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American Idol – Two Remain
Wanda and I watched Idol this week. It was very good, as the top three singers were all very talented:
- David Cook – Even though Simon picked a strange song for him, I thought he did pretty well considering. He second and third songs weren’t that good in my opinion. Wanda theorized he might be throwing his performance a bit to avoid the terms of 19 Management in favor of his own deal.
- David Archuleta – I thought “And So It Goes” was his best song of the three, though I also enjoyed “With You.” His performance of “Longer” wasn’t impressive to me. Overall, I thought it was one of his weaker days, however, I put him above Cook on Tuesday.
- Sayesha Mercado – She’s had some good ones in the past, but I thought she was historically the weakest of the three. On Tuesday, however, I thought she was fantastic. I thought she performed all three songs very well despite criticism from the judges. Even though I’ve always been a huge fan of the two Davids, she was my top pick for Tuesday night. It seems that America did not agree with me, however.
In the end, it will be the two David’s next week. It should be a good show. I think David Cook may end up being the victor.
Idol Season 7
It’s been a pretty good season this year. Lots of talent from both the guys and gals. It’s a little less clear to me this year who will be on top, unlike last year. I was a little surprised to see Chikezie go so soon, however, he hasn’t been on the top of his game lately. Early on in the competition, I though he was a good candidate to win, but now that the season has progressed, he has lost some of his flare.
My favorites this year are David Archuleta and David Cook. Next is Brooke White, with Ramiele Malubay and Carly Smithson tied for 3rd. In addition to some of my favorites, Wanda fancies Michael Johns. He hasn’t impressed me as much as the others, though his performance of “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions” was excellent.
As for a couple of contestants that I could go without – Kristy Lee Cook and Jason Castro. I will give props to Kristy for her performance of “God Bless the USA”. That was the only performance of hers that I really liked.
Black Friday 2007
I’m usually more excited for Black Friday deals, but there wasn’t much we were interested in this year. We’ve been wanting to replace the TV downstairs for awhile, and I’ve been wanting a Tivo for the bedroom (much to Wanda’s disapproval). However, we weren’t planning on spending the money just yet, since Wanda had just gotten a new Canon PowerShot G9 for her birthday (which is an awesome camera, by the way).
While paging through the ads, I found an HP 42″ LCD HDTV for a reasonable price. We were a little nervous since HP isn’t well-known for making televisions, however, it turned out to be a great TV. Good picture, easy menu interface, good price. I like the TV better than our 52″ DLP upstairs, which we paid twice as much for two years ago.
It was probably a naughty purchase, but we’ve had the 27″ tube downstairs for quite awhile, and it was difficult to read the Media Center menus on it. We might as well enjoy living while we don’t have kids, right?!
Dog Whisperer
I’ve been addicted to a show on the National Geographic Channel lately – The Dog Whisperer with Caesar Millan. There was a hilarious parody of Millan on a recent South Park episode I saw, which piqued my curiosity. I started recording the show on NGC and have become addicted. I’m not really sure why, since I dislike dogs. I think the psychological aspect of the show is interesting, though. Caesar runs a dog psychology center in Los Angeles. Check it out, especially if you own a dog.
I wonder if Caesar would be willing to work with cats…
American Idol 6.2
Wow, I’m shocked. Although Blake has been my recent favorite, I’m surprised that Melinda was dropped tonight. I really thought that it would come down to Melinda and Jordin. I think Jordin will take the crown, but I’d rather buy Blake’s album.
May 16th, 2007 
music, Television 
Tags: american idol, Entertainment & Media, music, Television, more... American Idol 6 – Four remaining
Call me a fair-weather Idol fan this season. I enjoyed the prelims, got bored with the early eliminations, and got interested again beginning last week. Blake has been my favorite (and still is), although I doubt that he will win. I previously thought that Melinda Doolittle would win hands down, but Jordin Sparks blew me away tonight. She easily had the best performances.
Prior to this week, I thought the final two would be Melinda and LaKisha. After tonight, I have no doubt in my mind that it will be between Melinda and Jordin.
May 8th, 2007
music, Television Tags: american idol, Entertainment & Media, music, Television, more... American Codger
American Idol just hasn’t been as entertaining this year. I think it’s mostly due to the fact that they can’t find artists and music selections that were popular sometime after the invention of the phonograph. Tony Bennett? I wasn’t terribly fond of Diana Ross week either. Next week, the collective works of Burt Bacharach.
New Media Center, Windows Vista
I decided to build a new Media Center because our old one (Hewlett Packard) was sucking air. I’ve been slowly buying the parts over the last several months as I saw things on sale. The new one is pretty swank – A terabyte of storage (4x250MB SATA2 drives), 2 GB of RAM, three HDTV tuners, dual-core AMD 64 4800+, a sweet Asus motherboard, and Windows Vista Ultimate (yes, we bought a legal copy). It rocks, and we finally get HD channels on it. It’s been awhile since I built a new machine (I’m married with mortgage now), but I had forgotten how fun it is. 
Vista is taking a bit to get used to, and I’m not sure I like the new Media Center interface as much. However, as with any new OS, I’m sure I’ll get used to it and it will be old hat in a couple of months. I’ve found a fair amount of annoyances with it, but again, I’m sure I’ll get used to it. All-in-all, Vista runs very smoothly on the new machine (it really makes our old Media Center look pathetic).
Idol 5
I watched Idol tonight. I thought most of the boys were somewhat weak tonight, but there were a few shining stars. Chris Daughtry (Vin Diesel) won the night, hands down. Yamin (underbite) and Makar (Fred Savage) were decent too. Covais, although seemingly a nice guy, is way overrated. Radford (Berry Manilow), although pretty, is too narrow in genre. “Bucky” is just a hillbilly. It is amazing to me that someone who can’t speak English well can be considered an “Idol” finalist.
New TV
I’ve been wanting to buy a new TV for several years. We finally went out and bought a 50″ Sony Grand Wega DLP HDTV this weekend, as our big Christmas present. It’s simply amazing. I was surprised to find it only weighed 72lbs! When I picked up the box, I thought the TV was missing because it was so light. I’ve had tube units half the size that weighed as much. The picture is quite impressive, and it has a really nice zoom feature that shows 4:3 video in wide-screen, and it actually looks good! We did a channel scan and it even found some local HDTV content. You can actually see the picture well from very acute angles. It’s the first new TV I’ve had in 7 years.
Now all I need to do is hook our DVD into the TV through the component video ports so I can get progressive scan, and maybe invest in some HDTV programming, the wife permitting, of course. For now, we have it in the entertainment center upstairs because we don’t have anything to set it on downstairs. Once we do, I’ll be able to hook it into my receiver and get some media center with Bose speaker goodness.
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