American Idol Geek Out Time

Last night's finale was fantastic and surprising. First of all (drumroll) for the first time my pick won! Holy crap! David Cook has been my favorite since before the final 12, and I am so completely pleased he won. I was shocked thinking the tweens would win the day and coronate David Archuletta. Happily I was wrong. In fact I was so convinced that the wrong David would win, when Ryan Seacrest announced David Cook the winner I let out a surprised yelp.

RECAP OF FINALE EPISODE:

• In General: This finale was much better than last year's show. Unlike last year, the two-hours seemed to fly by. The performances were, for the most part, fantastic. And there wasn't the glut of religious songs that plagued last year's god fest show. While I got sick of it constantly being mentioned early in the season, I must agree that this year truly did have the most talented group I've seen in the 4 seasons I've been watching.
• Mike Myers' Love Guru: Mike Myers was on to plug his upcoming movie. I generally bristle at this kind of stuff but it was actually quite funny.
  
• Donna Summers: She needed help getting down the main staircase, but the woman can still sing. She was great!
  
• Bryan Adams: He was looking older and very thin but the guy still can't sing. Well, at least he's consistent.
  
• Visiting hometowns: They had remote cameras at gathering places in the finalists hometowns. Those segments could have been easily left out.
  
• Graham Nash & Brooke: I'm not terribly familiar with the music of Crosby, Stills & Nash, however the song Graham Nash sang with Brooke White was really sweet. It was folksy and right up Brooke's alley, who it was really nice to see again. I was bummed when she got kicked off.
  
• Guitar Hero ads: I almost skipped past them on my TiVo but there were two Risky Business-esque ads during the broadcast for the video game "Guitar Hero". There was a version with each finalist. Funny, the Cook one had the sexy aspect, while the Archuletta one had the cute aspect. I mean since Archuletta looks like he's 13 years old, it seemed more like a little kid playing a video game when his parents are out to dinner or something.
  
• You Are My Brother!: Instead of giving the lunatics from the early audition episodes a whole platform, this time they just gave one a chance to sing his song. Preston and I had a field day with this guy and his song, so I was happy to see him again. Very goofy, but the guy, though weird, seemed sweet and genuine.
  
• Jordin Sparks: Last year's (not my pick) idol did a song. She was good but her dress was tragic. It looked like a gold potato sack. Surely she has enough money now to get her dresses taylored!
  
• Gladys Night & "the Pips": Doctored old video of Gladys Night singing "Midnight Train to Georgia" with Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. as her Pips was cute.
  
• Carrie Underwood: Blech! Enough of Carrie Underwood (another, not my pick). I found her country song attocious. It was the only part of the show I fast forwarded through.
  
• George Michael: He was phenominal. As I had already mentioned to someone else he looked like Harry Dean Stanton with big sunglasses and a wig. According to Preston, he had a botched facelift or something. After I had gotten over the shock of the ravages that time and scalpel had on his once pretty face, I started to listen to the song he was singing. My goodness, it was so beautiful. He apologized about his cold after singing the song. Either I couldn't tell or it added to the raw quality. It was one of those tragic songs about growing up and being greedy and it's hard to love because there's so much to hate and all we can hope for in life is time. I got misty. First time I've ever been impressed by George Michael. In fact, I found a link to the performance. Judge for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZXE8Fohj8M

So the Pros of the night outweighted the Cons by a long shot. I liked the show very much. The intermittent group sings were fun and on the whole, it was a very enjoyable show. The absolute best was kept for last, the combination of George Michael and then minutes later, David Cook winning.

yay!

Photolog....

Below are photos that go along with the past several months of not blogging. I mainly put them up to go along with a long catch up email I sent to my pal, Amanda, whom I've been neglecting.

But I hope you can enjoy them too.

You may notice that I tend to take picture of scenes and things (and my cat) instead of people. I suppose I do this because I hate being photographed myself. So the few pictures I do have of people tend to be from a goodish distance.

And in defense of my taking so many pictures of my cat, all I can say is if you had such a cute and funny cat, you'd take a crapload of picture of him too. So n'yah!

Anyway, here ya go...

Random Photos: Recent trip & sundry

Drove down the 101 to my Mom's recently, here are a few pics from my favorite rest stop in Goleta. Don't know why, I just love this rest stop!

During that brief trip, we went to my old friend Jim's wedding.

On our drive home we took some pictures of some of the lovely mustard plants growing up the coast...




Two gifts in one...

I was given a TiVo, Pai was given a box.

Tobin Spirit Guide

ZOOL!

Recent Excursion: A picnic of our own

Rick and I decided to have our own picnic a couple of weeks ago. We chose a quiet place with a nice view. The day turned out pretty hot, so sitting in the shade and reading was perfect.

Random Photo: Wow

Recent Excursion: Easter Picnic in Healdsburg

My boss, Olivia, has this property (kind of a hippie compound really) up in Healdsburg, which is in Sonoma county. She invited us all up for picnic on Easter. It was an absolutely perfect day.

View from front porch. Can you believe this?

Hanging on the front porch. Hey that's Preston at the bottom of the picture.

The front porch and it's sundry guests, drinks and laughter abound.

I'm just diggin' that view!

Egg dying commences.

The first easter egg I dyed in 15 years.

Rick found a telescope.

Fancy picnic in back. Guess we didn't need to bring beach towels to sit on.

Thanks, Olivia!

Recent Excursion: Visiting with Dana & David

Three of Dana's numberous cats.

Beach

Beach walkies with Dana & Rick

Random Photos: From, of, and on our balcony

Random Photos: February trip to Southern California

My family used to go to this restaurant all the time when I was a kid. This time I went with my husband and my mom and dad. The only change to the place was us.

My old elementary school (about a block away from El Queso Grande so I did a drive by), it used to only be Pre-6th Grade.

To the left is (or was) the music room and the main office. Beyond and to the left, the swimming pool. I don't remember the whole area around the office being caged in.

I wonder if the insides of those pumpkins still smell of eucalyptus?

The back playing field, where I played many a soccer game.

Not much has changed. The doors used to be green.