Be careful who you love

Another yummy performance on American Idol by David Cook. Mind you, the judges didn't seem to realize David himself didn't come up with this arrangement, that it was the Most Fabulous Amazingly Talented Chris Cornell (from Seattle, I might add) who originally came up with this crazy acoustic version of Billie Jean.

But all in all, it was a riveting performance. Again. This dude with the potato head rocks!



Not a great version of the video, but I didn't want you to have to sit through the usual AI fluff bits that go around the song. Again, we give thanks to Tivo so we don't waste our entire lives away...

And oddly enough, this song had been on my mind for the past week or so. I have the 25th Anniversary Edition of Thriller CD in my car. I practically wore out the record in 1983 on my Fisher Price record player, and was "thrilled" to see they were releasing a new version this year for the anniversary, since we didn't have it on CD.

I'm stunned that 25 years later, my favorites still stand out. "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" are just as rockin as they were when I was 8. Now that's impressive. Also more impressive was that just a few years ago, I found out it was Eddie Van Halen playing guitar on "Beat It". So even at the age of 8, I recognized great rock music!

I still can't get over the power of music to make me happy and remind me of old times (good and bad). I hope I never have to live without it. I think it's probably genetic because my parents both love music (of course, it's totally different music) and even they travel to see their favorite performers live. It's just that their favorites aren't Finnish heavy metal bands!

Which reminds me, the concert calendar for May and June is filling up - 4 shows in about 5 weeks! Dream Theater in Seattle, Nightwish in Las Vegas, Rush at the Gorge, and Iron Maiden in Seattle. I am so totally stoked about going to the Gorge. It's a legendary concert venue and despite living in Seattle for 8 of my 30-odd years, I've never been there. I can't wait. And of course, I'll report back!

What concerts are you attending this year?

You better hide your heart

Yet another productive Sunday. TJ has now picked up on Sunday being my day to unclutter and tidy, and says that I get crazy. There's some truth to that - I am a person who gets stressed when faced with piles of disorganized STUFF, and sometimes it's a losing battle around here. For both of us. Really, I'm not pointing fingers.

Actually, it's ALL of us here that leave stuff lying around everywhere. I picked up 8 dog toys from the kitchen. 8!!
When we get home from work on weekdays, the first thing we do is feed the pups. Of course, the minute we get home, the dogs are superexcited to see us. I mean, it's been 8 or 9 whole HOURS since they saw us.

And yeah, I'll admit it, that's one of the main reasons to have a dog. It's awesome to have someone who's so happy to see you every time you come back to the house, even from the grocery store or getting the mail.

Well, in this excited state, Spike always grabs the nearest toy, races up the stairs and flings it at the container that holds the dog food. Sometimes he flings it into the container, or into his bowl, and once, into the water bowl. Nice shot, Spikeman! And of course, he's so cute, that we don't tell him NOT to do this.

So at the end of the week we have approximately 7 dog toys hanging out by the feeding area. And every Sunday I take those dog toys back downstairs to their basket, the Designated Dog Toy Storage Container. This week it was Mailman, Starman, One Footed Blue Squeaker, Purple Devil Squeaker and three tennis balls.

I love my puppies.

They buy me all these ices

So I'm pretty stoked because tomorrow I'll be attending a gem show in Tacoma. Since my mom is doing a bunch of stone shopping for me in India, I'm not planning to buy much, but just wanted to see what one of these shows is like. I can't imagine the Tacoma Dome filled with jewelry component vendors. It should be interesting, at any rate.

And at work, I filled out a bracket for the NCAA tournament. I'm not a sports fan, really, but I LOVE the mathematical aspect, and of course, the gambling aspect of picking the winners. There's something nice and neat about the bracket. And of course the validation I get when I'm right. I've picked 24 out of 32 games so far, including a few upsets. I'm pretty pleased with that given my lack of knowledge in general...
I did take some feedback from TJ (which has proved to be both good and bad), but I'm 4th out of 10 in our office tournament right now. Go Villanova Villains!! Yes, I know they're really the Wildcats, but really, shouldn't the Villanova team be the Villains? Come on now.

And can I get an amen for how glad I am it's Friday? Woot. I'm actually planning to get back to being crafty this weekend, and you know, MAKE STUFF. Yay.

You don't know how lucky you are

I am half watching the American Idol results show. But last night's performance show was pretty bad, so I don't have a lot of interest in it.

Is Kristy Lee Cook finally going home? She's so freakin' boring. Cute, but boring.

All I want to see is David Cook, Brooke White, and Chikezie stick around. I LOVED Chikezie's crazy country thing last night. I think it's so awesome that he can sing all kinds of music - R&B, rock and country. And he seems perfectly comfortable with all of it. And dang, he's good.

And what's up with the judges pimping David Archuleta so much? I nearly fell asleep during his song last night.

Yay, Brooke is safe. So 1/3 isn't bad. And now, I have run out of Tivo buffer. And no one should have to watch AI in real time.

Did I mention how awesome my husband is? I was whining about really wanting a diet Coke at dinner time today (I don't buy it at home since I drink it during the work day) and when he came back from the gym just now, he brought me a diet coke. It's the little things that count, I tell you. I'm a lucky girl.

And you know what else? Making a list of my top priorities has really made me refocus and pick out what's important. I feel a lot calmer, and less frantic about all I "have" to do.

Yay, KLC is in the bottom 3. Maybe she'll finally go home. I suppose I could just ask the Internet, since this show already ran on the East Coast 3 hours ago...

So is anyone else out there watching AI7? Who do you like at this point in the game?

That's what dreams are made of

I love the movie "Rock Star" with Marky Mark and Jennifer Aniston. The basic story is about a guy who is the ultimate fan of a heavy metal band, and gets invited to replace their lead singer. A la Judas Priest, who did something similar in the 90s.

Life imitates art again. Journey got a new lead singer in 2007. Which isn't that remarkable since they've had a few since Steve Perry left ages ago. The crazy thing is that they found their singer on YouTube, singing Journey covers in a cheesy hotel band. In the Phillipines. Seriously. I thought my friend Dave was totally making this up when he told me the story.

And then he sent me this link:



Watch it. Seriously. Take in the cheesy hotel band, the Tagalog chatter at the beginning of the song. And then this guy starts singing and it's unreal how much he sounds like Steve Perry. How is it possible that he sings with an American accent? Amazing.

The even more remarkable thing is that Arnel Pineda has been a musician for a long time, and grew up really, really poor, if you believe Wikipedia. And one day Neil Schon from Journey saw this video and emailed the guy who posted it to get Arnel's contact info so he could convince him to audition for Journey. And then they picked him. Crazy.

They're going on tour this summer, and I *so* plan to be there if they come to Seattle. Woot!