Miscellaneous rambling, and bragging about my kids.

You can't do an animal twice in Old MacDonald. Given the number of animals, you could go a long time, but there is certainly an upper bound.

So the show is coming up on March 19, so who do they have besides, Ian, Billy Ray, Heather Mills, Laia Ali? Seems like quite a few are missing. Time to wrap it up!

BoingBoing has this story about unboundedly long songs. Not infinite, since you can stop whenever you want, but songs that have no specific end. For instance, X Bottles of Beer on the Wall. You can pick whatever X you want.

I'm surprised that "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" isn't on there. Katherine the other day asked me when that song ends, and I told her it ends when you stop singing. Am I missing something? Does that song have an end that I don't know about?

That doesn't look right.
  What?  What is it?
You have a penis.  Or, that's what I think it is.
  It's a penis.
Fair enough.

Would you like to take break?  I finish taking frightened bunnies on rounds.

What, you don't think you can learn from seeing an actual arm reattachment, Milos?
  I reattach child's arm once, in rusty shell of car.  I can still see dead bodies that littered streets as my country burn to ground.
Milos is so lucky.

Buzz feels inadequate because he lost his job at FootLocker.  Now his dingle won't work.

Man is the only animal that wears pants during twosies.
  So unnatural.

Carla, he'll pass out when he poops!

You hear that, everybody?  I do have it rough.  And that's coming from a man who knows a teensy bit about adversity.  And why is that, Turk?
  Because I'm black.
No, because you have diabetes.  What's hard about being black?

Hiya.  My name is Bob Kelso and I like whores. Now, why don't I introduce myself like that?  Because there is a time and a place for the truth.

And what did the patient do, doctor?
  Uh, well, she started to hyperventilate.  Uh, uh, and then she reached for a hit of what she thought was an oxygen tank.  It turned out to be a helium container from pediatrics.  Then she screamed, "I'll kill you bitches!" which frankly we all thought was hilarious.

Now she's suing the hospital.  And since Ted is our lawyer, what's going to happen?
  Girlfriend's gonna get paid!

Sorry Bobbo, I'm gonna go ahead and tell the truth whenever I damn well please. For instance, your tie. It's hideous.  In fact its only redeeming quality is to divert attention from the very visible outline of your man girdle.
  Too mean.
Sorry.

Anyway, Todd and Ted are gonna get twenty bucks from me to tape you to the ceiling of the cafeteria tomorrow, and I'm telling you this because I figure you've already zoned out and have stopped listening to me, am I right?
  (I don't know what the janitor had said, but I feel like things are looking up.)

Well I say y'all step outside and handle this like we used to back in my day.
  Muskets?

Totally psyched to be here, buddy!  Let's start talkin about your life.

In Iraq we prefer to think of shrapnel as "internal body bling."

You shouldn't have told him the truth…uth….uth….uth….
  Dr. Kelso?
…uth.

And then one day I found out he was sleeping with his students and I was crushed.  I mean, why not me?

He's upset with me, but he won't talk about it, because his peep won't perform!
  He pooped in our house!
I don't know why he can't get past that.

Todd, anything to add?
  Your nipples are stunning.
    Hey, thanks brother.
      It make Milos sad that he have to answer to you.

Ah Billy, after the Arctic and the Pacific, you're my favorite Ocean.

As some of you know I'm not a huge fan of fire.

Uncool, Carl!  Not down with the fire!

And over here we have Dr. Turtlehead who is suffering from a severe case of the sulkies.  Symptoms include bad posture, mopey face and a sudden uncontrollable flailing of the upper extremities.

This is half an ibuprofen.  It is the perfect dose for your pea-sized brain.  Take it after I leave, you'll save yourself the embarrassment.

Any other day I'd say no, but today, I'm gonna go ahead and just say no.

He took care of you when you were wallowing away on your couch drinking scotch like it was vodka.
  I accidentally killed three people, he got arrested for pushing a scooter and he passes out when he poos.

After six long years, aren't you tired of taking care of him?
  Of course we are.  But we're his friends.

(I heard every word.  See, unfortunately I had forgotten that Ted and Todd were under janitorial orders to tape me to the ceiling.)

Duct tape five!

I wash it every day, I condition, but I just can't get it where I want it.
  For the love of God!  Mousse and twist!

I would really like it if you'd…want to go and grab a beer with me?  What do you say?
  (And even though I'd gotten a totally sincere, spontaneous invite from Dr. Cox, I knew my answer.)  No thanks, I have plans.
Thank you God.  Yes, that still counts.
  (I didn't have plans, but I did have a whole new perspective.  You can stick to your convictions and hopefully get rewarded, even if other people end up a little peeved.  And yeah, my life was still in the crapper.  But if felt good to finally be dealing with it on my own.)

More Scrubs Quotes

At last a day with real snow, where I'm home anyway (by the time I got us shovelled out there was no way to even bother trying to catch a train) and the kids can come out and play.

There's enough snow that little legs will easily fall through it up to their knees and get stuck. But it's been cold enough that the top layer is nice and crunchy. In New England, much like in Alaska, we have 57 different ways to describe snow :). But this makes for a very interesting condition, because Katherine is heavier than Elizabeth, and Katherine falls through, while Elizabeth floats along on top. I got a picture of this, I hope it comes out. Katherine is stuck up to her knees and trying to push herself out, which ends up with arms going into the snow up to her elbows. Meanwhile Elizabeth is quite literally walking circles around her like a mountain goat asking "You ok, Katherine? You stuck in the snow?"

Katherine got to experience her first case of snow blindness, too. We went in for lunch after playing for awhile. "Whoa," she tells me, "It's dark. Are the lights on?" I explained snow blindness, and that it would go away. "Will it be like that upstairs, too?" she asked. I said probably not. But sure enough as she runs up the stairs I hear, "It's dark up here too!"

Welll, not really.  More like What a Buddhist monk taught me about blogging.  That's the title of a post by Darren over at ProBlogger.net on the subject of how to handle it when people are dumping hate and anger on your head.  Apparently this is something common in the blog world (he says he gets email about it every week).  I like the advice, it's worth checking out.  I'm tempted to include it here since there's one line that sums it up nicely, but that's not fair to steal his thunder.  Go read his post.

Something interesting to note about Darren's post is how the minute he says that he learned something from a Buddhist monk he feels obliged to say, "Not that I'm changing religions…"  Why does that make me think of the Seinfeld "Not that there's anything wrong with that episode?"  How come learning something from a Buddhist implies that you have to become a Buddhist?  Or that you have to make sure that people don't think that?

I don't bother blogging all the audition episodes, because honestly they're so forgettable now. Why bother learning how to spell the names of people who are going to be gone faster than I can type them in?

But now we're down to 24 hopefuls, and we've seen enough of some characters to start picking out the more interesting ones.

Chris – The "Jack Osborne" kid who said his goal was to make David Hasselhoff cry. I like him. I don't think he'll win the whole thing, because I don't think personality will carry him the whole way and he'll need to start being known for singing ability and not sense of humor. But he should make the final 12.

Sundance – How awkward was it in the final two males when they told Sundance "You had a lousy week", told the other guy "We've liked you since we first saw you", and then picked Sundance anyway? Obviously the guy has been picked for his character and his look. He sings well, but he won't last under the pressure.

Sanjaya – I like this kid. He's the one who first auditioned with his sister, but his sister didn't make it. Remember that? The judges told him that he was better, but when he came out and his sister asked "What did they say?" he didn't tell her that, so she wouldn't feel bad. And then when she got cut, rather than celebrating with the room that won, he went to find her. He's a good guy, and I hope he does well. Seems to sing well. I don't know if America's ready for somebody with his look to win it all, though. Unfortunate, but true.

Phil – He's the guy that missed the birth of his kid. Personally, I think he looks goofy. His hat during the Hollywood auditions covered his entire face. But maybe that story alone will make him popular.

Blake – The beatbox guy. Actually, their group performance was pretty impressive, entirely based on him. So I'm wondering if that shows that the guy's got enough performing experience to play the game the right way and do well for himself, whether he's the best singer or not. Some of these young kids think it's all about just singing the best song each night, and it's really not. There's lots more to it than that. You have to be the character that the audience likes the best. Blake's already got a hook that people can remember.

The ladies are an interesting bunch. I'm not really sure the producers did them justice – do any personalities stand out, like with the guys? Sure, there's Antonella. Everybody knows her because she auditioned with her friend and the judges told her she was better, even though she's untrained. And she's pretty. But is she good enough to go far? I see her as one of the ones that makes the final 12 based entirely on looks and charm, and then goes home early when she can't keep up with the other solid singers.

But then who else? The woman who had a career as a backup singer. Melinda Doolittle. She sings well. But does she look like an American Idol? What are the stories for these women? We saw lots of Gina, but I don't know much about her personally to care one way or the other.

Who knows. It's obviously still too early to do much beyond pointing out the personalities that are memorable. That alone won't win it. I'd be willing to bet, as a matter of fact, that none of the people that I've listed here end up winning the whole thing.

Who are your favorites to go on to the final 12? Who is most likely to win it all at this stage of the game?

More American Idol stories…

Technorati: American Idol

LOL that is too cute!! Happy Valentine's Day!

"What did you do at school today, Katherine?"

"We learned how to make birds."

"That sounds fun. How do you make a bird?"

"Well you take a piece of paper, and then you make a heart. You fold it in half to make a bird, and then you take the scissors and you cut the honkin wings."

"I'm sorry, you do what?" Did she saw "hawking" or something?

"You cut the honkin wings with your scissors." Sounds like "honking". How odd.

"The what kind of wings?"

"Honkin, daddy. The honkin wings."

"Oh. What are honkin wings?"

"You know, when you make the heart, and then you cut it down the middle to make the wings and you put the wings on the side, and then you cut them some more if they're honkin."

"Sweetie what does honkin mean?"

"Big big big big."

Well, duh. "The big honkin wings." It actually makes perfect sense, it just never would have dawned on me that she'd use a word like that.

Hi Karen,

You might want to check out this page: http://www.nbc.com/Grease/vote/register.shtml

I believe that voting is only live through Sunday nights for a few hours after the show.