Just like last year my family and I plan to give our run-down on American Idol. It’s fun for us and well if you care, I guess it could be entertaining for you. If you don’t care, skip ahead to another post. Tonight it’s the girls. (This will be updated each time someone performs tonight.)

#1 - Kristy Lee Cook - She is one of our favorites from the start. I personally thought it was pretty good for being the first girl up, but I definitely don’t think it is her best performance yet. Plus dude, she’s sick. I think she did pretty good. The weird eye thing she did at the beginning was kinda strange, but other than that - still a favorite in our book.

#2 - Joanne Borgella - Okay, first one of my favorite songs from that time, however it started out way shaky. She picks it up a bit in the middle. I really like Joanne - she has a strong, powerful voice but this song SO didn’t cut it for her. Not our favorite performance at all.

#3 - Alaina Whitaker - The youngest contestant, adorable. Let’s see how the voice does. This was awesome. I just love her voice, her cute stage presence. She rocks! Happy Birthday tomorrow, Alaina! We all love you here!

#4 - Amanda Overmyer - Uhm. Well here’s the deal. I actually LOVE her voice, I mean - like I would totally listen to her - just absolutely NOT that song. Btw: we love her hair in the front. I could do without the poof, but I love the straightness in the front. Amanda, not a bad song, I just hope if you win you won’t put an album out that is that hardcore because I loved your other stuff better. You did do an alright job.

#5 - Amy Davis - Well, we like Amy. The song started out pitchy and a bit shaky, but probably because she was really nervous. Not the greatest song choice for her voice - the Bobby McGee song was FAR better. I do think she has a chance, but she will need to pick better songs.

#6 - Brooke White - Brooke has some great stage presence, the song was a fun one to do. I only heard about two maybe three smallish pitch problems. But she worked the stage, the audience and she’s cute as all get out!

#7 - Alexandréa Lushington - She’s been really consistent since the start which I love about her. She has a great voice, I love how she was all about stage presence. She has a terrific voice - great song choice for her. Wow can she hit some of those high notes!

#8 - Kady Malloy - Kady has one of those terribly unique and flexible voices. I noted only one instance of pitchiness and I’m not even sure it was, because she totally made this song her own. I like what she does to songs. We like her a lot at our house. It was cool. Not my favorite song for her though. I want something with a bit more energy.

#9 - Asia’h Epperson - I actually really dig Asia’h. She’s got a great stage presence, her personality just exudes itself all over the place. I just think she’s so darn cute. Her voice is really cool - a nice raspy but yet calming voice. This song isn’t one of my favorites for her but she did a good job with it. She worked it hard, I only noted one spot I wasn’t feelin’ it, but she really moved herself.

#10 - Ramiele Malubay - Dayum! She has an absolutely amazing voice. So powerful. I just love Ramiele! She really does rock. I wanna go eat Sushi with her and have her sing to me! Wow!!!!!! GREAT build up!

#11 - Syesha Mercado - Syesha totally has fans for life. We really like her. We were rooting for her in Hollywood when she had all the vocal problems, and we were pulling for her - she did amazing. She has a very powerful voice with a nice range. This song was really well done. I would have NEVER picked it for her, but she definitely took and made it her own and did a great job.

#12 - Carly Smithson - The Jury’s still out on Carly. We like her a lot. She has a great voice. Song choice was kinda boring tonight. I would have loved to hear her sing something else. We really do like her normally, but tonight we just couldn’t quite get into the performance. Carly don’t worry, we still like you, just pick a more upbeat better song next week.

Interesting…what do you think?

Quote:
Among the suspicious singers in the Idol season 7 running are Carly Smithson, who was once signed to MCA Records under the name Carly Hennessy; Michael Johns, who used to front the major-label rock band the Rising under the name Michael Lee; onetime Star Search winner David Archuleta; former Boys N Girlz United boyband singer (and Britney Spears’s ex-boyfriend!) Robbie Carrico; Cheyenne cast member Jason Castro; Making The Band also-ran Jason Yeager; former Arista Nashville signing Kristy Lee Cook; and Mo’Nique’s Fat Chance plus-size beauty pageant winner Joanne Borgella.

I dug a little further and here is what I found on a few of them:

Carly Hennessy is now known as Carly Smithson. She’s not an unknown artist. The singer’s debut album received over $2 million from MCA Records. It failed, and now Hennessy is trying to win American Idol. Should she be allowed to?

David Archuleta from Sandy, UT won the Junior Singer category of Star Search in 2003 when he was 12 years old. Now 17 (birthday December 28), David Archuleta auditioned for American Idol in San Diego. He also sang to Kelly Clarkson many years ago. You can find the video on youtube.

Jason Castro, who played the love interest of Cheyenne on the MTV Show CHEYENNE

Joanne Borgella is originally from Uniondale, Long Island then went on to attended high school at the Academy of Saint Joseph in Brentwood and graduated in 2000. In 2005 she became the Mo’Nique’s Fat Chance winner.

Jason Yeager is no stranger to performing; as part of the Country Tonite revue in Branson, Mo., he performed two shows a day, six days a week, 10 months out of the year for crowds he estimates at 1,000 per show. That tidbit came up during a brief phone chat with the Star-Telegram; here are a few other things we discussed.

You can visit Michael Johns (uhm…Michael Lee’s band Rising) on My Space.

Robbie Carrico’s boy-band past was mentioned on tonight’s episode of ‘American Idol’. But what boy band was he in? He was a member of the boy/girl-band, Boyz-N-Girlz United. No wonder they let him audition.

And lookie this great pic I found. hehehehe

Brand-new Arista Nashville artist Kristy Lee continued to establish her roots in Music City by signing a songwriter affiliation deal with BMI at their Nashville offices. In addition to her label contract, Lee recently inked a deal with Britney Spears’ newly-formed production company as its debut artist. Superstar Spears, a BMI affiliate, has already agreed to make a cameo appearance in Lee’s first video.

Visit the link I found this one at complete with a pic of Kristy and her mom signing the deal.

Just like last year, I plan to try to give my families opinions on the different singers. It’s fun for us and well if you care, I guess it could be entertaining for you. If you don’t care, skip ahead to another post. (This will be updated each time someone performs tonight.)

#1 - David Hernandez - He has a great voice. I totally think he could go far with that voice. Problem - no stage presence. None. Zip. Zilch. He looked like he was staring into a bright light during most of the performance. Ugh!

#2 - Chikezie Eze - We hated it. Seriously. I love the guy - he’s hilarious, but the song sucked. Bad song, bad singer. Sorry guys. I really had hope for him. But I totally did not feel it.

#3 - David Cook - I love his stage presence. In fact, he was the most fun to watch. He is extremely personable, however I did not think he did the greatest job with this particular song. In fairness, uhm….it wasn’t the best song. Give me a throaty rock song that he can sing and then we will see. He did the best with what he had to work with. David we still love ya here.

#4 - Jason Yeager - Dayum. How come I don’t remember this guy? None of us do and we’ve been watching from the start. They sure haven’t given him much air time. Not my favorite, even if he is kinda yummy. We don’t like the song, we don’t like his singing and well…. crap. I hate it when they LOOK like that, yet sing that way. Ahh….bye Jason. Hope tonight was fun.

#5 - Robbie Carrico - I just love this guy. I love his look, I love his attitude, I love the way he sings. He sounds great on a song from “yesterday”. So far so good, with his own raspy twist on the song and I actually love it.

#6 - David Archuleta - Let me preface this by saying he is one of our very favorites. The song was a hard one to begin with, but he kinda took it and made it his own. Seriously really good. I was impressed. So were the kids.

#7 - Danny Noriega - Didn’t love it. Didn’t feel it. Don’t like the song. I like Danny, but this was not one of my favorite performances. It wasn’t very entertaining. Well, at least he had fun up there.

#8 - Luke Menard - His voice is all over the place. It’s as if he cannot find the notes quite right. Weird. He’s good looking, but that’s about it. Way too pitchy for my taste.

#9 - Colton Berry - Hmm…. The jury’s still out on this guy. I cannot figure out why some people like him SO much. I’m just not feelin’ him.

#10 - Garret Haley - I’m trying to figure this guy out. I’m not feeling him either. He’s not exactly the “voice” I think America is looking for. I guess he did an okay job with this particular song, except I don’t like his voice. So that sure makes it hard to be objectionable.

#11 - Jason Castro - Not bad. Not Wonderful. In between. He took a song and definitely made it his own. I did NOT hate it, but I didn’t just fall in love with it either. I do however love his dreads and the guitar. But otherwise, yeah….uhm. Buh Bye. Sorry Jason.

#12 - Michael Johns - He sounds awesome. He really does. Not my favorite song but he took it and totally made it his and it was AWESOME! I cannot believe I loved it like I did. Great ending to the first “true” Season 7 episode.

I am totally addicted to weird news and stupid criminal news. It always makes me laugh, and this one is no different!

News Story

Short version: Cop got an accidental text message offering to sell him a prescription drug. He played along with it, even got a location for pick up. Two women were arrested when they arrived. Read it, it’s funny.

Mississippi Polls Seek To Ban Fats - New bill would make it illegal for restaurants to serve the obese

FEBRUARY 1–Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. Bill No. 282, a copy of which you’ll find on the website listed below, is the brainchild of three members of the state’s House of Representatives, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows. The bill, which is likely dead on arrival, proposes that the state’s Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi’s Council on Obesity. It does not detail what penalties an eatery would face if its grub was served to someone with an excessive body mass index.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0201081fat1.html

Here’s the my thoughts. While I am POSITIVE the bill will be DOA, most definitely, who the hell gives these people the right to say who can and cannot eat at a restaurant. You’ve simply GOT to be kidding me! After you read this, let me know your thoughts.

It only took 48 seconds to change  the 18-year-old, Miss Teen South Carolina, Lauren Caitlin Upton’s life forever.

When asked the question, “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think that is?”, Miss Upton gained notoriety she never wanted.

Thanks to YouTube and the blogosphere, she went from a contestant on the popular Miss Teen USA pageant on Friday to a YouTube phenomenon with a video that now has more than 4 million views. 

Her answer started out normal, as she reworded the sentence slowly as she began thinking about the answer, until she could no longer fake the slowness and had to answer.  And so was born a hodge podge group of sentences that truly made absolutely no sense. Something about it being her belief that a group of “U.S. Americans don’t have maps” and the way to alleviate that would be to help the educational efforts in South Africa and “the Iraq.”

I feel terrible for the girl really. I mean, seriously - how would you have answered it? I mean, I would want to say “Because lots of American’s are stupid.” but yeah, I’m thinking that probably wouldn’t have won her any awards. So she stumbled, and she answered the question incorrectly by drawing a South Africa connection (hey some live here too! and we should help them) and has it ever occured to anyone that the fifth of Americans that cannot locate the U.S. on a world map, might be the fifth of American’s who do not speak English, come from another country or otherwise are not a “true” American?

Thankfully, someone else felt sorry for Caitlin, and on Tuesday she appeared on the “Today Show” for a do-over of the question, so she could prove she is not ignorant and stupid as so many were already believing.  What a shame really, because she’s just a girl. A normal, pretty faced girl, who on the spot flubbed her answer. Yeesh. Does it matter that much?

“Everything did come at me at once,” she told Matt Lauer and Ann Curry on the “Today Show.” “I was overwhelmed and I made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. I’m human.”

Miss Upton is a graduate of Lexington High School and even took college-prep and honors courses according to her former principal.

All I’ve got to say, is she is very pretty, and people need to give her a chance. She is only 18 years old. She has a lifetime ahead of her to come up with answers to why American’s are stupid. Does it matter that she messed it up? I don’t really think it does. Did it hurt you or I? Nope. I don’t believe it did.

I’m sure by now most of you have heard about the bridge that collapsed last night during rush hour traffic. I was going to post about it then, but I needed some time.

We have family there, so I guess I needed confirmation that nobody that I know, was in it. Oddly, even without having family there, the whole thing truly shook me up. I cross the Mississippi on an almost daily basis from St. Charles into St. Louis (about 7 minutes away from my house in no traffic).

If you actually want to see serious coverage, and you are not affected by actual dramatic video coverage - go here. They have continuing live coverage as well as several video feeds on that page including actual coverage from the bridge collapse taken from a security camera. At this moment, seven are dead, and over 60 are at area hospitals with everything from general triage (first aid) to critically injured people.

*sigh*

What a tradgedy!

I refrained from posting about this, simply because it was a shock to come home to, after having a wonderful weekend with my family, and I guess I wasn’t sure what to say. It is so hard to be so happy and find pleasure in all that we have, only to find out about others tragic loss. I did go over and visit Dawg at his blog and leave my condolences.

As most of you who are familiar with or active in the blogging community know, that over the weekend NYC Watch Dawg from A Pile of Dog Bones, lost his son DJ in a tragic swimming accident. Puppy Monster was dawg’s life and it is obvious by the admiration and love shown in the many videos that were posted on his blog.

Avitable started a fund and in less than 80 hours they had over $2700 in the Puppy Monster Memorial Fund. It felt so good to donate, and I continue to pray for his entire family. I cannot even fathom the loss. It is a true tradgedy.

If you feel so inclined, go over and donate. You will get a cool little badge to display at 100% of the donation goes directly to dawg. It will never replace the little Puppy Monster, but it will help with financial burdens that are sure to follow.

I asked my mother to email this to me, so I could put it on my blog. I figure, if I can hit one person, that might be victim, I’ve helped someone. And before anyone asks, this is a TRUE story, confirmed not only by Snopes.com but also by local news sources here in St. Louis.

Claim:   Drug dealers are selling colored crystal methamphetamine known as “Strawberry Quick.”

Status:   True.

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, April 2007]

Drug Warning - Beware and please inform your children

I have been alerted by one of our EMT’s for our volunteer fire department that they have received emails from emergency responder organizations to be on the lookout for a new form of Crystalized Meth that is targeted at children and to be aware of this new form if called to an emergency involving a child that may have symptoms of drug induction or overdose.

They are calling this new form of meth “Strawberry Quick” and it looks like the “Pop Rocks” candy that sizzle in your mouth. In it’s current form, it is dark pink in color and has a strawberry scent to it.

Please advise your children and their friends and other students not to accept candy from strangers as this is obviously an attempt to seduce children into drug use. They also need to be cautious in accepting candy from even friends that may have received it from someone else, thinking it is just candy.

Origins:   This warning about sweetened and flavored forms of methamphetamine began landing in inboxes in April 2007. “Strawberry Quick” (or “Strawberry Quik,” named after strawberry Quik, a powder used to make flavored milk drinks) was first reported as appearing in the western states in January 2007. (Nevada holds the dubious honor of being the first state the substance was found in; its Department of Public Safety issued a bulletin about flavored meth seized during a 27 January 2007 search of a gang member’s apartment in Carson City.) According to intelligence gathered by Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents from informants, users, local police, and drug counselors, colored meth has also been found in California, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Texas, New Mexico, Missouri, and Minnesota.

One DEA agent reported a red methamphetamine that had been marketed as a powdered form of an energy drink. Says DEA spokesman Steve Robertson, “Drug traffickers are trying to lure in new customers, no matter what their age, by making the meth seem less dangerous.” The colored meth has been described as resembling rock candy or Pop Rocks (a kid-favored confection that fizzles in the mouth), and because it looks like candy, officials fear it may fool children and teens into mistakenly perceiving it as candy (or perceiving it as a drug far less dangerous and addictive than it actually is).

However, while colored versions of methamphetamine that resemble candy are certainly available, whether the drug is actually being sold in flavored versions remains a subject of some dispute. (Police labs don’t generally test drugs for flavoring ingredients, so at least some of the seizures of colored meth may have prompted statements about “flavored” meth that were based solely on the drug’s colorful appearance.) It’s also not clear that either coloring or flavoring is being added to meth for the express purpose of making the drug appeal to children. (It seems more likely that such factors, if present, are manufacturing errors, attempts at creating superficial ‘brand’ distinctions, or simply ways of trying to combat the substance’s bitter taste.)

In April 2007, U.S. Senators Feinstein and Grassley introduced legislation aimed at increasing the criminal penalties for anyone who markets or makes candy-flavored drugs by imposing upon them the same enhanced criminal sentences handed down to drug dealers who knowingly sell to minors. The Saving Kids from Dangerous Drugs Act would alter federal law from its current state of requiring doubled (or tripled for a repeat offense) sentences for those caught selling illegal drugs to those under the age of 21 to imposing doubled or tripled sentences on anyone who “manufactures, creates, distributes, or possesses with intent to distribute a controlled substance that is flavored, colored, packaged or otherwise altered in a way that is designed to make it more appealing to a person under 21 years of age, or who attempts or conspires to do so.” No longer would a dealer have to be caught red-handed in the act of selling to an under 21 for the doubled or tripled sentences to kick in; under the proposed refinement to current law, simply possessing flavored versions of street drugs would be enough. Also, by the lights of this rewriting of the law, manufacturers of flavored drugs would also be subject to doubled or tripled sentences.

There is one bit of good news in all this: Methamphetamine use is down for much of the country for the second year running. Researchers say it appears this latest meth epidemic reached its peak in 2004 and 2005, and data from the federal government shows the number of first-time meth users has steadily declined in recent years.

Let’s hope that Strawberry Quick doesn’t serve to reverse that trend.

The post can be at http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/candymeth.asp