She got the way to move me, Cherry....

When I found out that this week's Idol mentor was going to be Neil Diamond, I was totally stoked. Was I as stoked after last night's show?....meh - notsomuch. Maybe it's just due to who is left standing. America just got it wrong when they decided to boot out Michael and Carly. And WTF was up with Paula critiquing Jason's 2nd song before he sang a 2nd song? Paula - lay off the heavy meds before airtime, please!

As you've been accustomed to reading my thoughts post-performance, however, here they are:

• Jason - I enjoyed his first song, but loathed the 2nd one. Jeopardy, my friend - you're in jeopardy.


• DavidA - Although "Sweet Caroline" is my favourite ND song, that did little to woo me. Where are his Mickey Mouse ears? Every.single.performance that he does sounds the same as the last one - straight out of the Disney network's MM Club.


• Brooke - WTF was she thinking with doing "I'm a Believer"? She did redeem herself with the 2nd song...but at this stage of the game, there should be no 'redeeming'.


• DavidC - The first song was strong, but it didn't 'wow' me....the 2nd, "All I Really Need is You", however...goosebumps atop of my goosebumps! I LOVED it. I think that could be a hit song right now.


• Syesha - I don't care if she can sing. I don't like her. She belongs on Broadway.
  

Bottom 2: Jason & Brooke. Going home: Jason.

Actual conversation after DavidC's 2nd perfomance:

A: "OMG goosebumps ontop of my goosebumps..."
L: "I want to lick him"

Java, please, and make mine an XXL...

I've been fighting horrific sleepies today and yesterday....akin to the adorable baby bear from Thailand in this video courtesy of CNN. Huge cute factor. This is day 2 of 3 days where we're working mandatory OT hours on top of our regular shift. It's not that much longer than a normal shift, but my body knows it's supposed to be clocking out at the regular scheduled time, and it just doesn't 'get' why I'm forcing it to keep working. I just might fall asleep in my supper bowl, too. Click on the video link....you know you waaaaaaaant to :).

You're the Yin to my Yang

Holy it's Tuesday already. Yesterday went by in a blur - never had an opportunity to post anything. My sincerest apologies :P. So Chris landed home on Sunday with no fish. His record on par with last season. I was pleasantly surprised that he didn't come in with a curled up nose asking what the 'stink' was. Maybe the scented candles did the trick with the smoke smell? However, we were found out, of course anyway...with his question pertaining to the still-disconnected smoke detectors. Whooops...missed that. Our conversation went something like this:
C: "What happened that you had to disconnect those?"
A: "Um, a slight problem with a frozen pizza"
C: "Problem? What happened?"
A: "Read the blog"
C: "Why can't you just tell me what happened so we can actually 'talk' instead of me reading your blog?"
A: "It's much more entertaining to read about it"
{Chris gives in and reads blog since laptop was in lap anyway}
C: "You can't even cook a frozen pizza?"

Yeah folks - I can't even cook a frozen pizza. Stellar :). Only one more example of how he's the yin to my yang or some such thing.

Happy Blogiversary!

Happy 1st Birthday, "My Happy Place". Yep...today marks the 1 year anniversary of my blog!! For those naysayers who figured it was a fleeting thing (like my previous feeble attempts), I say "ha! I did it!". For those people that have stuck around and read this boring drivel for the past 365 days, I thank you :). I hope I can continue to hold your interest with my 'witty' prose. Don't be so shy - comment!

To mark this momentous occasion, a story:

Lana met up with me at the house last night after I got off work. Chris was gone for the night - staying at Marco's, as he, Steve and Marco were planning a fishing trip early this morning. Lana had packed an over-night bag, and some wine, and we were having a 'girls night in'. I had picked up a few munchies, and she had brought some too, including a frozen pizza.

After about 15 minutes or so, I decided to check on the pizza, because I smelled burning. I wasn't overly concerned about the burning because we'd decided to cook the pizza right on the rack, so there was some dripping, which was burning off as it hit the element. Because it looked almost-done, I thought it was a good idea to take it off the rack and put it on a pizza pan, and then put the broiler on to heat up the top. I attempted to use a regular spatula to coax the pizza onto the pan. However, the pizza then broke in half. No problem, I figured - there were two of us, now I didn't have to cut it. Things got a little dicey, then, though, because the middle section started to ooze, and cheese and stuff started dripping rather ferociously. Lana came to my aid, advising we needed to pull the rack out more to make it easier. One half of the broken pizza was on the pan. The other half was pushed back toward the back of the oven.

Pulling the rack out was an ingenious idea (that Lana is so smart...did I mention she's the baker of the two of us? Did I mention that I'm the cleaner and Chris is the cooker between the two of us?). So, no problem, the now dissected pizza is now on the pizza pan, and Lana is now ready to push the rack back into position. I guess though, it had been pulled out just a teeeeny weeeeny bit too far - leading the rack off the 'track', and the motion of attempting to push it back into place was just what it needed to fall downward, dumping both pieces of pizza onto the red-hot element. Immediately, the flames and black smoke began. I squealed and opened a window...immediately rushing for my camera, because this would make a great "blog post", leaving poor Lana to try to grab the pieces of the defunct pizza before the entire oven went up in flames. The piercing scream of the smoke alarms were doing their best to wake the entire 'hood. Go figure, my battery was dead in the camera.

Luckily just taking the pizza off the element was enough to squelch the flames - but the smoke was pretty bad. So, we'd ruined our supper, the house was a stinky smoky mess, and COLD, because all the windows were open. We decided the only thing to do was make an emergency pit stop at Jack's Pizza, followed by the liquor store. The smell of about a dozen scented candles and a tall glass of Mudslide seemed to make it all better :)

TGIF!

Attempt #2 at a post for today. My first one even had a picture...but I kinda got carried away when I was backspacing my original text, and *poof* I backspaced the picture right off the window...and that "autosaving draft" option ate up the change faster than I could blink. So here we are, picture-less. I will likely come back and add the pic if you're that interested in seeing it. [Update: here it is] Actually, it's rather entertaining - the picture was what we woke up to this morning...a picture of our patio chairs on the deck...with about 5cms of snow on them. On April 25. After we had a balmy high of 17 degrees at one point last week. It's gone now, but still.

Gas prices went up again last night. An increase of 6.7 cents/litre. An increase of 12 cents in a week. The next adjustment is due for May 1. Today on my lunch break I heard a news report on the radio advising "relief is not in sight yet"...with an estimate of prices expected to reach levels of $2.20/litre in 2012?? Why don't they all just ask us to bend over? It's just disgusting. Political leaders encourage the public to use public transit systems and to buy more fuel-efficient cars. It just makes me cranky. Chris' scooter is looking more and more attractive daily!

TGIF -- I've been exhausted all day...woke up feeling as though I hadn't slept ...but I did...looking VERY forward to a girls night with Lana tonight. We're going to munch on some nacho chips, gab like the best of 'em, and it's very possible that a little bit of wine will be consumed :). Pack your over-nighty bag, girl....my couch is really comfy!

Tomorrow, I have the daunting task of actually finishing and filing my taxes *sob*, scrubbing the bathroom, many loads of laundry, and dusting if I have any energy left. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, folks!

Things that make you go hmmm....

Last week, I filled up my gas tank from what I would consider empty - having the V-Dub scream at me as the light went on (something I feel is unnecessary, not to mention it scares the freakin' bejebus out of me when it happens). The cost? $60.00.

What, in the name of God, are our high gas prices paying for? This is a thought:

Sure, the Burj Dubai tower looks amazingly tall, but it's final height— currently projected to be 2,300 feet— is less than half that of a new building planned for Saudi Arabia. It's going to be 5,250 feet high. Yup, that's just 30 feet short of a mile tall: taller than anything under construction anywhere, and making it easily the world's tallest building. Think they should stick a TV antenna on the top and go for that extra 30 feet? I sure do.

It's going to be built in a new city near Jeddah on the Red Sea and is funded by billionaire Prince al-Walid bin Talal. He bought London's Savoy hotel for a cool $2.5 billion in 2005. So you can suspect that there'll be a hotel in the building somewhere. By my calculations, the tower will have somewhere between 320 and 350 floors, so perhaps that should be "several hotels".

Not much is known about the details yet, other than the fact that it'll have two supporting flying-buttress towers to help keep it up (both more than 800 feet high). It will also have advanced damping systems to stop the swaying at high floors from making people sick, and it's going to need amazing engineering to cope with freezing wind at the top and desert heat at the bottom.

It's so tall that much of the ferrying of material and construction workers will have to be by helicopter. And that's just cool.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/373930/5250+foot-tower-will-make-burj-dubai-look-like-pencil

They Say the Neon Lights are Bright on Broadway...

Ok - for all who know me know that theatre is not my bag. Sorry Lana - that's one area where we just don't jive :). So AI last night for me was very 'meh'. In all honesty, they all did well, for what was asked of them. I can't believe I'm about to type this, but even Syesha did well. Paula was suprisingly coherent as well.

I know you're all just chomping at the bit to see my picks, so without futher ado.........here you go:

• Syesha: She has proven her place is on Broadway - now it's time for her to run straight there...leaving AI behind. Maybe she can even land a role what will allow her to do that freakish baby cry ...*shudder*.


• Jason: Very weak performance for what was expected of it. Obviously, Jason is the polar opposite of Syesha...proving himself to be totally far away from Broadway. His pot-induced exclamation, "I didn't know it was sung by a cat", made me hurl a little bit. His days are numbered.
• Brooke: Is it just me, or does it appear as though the men in coats are just waiting at bay for this one to get off stage? Despite singing ok, I think she sealed her ticket home with the 'restart' after having forgotten her lyric.
• DavidA: Meh. Meh. Meh. He's got the Sanjaya-vote so will be there for a few weeks still.
• Carly: I found her a bit screechy in parts, but for all, did well.
• DavidC: Did I mention that this man is going to be the next AI? Well done, sir.

Bottom: Without a doubt Jason and Brooke. Going home: Brooke.

As for BB - Ryan once more proved himself the big ol' buffoon that he is. By not replacing Sharon with Adam on the block, he just cost himself the game. The way he went on and on and ON about having all the "power" was laughable.