I wasn’t sure I was going to write anything about the American Idol show tonight. It’s been a long day, with a sick kitty. But after watching the show, I felt a slight stir of excitement stir within my breast for the competitiveness of it all. As usual, this isn’t a blow by blow style recap … it’s more of an opinion piece.

1st song round:
David Cook sang “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” He moved, he emoted, he danced off the main stage and behind the judges. It was a very good performance. But I still felt like there was something missing and I still wasn’t moved. But since his performance was great, I’d give him 8/10 on this one.

David Archuleta sang “Don’t Let the Sun go Down on Me.” My husband and I were wracking our brains trying to remember who made this a hit single, but failed to recall. D.A started just a tiny, tiny bit weak in the very beginning, but the rest of it was superb. I think he was singing in a slightly lower pitch than his “normal” one, because for this song his voice lost some of that nasal quality and sounded more mature. I prefer him singing in this range and wish he had done so a little more often. It made me wonder what he’s going to be like 5 years from now. I agree with Simon that D.A. won the first round. 10/10.

2nd song round:
David Cook sang “Dream Big”. - Ok, I know I’m not “with it” musically anymore, but as D.C. began, I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He was mumbling. It was an alt-rock kind of mumbling, but the point is, I couldn’t tell what he was mumbling. The arrangement was, to me and my middle-aged frame of reference, very late 80’s alt rock with a dash of late 80’s heavy metal. D.C. sounded like he was straining his vocal cords just a bit in places, which I think Andrew Lloyd Webber referred to when he said that D.C had to watch his voice, or protect his voice, or something like that. It’s late, I don’t remember word for word. Anyway, D.C. did fine, but it wasn’t a big winner for me. 7/10.

David Archuleta sang “In This Moment”. - Back to the boring ballad. Although, not quite as boring as some of his previous ballad choices. Well sung, however - better than his usual I think - and considering the sappy song, fairly well presented. 7/10

3rd round song:
David Cook sang “World I Know.” - He mumbled again at the start. Maybe my ears have wax in them. After that, however, it was the typical D.C. alt-rock performance and vocals, except with a somewhat more mellow arrangement. Again, not bad, and it’s nice that he chose to do a completely new song instead of re-hash a previous performance, but I’m not wild about it. Also, at this point, his wild “I just got out of bed” fluffed up hair that’s spiked higher on one side than the other was distracting me to no end. Someone give this man a comb. Please. 8/10

David Archuleta sang “Imagine.” - I’m probably one of the few who didn’t think his original performance of this song was uber-fantastic. It was all right, and cleanly sung, but nothing special. And tonight, D.A. did it pretty much the same - it was all right, and cleanly sung. If you thought it was great back when, you’d probably think it was great this time around too. But…in a singing competition, it’s never quite as awesome to your ears the second time around. It’s not original to the competitor anymore. Still, I don’t think D.A. lost many points for choosing the safe road. 9/10

So who will win this mighty battle of the singing Davids? Simon pretty much thought David A. won the night. Randy and Paula thought it was more of a toss-up. Myself…I think either stands a good chance of winning, but I personally think David A. is going to come up with the most votes to win. And I say this from a perspective of not finding either David “fantastic” - whether this means my opinion is unbiased by “fandom” and thus my prediction might be more accurate than those who think David C. will win … I highly doubt it. *wink*

It’s still anyone’s ball game…that’s the nature of American Idol. But the “rocker” typically doesn’t win on AI. My theory is that perhaps this is because it (rock) is not quite as universally appealing (from teens, young adults, middle-age, grandmas, rebels, conformists, religious, atheist, all walks of life, all walks of musical tastes) - it’s more of a niche. A large niche to be sure, but still a niche, if that makes sense. And when it comes down to the final two, with no one else to vote for, the ‘niche’ fans tend to get out-voted. Thus, with David A.’s strong and no-mistakes performances this evening, I think that will happen again and American Idol’s pattern of the rocker placing 2nd isn’t going to change.

But if David Cook does win, he certainly would deserve to do so as much as David Archuleta. I mean, c’mon, they’re both very good for what they are. It’s like comparing apples and oranges, really. Too bad they can’t both win.

The season finale of CSI shocked me by killing off one of its main characters…when I tuned in the other night to watch the last episode of CSI for this season, I had no idea that Gary Dourdan - the actor who plays Warrick - was leaving the show/wanted to leave the show…nor did I know about his recent drug possession arrest/alleged drug issues. All I knew was that as the episode was nearing its end with the team celebrating at some small diner/pub in a ‘team-bonding’ scene, I knew something awful was going to happen. And yup, it did. Warrick walked down that (conveniently) dark and empty alley to his car and was gunned down. What threw me for a loop was the finality of the scene…since I didn’t know about Gary leaving the show, that took me totally by surprise.

Now, I was never a huge fan of Warrick’s character, but the thing is, he was part of a whole. An integral part of what makes the CSI ensemble “click”. So now we have Sara gone (which I didn’t personally mind much), Warrick gone, and worst of all, I hear Grissom (William Peterson) isn’t going to be in all the episodes next season. I’ve loved CSI for years, one of the few shows I try to keep up with - not to mention buy the DVD sets when they come out - but this is the point where one wonders if a series should just close its doors, before it sinks into mediocrity.

It’s remotely possible that they could, next season, say that someone heard the shots and rushed out in time to save Warrick, in order to leave it open for him to occasionally come back as a guest-star (it’s TV-land, after all), but that death scene looked pretty damn final to me, and in real life, it would be. To have him not be “dead” would be very cheesy and unworthy. I wonder if Gary Dourdan wanted such an absolute ending to his character, or if that was a producer idea.

So long, Warrick…and perhaps soon…goodbye CSI.

I guess it wasn’t just the heat. Baby-kitty’s left cheek by his nose/under his eye is swollen. I’m guessing it’s one of two things: tooth problem, or he ran his face into something. Like a door. Ever since we’ve moved here, he’s liked to sit in front of the front door, and a few times we’ve come close to smacking him with it - y’know how pets are and how that happens now and then. One of those times happened last week as I came home with groceries…but I was pretty certain the door didn’t hit his face, if it actually hit him at all. Of course, now I’m trying to go mentally back in time, wondering if the door really did hit him, and it took a few days for the swelling to be noticeable, or something.

Then again, he’s nearly 18 years old, and it could be a tooth abscessing. I’ve tried looking at his gums/teeth, and don’t see anything super red or inflamed, and none of his longer teeth seem loose or anything, so I dunno. His face might’ve been slowly swelling up the past few days for all I know, but I only noticed it Sun. morning, when it became large enough to make his face ‘look funny’.

A third possible is allergy or insect bite. He’s never been allergic to anything before, and being an indoor cat his environment doesn’t change much. Can’t think of anything in that regard. Insects…maybe a spider, but there aren’t lots of black widows like down in south San Jose and…well, who knows. I always do this…stay up all night 2nd guessing what ifs. Heh.

He still wants to/does eat/drink, just not very much at a time - the swelling seems to make it uncomfortable for him to use his tongue or something, so he doesn’t want to “lap” much. He doesn’t seem to be in any major pain, and I can touch his cheek and stuff and he doesn’t yowl or even seem to mind all that much, so it’s not super-touch sensitive. But if the swelling doesn’t go down he’ll eventually starve from not enough calories. Anyway, he’ll be going to the vet. He’s old, but I can at least get him some x-rays or something to see if it’s something fixable like a bad tooth.

He was doing pretty well for his age, up to this point. A little hip-arthritic, but those epileptic-like seizures he was having a while back largely stopped after putting him on a better wet-food diet, and his mood’s been good. Sigh. Poor Baby. I hope it’s just a tooth or bruise-swelling.

My fuzzy hero. If you’ve don’t understand the post title reference, you’ve never seen Underdog. Shame on you.

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Ye olde kitty has been wilting in the heat, so I occasionally wet a rag with water and dampen his fur a little. Sometimes I drape the rag over his back for a few minutes. Yes, he likes it. At first I was just going to post the original pics (below), but then during a burst of boredom I turned Baby into Undercat.

While I haven’t been recapping American Idol the past couple weeks, I have still been watching. Last Wed. night’s elimination round episode featured a performance by Fantasia. It was a pretty strange/freaky number with an awful song title (”Bore Me”). Fantasia bopped and gyrated all over the stage, and her three back-up singers gyrated behind her in a line, with their butts hanging out of their mini-mini-mini-dress outfits. I didn’t personally like it, but it was amusing…the best thing, tho, as every AI watcher knows already, is Simon’s visual reaction near the end. It was utterly priceless and absolutely hysterical.

I don’t know what he was thinking - that he hated the performance, or just that he was wondering how the sponsors were going to react to those almost-naked butts on the dancers, but oh, it was a classic Simon/American Idol moment. I can watch it over and over and still giggle each time.

If you’re a browser of YouTube, you can find videos of the full performance or some much briefer ones that consist mostly of just Simon’s reaction. But if you happen across this post months from now and those are all gone or have been yanked, I also made my own “Simon reacts” video clip.

Simon Cowell is about 60% of the reason I even watch American Idol. He rules.

Not long after I made Baby-kitty a simple, enclosed sleeping bed out of a cardboard filing box, I decided it wasn’t long enough. So I took an old printer box and the lid from the filing box to create a new bed. This took a bit more cutting work, to create the sloped “roof line” that gives it a sort of barn roof shape. The main box is heavier cardboard, which is also good. And as you can see below, Baby is as pleased by this hidey-bed as w/my earlier version. He can even stretch out lengthwise, somewhat, if he wants.

My biggest amusement (I’m easily amused…) is how Baby often initially crawls into the box and sits/lies down with his tail hanging out of the entrance and onto the floor. He’ll stay like that for a long time - I bet he thinks he’s “hidden” and forgets that he has a tail. After all, cats don’t have very big brains, y’know.