Thank You, Susan

Rather than headlines that read "Diversity Wins," the headlines today say "Susan Boyle Defeated." Reminds me a bit of Kris Allen and Adam Lambert, whose post-performance headlines said "Adam Loses."

Yes, I am one of those people who has a tender spot for everyone who doesn't quite make it, but let's look at all those who won something because of Susan.

Let's start with everyone who watched her first performance. We won inspiration and goosebumps.

The producers: they won a massive audience for the chill-inducing clip of Susan, but it also had a ripple effect for the show in general and for contestants such as Shaheen Jafargholi and Shaun Smith.

The poor chaps across the pond (that's us): without Susan, we never would have seen the self-proclaimed "porgy fellows" of Stavros Flatley (here they are in their final act) or the aptly-named Diversity, which is made up of people of all different ages, careers and backgrounds.

And Susan, well let's hope she won something from this too. She's had a rough go of things since her quick rise to fame. I hope she's won something better than fame, or a record deal, or the approval of Simon Cowell. I hope Susan Boyle won some confidence.

Home Sick

Did you read that and wonder if I was longing for a place that's associated with the warm and fuzzy feelings of home? Or are you reading right now and thinking only a true geek would make a grammar lesson out of aches, pains and a fever? If you were thinking the latter, you were right, though sometimes the former is true too. But mostly the latter.

So, it's another one of those words that means something different when written as one word than it does when written as two:

homesick="sad or depressed from a longing for home or family while away from them for a long time"

home, sick=

1. at home, not out doing various desirable activities because you feel like your head is one giant nose (like that cold medication commercial guy).

2. at home, not doing various other undesirable activities (like working) because you are at home pretending to be sick.

Got it? If only sinuses were that easy to clear up.

Band Practice Blues

Uh, so I went to band (on time) and um, there's a bit of a rainstorm happening and I tried to get in and....well, see, the doors are locked and between running from the car to the first door and then to the second door and then back to the car through water up to my ankles (no exaggeration) and the three-minute monsoon that just happened, I am now soaked. Like can't-see-through-my-glasses and look-like-I-showered-in-all-my-clothes kind of soaked.

Moral of the story--it pays to be late for band?

A Little Perspective for Memorial Day

This video is about DJ, a man who was born with cerebral palsy and was told he'd never walk. But in 2008, he decided to walk every hole of every tournament with the PGA. It was a 900-mile journey. His toes overlap and he wears eight or more band-aids to minimize the blisters. When asked if it's painful, he says no. One of the golfers in the video says it's hard to complain about the walk when they see him at every tournament.

In the height of the current war, I visited a military base in southern Colorado for work. I was uncomfortable in my business suit and complained about the heat. The soldiers had just returned from Iraq, where temperatures regularly reach 115 degrees and sometimes boil to 125 degrees. They were returning to their families and enjoying their first sand-free meals in a year.

I didn't complain about the heat again...that day.

Boyle is Back

I can't imagine being Susan on her second performance. The first time she faced the audience she was the ultimate underdog. They laughed and jeered and were then humbled as she wildly exceeded their expectations. The second time she faced the audience, she was a symbol of hope. She'd given the whole world goosebumps 100 million+ times on YouTube.com. She had to know that the whole world would tune in again looking for those same goosebumps. Talk about high expectations.

I was on board with Amanda when she said that she was biting her nails for Susan in hopes that she would deliver another stunning performance. I can't say this performance wowed me like the first one (how could it?), but it was lovely and she still earned her place as a finalist on Britain's Got Talent.

My favorite part was the interview afterwards where she showed what we all fell in love with in the first place--her funny and quirky little self.

MacBook Boulevard or Windows Way?

I had the features chosen, the laptop in the cart and the credit card in hand, but I just couldn't go through with it. It's simple, clean and twice the price of a comparable PC. I love that little MacBook.

See, my desktop has been very good to me, but it's still a desktop which means I'm tethered to my desk. I type on a keyboard with most of the letters worn away and stare out the window longing for cordless freedom. I want to sit on the porch (or just in sunnier parts of the house) with laptop in lap, and take my business on the road and to cafes.

So I'll soon have to part from my middle-of-the-road stance on the Mac versus PC debate and fork over the money to walk that smooth, straight and litter-free boulevard of Mac-iness or save some dough and journey down the dark, mysterious, and bumpy Windows Way.

So I'm still in the market for a laptop and have created a playlist dedicated to the angst of the decision. I'm pretty sure U2's "With or Without You" is about the Mac and "Mysterious Ways" is about Windows Vista.

As for me, I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

Skipping School to Build a Limo from Toothpicks and Hot Dog Water by William P.

It's prom season and a lot of kids skip school in the days (and sometimes even weeks) leading up to it. I needed a student to help explain this phenomenon to me. William P. delivered, as he always does, with style:

I think the reason people skip school for prom is because they just want an excuse to miss school. It doesn't take twelve hours to get ready for anything.

On second thought, maybe it does. I mean, first you have to sew your tux or dress, then you have to kill a cow to get the leather to make your shoes. That alone would take like six hours. Then to top it all off, you have to build a limo from scratch using only toothpicks and a boiler full of old hot dog water. MacGyver could do this in fifteen minutes flat, but for the everyday person, it would most likely take one hour, twelve minutes and fifty four seconds.

After that, you have to drive all the way to school, which we all know takes at least four hours. And with gas prices the way they are now, many people had to sell their homes just to come to prom.

I feel bad for these people, they are Americans just like you and me. You are heartless for expecting them to go to school and I hope one day you realize it.

Would you visit space?

You never really know a person.

Take my roomie, for example. We've known each other for years and have lived together for two of them. I know that she can't spit her toothpaste out in a sink that still has water swirling in it. I know that she leaves cabinet doors open and sometimes leaves the house with food cooking on the stove. I know that she is cold-blooded (in the sense that she thinks an 80-degree day is freezing) but warm-hearted (she can't stand the thought of killing bumblebears).

But there's one thing I couldn't have guessed about her--she has no interest in visiting space. I would assume that 99 percent of people would want to experience weightlessness and frolic across the moon. But for her, it has zero appeal. Seeing the earth from space has zero appeal? Zero?? Actually, it has "negative five appeal...so many things could go wrong!" I'm still stunned.

It just goes to show that you really never know a person until you find out if they'd go to to space. Would you?

To Kill a Mockingbird--A Classic Comes to Life

To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic. We've all heard of it and we all read it in tenth grade or at least pretended to read it and watched Gregory Peck and crew in the movie instead.

It's one of those rare books dubbed classic by the literary bigwigs that has earned the same title in my own personal collection. I don't find myself slogging through with furrowed brow--looking for whatever it was that earned its place in that category. I love it. Every time I read it, I love it more. Like a handful of others that stick out in my mind (the Harry Potter books among them), the story unfolds effortlessly and even the moral lessons are woven into the story organically. I have to agree with Enrique Jardiel Poncela, though, who said, "When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing."

The story feels so real, you know the author is intimately familiar with the content and the ideas, even if it is going to have a the fiction label on the spine. Harper Lee grew up in Monroeville, a rural Alabama town now famous for its catfish and yearly production of To Kill a Mockingbird. Much speculation has gone into the inspiration for the story, but that's not my purpose here.

My purpose is to encourage people to attend the production if they have the chance. The actors are local volunteers--the drunkard father of Mayella Ewell, for example, is the town's District Attorney.

The first act takes place outside and includes those special touches that cause a thrill for the audience--like period clothing and even a period car that drives up next to the audience with the town drunks hanging off of it and stumbling out of it to confront Atticus.

The second act takes place in the courthouse. I wondered how they'd pull the scenes off that didn't take place in the courthouse, and I was pleasantly surprised by the clever effects.

This is a uniquely Alabama experience that makes it on the must do list for me. The production plays for a few weekends in the late spring each year. See the website for details.

There is one performance left this year--on May 16th. Bring some bug spray and some Kleenex.

What do potato chips and star crunches have in common?

Jamarcus, who plays the lead character in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," came over today to make a recording. He plans to send it off to a music academy, along with some clips from the shows. Perhaps this time next year, he'll be performing in California. So while the roomie worked on getting the "studio" ready, Jamarcus and I warmed up our vocal chords.

I asked him what he does to warm up. He opened a grocery bag full of potato chips and star crunches and start eating. I asked him what the chips and star crunches had to do with warming up. His response? They help him hit the high notes.


Jamarcus himself, backstage during the last performance (Seussical, the Musical)
Listen here to see if you think it worked (be sure to listen to the whole thing because Jamarcus gets to some lovely harmony after about 30 seconds):
Gabcast! Frontline Ink #1

Turn Around

An article on CNN states that "We will not turnaround this economy until we start to turn around housing."

Turnaround is a noun, turn around is an action. In this case, they got it right the second time around. It's the same pattern with workout and work out. One word is a noun: a good workout. Two words indicate an action: I'm going to go work out.

There are lots of words like this--words that mean one thing as one word and something else entirely as two words. It's really not fair, I know, but it's true.

Thankfully, the words from a song by Jonny Lang apply to editing and writing as well as to life: "The choices you make might be mistakes, but it's never too late to turn around."

"Crazy" Quotations

So, according to this sign "Popeyes" may or may not be the name of the establishment (should I be worried?) and they may or may not "open" at "10."

And maybe they never really "close" but I'm not so sure. And their "dining room" is apparently a dining room in name only.

Need I go on?

Maybe "Popeye's" should fix the sign and remove some of the ambiguity of the message.

Just a "thought."