and Simon makes his normal crass comments, she sports the biggest "boo-boo" look I've seen in a while.

**Amy Jean Davis - I could have gone all night without this performance. I mean, come on! The very first note she hits, is as flat as a pancake, and it's downhill from there. She managed to get through the song, though. But not with out hitting notes all over the flat place. She had no conviction in her voice, but she's awful purty! Summing it up from the judges "incredibly cabaret". Hopefully, I'll never go to one where she's performing.....eeeesh!

Anyhoo, so there you have it! Tonite we find out who goes and who moves on to another week of Simon Cowell's 'cruel and certainly unusual punishment'!! See ya on the other side of midnight! Oh, crap! I just missed the news!

American Idol Guys - Week 1 Theme "The 60's"

Last night was the opening nite of the competition to make it to the top 12 for the American Idol guys. Hopefully the girls are much better tonite. I, of course, donned my judgement robe and graded the performances last nite, which ranged from great to not so much. See if you agree with my star pupils.

Grade: A

** David Archuleta - When is this kid gonna screw up!? He is completely awesome sounding and so dayum cute! He's got a much more mature voice than you'd imagine coming from so angelic a face. All the judges agree. David's voice is butta!

**Michael Johns - This 29 year old is representing the G-A! He closed the show last nite with a performance that I thought would have been worthy of any concert stage. I completely dug him. Simon babbles about something or other before admitting that the guy has "got it"!


Grade: B

**David Hernandez - He opened the show with some very strong vocals. I was impressd with him and he was consistent until the end when he got just a lil' flat. He's one to watch for sure.

**Jason Yeager - Vocals very smooth. He kinda reminded me of Blake Lewis singing Keane last season. His voice is not very powerful, but he had good control. Me likee. Paula looked like she was about to cum. Simon snorted the performance was "neither here nor there". He's weird.

**Colton David Berry - He's got some off-kilter movements, but his voice was nice and strong. He seems to have a natural talent for singing. And I like his personality as he talked to Ryan on stage. Funny. Paula licked his crack, too.


Grade C+

**Chikezie - Looks like they dropped his last name...interesting. Doesn't matter, though. Simon f*cks it up anyway. I think he's got a nice voice, but the song selection wasn't great. He looks like the Great Pumpkin in a big bright orange suit and Simon concurs; adding he's too old fashioned. I think this guy needs the right song and he's gonna blow 'em out!

**David Cook - He looked very comfortable on stage, but he wasn't incredible. So, stage presence a plus, but voice nothing to scream about. Paula and Randy love him. Whatever....

**Jason Castro - He was the only contestant to play guitar and I must say he looked very very good playing it. Sound-wise? No screaming with excitement over here, but he's got a really cool thing going for himself. Very unique and very good looking. Simon says he's "terrific".

**Robbie Carrico - His voice is very clear, but again, nothing special. I liked the song, but don't know that it matched him so much. He sounds like he's got more, but he didn't bring it last nite.


Grade: C

**Danny Noriega - Although I really liked this guy's voice, something was just really freaky about his performance. His personality is awesome, though. I loved to see him pop his neck at Simon like "unh! take that!" You go, girl! I thought he handled the song well, but there was really no eye contact with the audience very much and his movements were just wierd. It's Paula and Randy vs. Simon as usual when critique-ing.


Grade: D+

**Luke Menard - What can I say about Luke? Now I understand why we haven't seen him on any of the earlier shows. There's nothing to see! His voice is thin as a blade of grass. Nothing promising about him on the show, BUT his attractiveness. He does have that. He'll be leaving soon, or at least in the bottom 3 if there is justice to be had.


Grade: D

**Garrett Haley - The other 17 year old male in the competition shoulda probably tried out in a few years. Wow! He does look like a Leif Garrett/Peter Frampton collabo, but his voice bothers Jeremy, and I have to agree with him. Not great. He's got potential, but he's just not ready yet. He'll be escorting Luke out of the door on Thursday nite, if you ask me!


Well, the girls have a lotta room to come out on top tonite. Let's see how they do! Til tomorrow, I think I gotta go to the liquor store......

I'm thinking I think too much....

So, I got crap today from Jared, my bff, about my obsession with American Idol. What obsession? Just because I take notes during the show so that I can share with my ever-growing legion of readers (all 3 of ya) my take on what goes down? It's not obsessive, dang-it! It's fun! I do it so I'll have some sense of what I'm saying when I'm writing. But anyhoo, he just likes to give me shit....and I he.

So, last night....wait..I've noticed I'm starting everything with "so" lately. I needa cut that out. Last night was another one of my seminars with the Landmark Forum, which I've been attending since I actually took part in the Landmark Forum itself in January. It was simply the most awesome, life-altering experience I've had in some time, if not ever. Not the seminar last nite, but the Landmark Forum. It completely shows you how you can have everything you want for your life. In these seminars that I'm attending for the next 8 weeks, we discuss ways to enhance our way of living the lives that we love. One of the things that I created for myself out of my participation in the Forum was the possibility of being a writer. This is one of the main reasons why I decided to create this blog. I'm a writer now. Simple as that. Whereas before the forum, I was always someone who wanted to be a writer "someday". After the Forum I know that "someday" is today. I'm living my life today.

I shared my new possibility of being a writer last night with everybody and the seminar leader, Amanda, made sure that I was held accountable for being who I said that I was gonna be. She made sure that everybody "stood for" me doing what I said I was gonna do and I agreed to have written 5 pages by the next time we meet, which is March 3rd. Which is funny, because I will seriously have had at least that many pages keeping this blog updated daily. But, anyhoo, I'm excited about my life as a writer. And I could just kick myself in the face for not realizing before now how perfect being a screenwriter is for me. I love movies like I love music, well wait a minute. Maybe I need to re-think this. I love music a helluva lot!! But I do love my cinema and I love to write, so 2 + 2 = what? It took my friend, Jared, to say "you should be doing some screenwriting" for me to have my Eureka moment. But I'm now taking action toward getting my writing underway, the blog being one step. I've obtained books on screenwriting lately, and I'm always reading which I think is necessary, although I should probably be reading Shakespeare and Dickens and the like so that I can become more in tune with the ripples and waves of the cadence of a true writer.

But enough about that. American Idol comes on in about a half hour!! And Jeremy had better get his butt home! I got my check sheet all ready to go. But guess what! America's Next Top Model starts this week also. I'm stupid crunk for that. I love me some beautiful women. It's funny, hunh? Me being a big-ole penis-worshiper and I loves me some gorgeous gals; beauty pageants, models. Do you think it's 'cause I wish I was one? har-dee-har-har...that was a joke. Don't be ludicrous. No, I love being a guy. Don't get me wrong. I guess i just love the glamour of it all; the red carpet, dressing up, looking fab, that whole deal. Whatever the case may be, I love it like I love my husband, and that's a lot!

(Transitioning to the next paragraph without using "so").......Did you know David Archuleta was on Star Search as a kid!!?? I remembered him just now winning that show when they showed him just a sec ago on ET. I completely remember that!

On another note, I just quit my other part time job as part-time Payroll Accountant for this wireless solutions company called aBt. I hated to do it, but I can't create dedication to my writing with so many other things going on. So, this will be the last payroll that I process for them before leaving for Vegas on Saturday! Oh, yeah, I haven't even mentioned Vegas. Jeremy, my partner, has a conference in Vegas and lemme tell you what! I am excited. My good friend Steve works there as a "dealer-tainer". He does Toby Keith on stage while not dealing (in character) in the casino. He is a riot! We have so much fun clowning around the entire time we're together. I don't think there's more than 5 minutes or so that we're serious the whole time. Which is lovely. I laugh and laugh and laugh. He prides himself on being funny. He even at one time attempted to be a comedian. I guess that was a big bust. I wasn't there to witness it though, cause whereas we used to both live in Dallas, I moved back home to Houston (before moving to my new permanent home in Minnesota) and he moved to Austin to see if he could get started there. Didn't hear very much about that though.

Anyhoo, Las Vegas is waiting for me. We'll be staying at the Bellagio, which I've only visited before, never stayed there. I can't wait to see what view we have; whether or not we'll be able to see the water show from the room. I was thinking I'd be able to play around more with Steve during the day, but it appears that I have to play 'supportive hubby' at more functions that I'd assumed. Lemme tell you what. I am gonna do my best to get out of as much of that stuff as I can. I mean I love me some Jer, but I'd rather be funnin' than bored outta my ghord(?). I'm sure he'll understand. He loves me and wants me to have a blast!! (let's hope so anyway)...lol. Ooooh! btw, his company is having a "Cocktail & Conversation" party the Sunday nite that we get there, with free horse derves(hee hee) and drinks, but THEN there's a surprise from 7:00 - 10:30 afterwards. I feel Vegas show!! That would be awesome! Celine's show is all wrapped up and I just found out Toni Braxton won't be performing that weekend (which sucks serious ass-holeage), so we could hope for the grande Dame Bette Midler's new show!! Or whatever... I'm really easy. But I'll bet they're taking us to a show! I'm all excited.

Anyway, time to wrap it up for tonite. I got some reading to do. "Screenwriting for Dummies" to be exact. Woo-hoo!! I'm a dumb screenwriter! How bout that? I think that sounds awesome.......

I think the Weekend is Too Short!

Is it already Sunday night? Man, how time flies! It was just yesterday I was leaving my desk at Supervalu and calling it a week, wasn't it? Oh, well, two days ago, but it feels like a day. Awesome weekend actually! Chock-fulla stuff to do.

Friday night I didn't do much because I had drank my weight in wine the two nites prior, so I figgered I'd give my liver a rest (for once). Went to bed relatively early and looked forward to meeting my best ace in the whole world, Jared, for our weekly/biweekly beer brunch at TGIFriday's. That is always a highlight of my week cause we have soooo much fun just chillin and hanging out, getting buzzed and laughing. We do a lot of talking about the things that are going on in our lives and our relationships. He's "married" to this great guy named Larry and they've been together for like 8 years. Great relationship and I admire them immensely. I hope Jeremy and I can last that long. I can actually see that happening now whereas before I was never in a relationship longer than a couple years. How things change!!

So after hanging out with my buddy for a while, I came home and crashed for a few hours. Jeremy hadda work at the hotel, he's General Manager of the Chanhassen Country Inn & Suites btw, so I was home alone til around 6:00 when he got off. He went to our next door neighbor Cyndy's house for a little while where she was having her 5oth birthday party celebration, while I woke up and got myself together for game night at our other friends' Scott and Deans. And lemme tell you what! I scored heavily. We played Apples to Apples, True Colors, and Catchphrase. I think I won everything once. They gave away cool prizes, too. I got Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/Love Show on DVD, Mariah Carey's Emancipation of Mimi tour on DVD and a baseball cap. So was a nice lil' haul overall. Jeremy won himself a tee-shirt, so we both benefited from the game. So let's see....there was Jeremy and I, Scott and Dean, Dorrie and Shannon, our "fag hags", and Chris and Tim. That's a perfect game night number, I think.

A couple weeks back we'd attempted to have game night at our house, but over-invited people and it kinda turned into a social meet and greet type function. There was at least 15 folks up and through here. Was fun, though. Jeremy was a social butterfly that night; just flitting around like the prima donna he is. He's a cutie, though. He's my big goofy buttercup!

So, anyhoo. We drove home after game night and I whipped up my famous queso dip with sausage (at 4 a.m. no less!) and we ate somma that and crashed heavily. Was a lotta fun. Then, I got up this morning and was told I needed to evacuate the building so that Jer could work on getting his taxes done. So, I skedaddled and went to the movies at around noon. I saw There Will Be Blood with Daniel Day Lewis. Was pretty slow, but very good. DD Lewis is certainly gonna win the Oscar for Best Actor this year. Side note: The Oscars are coming on next Sunday (yay!), but I'll be in Vegas (boo!). The other movie I saw was Fool's Gold with Matthew McConahey? and Kate Hudson. It was pretty cute, too. So, I just got home about a half hour ago and still trying to stay outta hubby's way. He's got documents strewn all over the living room floor! Looks like a madhouse around here. But, he seriously needs to get this tax situation taken care of.

I forgot to update you on who made the top 24 on American Idol... So I'll make that quick (or not). The judge's were pretty darned serious, because they had to sacrifice some of their personal favorites due to the talent being so heavy. They really make me sick with their dilly-dallying around with the contestants, making 'em sweat before they tell 'em whether they're through or not. Pisses me off. Just spill it already!! And Paula is the worst of the bunch. Jeez, come on, you drunkard. Say it! So we hear her say that Carly Smithson the chick from Ireland, David Cook, the rocker dude with the wierd hair and the Janis Joplin rocker chick Amanda Overmyer all made it to the semi-finals. Next we get the A-OK for David Archuleta, who it seems has everyone agreeing he could win this thing!

Following these hopefuls is Kristy Lee Cook (Country girl), and Brooke White who looks like she's gonna have a crying fit! I thought she was gonna have a nervous breakdown, but luckily she made it through. Whew! That coulda turned ugly. Moving on, we get the go ahead for Danny Noriega (lil' gay guy), and few other guys and girls we've never seen before. Luckily for America, we can add to the list Syesha Mercado (woo-hoo!), Ramiele Mullabay (lil' Asian), Michael Johns (my James Blunt), and Asa'h Epperson (the smoky voiced girl who's Dad died). So we come down to Josiah Leming, who I think has awesome potential and I don't think they're gonna see it. They don't. He's sent back to shacking up with his steering wheel...poor thang. Now, it's down to Kyle (the nerd) and Colton. Kyle unfortunately gets the boot. Who's Colton? I suppose we'll find out next week when the guys compete in the first round of eliminations. Strap yourselves in this season. There's some serious potential for some awesome vocal throwing down!! I think we should all stayed tuned.....

I think I got played on the 1st night!

So, it's Hollywood week on American Idol in case you've been under a rock and haven't been watching the newest season of the most popular show since I Love Lucy. And it's being hyped to be the one with the most talent ever! The show Tuesday night was the 1st 3 rounds in Hollywood. I have yet to see someone who's completely blown me out of the water yet. But wait a minute, there is Angela Martin!! This is what I was thinking as I began watching the show. She was the young lady with the disabled little girl. Remembering she was coming up, I got a little more excited.

So let's get right down to it! 164 have made it to Hollywood Ryan Seacrest tells us and only 24 will make it to the show. My favorites up front are Angela Martin(!), Syesha Mercado, Cathy Smithson from Ireland, Josiah Leming, a little dude who's been living out of his car for a few months, cute as a button David Archuleta, Amanda Overmyer (a rocker nurse!) and Michael Johns, who for some reason gives me a James Blunt vibe.

So this year, the AI team have done it differently, and I think I like it. Nobody gets cut in the first round, so everyone's got two chances to pull it together. The judges can even put you through immediately to the final round. This year there're instruments! The main question: Is that a bad thing or a good thing? After having seen all the rounds, lemme tell ya, for me they just get in the way, but some of them are fine. Whatever.

The parade of wannabes take the stage at the Orpheum Theatre and the instrument idea starts off disastrously. However one Brooke White from Philadelphia kind of gives the playing singers some credibility. She sounds good, but not great. But she's got enough, I think, to remember her by. More ineffective singing and playing punishes the tv audience before finally I catch my breath. David Hernandez from Glendale, Arizona begins to sing and it's the first excitement I've felt since the show began. Even Paula Abdul agrees with me by saying "a hundred trazillion percent yes!", which probably means she's on her way to drunkville.

The performances pick up after that; quite a bit actually. You got the rocker chick, Amanda, doing the best Janis Joplin I think I've heard since Janis herself, and then there's Danny Noriega, who's got a great voice, but if he gets any gayer he's gonna float off the tv screen. Not that I don't like the gays, cause as you know I'm a big 'mo myself, but eesh! Anyhoo, I like his voice. And then you got Josiah Leming, living in his car, parents all worried about him, who has quite a bit of potential as he opens his mouth and sings in a bit of a Bri'ish accent! I thought "wow, is he a new member of The Shins?" (the Beatles, for those of you who don't know what the hell a Shin is). ;-)

Moving on, day 2 continues with David Cook, a semi-rocker dude who starts off the Bryan Adams "Everything I Do" montage. He sounds decent, but oy-vay, he's one of the only ones. I never heard that song ruined s'badly in my life! Even my girl Syesha was a lil' flat. Simon concurs with that statement, saying she's gotta prove herself in the next round. Oh well, I got faith in her.......What a minute! Stop the presses! What have we next? Is this the next Clay Aiken? Kyle Ensley from Podunk, Whogivesa... is up! He looks like the biggest geek on the show since our favorite runner-up sung his way into our hearts. I'm thinking to myself, what the fu-?! And then he starts to sing. Eh, whatever. By some miracle, though, he makes it through.

Now, when day 3 starts, I'm beginning to think "where's Angela Martin?" I haven't seen her yet. So I'm immediately on the alert.

The eliminations are coming quick in the beginnng; only 4 out of 40 have made it before long, among them Suzanne Toom from Clearwater, FL beside who's name in my journal I've written a big "yes!" , but have no idea what she sang. And look-a-here! Here comes Syesha and boy, does she let 'em have it! My girls sounds awesome, even if she has lost some of her voice. Her ticket is booked to the top 24! After Kristy Lee Cook sings some Country music and makes it through, finally,here comes my girl!! It's Angela Martin! And she says....wait, what? Her daddy died? What the hell?! That kinda gives me pause, cause didn't somebody's else's daddy die right before she came? Hell's yeah! That was Asa'h Epperson. Something rubs me the wrong way about that, but I let it go as soon as she starts singing. She sounds brilliant in my ears! I'm thinking "this is what American Idol is all about right here! Yes, ma'am!" She's a shoo-in, right? Nnnnnot so much. I got played. Simon and the rest of the Idol judge-nots leave her standing in the line of losers going home. I practically chunk my remote control at the tv and sit and stew in the warm blanket that is my outragism.

As I watch the rest of the show, spirit broken like the blood vessels in Amy Winehouse's nose, the final chance to impress the judges arrives. David Archuleta is first and boy is he impressive; young (16), cute, sweet as can be, and with an excellent voice. The judges (and my ecstatic boyfriend, Jeremy) unanimously put him through. Syesha emphatically makes it with 3 "yes"es, and then we meet Michael Johns from Buckhead GA, who's got bedhead hair, but man, when he opens his mouth, his voice is like buttah! Good-NESS, his vocals are crystal clear! Simon even goes on to proclaim he's "the best of the day". Which ain't no small change, coming from Sir Stick-up-his-ass. And it keeps getting better. Carly from Ireland blows us outta the water, and then comes Asa'h Epperson, (who's father died first, dammit)! I loved her, and so did the judges, saying "brilliant".

And so we only have time for a couple more as the producers couldn't manage to finagle yet another hour from the network. First, there's Brooke Helvie the beauty queen from N(S?) Carolina, who doesn' t fare well and remarks she "wasn't given a fair chance". Hunh? Seriously.

And the last of the day is Josiah (he of the auto boudoir) who got no sleep the night before, but I have high hopes for. He's very original, and I like his sound. And then he performs. Egads, he's all over the place. His timing is all wrong and he can't seem to keep the melody. ARGH! Good grief. But he gets three "yes"es, only after Simon tells him he was "overconfident". I'm really glad he made it through, but bothered about what's coming next.



Well, that was the 1st show and of the remaining Idol contenders, there's no sight of Angela Martin, and I'm supremely disgusted about it, fyi. That "my father died" story bothers me, though. Hey! Maybe the judges found out she was lying or something and didn't put her through because of it, right?! Ok, ok, I'm grasping at straws. Well, we find out who the top 24 is on the next show. I already know, but I'll keep you in suspense for a little while.. Til then, I think I'll watch some tube.........

I think this is cool!

So, this is my first blog and it's extremely exciting. Never got into the whole blogging deal, but I think this is a really cool idea, especially since I'm trying to up the ante on my writing life. And I mean severely "UP" it! I used to write all the time when I was in high school, going through journal after journal. So now I'm gonna see if I can recapture some of that enthusiam I had when putting pen to paper back then.

Nobody'll prolly read what I have to say, but it's all in the writing I think. Don't get me wrong. I'd love for people to read what I'm writing and offer any form of opinion they'd like. That'd be awesome. All I'm saying is that it's gonna be really cool to just put thoughts out there in a semi-coherent way, and be able to re-read those things (like I used to do with my journal) and make myself laugh at my own ridiculosity! Oh, by the way, I make up derivative words all the time, so that'll be a staple of my blog.

So, I guess in my first blog, I'd like to give my opinion on The 50th annual Grammy Awards which was held last night. Two words: GO AMY!!! I am so a huge fan of Amy Winehouse it's not even funny. So when she won 5 out of the 6 awards that she was nominated for last night, I was in heaven. During her performance (which by the way was really cool) I was holding my breath waiting to see if she was gonna stumble or mumble at the very least, but she pulled it off. I was ecstatic. The few friends that I had over to my "grammy party" were united in their disdain for her. Didn't matter, though, cause I was crunk enough for all of 'em! I let the awards speak for Amy and me.

FYI, I'm normally a huge Beyonce fan (still am), but since she wasn't nominated very much, I was in full Amy mode last night. Beyonce is my girl!! She epitomizes talent to me; in a complete package...Beauty, talent, style.....except I wish she didn't talk quite so country. I'm from the same hometown as she (Houston, if you didn't know), but I think she should spend a little bit more of her dollahs on becoming a better spokesperson. She has a tendency to be a bit stiff sometimes in interviews. But, at any rate, she's a bad bee-atch!!

Other thoughts on the Grammys:

Highlights:
**Did you SEE Beyonce and Tina Turner's performance!? Completely awesome.
**Beyonce's red carpet dress and hair. But then again, I'm biased.
**Amy Winehouse's near clean sweep. (singing) I said "yes, yes, yes"!
**Tamyra Gray lookin' awesome on the red carpet!!!
**Winning the Grammy contest I held for who correctly matched the most winners. My guests were not pleased.

Lowlights:
*Jill Scott and Bai Ling's dresses on the red carpet.
*Kanye West's acceptance speech for Best Rap Album.
*Herbie Hancock winning Album of the Year? Ummm, hunh? I can't really judge it because I haven't heard it, but it prevented Amy's clean sweep, dammit!
*Beyonce not winning either of the awards she was nominated for. Go figure!
*Alicia Keys' hairdo. She was all Sanjaya up and through!

Anyway, I can see that having a blog is gonna be a lotta fun, cause I get to be as opinionated as I want to (though I promise not to overdo it), it's gonna be time-consuming cause I could really get wrapped up!! I better go. I think it's that time......