American Idol S09 - Top 11

The top 11 are here to perform "Billboard's #1's". Which means just about every song they want, as there have been thousands of #1's, in all the various categories, and with AI's famous wriggling of the "rules", the contestants can just pick a song, and they'll get to sing it. Basically.

A video about all kind of music stuff, and Billboard stuff, and Miley Cyrus is the "mentor" for the week.

Lee's first, and he's going to sing "The Letter" by the Box Tops. And he doesn't change it one bit. His phrasing was just plain weird at places. And he looks REALLY uncomfortable without a guitar. He kept moving his left hand around, to show he's not just standing there, I guess, but that was just odd. Overall, ignoring the visual aspect of it, it was a good performance. Not great, but not bad either. Somewhere in the middle. Oh, and Ellen's still trying to hard to make people laugh. And Kara's hallucinating. How exactly did he look comfortable?

Paige's next. She's going to give us yet ANOTHER FREAKING VERSION OF "Against All Odds". Go to hell. She makes breathy noises throughout. And if pitchy was an actual word, it wouldn't have been enough to describe this performance. Terrible. Just terrible. Seriously, awful. And she looked so happy when it ended... My GOD she sucked. And the worst comment yet? "I know you're PROBABLY better than this".

Tim's doing Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". When did they tell him he's boring? I'm too tired to remember anything right now... He's going to "move around the stage", and he starts by standing with a mic stand. Ha. Then he walks to one side. And back to the middle. And then he SLIDES!!! to the other side! Cool! But no. It was just not good enough vocally. Style of substance, cheesy, wedding band-y, whatever. It's not that I didn't enjoy it. It was fun. But as Simon loves saying, it has no meaning in the real world, and there's no way it would be a hit right now. Kara's bringing him down for being cool. Shut up. Simon's comments were funny AND spot on!

Aaron's going to give us yet ANOTHER version of "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing". And again, the phrasing is throwing me off for a spin. Just weird. He didn't do anything to the song, didn't change it ANYWHERE, not one little bit. His singing was good, not great, and no where close to Steven Tyler. It was just OK. A little less, because of the "rocker" look. And that weak-ass smile at the end. And Simon suggested he give Miley a kiss (I think, couldn't hear), and Ryan called him, jokingly, David Archuleta. *FACEPALM*

Crystal's doing "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin. And it's exactly how you thought it was going to be. Good, but predictable. Other than the fast part, which was a nice change, it was yet another one in a line of Bowersox-performed songs. Completely interchangeable with pretty much everything we've ever heard from her. And that's not going to be enough to win this thing. She was getting predictable, fast, and that last part wasn't enough to change that feeling. Good. Best yet. But she's been better, and I didn't love it. Whatever. And in case you haven't figured it out, she's a Chosen One. She's standing on a carpet! WTF? And then she and Ryan sit down.

Mike's singing Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman". Miley loves him. And it's the third performance of his that's basically exactly the same, only with varying levels of good singing. This is good. Not great. A little boring. Quite predictable. I like this dude. I do NOT like this song, or the rut he's sliding into. Whatever II: Electric Boogaloo.

Andrew says "He Heard it Through the Grapevine". AGAIN. ANOTHER version of this song. His accent is really weird on all the non-Straight-Up-like songs. And his voice isn't big enough, I think, not by Idol standards. But it was a nice performance. A not-so-great performance. Not a terrible one. Even with the hand gestures and all. And if it means I won't have to hear another weird accented song from him, I'm OK with him going. I don't think he will, but there's that. When Simon gave him his criticism, he looked ready to pull his piece out and put a cap in his ass!

Katie's next, and I'm about to fall asleep. She's singing Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry". And for the first time EVAH! We see the Katie one Kara proclaimed "could possibly be someone that can win this". It can still be better. Better song choice, better singing, better performing, but it was pretty good! I liked it! Way to go! Kara's a "Musical Psychic" - Pop with R&B leanings. "Mad pitch issues". Go to hell.

Next is Casey. He's singing the "Rocker Anthem" "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News. His voice is just not that pleasant, to me at least. That hoarseness/odd vibrato is so distracting. And I don't think Miley meant he should STARE at people. It was a'ight. He's another one of the predictable bunch. Every wee, it's him and the guitar. I LOVE the guitar. I don't love the voice. And BOY did Ellen and Kara speak out of their asses. WHAT are they listening to? Kara said "if you had 10 hit songs, you could make an album". ANYONE who can get 10 hit songs can make an album, you moron!

DiDi's up, and some say her name's written Didi! She's doing "You're No Good" by Linda Ronstadt. And Ryan EFFED UP her last named. HA! It was a good performance. A very good one, but the way she looked at people was scary, at times. I'm bored, though. Nothing else to say about the performance.

Siobhan looks SO WEIRD when she meets Miley. She's singing Stevie's "Superstition". What happened to her hair?!?!? The good thing's her vocals don't suffer from the hair, she's rocking it. Bets tonight, even with a scream or two at the end, and weird faces throughout. And it's not even close.

1. Siobhan

2. Crystal

3. DiDi (Didi?)

4. Casey

5. Lee

6. Katie

7. Mike

8. Aaron

9. Andrew

10. Tim

11. Paige

American Idol S09 - Top 12 Results

One's going home tonight. Who? we'll find out soon enough...

A weird retrospective is up first, then some banter and a re-introduction of the "Judges' Save". Whatever... DC is back, singing the AWESOME!!!! Jumping Jack Flash. One word? AWESOME!!! Definitely won't be voted out. Oh, right, he's not competing anymore. Never mind, then. The lead guitarist dude was amazing. Freaking amazing.

The return of the Ford music video's alright. Not great. Not exciting. A great song, but nothing much other than that. Another Ford commercial's next. really boring. And they're all super lame. Well, maybe not all. But definitely most.

Paige's up. And down to the bottom 3. Lee's up. And safe. Siobhan's next. And safe. Aaron's up. Safe too. Andrew and Tim stand up. Tim's bottom 3. Andrew's safe.

Now a performance by someone I don't know. Orianthi, apparently. Singing "According to You", apparently. She rocks the guitar, apparently. And she was going to be MJ's guitarist in his tour. Apparently.

DiDi's up. And safe. Crystal's up. And safe. Katie's up. And she too, is safe. Big Mike's up. Big Mike's safe. Big Mike's big, BTW. Casey and Lacey (ha) are up. Casey's safe. Lacey's bottom 3.

Now to the bottom 3. Tim's safe, and we have ourselves a bottom 2 (maybe, Ryan didn't say that...).

Ke$ha feat. 3OH!3 sings Blah Blah Blah. And that's my queue to go get something to drink. Not my cup of tea. She's trying to be weirder than Lady GaGa, but in a different style. Whatever. That sucked.

Lacey and Paige are up. And Paige's safe. Lacey's going to Sing For Her Life! (TM). She's SOOO not going to be saved. And she's not, and she's outta here. THANK YOU, America, for saving me the trouble of hearing her again. Seeya!

American Idol S09 - Top 12! The Rolling Stones!

OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! It's the top 12! And they're going to perform songs by the Rolling Stones! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!

OK, glad I got that out of my system, phew!

First we get some blabbering from Ryan, about superstars, and stages, and judges. We see the top 12, just in case America forgot who they stupidly chose to put through. Next a Rolling Stones video! WOOHOO!!!! I LOVE THE STONES!!!!!! These next two hours are probably gooing to be filled with butcherings of my fave songs. Aw shucks!

Big Mike's first, and we get to see his sob-story. And when I say sob-story, I mean no disrespect, it's just a vote-getting tool, and I do mean to disrespect that. So there. He's singing Miss You (Fun Fact #1: The longest version of this song is 8 and a half minutes long!). Great song choice for him. And he does a great job with it. Well, maybe not great, but he didn't destroy it, and I like that, and he sang well, and I liked it. So yeah, great job. the judges judge, and Ryan gets some much needed face time with Simon.

DiDi's next. And her sob-story. She's singing Play With Fire (FF#2: This B-Side reached #96 on the Hot 100). Despite angry faces, she does a really great job. The arrangement was different enough to be original, without destroying the song. And even though she had some iffy spots, both vocally, and singing-the-words-ly, she did a great job. A really great job. Not a good job, but it was great, like Mike. Just great job. I think she said Siobhan's getting off on rubbing against her. I THINK. Not sure.

Casey's sob-story's next. Oh, yeah, he's also going to sing It's All Over Now (FF#3: This hit the top of the charts in the UK between the Animals' House of the Rising Sun, and the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night). Or, to be precise, he's going to play the slide-guitar, AWESOMELY, while singing mediocrely at the same time. He's got a twang in his voice, sort of like a vibrato, but that sucks. It was very nice, but not so much because of the singing, in my books. Still very nice.

If I were to be a contestant, you can talk about how I fell from the see-saw when i was young. It really hurt. The kid that played doctor in my kindergarten thought I might die. I turned out fine a minute later. It was the longest minute of my life. :'(.

Lacey's going to make you cry next, with her well-thought-out sob-story. Right... She's singing Ruby Tuesday. Oh, no. She's ruining it! AW HECK! I love this song. LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT. And she's killing it! My ears are bleeding! Someone, PLEASE, stop her! The arrangement, was terrible, especially the quick "Still I'm gonna miss you", but her singing was even worse! STOP IT! PLEASE! (FF#4: At LEAST 9 artist have successfully covered at least some of this song, without destroying it completely. That list remaind unchanged after this performance).

Andrew's well-known sob-story gets some more TV time. He's going to rock (fingers crossed) Gimme Shelter (FF#5: Scorsese (you know who I mean) has made this song into a theme of his gangster movies, appearing in Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed). His voice doesn't really fit the "just a shout away" parts, but it's spot on for the rest of it. So overall, a solid song choice. And a more than solid performance. His best of the competition, and the reason for that, I think, is that he didn't try and out do his Straight Up. He just did the song.

Katie's next, and we're not going to hear a sob-story for her. Just kidding! Gotcha! She's singing the awesome Wild Horses (FF#6: This was Susan Boyle's debut single, and it's been covered by about a million different artists). I LOVE THAT SONG! The BackLight of Inspiration (C) is fully on, as she begins the song weirdly, to say the least. But, as she gets in groove in the chorus, the light's off, and we can concentrate on the well sung song. Not greatly sung, but well sung. I knew I wouldn't be crazy about the singing this week, but this is getting a bit much, don't you think?

Tim's up. But not before a little sob-story! He's doing the mysogonistic (is that right?) Under My Thumb (Not So FF#7: It was during a performance of this song that Meredith Hunter was killed, in that Stones concert in Altamont), in a weird reggae influenced arrangement. Which sucks. Or maybe not. I don't know. I'm kind of on the fence on whether or not I liked it. I don't think I did. But maybe I did. I don't know. The vocals were there, but, I don't know.

Siobhan gets a sob-story. She sings Paint It Black (FF#8: Not an original Stones' song, it was covered by more than 100 different artist). The beginning is way off base. Just plain weird. But as she gets into the fast-er parts, she gets back to earth, and does a very good version, of an awesome song. Not much else I've got to say about it. The judges exaggerate. But htey tend to do that.

Lee's next, and he can't tell his colors. And he's shy. Sob. He's rocking on an original twist on Beast of Burden (FF#9: Bette Middler covered it! Right... I got nothing). AWESOME! YEAH! I love the arrangement, and he performs it well. I really do love this version! Not as good as the original, OBVIOUSLY, but as close as anyone's been so far in this performance episode. Awesome!

Paige too has a sob-story. Believe it... or not! She covers (yeah, covers) Honky Tonk Women (FF#10: Was inspired by Brazilian Gauchos. I know, I'm grasping...). NOTHING original about the version, other than the gender reversal thing, which was nice, but to be expected. Her voice wasn't any good on it. The song rocks. This version rocks. She doesn't. She's sick, BTW, and they say that explains some stuff. Whatevs...

Aaron's got a sob story! Shocker! He's singing Angie (FF#11: The german cover of this single is AWESOME!), with spikey hair. He's actually does a good, not in any way original, job on this classic. He doesn't do the whispers, so that sucks. But everything else was good.

Crystal's in the pimp-spot. She, too, unbelieveably, has a sob-story. She's doing You Can't Always Get What You Want (FF#12: It was mentioned in House (the TV show... duh...) 7 times!). I EFFING LOVE THIS SONG!!!! My ABSOLUTELY fave Stones song, EVAH!!! The arrangement threw me off at the beginning, but got back on track after the first "You can't always get what you want". Overall? AWESOME! I don't always get her, and I'm not yet on the Bowersox wagon, but this was great. And she has had a string of great performances. Great!

Final rankings for the night:

1) Lee

2) DiDi

3) Crystal

4) Andrew

5) Siobhan

6) Aaron

7) Katie

8) Mike

9) Casey

10) Paige

11) Tim

12) Lacey

Either Lacey or Tim have GOT to get gots! and get outta here. PLEASE... PLEASE let it be Lacey.

American Idol S09 - Top 12 Revealed!

Let's find out who's going to be in the top 12, and of who we'll finally get rid of.

But before we get down and dirty, a group song that sucks, and the theme of the first week of the finals is announced - The Rolling Stones! First off, AWESOME! I LOVE the Stones. Second of all - I'm going to hate all these kids after they massacre some of the best songs ever... SIGH...

And now, the reason we came here - Let's find out who's in the top 12, and who'll be serving you fries next Friday.

DiDi's first, and through. Hey, I called that! Siobhan's next, and is through too. Hey, I called that too! Paige and Katelyn are called to centerstage, and Katelyn's through! Which, by the way, I called, and Paige's outta here! Which, in case you were wondering, I also called. Oh. Wait. It's the other way around. I did NOT call that... Way to go America! Keep a sucky one over a better one...

Tim, Todrick, Lee and Casey are called to join Ryan in the middle of the stage. Casey's through (called it), Tim's through (called it), Lee's through (called it) and Todrick's outta here (called it).

Crystal's through (yeah, I did call it), Big Mike's through (I think I called this, didn't I?), Lacey's through (HUH???? WHY????), which means either Lilly or Katie are outta here... But before that, Aaron's through (SERIOUSLY???), and that means either Andrew or Alex are gone. Andrew's through, and Alex's out... Awwww.... :(

Katie and Lilly are up next, Katie's through (which I called) and Lilly's outta here (which I didn't see coming). So that's it. Seeya next time!

American Idol S09 - Top 8 Guys

8 guys, 6 move through, sexual innuendos will be plenty. Will we be interested? Let's hope so...

THIS! is AAAAMMMerican Idol!

Lee's singing some song I don't know. Everything's fine and all, except for the smiley faces, and some feelling I have. It's like singer-in-a-coffee-shop thing. It was a good singer-in-a-coffee-shop, definitely. But not a singing-competition-"look-how-good-I-am" performance. But he'll go through, no doubt about it.

Alex gives us yet another version of LaMontagne's Trouble on Idol. And it's not the best version. It's an OK version. It's not bad, not really good. Just OK. And I found myself uninterested. It was there. And it made that minute and a half more pleasant. But nothing more than that. Should be safe, would be safe? We'll see. The judges called him a stiff, cocky banana. HUH??? And a promise to see Randy in a bikini next week, should Alex still be here. Yay? Nay?

Tim's going to butcher Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah by attempting Jeff Buckley's version. You want to know what it was? it was a vanilla-fied, "let's make this a fun pop song", PPPPP filled performance of one of the best performances of one of the best songs ever. Technically sufficient, maybe, but with that song, it's so much beyond all of that bull-crap. I don't know what the judges are talking about. Sure, he sang Hallalujah. That's not enough to win this thing, and shouldn't be enough for them to declare him "in this". It was his best performance yet, but it should have been so much better.

What's with EVERYONE playing the guitar tonight? Andrew's doing an original twist on Xtina's Genie in a Bottle. And it works. Is it just me, or are everyone going for the same spot on the top 12? Everyone tonight are sounding interchangeable. It's not a good thing. They all just jumble up, and, come decision time, some will be left out, just because they sound similar to someone else in the competition. This, for me, for him, for me, for my grandma, for the sound tech, for me, worked. It was a very nice rendition.

Hey look! Casey's got a surprise for us! He's going to play the guitar! And it's another, white, OK, not too shabby, not too great, performance, exactly the same as all the ones that went before him. I hate this shit. The guys have to stop trying to copy each other. Be original. Be yourselves. Don't be vanilla.

And, the first guy out not in the top 12, Aaron, makes his first mistake by not playing the guitar. But seriously, how is he still there? He just bugs me... Go do your homework, kiddo. His hipthrusts are chicken-little-funny. And the "look how bad I am" smile at the end was awful. I really couldn't care less about this performance. Get him off my TV. NOW!

Next! Todrick's going to destroy a Queen song! Can't wait! And the second guy not to get into the top 12 - Todrick! The arrangement was beyond terrible, the beginning just plain bad, the ending even worse, and everything in the middle was a mish-mash of not great and mediocre. Give me a break. Get HIM off my TV.

Mike starts REALLY high. And if that wasn't good enough, he goes out and BLASTS it! Best performance, not tonight, not of his, not of a guy, but BEST PERFORMANCE THIS SEASON. DUDE! WOW! I mean, I knew he's good, but seriously? Are you kidding me? WOW! Kara's over-reacting, but WOW!

So, yeah, Aaron and Todrick should get outta here. Hopefully. Seeya!

American Idol S09 - Top 8 Girls

Shouldn't they move this show to a later timeslot? What's with all the groping and sex talk they've gotten into this?

Anyway, a certain "talented 16 years old" starts us off with a bad song choice, and a mediocre performance. It started out not so good, improved towards the end, but never really got anyway. She was 8(!!!) When Kelly won the show!!! WOW... Anyway, she sucked enough for people to want to try and save her, but didn't suck so bad that no one will vote for her. And she got some encouragement from Simon. She should be safe. I hope she'll be safe. I think she could do a whole lot better.

Siobhan will sing "House of the Rising Sun"! I love this song!! She better not screw it up... I didn't care for the arrangement, AT ALL. But... She didn't scrw it up, so... WOOHOO!! AWESOME!!! No idea what the judges talk about. I can say she didn't miss a note (a bold claim from a tone-deaf-ish guy like myself), and it was an overall very good performance. It was quite dark, but still. By the way, I didn't comment on her previous performance, which was great. One other thing is I hate it when people sing songs in a different accent than the original. It just sounds weird as heck. So when she sang "She sowed" and I got it, it was very odd. Like Michelle (I think), singing "With Arms Wide Open" last time around, actually saying "Open" and not "Opan".

Lacey's next, and I hate her vibratto-filled voice. I just want to close the TV. Can you please throw her out? Pretty please? It's not even interesting... You can sing badly, but still have people want you to stick around. That's not the case with her. Everything about her sucks. And that high note - my ears were about to start bleeding... Get her outta here. Please. What are the judges talking about??? And Kara - "In and out of your register"? I don't think so... Just sit, shut up, and look slightly pretty, will you?

Katelyn's song choice is terrible. I was actually a fan of both her previous performances, but this was a wedding-band performance. It wasn't bad, technically, but there wasn't anything great about it. Just some background music. Too bad, because we've seen that she can do better. She should be safe. And Ellen, while she has some funny moments, is trying to hard to make people laugh. But she really does have funny moments!

DiDi, our resident Jew, chooses a great Fleetwood Mac song, Rhiannon, and does a very good job with it. Me likey! Until the chorus, that is. That wasn't great. But everything else was very, very good. I was interested. I wanted to hear more. I want to hear more of her. Not only because she's Jewish, if that's what you're thinking. I like her, and I think we'll hear more of her. Or, at least hope so.

Paige chooses the great Smile by Mr. Chaplin. But I wasn't I had a straight face on. A bit of a frown. If "pitchy" was an actual word, it wouldn't have been enough to describe this performance. It blew. I hate her. Just about the same amount that she hates our ears.

I didn't get Crystal. Not really during the audition episodes, or Hollywood week, or the first two performances. But the beginning of this one was AWESOME. She can actually play the guitar! Like REALLY play! The beginning was the best part of it, and it got a bit more mediocre as it went on, but it was still great. The judges all love her. Except for Simon, who actually has to spend money on the winner, and wants her to mainstream-ize her self a bit more.

Lilly's next. I really dislike her voice. And the faces she makes freak me out. It probably was pretty good. I don't know. All I do know is, while trying to ignore her, I did notice that was one small guitar-looking instrument! Judging from people's, and judges', reaction, she was very good. I don't know. I don't care.

Going home, in what should be a forgone conclusion, are Paige and Lacey. I REALLY hope they both leave. Everyone else were a lot better. Everyone else should get into the top 12. One can only hope.

A Comment, A Confession, and CSI Miami

1) I got a comment! And not a childish stupid "you suck one"! So, dear commenter, thank you for reading! About your comment - "You suck!". Just kidding. You might have been right. Siobhan might have been better than i thought. But truth is, I don't really care this season... Which leads me to...

2) I have a conffesion to make about this current season of AI. I don't get the hype. I usually don't. The contastants are on average not great. And to say the girls are better than the boys - I don't see it. There were 2 interesting guys, Big Mike and Fattish Latino Gokey, aka Andrew, when the top 24 started. They were the only ones, in the whole top 24 I wanted to see how they would do. And now Casey and Lee have generated some interest in my part. But not a whole lot of. Oh, and Lambert seems like a nice guy. Girls wise - 1 Jewish, 1 sort of interesting with a lot of hype around her, and one talented 16 years old. I could care less about the rest of 'em, but it'll be hard for me. So for those reasons I wasn't really paying much attention to the performances. BUT! Now that I know that someone read it, I'll work harder! And suck less!

3) CSI: Miami. My, oh my, how giants have fallen. It used to be good - it IS a CSI show. It used to be interesting. then, after the 2nd episode or so of the first season, I realised it doesn't. It's basically about H's Miami Mafia, with the highlight of every ep being that stupid sentence he says at the start, immidiately after which the intro starts. Like this week's "Murder's hard." H: "Harder........ than people think". YEAH!!!!!!!!!!! We won't get fooled again! Won't get fooled again! No no! The rest of the episode focuses on jumping to the most extreme conclusions they can based on what little evidence they have, and worse yet accusing people of murder, left and right. Either that, or "cool" bits where "groovy" music is playing, and the CSIs are doing some "cool" technical work, in split screen! And the plots SUCK, this week's ep's in particular. And the sideplots, you ask? From Speedle dying, to Eric almost dying, to Eric's dad's Russian mafia connections, to flying to Brazil to hunt down whoever killed H's wife, which is Eric's sis, to Eric and Calaeigh's relationship, to H calling everyone younger than him "son", being a pedophile, and having EVERY kid trust him, or to him being the secret desire of every girl on the planet. COME ON! This show sucks. BIG TIME.

Some smaller things, but no less important -

House this week - rocked. I laughed so much...

I met someone. Someone great. Maybe one day I'll tell you about her. Unlikely, but maybe...

I have a lot of tests coming up, and that blows...

That's it...

American Idol S09E13 - Top 12 Girls

Hey.

It's been a while, huh? A lot has happened since I last posted here. I decided to drop out of college. Twice. But I'm gonna stay. Weird. I went skiing! For the first time in my life! And I had a blast there. I also met a girl there. And she's awesome. And we're sort of together. It's a long distance relationship, to say the least, with a distance of about 1200 miles between us, but we're trying to make this work. God, please let this work.

And that's enough of my personal bullshit. You want to know what hasn't changed? You. Still, no one reading. Other than that one bored person, even more bored than me, that left a childish comment. Way to go, dude.

And now, to the subject at hand... American Idol! The auditions are still boring, but now "New! With 4 Sob-Stories Every 5 Minutes!". Give me a break, will ya? Hollywood week was unimpressive, and so was the first performance episode of the top 24. The girls went first, and here's what I have to say about that -

But before that! Wait one more second! I have some things to say about the damn judges. Paula left (who cares?), Ellen joined (why the...???), Kara's incomprehensible ("you were there, and we were here, and we heard you"), and Simon's quitting soon. AI's becoming more and more DEAD. And also, isn't this show watched by young kids? The whole "hand on thigh" and BITCH! things were waaaaaay out of place. Seriously.

1) Paige - "All Right Now" by Free. David Cook did this song. He did it better. She wasn't good. Something weird about her voice, either just on this song, or in general. But it wasn't good. I just wanted it to end. And, yeah, bad song choice for her. Not that the song ain't good, but it isn't for her.

2) Ashley - "Happy" by Leona Lewis. BREATHY! STOP IT! The song might be called "Happy", but the parts she sang weren't, so don't smile! and take the mic out of your mouth, and put it about 15 feet away from you, that might sound better. And maybe we won't hear her sing, too. That would be great. Even worse than Paige...

3) Janell - "What About Love" by Heart. I thought it was a different song. Huh. Another bad song choice, and we're 3-for-3! Woohoo! It was definitely better than the two before, but it was still average, at best. And that sucks in Idol-land. And the ending was just plain odd. I dunno, something about it...

4) Lilly - "Fixing a Hole" by the Beatles. Just one episode into the performance part of the season, and we get a Beatles song! Awesome! Not her, singing it, but you know. I'm a huge Beatles fan. I can pretty much sing along to ALL of their songs. And, while it may be hard, there IS a way to change one of their songs, to be original with it, and still sound good. This ain't that way. It was still similar to the GOOD version, but not too much as to sound like a copycat. BUT... the things she did change were just weird. And she didn't sing it all that well. I didn't like it, but still, a LOT better than the ones before her. Oh, and she EFFED the lyrics. "And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong, I'm right, where I belong, I'm right, where I belong". Not three times "I'm Right"...

5) Katelyn - "Oh! Darling" by the Beatles. TWO BEATLES SONGS! WOOHOO!!!! You seem THIS is what I mean! It was different, just because it was a female version of a Beatles song (DID YOU KNOW, that in all of their catalog, just ONE LINE of a Beatles song is performed by a girl? Yoko Ono on "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"). It was a pretty close replica of the original, which, quite frankly, is OK with these classics, but it was different enough, because she IS a girl, and she did change some parts. MUCH better. Best so far? You bet.

6) Haeley - "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles. OH YEAH! THREE Beatles songs! That being said, she sucked. It was just terrible. And her upper lip freaks me out. Oh, and she massacred this classic. Which was a TERRIBLE song choice for this competition. I HATE her after that one. Still not the worst, I mean, it WAS a Beatles song.

Interlude - so far, this night SUCKS!

7) Lacey - "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac. I don't know why, but I hate her. I just do. And can someone explain to me how was she allowed to audition, after getting so far last season? They used to not allow top 50's or so to come back in future season. They shouldn't have let her come back. She's awful. TERRIBLE song choice. And even worse singing. Fuck this shit...

8) Michelle - "Fallin'" by Alicia Keys. ANOTHER girl singing this song. Has there been a season where we didn't hear this? AFFFFF... The beginning was odd. The rest was better. Much better, but better. And there were worse singers tonight, so she'll be OK. Actually, one of the best tonight. Not that that's saying much, but still.

9) Didi - "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson. She's Jewish, right? I mean, Benami is a Jewish last name, so... is she? Anyway, I quite liked the song choice, and other than the "You-ou-ou-ou" parts, it was rather good. It was pretty dreary, though. But still, pretty good.

10) Siobhan - "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak. How can that spelling read Shavon? or something like that? She's bugging me. Something about her that I don't like. She gives me the creeps sometime. The song started too low, continued averagely, and overall was a little short of alright. Nothing special.

11) Crystal - "Hand in My Pocket" by Alanis Morissette. Every single song she sings sounds the same. She's better than most other girls, so that's not necessarily a bad thing, but no way in hell she'll win doing that all the time. It was pretty good, but not a lot better than the average tonight, and that's not great.

12) Katie - "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone (and NOT Michael Buble). An OK ending to an OK night. She's a good singer, and better than what she's shown here, and she's better than most of the other girls here. Even though SHE'S 16! Wait, no, SHE'S 17! Pretty good. Not great. Not of the usual quality of show-enders, but still quite good.

1. Katelyn

2. Michelle

3. Lilly

4. Crystal

5. Katie

6. Didi

7. Janell

8. Siobhan

9. Haeley

10. Paige

11. Lacey

12. Ashley

Glee!

WOW, it's been a long time since I've been here...

Here's a recap of what you missed -

I have a new apartment! YEAH! And two roommates, sorta. One of them's kinda weird. The other's okay. There's only 2 channels that work on the TV, neither of which is interesting. I use a netstick thingy to get online. That means I'm paying my cellphone company to surf the web. Kinda sucks.

Sports! Real's doing pretty well, and so are Maccabi Haifa. The Cavs and Heat could be doing better, and Omri Casspi's fantastic. If you don't know who that is, he's the rookie SF for the Kings. He's Israeli. And so far, he's been A LOT better than what people expected, having being picked 23rd in the last Draft. Last rookie ranking on NBA.com, he was 6th. 6th!

Athletics. I have a class, a sports/athletics class, on Sunday morning, starting at 7:30 AM. That means I need to take a train to Haifa on Saturday night. That sucks. But the class is kinda fun. We mainly run, and do all sorts of drills that have to do with running, for about 30-40 minutes, and then play, either football (soccer) or basketball. Kinda fun.

Mafia Wars. It's here, and it's here to stay. I love it. Yeah, I know, but still. I've been playing it on Facebook for three weeks or so, and I can't get enough of it. I tried some other games in the mean time, and a bit before I started MW, like FarmVille, World Cafe and such, but none of those stuck. MW is just fun.

NBA 2K10 is awesome. My Player mode in NBA 2K10 is awesome-er. Finally, a long, LONG time after every other sports series, 2K sports realized it will be a good idea to put a "create your own player and play as him for his whole career" mode in their NBA game. It still has some problems, but all in all, it's great. Lots of fun.

I kinda feel like playing D&D again. I miss is. It was loads of fun, but I just don't have the time right now. Too busy sleeping and not doing anything.

I started reading the Dexter series of books. It's every bit as good as the series, which is fantastic, and even though the main stories are very similar, it doesn't take anything away from the books, having already watched the corresponding episodes.

I'm hooked on yet another series. That makes it 25 active shows that I watch on a weekly basis, plus another one I need to catch up on. Which series do I watch? CSI(x3), Survivor, Dexter, Heroes, House, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Top Gear, Chuck, American Idol, Burn Notice, Lost, Greek, Entourage, Friday Night Lights, Numb3rs, Hotel Babylon and South Park, which aren't new ones, for me, and now also FlashForward, Dollhouse, Mercy, Lie to Me and Glee. FlashForward has a very good idea, not the best of executions, but all in all, I enjoy it, and always look forward to the next episode. Dollhouse has an INCREDIBLE story, with GREAT execution, and it's now one of my favorite shows. Too bad there are only 7 episodes left, before it's kaput. Mercy is another show I don't love, but because I'm fucked up like that, I keep watching it, and will keep doing so until the last episode, probably. The same goes with Lie to Me, which, when told about, thought would be great, but the reality is that, much like Numb3rs, just runs in the background while I'm doing other stuff. And Glee. Ah, Glee. I love this show. It's just fun. It's terribly fun. The stereotypical characters might put you off, but it just helps the show, what with the story lines they've got for them. It is a little annoying that it's focused almost exclusively on Rachel and Finn (among the kids), but what are you gonna do? You have to have your main roles and your supporting roles, I guess. And now, my favorite performances from Glee, in order of broadcast:

1) "Don't Stop Believing". I love this song, and the performance was very ingenious, and very fun. My first brush with Glee was watching the Sam Tsui cover of it on YouTube, thinking that THAT was from the show, and that kinda got me watching the show.

2) "Somebody to Love". Again, another great song, and a good choreography, coupled with good singing, yet again.

3) "It's My Life" & "Confessions Part II" mash-up. I LOVE THIS! A great idea for a mash-up, and it is just so well performed. Just brilliant.

4) "You Can't Always Get What You Want". Might just be my favorite Rolling Stones song. Kind of a stretch, if we are to believe that they came up with the whole thing while waiting to go up and perform, but whatever.

5) "My Life Would Suck Without You". Very fun. And the collage of choreographies from past performances was a great idea.

AI8 Top 9 - Downloads? Huh?

This theme is basically - pick whatever song you want, if we clear it you can sing it. Wierd.

Megan's hot, but she sucks! The performance was terrible too. Allison shouldn't have played the guitar. She wasn't great on it, and it didn't help the performance. And that dress! UGH! Scott gave his best performance so far. Nice. Lil's awful. Adam's still awesome. And Paula's high. And Kara's retarded. Kris was brilliant. Never heard an arrangement of "Ain't No Sunshine" quite like that. I don't know if it came from the computer, or from outside (where there are thunders right about now), but I heard thunders as it was ending. AWESOME!

About the results show - If anyone saw "The Comebacks" - the "Don't Stop Believing" there was much better...

AI8 Top 10 - Motown

Before we get started, something about the new judge.

Kara. Kara's kinda hot. Sorta. But she's annoying. She can give good criticism, in stark comparison to the other judges. But, she's a sucker for big song-ending notes. And big notes in general. There's more to singing than that. And, during the auditions and Hollywood episodes, she used the sentence "raw, natural talent" quite often. And apparently, she doesn't know what that means. She seems to think it means whoever she told it to is great, naturally gifted, and ready to make it in the big leagues. But that's not the case. It means that, while talented, whoever she told it to still needs to refine his "raw, natural talent", and, in the contest of the series, will probably do better in a year or two. There, I'm glad I got that out of the way.

Oh, one other thing - for some reason, when going for the bigger notes, the contestants let their tongue slide out of their mouth. Slightly. Try to see it next time. Adam and Kris are two I remember doing it, on several occasions. It's kinda off-putting.

Adam was terrific. Allison was great. Kris was good. That's it. I guess...

AI8 Top 11 - Grand Ole Opry

This might become a regular thing...

Some things I noticed:

Michael sucked. Allison wasn't that great tonight. Kris keeps improving. He still makes wierd faces when singing. Lil ain't no Carrie. Adam's crazy. He's a whackjob. Lunatic. What on earth was that?!?!!?? The vocals were good, but there ain't no one on the planet that can seperate them from the arrangement. That was WIERD. And to think he might have done great with the regular version, or with a one similar to what Daughtry did/stole/whatever with I Walk the Line, back in his time. Scott ain't all that and a bag of chips. He wouldn't be here if he wasn't blind. Sorry, but that's the truth. Alexis - meh. Danny sings wityh a "growl" that sounds like he's got phlegm, i.e. like he REALLY needs to cough. Disgusting. Anoop ROCKS! Megan's hot. HOT. But she can't dance. AT ALL. And Matt was very good. That's it. for now...

AI8 Top 13 - MJ Night

I know I said I won't, but here are some things I thought about while watching this performance episode.

First off, I'm glad that it's a top 13, rather than a top 12, because the baker's dozen allows Anoop, aka Noop-Dogg, to get in, and I like him.

Now to several performances:

Kris' performance was, I thought, better than he got credit for. I know it wasn't technically the best of the night, and kinda average overall, but I loved it. LOVED it. The guitar might have seemed pointless, because it didn't really fit the song, and wasn't clearly heard AT ALL, for almost the entire song, but, speaking as someone who does (somewhat) play the guitar, I can imagine he feels much more comfortable while playing the guitar, and that helps him loosen up, and in my eyes, turn in his best performance yet, from his first audition 'till now. And you could see he was having fun. And he made funny silly faces. And the fact that he helped the others with their songs makes him just so much more awesome.

Allison, who from some angles is kinda cute, had a great performance. But I wasn't really concentrating on it, so that's it.

Anoop, I thought, didn't suck as badly as he was accused of sucking. It's a great song, and he did an OK version of it, but it wasn't terrible.

Megan's HOT. REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HOT. But that tattoo is hideous. And she can't dance.

* In earlier episodes, Nick/Norman was AWESOME! HILLARIOUS! And Neil Patrick Harris, aka Legendary Himself, Barney, was in da house, for two performance episodes. COOL *

And Adam's AWESOME.

That's it. For now...

Fuck This World...

4-0? Seriously? WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Real Madrid lost to Alcorcon from the second division, group B, 4-0. WTF?!?!?!?!?!?

And to make things better, the Cavs lost their season opener to the Celtics.

Fuck this world...

Blog, Are You There? It's Me... Blogger

Hi there. It's been a while, hasn't it?

I've been quite busy, actually.

The first year of college/university ended. Sorta. I'm still trying to finish the second (third, but more of that, later) round of test (not new ones, but to improve grades and stuff). Two more are left. I'm not entirely lacking confidence. I think.

I finished basic training in the military. A month of nothing's and not-a-whole-lot's. I did shoot an M-16. A LOT. It was fun. I am now qualified to do that. But I don't have a license. Odd.

The second year of college started a couple of weeks ago. Nothing's new. All's the same.

That's basically it. I didn't get back to learning how to play the guitar. Too bad. I do want to, but I can't see myself doing it any time soon.

About American Idol - I finished watching season 7 (again-ish), and am not going to post reviews about it, or season 8 which I'm currently watching. I really don't have the mental strength and will to do that.

BUT, I will, hopefully, comment on the new season, once it will start, so that my opinion won't be years overdue.

Anything else? probably, but I can't remember. Seeya soon?

American Idol - The Thing That Should Be

Below is a list of songs that probably won't ever be performed on Idol, which is a shame. If they were sung, they will immidiately be considered awesome. Depending on how good the perormance will be, they might stay that way, too.

More Than a Feeling - Boston
The Boys Are Back in Town - Thin Lizzy
Buddy Holly - Weezer
Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns 'n' Roses. That would be SO AWESOME!
Paradise City - Guns 'n' Roses. And any G'N'R, really.
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Any Nirvana, actually.
Metallica. Something? Anything?
Led Zeppelin. Other than once in the 8th season, nothing!
Rockstar - Nickleback. I know, i know, but this song has a special place in my heart...
Lynyrd Skynyrd - NOT ENOUGH!
ZZ Top - Especially Sharp Dressed Man, David Cook's performance of it with ZZ Top was awesome.
Stan - Eminem. I know it doesn't really fit, but this song gives me the chills EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Tears In Heaven - Eric Clapton. Ditto.
Hotel California - The Eagles. LOVE IT. Also, a good version of Desperado, to get us all to forget the catastrophe that was the third season...
House of the Rising Sun - The Animals. DITTO.
Some more Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Beatles (and solo careers).
The Rolling Stones. PLEASE! Gimme more! PLEASE!
AC/DC? Maybe? Highway to Hell and Back in Black, expecially.
Some more Hallelujah, the Jeff Buckley arrangement. That's just so awesome.
Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie. He played guitar! Me likey. Plenty of other great ones from him.
Queen. Just more please.
Ramones. Just. Fucking. Awesome.
Red Hot Chili Peppers. More. More. More.
Wonderwall - Oasis.
Time of Your Life - Green Day. The Good Riddance one. Great. Great. Great.
I Love Rock 'n' Roll - Joan Jett. Coolness.
Aerosmith. YEAH! There are more than enough in seasons 7 and 8, but still!
Van Halen. Anything that's not You Really Got Me. Too much painful memories.
If someone goes out and does a heavy metal, Pantera or something, that'd be awesome. a terrible trainwreck, probably, but an awesome one at least.
The Allman Brothers Band. Pretty please?
Looser - Beck. I'm a looser baby, so why don't you kill me? LOL!
I Wanna Be Your Dog - The Stooges. Just for randy's comments.
Thirteen - Big Star. September Gurls would be fine too.
(Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult. Love it.
Surrender - Cheap Trick. Just do it.
Bon Jovi. Other than the season 6 Bon Jovi week, what?
On the Road Again - Willie Nelson. Yeah.
Jimi Hendix. I would LOVE to hear a guitar solo of his on Idol.
The Clash. U-huh.
Cream - Anything. Eric Clapton too.
Leonard Cohen. The best thing to come out of canada, and all you've got is one Hallelujah? And it's the Jeff Buckley version! (I have absolutely nothing against that version, in fact I love it...)
Proud Mary - Creedence Clearwater Revival. The CCR version. Complete with "Proud Mary keep on boinin'". lol!
Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple. I'll even play the bass part. Or at least the part of the base part that i actually know.
American Pie - Don McLean. All he's got on the show is vincent? seriously?
Depeche Mode. Personal jesus. Or the other good one. The "All i ever wanted" one.
RAP! HA!
The Doors. Just one tiny light my fire? COME ON!
Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand. Who cares that their namesake was murdered? And that led to WWI (or WWII, don't remember which)?
Truckin' - Greatful Dead. Yep.
ABC - The Jackson 5. They really were great, back when they were all black.
Soul Man, and Solomon Burke's Everybody Needs Somebody to Love. NOT as group performances.
Pink Houses - John Mellencamp. Love it.
Spirit in the Sky - Norman Greenbaum. Brilliant.
Lola - The Kinks. Great. Just great.
Layla - Derek and the Dominos. Again, just great.
Behind Blue Eyes - Limp Bizkit. I LOVE it.
Ace of Spades - Motorhead.
All the Young Dudes - Mott the Hoople. With a song and band names like those two, how can you not love it?
I'm a Believer - The Monkees. A good, non-karaoke version.
Rockin' in the Free World - Neil Young. Hot. Hot. Hot.
Iris - Goo Goo Dolls. Great. Really great.
Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's. Very excellent, as randy once said. One doesn't count.
Hey Ya - Outkast. Kinda rap, but it's great!
How 'bout some Pink Floyd? huh?
Losing My Religion - REM. One of their best, if not the best.
I'm Too Sexy, Baby Got Back, Big Poppa - Just for the LOL factor.
The Sex Pistols. Just oh so great.
The Smiths? Maybe?
Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden. That'd be cool.
Sum 41. Fat Lip, or In Too Deep, expecially.
My Sharona - The Knack. So that simon can call whoever did it the next Prince, only to see him get out the next results show.
Keep On Runnin' - The Spencer Davis Group. If only because i can't find this anywhere.
Some Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Free Fallin' - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. Jus' 'cause.
Sweet Jane - The Velvet Underground. Yeah...
Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve. How cool is it that Richards and Jagger got co-writing credit?
Dance to the Music - Sly & the Family Stone. Would be fun to see.
Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry. LOL... I know it's been done, twice, but still!
Do You Believe in Magic - The Lovin' Spoonful. I just like it...
Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead.
For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield.
Fortunate Son - CCR.
Slow Ride - Foghat.
Fuck the Police - NWA. It would have to be pretaped, but it would be FUNNY to hear more bleeps than actual lyrics. LOL!
Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac. If not Nadia, then someone, please?
Beach Boys. No one? No one?!?!?
Hit the Road Jack - Ray Charles. Who wouldn't want to hear more backup than actual singing by the contestant?
All Star - Smash Mouth. Why not? Just give it a try!
Eye of the Tiger - Survivor. Ditto. Why not?
U2 - Two songs don't count!
The Reason - Hoobastank. It's just stuck in my head... I think it's great.
Bad Day - Daniel Powter
Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Pink Floyd. Just to see someone TRY and cut down this song, from 26:11 to 90 seconds. ROFL!

that's it for now... a pretty hefty list, if i may add...

A Wierd Taste In Music

That's right. I've got an eclectic (read: W-I-E-R-D) taste in music. I like just about anything. Except Mizrahit. I used to like it. A bit. I hate it now...

A small taste of my taste - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, some ZZ Top, some Oasis, some Animals, some Elvis, some Eminem, some Guns 'n' Roses, some Metallica, Nirvana, Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, some Green Day, some Coldplay, some Radiohead, Queen, some Deep Purple, some Weezer, some REM, some Soundgarden, some Santana, some Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, some George Harrison, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Neil Young, the Monkees, and more!

YEAH, I know...

As proof of this varied taste of mine, the next entry will be a list of songs I would like to see and hear performed on American Idol. and well.

In Haifa...

I'm in Haifa today.

I'm staying in a friend's appartment. I was supposed to stay with my uncle and aunt, and their son and daughter, but that didn't go through...

On the train, I met 2 girls I went to high school and middle school with. One's REALLY hot. The other, not so much. I haven't seen them in a year or so. It was kinda cool. We talked. That's it.

I'm now in a shitty appartment in Nesher, which is basically the same as Haifa, but not really. Oh well.

Tomorrow, I need to go to a course from the army, I dunno... Something about how to write your CV. BUT I'M NOT EVEN 19!!! AND I WON'T BE LOOKING FOR A JOB IN THE NEXT 9 YEARS!!! I dunno...

Anyway, there are some good news. My cousin was sick for the last week or so. He had really high fever. The doctors didn't know if it was swine flu or not. Today I found out he's healthy again. YAY!

Alright, that's it. I think...

American Idol

That's it. I'm really done now. No more of this frm me. Buh bye!

American Idol S06E20 - Top 12

We are finally here. The top 12. And theme weeks. This week, it's Diana Ross, and she's helping the kids.

First though, some pimping of the show and it's alumni. Then it's a tour of the stage. Then, after some banter, some pimping of Diana Ross. And then we see her meet the top 12.

1) Brandon - "Can't Hurry Love" by The Supremes. The start, with the back to the audience, SUCKED. Not good at all. And he forgot the lyrics. And let it show.

COCA COLA! The hardest part of the competition for Melinda's the high heels and dresses. LOL. Ryan asks Simon to give her pointers about the high heels. LOL. Simon says Ryan should know. LOL. Ryan tells Simon to stay out of his closet. LOL. Simon tells Ryan to come out of it. ROFL!!! Melinda's embarassed as heck.

2) Melinda - "Home" by Diana Ross. She's too good for AI. She's a great singer, a great performer, and yet she's incredibly shy and cute. Amazing... And she doesn't know how good she is. And she made Paula cry. How can you not love her???

3) Chris S. - "Endless Love" by Diana Ross & Lionel Richie. He looks wierd sans-glasses. T'was a'ight.

4) Gina - "Love Child" by the Supremes. Loud. Not terrible.

5) Sanjaya - "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell. What happened to his hair??? It SUCKED! The "dancing" too. And the ending. Yuck...

COCA COLA! Nothing interesting...

6) Haley - "Missing You" by Diana Ross. Breathy. That can really drive me crazy. And she effed the lyrics. Simon made her cry, by giving her compliments!

7) Phil - "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" by the Supremes & the Temptations. Creepy. Good, but creepy.

8) LaKisha - "God Bless the Child" by Billie Holiday. WOW...

COCA COLA! Blake listens to "cool" music.

9) Blake - "You Keep Me Hanging On" by the Supremes. Wierd. Good, but wierd.

10) Stephanie - "Love Hangover" by Diana Ross. Pretty good. I guess.

11) Chris R. - "The Boss" by Diana Ross. Pretty weak. I dunno...

12) Jordin - "If We Hold On Together" by Diana Ross. Very good. Very very good.

1. Melinda

2. LaKisha

3. Jordin

4. Stephanie

5. Blake

6. Phil

7. Gina

8. Chris S.

9. Chris R.

10. Haley

11. Brandon

12. Sanjaya

Real Madrid - Toronto FC

Real Madrid beat Toronto FC 5-1 a few hours ago. WOOHOO!!!

Some observations:

* Cristiano Ronaldo's getting more and more comfortable. It's going to be scary!

* Raul's AWESOME! He just never seases to work and amaze me.

* Kaka's brilliant. He didn't have the best of games, as it was his first in Real, but he organised the offensive game so well, and rarely made a mistake.

* IKER!!! ALBIOL!!! ARBELOA!!! All these three played their first game for Real (for Iker it was the first game n this preseason), and all played well, though they didn't shine, as they weren't called for any heroic actions/whatever.

* Lass. Lass. Lass. The guy's the closest thing I've ever seen to Makalele, without actually being Makalele. BRILLIANT.

* Guti doesn't suck. He had some good actions, but not enough to warrant a starting role when the actual season starts.

* Benzema's really good. He's not just a target striker, he can start attacks too, and do it well. He can also play near the sidelines, which is an advantage.

* Granero. MY GOD, Granero... The guy can play EVERY single offensive position, and play it well. I'm so glad Real bought him back.

* Sneijder continues to work hard every second he's on the pitch.

* Robben, when healthy, is one of the best players in the world, especially when he's not locked into selfish mode.

* Xabi Alonso. Perfect. Didn't do a whole lot offensively, but whenever he got the ball, he did EXACTLY what he should have, and he played good defense.

* Miguel Torres was the captain, after Raul, Iker and Guti came off the pitch. SERIOUSLY???

* Negredo's good. Very good. Good enough to stay? Probably not...

Next game's sunday night (Israel time), in Washingtn DC, against DC United. Seeya then!

PS - According to the Spanish newspaper As, Perez has closed the terms of Ribery's contract (5 years, beginning next season) with the player and his agent, and predictions are that Bayern Munich will agree to sell the player next summer for 25 M Euros. WOW...

Real Madrid Background

As you probably know by know, I'm a Real Madrid fan.

I wanted to have a background about Real, with the new purchases, as well as the best players that were already here, and decided that instead of asking for someone to make/find me one, I'd do it myself.

And this is the result.

I mysel am very proud of it, as it is the first thing I made using photoshop in 5 years or so, and I never really sat down to learn how to use the program well.

And this is where you come in. If anyone's reading this, please take a look and tell me what you think. It's kinda important for me...

American Idol S06E19 - Top 16 Results

16 become 12 as the semifinalists are revealed.

GROUP PERFORMANCE: "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealers Wheel. Very cool song, cool performance.

Then it's a recap of the performances.

Results! LaKisha and Blake join Ryan at centerstage. They're both through. Chris S.'s next. Ryan gives him a heart-attack. After the break, he's through. Jordin's next. And through. Phil's next. He's nervous. He's through. He's shocked. Jared's next. And he's outta here! He sings.

American Idol Challenge, again. This one's the easiest so far... It's C, dumbass.

Melinda and Brandon are up. And through. Chris R. and Gina are next. And through.

A pause in the results, as we see a clip about Carrie. AND SHE'S HERE!!! I LOVE HER!!! GUEST SONG: "Wasted" by Carrie Underwood. She's still hot and beautiful. And great.

Back to the results. Antonella and Stephanie join Ryan at centerstage. Antonella's outta here. Stephanie's through. Antonella sings.

Haley and Sabrina are next. They're both crying. Haley's through. Sabrina's outta here.

This is AI's 200th episode. WOW... The surprise is that they are going to do a telethon thing in the top 6 stage - Idol Gives Back. Cool. Borat will be there, as will Gwen Stefani, Pink, Bono and others. COOL!

Sanjaya and Sundance are the last ones left. Sundance's outta here. Sanjaya's through. Sundance sings. And it was AWESOME. We see the ousted's journeys on Idol.

American Idol S06E18 - Top 16: Top 8 Girls

8 girls, blah blah blah...

Paula was missing because she gave Randy a BJ. I didn't say that...

1) Jordin - "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benatar. She's a football fan! DUDE! AWESOME! It was really fun. I really like this song, and I really like it on her.

2) Sabrina - "Don't Let Go (Love)" by En Vogue. Meh. Screechy.

3) Antonella - "Put Your Records On" by Corinne Bailey Rae. She's really, REALLY hot. AND she sucks! HA!

4) Haley - "If My Heart Had Wings" by Faith Hill. People say she's hot. I don't get people.

5) Stephanie - "Sweet Things" by Chaka Khan.

6) LaKisha - "I Have Nothing" by Whitney Houston. She's terrified of animals. LOL.

7) Gina - "Call Me When You're Sober" by Evanescence. I really like this song.

8) Melinda - "I'm a Woman" by Peggy Lee. Her OCD's so cute. The performance was AWESOME!

1. Melinda

2. Gina

3. LaKisha

4. Jordin

5. Sabrina

6. Stephanie

7. Haley

8. Antonella

American Idol S06E17 - Top 16: Top 8 Guys

8 guys are left. Tonight they perform.

1) Blake - "All Mixed Up" by 311. And in tonight's filler segments, we'll get to know the contestants better. YAY! Blake loves improv comedy, and Halloween is the best time of the year for him. The breathing noises at the start sucked. Once he got going, it was very nice. Not a great song, not great singing, not too difficult, either, but it was nice. Randy loved it, even though he didn't recognize the song. Paula's interested. Simon agrees with the other two.

COCA COLA! Sundance was emotional in the previous results show, because Chris R. was crying. Sanjaya looks like a chick. He was shocked that he got through last week.

2) Sanjaya - "Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayer. He can Hula. He really is the girliest dude ever. And, in accordance with the girly-ness of his, he sucks. Get it? Get it? That really was terrible. Randy doesn't see anything special about him, and he used to. Paula's speechless. Simon says it wasn't as bad as last week, and calls him on his Paula hairstyle. And then the ever gay Ryan comes up on stage and announces he's sure one of the two (Paula and Sanjaya) has extensions, but he's not sure which one. ROFL!

3) Sundance - "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam. He "reveals" that he wears a fat-suit when he's on the show. Ha. Ha. Ha. Who sings Pearl Jam on the Idol? I mean, the song's great. The video of it is even better. But to sing it on Idol? It was precisely what you'd expect it to be - shouty, loud, incoherent at parts, and quite a mess. But it's a great song! Randy loves that he put a southern rock thing on a Pearl Jam song. Paula's redundant. Simon didn't like it as much as last week.

Travis Tritt's in the house, and Randy's working on his next album.

4) Chris R. - "Tonight I Wanna Cry" by Keith Urban. He used to be "chunky". And he lost 40 pounds. WOW. There's something wierd about his vibrato or falsetto or both. I dunno. Last week he was great. This week he was just OK. Randy thinks he's in it to win it. Duh. Paula's "smart". Simon thinks it was good, but he's not jumping out of his chair.

All the guys do the "Jared Cotter Face Mask". Ha.

5) Jared - "If You Really Love Me" by Stevie Wonder. He played college basketball. Cool. And he does a forced "sexy" Stevie song. He just relies to heavily on the female vote. And there are a lot of girls that aren't impressed by the whole playing with the camera/Jarred-Cotter-face-mask thing, and won't vote for him. Or at least I hope so. Randy thought he gave a solid performance and it was actually good. Paula's helpful! Simon understands Paula. AH!

Phil kisses the judges' asses. Brandon too, I think.

6) Brandon - "I Just Want to Celebrate" by Rare Earth. He's a classical piano player. I dunno. Ugh. Ummm... I guess it was alright, but there was nothing to it. He just sang it. He sang it well enough, but something's missing. I dunno. Randy thought he messed the end.

Alright. I'm done. I give up. I'm tired of this. I am now officially stopping doing this as I have so far. I will just post the rating for each performance episode. I'll write a short recap of each results show, but none of this in depth thing any more. I'll tell you the truth, the main reason I started doing this was because there weren't any of this things to be found for the first several seasons, but there are more than enough for this season onwards. So I'm done-ish.

7) Phil - "I Need You" by LeAnn Rimes. He used to have hair, and Randy was in Journey.

8) Chris S. - "Wanna Be Loved" by dc Talk. I really like this dude.

1. Chris S.

2. Blake

3. Chris R.

4. Sundance

5. Brandon

6. Jared

7. Phil

8. Sanjaya

American Idol S06E16 - Top 20 Results

20 hopefuls stand before us. 4 will be shot to death for our viewing pleasure. Well, not really, but you know...

American Idol Challenge and Kelli Pickler. Can't wait.

More than 32 million votes were phoned/texted in. We get a recap of the performances that earned those votes.

GROUP PERFORMANCE: "Joy to the World" by Three Dogs Night. Jeremiah was a bullfrog! WOOHOO!!! That was very good! Very fun! YAY!

The guys are nervous. FORD! Phil's safe. Chris S.'s safe. Sundance's safe. Blake's safe. Jared joins Ryan at centerstage. And he's safe. Ryan asks Nick to stand and immediately shatters his dreams. He's outta here. He's told he sucks by the judges. And he sings.

The girls are sad. Stephanie's safe. Gina's safe. Sabrina's safe. Melinsda's safe. Alaina's outta here. She's happy with the experience. She sings.

American Idol Challenge - Another stupid question. And another B.

Kelli Pickler's here! She's HAWT! Her boobs are bigger. Hmmm... HAWT! She tried sushi for the first time. And she talks about spider sushi. She bought shoes. Just shoes. GUEST SONG: "I Wonder" by Kelli Pickler.

The boys are up again. Chris R.'s safe. Brandon's safe. Sanjaya and AJ are the only ones left, and they join Ryan at centerstage. AJ's outta here. Sanjaya's safe. He's shocked. AJ's not so much. He sings.

Back to the girls. LaKisha's safe. Haley's safe. Antonella, Leslie and Jordin join Ryan at centerstage. Antonella's safe. Leslie's outta here. Jordin's safe. Gina's crying. We see Nick, Alaina, AJ and Leslie's journeys on Idol. Yep, Daughtry's still singing "Home". Leslie sings.

American Idol S06E15 - Top 20: Top 10 Girls

FINALLY, I'm back to reviewing AI. That was a long hiatus...

Ten girls are left. Not for long, though... We get some banter between the judges and Ryan. I'm bored already.

1) Gina - "Alone" by Heart. Again with the dedication bullshit? Gina dedicates this performance to her boyfriend. Bored. Carrie did this song. It was one of her best performance. And Gina dares try it??? She wasn't bad. She was actually sorta good. Not Carrie good, but good. Randy calls it pitchy to begin with. Paula's stunned-ish. Simon thought it was forced at the end. Randy tries for a LONG time to make fun of Simon's fashion sense, unsuccessfully. Paula doesn't do a better job, either.

COCA COLA! Ryan's got the hots for LaKisha.

2) Alaina - "Not Ready to Make Nice" by Dixie Chicks. She dedicates the song to her mom. Bored. She's really pushing for some sympathy/whatever votes. HAND GESTURES!!! ARGH!!! It was pitchy throughout. The song choice was kinda nice, but she had some enunciation and phrasing problems with it. She ran out of air. It was pretty bad. Randy thought the tuning and pitch went away at the chorus, and thought it was a mess. Paula's comforting. Simon compares it to Randy running in a 100 m race.

3) LaKisha - "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight & the Pips. She's dedicating the song to her grandmother. NICE. GREAT song choice. Remember when Paris sang it last season? Well, LaKisha was even better. It was REALLY good. Great. Fantastic. I L-U-V LaKisha. Randy thought it was HAWT. Paula's mumbling. Simon thought it wasn't as good as last week.

And the Ryan's proving he's gay. He's joined by Simon in the circle of gayness VERY quickly, though. So don't be sad for him. Or perhaps be even sadder?

4) Melinda - "My Funny Valentine" by Mitzi Green. She dedicates this performance to her Gayle's. HUH? This is where previous performances come in to help you - the last to perform this song was Constantine. There's no way in hell this is gonna pale in comparison to THAT... And it doesn't. It's brilliant. Fantastic. Awesome. She's almost too good for this show. Scratch that, She IS too good for this show. Randy called it unbelievable. Paula's applauding. Simon calls in incredible. Melinda's shocked.

5) Antonella - "Because You Love Me" by Celine Dion. She's nervous. She's HOT! She dedicates the song to her brother, Vincenzo. Vincenzo? SERIOUSLY??? She sucks. She's just terrible. But she's HOT. It was really, REALLY awful. It was painful at places. Randy says the song was way too big for her, and the pitch was all over the place. Paula's a moron. Simon thought it just wasn't good enough.

6) Jordin - "Reflection" by Christina Aguilera. She dedicates the song to her younger brother, whose name is apparently Blowjob. I dunno. It was a bit erratic at places, but overall very good. Not Melinda good, or LaKisha good, but very good. She cries. Randy thought it was pitchy at places, but he's very impressed by her. Paula's sick. Simon thought it was excellent, when compared to some of the others.

Kelli will make an appearance in the results show! WOOHOO! Stephanie says the girls aren't competitive.

7) Stephanie - "Dangerously In Love" by Beyonce. She dedicates the song to her parents. Bored. The song sucks. She did what she could with it, but the song REALLY sucked! Randy thought she sang her face off. Paula's drunk. Simon's drunk. He thought it was terrific.

Leslie's awkward as heck...

8) Leslie - "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone. She dedicates the song to her grandfather. This song? Again? The beginning, with the long violin note in the background, was wierd. It picked up a bit, and she ended better than she started, but it was just there. Eh. Meh. Bleh. Whatever. The scatting was terrible. Like REALLY bad. Randy thought it was pitchy. It was just a'ight for him. Paula's stupid. Simon says (LOL!) Paula liked it because the skatting sounded like Paula's talking. BURN! He thought she's getting lost, having followed better performances.

Ryan recites Leslie's skatting. Ha.

9) Haley - "Queen of the Night" by Whitney Houston. She dedicates it to her fiancee. Awww. Bored. Why Whitney? Why would she do that to herself? It was "jumpy", "whore-y", "shouty", "pitchy", "insert not favorable adjective here-y". Not really good. Not at all. SHOCKER! She lied about her fiancee being away! He's right there in the audience! Randy thought it was a more background than lead singer song, and that it wasn't great. Paula's deaf. Simon gives her "A" for effort, thought it was manic verging at insane at points. And that it paled in comparison.

10) Sabrina - "All the Man That I Need" by Whitney Houston. She's dedicating the song to her grandmother. She's arrogant. I hate her. She smiles too much. The song's terrible. She did OK. I really couldn't care, though. The ending sucked. Randy says something about something. Paula's happy. Simon thought she was on the limit of shouting.

1. Melinda

2. LaKisha

3. Jordin

4. Gina

5. Sabrina

6. Stephanie

7. Haley

8. Leslie

9. Alaina

10. Antonella

Football News!

Maccabi Haifa, after a goal-less tie in Kazakhstan last week, found themselves 3 goals down after just 15 minutes tonight in Haifa.

God that sucked.

But, eventually, after many stressful minutes, Maccabi was finally able to come away with a 4-3 victory, and the ticket to the next round. Phew...

It just seemed, for the first quarter of an hour of the game, that the people over at Maccabi just forgot that, usually, the other team can attack as well. After that initial shock, Haifa actually started playing football, and quite well at times.

Let's just say I'm glad that's over...

And in Real Madrid news - XABI ALONSO!!!! Liverpool and Real have come to an agreement for the purchase of the basque by the Spanish club, for a sum of 30 million Euros, according to the Spanish media. YAY!!!! NOW I'm happy. NOW the team's completed. NOW Real can start kicking some major ass (*fingers crossed*)!

News!

News! That's right, news!

What I've done recently - NOTHING! JK...

* I saw Fanboys. And can I just say, I LOVE geek jokes. Geek jokes are the best. Geek jokes rock!

* I had a test, in Solid Mechanics, and I did alright, I think. No more test for a month (Probably)!

* I moved out of my dorm room, and as of now will not be able to get a dorm room next year. DAMN. I need to start looking for an apartment soon. I dunno...

* I saw Knocked Up. Seth Rogen's not easy to look at. He's kinda ugly. BUT! He's funny. Really funny. The whole "team", Jay, Jason, Seth, Martin and Jonah, are funny people. Really funny. And Paul Rudd's a good actor. Funny, in a different way. And not as much. But still. And Katherine Heigl's HAWT!

* I also saw Observe and Report. That movie made no sense. It's Seth Rogen's version of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. It's funny at parts. And makes no sense at others. What ev...

* I ALSO saw Road Trip: Beer Pong. GOD, that sucked. Road Trip was really good. Euro Trip was pretty good. This movie just sucked. Everything about it sucked. Except for the tits. They were awesome.

* Real Madrid news - Alvaro Arbeloa was purchased! Yay! Gabriel Heinze left for Marseille. OK. Parejo was transfered to Getafe, with an option of re-purchase for the first 2 years. Good. Alberto Bueno wasn't a Real Madrid player for several weeks when I last wrote about Real. He's now in Valladolid. Again, Real has a re-purchase option, for some duration of time. I think. AND! Xabi Alonso's transfer to Madrid is reportedly all but agreed upon. He stayed in Spain, while the team, Liverpool, returned to England. I just hope he signs for Real soon.

That's it. I think. Oh well...

Real Madrid Round Up

So, where are we currently standing?

Real Madrid currently has 30 or so players on its rosters, at least 5 of which have got to go before August 31st (well, actually, before September 1st, but who wants all that last minute scrambling, any way?).

And the players are the following: Iker Casillas, Jerzey Dudek, Michel Salgado, Sergio Ramos, Raul Albiol, Miguel Torres, Christoph Metzelder, Pepe, Gabriel Heinze, Marcelo, Eziquiel Garay, Roysthon Drenthe, Mahmadou Diarra, Lassana Diarra, Fernando Gago, Dani Parejo, Wesley Sneijder, Rafael Van der Vaart, Guti, Kaka, Arjen Robben, Cristiano Ronaldo, Raul, Gonzalo Higuain, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Klaas Jan Huntelaar, Karim Benzema, Alvaro Negredo, Esteban Granero and Alberto Bueno.

Sure fire to be in the squad next season - Iker (no explanation needed), Dudek (just signed an extension, will be the second GK), Sergio Ramos (come on), Raul Albiol (15 M and will leave?), Torres (rotation), Pepe (one of the best in the world at his position), Lass (one of the sole rays of light from last season), Kaka (COME ON!), C. Ronaldo (SERIOUSLY!), Raul (DUDE!), Higuain (the other ray of light...), Benzema (MAN!) and Granero (just bought and coach likes). 12.

Who else? Salgado, Marcelo, Gago, Sneijder, Guti. They'll probably stay. 17. Either Hienze will stay or someone will be purchased (Arbeloa) to replace him. 18. Metzelder, I guess. 19. Ruud and Mahmadou seem to be staying. 21. Garay, too. 22.

On the outs are Drenthe (almost certain), Parejo (already out), VdV (probably), Robben (probably not), Huntelaar (most definitely), Negredo (question of time) and Bueno (back to Castilla/loan thingy to another club).

Assuming Robben stays, 23. Add to that Xabi Alonso (*fingers crossed*), and that's 24. And keep VdV for good measure. 25. Success! Now, if only it were this easy in real life...

On a side note, and a completely unrelated one at that, I HATE LAPORTA! The president of Barcelona. I HATE HIM!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! He said Real's purchases were imperialistic, said that Barca doesn't buy players, it grows them, and then goes and almost, ALMOST, offers 92 MILLION EUROS!!! for Ibrahimovic. Then, Eto'o appears to have agreed to move to Inter, so it's only going to cost Barca 40 M. And he dares to say that this buy isn't expensive. I HATE HIM!!!!!!! *fingers crossed the deals falls through, and Zlatan stays in Inter*

Some Stuff...

MOVIES!

I recently watched, and quite enjoyed, the following films -

• 17 Again - Nice little idea, not great execution...
• Angels & Demons - Okay, the film wasn't great, but I just loved the book, and therefor had to like the movie...
• Fast and Furious - The previous were better, but I liked the "reunion" and all. Though Michelle Rodriguez's role was irrelevent, and not needed, really...
• Fired Up - I usually hate films where the antagonists are "awesome" and everything goes their way, except for one small thing, and this is one of those films. But I liked it.
• Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - Another one of the aformentioned type of films. And to top it if, it's a pure and unadultered chick flick. Not that good. My sister would love it.
• Land of the Lost - Crazy. Stupid. Hot chick. Two funny actors. What's not to like?
• Step Brothers - Crazy. Stupid. Two funny actors. An a capella version of "Sweet Child O' Mine". What's not to like?
• Terminator: Salvation - My first foray into Terminator territory. There. I said it. As such, EVERYTHING was new to me, and I quite enjoyed it.
• The Hangover - Doug, the guy getting married was in National Treasure. Yeah. This movie is LOL-inducing. Seriously. I was sitting in my room, at 3 AM, laughing out loud. Seriously.
• Three Kings - Released 10 years ago, and watched it just this week. I kinda liked it. Not really, but kinda.

CAR!

We got our old car back... BTW...

TV!

Shows I am watching update - Hotel Babylon (British people are the coolest), Entourage (YEAH!), Top Gear (see: Hotel Babylon), Burn Notice, Greek, Survivor, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, South Park, American Idol, Chuck, Dexter (DAMN!), Friday Night Lights, Heroes, House, How I Met Your Mother (awesome, suit up!, and other apropriate Barney-isms), Lost, Numb3rs, The Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons and Futurama. Wheeooo....

GUITAR!

I am making zero progress. BUT! I have found a good place to learn from (for free, too!). After the last test (Next Sunday), I'll start working harder on improving.

HEADPHONES!

UPDATE: NONE of my headphones work. The set I am currently using, I have to twist the cord to get the right earpiece to work. ARGH!!! I really need to buy new ones...

That's it. You may proceed whatever it was you were doing before you stumbled upon this fascinating piece of information. Dismissed.

New Car, For Now...

We got a new car.

Well, not really. Our car's in the garage, and because it's leased, they gave us a new one. It's one of those HYOOOGE Chevrolet SUV/Minivans. Dunno what's it called.

The only good thing about it, is the stereo. It can play MP3 CDs. That's it. Yeah.

I pretty much hate it, and am anxiously waiting for the return of our car, a Honda FRV. MUCH better.

Though, I'll admit, if I had to, I could get used to the monster we have right now...

How I Met Your Mother

I admit. I didn't want to watch this series. I thought the idea was lame.

I watched it. It was, to quote a great character, "legen, wait for it, and you better not be lactose intolerant, 'cause the second half of the word is - dary!". LOL!

This show is awesome. Barney's awesome. And Robin's hot, even though she's Canadian (in real life too...).

I finished all four seasons available, and am now waiting for the 5th season's premiere, somewhere in September... Booo....

Glantoren 0-4 Maccabi Haifa

I'm still not sure how to write that Northern Irish team's name, but as of today, I won't need to either.

Maccabi Haifa just beat them, 4 goals to nil.

Again, the match was pretty boring, and Haifa easily beat their opponent.

Next up, another team whose name I don't know how to write! They're the Kazakh champions, apparently. I dunno...

Shamrock Rovers 0-1 Real Madrid

YAY!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!

Real Madrid just beat Shamrock Rovers, 1 goal to nil. Yeah, I know, it's not really impressive, but it's just the first game, they still need to gel.

Good things - Cristiano Ronaldo. YEAH! Raul's looking good. Lass is still good. Sneijder and VDV were impressive. Benzema showed glimpses of what he can do, scored the only goal, and was one of the best players tonight. Parejo was pretty good.

Bad things - Defense. A normal team would have scored against Real tonight, at least once. Gago's trying too hard, Higuain not enough.

All in all, not a great match, and I'm looking forward to the next match, in which Kaka, Casillas, Ramos and Albiol should be playing.

Maccabi Haifa 6-0 Gelantorn

Maccabi Haifa just thrashed Gelantorn, the Northern Irish champion, 6 goals to nil.

The first half was mainly disappointment, with some good moments, but not a lot. The second half was much better, with 5 of the goals coming in those 45 minutes.

Haifa played very well, especially in the 2nd half, but the opponent weren't of a good enough quality to be able to say that they are in good shape. Hopefully though, after the rest that will be next week's leg 2 match, the players will be more than well rested, and will come to the next round prepared.

With this victory, Maccabi are all but through to the 3rd Round of qualifications to the Champions League. *fingers crossed that they get to the group stage!* *knock on wood*

The two new players in the club, Teixeira and Dablishvili, both started, and debuted, and both played well, with the Georgian striker being more impressive.

He scored 2 goals, joined on the scoring sheet by Refaelov, Katan, Arbeitman and Gadir.

I'M HAPPY!!!

Bored and Tired

Yes, I'm bored and tired as FUCK!

Some good news though:

* I have decided that I want to study. I KNOW! I will finish my degree, if they let me that is, and I will go to classes and do the homework necessary. YAY! And next semester, it will be easier to do all that, as I will share a room and live next to friends, one of which has the same "major" as I do (it's not really a major, but that's the closest thing to it, and the only way I can explain it.).

* There was a physics test on Wednesday. I barely studied, being stupid like that, but it was still a'ight. The problem was the fucking test. The teachers got it about 10 minutes before the test started, so they didn't get a chance to go over it. Because of that, they cancelled one question, out of ten, mid-way through the test. Of the other 9, I knew i got 3 right, was sort of sure about 2 others, and really guessed the other 4. It is 2 days later, and they decided to axe 4 questions and give everyone the 40 points (in one of those, they accepted 2 answers). In the end, yours truly, according to the answers published and the questions cancelled, should get a 90. WOOHOO! And I think they got one of the answers wrong, which would mean I'd get 100. WOOHOO!

* Benzema was presented last night as a Real Madrid player. "Only" 30,000 fans came to see him. Poor boy. No number yet for him, as he is waiting to see which players leave and which numbers free up before deciding (9 and 10, his previous numbers, are currently occupied).

* Real Madrid's pre-season has officially started today, with almost all the players, minus Iker, Sergio Ramos, Albiol, Kaka and a couple of youngsters-ish, practicing together for the first time. Yes, CR9's there. Yes, Benzema's there. And yes, Raul's there. The missing players got a permission to extend their vacations due to playing for their international team/sub-21 international team. They will be back before the month's over. YAY!

* The draw for the order of games in La Liga next season will take place today. I will post back with important dates, such as the Clasico, derbys, and such.

* Dexter. O. M. G. I saw the first episode, and was head over heels in love with this show. I am now about half way through the second season (12 episodes per), and I can honestly say I love this show. Michael C. Hall's one of the best actors on TV, and the two chicks closest to Dexter, Deb and Rita, dunno the actresses' names, are seriously hot, in a not-the-best-tits-and-not-the-most-beautiful-but-still-really-hot kinda way. I can almost, ALMOST, imagine myself actually dating someone that looks like on of them. Why almost? Well, that's a whole 'nother subject, I'm not quite ready to share with the world. All 3 of you reading. That's probably about 3 more than are really reading...

* The next test is in 3 days or so, and I don't know a single thing. I think I may have to do a Moed B, which is to say do the test again at a later date. It actually be a Moed C, as I will be in bootcamp (probably) when the Moed B will take place.

* Oh, yeah. Bootcamp. About that. In a couple of months or so, I will be whisked off for 4 weeks, and go through bootcamp. Plenty of time left before that little piece of "fun", but I'm already anxious/fearful/excited. Is that wrong?

Cristiano Ronaldo! 9! Cristiano Ronaldo!

HE'S HERE!!!!!

Last night, at 21:00 local time, Cristiano Ronaldo was introduced as a Real Madrid player, in front of 80,000 fans in the Santiago Bernabeu, and 10,000 outside of the stadium. AAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cristiano, or Ronaldo, depends on who you ask, chose the number 9, as his first two choices for the number, 7 and 17, were already taken by Raul and van Nistelrooy.

All I can say - YAY!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!

Eusebio, one of the greatest Portugese players (he's from Angola or something, but player for Portugal), was in attendance, and was full of praise for the young footballer.

American Idol S06E14 - Top 20: Top 10 Guys

10 guys, and all that other bullshit. And yes, this stil IS American Idol. Jennifer Hudson won an Oscar. The show's taking credit. Did you expect anything else?

1) Phil - "Missing You" by John Waite. He dedicates the song to the Navy. NOT his daughters, the Navy. He's in the Navy, as a SINGER. Gosh... HAND GESTURES!! ARGH!!!! FUCK YOU!!! Sorry about that. It was a'ight. His voice sounded wierd. It was a'ight. And he sings about NOT missing the Navy? LOL! The last part of it, minus the ending, was quite good. But overall, just OK. Randy thought it was hot. HUH??? Paula's delusional. Simon's not jumoing out of his chair. He quite liked the bit towards the end, but he's not hearing anything unique.

COCA COLA! Sundance hears people telling him not to be crappy. AJ's got Mixed Emotions. Rolling Stones reference. LOVE IT! Jared will do Marvin Gaye.

2) Jared - "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye. GROSS. He dedicates it to his parents. After I finished puking and got to actually watch the performance, I was pleasantly surprised. The performance part of it could have been better, but the singing was very good! I quite liked it! The hand acros the face at the end SUCKED! Randy heard pitchiness, but loved the face move. Paula's steaming. Simon says she's funny. Once. Then Paula starts going into a later timeslot sort of show. Simon was reminded of the Love Boat. Jared says it would have been a great love boat. LOL! It's all falling apart! LOL!

3) AJ - "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone. He too dedicates the song to his parents. The violins filled start was yucky. Other than that, it was pretty good. The problem is, I don't know if it was the song I was diggin', 'cause I really like this song, or the vocals. I think it's the song... Randy loves the improvement. Paula's 5 yr old. Simon says it was nearly very good. LOL. "Chuning problems".

4) Sanjaya - "Steppin' Out With My Baby" by Tony Bennett. He dedicates the song to his grandpa. He died. Awww... That alone will win him a couple thousands of votes. His performance shouldn't earn him any. The look was horrible, the "moves" were terrible, the singing was sub-par, like WAY sub-par, and again, he's too quiet! The ending SUCKED. Randy called it bad high school talent show. Paula's wierd. She doesn't like Simon. LOL! Simon called it a ghastly post-lunched, dressed-up-by-parents-and-asked-to-sing, and not good.

5) Chris S. - "Trouble" by Ray LaMontagne. He dedicates it to his HOT!!! wife. I really like him. And his singing. The fact that he's just so darn chubby just adds to it. VERY good performance. The first one tonight, other than the hand that was Jared, to bring both a performance that's good, and a good vocal. Randy likes that he's good. Paula's inconsistent. Simon thought he proved he's a good singer. He was worried about singing "Trouble" to his wife, but thinks the words worked it out.

6) Nick - "Fever" by Peggy Lee. He dedicates it to his girlfriend. Is he seriously going to sing "Fever"? a dude? SERIOUSLY? The whole performance seemed awkward. He might heave sung it OK, but he's a DUDE! Singing "Fever"! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Randy likes that he's better than last week. It was very pitchy, and he was rushing in bits, but it was kinda nice. Paula's redundant. Simon thought it was good, but he lacked charisma. Sorry, I mean "charismar".

COCA COLA! Blake thinks he needs to step it up.

7) Blake - "Virtual Insanity" by Jamiroquai. He dedicates it to his parents. Finally, FINALLY, a Jamiroquai songon Idol. FINALLY. I REALLY liked it! And the beatboxing's back! VERY good! Again, it's a welcome change up from all those old song. VERY GOOD! Randy likes him. He talks a lot about all the things I said. Paula's a fan. Simon thought the first part was a copycat, the second was great, and in the last the "chuning" went.

8) Brandon - "Time after Time" by Cyndi Lauper. He dedicates it to his grandma. It was really boring. And not exceptionally good. Not really good, either. Not good, at all. That was a backup singer's performance. He thinks it didn't fo enough for him vocally. And it was boring. Brandon makes excuses. Paula's full of "wisdom". Simon loves grandmas. He thinks he hasn't shown he's a good singer.

Simon's mum's b-day's in november, he loves puppies, and randy loves dawgs. Don't ask.

9) Chris R. - "Geek in the Pink" by Jason Mraz. He dedicates it to his grandma. O. M. G. I mean, it wasn't perfect, not that close really, and he did lose steam for a bit. BUT I LOVED IT! The song choice, the performance, everything, for me, was awesome. Randy thought it was better than the original. Paula's crazy. Simon says it was the best tonight, by a mile. LOVE IT!

10) Sundance - "Mustang Sally" by Wilson Pickett. He dedicated it to his son, Levi. Meet Levi, the son of Sundance. HA! The song choice was great, the song is immensly fun, BUT, it doesn't show off your vocals. Not really. But it's a crowd pleaser. And that's exactly what it was. Fun, as heck, but not great. Randy thought he dropped the bomb, and that it was hot. Not. Paula's deaf. Simon thinks he can do better. LOL at baby Levi with Sundance beard! LOL!

The "droid" thing was funny-ish.

1. Chris R.
2. Blake
3. Chris S.
4. Jared
5. Sundance
6. AJ
7. Phil
8. Nick
9. Brandon
10. Sanjaya

American Idol S06E13 - Top 24 Results

Because THIS, is AMMMMMMMMMerican Idol! Oh, and 24... 20... Whatever...

The judges think a girl will win. Probably. WE learn about some of the mentors this season - Diana Ross, Jon Bon Jovi (YAY!), J Lo, Gwen Stefani, Tony Bennett, Martina McBride, Lulu andPeter Noone, Barry Gibb. Impressive. Then, it's the obligatory recap, of the guys and girls' performances.

GROUP SONG: ALREADY!?!?!? YAY!!!! "Sowing the Seeds of Love" by Tears for Fears. Well, it's hard to say anything about it with SO MANY people performing...

On to the results, and the guys are first. Nick's petrified, Chris S. loves Simon. Simon says he likes him. The back row joins Ryan on stage. Brandon's safe. Sundance's safe. Chris R.'s safe. Nick's safe. He's shocked. Blake's safe. Paul's all alone on the stage. He's outta here! He sings. Yes, he still is barefoot.

The girls are next. LaKisha's nervous. The back row join Ryan on stage. Jordin's safe. Stephanie's safe. Sabrina's safe. Leslie's safe. Melinda's safe. Antonella's the only one left on stage. She looks petrified. She's safe. She's shocked. Ryan's mean. He calls Amy on stage. And she's outta here! She sings. Sanjaya cries.

That American Idol Challenge SUCKS! And the question's easy. It's B, BTW.

Fantasia's in da house! She looks like crap. "Big News" for her, as she's about to star in The Color Purple. Quincy Jones' in the audience, and tries to talk about the play, but is cut. LOL! She sings "I'm Here". She sang with "SH" instead of S. "But they shtill mine". LOL. But, she's still one of the better contestants on Idol. Ever.

Again with the girls. The ones that have yet to meet Ryan on stage do so. Haley's safe. LaKisha's safe. Gina's safe. Nicole and Alaina are left. Alaina's safe. Nicole's outta here! She's had a lot of fun. She sings.

On to the guys. Again, the ones that weren't on estage are now on stage. Chris S.' safe. Phil's safe. Jared's safe. AJ's safe. Sanjaya and Rudy are left. One of 'em's in the top 4 guys, the other's out. Sanjaya's safe. Rudy's outta here!

We see the journeys of the ones that are outta here. They're not having a "Bad Day", but rather are going "Home" by Daughtry. Then Rudy sings us out.