It was awful...

I can't take it.  The high-pitched screams.  The pounding.  The inability to speak. 

Of course I'm talking about the new season of American Idol.

It was awful.  Randy had no viable input.  He's the show veteran, but he seemed more interested in watching his new judges react than judging an audition himself.  His motto seemed to be, "Whatever you two think, I guess."

For several candidates, Steven Tyler screamed along and pounded on the table.  Kara used to groove sometimes, and Paula danced on occasion, but they never overshadowed an audition the way Steven Tyler did, where the kids auditioning were demoted to his back-up performers.  At least Mr. Tyler didn't stand up and grab his crotch, or if he did the producers mercifully edited that out.     

Jennifer, "OMG I can't say no!" Lopez (hereafter to be called J-No) needs to develop another reaction to an audition.  Watching her judge contestants is like watching Adam Richman take a bite of anything on Man vs. Food (NOTE: he only has one reaction after his first bite of food, which is chew once, close eyes, roll head, and simulate an orgasm, even to the point where he says "Oh my God!").  

There was no honesty in the feedback.  Everyone wants to be the nice one, but in reality each one is just lame, and the level of lameness grows exponentially when combined as a group.  Now I'm not asking for someone to act like a Simon clone, or to go all Ricky Gervais on each contestant, but someone must have the guts to be honest. 

The thing I miss most is Simon's dramatic pause, though. 

"You just sucked," he would say, and then pause for effect, making you wonder if he was finished, before continuing with, "the life out of that song."
 
On Wednesday we watched the first half of American Idol as a family, and when the kids went to bed, my wife and I switched to Modern Family.  On Thursday I had DVR set for AI, The Big Bang Theory, and Wipeout.  Problem is, I can only record/watch two out of the three.  Sorry, new AI, we recorded Big Bang, and watched Wipeout. 

You were voted out.

Kiss My Apple

I have wasted hours of my life that I will never get back trying to accomplish a seemingly simple task: sync my wife's iPod iTouch to her new PC.

Perhaps my expectations are unrealistic.  I admit, I am a dreamer.  My dream (in this isolated case) would be to connect the iPod to the new PC, authorize the new PC to the iTunes account, and then have them sync up so I could use the new PC in the same fashion as the old PC.

Apple has other ideas about this, though, and has turned my dream into a nightmare.

Apple will allow transfers from the iPod, but only items purchased form the iTunes store.  The many gigabytes of music from CD's I bought won't transfer, because Apple doesn't like them.  Apple also has a vendetta against the playlists, and refuses to sync them, too.


I checked online and found an incredibly useless article that detailed how to use the iPod to transfer all your music from one computer to another, boldly proclaiming the wonders of the iPod as a high-capacity storage device.  The article was good for all iPods...except the iTouch.  This inspired me to make up several creative new bad words.


I called support and told the automated system my name, but the robotic voice and I had difficulty talking about the device serial number, so I was transferred to a representative, who asked me my name again because the robotic voice refuses to sync its info with the representative, just like the iPod refuses to sync information with a new PC.  At least Apple is consistent in this approach.

I calmly and politely described my issue, and was immediately put on hold because the representative was totally clueless and had to "do research".  She came back about 5 minutes later and asked a few questions, the answers to which were all given in my initial description of the problem.  She put me on hold again, and my call was dropped.

She must have been using an iPhone.

#  

Headline of the Day

An inquisitive journalist wonders:

"What Caused Thousands Of Dead Birds To Fall From The Sky?"

The short answer:

Gravity.

You see, suspending dead birds in the sky is rather difficult, since dead birds can't flap their wings (NOTE: flapping is a very important part of flying, so I am told.).  So when there are thousands of dead birds in the sky, they will fall like Newton's apple.

It's like the old joke: Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?  Because it was dead.

Let me know if I can answer any other questions.  I'm here to help.

Happy New Year!