Celebrate Good Times!

Yay! This is my 100th post!

If "An Awfully Big Adventure" were one of those new-fangled "situational comedies," I could go into syndication now!

Here are a few of my favorite posts:

Merry Frickin' Christmas from the Highway Patrol
My Boldest Prediction Yet
Flock of Seagulls
Half-Pint Has Typhoid
Mardi Gras-Ravaged New Orleans Begins Slow Healing Process

Gylenhallenaalll and Spiderman's white-trash girlfriend are celebrating, too!

Jack Bauer's Body Count

Any 24 fans out there? If so, you may have, during the course of one of Jack's "bad days," wondered, "Just how many people has he killed during the past 24 hours?"

Well, let's just say, when Jack's having a bad day, stay far, far away.

Huh?

Then again, maybe it's a moot point.

I don't think I'll be reading The Count of Monte Cristo after all--not this copy at least. Seems that someone in N.O.'s family once used it to hide secret treasure. I didn't know people did this in real life, but I find it extremely charming. I am against the destruction of books in general, but it's not like this was the only copy.

Sadly, the treasure was no longer in the book, so I have no idea what was hidden in there. Oh, how I wish I knew!

Doesn't it kinda explain a lot about N.O. that he comes from a family that hides things in cutaway books? It's so mysterious and romantic. It reminds me of how, when I was a kid, I just longed for a secret passageway. What I would have done in there if I had one, I have no idea! But wouldn't it have been cool?

An Open Letter to America

Dear America:

I love you. From sea to shining sea, I think you are a plucky, creative, and shrewd people. But you have me really worried here. I think you might be on the verge of making a huge mistake.

You're about to vote another contestant off American Idol. Please, please let it be Taylor Hicks. Or, if you can't muster that up, at least Kellie Pickler. A few weeks ago, I begged you to throw off Bucky, Ace, and Taylor, in whatever order you chose. You kindly complied with the first two, (THANKS!) but I have real worries that you may be about to abandon our plan and kick off someone good instead, like Paris or Elliott.

I know Paris's performances can be kind of all over the place, but at 17 she can outsing most of the people in this competition. With her song choices, she's like a kid trying on clothes, many of them a little too big for her. But her natural gifts and odd tenacity make her worthy of a couple more weeks. This kid has a big future.

Elliott, too, has his problems. He never looks entirely comfortable onstage. He isn't handsome. But don't let these weaknesses overshadow the fact that he can sing, perhaps better than anyone else on the competition. I don't think he will win. But I'm beginning to think maybe he should. Last night, he was outstanding. And he gets better every week.

Which brings us to Taylor. Taylor does not get better every week. He started weak and has consistenly skated by on weird dance moves and alleged "personality." I am completely baffled. While I wholeheartedly endorse the public's rallying around a prematurely grey-haired man (silver is sexy, right, girls?!), I do not understand pretending a bad singer is a good singer. Taylor isn't horrible. He just isn't special. He's very "wedding singer" or (as Simon said last night) "hotel lounge." He's someone you'd book to play your high school reunion in Texarkana, not a potential superstar. There's nothing wrong with wedding singers or high school reunion band frontmen. They just shouldn't strut around like they're mentally preparing their Grammy acceptance speeches 24/7. And they don't belong in the top five of American Idol.

Last night I had hopes that Taylor would annoy me less than usual-- at least he wouldn't be dancing--and I suppose I was less perturbed than usual. But he looked and sounded tired. It was like he couldn't really be bothered to make much of an effort. I won't say much about the perils of his weird velvet blazer (in late April? In LA?!) because I don't want to focus on that stuff (and because all the singers are prone to dressing stupidly). However, I will point out that Taylor's propensity to dress to match his hair (every week!) and to wear clothes that would look silly even on a much younger, much slimmer fellow, does look rather conspicuously studied.

America, if you can't find it in your hearts to vote Taylor off the show this week, please, please vote off Kellie Pickler instead. She's another one we need to have a talk about. The dumb act was cute at first, but it's become grating. It's gotten her this far, and she's made it painfully apparent the last few weeks that she doesn't have the chops to compete with Katharine, Chris, Paris, or Elliott on her talent.

So, this week and next week, Taylor and Kellie must go. Please. I'm begging you. I can only text-message so many times.

Sincerely,
A-Dub

Another Interactive Post

What is your favorite weird animal?

I think the pangolin is rather cute.











The binturong is fascinating and strange. I saw one in person recently; it emits a musk that smells like popcorn.

Then there's the very rare aye-aye of Madagascar.

And the better-known but no less weird duckbill platypus, and its adorable cousin, the echidna.

And, of course, the famous freaky "chupacabra" thingies (likely coyotes with genetic defects ) that keep cropping up here in Everystate.

Sad, but creepy.

Which one shall it be?

As you see on my sidebar, I am currently reading The Princess and the Goblin, as recommended/loaned by Forky. However, for variety's sake, I really like to be reading two books at once. I'm going to breeze on by my next-in-line book, The Murder at the Vicarage, because I've just been loaned three very enticing ones by N.O.'s mom, Daybreak (a pseudonym). They all sound so good that I would like you to help me decide in which order I should read them. They are (in no particular order):

Watership Down

(apparently a favorite of Sawyer's, not that that's an incentive)

Wicked

and

The Count of Monte Cristo

So, which should I read first?

Dr. Dummy

As you may know, my younger sister is a doctoral student in English at Alma Mater U.

Here is an email she recently wrote me about an experience she had grading the essay portions of practice MCAT tests.

"If all of the MCATs I graded were this funny, I would do this for the rest of my life. Before I make fun of this girl - or rather, let her paper speak for itself, which is cruel enough - bear in mind two things. One - based on her name, I'm pretty sure she's a native English speaker; she has no excuse. And two, this girl wants to be a doctor someday, which puts a damper on the humor of the situation a bit in that it terrifies me to my very marrow.

There are no typos in the following paragraph. The errors in spelling and punctuation are hers.

'Science is the field that wants to know the answer to why and how something is the way it functions. This explination is why scientist try to disclose the answers to come into realization of a discovery. Any way to find the truth about a topic is justifiable as long as nobody is harmed in it's discovery. Toleration is a non acceptable policy in the field of science if it contains livelyhood harm on an individual's life. Death or physical pain could be perceived as a threat or risk to human life.'

I, for one, agree that death poses a serious threat to human life."

Yikes. Just to verify--am I right in assuming that before you can take the MCAT, you have to be a college graduate?!

Barefoot

Everybody check out the Cacchinator's blog today--he's got an interview with one of the members of the hot new band, Barefoot, which will soon be playing at the Hippodrome.



Now, it just so happens that N.O.'s extremely awesome, talented (and cute!) cousin Chris is one of the members of this band. (Looking from left to right, fourth in the above picture.) But it is not just familial pride that leads me to say that you should see Barefoot in one of their upcoming concerts while you've got the chance. It's also the fact that they're absolutely fantastic. Every one of them is a genuine musician, and their harmonies are stunning.

I had a chance to hear their upcoming album* (but was not allowed to copy it, upon pain of imprisonment in copyright-violator's hell), and it's absolutely wonderful. Once it comes out, these guys will be famous, and you will wish you had seen them in a relatively small venue when you had the chance. Your chance is now! Check out their touring schedule on their website. This is a rare opportunity, due to the fact that they have a little gap in their schedules caused by the shakeups at their label, Geffen Records.

Oh, check out this article, too.

*Fun fact: the album was largely recorded in Sweden, using the very same piano ABBA used when they recorded "Dancing Queen!"

Friday Vs. Monday

Have a HAPPY EASTER, Everybody!

Brainless fun for a faux Friday

This website is genius. This guy takes real subject lines from spam email he receives, and draws cartoons based on them. Some of them are utterly brilliant. Two of my favorites:

AWARD WINNER!

What would you do with your own GPS?

Enjoy!

Another One Bites the Dust

Disclaimer: This post is junk food. If you have come here looking for insight, you've come to the wrong place. Today, we're taking a pop culture detour.

OK, so I have to admit I've gotten a little bit into American Idol this season. I was only really into it Season 2 (hello, America, are we starting to realize what a joke it was that Ruben beat Clay???) but now that I have Tivo, it's infinitely more watchable, as I can just fast forward everything Paula says, and the bits where Ryan and Simon snipe at/gay-bait each other. Basically, I watch the singing parts, and about two sentences each from Randy and Simon in the critique parts. It's perfect.

Now, I don't watch the results show at all, because I prefer my torture meted out by Jack Bauer, thankyouverymuch. Besides, the results show, in a perfect world, should be 30 seconds long, because the only part of it anyone with brains cares about is, you know, who got kicked off (the results), which simply does not take one hour to impart. The rest is just squirmy and painful.

I also don't start watching until they get it narrowed down to at least the top twelve contestants, for similar reasons (I don't like to see real people humiliated on TV).

So there you go. Fine. Under this certain stringent set of circumstances, I do kind of dig American Idol.

Which is why my heart sank yesterday morning when I heard last night's show was going to be themed around the songs of Queen.

I happen to lurve Queen. I'm also going through a major Queen phase in my life right now, just like my ABBA phase (2004-2005), my Billy Joel phase (1997-1999), and my Beatles phase (most heavily concentrated 1994-1998). Queen was truly an outstanding band. Technically, they're still together, but sadly, even the best of bands cannot amount to all that much after the loss of the front man--and that goes double when the lead singer is an icon and a legend.

Which brings us to the main problem of last evening. Freddie Mercury's voice was remarkable, bizarre, and perfect. At his prime, Freddie Mercury was an insurpassable rock vocalist. Virtually none of his songs can be covered without resulting in huge disappointment. A possible exception is "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," which has been successfully covered. I guess the sound isn't signature Freddie Mercury enough for any comparison to seem like a pale imitation.

The second problem of last evening was the choice of songs for most of the contestants. Of course, choosing Queen was hardly fair on the contestants. Queen songs are really, really hard to sing. Many of the best ones have big choral parts or even operatic sections, hardly making them suitable for the karaoke-style arrangements necessitated by the show's format. And several of the contestants are under the age of 20. I doubt many of them were terribly well-versed in the band's catalogue.

That said, I had one prediction: "They're going to be scratching each other's eyes out over who gets to sing 'You're My Best Friend,' because it's the easiest, most accessible, catchy song in their catalogue." I was shocked. No one sang it.

"If any of them are really savvy and mature (maybe Katharine McPhee?) they'll choose the lesser-known but stunning and singable ballad 'Save Me.' If performed well," I thought to myself, "a passionate version of that song could be a career-maker."

No one was that savvy or mature.

The show opened with Bucky, who makes my skin crawl. He is disgusting, and reminds me of every white trash lecher I ever met in Podunkville, my home town. He doens't seem to have a personality beyond "hick," and I doubt he'll be on the show long. He chose "Fat Bottomed Girls," which was a really good choice for him, because it's got a real rockabilly feel well-suited to his voice. His performance was mediocrity. Paula praised him for "taking this song and giving it a country feel," thereby betraying that she had actually never heard the song before.

Apart from this performance and Elliott's, of another of my favorite Queen songs, "Somebody to Love," (Elliott's voice is very nice, but he always looks extremely nervous, and has no idea how to act a song) the rest of the choices ranged from boring (Ace's rendition of "We Will Rock You"--a song that isn't even sung, for heaven's sake, it's spoken) to tedious (Kellie Pickler's "Bohemian Rhapsody") to grating (Taylor Hicks's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"). Thank goodness, Taylor chose not to do his original selection, "We Are the Champions," which just would have been stupid. (Also, I have an indescribable hate deep in my belly for Taylor Hicks. I find him completely unbearable. Perhaps it's because he thinks he's 1000 times cooler than he actually is. And what's with the constant doubled-over-in-pain dance??? I wish you could vote against contestants, because it would be well worth the text messaging rates to get that one kicked off.)

Anyway. Chris Daughtry gave a really good performance of a fairly unknown song, and was by far the best of the night--not surprising, since he is an experienced rock frontman with a genuinely nice voice. Two of my favorites, Katharine and Paris, were just so-so. In the "package" clip, we see that Katharine has initially chosen "Mr. Fahrenheit," which would have been a truly inspired choice, as the intro is a beautiful ballad that would have showed off the lower part of her range beautifully, and the song them morphs into a sexy, uptempo rock song. She would have performed it really well. But she eventually changed her selection to "Who Wants to Live Forever," a gorgeous ballad that was just painfully out of her range.

I guess they all avoided "Another One Bites the Dust" for the inevitable unfortunate puns about their possible fates. I hope the next three to get voted off this little island are Taylor, Ace, and Bucky. Any order you please, America. Taylor isn't the worst singer of the bunch, he's just the most unbearable. Bucky, as I mentioned before, is gross. Ace would be the perfect coverboy for Lisa Simpson's favorite magazine, Nonthreatening Boys.

Who do I hope wins the whole thing? I don't really know. Right now, Chris may be the best of the bunch. Katharine can be really good (and her style of music is something I could really get behind). She's gorgeous, so she'll probably win. Elliott may be the dark horse. But I can't help loving Paris, because she's just so darn impressive.

Now, if any of you have made it to the bottom of this post--what is your vote? Who would you vote off? No, you can't choose Paula. Who would you like to see win? How totally wrong do you think my opinions are? Well, let's hear it!

An update

Well, a lot has been going on lately chez nous. Firstly, N.O. are both definitely going to be back in Wackytown this fall, attending school at good ol' Alma Mater U. Sic 'Em, Mascots! We've both secured great assistantships, so all our tuition is paid for, plus we'll have a little stipend money to pay the rent (and not much else!). We've come a long way from being really doubtful of our chances (as we're both pursuing studies totally unrelated to our bachelor's degrees) to where we are now, so we're extremely grateful and so excited, if a little nervous.

Nextly, on the job front... I finished a pretty major special event I'd been working on in my long-term freelance job at Everycity Children's Museum last Friday. This event had it all--wild animals, a balloon lady, some guy who used to be on TV (not Jack Hannah, the other one), and Wild About Harry's hot dogs and frozen custard! It was a blast, and went rather well.

I know, this is a gross picture of me. But it's a scan! Of a Polaroid! And I was exhausted and windblown! And look how close I am to that python! And that guy was on Seinfeld!

Next up is the charity golf tournament I'm also working hard on. Anyone want to spend $250 for a really awesome round of golf? It's for a good cause! Please? Anyway, once that's over with, my gig at ECM comes to an end, so I had to find another gig to keep the money flowing in until we move. And what do you know--Everycity Children's Theater is desperate for a grant-writer for the spring and summer! Turns out that after I left they had a run of bad luck and lost the next two people who filled that position after me. They heard I was available and I heard they were needing someone , et voila. Isn't it weird how God sometimes goes to seemingly great lengths to line things up for you when you need them? I went to ECT today to firm up the details and everyone seemed so happy about my coming back for the next three months. It made me feel really great. And, I thought it would be weird to be there, but it wasn't--it sort of felt like I had never left.

So, it's definitely not where I thought I would be right now, but it just makes you think--how blessed can a person get? My husband and I both get to go back to school, which we really didn't believe would be possible. I quit my job without having a plan, and start freelancing, and have not been unemployed for a single day. Anyway, I didn't mean for this to sound all braggy, like one of those Christmas newsletters, I just wanted to give you all an update on our lives. But when I start looking at it all together like that, I just get this unbelievable picture of how blessed my life has been--and a little reminder that when I have to write a big check to the IRS or get a stupid speeding ticket on my way home, it is a major bummer, but ultimately I know I've got nothing to complain about, no way, not even a little bit, not even close.

If my getting all serious has made you uncomfortable, here's a hilarious/inspirational/creepy video of a bipedal two-legged dog!

Arrested Development is Dead. Long Live Arrested Development.

This story seems to be OLD (from last week!), yet I hadn't heard about it until today. How can that be?! For anyone else who also hadn't heard about it, here 'tis. I can't say I'm devastated about it. I don't think Arrested Development could ever have managed to regain its former glory, which was already clearly on the wane by season three. And if you have to watch it overstay its welcome, suck, and then die? Well, I've already had to lose some of my favorite shows that way. It just hurts too much.

Hurwitz Takes a Hike
'Arrested' creator bails as showrunner

By JOSEF ADALIAN
'Arrested Development' was working on a move to Showtime, but the exit of creator Mitch Hurwitz puts the show's future in doubt.

"Arrested Development"creator Mitch Hurwitz says he will not be continuing with the series, throwing a major -- likely fatal -- monkey wrench into attempts to keep the Emmy-winning laffer alive for a fourth season.

Series producers 20th Century Fox TV and Imagine Television had agreed on a deal to move "Arrested," previously on Fox, to Showtime -- assuming Hurwitz was willing to come back. In the end, however, a mix of creative and financial concerns has prompted Hurwitz to move on.

"The fans have been so ardent in their devotion and in return ... I've given everything I can to the show in order to try to live up to their expectations," Hurwitz told Daily Variety on Monday in a telephone interview from Gotham. "I finally reached a point where I felt I couldn't continue to deliver that on a weekly basis."

Nonetheless, Hurwitz said he put off making a final decision on his involvement so Showtime and 20th could talk about a possible deal.

"Of course, if there was enough money in it, I would have happily abandoned the fans' need for quality. But as it turns out, there wasn't," he said.

Indeed, Hurwitz and 20th have long been at odds over finances, sparring over everything from the show's budget to Hurwitz's own compensation. The two sides were unable to come to terms on an overall deal last year, and while creative concerns were clearly at play in Hurwitz's decision, coinmay have been a key factor, insiders said.

Hurwitz said he had briefed most of the show's cast about his decision, as well as some of the writers. He also talked with exec producer-narrator Ron Howard, who asked Hurwitz if he would be willing to continue as a consultant on "Arrested" should 20th and Imagine find a network willing to continue the skein without Hurwitz.

"I said I'd be happy to do that, but that as showrunner, I've gone as far as I can go," he said.
Showtime entertainment topper Bob Greenblatt made it clear in January that Hurwitz's participation in the show was essential to a deal (Daily Variety, Jan. 20). With Hurwitz out of the equation, Showtime is no longer a viable home for "Arrested," insiders said.

It doesn't help that one of Hurwitz's key deputies, exec producer Jim Valleley, also says he won't do the show without his boss. "We couldn't do the show without Mitch Hurwitz, and I wouldn't want to be the guy who tried," Valleley said, who called the apparent end of the show "heartbreaking."

Hurwitz said he had lunch with Showtime entertainment chief Bob Greenblatt even though he was leaning against continuing with the show. "He was actually very persuasive in telling me how much he believed in the show. I walked away thinking, 'Maybe,' " Hurwitz said.

Despite word of tension between Hurwitz and 20th, scribe said the studio and its sister net deserve credit for having produced and aired three seasons of the show. "I can honestly say I'm appreciative. They put a lot of money into this, and I put a lot of my life into this," he said.
He also hinted that while "Arrested" may have run its course as a TV show as far as he's concerned, he would be interested in reviving the franchise as a feature film.

Reps for 20th and Showtime declined comment. One person familiar with the studio's thinking, however, said fans of the show shouldn't write an obit for "Arrested" just yet, noting 20th is the studio that revived "Family Guy."

(Denise Martin contributed to this report.)