JoannaFL's Xanga

More Scratchy

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:47:55 GMT

Lol Cats: Scratchy Pendleton

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:44:44 GMT

New Blog Home

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:19:25 GMT

Please visit my new blog home: Library Pendragon. I'll still be posting silly stuff, like American Idol musings, here on Xanga. But for the posts on organization and productivity, you'll have to check the new site.

Wherein David Cook Suffers Momentary Insanity

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:26:00 GMT

Yes. Here are my thoughts on tonight's completely appalling American Idol:

Syesha: I liked it. However, if you must sing Broadway in order to have any personality whatsoever, maybe pop is not the right avenue for you.

Jason: You are a nice guy, but you are so going home. That reminded me of something my siblings and I would do to make fun of stupid Broadway music when forced to sing it in children's chorus. Also, terrible song choice.

Brooke: I'm glad Simon likes you, and I do too... But however incoherent Paula may be, she's right that performers aren't allowed to just stop and start like that. Not on live TV. Not in concerts that people pay good money to see. Not anywhere except a recording studio, really.

David Archuleta: Solid as always. Funny-looking little dude, best voice of the whole lot.

Carly: Yeah, ok. It worked.

David Cook: Why, David, why? I know the judges didn't seem to mind it, and I love you more than they do generally, but if I had been a judge tonight, we would have had a serious conversation about your song choice. Surely, in the entire body of work by Andrew Lloyd Webber (cheesy though it may be), there was one song somewhere that did not reek of melodrama quite that much. It most decidedly did not rock. And were you really wearing a scarf belt? I think I preferred the slept-in-spilled-on look of last week. You are still my American Idol, but please do not ever sing Broadway. Ever.

Ode to David Cook

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:47:08 GMT

David Cook
Thou art my true
American Idol,
Even though thou dost insist
Upon wearing clothing that looks
As though thou hast slept restlessly in 't
And then thou hast fed it a jelly donut for breakfast.

Regardless of thy dress,
Though hast proven thyself worthy
By vanquishing the most vile, fetid, and putrifescent
Pop song
Known to this current age of men.

Plus, thou dost resemble mine own husband,
And he art hot.

DST, my curse upon thee!

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:13:55 GMT

Right now, my tagline in Facebook purports that I am "an organizational genius." While I may not be able to claim organizational skills after today, I am certainly a geek, as evidenced by my presence at the NCaect (North Carolina As sociation of Educational Communications and Technology) Conference today and yesterday. I'm so geeky, I even presented a session. I had a cool little blue "presenter" ribbon on my badge and everything.

BUT even in all of my geekiness, I couldn't manage to program my VCR correctly this week. VCR, you ask? Why, if you are so geeky, do you still own such ancient technology? Should you not own TiVo or some other digital recording device?

And now I must qualify my geekiness. I am, out of necessity, of the order of Spartan Geeks ("rigorously simple, frugal, or austere" according to Dictionary.com). While I enjoy geek culture, I am unable or unwilling to participate in many typically geeky ventures. For example...

My cell phone was $20, off contract. It's an LG that makes and receives calls and (when I'm lucky) text messages. Nothing else. No camera, MP3, internet capability, or anything of the sort. This phone makes sense for me because a) my old phone was stolen and would have been very expensive to replace, and b) I receive and make about three phone calls a week.

My personal computer is a five-year-old iMac. Now, granted, I had this iMac custom built five years ago, and it's no slouch. But with no significant updates in five years, it's a little behind the times. I'd love to be able to do some video editing, but it won't happen on this machine.

I didn't have a digital camera until my sister gave us this awesome wedding gift (last June) of the cutest Cyber-Shot in the world, which I love.

Similarly, I don't watch TV regularly. The only TV show I watch is American Idol. Therefore, I have basic cable and a VCR.

All of this is fine and noble and Spartan and whatever. Until the one clock in the house I forget to set for Daylight Savings Time just happens to be the one on my VCR. So, today when I finally got a chance to watch this week's American Idol, I could only watch the second half because the VCR began recording at 8:00 pm Standard Time. And as you recall, two out of six performances in the second half of this week's American Idol were train wrecks. Even Paula didn't like that girl trying to sing country-style Beatles, and I almost choked on my popcorn.

So, instead of writing an excellent American Idol post for the week, I am just going to chalk it up as a loss and go check iTunes to see who got booted. I did re-program the VCR clock, so I'm set for next week.

Blah

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:10:33 GMT

Most of the girls were very blah this week. Just to get it out of the way, front runners were definitely Brooke and Amanda. I love Brooke. I do not love Amanda, but she rocked this week. Bottom feeders who will probably go home are Kady and Kristy Lee.

Has anyone else noticed this striking resemblance?

Carly Smithson:

Linda Ronstadt:

She looks more like young, skinny Linda, but still...

As Love and Disdain Grow...

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:49:14 GMT

Disdain:

Love:

P.S. You are all bleaching the crap out of your teeth, especially Simon.

Shoulda Woulda

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:57:56 GMT

Today, I was finally able to watch the rest of the girls' American Idol show from last week. Of course, by today, I already knew Alaina and Alexandrea had been voted off. I was disappointed about Alexandrea, but I will live.

Here's who I think should have been voted off if voting was based on different criteria...

Bad Song Choice:

#1: Asia'h. Nobody but Celine is allowed to do anything with "All By Myself" other than lip sync it alone in their messy apartment using an empty wine bottle as a microphone.

#2: Syesha. Do people not understand why "Me and Mrs. Jones" is a Man Song? Simon is right; it doesn't make sense with a female singing it. "Mister" has very little connotation of a forbidden married man, while "Missus" makes sense in the song because the whole point is that the cafe meetings are adulterous in nature. But it's a stupid song anyway, so why anyone -- male or female -- would choose it is beyond me.

Bad Wardrobe Choice:

#1: Alexandrea. Am I getting old? She looked like she was wearing some old nasty boy shorts from the 90s and some weird zip-up black ankle boots from the era of tapered-leg jeans. Those two things never went together even when they were -- briefly and horribly -- in style. The vest, also, was not helping the overall look.

#2: Amanda. Bride of Frankenstein much? Rocker chicks shouldn't have to try so hard. Maybe it's just the general unfairness of the world, but how come rocker dudes can wear a t-shirt and hole-y jeans, and people love it, but the girls have to do all kinds of weird crap to their hair and squeeze themselves into ugly tight pants before audiences will pay perfectly good money to be yelled at by said rocker chick who can't really sing, so she just grunts and hollers.

Stupid Interview:

#1: Alaina. I do not care about your picky eating habits.

#2: Kady. You might actually win Simon over by bashing him in every interview, but it doesn't make me like you.

Return of American Idol

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:08:14 GMT

With the return of American Idol, it is time for my return to blogdom. My poor husband had no cable before I married him and moved into his no-longer-bachelor pad, but now we have basic because I must watch Idol. We tried watching it together once, but now the arrangement is that I tape it and watch it the next day before he comes home from work. Saves groaning and gnashing of teeth that way.

Anyway, here's what I thought of the guys this week:

Michael Johns singing "Go Your Own Way": Loved him last week, didn't love him this week. In the immortal words of Randy Jackson, "It was just OK for me."

Luke Menard singing "Killer Queen": Ew. Talk about playing the title role. Boys who sing in a capella groups should probably just continue singing in groups and not try to go solo because it's creepy when they do.

Robbie Carrico singing "Hot Blooded": Well, yes he was, and so was I. That was darn good, considering the suckage of last week.

Jason Yeager singing "Long Train Running": I hate to be mean because maybe the contestants read my blog and I don't want to hurt their feelings, but this guy should probably not have quit his day job. I did like him better than last week, but not much, and the judges were right about the song choice.

Jason Castro singing "I Just Want to Be Your Everything": I loved him last week, and I still like him a lot.

David Hernandez singing "Papa Was a Rolling Stone": Whoa! Where did that come from?! I didn't have cable until last week, so I didn't see any of his preliminaries. I just figured he'd be among the first to go after last week, but not after this week's performance.

David Cook singing "All Right Now": Hey hey, another one pulls out of the festering stench that was last week, and I stand corrected; maybe he does deserve to be on the show. My husband, who is a rocker, is laid back much like David, so I totally disagree that he is boring and has no charisma, Simon.

Danny Noriega singing "Superstar": This kid creeps me out in much the same manner as Luke, except slightly more annoying.

Chickezie singing "I Believe to My Soul": I don't care how good the song was (and it was good), he gets to stay just because he's so smart. Loved the choice with the interview, as did the judges.

David Archuleta singing "Imagine": I really hate this song, but I loved David singing it. The boy is adorable, and I even agree with Paula that he might be a good rear view mirror ornament, or perhaps a bobble head. Weird mannerisms notwithstanding, Simon's right that he is the best in the competition so far.