Wednesday, April 11, 2007

American Idol: 4/10/2007

Just last week I was thinking: “You know, they never did a Latin Week on American Idol. They should do that as a change of pace.” And guess what happened on my birthday? Jennifer Lopez was the coach of the week (to help her poor CD sales, no doubt) and the theme was Latin music.

Of course, American Idol’s idea of Latin music (or the contestants, anyway) is Miami Sound Machine or Santana from his previous CD. Well, ok, Melinda and Sanjaya (ugh) dusted off some classic from the lounge era (Sway and Besame Mucho respectively).

It wasn’t as spicy a show as you would think. Lopez was a pretty laid back coach, kind of like Gwen Stefani. And The performances were mostly OK. In fact, this is the first week Simon dissed Melinda (and she handled it extremely well). And surprisingly enough, the guys outshone the women this week. Blake came in at #1 and Chris at #2. Phil Stacy did well, but not anything amazing. he san a Marc Anthony song, who is currently Jennifer Lopez husband (but not for long, apparently). Sanjaya actually did a decent job for once. But I would still vote him off in a heartbeat.

The women mostly seemed out of their element and were tentative. They didn’t exhibit any of that Latin fire. Melinda moved very awkwardly in her high heels (which I think is because she is not used to them, and lacks confidence in her looks). Lakisha was the same old, same old. She has this vacant look when she sings. Her first performance was apparently the exception, not the rule. Jordin did ok, but seemed out of her element a bit. Haley was doing her best to stay in the game, so she wore some shorts up to her eyeballs. It was yet another dinner theater singing act. Not bad, but it’ll probably win her work on a cruise line.

Surprisingly enough, Dial Idol puts Lakisha and Jordin at the greatest risk of being voted off this week. Haley isn’t even close to the bottom. Well, she does have some amazing legs.

Hopefully, Jordin will survive another week. As great a singer as Lakisha is, I don’t think she had a chance of winning this. But I expected her to make the top 4 or 5 at least. Looks like she won’t. We’ll see.

UPDATE: Haley Scarnato is the loser. Lakisha wasn’t even in the bottom 3. Dial Idol hasn’t been as accurate this year it was last year.

Next is country week with Martina McBride as guest coach. Since there are no country singers this year, this will be interesting. 

Newt Wimps Out

His political advisors probably warned him it would hurt his candidancy if he debated Kerry on Global Warming. I think it would have helped. But now we know what he is made of.

In a Capitol Hill debate about global warming touted by its moderator as a “smackdown” between former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, Gingrich praised Kerry’s recently released book about environmentalism, acknowledged that global warming is real, and offered what amounted to an unexpected apology for his party’s inaction on curtailing greenhouse gas emissions.

“I’m not going to stand up here and defend our failure to lead,” said Gingrich, who is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and plans to release a book in the fall burnishing his environmental credentials. “There has to be a green conservatism.”

The standing-room-only debate, staged yesterday in an ornate Senate hearing room, offered an indication that even diehard conservatives like Gingrich, who stepped down as speaker in 1998, are abandoning their skepticism on global warming. As recently as two years ago, Gingrich ridiculed the notion that humans are causing the earth to warm, but yesterday he said the evidence was “sufficient.”

Pretty pathetic. Especially when the weather is doing a good job of showing global warming to be a joke. 

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Remember Me

Payback

The Big Five Oh

I turn 50 today. Which is hard to believe.

Half a century ago, I was born to James and Edna Hudnall in Santa Rosa, California. 1957.

It’s a strange feeling to turn fifty. One one hand, I don’t feel all that different, but I know I’m not as nimble as I was in the past. Still, people tell me I look like I’m in my 30s and I pretty much have all my hair. So I count my blessings.

I’ve been working out with a trainer in the last six months, trying to get in shape. I hope to keep doing that from now on in some fashion.

Am I where I expected to be at this stage of my life? No. But my life has taken many interesting turns and I hope to keep it that way. Things aree a lot more secure than they were 10 years ago when I moved to Las Vegas. The comics industry crashed and I had to retrain myself to get back into software development. I never thought I’d be back in computers to the extent I am now. I thought I would manage to just be a writer somehow. But I haven’t given it up. I am working on all kinds of things.

I was hoping to have traveled more by now, but I think that will happen in the near future. (More on that later).

I’m a forward looking person, so I don’t dwell on the past too much. I look at how I can make my future better. So even though I am middle-aged and will soon be able to get senior discounts, I have a lot of plans and intend to keep my life very busy and active as long as I can. Most people in my family live a long time. So I hope to do that and get the most out of every year.

UPDATE: I just remembered a joke I meant to say: For the next year I can make gang bangers nervous by saying I’m Five 0. Ba-dump-tsh!

Monday, April 09, 2007

Review: Grindhouse

I grew up in the 1970s and was a huge movie fan even then. I would go to at least one movie a week back in the day. And I freely admit watching a lot of trash cinema, which used to play as double or triple features at cheap, run down theaters known as the Grindhouse.

The one I sometimes went to was called the Los Angeles theater. It was in downtown San Diego where the Horton Plaza mall is now. You could see three movies for two dollars. They were usually crap, and teh theater was frequented by all sorts of weirdos, but those were the days. It was an experience seeing movies there. People talking back to the screen. Films breaking, or having reels missing.

So when Robert Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino announced this film, I was very excited. They wanted to recreate that experience. And they more or less succeeded.

Did I like it? Yes. With qualifications.

They made the film look all scratchy, with missing bits and it even melts in one place. There were fake trailers and bumper ads for fake restaurants and so on in the middle. But I think they blew it by having some actors with piecings, excessive tattoos and cell phones. You didn’t see any of that back then.  And the cell phone didn’t exist in the 70s.

The two stories in the film take place now, not the 70s. But by recreating the look and feel so much, they should have gone all the way.

Of the two films, I think Tarantino understood the old films the best. His “Death Proof” is about a serial killer who uses his stunt car to kill women. Things go bad for him when he chases after some female stunt drivers. Unlike Planet Terror, the Rodriquez film, Death Proof keeps it scratches and gimmicks to a minimum. It’s more talky, which is how a lot of those older movies were. The characters are more realistic. It felt more like an homage than a spoof.

Planet Terror felt like a spoof, and it seemed very modern in its excessive gore and non-stop action. He also laid on the scratches and breaks to an almost excessive degree.

Overall I enjoyed it and there were times where I felt like I was back in the 70s, but then they ruined it by having some character show up with extreme tattoos or a pierced face.

Because it didn’t do well, they are talking about splitting it into two films and releasing them separately. So I went to see it before that happened. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a double feature and it was a fun time.

Not everyone liked it. The theater was mostly empty and some walked out in the middle. It’s not for everyone, but I think it’ll be a cult film.

Spray On Computers

Now this is an odd idea, but certainly something that would have happened eventuall with nano-tech.

SCOTTISH scientists have developed a computer the size of a matchstick head, thousands of which can be sprayed onto patients to give a comprehensive analysis of their condition.

Speckled computing - some of the most advanced computing technology in the world - is currently being researched and developed by a group of Scottish experts.

The individual appliances, or ‘specks’, will form networks that can be programmed like ordinary computers.

Spraying them directly onto a person creates the ability to carry out different tests at the same time, for example muscle movement and pulse rate. This allows a complete picture of the patient’s condition to be built up quickly.

Who Needs Record Companies?

Acoustic guitarist Kate Walsh has knocked Take That off the top of the iTunes download album chart - but does not even own an iPod.

The 23-year-old guitarist recorded her album in a friend’s bedroom and named it Tim’s House in his honour.

The homemade album has proved a unexpected hit with iPod fans who had downloaded it from the iTunes website in their thousands - knocking Take That and Kaiser Chiefs from the top spots.

Miss Walsh said: “You end up looking at it every day to see if you’re still number one. I think I’m ahead of Elton.

This is London

Hi, Al

Wait for the story that runs at the end of this. 

Peeps Show

Theres’s some amazing dioramas here, made with Peeps.