Late last night, Team Japan beat Team Cuba 10-5 in the finals of the World Baseball Classic. Although the lopsided score doesn't seem so close, the game was actually really competitive and exciting. The international teams were very impressive, and the determination of the teams, and intensity of the competition rivaled the MLB post-season. The games were definitely more exciting than spring training games! Even though the tournament was exciting, there are certainly some things to impr...

There have been some good things on television lately. Last night I saw the US premiere of the 2005 series of "Doctor Who" on the SciFi Network.  Apparently this will be a weekly series until they run out of new episodes.  My verdict is: So far, so good!  This new guy who plays the Doctor now may finally get viewers to forget Tom Baker. Watching the show last night brought back good memories of watching the show as a kid.  I hope that success of the new series will enco...

Click here for my latest article. Tonight's bottom three were: Ace Young , Lisa Tucker , and Melissa McGhee .  At the end, Melissa was eliminated. Ace Young went on first on a two-hour show.  His song selection and execution were also poor.  I wonder whether this guy will get any better than his early "Father Figure" performance. Lisa Tucker sang a forgettable song in the middle of the show.  I also doubt that she has as many hardcore fans as the others. ...

Click here for my latest article. The theme of tonight's show was "Stevie Wonder Songs".  Hearing that, I knew that a few of the contestants would have a rather difficult time with the theme. Tonight's performances: 1. Ace Young sang "Do I Do".  This one was pretty below-average.  Although Ace had a few good spots, it didn't really seem like he could handle the song.  Grade: C 2. Kellie Pickler sang "Blame it on the sun".  Kellie wasn't enthusiastic ...

Hello and welcome to my third attempt at handicapping a winner of American Idol.  Let's see how I do this year! Chris Daughtry 2-1: Not since Fantasia have I seen such an obvious pick to win the competition.  The only obstacle that Chris may face would be stumbling in subsequent theme weeks, but that's doubtful. Kevin Covais 120-1: His cute act will wear out before the contest is over, and "votefortheworst.com" can only carry this guy so far. Bucky Covington 80...

Click here for my latest article. Tonight the final twelve contestants were announced. Beginning next week, the show will move to a bigger stage, and the theme weeks will begin. (I am looking forward to the final round, because from this point on, it will get easier to recap each show. ) Of course to get to the final twelve, four contestants had to be eliminated. Those four were: Kinnik Sky had a difficult time getting the audience to care about her. Either a sensational song ...

Click here for my latest article Tonight was the final eight male finalists' last chance to try to crack the top twelve.  In general I found the performances to be a bit average, as it seemed as each performer was interested in not making any mistakes at this point in the competition. ***Paula Abdul had one of her worst nights of the series.  She hasn't had anything to say lately, and her comments on tonight's performers were neither accurate nor insightful.*** Tonight's Pe...

Click here for my latest article We're down to the final eight.  Crunch time!  Only one more round of eliminations before the show moves on to the Kodak theater.  This last week will really be hard-fought. From week-to-week, season-to-season, I often find myself agreeing with the judges' comments on the various contestants.  Tonight however, I have a few contentions with them.  That said: enjoy what may be my most contraversial recap ever.  (I HAVE to check ...

Kirby Puckett died yesterday as a result of a stroke. He was only 45 years-old.  That's pretty young!  Like most Minnesota Twins fans, I have good memories from Kirby Puckett's playing career. Game six of the 1991 World Series against the Atlanta Braves was the most exciting game that I have ever been to (or seen on television for that matter).  -The next night was pretty fantastic too by the way. Puckett's catch and home run, coupled with Scott Erickson's extra-gutty pitchi...

Click here for my latest article. From now, we're down to eight men and eight women.  Two more of each will be cut before the final twelve hits the big stage. My favorite part of tonight's show was right after Heather (or Brenna) was eliminated, the camera cut away to Gedeon (of all people) for what should have been a reaction, yet Gedeon was just sitting there.  I am chuckling a bit now just writing about it. From my article on the ten women finalists, I wrote: Tonigh...

Click here for my latest article. Tonight we got to see what the final ten men could do after a so-so show for the ladies.  Happily, we were treated tonight to a significantly better show. So since it is late, I will get right into the performances. Tonight's Performances: 1. Taylor Hicks sang "Easy" by the Commodores.  I thought that Taylor sang the song as well as Lionel ever did.  I enjoyed Taylor's song tonight.  The judges however, weren't as impressed....

Click here for my latest article   Tonight's American Idol featured the Top Ten Women finalists.  Compared to last week, the quality of performances was a bit down, but the show was still entertaining.  The biggest problem that I had with tonight's show was that I was unfamiliar with about half of the songs.  What's up with that?   Randy and Paula seem to be continuing the trend (that started last week) of being a bit off-the-mark on their assessments of how the c...

Click here for my latest article. Here are a couple of articles that I hadn't been able to post: Women 12 Finalists: Click here for my latest article. Tonight's show featured the twelve female finalists. Whenever there are twelve contestants on a show, I always know that I'll have my work cut for me when writing my recaps. Writing this after the show, I hope that my joeuser.com website comes back up in time for people to enjoy this. In the meantime, I will be posting this re...

Click here for my latest article Last night the field was pared to 44.  Tonight twenty were sent home, leaving us with the final twelve female, and final twelve male contestants.  There were lots of contestants on tonight's show who were either fleetingly or never featured on the show up to this point.  It is always fun to "discover" these new faces once the studio shows start up.  I do feel for a number of the contestants who had come this far, but were basically un...

Click here for my latest article. Tonight's episode featured what has become one of the true highlights of each season of American Idol, the group song competition. Groups struggle with personalities, egos, work ethic, and musical talent in order to hammer-out the best performance possible. This caustic mixture always produces entertaining results. From these group performances came immediate cuts, and then a subsequent paring of the lot to a mere 44. Tomorrow's episode will see the g...