By the way, last night we watched 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl (love her!!) and James Marsden (what a hottie!!) It was a lot of fun. The premise is a little out there, but everyone did a really good job.
It was ... interesting. The main character is Jeff Talbot, a former FBI agent who now works as an antique picker. He gets caught up in a murder at at an antiques festival on Mackinac Island, Michigan.
The story was all right. I had a little trouble with the pacing (an entire 5-course dinner began and ended in 5 paragraphs in one part of the book, while the four hours after the discovery of the body seemed to take around 40+ pages). Also, certain "conversations" in the book are missing key parts; for example, Jeff meets 3 elderly Southern ladies who formally introduce themselves to him but he never seems to introduce himself.
But all in all, it was a good story, with interesting characters. I might read another, if I come across it.
Then we came back home and just spent the day relaxing until it was time to get ready for the wedding. Mom had provided me the address for the church earlier in the week, and I'd printed out the directions from MapQuest. When we headed out, things looked really promising.
Until we couldn't find the church.
We drove around a little more, trying to identify the street numbers. But still no luck.
By the time the ceremony was supposed to start, we decided to give it up. So since we were dressed up, we went to a fancy restaurant for an early seafood dinner: McCormick & Schmick's.
After dinner, we came back home, and I checked the Web site to see where things went wrong. And they didn't. Well, MapQuest said to turn one way, which turned out to be the wrong way. Sure enough, Google and Yahoo maps both say that we should have kept on going straight where MapQuest said to take a left.
So the moral of the story is ... make sure at least 2 of the directions Web sites agree before embarking on a trip somewhere. Don't just rely on one alone.
It is so nice to have a decent selection of watches to choose from again!
After I was done with that, I walked around the outdoor shopping center for a while. I partook of some high-end cupcakes from Sprinkles Beverly Hills. Fortunately, they were out of Red Velvet. (I would seriously maim someone to get the last one of those.) So I opted for Lemon Coconut. Delicious!
When Mom was done getting her hair done, we headed out to NorthPark to kill some time while we waited to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The movie was good; escapist fun, with cute little Shia LeBeouf (although he's not so little anymore). Granted, you have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit, but it was still fun.
Afterwards, we drove back home and had dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant that's just a few blocks away. Wonderful!
Tomorrow evening we have a wedding to go to, but the daytime adventures are still up in the air.
But since moving to the new place -- 2 months ago -- I've managed to keep it much cleaner and I'm a lot closer to things. And I wanted my mom to see the new place, too. So she's here.
The weekend was originally supposed to start today since she had to come up to Dallas to get her hair done. But she got an invitation to a special 5-course dinner and wine-tasting at a high-end restaurant we've been to previously. So she came up last night for that dinner. And it was wonderful.
The courses were:
- Lightly grilled warm lobster "salad", green apple cru, lemon marmalade, tropical fruits & extra virgin olive oil (served with LeNude "Unoaked" Chardonnay)
- Pan roasted sweetbreads, cranberry glaze, Morel-Honshimeji ragout, Porcini scented pangratto (served with Charbono)
- Slow roasted & lightly grilled duck breast & quail, De Puy lentil agnolotti, red wine caramel with laurel & white peppercorns (served with Zinfandel)
- Seared venison loin, ricotta gniocchi, red fruit-juniper compote (served with Petite Sirah)
- Creme brulee cotta cubes with fresh vanilla bean, mandarin sorbet, burnt sugar-ginger toffee (served with Muscat Canelli)
But the best course was the duck/quail course.
Anyway, it was a great night.
My mother was systematically reading the Roderick Alleyn mysteries by Ngaio Marsh -- a fave author of a good friend's (right,
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
coneycat?) -- in chronological order. For the most part she'd been getting audiobook versions from Amazon, but there were a number of titles that she wasn't able to find in that format. And she knew I had the complete set of 32 novels (which I'd worked for years and years to collect -- all before my 18th birthday!).So while locating the titles she needed, I came across a book I'd purchased (I think) in the early 1990s. The Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh by Ngaio Marsh (edited by Douglas Greene). I had never read it, but I let my mom read it over Christmas. And since a lot of my unread books were still packed up as of last Friday, I pulled it out to read.
Having just finished it today, I must say that it is truly interesting. It includes a couple of essays (character studies) Dame Marsh wrote about Roderick Alleyn and his wife Troy. Also, there are several short stories with Alleyn as well as a few other mystery stories.
So,
coneycat, have you ever read this book? If not, you might try tracking down a copy of it.Miss Information is annoyed by TV guy
I think I've experienced some people like that. Although not nearly as persistent.
Just so you know, I am LOVING the new place! LOVING IT!!! Of course, I've got boxes that desperately need unpacking (12+ file boxes filled with books, plus all sorts of the other things). The good thing is that I've now got some good, sturdy bookcases on which I should be able to get most of the books out of boxes -- something I was never able to do in the 9 years I lived in the old place.
And I've already run one load of clothes in the lovely washer/dryer, and that was fantastic, let me tell you! And I discovered another boon to having those machines in the apartment. The other day during my failed attempt at public transportation, I got soaking wet from the knees down. (Umbrellas are great, but obviously there's a slight limitation to their effectiveness in a downpour.) So I stripped off the clothes and tossed them in the dryer. Problem solved!
So are there any other good things about the new place? Well, yes. And no.
Here's the thing -- I've been living in the new place for not quite a week now. And I've already eaten at 3 of the "restaurant-type places" that are within a 2-block radius (i.e., walking distance!!!). I've been to the original Gloria's (where I've eaten previously, but only at their Lemmon Avenue location), Vitto Italian, and Chan Thai. OMG, it's all so wonderful!!!!
And that's only a sampling of what's available!
So. How do you think my diet will survive?
I decided to do this so that I didn't feel so rushed by the end of next week, when the major portion of the move happens. And I've been judiciously -- sometime cruelly -- weeding things around here. It may have been a mistake, but I finally got rid of a lot of the stuff I'd kept from my senior year of high school and the first couple of years of my undergraduate education. I mean let's face it -- I haven't touched the stuff in the last 9 years and it's been almost 20 since the most recent items were stored away.
I did look at all of it, and for many things my immediate reaction was "WTF is this?!" So anything that got that reaction was immediately trashed. The rest? I carefully reviewed and kept a few select items. Brief, solitary mementos that do not take up a lot of space. So I do feel good.
But in the course of going through a lot of this stuff, I did make some interesting discoveries. A letter from my uncle written about a month after I first started college 22 years ago (and he rarely wrote anything!). My transcribed trip diary from my first trip to Germany 22 years ago. ...
A printout of ATHSRIO. Tell me,
coneycat, what should I do with that?OH! And something else that I thought you might be interested in,
coneycat! Sheet music for the piano for ... **drum roll, please** ... "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". That is one of "your songs", isn't it?Anyway, just thought I'd take a break. I guess I should get back to it. **SIGH**
David Archuletta absolutely blew me away! Converting a Broadway tune (for a female singer) into a pop tune (for a male singer) was a stroke of genius. He accomplished exactly what Mr. Cowell always talks about: take a song and make it contemporary. (But I was completely baffled (!) when Simon didn't like it.)
Carly and Syesha were both pretty damn good. And David Cook did OK. It was indeed a surprise that he didn't make his song choice fit his usual style, but it still didn't really fit him.
The only real duds of the night were Jason and Brooke. Brooke just didn't look or sound very comfortable, but her stopping and restarting the song worked in her favor. And Jason's choice of song was just darn weird!!!
But Carly and Syesha were in the bottom two, and Carly went home. I'm upset about it, but not as much as I would be if there were a really bad performer who kept sticking around long after he/she should. Everyone in there right now is good, and I will be happy with any of them that can make it to the finale and sing that wretched song that's being written by someone right now.
Well, on to next week with Neil Diamond. Yea?
First we got rid of the odious and sanctimonious Natalie (Nata-liar!) on Big Brother. And, boy, did I ever dance a little jig when she got the boot! I know, I know. I'm not usually a vindicitve, hateful person. But when you see someone who talks all the time about being a good Christian -- which normally gets my hackles up anyway -- but who then proceeds to backstab and lie her way up and down with every single person in the house, all the while decrying and denouncing liars and hypocrites, well, I think you get my point. Need I finish?
I tell you, though, I was sweating bullets when Ryan and Adam pulled everyone in for a pointless "Come to Jesus" meeting to air the dirty laundry. Because all I could think of was ... how stupid could they be? Did they truly not perceive Natalie to be a threat to their endgame? How could they even believe anything that comes out of her mouth when she'd been caught in lie after lie after lie.
But it occurred to me after the fact that maybe they did that so that Sheila would have an excellent reason to break the tie and kick her to the curb. And it was SOOOO satisfying to see Natalie's face crumble when Ms. Chen announced that it was a tie.
So that was the first good thing. The second one was ... Kristy Lee Cook was finally low-person-on-the-totem-pole and officially left American Idol. Not that she's a bad singer, but it was so apparent that she was not in the same league as all the rest. (She really should have left last week instead of Michael Johns.)
So we're left with the cream of the crop! The next one in line to go would be Syesha, I think. But really at this point I wouldn't be disappointed at all if any of them made it to the final 2. I have my favorites, but at least there's no Diana Degarmo or Clay Aiken in the bunch.
So, as I said, a good night. I'm pleased.
You know the drill. Call the utilities and get dates for service changes. Ask kind and generous friends to assist in moving things from the old location to the new. Stress about what to get rid of and what to keep.
It's the latter that has me befuddled right now. It's amazing the amount of crap I've managed to accumulate in the last 9 years (since my last move). And how much stuff from that last move that I've still held onto, even though they've been boxed away for 9 years.
Of course, I'm still a pack rat. So getting rid of things is really, really hard. (For example, I should pare down my book collection. But I just can't seem to go there yet.) But I am taking a hard look at any of those things that I haven't touched in 9 years and dumping as much as I can.
I think my friends will thank me.
Although when they see how many boxes of books I've got, they may crucify me instead. ;-)
Hey, maybe that's it. Maybe there's just no one so downright awful (remember Sanjaya!) this year who manages to stick around. So all the ones that are left are so good I don't want them to get voted off.
Like Michael Johns last week. That was a shocker, lemme tell you! I was certain he'd go at least another couple of weeks.
I suppose there is one who doesn't belong: Kristy Lee Cook. But she's nowhere near being in Sanjaya's league -- or any of the other frightening performers they've had on in previous years.
So I'm still rooting for Carly, Brooke, Jason, and David Archuleta. They continue to be my favorites, and each week they seem to trade positions like crazy, depending on how they do.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. And maybe I can get around to posting something more timely later this week.
Oh, who am I kidding?!
OK, so you're wondering what happened to my Top 12 post, aren't you? Well, last week was really strange -- what with a 2-day meeting that coincided with the performance show and then having to get used to having only 2 shows during the week (instead of the 3 they'd been doing the several weeks prior). So I can only say that by the time I had time to post something, it was already a moot point ("The point is 'moo'!"). So I dropped it.
I'll only make the following comments on last week, and then I'll drop it and focus on last night's performances.
- Kristy Lee's "country" rendition was horrendous, and she really should have gone.
- David Archuleta's performance was just so heartbreaking -- and I'm getting tired of seeing it replayed everywhere 'cuz it's just torture!
- David Hernandez got a slight raw deal 'cuz I think he was booted for the stripper thing, not because he didn't perform well. After all, see #1.
- With only a couple of exceptions (Carly & Michael), the Lennon-McCartney Songbook got treated miserably.
So in last night's performance show we were treated to -- more Lennon-McCartney songs (though the theme was officially "The Beatles"). Wait, so they mangled songs last week, and you're gonna make 'em do it again? Really?! Really?!?!
Truth be told, the level of performances last night were marginally better -- for some -- and pretty much the same -- for the rest.
David Archuleta (ooh, he's so adorable!!) redeemed himself with The Long And Winding Road, and I thought Brooke and Carly did a great job with Here Comes The Sun and Blackbird, respectively. Syesha, David Cook, and Jason did "a'ight" with their songs (although Mr. Cook still needs to consult with a hair expert and figure out something different -- that's just not working, son!).
I loved Michael Johns during the Hollywood Week portion; his rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody was astounding! But he just hasn't lived up to that promise yet. He seems to have a knack for picking the wrong songs. And nothing was more wrong than a 1.5-minute, chopped-up, train-wreck performance of A Day In The Life. I know he said it was for a friend who passed away recently, but still. Michael! Really?!
Coming up at the bottom of the pack were Chikezie (I've Just Seen Her Face), Ramiele (I Should Have Known Better), Amanda (Back In The USSR), and Kristy Lee (You've Got To Hide Your Love Away).
And while Kristy did present that song in a much-better country style than -- um -- the last song, she still ended up being the worst of the night, IMHO. So I predict that she'll be gone this time around.
Flowchart: How D&D is a gateway drug to every flavor of nerdiness
The full article, with a link to the complete flowchart, is available by clicking on the link at the bottom of the post.
So the theme for this Top 16 week was '80s Night, which I guess was predictable. I don't recall them ever doing a night of '80s music before. I've wanted them to since that is truly the music of my youth, but I can't remember if they ever did. Regardless -- or "irregardless", as some people might say even though it's horribly, horribly incorrect! -- this time they did it.
And for the most part, everyone did a good job. There were only a couple of duds (you'll see who soon!), but everyone else picked almost perfect songs and performed them very well.
Now, my favorites in this competition are Carly Smithson (love the accent!), Jason Castro (he's cute, even with those dreds), Brooke White (she just keeps getting better and better), and David Archuleta (well, who else could it be? Really!). So something would go really, really wrong if any of the 4 of them don't make it through to the Top 12.
And rounding out my Top 6 would be Michael Johns (love his accent too!) and Ramiele Malubay.
Any of the others are up for grabs, and I really wouldn't mind it if any of them make it through. After all, while they may not be the best performers, they do seem to have potential in one way or another (e.g., voice, charisma, etc.). So it wouldn't be a total loss.
However, the 4 who I think will be going home this time are ... ** drum roll please** ...
- Danny Noriega -- who just butchered "Tainted Love" completely, but who does have a good voice. If you can get past the really flaming attitude, and the Jessica Alba look
- Luke Menard -- who sang a freaking Wham! song, for crying out loud. And he's married?! To a girl?!?! Oh, and he didn't the song well at all. ** Really, he definitely shouldn't stay; no voice to speak of, and DEFINITELY no charisma! Anyone remember the a-capella group he was in? 'Nuff said.
- Asia'h Epperson -- who sang a freaking Whitney song. Granted she didn't do it badly, and she's had good performances. But this? Not one of them. And talk about a dated '80s song!
- Kady Malloy -- who sang a Queen song I'd never heard of and not well, but she does have charisma. At least when she's not singing. Wait ... that's not a good thing, is it?
Next week we get treated to new opening sequence, songs from the Lennon-McCartney songbook, and a new sing-out song from Ruben Studdard. Hmmm, are we ready for all of that?
- Mood:
curious
I'm actually quite pleased, I think.
The drive home from work wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Turns out I probably didn't have to leave early after all since most of the precipitation ended before I was halfway home. But still it was a little hairy at times.
And it took me almost 2 hours, with all the traffic!
- Mood:
pleased
The most recent post delightful (?) describes difficulties with a variety of non-human patrons in her library. And I thought that
coneycat might get a kick out of the story. Well, not the ending. But you get the idea.- Mood:
amused
Points north got around 3 inches, though, so it might be sticking around longer up there.
- Mood:
disappointed
Wait a minute! I know what this is. It's snow! That stuff that I hear a lot about from those friends up north.
I just drove home through a blizzard. (And I fully expect those northerners to question my use of that word.) But when it's coming at you so hard that you have to keep your windshield wipers at full blast to keep the windshield clear AND you make a 5-minute stop to pick up some food and you end up with a quarter-inch accumulated on your car, in my dictionary that's a blizzard.
The question now is ... will it stick?
I'll keep you posted.
- Mood: confused
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