On Thursday-night FOX television, there is a show called "Tru Calling." It is about a lady who works in a morgue. Once in a while, this lady "meets" a decedant who will ask her help to "fix" what it was that caused him or her to die. After being asked, her day rewinds, and she has to solve a mystery surrounding that death. If you haven't seen it, I can understand. It goes up against "Friends." That said: FOX had a good idea to give a quick recap of the first half of the show once people ...
This evening my wife and I watched "Lost in Translation." Kazuko (my wife) said that she really liked it, I thought that it was alright. Maybe after a bit of reflection I will find that I liked it more and more. The movie is about two people in different stages in their life, who meet by chance in a hotel in Tokyo. The male lead is dealing with issues of being a 50 year-old man amidst a midlife crisis. The female lead plays the role of a recent college graduate, married to a man who is to...
Hello there everybody. We've just finished watching the results show of American Idol for this week. LaToya and Amy won (as I predicted.) I have a feeling that Amy will be really successful in the top-twelve. I predict that she will be one of the last two. She seems to be the type who will really develop as the competition goes on. Poor Leah seemed awfully upset to not make the top-three. She'll be okay. She'll make the wild-card show and get voted-in or chosen by the judges. On t...
Hello there friends. Happy Tuesday to all of you! My wife and I have just finished watching another exciting episode of "American Idol." We were pleased that this week's episode was a lot better than last week's episode. Here is what I thought about the performances. Who am I? I am a thirty-one year-old elementary school teacher from Central Minnesota. What does my opinion count for, and why am I writing this? My opinion counts for nothing, but this is my way of "playing alo...
Hey there friends! I hope that Monday was a good start to your work-week. My wife, my baby, and I just finished watching the shortest mini-series, "The Littlest Groom." In the end, this girl named Mika won. She won a 2 karat diamond ring, and a Medeterranian cruise. They seemed like a good couple with a lot in common. There is a possiblilty that they may stick. I wonder how many of those reality-show romances ever stick. I can't imagine that ALL of them end up bad. Is there a we...
Hello there. My family and I just finished watching group two on American Idol. I was pretty disappointed with this group. Last week's show was absolutely fantastic. I was worried that every singer in the competition would sound so good that nobody would lose. I wonder what happened tonight. Randy and Simon were especially critical of this group (and rightfully so.) Randy really has his teeth out this season. Paula seemed really upset and on the brink of tears twice during the show. ...
173 Hey there friends. Well, the results' show is over. Matthew the football player was eliminated. He left in a pretty classy fashion. Even though I didn't really care for him, I was a bit sad to see him go. Weird, huh? Each week I am impressed at how the votes usually go toward eliminating the poorest singer of each individual night of the competition. This week's show is no exception. Camile and Matthew had two of the weaker songs. (Diana had the disadvantage of going on firs...
171Hey there friends. I hope that you're all enjoying yourselves today. I am awfully tired. After another busy day at work (and they're only getting busier,) my friend Meagan and I gave a speech about ESL to a group of teachers in our district. I think that the speech went well. We had a lot to say. Tomorrow I will have three new non-English speakers starting at my school. I helped their mother sign-up for classes today. Since they are Russian-speakers, I was the designated transl...
If you had read my last blog entry, you know that I wasn't able to see the show. American Idol has been bumped back to midnight in the Twin Cities because of the (inconsequential) High School Hockey Tournament. So if you want to read some good "griping," scroll down friends. Even though I haven't watched the show, I will still attempt a rudimentary review of the results. According to internet sources: Jon Peter Lewis was the fans' choice. Leah Labelle, George Huff, and Jennifer Husdon w...
Hi there friends. I hope that you've had a happy Tuesday. Here at my house, we've just finished watching the American Idol wild-card show. It was really fun to watch. Here is the show as I saw it: The first segment: Four contestants were eliminated. The four who were eliminated never had a chance to perform on the show. How disappointing for them. I thought that this segment was really harsh for the contestants who didn't make it. It really seemed as if the judges were pret...
Hello there friends. I hope that you're having a good day. I am doing fine. I do however seem to have a bit of a cold. I hope that it gets better before it gets worse. After a long day of Parent-Teacher Conferences, I came home to a nice dinner and a videotaped American Idol Results Show. It was nice to watch a results show on video because we didn't have to suffer through the commercial-break cliffhangers. As my wife and I predicted, Jasmine from Hawaii made it to the next roun...
Hello there friends. We have just finished watching Group 4 perform on American Idol. This week was interesting. There were a lot of pretty girls on tonight's show. I was entertained with the singing too. It seemed like the judges were getting on each other's nerves a bit tonight. I wonder how much of that is an act, and how much is real. The Contestants: 1. Suzy Vulaca- She sang the song "Un-break my Heart." She is a cool-looking girl, with an appealing understated confide...
Lately I have been in the mood to watch some Japanese television shows. At home we have a channel called "TV Japan." TV Japan runs Japanese shows 24 hours a day, but they don't seem to air the more-interesting shows that are available in Japan. It is really good for sumo, the news, and a show called "TV Champion," but little else that's interesting to me. With this in mind, my wife and I took a trip to Saint Paul to rent a video of a program called "Sanma no Karakuri Telebi." It is a p...
As I write this weblog, I am listening to the newest Liz Phair album. I must say that I listen to this CD more than any one than I have listened to in at least 2-3 years. When I read reviews of this album, the words that jump out at me are "sell out," and "new pop-image." I haven't really read any good things about it. I have been a Liz Phair fan for a number of years. I have a number of her CDs (not all of them,) and I always turn up the radio when one of her songs comes on. To me, ...
210 Click here for my most recent weblog entry. Well, tonight's show is over, It was a fun one. The theme of tonight's show was big band and swing. At the beginning of the show it was mentioned that it is too bad that John Stevens couldn't be there for "his genre." Yeah right... Random observation: There are a few times during each season of "American Idol" when it seems that Paula Abdul is high on something. Tonight was one of those times. The perform...