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...
Once the season starts, click here to read my most recent blog! (Top of page ) Yesterday in the newspaper, I read that American Idol will start its fourth season in January. How exciting! I look forward to the Tuesday and Wednesday night "appointment television" that AI provides. This year the age limit will be raised, thus leading to (hopefully) older and better performers. (And who isn't still burning about John Stevens' weekly successes? The poor kid jus...
Tonight "Boston Legal" will premiere on ABC. This show is a spinoff of David E. Kelley's "The Practice." "Boston Legal" has two of the more interesting characters on television. I am looking forward to reacquainting myself with James Spader's "Alan Shore" and William Shatner's "Denny Crane." -Denny Crane... I wonder whether these two characters will eventually make it into my personal list of my favorite television characters. Here are a few TV characters tha...
I am watching something on the E! channel right now. It is a countdown of the "Top 101 moments of Saturday Night Live." It is interesting how even though I haven't been a real avid watcher of SNL since about 1994, I still seem to have caught all of the major characters and sketches from the show. Here's my question: who is your favorite cast member? When I think about this I consider: Bill Murray, Dana Carvey, and then Eddie Murphy. Bill Murray and Eddie Murph...
I just found out that there had been a Brady Bunch Marathon on TVLand this weedend. I have only been able to catch the tail end of it. I really like those "Pop-up video" episodes. (I wasn't in the US when the pop-up thing ran its course, so I would like to see more and more shows done in the "pop-up" style!) For as long as I remember, I have been watching "The Brady Bunch" in syndication. Even though I was born before the series had been cancelled, I didn't catch the...
Today at the grocery store I picked up a copy of the Star . Every once-in-a-while I enjoy looking through those celebrity/gossip/scandal tabloids or magazines. What really struck me about the magazine that I had just read was how often one can see Paris Hilton in the magazine. Out of 96 pages, Paris' photo is on 8 of them. (I didn't count how many times she was mentioned, but I am sure that it was more than a few times.) Since when is she so famous anyway? ...
Last summer, FOX introduced a new show called "Quintuplets." It did well enough in the ratings to earn itself a Wednesday night timeslot. "Quintuplets" is a nice, charming show. From the pilot episode, the show introduced identifiable and interesting characters (by sit-com standards.) The characters even seem to have continued developing since the show began. The star of the show (or at least the most famous name) is Andy Richter. I really like Andy Richter...
Major radio markets in the United States feature dozens of channels, each specializing on one genre of music or talk, with the advertising focused on the segment of the population that will most likely be reached by that type of music or talk. As a potential advertiser, that is a good way to focus on a potential market. I am currently in Japan. When I lived here, and when I have visited other countries, I was always surprised at the limited number of radio stations a...
Over the past few days, my wife and watched an eleven-episode Japanese television drama from 1993 called "Ko-Ko Kyoushi" (High School Teacher.) While watching, it was hard to find a place to stop because we got really involved in the characters and their problems. It is really fun to get involved in characters and stories. It gives us something to think of as we go to sleep at night. The first few episodes are a bit sweet. The focus is on a high school stud...
Hey there friends. It is a nice, lazy Saturday afternoon. My wife and baby are asleep in the bed, and I am just playing around on the computer. Our afternoon plans have been canceled, so I will have to figure out what we can do after the two of them wake up. Every-so-often when I am killing time on the computer, I enjoy visiting a website called My Raaga.com . There is a huge collection of free Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu songs from India. I enjoy listening to the non...
Until a few months ago, BBCAmerica had been broadcasting a clever chat show called "So Graham Norton." For long stretches over the past few years, I would watch "So Graham Norton" nightly on BBCAmerica before heading off to bed. I really enjoyed the show, Graham's sense of humor, and his high-B/low-A-list guests. When Graham Norton agreed to do a new show on Comedy Central, BBCA pulled his show. We went through a few months here without Grahasm and his show. I missed...