It’s IDOL GIVES BACK week.  ::yawn::

It’s “Inspirational Song” week.  ::sigh::

Michael Johns - “Dream On” - Not a good song choice, I think.  It’s tough to impersonate Aerosmith like this.  I didn’t like it.  Crowd disagrees. Feh. The “dreams can come true” speech is obnoxious.  I’m glad Randy put him in his place.

Syesha Mercado - “I Believe” - Doing an Idol song on Idol?  Scary.  Snake, meet tail. Afer the judges lambasted her for doing a Whitney Houston song last week, she’s taking on Fantasia, who the three judges idolize so much?  Nutty.  She sounds good.  She can sing.  She’s got the chops.  But this won’t go well with the judges.  Good performance.  Amazing voice.  Bad choice.

My wife thought I was crazy as I was voicing all of those opinions above during the song. Then, the judges opened their mouths and hit every note I had just said.  It’s good to be right sometimes. My wife also thinks that Fantasia is overrated and nowhere near Whitney Houston’s level.  I’m so happy to be married to her at times like these.

Jason Castro - “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” - I can’t take these inspirational interviews anymore.  Good song choice for him, though.  He looks silly with the ukelele.  Technically sound, but ultimately boring.  I’ve never seen the crowd sit so resolutely on its hands.  And Randy liked it?!?  WHAT?!?  All three judges loved it.  Hunh. I’ve heard him do this with a half dozen songs in as many weeks.  There’s nothing new here.  I’m bored.

Kristy Lee Cooke - “Anyway” - A country song?  No way! She sounds great, but she’s completely unconvincing in her performance. Her eyes are just dead, when they’re open.  There’s nothing in there that draws me in or makes me want to root for her.  It’s like she’s trying to remember the lyrics more than give a performance.  Shame.  She could be a great recording artist, though.

David Cook - “Innocent” - What is that voice he started with?  Is this karaoke, or maybe an imitation?  That was nonsensical. Worst Cook Week Ever.  Bad bad bad song choice.

“Pompous,” Simon called it.  So did I, just three minutes ago. Hunh.

And I think Cook knows it, almost like he regretted the song choice shortly after he locked it in.

Carly Smithson - “The Show Must Go On” - Lotsa people do very very well with Queen.  Let’s see how she dresses this week.  Did she just compare IDOL GIVES BACK to LIVE AID? Yeah, that does make sense in the wrong ways.

Did she end sooner than she wanted to?  I kinda agree with Randy - it was disconnected.  She has a great voice, but there was something in that performance that didn’t sell it completely.

Simon approves of her fashion sense this week.

David Archuleta - “Angels” -  Good song choice.  Sounds good on power notes, but the lower end is very shaky to me.  I think he should have walked away from the piano halfway through when the choir came in.  He should have gotten up on his feet to sell the song.  As it is, some of those power notes sounded more shouty.  I’m sure the judges will love it, though.  Sure enough, Randy thinks it’s his best.

Brooke White - “You’ve Got A Friend” - Not the TOY STORY song.  Bad song choice.  The song doesn’t age well.  It seems anti-climactic for a show finale.  Maybe she would have been more comfortable sitting behind the piano for it.  She sounded good, but there’s not much that she COULD do with the song.  She should have pushed it in a couple of place more, just to vary it up.

A couple of after-the-fact thoughts: Back in the days when I listened to FM radio, I favored an adult contemporary station that catered to suburban housewives, basically. Their ratings stunk, but their demo was strong, so they survived.  “Angels” and “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” were in the daily rotation there.  I got sick of them fast enough. Simon was amazed the former was never a bigger hit, and had only heard the latter off the internet once.  I heard them both every morning for a year.  I suppose we’re all a product of our influences.

So, in the end, not a great IDOL week.  No Moments.  No standout performances.  No crashes and burns.  Sometimes, I guess you just have to get through it.  Expect a shocking dismissal this week.

Brook, Syesha, and Carly will be the bottom three. Who would be the most unexpected exit of those three?  Carly?  OK, I’ll pick her to go home this week.  I just smell the upset this week.

(Dark Horse of the week: Michael Johns.)

I know I missed this post last week, but I’m never going to be able to catch up. So here are the highlghts from the last week.  You can follow the Tweets as they happen, or wait for these updates (theoretically weekly) here.

• CD wallets only exist for the sake of contest giveouts. See PepsiStuff.com for the latest example.

• Rode a Merry-Go-Round with a two year old this afternoon. Who’s the greatest Uncle in the whole wide world? ME. 

• My sister just gave birth. I have ANOTHER niece now. That’s 8 nieces and 1 nephew. I’m never going to hear the end of Dora, am I? [March 31st.]

• I need a night off from my moonlighting job. It’s too much work.

• Subnetting the hell out of some masks right now. [Yeah, I think @robworley was right — I was masking the hell out of some subnets.  In either case, the result is the same — mass confusion.]
  

• I think my neighbor is playing Guitar Hero III - “Paint It Black” at the moment. I recognize that chord. . . I used to have time to play it.

• Lotsa new versions of software running on my computer tonight:ImageWell, LightRoom, and Firefox. Better check for an iTunes update next. ;-)

• Good thing about being in a training class this week? Twittering during the day!

• Saw a McDonald delivery truck which had a slogan on the side inclusive of the word “quaity.” The typo is NOT mine.  [I’m still ticked off I couldn’t get my phone’s camera working quickly enough.  I hate camera phones.]

• Am slightly weirded out to see Oprah using Skype. It’s my wife’s fault. . . 

• Just to specify - it’s my wife’s fault that I know what’s on Oprah. Not that Oprah is using Skype.

• I’m really liking this Firefox 3 Beta 4 browser. Must go download Beta 5 next. . . [And, of course, later that night it automatically updated itself.  I’m using Beta 5 now. Pretty cool, still]

• Crap, NYCC is only two weeks away! WHOO-HOO! My one weekend convention season is almost here! [It’s a week and a half away now!]

• Used the old VandS Politics site to test WP2.5 Blew the site away, can’t bring it back. Whoops. Now I’m afraid of using it in production.

• The next version of Windows to break backwards-compatability? Ground-up rewrite? This is promising, if true: http://tinyurl.com/6xlhf5

• Cablevision’s DVR can remember where you left off playing a given show. It doesn’t ONLY play from the beginning anymore. Hallelujah!

• I love how often I pay a bill on-line mere hours before I get an e-mail letting me know that the monthly statement is now available. 

• Yes, the Pipeline Podcast is malfunctioning due to the CBR update. Sad. But we’re working on it. SOMEONE is working on it. . . 

• Just deleted a dozen users who registered at my blog. Clearly, all spammers. 10 were one letter variations of the same name. Why?!? 

• Lorem Ipsum banners. The web is now complete. http://www.lipsum.com/banners/

• I think I might be having a thrisis: http://tinyurl.com/6jldzj 

Twitter is down.  My first reaction?  I should Twitter that.  And so the snake eats the tail.

And so we begin another week together.  Let’s look at the DVDs, shall we?

• There Will Be Blood

Quite the popular movie amongst the critics.  Isn’t it about 3 hours, though?

• Walk Hard

It’s the Dewey Cox story, which doesn’t sound so exciting until you hear that John C. Reilly is playing Cox. That’s cool.  Also, Cox is madeup.  This whole movie is a sendup of the musician biography film genre, inspired by movies like WALK THE LINE.  Sounds hilarious.  I think it’s a Judd Apatow joint. Yo.

• The 11th Hour

If Al Gore made a movie for the MTV set, this is what he’d come up with. The Leo kid from TITANIC whose last name I’m too lazy to spell correctly at the moment is responsible for this one.

• Lions for Lambs

Ah, more Feel Good political bombast from the Hollywood set.  This time, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, and Meryl Streep team up for a D.C. story of war, power, influence, etc etc etc.

• Resurrecting the Champ

A boxing movie with Josh Hartnett, Samuel L. Jackson, Teri Hatcher, and even Alan Alda.

• P2

I had never heard of this one, but I love this description:

Stalker in a parking garage. You’ve got to give the makers of P2 credit: They’ve tapped a universal source of anxiety and stretched it out into a feature-length film. Underneath a Manhattan skyscraper, chic businesswoman Angela (Rachel Nichols) is knocking off for the Christmas holiday. Everybody else has cleared out of the garage–everybody but freaky-friendly attendant Tom (Wes Bentley), and his little dog too. Before long, Tom makes it clear that he’d like to have Angela for holiday dinner, whatever that might mean. Our heroine must summon all her resources, and the challenge of a low-cut dinner gown, to fight back. P2 (no, it’s not the sequel to P) at least allows Angela a measure of common sense, as she actually thinks of some logical ways to fight back, and director Franck Khalfoun (working from an idea by Haute Tension guys Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur) does indeed get the most out of the parking garage location. But the movie’s at a loss to make these two characters interesting in any way, even at the Coyote vs. Roadrunner level. Tom’s little quirks, like miming a dance to Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas,” feel like a desperate attempt to add flavor to an otherwise standard-issue creepo. Bentley (best known for American Beauty) does have the face of an obsessive, and Nichols has the face (and did we mention the cleavage?) of a movie star, so they’re not hard to believe. But most of the time this movie is stuck on the wrong floor. –Robert Horton

And now I kinda want to see it.

It reminds me of a funny parking garage story.  Last week, I parked on the third floor of a parking garage and headed straight for the elevator banks.  Pushed the “up” button, waited for the cart.  It was there in a second.  The doors open, and there’s one person inside, who makes a half move for the door, realizes he’s not at the main level, and stops. I walk in and notice there’s no buttons pushed.  So I hit “M” for “Mall” or “Main” or whatever it stands for. And he says, “Street?”  “Yes,” I said back.  “That’ll get you out to the street.”  “Ah, thanks.”

What was he planning on doing?  He got into an elevator, didn’t push a button, and just planned to ride it all day until the doors opened eventually and he could see the street?  At least take a guess and push a button!  When the buttons choices are “M”, 1, 2, 3, and 4, I think the choice is clear.  But still — take a guess.

I wonder how long he was in that elevator cart before I got in?

• Hell’s Kitchen: Season One

Exciting news: This one is “raw and uncensored.”  In other words, you’ll have the option to NOT listen to the beeps. You can hear Chef Ramsay spew a litany of “f” words at helpless schlubs for 44 minutes at a time.  BEAUTIFUL!  It almost makes me want to wait for the DVD on the current season. Almost.

• Matlock, Season One

A whole new generation now can learn about the TV series that’s been the subject of countless punchlines over the last 20 years.  Laugh at it all you will, but I remember watching it as a kid and kinda sorta liking it.  Granted, I was 9 or 10, but still. . .

The last two seasons of THE COSBY SHOW are also out this week, and that’s about it from me. What are you looking most forward to?  Heck, what recent purchases have you been watching lately?

Your weekend Video of Zen: Keep your eye on the drummer.

Pay particular attention to the hilarious head-banging portion around the 3:00 mark.

If you know where to look for them, there are a lot of cool trails to be hiked in the Northern NJ area. It’s not all just what you see on painfully overrated cable TV shows around here, you know. There are some great parks, nature trails, and scenic vistas. (Though, yeah, most of them include some high spot from which you can see the New York City skyline. I’m a sucker for that, too.)

Last weekend, I went to the Ramapo Mountains area and hiked my way to the ruins of the Van Slyke Castle. You can read the whole story behind it here, but I’ll give you the shorter one now: A mansion was built nearly 100 years ago. When the family fell apart 50 years later, the house was abandoned. In 1959, vandals burnt it down. Later on, the land it was on became part of a protected nature hiking area, surrounding Ramapo Lake.

The trail actually wraps right around the castle. These aren’t ruins that you’re not supposed to go visit. This isn’t off the beaten path at all. You walk right by it and almost through it. In fact, most people do walk into it and through it. It’s an interesting place to visit. Remarkably enough, some tile work is still there in the ground.

A lot of the house still exists. The stone walls are all still mostly there, along with now-exposed iron I-bars to keep things in place. The pool, though empty, is in the back, though overrun with trees and plumbing that leads nowhere. You can get hints of what the place must have looked like back in the day, but it’s tough to piece it all together.

It’s also a bear to photograph. The area surrounding the castle has grown freely in the last 50 years. Besides one overlook point that’s made up of boulders and rock and faces out over the Lake and surrounding mountains, most of the castle is surrounded by weeds and trees. You can’t walk 50 feet away and take in the whole thing. You aren’t going to get one perfect shot of the entire castle from any angle.

Photographing this thing with anything other than a super wide lens is almost silly. Yet, there I was, 50mm in hand, trying to pick out some details that might tell the story.

You can see them in my Flickr feed now. I’ve included a couple in this blog post. There’s even a self-portrait I took at the ruins with the help of my new remote control for the camera. Good stuff!

Have a great weeekend, everyone!

‘ER’ set for 15th season - Entertainment News, TV News, Media - Variety

As expected, NBC will make room for an “ER” victory lap next year, picking the show up for a 15th and final season.

Peacock and Warner Bros. TV were mum on how much NBC is paying for the season’s 19 episodes – but it’s believed that Warner Bros. agreed to a reduced license fee for the show’s last go-round.

The deal required some adjusting in terms of making the show’s budget, insiders said, but the negotiation was characterized as smooth.

I haven’t watched it in years, but I was a big fan of it for the first, oh, three seasons.  I can remember walking to class in college that fall and thinking, “Wow, I have eight episodes of ER piled up across six different VHS tapes.  I’ll never get to them.”  That day, I recycled the tapes for other shows and never looked back.

I wonder if “Love’s Labor Lost” still holds up, more than a decade later?

Now that April Fools Day seems to have killed the RickRoll, let me bring up (*) the Top Five Failed RickRolls — these just never caught on:

• Jessie’s Girl (Rick Springfield)

• Livin’ La Vida Loca (too soon, perhaps?) (Rickie Martin)

• Super Freak (Rick James)

• Learn to Succeed (the audio book by Rick Pitino - this one never stood a chance)

• Garden Party (Rick Nelson)

Finally, the Muppets give us the Best RickRoll Ever.

(*) This is also a good time to post this as I thought I did last week. Crap. This nugget of gold sat in my “drafts” folder for almost a week!  CRAP.

Finally!  I get one right.  Ramiele is gone.

Honestly, I didn’t watch the rest of the show.  Too busy with other things.  I might catch up with it on the DVR later, or I might just decided that I gained an hour of my life back from the Simon/Ryan banter and cheesy group number and melodramatic slowroll evictions and horrible viewer phone calls and Ruben Studdard so-long song.

So what did you think of the episode tonight?  What part should I watch out for, specifically, if I get around to viewing it?  What do you think of the bottom three?

Claudette Yamin, mother of singer Elliott, dies at 65

Mrs. Yamin died last night. She was 65.

The cause of her death was not released. She had been hospitalized during the weekend at a local hospital.

Elliott Yamin, 29, became a national celebrity during his 2006 run on the TV show “American Idol,” where he placed third. During the competition, his mother became known to “Idol”-watchers and Richmonders for her fiery spirit.

John Nack on Adobe: Lightroom 2: The deuce is loose!

I’m delighted to announce that the beta of the 64-bit-native Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 has been posted to Adobe Labs. Everyone is free to download the beta build and try it for 30 days, while customers of Lightroom 1.x are free to use it for the duration of the beta program. (This build expires Aug. 31.)

It makes sense. The second Lightroom Adventure is happening right now in Tasmania. The first one was used to help iron out kinks in the 1.0. So a 2.0 right now just makes sense. (I’m glad they waited till April 2nd to announce this. They knew better than to trust the idiocy of the internet on 01 April with a big announcement.)

It includes more CS3 integration (including HDRs and panoramas!) and new selective area editing (dodge and burn, etc.). It’s not accepting plug-ins for image editing the way Aperture does just yet, but it’s still an improvement.

There’s a list of links to other blogs publishing their early findings on LR2 in the link above, including this one hour video review. So far, this is my favorite tour of the changes, complete with screen shots.

Oh, goody. It’s an April Fools gag to open things. I can’t be the only one who loathes this day, can I? It’s just ridiculous. At least go all the way and have a video clip of Simon Cowell on the set of “Moment of Truth.” Sheesh.

It’s Dolly Parton week! Yee-ha. It’s like looking into Kelly Pickler’s future, isn’t it?

Wait, that practically makes it Country Week! Kristy Lee Cook must be thrilled!

Brooke White - “Jolene” - Good song choice. And going for the guitar instead of the piano will deflect criticism that she’s hiding behind an instrument. And, look, it’s Dan DiDio on percussion! It might be too karaoke, but she sounds good. Not an Idol Moment by a long shot, but very respectable. Perhaps too safe? I don’t know; I liked it.

“You are Brooke White,” says Paula, stating the obvious. This might be a bad night for Paula, if this is how we start.

Seems weird to hear Ryan to introduce her as “Mrs. Brooke White.” I knnow she’s married and all, but “Mrs. Brooke?” Odd.

David Cooke - “Little Sparrow” - He didn’t crib this arrangement off the internet, so let’s see how he manages this one. It’s another solid performance. I don’t know the original song, so I don’t know how much he’s changed it, but it sounds nice. It fits in with his voice. It’s nothing overwhelming, but it’s good stuff. And, as the judges said, it shows that he can do the more tender things.

Oh, look: It’s corset week for the background singers. What an odd show it’s been so far.

Ramiele Malubay - I don’t know the title of the song, and I don’t care that much. It’s boring. The band is overwhelming her voice. She’s not doing anything too memorable with this song. Yawn. Am I going to have to predict this is the last week for her yet again?!?

Really, an entire week of Dolly Parton songs? What an odd odd week.

Ooh, it’s a new “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ad! BWAH HA HA. It’s a complete Vista hit piece. Ouch.

Jason Castro - “Travelin’ Through” - (Too bad it wasn’t “Travelin’ Prayer,” a Billy Joel song Parton had a minor hit with a few years back.) Good song choice. It’s in his wheel house. Still popping his “P”s, way too many weeks into the competition. He hasn’t learned yet. It’s a bit like Ramiele’s song: Nothing special. I think it’s better than Ramiele’s, in that he led the song and had a good arrangement of it. But, again, nothing memorable. Nothing exciting. Just good.

Simon’s wrong, though — this kind of music could suit Jason. As Randy pointed out, there’s a certain singer/songwriter vibe to the song that fits him.

Carly Smithson - “Here I (?) Come Again” - Sounds a bit old. I’m sure Simon will complain that she didn’t modernize it. But you know what? It doesn’t matter to me. She’s got some amazing vocal chops, and this song is another showcase for them. Maybe not the greatest Idol showcase song, but her voice is great.

Wow, she held the heck out of that long high note. No other singer on this show this season could have held that note at that key for that long.

Carly has no idea how to respond to Simon’s criticism of her choice in clothing. You can see her biting her lip.

David Archuleta - “Smokey Mountain Memories” - He’s safe this week. The song works for him, though it’s once again nothing that’ll excite people (outside his loyal fanbase) to download the video on iTunes tomorrow. It’s good work with a strong ending, though. The judges all thought it was great.

I’m so glad this show is only an hour tonight. I just ain’t feeling it, dawg.

Kristy Lee Cooke - “Coat of Many Colors” - Ooh, Simon is going to LOATHE that dress. Not surprisingly, Kristy excels vocally on country songs. But there’s still something about her that makes you wonder why she can’t break loose. She seems so reserved. Paula has mentioned her lack of showmanship before, and I think it’s really the one missing part of her game that’s going to keep her from going too far in this competition. In the last couple of weeks, she’s proven she can sing. Now she needs to “act.”

“Pleasant but forgettable” is Simon’s phrase, and that about fits. He didn’t give Ryan a hard time about noticing Kristy Lee’s French manicure. They all looked in pain from having to rush things through to fit nine songs in an hour. . .

Syesha Mercado - “I Will Always Love You” - Wow, this is brave. Most people think of this as a Whitney song, which is just the thing you don’t want to do on IDOL. Can she possibly live up to that? It isn’t possible, is it? I hope last week’s Idol Moment isn’t giving her too much confidence. Dolly liked her arrangement. Underplaying it might be the only way to do it.

Holy crap. Got goosebumps there in the final notes. I liked it. Nice mix of Dolly and Whitney. Gee whiz, her voice is amazing. I said before that I couldn’t imagine anyone other than Carly hitting that one note and holding it for that long. I forgot about Syesha. She could. She’s got amazing pipes. Simon was not thrilled with it, as I was. Randy was OK with it. It’s an impossible song to live up to, but I think Syesha did a great job with it, and deserves to stick around based on that performance.

Given last week’s flirt with the bottom three, I think her fanbase will get out their vote well tonight. She’ll be safe..

“PC/Mac Commercial” #2 on the night. Hilarious again, especially in light of the recent Microsoft e-mails that blame 30% of all Vista crashes on Nvidia. BWAH HA HA #2.

Michael Johns - “It’s All Wrong” (just guessing there) - It’s a male version of a torch song. He’s got a great voice for it. The scratchy rocker voice works very well on a song like this, where he can really sink his vocal claws into it, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor. Great performance, backed up by another amazing guitar performance. Even Simon liked it.

An off week, overall, but Michael Johns leads the pack, with David Archuleta, Carly, David Cooke, and Syesha just behind him in my mind. Brooke White is next, alongside Kristy. Then Jason. Ramiele is dead last.

I want a sing-off between Syesha and Carly, though. Let’s have an epic Idol Battle! We need a special show for that. Then you could pair off David C. and Michael Johns to go at it. What about Castro versus White? Ramiele versus a random teenager from the mosh pit audience?

So who’s in the bottom three? Heck if I know. I never guess that right, anyway. Why bother trying? Ramiele goes home this week. No, really, I mean it this week. Jason and Brooke (this week’s bit shocker) join her in the bottom three.

TVShowsonDVD.com is a good, honest, reputable website. They make the announcement every year that they aren’t attempting to make fools of their readers for the sake of a cheap gag. I trust them.

Today, they announced the big one: Tiny Toon Adventures, Season One. On DVD. This summer. With cover art and a full episode listing for the for discs. Whoo-hoo!

Update: Freakazoid Season One was announced, too!

Today is the day to get off the internet, as people who don’t understand what an April Fool’s Gag is supposed to be attempt to fool you into believing stupid things to make you look like an idiot. Even worse, several people decided to do “Early April Fools” gags last week. Idiots!

We here at Various and Sundry don’t believe in that kind of crap, so we’re just not updating today. Take everything you read today with a grain of salt. In a few days, the internet will return to normal and sort through what the real announcements were and we can discuss it then.

In the meantime, be nice to each other today, OK? And don’t go making crap up.