Miscellaneous rambling, and bragging about my kids.

i really enjoy the singing bee its a great hit to watchh with your family. hope it lasts

Can't wait to see the movie because i'm buddhist and i believed that this movie will illuminate peace to the world.

Drugs,especially a combination of drugs can alter a persons mood and distort reality somewhat. But drugs do not change a person into a monster unless there is a monster beneath the surface to start with. In other words, Chris benoit was a CRAZY BASTARD to begin with! Lots of people do drugs of all kinds including steroids and they dont commit murder. He spent most of his time with his co-workers and his company. How can it be that no one noticed he was off balance. Surely there were some signs of mental/emotional problems. No one is to blame except Benoit for this tragedy. No excuse justifies it. But how can a man who is that unstable go unnoticed and unchecked?

Hmmm… Cuckoo pants

The song is called Walking Next to You by a band called Acres. I had a hard time finding it too.

I think we started watching The Singing Bee because we'd just wrapped up seeing Joey Fatone every week on Dancing with the Stars and he caught our eye in the commercials.  I didn't even know until after it started that there's another show, Don't Forget the Lyrics, which is basically the exact same concept only with much more complicated rules.

Singing Bee is growing on me.  I mean, come on, how awesome is a show that uses Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for the opening round?  Isn't that the song whose lyrics are so famously garbled that MTV used to run scrolling text at the bottom of the video?  I was really hoping for someone to bust out the line "A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido!" but they actually went with a different line that I can't remember.

The show's got all the elements of a winner (except one, which I'll get to in a second):

1. Contestants are chosen at pseudo-random from the audience, and then immediately whittled down from 6 to 4 in a quick singing contest.  You can immediately bond with the ones chosen and decide who you like.  Compare that to something like Deal or No Deal (or Identity, or Bingo Night…) where there's one contestant who was basically hand picked by the producers because she's not afraid to act like an idiot on television, and you just don't care.  You either want her to win or you don't.  But when there's 4 contestants you can pick your favorite.
2. You can play along.  They're picking songs that everybody knows.  Question-driven shows will almost always have categories where you say "Oh, I have no idea" and then you don't have a shot.
3. Each round lasts long enough that you can cheer for your favorite.  Last night during one of the games a contestant had to sing long enough to fill in 15 blanks in a song, and she did it perfectly.  With each word you're thinking "Wow, she's good, she's going to do the whole song!"  Meanwhile her opponent got almost every word wrong.
4. Speaking of which, if somebody gets it wrong, it has room to be funny.  Like when the Nirvana music stops and the guy sings, "I'm so stupid, I don't know this!"
5. Variety.  I've heard everything from Sweet Home Alabama to Mickey ("Oh Mickey you're so fine…") to, well, Nirvana.  You don't get bored.  You may not like every song, but chances are you know every song.
6. The rules are easy.  Each round is basically "We'll sing part of a song, you sing the rest."  It appears they vary the middle game, which I like.  One week it was "We will jumble up the words in front of you and you have to rearrange them" (which sounds hard!), this week it was "You have to fill in the blank words."  Compare this to Don't Forget the Lyrics, which has been described as a combination of Jeopardy and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, complete with choosing your own category, having lifelines, escalating prize levels, etc…  Makes me think of that "Bamboozled" game from Friends where you had to go through the mudpit to enter the Golden Hut and pull the monkey's tail.

The one problem I have with the game right now is that it's too easy.  I've seen two episodes, and both times somebody won that $50k prize.  Remember when Millionaire first came out?  You know what made that such a huge hit?  That it took forever for someone to will the million dollars.  When somebody finally won, it made the news.  So when you've got a game where somebody wins the big prize every week, you don't get the same anticipation that comes with "Wow, she was so close…maybe someone will get it next week."

Check it out.  It's a fun show.  Not sure it's going to be a runaway hit like a Millionaire (or Dancing with the Stars), but it's great for a summer night's television watching.

i'm looking for the song that has the lyrics "when i feel like i might fall, underneath the pressure of it all" but i can't find any artist. does anybody know?

Well the report is out (at least the rushed, preliminary one) on what drugs they found in the bodies of Chris, Nancy and Daniel Benoit. And there's really not much new evidence, short of two things:

• There doesn't appear to be any overt evidence of steroids. Just testosterone, which we knew he was on.
• Daniel, the son, was sedated with Xanax.

So at least that hopefully answers one question. We were all most horrified at the thought of what happened to the son – did he know what happened to his mom? Did he know what his dad was going to do to him? The answer appears to be, mercifully, no.

I like to say that chris benoit did not kill his family. I had a dream and the dream told me that chris and nancy and daniel were happy together. this dream told me something and the something was that chris benoit did not kill his family because he was a family man and he loved his family. Someone else killed this nice family. Chris Benoit was not a monster he was a nice guy and a good dad and a good husband and this is not right chris benoit did not kill his family. Rest in Peace Chris Benoit and Nancy benoit and Daniel Benoit. we will miss you and god bless you.

I had not heard about Sibling Rivalry until my brother in law got us a gift certificate last year. The gimmick behind this restaurant is that there are two head chefs, brothers David and Bob, and each has his own menu. The menu is divided up by main ingredients – tuna, beef, pork, mushrooms, etc… – and each chef opts to make either an appetizer or an entree using the ingredient. You create your meal by picking whatever seems good. (There's a different style where you pick a chef, more on that in a bit.)

The restaurant is quite nice, not fancy enough that you need jacket and tie but still the sort of place that ran us $400 for 4 people (counting wine and cocktails). There is a bar area, and a patio where you can eat outside. The waitstaff is very attentive, I dropped a fork and it was replaced instantly. They were just a bit more forward than I prefer, honestly. When the two ladies at our table both decided to have the swordfish, the waiter tried to convince one of them to try another seafood dish. And when I had the beef, he asked if I was sure I didn't want to try the beef special. I can see why they do it – for a restaurant whose theme is all about the variety of ingredients you want to encourage diners to try a variety of things. But, still, I saw the specials menu, thank you, and I chose what I chose.

And that's really all there is to say about the place. The food was very good. Our table actually ended up getting all of their appetizers from Chef David's side of the menu, and all the entrees from Chef Bob's side. We didn't plan it that way, but it just worked out. The tuna sushi appetizer was particularly outstanding, and I was very pleased with my flat iron steak in chili sauce. And the creme brulee was warm, as it should be. I do so hate cold creme brulee.

The theme only goes so far. The menu is fixed – you can look it up online (which we did). So it's not like every night the chefs are back there deciding what to make, ala Iron Chef. They actually do that on Monday night, something they call "Fight Night." On Monday (not every week), you order "prix fixe" where you pick a chef, pay a fixed price, and then your dinner is whatever that chef decides to make. I would guess that it's similar to a Japanese steakhouse where you'd pick a main ingredient like the chicken or something, and then the chef does something special with chicken for you.

A very nice place, highly recommended. Be careful with the wine. We asked for a bottle that would complement swordfish and pork (I was on my own with the beef) and we never asked what it cost. My bad for not taking the receipt home with me, we just looked at the bottom line and threw some cash at it. After I thought about it and added it up in my head, I'm thinking we got a little screwed on the wine thing. Oh, well. Live and learn.