HB 444

Just to clear up the confusion, this is an Abomination.

This can also be seen as an Abomination.

And as far as I'm concerned, that's that.

AmIdol "Live" Blogging 2/19/09

• That Jason Mraz number was one of the most horrible things I've seen. Ever. I almost turned off the cable box to continue playing Resistance 2. At least there I can machine gun the scary things that come at me.
• Still scared of that girl with the pink hair.
• Well apparently a slumdog can't amount to anything in this country.
• Gosh that ironworker really sounds horrible. Seriously, how the living fuck did he beat Anoop?! This wild card thing better not be a gimmick.
• Damn, David Cook is getting porky. Some people shouldn't tuck in their shirts.
• I was never a huge Michael Johns fan but I gotta admit, he seems very nice for a forty year old. Carly Smithson looked great though. She had those scary tattoos covered up tastefully and David Cook should get diet tips from her. Too bad their duet sucked.
• Why did they present the results this way? There's no real suspense. Everyone knows Dead Wife Guy is a lock.
• And jeez, does Dead Wife Guy have an ugly box filled to the brim with hideous prescription spectacles?!
• Oh thank Buddha. For a sec I though Tatiana was getting through. I am going to miss her though. Seeing her bawl is awesome. Please don't wild card her back. Please? Are you listening TV gods? If you do this for me, I promise to never let my DVR go above 80% again.
  

AmIdol "Live" Blogging

Jackie Tohn: She's the kinda weird, drunk girl I give apprehensive looks to during those concerts at Anna Banana's. (When I used to go there. Hell, when I used to leave the house.) And those tight black pants with the sneakers? I haven't seen trousers like those since David Lee Roth.

Ricky Braddy: He has a good voice but he reminds me of a serial killer's apprentice. You know the guy who is in communication with Lecter while he's in jail and carries out his biddings? Yeah.

Alexis Grace: She has pink hair and she's very very pale. I think she's a vampire. (Did Randy say, "What, Mom?" to her? I'll never understand the lingo.)

And gosh, I've missed Paula's incomplete sentences. Her incomplete thoughts. Her incomplete brain.

And is it just me or is that microphone really shiny?

And I hate the parent-padding between songs.

Brent Keith: I feel like he should be Holly Hunter's love interest on Saving Grace. By the way, I love me some "Hicktown" but not the way he sang it. Seriously, it's one of my gridlock tunes. "What has happened to Bucky Covington?" Awesome.

Stevie Wright: Poor thing. If she was on the mike during a game of Rock Band, we'd be constantly saving her.

Anoop Desai: I like this slumdog. Bizarre song choice, but somehow it worked.

Casey Carlson: At first I thought she was cute, pretty, and Lana Lang. Then she started singing the sluttiest version of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" ever. Did you see the way her mouth was? I mean, she's probably a very nice, upstanding citizen in real life, but she has the lips of a dirty dirty whore.

Michael Sarver: He has a great blue-collar story, but he kinda scares me. Biggest disappointment of the night. (And doesn't he remind you of Keoki Kerr?)

Ann Marie Boskovich: At first I thought she was boring, then I was thankful that she didn't frighten me. Still, it didn't prevent me from reading a few pages of Rabbit, Run while she was singing.

That Wolverine movie looks shockingly good.

Stephen Fowler: Not that crazy about him, but he has great hair. Very fun looking, very Fraggle. It almost looks like a wig. Much time was probably spent by the Jim Henson people coiffing it.

Tatiana Del Toro: I hate hate hate her. Make her go away. And the dolphin laugh? Whenever she did it during the auditions and on Hollywood week, my Siamese fighting fish's gills would start flaring. "That girl is psycho." Understatement of the year. Strange part: even though she's scary as all fuck, her performance wasn't the worst of the evening. In fact, it was actually pretty good. And her dress made me crave sherbert. "Who are you in the industry?" Samantha Foxx, yo!

Danny Gokey: Robert Downey Jr. Yeah, he's great blah blah blah. Yeah it's a sad story, but I hate the glasses. And it was not "blazing hot." I'm still pulling for Anoop. (Can you tell I like saying "Anoop?")

ANOOP!

Photosynthetic Fun!

It's Street Fighter 4 release day and Amazon still hasn't shipped the pre-order for my collector's edition. Jerks. To occupy myself (as if the 20 other games I have lying around unfinished aren't enough), I downloaded Flower off the Playstation Network.

It's a casual game, but it's stonily hypnotic. You're a flower petal and you float on the breeze, collecting other petals. That's basically it in a nutshell. It most resembles fLow, except nothing is trying to kill you and you're not trying to eat anything either. There isn't even a time limit. It's passive gaming but somehow, it's appealing in a run-through-an-open-field-like-The-Sound-of-Music kind of way. The visuals help immensely. Although I only played the first level, each blade of grass is a textured, shiny, glistening green.

Is it worth $10? Not if you're looking for hours of naughty Lost and the Damned fun, but late at night, it's a terrific little interactive screensaver to wind down to.

AmIdol "Live" Blogging

• Yay, the Indian dude made it--Asian pride! Whoo hoo! ("What can a slumdog possibly know?")
• I miss that dramatic elevator ride with the ceiling camera that shows people losing their mind on the uprise and completely melting down on the descent. Walking around a mansion doesn't quite have the same zing.
• This whole sing-off duel is cruel. It would have been more humane to have these kids do a written essay instead. Or maybe that would have been crueler.
• Kara: "I think your relationship with your instrument..." Huh uh huh uh... Relationship with your instrument. Get it, get it? Oh nevermind.
• Oh snap, they kicked off the best friend of the guy whose wife died! How could they resist milking more drama out of that one?! Oh well, at least I'll never have to see all that crap in that guy's face again.
• Norman Gentle... Why do I have a feeling his shtick is gonna get old fast?
• Can I be the first to head up the local chapter of the I Hate Tatiana club? Please? I really fucking hate her.
• Nathaniel Marshall... Apparently I am still going to see crap in someone's face. I think the kids call people like this a hot mess. Red pants? Who would've thunk the head gear would be the least offensive article of clothing?
• Kai Kalama! Whoo hoo! Hawaiian!
• This is so rigged. And I let them do this to me annually. I'm such a television sucker.
• My favorite part of these early episodes is when you finally see them dancing at the end. It's like the credits of Slumdog Millionaire. With white people.
  

The Sequel Wasn't As Good

Since I'm one of only three people I know that owns a Kindle, I get to weigh in on Kindle 2.

Here's my verdict: I'm not excited.

Not like they did a price drop. It's still $359. Like Apple products, they upped the memory to counteract the lack of price drop, but really... Books aren't like music. You don't fill it as fast. And since Amazon keeps your "library" on back-up, it's not like you can't get something you removed from the device whenever you want.

Reportedly the biggest complaint about Kindle 1 was the page turn buttons and how easy it was to accidentally press them. It wasn't and isn't a huge issue for me. I still have a harder time controlling my iPod wheel.

The major innovation seems to be the text-to-voice feature. A male or female voice will read to you. It's probably gonna sound like a robot and frankly that kinda creeps me out, and I probably wouldn't have used that feature very often except for the initial kick of replacing the genders in first person narratives. A chick reading Lolita? Snicker snicker.

The one thing that probably would've caused a pang of jealousy? A color change. The Kindle still comes only in white. If they came out with a black, you know I would've been all over that. For my techie lust, black is beautiful; white is just too vanilla for me.

Mea Culpa

Christian Bale apologizes, Imminent Mea Culpa status changed!

http://www.tmz.com/2009/02/06/bale-apologizes-i-acted-like-a-punk/

No seriously, I'll drop it after this entry.

Can you tell I'm just overly tickled by celebrity meltdowns? Funny thing though: in his radio apology, Bale mentioned Michael Phelps and his bong.

This has been a great week for car crashes. I'm going to go listen to "Bale Out" now.

Bale Out!

My pop culture prayers have been answered. A nice chap named RevoLucian made a little ditty to Christian Bale's f-bomb Terminator rant. Awesome.

Imminent Mea Culpa?

Christian Bale is crazy! Batman goes batsh*t!

Apparently this audio was recorded on the set of Terminator: Salvation. He's yelling at the poor director of photography for walking in his eyeline. What's so awesome about this f-bomb laden rant is that Bale seems to be taking this McG directed sequel a bit too seriously, no?

Check it out:
http://www.aolcdn.com/tmz_audio/020209_christianbale.mp3

Someone should put a beat behind this and make it a single. I'd download that for a dollar.

Mea Culpa

In the first awesome celebrity-act-of-contrition of the year, Aquaman himself Michael Phelps said sorry for taking hits from the bong. Well... There's worse things he could have done, no? If Amy Winehouse recorded a single for everytime she got photographed with something illegal, she'd have a box set! *rimshot*





If anything, the poor fish should apologize for his hosting gig on Saturday Night Live. Now that was a serious crime.