Hey there friends.  I am about to turn in on a rainy Sunday night. There hadn't been much media coverage of it, but tonight's episode of "The Practice" was the last of the series.  I watched it, as it is/was one of my favorite shows. In fact, the only episodes of "The Practice" that I had missed in the entire series were the ones last season that ABC "hid" on Monday nights.  That was a dumb move, wasn't it? The happy endings were: Eugene became a judge, Elanor went into r...

222 Yesterday, my family was at Toys „` Us.   We were shopping for an umbrella stroller, and browsing for some other baby stuff. While my wife was looking at baby stuff, Kenny and I wandered over to the video game section of the store.  In there I found a display of a thing called the Eye Toy . The Eye Toy is a small camera that connects to the USB port of the PS2.  Included with the camera was a disk containing twelve games to play with the camera. The cool thing a...

221 Hello there.  I hope that you are all having as nice of a weekend as possible.  We're doing fine over here.  I have been able to snap a few nice pictures around the yard today.  Here's what I came up with: There has been a nice crowd of birds around the bird feeder recently.  I got this shot of three different kinds of birds and a chipmunk enjoying themselves under the bird feeder. Here's a closeup of the chipmunk.  He looks like Pika-chu. ...

220 Recently we have had more and more birds in our yard.  One of our newer visitors is a Baltimore Oriole.  Orioles are really pretty birds with really nice singing voices.  I took these pictures out of my kitchen window.  (The orioles get scared pretty easily, so I couldn't go outside to take its picture.)

Hey there friends.  I hope that you all can survive Friday, and then have an enjoyable weekend. Last night, we watched the season finale of ER at our house.  ER usually does a good job with end-of-the-year cliffhangers, and beginning-of-the-year surprises.  Last night's show gave us a number of surprises that we can spend the summer thinking about. Is Neela really going to quit medical school?  Is she going to find her way back to Chicago?  What will happen with Sa...

For my most recent weblog, click here Tonight's results' show pared the final four ladies down to the final three.  Since they had 1 hour and 5 minutes to fill, we had to expect more filler than the usual results' show.  (In a pre-Idol note:  That extended trailer for "The Day After Tomorrow" looked pretty compelling.  I might want to go see that this summer.) For filler, I was pretty happy.  The group songs were good (with Donna Summer and Clay Aiken.)  The...

For my most recent weblog, click here Tonight's episode of "American Idol" is over.  The final four contestants tried their best to entertain us with songs from the disco era.  I was happy about that.  I like disco.  It is fun at parties! The judging was done a little differently tonight.  Simon went first.  It was a good twist because we are finally able to hear his complete point before the crowd starts to "boo" if he says something critical. THE CONT...

216 When we used to live in Japan, we would enjoy going to hanami parties in the spring.  "Hanami" means "looking at flowers."  It is a time of year when groups of people go to their favorite parks, gather around a blossoming cherry tree, and enjoy a picnic lunch. Japanese hanami parties are usually held in late-March or early-April.  Since we live in Minnesota, we have to wait until mid-May before we can enjoy a hanami because our trees have only recently blossomed. ...

The second Spiderman movie starts this summer.  I am looking forward to seeing it. In Spiderman 1, the villain was the Green Goblin.  In the second movie, Doctor Octopus gets to take on Spiderman. I am assuming that there will be a third (possibly more) Spiderman movie.  I was wondering to myself which bad guy would be chosen for the third movie.  After the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, there isn't another bad guy who stands head-and-shoulders above the rest.  (...

214 Hello there everybody!  The weekend is almost over.  I hope that everyone enjoyed it, wherever they were. This weekend was a fun one for me.  My parents drove here from Duluth, Minnesota to enjoy Mothers' Day Weekend.  On Saturday we went to a few garage sales, followed by a nice dinner at a Korean restaurant (my wife's favorite.)  Today, we met grandma for lunch at Cattle Company (steak restaurant.) On the way home from lunch, my family stopped by Wal-Mart ...

For the past month or two, the Minnesota Twins had been trying to establish their own cable network.  The problem with their own cable network was that none of the major cable and satellite providers were willing to negotiate with the Twins to broadcast the network.  In the end, the Twins had to negotiate an eight-year contract with Fox Sports Network to get their games on television. It seems that the Twins need to choose their battles a little more wisely.  They...

212 Last night my wife, my son, and I had dinner at Bonanza restaurant in Saint Cloud, Minnesota.  (For some reason we were both craving steaks.)  Across the parking lot from Bonanza , there is a thrift store named Savers .  ( Savers is basically the same as Goodwill . -they both have the same stuff.*)  We decided to drop in and see what was there. Whenever I find myself at a thrift store, I enjoy looking through the cassettes that they are selling.  Looking ...

Click here for the most current article 211 Tonight's American Idol results' show was an interesting one. The strongest three contestants (Diana, Fantasia, and Latoya) were in the top three.  The two contestants who put on weaker performances last night (Jasmine and George) were in the bottom two. When George and Jasmine were standing on stage nearing the end of the show, I began to feel a bit sad.  I didn't really want either of them to go.  (Now that John's gone, t...

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...