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...

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...

209 For current American Idol results and commentary, visit the top page of my weblog .  New commentary added each Tuesday and Wednesday. Tonight's episode of American Idol is over.  It was the "profile show."  Each contestant had a short sit-down interview with Ryan Seacrest, followed by a performance of each contestant's favorite song to-date. The "profile show" is an important event in the season.  It gives the contestants a chance to win over some new fans throu...

Click here for my most-current post! 205 The results' show is over. John, George, and Jasmine were in the bottom-three. This time John was mercifully voted-off. Regardless of the criticism from the judges, and quality of his performances, it took a positive comment from Simon on last night's show to finally get that poor kid eliminated. Next year if a similar situation arises, maybe we'll see Simon "gush" over a particularily weak contestant rather than tell what he actually thinks. ...

204 Hi there friends! Well, tonight's "American Idol" was interesting. The theme of tonight's show was "Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine." I must admit that I was a bit surprised by the theme. I didn't know that they had more than one hit song. Surprisingly however, I knew a lot of the songs that the contestants sang tonight. (It's kind of like Michael Jackson. I wouldn't have called myself a fan until I heard some of his albums and realized that I knew a whole bunch of ...

201 One of my favorite programs on television is the "Iron Chef" reruns. It is such a shame that I wasn't able to watch that show when I was actually living in Japan. Apparently, that show was on during my work hours. About two years ago, the UPN Network tried to make their own version of "Iron Chef." The Kaga-san character was played by William Shatner, the crowd was crazy, and the judging panel consisted of has-beens and washed-up comedians. Even though I had high hopes for the...

Click here for my most recent post 198 Well Well. American Idol is over for this week. The results' show was awfully surprising. LaToya, Jennifer, and Fantasia were in the bottom three. I would have to say that the three contestants have suffered as a result of being coined "The Three Divas." I read the results of tonight's show to be that since there are only so many "diva" fans to go around, the three young ladies ended up cannibalizing each other's votes. One of the three being ...