spugbrap’s blog

This is kinda rough, because I just took notes while watching. I haven’t blogged in a while, and these are kind of fun to write. I do have like 8 other entries partially done, though (and none of them are pop culture related!), and my toblog.txt file is getting huge. So hopefully I’ll get things rolling again soon.

Ramiele Malubay:
had trouble keeping up with the song from Heart.
Simon said he didn’t think it was as bad as Randy said
Lacey: that was awful.

Jason Castro:
sang in almost a whisper through his sting song, while playing his acoustic guitar.
he makes the goofiest faces while he’s singing, but did a really good job
today was his birthday
Randy: don’t know if it did anything for you for me vocally, but it was nice
Paula: you’re staying true to who you are
Lacey about Paula: why is she all glammed up tonight?
Simon: you’ve had 2 bad weeks, it’s time you start taking this a little more seriously. […] too laid back, too much in your own world.
Lacey loved the performance.

Sayesha Mercado:
born January 2, 1987
makes an annoying (but very baby cry
said she’s still a kid, likes to be goofy
song: “if I were your woman”
did a great job!
Randy: this is a good moment for you for me, this is the best I’ve ever heard you sing
Paula: this is the moment everyone will remember where Sayesha flipped it and became the dark horse that’s going to sail on through.
Lacey: what is with her [Paula’s] ugly gloves?
Simon: I don’t think the end part of the song was as good as Randy thought. I think there’s a limit on your vocal and I think that song stretched it.
Lacey: she did good.

Chikezie:
Born September 11, 1985.
started humming/trying to sing at age 3, according to his mom
Nigerian cultural music always playing in the house. very focused on faith and education.
uh-oh, started a little rough
I always want to like his performances, though. He’s got a charming smiling face and good attitude.
He had a bit of trouble switching from high notes into falsetto and back. I liked the very end when he went really low, though.
it’s interesting you’re following Sayesha with that other oldie but goody but she made it Randy: younger feeling, this wasn’t hip and cool .. kinda boring for me dawg.
Paula: I disagree, Randy, you are grown up, blah blah.
Simon: I think you sang it well, having said that I thought the performance was very cheesy, blah blah.
Lacey: he might be in danger today, and I like him.

Brooke White:
remembers getting her grandmother’s piano. her fingers just knew what to play. she could hear something and play it by ear.
Song: The Police: Every Breath You Take
stuttered on the first line, restarted.
played piano while she sang.
kinda boring for me.
I think she sang it well for the most part, though, and played piano well.
oh good drums came in finally. it needed drums sooner.
went a bit flat about 3/4 of the way through. monotone. every time there was repeating chanting “every .. you ..”, it got a bit boring.
Randy: just ok for me, it’s alright.
Paula: I enjoyed this performance so much more than last weeks. this is the great thing, we’ve always wanted contestants who are unique.
Lacey: are you seeing her gloves? they’re hideous!
Simon: if you just stayed you on the piano, it would have sounded much more cool, the minute the band came in it made it more old fashioned. as Randy said the first half, when you started, it was fantastic. but better than last week.
Lacey: [went into a whole rant on how she’s sick of Brooke’s pure and innocent persona. The music industry’s gonna chew her up.]

Michael Johns:
Born October 20, 1978 (Libra), in Australia..
Michael always competitive, got to smile, his mom said.
thought he was going to be a tennis player, till music found him.
Lacey: so distracted by Paula’s gloves.
played queen we will rock you/we are the champions
nice lights and sounds. guitar player awesome as always.
I think he did well.
Lacey: eh.. he’s good at singing queen though.
crowd wouldn’t stop cheering
Lacey: so distracted by Paula’s gloves, I hate them, I just want to jump through the screen and rip them off of her. I can’t help it!
Paula: if anyone said you haven’t found your right song, we can all shut our mouths on this one, this is your moment your shining moment, I’m so proud of you.
Simon: this is the first time with you I saw star potential tonight you just got it right, you looked like a front person, confident, performed well. For me it’s the only memorable performance of the night tonight

Carly Smithson:
Born in 1983 (Virgo) in Dublin, Ireland.
“Definitely a classic Virgo”
got her name from the radio.. her mom heard Carly Simon on the radio on the way to hospital.
As a child, had big spiral curly hair. She always wanted to be a pop star, like Madonna and Kylie Minogue.
mom always knew she’d never have a problem being an entertainer.
Song: Total Eclipse of the Heart
Backup vocal was distracting and abrupt, felt like they kept interrupting her.
Carly went lower when I expected her to go higher, but she pulled it off and although she did it more as the song went on, it sounded more natural after the first time.
She did pretty well.
Lacey said something about her having an ugly dress..
Randy: interesting song choice, didn’t like love it. just ok for me. not the right song for you.
Paula: I don’t know how you can say that […]
Randy: don’t like the whole rock theme, didn’t like the note at the end.
Paula: so admire about you is you can probably take every song I’m not crazy about and make me a believer and make me go buy it
Simon: something didn’t quite work. so tense, almost uptight during the performance, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I was going to enjoy it. part of the song you sang it quite well, I’m with Randy on this, something didn’t quite work and you’ve just gotta lighten up a bit.
Lacey pointed out her husband has tons of tattoos including his face.. He’s a tattoo artist.
She did well really, but the ugly dress was very distracting.

David Archuleta:
Born December 28, 1990 in Miami
Lacey and I are feeling so old tonight, hearing these birth years from back when we were in middle school, almost in high school when David was born!
He missed a few dances, might miss prom.
Ryan: Who would you take to prom? Lots of people are raising their hands.
mom big into dance, had David and his older sister (his “partner in crime”) dancing all the time, embarasssing.
Lacey: he grabbed his sister’s butt! hahaha
I didn’t recognize the song. the beginning had me worried but he’s really good.
Lacey: I like him
Randy: strange song choice for me, but guess what, if you can sing you can sing whatever. David’s got mad skills. very nice.
Paula: all of us were trying to figure that out.. you can sing the phone book and we’d fall in love with you.
Simon: didn’t like the performance at all, actually reminiscent of a theme park performance. [he’s got a point] .. sing when you’ve got like animated creatures with you and everyone joins in. I don’t think that’s you at all. I’d be amazed if you chose the song yourself because it’s not you.
Lacey: I like him, cute and jailbait

Kristy Lee Cook:
Born January 18, 1984 in Seattle.
parents said she came out smiling
loud as a kid, singing all the time. when she was 2-3, parents said.
remembers certain parts about being 2. when she was sitting in her bathing suit singing a song called Kristy that her dad used to sing.
singing in the car all the time. other kids said please make her shut up. parents let her sing.
God Bless the USA:
she kept shaking her head
doing her signature stance again. Lacey said not as bad as she usually does though.
Lacey: [singing] keep me here for one more week, this is just a suck-up song, I’ve almost been kicked off 10 times in a row.
Lacey: Come on, who chooses that? that’s called just trying to suck up for votes. [agreed!]
Randy: very nice performance from you. yeeeah. yeeeah.
Paula: very good choice for you. I’ve seen better performances from you, but your voice is sounding much stronger. Watch the pitch prolems, but you’re growing.
Simon: your best performance by a mile, I think. [she cheered and jumped around] Most clever song choice I’ve heard in years, I’ve gotta tell you. brilliant writer, brilliant song, overall it was a good performance and that’s going to keep you in the competition.
Lacey: Sing about America = still be here next week.

Lacey: Oh, I forgot about my favorite one!

David Cook:
December 20, 1982 (“barely Sagittarius”)
funny baby picture.
in early pictures, “massive skull”, “Supervillain from Marvel comics or something.”
family put everything funny on him and took photos.
His mom: he got his first guitar when he was 2. he’d stand in the middle of the bed with sunglasses, strum guitar because he was a rockstar.
music was always readily available to him but never forced on him.
He did a rock spin on Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean.
Lacey: that was awesome. I like Michael Jackson remakes–his songs do really well made into rocks songs. That was friggin awesome! But they’re gonna hate it.
Randy: most original, most bold we’ve ever had. […] that joint you just did, you might be the one to win the hole lot. blazing molten hot baby!
Paula: I’m blown away, cant sit down, gotta tell you how smart you are, how brave you are, how willing to stretch the boundaries.
Lacey: [to Paula] Put your hands down, the gloves are so distracting. I just want to rip them off of her and kick her in the face for wearing them!
Simon: insane or amazing, have to tell you it was amazing.
Lacey: That was friggin awesome! That was hot.

Tonight, Lacey and I watched the American Idol Season 7 Top 20 Results Show after our Tivo had finished recording the whole thing. I took a bunch of notes while watching, including some of Lacey’s comments, then went back afterwards and put it into sentences and paragraphs. So, this isn’t quite one of my “notes” blog entries, but I do kind of switch around between talking about things in the present and past tenses. This is my first time using the term “live blogging“, but I believe I’m using it correctly.

Early in the episode, after Ryan was done yakking with Paula about how it must be hard to relinquish judgement duties to America, he addressed Simon’s moose antler thing. Paula and Randy claimed to not know what he was talking about, but Simon said something like, “I believe I know what you’re referring to”.

Ryan then proceeded to have 3 photos put up on the big screen (the first one looked very familiar! (ok, theirs was higher quality and didn’t have glare and a TV screen border, but it was totally the same shot! (of course, he was doing that hand thing all night, on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, so it wouldn’t be hard to capture a photo that looked the same!))), one at a time, showing Simon’s silly hand signal thing. Ryan asked if it was some sort of code, and Simon said yes, “it’s a code.” Then Paula held onto Simon’s hand, while he kept talking to Ryan, continuing with “it’s a secret code, ryan, which i’ll explain to you.” But Paula kept holding onto his hand, so Simon ended up saying, “There is a gesture I could give you, but I won’t.” Then they moved on, without any further explanation. Hmpf!

Moving on, they went into the typical performance with all of the contestants singing together. It was positively dreadful, to be quite honest with you! :)

Ryan went through several of the guys, saying who was safe. Then he got down to Jason Yeager (Vampire Boy) and that annoying [chick] Danny Noriega (who I wish would go away, but who keeps actually singing pretty well). Bye-bye Vampire Boy…

Make him cry, then make him sing. Yay, we can always look forward to Thursdays to hear the worst songs from Tuesday and Wednesday performed again (for the last time) by the contestants who America voted off! Lacey and I really wish they’d have the BEST singers perform again, rather than the ones that America worked so hard (dialing/texting/etc) to get rid of.

Next Ryan went to the girls, and let several of them sit down, “safe.” The two left standing were Amanda “Rock & Roll Nurse” Overmyer and Alexandréa Lushington. To me, having only watched part of last night’s Top 10 Girls episode, the choice was clear. Amanda should go. I heard her performance, and wanted to like her (I kinda liked her so far this season because she was different from the rest, even though her vocals were not the best), but she just butchered that song last night. I don’t know if I heard Alexandréa or not, but since I didn’t like any of the performances that I *did* hear from the girls, I think it’s safe to assume that she sucked, too. Apparently, America agreed with that assumption, because Alexandréa’s going home.

Amanda is safe, somehow. I’m guessing it has to do with the “controversy” that’s suddenly coming into the media’s pincers; oh wait, make that *two* controversies involving Amanda Overmyer. Something about her criminal record being pretty substantial already, including a major DUI a couple years ago. The other thing is something about nude photos that are “surfacing soon” or something. I dunno. I don’t really care. This show’s supposed to be about the *singing* and *performing*, not about background checks. This show has to have at least a few “controversies” every season, apparently. I guess it pays the bills, though, for American Idol and for media companies everywhere. Whatever.

Thanks, Lacey, for fast-forwarding through both of those “loser” performances! There’s just no reason for those.

Next Ryan went through the remaining girls who hadn’t yet been told to sit down, stand up, or go home. He narrowed it down to two, as usual: Kady Malloy and Alaina Whitaker. It didn’t make any difference to me. They all sucked last night, from what I heard (and what I’ve been told by a couple people who watched it (and those people also didn’t like last weeks’ performances by the girls either)).

Lacey thought the Britney impersonator (Kady) would/should go home, but it’s Alaina instead. Oh good, she’s crying so hard and facing away from the camera, and actually whimpered “I can’t sing!” Finally, maybe we won’t have to hear a bad performance “one last time.”

Ugh, now Ryan turned her around for the closeup, and gave her a pep talk. Then he had the judges talk to her, the audience clap for her, and the rest of the performers got up on stage with her. So, she’s singing it again. Lacey was kind enough to fast forward through ALL of that crap, so I’m just going by what I saw flashing by at high speed. :)

Oh boy, another guilt-fest, Idol Gives Back is happening again. “Bigger and better than last year,” Ryan says (although, Ryan also keeps saying that this is the best group of singers the show has ever had, which couldn’t be further from the truth!).

Charity is great, and we actually did end up donating some money to them last year, after I spent a good 10+ hours researching their charitable organization, its philosophies, info on all of the charities that it gives to, etc. But it really got annoying watching the same footage of poor, hungry people in Africa who would supposedly benefit in amazing ways with my small donation. I’m still skeptical, because I’ll bet there’s quite a bit of overhead in this charity since it, but it helped us feel less guilty as they continued trying to make everyone cry in every episode.

You know what I kept thinking would be a nice charitable thing to do? If AT&T would take all of the text-messaging fees from one episode, and donate that money to charity, I’ll bet they’d end up donating more than all the people who respond to any one Idol Gives Back tearjerking segment. Millions of dollars. I think AT&T (or was it Cingular last year? I dunno) donated something piddly like $5 mil or something last year, while they were sitting there racking up boatloads of cash from every episode.

Ok Robbie Carrico’s gone. Lacey called it: which two guys would be standing there waiting to hear who was getting the axe. She was totally right. I thought Robbie would be sticking around, though, for “controversy”’s sake (the media seems to be all excited and shocked about the fact that he might wear a wig or something. oh no!). Lacey said he wears his do rag like a woman–apparently guys are supposed to tuck in the flap in the back. I’ll take her word on that.

Lacey’s last comment to me, before she went to bed, was “Gosh, the two worst singers in the entire competition are still there, which friggin sucks!” I’m not quite sure which two she was referring to, because there are so many bad ones to choose from!

It doesn’t matter too much, though, if David Archuleta can consistently do as well as he did on Tuesday, then none of the others stand a chance!

I’m not going to go into detail about last night’s episode. Just going to post a few observations and make fun of a couple people. :)

What was up with Simon having his hand up by his head like 1 moose antler all night? Lacey and I kept seeing it and cracking up, and both kept thinking “Nanu, nanu”. We realize that the hand sign was different, seeing Simon Cowell doing that over and over reminded us of Robin Williams’ quirky behavior on Mork and Mindy.

Next we come to the boy that Jena and Lacey have been referring to as “Vampire Boy” all season: Jason Yeager. I didn’t understand why, so Lacey tried to show me last night. She said he had very pointy canine teeth, but I kept watching and could not see what she was talking about–until she paused it at just the right time:

Don’t see the sharp, pointy fang? How about a closeup?

I was sold at this point. That tooth is a bit pointier and sharper than normal, and the one next to it (towards the back) looks a bit fang-like as well. But Lacey is good with the remote. Real good. She managed to pause it at just the right time again, a minute or so later, so we could check out the other side of his mouth:

…and another closeup, if you’re not convinced:

Okay, enough about Vampire Boy. If I remember correctly, his performance was “just aiight for me, dawg.” Most of them have been that way, so far this season, and last night was no different.

Our next victim is the boy who Lacey and Jena have nicknamed “Man Cuddy” (or something like that), after Lisa Cuddy on House, M.D. (one of our favorite TV shows). I have to agree, there is some resemblance.

I was going to link to a picture of Cuddy to prove this point, but when I looked at their pictures side-by-side I didn’t really see it. But from memory, if you’re a fan of House, you may see a younger, more masculine version of Cuddy in the following 4 pics of Jason Castro:

Lacey thinks Cuddy’s much cuter as a guy. She liked his performance last night, too. I was fine with it, but not blown away.

The kid at the end, though (David Archuleta)–the one who sang John Lennon’s Imagine–he was definitely the best of the night and maybe even the season so far. If I wasn’t confident that he’ll get a TON of votes, I would have voted for him (haven’t voted yet this season, probably won’t for a while still).

I got an email from DirecTV recently, telling me that prices are going up. They linked to a PDF with new pricing info. It looks like the price of just about every subscription plan/feature they offer is going up by $2-5/month. It was not customized for me, though–it was very generic.

To find out how much my own rates were going to increase, I had to login to my account on directv.com. When I got there, though, I had a very hard time figuring out exactly what my current plan is, and how much I’m currently paying for it.

See, the problem is that I signed up with my bank to receive e-bills from most of my billers, including DirecTV. For some reason, because I usually like to view and pay all of my bills from one central location (my bank’s website), DirecTV will not allow me to view any of my bills–past or present–on directv.com.Here’s what I got when I tried to view a bill (to see which subcription package/rate plan I’ve been on for the past few years):

Our records show you are signed up to view your DIRECTV bill through your financial institution, or another bill paying web site, and not through directv.com. Because the DIRECTV online bill view service allows you to view your bill at only one web site, you are unable to view your bill at directv.com.


To view your bill here instead, you must first discontinue the online bill view you set up at your other bill paying website, by following the instructions they provide. Once de-enrolled from their bill view feature, it may take up to 30 days before you can view your bill statement at directv.com.


In the meantime, you still have access to all other directv.com account functions, including making an immediate, one-time check or credit card payment. Thank you.To ensure the privacy of your personal information, this message will no longer appear once you close the pop-up browser window.

I don’t understand the point of preventing me from viewing my bill from multiple locations. I encountered this same odd behavior with Verizon in the past. Does anybody know why they would do this? I could understand limiting users to having monthly e-bills sent to only one bank. But I think you should always be able to view your account information, including at least the most recent bill, on the company’s site, itself.

To make matters worse, it can take a month or two to get them to start sending e-bills to a bank, and then it can take a month to stop them from sending e-bills to that bank. That huge delay puzzles me, as well. Online customer account management and B2B communication should be instantaneous. 30 days is worse than snail mail! Couldn’t DirecTV print out my bill, send it to my bank via horseback mail carrier, and have someone at my bank type the bill into their system in less than 30 days? Ugh!

Anyways, my rate increase is about 5.5%. Oh well, not like I have much choice. It’s Comcast or DirecTV, here, and I’m happy with my DirecTV DVR that I got before their agreement with Tivo ended. I tried Comcast cable for a while, last year, but I couldn’t deal with the horrible Scientific Atlanta DVR that came with that.

**UPDATE BEFORE POSTING**Okay, I’ve been meaning to blog about this for several weeks, now. I logged into my account at directv.com, a few minutes ago, and I was able to see the name and price of my subscription plan right at the top of the main Account Details page, in a section called “Activity Since Last Bill.”

Click the above link to see the expanded Activity Since Last Bill section from my directv.com Account Details page.

I’m not sure if I just didn’t notice/find this link when I was looking for it, a few weeks ago, or if they’ve since made some changes to their website. I think I’m seeing a lot more DHTML/AJAX going on, so I’m thinking they made some UI improvements recently.

Unfortunately, the “View Bills” link still takes me to that page quoted above, where they tell me that I can’t view my bill on their site since I signed up to be able to receive e-bills on my bank’s site. Hmpf.

First of all, we were confused as to how it was a “Grand Finale”, when last week they had the top 4 men and 4 women listed as contenders to win the competition. Then, suddenly they’ve narrowed it down to 2 men and 2 women to compete in what was basically just a regular episode (no new events or anything, just more of the same) with lots of extra flash backs to earlier footage, and extra warm and fuzzy stuff like, “This is my family in my small home town. Look how everyone in the town is loving and supporting me! Look how cute my kids are! I want to win for my dead family member or the kids that look up to me as a role model!”. Fluffy.

Anyways, here are my notes from the American Gladiators 2008 Grand Finale episode from February 18. Like last time, this is not a very polished blog entry, just a bunch of notes.
I wish they would stop advertising Knight Rider *constantly*. Lacey and I were looking forward to watching that, but unfortunately didn’t record it. Luckily, they’re showing it again next week, so the Tivo’s set to record it then. We were both surprised to see that it’s a movie, though. When they first advertised it, during one of the early American Gladiators episodes, we thought it was going to be a series.

Women contenders: Monica and Shanay
Shanay should have been disqualified for kneeling down the whole time in Joust. She did that last time as well. Not fair.
Evan vs Titan in Joust: 2 hits and Evan was in the water.
Alex vs Titan in Joust: holy crap, Hulk said there’s a huge size difference up there and he’s not kidding! Seeing them next to each other it’s like a toddler next to his father.
Titan kneeled down both times, and he had some serious pushing power behind his push.
Pyramid: announcer said “Both contenders were completely dominated […] Monica spent more time on her back than on her feet”
Toa: “My volcano, my volcano!”
Mayhem: “Now what, I’m king tut, yeah!”
The Wall:
Monica started out quick, and made it up for 10, despite some resistance from Siren near the top.
Shanay kept up pretty well, and ended up getting 5 points for hanging on up near the top when Venom was pulling on her foot
Evan: This guy is like a spider monkey. Ridiculously fast climber. 10 points, well deserved.
Militia tried to pull Alex down but couldn’t. pulled something off his shoe though.
Alex made it up for 5 points.
Ugh, there’s the Subway Replay. I kept wondering when that was coming. They kept using the words “Fueled up” throughout the episode, so I kept expecting the annoying “Fueled up and powered on by Subway” thing.
Evan has a 19 point lead over Alex going into the Eliminator. 9.5 second head start. Evan had the fastest time in Eliminator all season so far, so that 9.5 seconds might seal the deal for him.
announcer: “Both these contenders have performed beautifully throughout this competition” [hmm. you mean all TWO episodes??]
Evan breaks his previous Eliminator record time.. 1:19ish? Something like that.
Alex backflipped off the platform onto the mats at the end. We were kinda rooting for him because he’s a school teacher setting a good example for students, and trying to earn money for the wrestling team he coaches. Also because he’s kinda goofy, and that’s endearing. :)
Sounded like he said “I’d like to thank everyone for turning me on” but he said “cheering me on”.
After fast forwarding through the commercials, the first sentence I heard sounded like “penis was all hard” but really it said “Venus was all heart” or something.
Monica’s 3.5 second lead going into the Eliminator barely got her up the first wall.
Did Shanay belly flop into the flaming pool? definitely made a long splash and took longer than she should have to
30 foot cargo net climb - Shanay caught up.
Both fell off hand bike right away–good plan.
Monica barely made it to the top of the Travelator, but she did. We were glad–she was our pick for the women in this finale.
Her husband jumped down onto her when she was laying on the mats after the Eliminator. her daughters hopped on too.

So, Evan and Monica each won $100,000, a Toyota Sequoia, and they will join the ranks of the gladiators next season.
Have you seen how HUGE and muscular the existing team of gladiators is? These two had better start seriously hitting the HGH gym if they’re going to be gladiators next season!

Lacey pointed out that they should definitely have Evan do the rock wall, though. The contenders won’t stand a chance!