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March, 2005

  1. American Idol: Another One Bites the Dust

    March 31, 2005 by Gail

    Another one bites the dust
    Another one bites the dust
    And another one gone, and another one gone
    Another one bites the dust
    Hey, I’m gonna get you too
    Another one bites the dust…

    … in the immortal words of Queen. And then there were nine. I was in the middle of something when it came on, and I forgot to set the VCR, so I only caught the last five minutes of last night’s show, which are the only ones worth watching. Who got the boot? Semi-surprisingly, Jessica was ousted this week, a move deemed unfair by Randy and Paula, but I didn’t see much protest from Simon. (Was there any protest from Simon? He sat with his head in his hands most of Monday.) I didn’t think she would nab the top spot, but I certainly didn’t think she’d make an exit this early. But, the people have voted, and Jessica got to sing her way out in Week 11. That leaves us with three girls, and six guys.

    I thought the playing field was more even on Monday night than any other night I’ve seen, with no one performance I’d call outstanding. At the same time, no one sang hideously, either, so it was a matter of picking which song diverged the most from mediocre, up and down the quality scale.

    In many ways, watching American Idol is like watching figure skating: I tense up when they go for that triple axel — the big Whitney Houston zinger — because if they flub up that note, it’s Bedtime for Bonzo. None of them are singing original music, so when the song begins, my mind immediately fast forwards through it to watch for the BIG NOTES so I can brace myself for the potential sharp or flat. I’m sure there are more than a few sweaty palms out there in the American Idol audience. I can just imagine an Aunt Mamy with her upside placard and custom-made t-shirt, praying in her seat during commercial breaks. That’s how AI is UNLIKE the Apollo: it doesn’t resemble an amateur night at all, since everyone in the audience is rooting for the contestants. While it’s a morale boost for the singers, who knows what effect it has on the voting audience? (more…)

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    Posted in AI - Season 4 | 5 Comments

  2. Cat Town

    March 30, 2005 by Gail

    Somebody sent me this link earlier, and it sent me into a fit of giggling…

    http://www.spatch.net/cattown/

    I’m sure I’ll get over it soon, but man, it’s a hoot!

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    Posted in Humour, Linkage, Wacky WWW | 9 Comments

  3. memorabilia

    March 29, 2005 by Gail

    auld lang syne

    When I moved out of my apartment in January, I had to toss out a gigantic heap of stuff. It was ridiculous to think the hoarding could continue apace without reaching critical mass, i.e. fire hazard proportions. After all, the apartment was 565 sq. ft!

    That didn’t seem to deter me while I was living there; I made quite good use of the space. I kept theatre programs, playbills, museum maps, postcards, in-flight magazines, correspondence, all my university textbooks (didn’t re-sell a single one) and custom courseware, obsolete foreign currency (Dutch guilders, deutschemarks, Irish punts, etc.), thousands of photographs, CDs in languages I don’t speak, concert tickets, all my credit card receipts for the past five years, software installation disks, assorted cables, filters, hardware manuals, maps and mapbooks, all the greeting cards I’ve managed to hold onto in my many moves (birthdays, thanks, congratulations, Christmas, announcements), files of old CVs, Canadian citizenship papers, charity fundraisers I’ve been involved with, car repairs, all the university papers and lecture notes I’ve ever written, business cards from people I haven’t seen in over a decade, the list is endless…

    Most of the documents I keep for CYA (Cover Your Ass) reasons, in case I get audited, or there’s a discrepancy with my taxes, or billing agencies try and tell me I signed up for A and I’d purchased B, or I wonder if I’ve learned anything at SFU.

    The rest, the memorabilia, is for me. Not in case I ever get Alzheimer’s or anything debilitating — if I do, I’d like to look at people’s faces rather than root around in dusty bric-a-brac — but to re-live certain fleeting moments in time and reflect on life.

    Now that I no longer inhabit an apartment but a house (with an attic and basement, even! essential spaces for the consummate hoarder!), I doubt the ritualistic squirrelling away of seemingly worthless items will ever subside. If anything, David is an even more diligent hoarder than I am. For one thing, he’s not moved around as much, so his collection is much larger. His collection also includes YEARS of aviation magazines, and large items I could never move from continent to continent, such as the giant wooden antique propeller that graces one wall of our dining room. Years of telling myself “I can’t take that with me!” have conditioned me to always keep my items small and portable.

    From time to time since I’ve been here I try and do a big bung-out, get rid of some of the stuff to make more room and promote organisation. Somehow, I don’t buy David’s excuse of “Being messy is a sign of genius!” but I won’t ever make him throw out his memorabilia. Not for selling them on eBay, like his Corgi car, but because I understand very well the sentimental journey we take with our “stuff”. It reminds us of fun times, that life isn’t always bogged down with bread-and-butter activity — it’s punctuated by events and people and places. The sentimental journey puts things in a broader perspective, so that when we find ourselves floundering in the daily grind, wondering if we’re getting ANYWHERE or merely spinning our wheels, we can look back from whence we came and chart some progress (or not, as the case may be… sometimes it’s best to retain some “inner child”). Not just changes with ourselves, but also to ponder the way the world has changed. To that end, I took some photos of tickets that David had lying around. They caught some people’s attention on Flickr (click on photo for comments), the ticket on the left for obvious reasons.

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    Posted in Fave, House of Fielding | 2 Comments

  4. Feeding My Photography Bent

    March 28, 2005 by Gail


    44th St.
    Uploaded by gailontheweb.

    Thanks to Kim for sending along this link to Leonard Nimoy’s photography site.

    http://www.leonardnimoyphotography.com

    I had no idea Leonard Nimoy was into photography. But then, I also didn’t know he derived his trademark Vulcan salute and pinch from the Jewish religion — I didn’t even know he was Jewish! He was even in “Fiddler on the Roof”! Who am I kidding? I don’t know Leonard Nimoy at all! (What would I do without IMDB.com?) (more…)

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    Posted in Other Photogs | No Comments

  5. Easter Sunday: time to gorge

    March 27, 2005 by Gail

    I had a craving for some Greek food today, but could we find any??? No. I didn’t hold out much hope, since it’s Easter Sunday, but we gave it a try. Apparently, though, there’s only ONE Greek restaurant listed in Scranton, but we couldn’t get through on the phone. When we drove past the address, it wasn’t there! I always thought of Greek restaurants as fairly ubiquitous, like Chinese (OK, fast food, Westernised Chinese), but I suppose that doesn’t apply here. I was ready to drive half an hour to Wilkes-Barre for some moussaka, but when we phoned, nobody answered there, either!

    So, I’m like Hugh in this photo — I can picture the food, but it’s out of reach. (Click on the pic for comments.)

    The three of us did, however, stuff ourselves silly at Jim Dandy’s down the road. No one starved, including Hugh. Our regular Sunday Scrabble game followed, during which I got a surprise phone call from my cousin in Vancouver, who incidentally was hosting my old Scrabble cronies (her mom and our aunts) for Easter dinner.

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    Posted in Hugh | 1 Comment

  6. Good Friday. Manhattan. Jewtopia.

    March 26, 2005 by Gail


    David hasn’t been my guest writer since last November, so I thought Friday was a good day as any to invite him back for another post. My Yiddish just isn’t good enough yet.

    Good Friday? Great Friday!

    It caught me by surprise, that I had the day off Friday; luckily someone mentioned it earlier in the week, or I might have showed up anyway. (It’s hard being the token Jew.) But in that vein, Gail suggested that we use the free day for a trip into Manhattan, to take in some museums and a show.

    I checked out Broadway.com to see what was current on-and-off, and we came up with a short list of shows that looked appealing. We settled on I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change at the Westside Theatre; but when I went to purchase tickets, I found that the theatre has two halls, and another show was playing upstairs…

    Jewtopia (more…)

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    Posted in David's Writing, Travel | No Comments

  7. White Stuff

    March 24, 2005 by Gail

    oi!

    On the drive to Philadelphia last Saturday, I noticed some white hairs on the right side of my head. I pulled a few out, a few more, then stopped when I saw this pile grow. If this is any indication of how much white hair I’ve got on my head, I’ll have enough to make a bird’s nest by the time I’m 35!

    When my brothers and I were youngsters, our parents would ask us pluck out their white hair with tweezers. For some unknown reason, I ended up with the job, not my brothers, so I needed some incentive to curb my griping. They paid me one cent for every hair, and I had to show them the hair before it could count. For all my grumbling about child labour, they never did raise the per-hair rate! Eventually they decided it was easier to colour their hair than listen to me go on about inflation and the rising costs of gum and magazines.

    Speaking of white stuff, we got a big dumping of snow yesterday, after weeks of thinking winter was finally over.

    David’s Multiply entry:

    The Perfect (Snow) Storm

    TechnoratiTechnorati tags: , ,

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    Posted in David's Writing, Family | 4 Comments

  8. American Idol: Definitely Not The Apollo

    March 23, 2005 by Gail

    Anybody who’s ever watched “Amateur Night at the Apollo”, a Harlem institution since 1934, can’t watch American Idol and feel too sorry for the contestants. The audience members at the Apollo Theatre are famous for booing the acts they don’t like in 10 bars or less, sending the weak-kneed performers into panic mode, then drowning them out altogether with a chorus of disapproval. At least Simon sits through the whole performance, even if it’s obvious he’s in aural distress.

    Between last week’s and this week’s shows, the performances were a real mixed bag. Aren’t they always? There just can’t be enough drama for the AI producers, it seems. First Mario Vasquez bails for “personal reasons”, then they find a refill for the #12 spot with the last-ditched Nikko Smith, then Lindsey Cardinale gets her walking papers to bring the number back to 11. But wait — what’s going on at American Idol this week? Are people not paid enough in the AV department?

    IMPORTANT PROGRAM NOTE CHANGE
    Due to an error with the graphics shown on-screen (incorrect voting numbers were displayed) during the performance recap at the end of last night?s AMERICAN IDOL, a live, one-hour show will air tonight, Wednesday, March 23 9/8c on FOX, to enable a re-vote. This new show will combine new live elements with encores of Tuesday’s performances from the remaining 11 contestants.

    (more…)

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    Posted in AI - Season 4 | 2 Comments

  9. Apple Announces 50″ PowerBook!

    March 23, 2005 by Gail

    Apple Announces 50" PowerBook!

    (Speaking of oversized, my American Idol post is forthcoming.)

    EDIT 9:01: As soon as I blogged this, Flickr went down for maintenance. What? No massage?
    EDIT 9:52: Ah, back to the massage. Hmmm, “… non-invasive” — good.
    EDIT 10:35: Ahhhh…. back again. But sluggish.
    EDIT 11:10: More massaging.
    EDIT 11:25: Massage is finished?

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    Posted in Unabashed Geekiness | Tags: | 2 Comments

  10. I’m Having a Massage…

    March 22, 2005 by Gail

    If you ever wonder what I’m doing when I’m not writing here, wonder no more. It’s true…

    http://gail.ishavingamassage.com

    No, I didn’t register a new domain. Besides, it’s already taken… See here for explanation.

    Looks like someone is having a little Flickr-style fun. (When Flickr servers shut down for maintenance, this is what the page says, except with the message “Flickr is having a massage…”)

    Have your own bit of fun by replacing my name with yours in the URL, and tell everyone that’s your new site…

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    Posted in Flickr, Wacky WWW | 2 Comments

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