Towel Day :: A tribute to Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

You sass that hoopy Douglas Adams? Now there’s a frood who knew where his towel was. You are invited to join your fellow hitchhikers in mourning the loss of the late great one. Join in on towel day to show your appreciation for the humor and insight that Douglas Adams brought to all our lives.

Technorati Tags: Douglas Adams, towel

* All those cool Escher-esque images I’ve linked to lately? The artist’s name is Rob Gonsalves, and you can buy his book.

* I feel a lovely little bit of schadenfreude at the thought that nobody will ever recognize Barry Bonds’ home run record. Sure, he may surpass Hank Aaron in a database somewhere, but nobody thinks of it as legitimate or deserved. Is it really a record if the world ignores it?

* Microsoft’s Vista OS does away with drop-down menus. It uses “ribbons.”

* The people at Opera answer questions about the Nintendo Wii including their web browser. Most of the answers are, “We can’t discuss that yet,” but it’s still vaguely interesting. And this has been your Wii story for the day.

* Nintendo is now saying the Wii will be under 25,000 yen. (Currently, that works out to $222.) They expect to ship 6 million of them in this fiscal year. It sounds like their fiscal year might be January - December. That’s a quick 6 million units. Imagine if Microsoft could have pulled that off with the XBox 360 last Christmas?

* Don’t play the Wii in a room with halogen lamps. Plus: Nintendo pushing for October Wii release?

Technorati Tags: Rob Gonsalves, Barry Bonds, Vista, ribbons, Opera, Nintendo, Wii

It’s IDOL 5 finale night, also known as Taylor’s Fait D’accompli, or The Coronation of King Taylor, or The Anticlimax. Like there was ever any doubt that Taylor was going to win last night. . .

I’m just going to bullet point my way through a bunch of random observations of the night, and you can all add to it in the comments below. Here we go:

* Carrie Underwood is an amazing Idol. One year later, she looks, acts, and sounds like a seasoned professional. Her voice is better than ever, and she’s singing songs that are perfect for her voice. Looks like we got it right last year.

* Where was Bo last night? Sick in the hospital again?

* Heck, where were Rueben and Fantasia?

* I laughed earlier in the week when I saw Kelly Clarkson say she couldn’t make it because she has a concert performance that night. Right, like THAT’S the reason why she doesn’t want to return to IDOL. Yes, I know she doesn’t want to be only associated with IDOL, but she’s looking a little ungrateful for shutting them out so much. She should come back for finale night, at the least.

* Ben Stiller sat next to Heather Locklear in the crowd. I can only imagine what the gossip rags are making of that this morning.

* Oooh, David Hasslehoff’s hair is particularly weird-looking. And blondish.

* The opening video montages of the judges were funny. They needed to work to find enough clips of Simon, but Randy has enough “Randy-isms” to fill a seven minute song montage.

* I’m embarrassed to admit that I had forgotten Melissa McGhee’s name when I first saw her up on the stage. Whoops. Is eleven weeks really that long?

* Boobies! Melissa tried to flash them, but Katharine had her beat. Katharine was just trying to live up to her mother’s examples, though.

* Yes, Mrs. McPhee is a Stage Mom Wannabe of the highest order. I saw her being interviewed on the Red Carpet, and she’s obviously plotting her daughter’s show biz career. She’s likely the next Mrs. Lohan. Poor Kat.

* I thought the “Puck and Pickler” segments were funny, particularly the second one where they had no script and the lobsters came out. I would have had much the same reaction to them.

* I was disappointed when Dave Hoover won the Golden Idol for Best Male Vocalist and Meat Loaf didn’t accept the award on his behalf. They had just finished showing video of him butchering “Bat Out Of Hell,” after all. ::sigh::

* Katharine was awesome with Meat Loaf. She fit the role perfectly. It didn’t dawn on me before, but that might be the type of music she’s perfect for — rock-oriented and theatrical. I’m sure Meat Loaf will stick with Patti Russo on whatever upcoming tour he does, but she’d be a fine second female vocalist to back him up. (His daughter doesn’t tour with him anymore in that position, so the slot’s open.)

* For my previous commentaries on Meat Loaf’s voice these days, read this and then this.

* And legal wranglings may prevent the next release from being named “Bat Out Of Hell 3.” Stay tuned. . .

* You could see the teleprompter scrolling lyrics all night long. With the competition over, I guess they don’t mind helping the contestants out too much. I didn’t see too many of them standing still and reading off them, though. . .

* Mary J. Blige wanted nothing to do with Elliott. She was there to promote herself. I was a little disgusted at how Elliott was shoved to one side of the stage while that glory hog took the spotlight all to herself, only to let Elliott come in as a backup harmonizer for her in the last 30 seconds. I was surprised she let him come that close. Elliott deserved better than that.

* What drugs was Toni Braxton on? Something was screwed up with her microphone, but she still stunk and looked completely out of it. Poor Taylor. I almost felt sorry for him when she forced him to cop a feel on her hip.

* I was surprised at how much singing Katharine did in the All Girls musical review number. Usually, the finalists get limited singing time there, since they carry the show with solos during the concert tour.

* That said, TAYLOR BROUGHT THE HARMONICA! How happy were we all? It meant he didn’t have to memorize a bunch of lyrics for the All Boys musical review, too, which sounded good.

* Chris Daughtry got all the biggest ovations. Hey, people, why don’t you try voting sometime, instead of whining about how messed up the competition was this year because You Didn’t Vote Enough?

* Wow, Chris looks like the evil twin brother of the singer from Live, doesn’t he? Scary. I’m surprised they didn’t do a Johnny Cash cover. heh heh heh

* There can be no doubt after last night — Clay Aiken is gay. Why would he stoop to doing a duet with that little creep, though? Thankfully, they shut off the kid’s mic after awhile. It was getting creepy.

* The Burt Bacharach Medley is almost an Idol standard at this point, isn’t it? He shows up every year. But, hey, he’s got a big enough catalog to pull that off. Kevin Covais and the girls were funny on “What’s New, Pussycat?” It’s about the closest to singing well he’s come in a long time. Lisa blew the roof off the place with the ALFIE theme song. She may have been voted off too soon this year, but she’ll land on Broadway, along with half the other AI contestants still pursuing music. She’s born for it. Poor Dionne couldn’t hit that glory note. She tried so hard, but it wasn’t there. Say what you will for Meat Loaf’s voice, but at least he knows enough to not attempt one of those notes.

* The Brokenote Cowboys actually sounded pretty good. They should form a band and model themselves after the Oak Ridge Boys. I could hear them singing “Elvira” any day now. . .

* Ohmigod, PRINCE! Well, I guess all those rumors from earlier in the season were only half true. It was a show stopper. No, really, it’s like all of the show’s momentum stopped just before the big grand anti-climactic finale, for Prince to perform.

* 63.4 million votes. They were getting 40 million in two hours, but could only get 63 million in four? I think that has a lot to do with people going to sleep at a decent hour. . .

* Katharine and Taylor sounded good on “Time Of My Life.”

* Taylor sounded great on his IDOL song. He knows how to work the stage, being able to thanks everyone in rapid succession before seamlessly working his way back into the melody.

* It’s normal at this point in the year to look back at my predictions for the Top 12 contestants and have a good laugh at how far off I was. I’m not going to do that this year. It’s too embarrassing. I think I got two or three right. It was bad.

* Thanks, everyone, for all your comments and enthusiasm over the past 15 weeks or so. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ll be back here to do it all again next year for AI6. This blog is not drying up and blowing away, though. It’s still being updated daily, even with IDOL isn’t around. Why, I’ll even link to Idol stories throughout the year as events warrant. So please stick around. Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

The whole thing is hilarious. Here’s the beginning:

We Watch … So You Don’t Have To

Absolutely everyone had forecast a big win for silver-haired goofball Taylor Hicks over Katharine McPhee before their final “American Idol” performances last night.

Even judges Mopsy, Flopsy and Tipsy.

Still, the show must go on, as they say.

“It’s now or never, baby — you’ve got to lay it all on the line tonight!” Mopsy says, pulling out the very best from his bag of five gag-inducing cliches.

Tipsy hopes Taylor and Katharine are “in good voice.” Flopsy says he “would suggest the contestants pray the other one forgets the words.”

This week, the two finalists are forced to revisit two songs they’ve already sung during the competition, after which they’d be subjected to traditional made-for-”Idol” treacle tunes created just for them.

Katharine chooses the two songs she’d sung while sitting on the floor of the stage, which were also her best performances.

After “Black Horse and Cherry Tree,” Mopsy whines that it was not “super-exciting” because he’d heard it before. Yes, Mopsy, that was the point.

(Thanks, Shawn!)

* After IDOL and LOST tonight, the TV season is over. I’m planning on disappearing tomorrow, since I won’t get to watch LOST until Thursday night. I just know someone will start posting spoilers in the most inappropriate places, so I’ll attempt to skip most everything. In the meantime, don’t discuss the LOST finale here until Friday morning. I’ll start up a thread to discuss it then. That’ll give you a full day to roam around the web and see what everyone else is saying first.

* More info on the forthcoming TaleSpin DVD release, including some nicely designed box art. Thankfully, it includes the pilot mini-series. If only they had thought of that for DuckTales. UGH

* The Tick DVD release is missing an episode.

* More love for My Super Sweet Sixteen, a show that proves civilization is in a steep decline.

* The Brit-Com “Joking Apart” (written by the guy who did “Coupling”) is being released to DVD next week thanks to a fan who bought the rights to do so, when the BBC wouldn’t. It sounds funny, but I don’t think I’ll bother to order it through a UK site with all the shipping charges that would entail. If it shows up on Amazon, though. . .

Technorati Tags: Joking Apart, Coupling

I didn’t bother taking notes while watching last night’s episode. What was the point? It’s a bit anti-climactic this year, really. In the dramatic Clay/Reuben finale, I can remember Clay singing “Here, There, and Everywhere,” the spectacular “Bridge Over Troubled Water” with the choir, and his Idol song. This year, the contestants sang two songs we’ve seen them do before, followed by Idol songs that are generally paint-by-numbers Diane Warren wannabe tunes. Neither of them lived up to “A Moment Like This,” or even “This Is The Night.”

Last night’s episode was a sleepwalk. Push the pieces into place, let them do their thing, and move on to the red carpet finale tonight. Seriously, there’s a 7:30 Red Carpet Special preceding AI tonight on my FOX affiliate. I don’t know if they’re all airing that or not.

Predictably, Katharine McPhee did “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree ,” which were her two best songs by far in the competition. The problem is, she just did “Rainbow” last week, so it felt repetitious. Thankfully, she stood up during “Black Horse,” so I won’t have to suffer through any comments like, “Why did she sit down for the song?” Uhm, because it worked?

Finally, her Idol song was far less memorable than the dress she spray painted on for it. I don’t know how she could gasp for breath while wearing that number. . .

Look, it’s a bad song, and I think she knew it. Not knowing the song ahead of time, it’s tough to know if she was “pitchy” or not, but there were certainly places in the song where she sounded lost, and her body language seemed to indicate that she was just trying to get through the song without completely embarrassing herself. And the choir came on too late to add anything to the song. That was a darn shame.

When she finished the final note, she appeared to hang her head in shame, and just wanted to get to the commercial break. I don’t know that for sure, but that’s how it read to me.

Taylor Hicks arrived for his coronation last night, in a delightfully godawful jacket that will be forever burned into my memory. He sang “Livin’ For The City” and “Levon.” The first was a real upbeat performance, and quickly got the audience on his side. It also cemented the fact that he’s a performer. As good as his voice is, it’s only meant for certain things, and it’s his performance qualities that will take him places. “Levon” was a little boring, save the final 30 seconds of pure Taylor mania. He seemed to be sleep walking through the song a little bit.

His Idol single was a better song than Katharine’s, I think, but a large part of that is because he made it sound like his song. There’s no mistaking that it was Taylor singing it there. Katharine lacked that quality throughout the competition, and I think it’s what will eventually give Taylor the victory. She’s a better singer, but he’s a better performer with more experience who knows what he’s doing with himself, and how to sell himself. When Taylor tried to reach for the “glory note” in his Idol song, it was almost embarrassing, but it was easily forgotten thanks to the rest of the song, complete with choir.

Last season, I predicted a Carrie victory just because she pulled off her Idol song better. This year, I’m doing the same for Taylor.

Two odd things: I noticed in certain shots through the night that the teleprompter was cycling through during song performances. Did the Idols get the teleprompters for their original songs, just in case? Not that I want to be a conpiracy theorist, but the last thing the AI producers want is for their forthcoming single releases to be marred by forgotten lyrics. . . Would helping the contestants on those two songs really be such a bad thing?

The second: I don’t remember the judges being that negative on the final competition night in years past. Normally, this is the victory lap. The singers do their thing. Everyone loves them. Negative comments are muted. We celebrate the performers for making it this far and let the voters do their thing. This year, they were ready to pounce. Even when they admitted they liked the performance, they complained about song choice or timing or something or other. Weird.

I do note, though, that Randy told Bo last year that his Idol song was a bad song with a great performance. He said the same thing to Katharine this year. If history repeats itself, then Randy just administered the vaccination shot for McPheever.

The only hope Kat fans have is that Simon’s prediction of Taylor’s win incites enough of a voting frenzy for the underdog. As it was, last night was Taylor’s to lose, and he didn’t. He did enough to win.

ETonline.com Newslink: Ryan Seacrest’s Medical Emergency

The show will go on — with an injured “American Idol” host RYAN SEACREST, who suffered a gash on his hand after falling through a glass table during an “Idol” production meeting at the Kodak Theater yesterday.

(Via)

Here’s the follow-up Person On The Street article on the problem of L.A.’s McPheever.

Diagnosis: Sherman Oaks Has Low Grade Case of McPheever - Los Angeles Times

The sun was shining in a way it hasn’t in Southern California in too long, and so on this past Friday afternoon the residents of Katharine McPhee’s hometown of Sherman Oaks were making the most of the weather. With it’s tasteful outdoor seating, and myriad chain food stores (Jamba Juice, Noah’s Bagels, Starbucks, Cold Stone Creamery) the shopping complex on the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Cedros Avenue in Sherman Oaks seemed like the perfect setting to ask a question that has hung heavy in my editor’s mind ever since last Wednesday’s “American Idol”: Can finalist Katharine McPhee count on her affluent hometown to support her as she heads into the finals next week against Birmingham, Alabama’s Taylor Hicks? Or as he put it: Has Sherman Oaks come down with a case of McPheever?

‘Dancing’ Star Keibler Has Seizure

Stacy Keibler, who wowed viewers with her leggy turn on the second season of “Dancing with the Stars,” is okay after suffering a minor seizure. […]

Keibler, who’s never had a seizure before, was taken by ambulance to the hospital and underwent tests. Everything checked out fine, and doctors told the starlet that it was a “fluke occurrence.”

Anyone here ever have a “random seizure?”

Once again, all the highlights are on the TV shows being released to DVD section this week:

Boston Legal: The Complete 1st Season

I’ve praised the show here time and time again. I haven’t watched this season’s finale yet, in part because I hate the thought of going without it for four months again. ::sigh:: It’s just about the funniest show on television. In a world in which the sit-com format is changing to avoid stagnation, I think the hour long drama is the best place for comedy these days, barring the non-cliched shows like THE OFFICE and SCRUBS. (Come to think of it, I haven’t seen those season finales yet, either.)

Deadwood: Season 2

When I win the lottery and have all that time off from work, I want to see this series.

Samurai Jack: Season 3

This is Cartoon Network’s finest offering that’s not designed by Bruce Timm and his cohorts. Beautiful show that proves you can do fine animated work without animating too much of it, as is Cartoon Network policy, pretty much. (I loathe Flash animation and limited animation.)

Will & Grace: The Series Finale

They did this with FRIENDS, too — take advantage of the hot final with a quick and cheap release. It must have worked if they’re repeating themselves.

Wings: Seasons 1 & 2

Definitely don’t need to buy it, but I enjoyed the show a bunch when it was on back in the day.

X-Men: Evolution: The Complete 3rd Season

I know this will make Tracie happy, if she’s reading out there somewhere. I bet it’s mentioned on her blog today, at the least. . .

Time for some potentially-unnecessary special editions:

The Dirty Dozen: Special Edition (2-disc set) (1967)
High School Musical: Encore Edition (2006)
Kingdom of Heaven: Director’s Cut (4-disc set) (2005)
The Longest Day: Special Edition (2-disc set) (1962)
Patton: Special Edition (2-disc set) (1970)
Tora Tora Tora: Special Edition (2-disc set) (1970)

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL sticks out like a sore thumb on that list, doesn’t it?

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (widescreen) (2005)

Just to complete your Steve Martin collection. . .

Next week — NUMB3RS and lots of ALF. The following week — loads and loads of stuff.

* Cover art for Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell 3″? One of the songs has already leaked out - not a Steinman tune, not that great. ::sigh::

* My favorite TV linkfarm blog, TV Tattle, yesterday linked to the American Idol article that quoted me in it. My quote even landed as the lead quote in the Tattle writeup. I feel so Big Time all of a sudden. So, everybody be on their best behavior in case any guests show up.

* From TV Tattle comes this great article from MTV News with lots of interesting behind the scenes bits about IDOL. Including:

There are few monitor speakers [enabling the singers to hear themselves] on the stage and singers are not allowed to use earpiece monitors, although the show made two exceptions this season: When Taylor started a song from the back of the room, and when Katharine began a song a cappella. Fans who watched closely could see McPhee remove the earpiece once the music came in.

* What do you do with those people who keep forwarding along the “latest” e-mails containing stupid JPGs you’ve seen on the internet for years, or adorable and touching stories that have been proven false time and time again, etc? Send them to ThanksNo.com

* FARK shows us Darth Vader’s Day Off.

* Celebrities at the opening of the new Apple Store in NYC.

Technorati Tags: Meat Loaf, American Idol, TV, Darth Vader, Apple Store

Since it hasn’t finished airing on the west coast yet, I’ll hide all discussion after the “MORE” tag here. But beware: There be spoilers in this post, and all associated comments.

(more…)

This is the 72nd DVD podcast. Seven minutes, roughly, and 3.3 MB.

Listen directly to the MP3 file.

Show notes: Boston Legal and Samurai Jack lead the way, with Wings, X-Men: Evolution, Deadwood, Cheaper By The Dozen 2, and more following behind.

Subscribe via iTunes, or use this RSS feed for your other podcatching client of choice.

Vote for this podcast:
PodcastAlley.com
Podcast Pickle

Read about this podcast in PODCASTING HACKS.

Where to find release lists:
DVDJournal’s release list
TVShowsonDVD.com - monthly release list

Where to find more information on these movies:
Internet Movie Database

E-mail me at AUGIEDB *at* GMAIL *dot* COM. Or leave your comments in the comments section of this message.

Technorati Tags: podcast, dvd, Boston Legal, Samurai Jack, Deadwood

Two points about last week’s Lost episode that I have to raise here:

1. Miss Clue? Any relation to Mr. Eko?

2. About the stupidest and clumsiest plot point set-up I’ve ever seen on this series happened in last week’s episode. Charlie finds some vaccine, doesn’t tell anyone else about it, shoots himself up with it, and then gives the rest to Claire for her and the baby. Where do I begin with the dumbness of this scene?

* I know Charlie isn’t getting along too well with the doctor right now, but shouldn’t he bring medicine to the doctor?
* How does he know it’s a vaccine? And how does he know what it’s vaccinating against? “Vaccine” isn’t a cure-all. They’re for specific things. What do Charlie and Claire need to be vaccinated against?
* What makes him think that a baby and his mother would both take the same dosage? Or how does he know what the proper dosage is for infants versus adults?
* Given all we know about the island and the weird stuff happening on it, why do you trust something labelled “vaccine?”
* Where did it come from? The hatch? You’re telling me that Charlie happened upon the vaccine after the big name characters had been living in there for at least three weeks — and never noticed it?

It’s obviously setting something up for the future, right? Mommy and baby take the shots for a week, turn into polar bears, and haunt the island for the rest of time? RiiiIIIiiiIIIIght. Couldn’t be any crazier than one of the other theories I’ve heard for Claire. . . .

Technorati Tags: Lost, vaccine

TRUE COLOSSUS By TIM ARANGO - New York Post Online Edition: business

OPRAH Winfrey has inked a deal to publish a fitness book with her personal trainer Bob Greene in what industry insiders say is the richest nonfiction book deal in history, sources told On The Money.

Oprah. A fitness book. Discuss.