No need to be coy about it at this point - plus I’m too tired to write up a snazzy recap of the show - the voters have decided, and David Hernandez is the latest Idol contestant to exit, stage left. It wasn’t surprising, but it was a little disappointing to me. I really think Kristy Lee Cook should have gotten the boot this time, but I guess her golden good looks have given her a pass once more.

Honestly, Hernandez had a better overall voice. However, he was a little more broadly inconsistent, which likely made voters tired of wondering if he was going to be good or bad from one week to the next. Still, we’re running out of obvious cannon fodder, so I’m hoping Kristy will be gone next week.

If I didn’t have DVR, I would have been seriously annoyed by the fact that American Idol has decided to force us to listen to the entire bottom three sing their songs over a second time. My ears (and eyes) couldn’t take listening to either Kristy’s or David H. mutilating Beatles tunes once more. Luckily for me, I could fast forward, thus turning an hour-long show into about 15 minutes. Yay for technology.

The best thing about the episode was seeing the ever-cute Jim Carrey in giant elephant feet/ears (he was promoting the Horton Hears a Who film) and the quick glimpse of Sanjaya in the studio audience. I don’t like Sanjaya, but it was amusing to see him there. Oh and … Ryan Seacrest showed the his obession with Chikezie’s near-bald pate wasn’t a one time thing. Ryan, Ryan … you’re getting stranger all the time.

Finally - if you’re wondering if I think the Hernandez “scandal” of where he used to be employed was a factor in him being voted off - well, I suppose it’s possible. But I’d like to think people aren’t that shallow. Who bloody cares where he used to work, or what he did, or what his sexuality might be. The question in terms of the show was: could he handle the pressure and continue to give us entertaining performances? Apparently the answer was: no.

American Idol’s Top 12 contestants tackled the songs of the Beatles tonight. With a couple exceptions, they were moderately successful, although of course none could compare with the original classic tunes they were being forced to sing. I mean, you just can’t “outdo” the Beatles. Sorry. You can, however, do a really good cover, and some of the Top 12 pulled that off, while others were ok to mediocore, and the rest were just plain lousy. In other words, typical American Idol.

The shocker of the night had to do with David Archuleta, aka The Chosen One, who as everyone knows has been slated by the media and general public to be the “surefire” winner this year. Well, we all know making predictions like that can end up. Especially when the person in question has a really off night. Whoo, boy. But don’t worry - I seriously doubt our David is in any danger. He simply has too many fans.

Syesha Mercado: “Got to Get You Into My Life” - Yes! She did something different with her hair. She looked lovely. Not that she doesn’t look lovely with her usual ‘do, but as I said last week, very nice to see some variety. Anyway, her performance was all right. Some good notes, nice arrangement. But in the end, I found it a little bland and forgettable - not something the AI audience is going to reward with tons of votes. Since I don’t think she has the strongest fan-base, she could be in trouble.

Chikezie: “She’s a Woman” - His outfit was mellower but I never did like the casual-preppy look. His performance starts out like a hoe-down than starts to turn more “rock.” It was a decent performance, but I don’t know - I still admire his vocal talent, but he doesn’t do anything for me personally. The judges loved him this night, however. And what was up with Ryan Seacrest’s spazzing out over Chikezie’s head and running around the stage? Very weird. Perhaps Paula slipped Ryan some of her “happy juice” during the break.

Ramiele Malubay: “In My Life” - She’s cute, she’s short, she can hit those “power notes” like crazy. But tonight, she’s also extremely boring. Borrrriiiiinnnng. One of the things I’ve liked about this season of AI is that there is a decided lack of dull predictable ballads, even among most of the women performers. I like music with a beat, and Ramiele’s performance had none. Plus her voice was too quiet or weak or something through most of the vocals. It’s not that she messed up or did terribly, but not entertaining and completely forgettable. I think she’s in mild danger - maybe not this week, but because we have a couple others that may have shot themselves in the foot a lot worse, but …

Jason Castro: “If I Fell” - Not as strong this week as last week. His lack of stage experience seemed to show through a little more today, but vocally it wasn’t bad. He grows on me more each week, seeming more and more adorable. I like how we seem to be watching him grow as a singer/performer as he goes along.

Carly Smithson: “Come Together” - My eardrums still don’t like her higher notes…a lot of the time it just sounds shrieky to me, and listening to just the audio of the song through headphones makes me wince a little. I think this reflects more on my eardrum’s shape and design more than her vocal ability, tho. She sure rocked it out, and it was far better than I thought it was going to be. Carly showed some genre range ability, as well as stepping up her stage-persona a notch. I give her props.

David Cook: “Eleanor Rigby” - Vocals decent, stage performance the same as always. I loved this Beatles tune, and while DavidC did a fair job at giving it a “rocker” arrangement, I’m tired of his rock-clothes, his smug rock-attitude (even if it is more genuine than Robbie’s was) and the repetitive nature of his alt-rock sounding vocal uplilt. But I’m sure he’s safe, since I’m obviously in the minority.

Brooke White: “Let It Be” - One of my favorite Beatles song ever. I was terrified of it being mangled to death. I shouldn’t have worried. I loved the real piano and Brooke’s playing. I loved her singing and the emotional vulnerability she showed. The only bad thing for me was that the piano was obviously distracting Brooke from being able to “perform” to the audience/camera. I think she should have ignored the camera and just concentrated on playing/singing. Of the women, Brooke is the one I’m cheering for.

David Hernandez: “I Saw Her Standing There” - Very campy, very tortured. Bad arrangement, bad dancing. Vocals were actually ok, but the “performance” was so awful I think he just hurt his chances pretty badly. Not much else to say than that.

Amanda Overmyer: “You Can’t Do That” - Good strong vocals, but sounded like she was mumbling the words half the time. Plus, it was still “typical” Overmyer. I’d really like to hear her do something softer or more mellow to show range and versatility. I have the feeling she can’t do soft or mellow or another genre, and that’s going to be her downfall. But at least she was smiling this week. And she absolutely commands the stage with her presence/moves.

Michael Johns: “Across the Universe” - YES. Finally, Michael does something different than his usual “rock with the microphone” style singing/performance. I’ll be honest and say I’ve never liked the original “Across the Universe” very much. Too hippie or whatever, for me. But with Michael’s voice it became more of an alt-rock ballad and I enjoyed it. Michael managed to control his vocals this time and the result was a much smoother and consistent vocal performance. It still doesn’t beat his “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and he couldn’t seem to keep his arm from wanting to do at least one of those “raise in the air for dramatic emphasis” moments, but at least was different than his usual and it didn’t feel as much as if he was just “coasting” along in a “The Doors mode”. The judges did have a good point that the song was a bit “boring” but I don’t think that’ll matter. He has enough fans that he should be safe.

Kristy Lee Cook: “Eight Days a Week” - *shakes head* The country blonde turned the simplistic rock tune of the Beatles into a horrible, Speedy-Gonzalez paced country vocal, complete with spangled top and ripped-up jeans. I don’t like country music much, so I’m prejudiced, but … all you can say is … terrible. BUT - again, I do give props for her guts to take a risk and do what she wanted with the song. Sometimes the risk doesn’t gives us the gains we were hoping for. Kristy has a good chance of going home, unless the country-fans (and male fans) vote enough to keep her from the brink.

David Archuleta: “We Can Work It Out” - He said he was nervous, he looked nervous, and not long into his performance he proved he was nervous by forgetting the words. Recovering from that, he proceeded to wander around the stage, and forgot the words again another couple of times. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the vocals weren’t as strong as in previous weeks. He seemed uncomfortable and you just had to feel awful for him. We all know he has the talent, the stage persona, and the experience - but he’s also 17 years old and this time the pressure got to him. How will this effect his chances of winning? Well, if it’s the only time he really “messes up” - I think not much. I hope he won’t let this one bad performance toss his confidence. I may not be his biggest fan, but I do know he deserves to be in the Top5 at least. One wonders if the producers of AI wanted him to be less-than-stellar this time to make sure the viewers would stay tuned into the show. ie, the more everyone thinks Archuleta is a shoo-in for #1, the more likely they are to tune out. This is reality TV after all - tossing in a monkey wrench now and then is good for ratings. Not that I really believe in a conspiracy. It’s just fun to doodle about. :)

At any rate - I think Kristy, Syesha and David Hernandez should be worried tomorrow.

Neither of these are sharply in focus - they wouldn’t stay still long enough! But I’m posting them mostly because I wanted to say…holy crow, these guys are big! They must be an inch or inch and a half long? I know friends have quickly stepped aside when they see one coming - big and scarily black to boot. But I imagine like most insects this one is fairly harmless. They’re fairly common in the fields and yards around here. Not as common as regular bees or anything, but you’ll see them often enough if you’re looking.

I’ve been procrastinating on packing easily-packed items because I haven’t been able to acquire very many good boxes. By acquire, I mean “for free.” I know about store garbage bins, but these days the problems with that (where we live) are one, bins are often too tall for me to look into, two, many stores cut their boxes in half as they stock shelves, so they’re not whole anymore, and three, bins are locked at night. Now, the one thing I haven’t done yet is actually go into a store and ask employees “Do you have any boxes?” - I don’t like doing stuff like that. Besides, often they’ll come back with “I think we have a few” and after 15 minutes of waiting for some joe to go to the back and look, you’ll get one or two that might be usable. You end up doing a lot of running around, wasting gas and time to gain your dozen or so boxes. Bah. I suppose I’ll have resort to using that method soon, tho, unless I want to spend $100-$150 in retail stores.

Anyway, I’m getting antsy and I’d like to start packing stuff I don’t need everyday at a faster pace. Like, all done by yesterday. Thus this morning I went to Staples and bought some plain shipping boxes. 6 to be exact. About $3 dollars a box. That just ticks me off…but what can you do. I figured that amount of boxes would pack up the rest of my books, as well as give me an idea of how many more boxes I’ll need. I arrived home, taped the boxes together, and promptly filled two 14×14x14 boxes with reference and paperback books. They’re kinda heavy, but nevermind, it’s manageable. Then I tried using a 20×18x12 box for some hardcover novels. This worked pretty well, since I was able to arrange them in layers of 5 per layer, but I ran into the problem that the box would end up being far too heavy to even lift onto a dolly (wheeled cart). So I had to do two layers of books and pad out the rest of the space with towels and blankets.

Now, between these three boxes, I’ve emptied about 1/4 of the books still on my shelves. Damn. And that doesn’t include things like games, DVD’s, videos, knickknacks, my collection of metal tins (or the boxes of books I already had packed) and so on. I guess I’m going to need another 10-15 boxes just for those kind of items. This has made me realize I’m going to need a lot more boxes than I originally thought. It also makes me realize just how much “stuff” we’ve acquired over 15 years … the last time we moved, we hardly had anything. Seriously. We moved everything (including furniture) in two or three trips using only hubby’s van and my then-very-tiny car. Now we need a bloody moving van rental. There’s a lot of items that don’t need boxes of course - clothes/blankets not used to pad out other boxes can all go in plastic garbage bags. It’s easier, and garbage bags are cheap. I like cheap. Sigh. Moving is such a pain. At least we have plenty of time to get organized.

mycathatesyou.com is one of the “cat photo” sites I enjoy. They claim to post pictures of “grumpy faced” cats, but it has a mix of expressions/scenes. They don’t update very frequently, so I only check up on the site once every 2-3 months - there’s almost always something there that makes me chuckle. The last time I visited, the photo to hit my funny bone is the one below:

The contrast of the black cat to the red/white Santa sweater/hoodie makes it “pop” and the glowing green eyes and expression are priceless.

When I went to use the PC this morning, there was a giant cranefly sprawled out on my mousepad. I stared at it for a moment, then poked it to see if it was alive or dead. In the word’s of McCoy - “He’s dead, Jim!”
If I was a normal person, I’d do something like sweep the critter into the wastebasket. But I’m not a normal person, so I ended up taking some pictures of it. In the process I used a pencil to flip and rearrange it, and next thing you know, I had this captioned picture.

Maybe I need professional help.