I love my fur babies. They are like my children. I ESPECIALLY love Fatso. We've had this big furball of a cat since he was born and he is just so sweet and loving, he has a very special place in my heart reserved JUST for him.Although he can be very sweet and loving, he also commands a certain amount of respect. Fatso does not tolerate things such as being restrained or even being held or fooled with for too long. He ESPECIALLY doesn't like anyone venturing into areas such as his haunches or his tail when brushing him. I'll openly admit it: I'm afraid of Fatso! Although fat, his reaction time is akin to a Jaguar and I'm NOT kidding! He has hurt me many times over the years so I have learned to be respectful and careful! Fatso is a Maine Coon aka FURBALL! He has long, long hair and it is EVERYWHERE in my house. I try to brush him regularly, but he doesn't tolerate it well and he absolutely will not allow me to brush the areas that REALLY need it! This has resulted in some knots on Fatso's chest and down in his 'neutered but still somewhat manly area'.
Michael is much braver and stronger than me (and tolerates pain much better also)! So I told him last week I couldn't take cleaning up the hair any longer and I was concerned about the knots and I wanted him to buy a shaver and come shave the knots off of Fatso and give him a bath.
Well Michael and Alyssa arrived last night with a brand new trimmer and a whole bunch of good intentions! Alyssa, being the intelectual girl that she is wants to follow the instructions that come with the trimmer and some other techniques that she's heard of from pet groomers. She's even brought him a special treat to give him after the procedure is over so he will 'associate the shaver with a treat'. Yeah right! She doesn't realize that there is no instruction booklet written on how to deal with Fatso! She soon learns this though....
So they spread a blanket out on the couch and Alyssa starts shaving his sides while Michael holds him. So far, so good. Then about 10 seconds later Fatso begins to buck and resist like a Red Bull!
After a couple of minutes Fatso is spitting everywhere, Michael can't even hold him. So they let him go. Fatso is MADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!! After a couple more attempts Michael is about ready to give up as he is bleeding from several nice cuts on his arms. Alyssa has more ideas though: She says we should try putting something over his head to keep him calm and to put socks on his legs so he can't claw Michael. She went out to her car and got the bag from a bottle of Crown Royal and I went and got 2 old pairs of socks. She put the bag over Fatso's head and pulled the drawstring just a bit to keep it on. Then, with Michael holding him, tried to put the little booties on all four of his feet. I was laughing so hard I forgot to take a picture but it was quite hilarious! Fatso must have worked with Houdini in another life because before they could even get 2 of the booties on him he somehow removed that bag from his head, removed the booties from his feet, spit, scratched and clawed and catapulted his entire body out of Michael's grip! He was all bowed up looking at all of us like "WHAT THE HELL ARE Y'ALL TRYING TO DO TO ME?" Bob is freaking out because he doesn't understand what is going on. Heidi doesn't care because she's rekindled her relationship with Hailey.
So, the saga continues....
Although they have removed a sizeable amount of hair with the trimmer, they have still only touched the tip of the iceburg and haven't even ventured to his underbelly (I can already see that that is NOT going to happen, Fatso is just NOT going to have it and all the brute force Michael has cannot even restrain him). Finally they decide to try cutting off some hair with scissors. Fatso is a little bit more agreeable to this but still it's not very long before he rebels.
Finally, Michael is ready to concede defeat and asks me to call a groomer and get a price. He takes Fatso upstairs to give him a much needed bath.
Poor Baby! So now he has a haircut that looks like he did it himself, but at least he's clean.
I'm calling a groomer tomorrow.
Since we live atop Red Mountain we have a pretty good view of the fireworks that are shot from Vulcan Park on the 4th of July right from our own yard. We have stayed home and watched them for the past 2 years. Homewood also has a nice little carnival, street thing in downtown and we've gone down there a couple of years also, but it's really geared more for younger kids. This year we're going to 5 Points South to attend a block party! It's a more grown up atmosphere and I think Hailey and her friends will have a great time! Michael will also be there (working) but at least we'll get to see him.
5 Points South is a club and restaurant district just over the hill from Homewood. Whereas Homewood has a nice view of Vulcan's butt, 5 Points South has a nice view of his frontside LOL. 5 Points South, also known as 'Southside' is an awesome place with many unique clubs and shops. This is where the local music scene in Birmingham thrives. It's a very walkable area and the shops are amazing! Hailey and I went down there last Saturday and went in Cloud Nine and India Shop. Both shops have unique clothing, shoes, jewelry, posters, and tons and tons of incense! Cloud Nine also does tattoes and that is where Hailey will get hers (when she does get it). Southside is also a neighborhood and within walking distance to University of Alabama at Birmingham. There are many old homes that have been refurbished and remodeled into showcases. Quaint, old apartment buildings house singles, couples and many college students.
This is the first ever block party in 5 Points South. It was an attempt by the 5 Points Neighborhood Association to provide a fun 4th of July event for people who are feeling the gas crunch and can't necessarily afford to go out of town for the holiday. I think it's a great idea and I will DEFINITELY be taking my camera along!
Yes...THAT'S why I haven't blogged in over 10 days! Amazing! It finally dawned on me about a month ago that if I didn't get it in gear and work some serious overtime we could just kiss this trip to Cali goodbye (myself at least, fund raising has already paid a big chunk of Hailey's costs). I make a pretty good wage on regular time and since I'm still an hourly employee, a VERY NICE wage on overtime. So I withdrew from school (just put that on hold until Hailey graduates) and really buckled down on the overtime. From January through May I maybe worked 3 hours of overtime total! In the last 6 weeks I've worked over 10 so I'm headed in the right direction. I'm in real good shape this week having worked almost 30 hours in 3 days. I should be on overtime all day Friday and will go in Saturday to meet my goal of 50 hours this week. I'm tired but it's just gotta be done.
I've also been exercising. I've been doing Turbo Jam every morning (not today, since I got up late). It's really great and gives me lots of energy. There's no better way to start your day than to get a good, sweaty workout! I've been trying to do 5 days on and 2 days rest BUT since I'm skipping today I'll have to exercise on Sunday and just rest on Monday.
We've been doing this fruit flush diet and it's great too! It's a 3 day detox where you eat nothing but fruit all day, then a salad and some chicken or fish at night. I don't own a scale and the only time I get weighed is when I go to the doctor, but I can definitely feel that I've lost weight and the exercise is really toning me up.
I've also been NOT smoking in the house, which naturally keeps me away from the computer.
So, those are the reasons my blog has been kind of neglected as of late. Plus I just haven't had anything to blog about. Hailey is out of school and there's nothing really going on right now. They've cut her hours back to just weekends at Moe's so she's just basically chillin at home while I work.
There are some upcoming events that look promising though:
Senior band members get fitted for their uniforms on July 8th.
Hailey has her Senior pictures made on July 9th (I'll be there probably snapping some pics of them snapping her pics).
Band camp starts on July 22nd and I will be there spying and listening as much as I can. They don't play when they first start because they always have to teach the Freshmen how to march. Hailey will be one of 4 section leaders for the clarinets. It's going to be a great year for band!
And, my BFF Melonee is having an adoption party on July 26th (she's adopting a foster child that she's had for quite some months). I will be taking my camera so I can blog the event.
We MIGHT be taking a short trip to the beach (we SO need it). This depends upon the above-mentioned overtime.
Hailey's Senior registration is August 4th.
Band pictures are on August 6th.
First day of school is August 11th.
My Birthday is August 16th.
The band will perform for the Tournament of Roses president on August 19th (he will be here all that week).
Homewood Patriot Football starts on August 29th!
Looking at all this I guess it's good we've got this little break where there is nothing going on. But I love the fall, when band and school and football start, it's so exciting and since this is Hailey's last year, I'm not going to miss a minute of any of it!
Here's some more very good news about our school system, of which I am so very, very proud!
Homewood High School was named one of the "top 1,300 U.S. high schools" by NEWSWEEK magazine.
To qualify for the list, public schools are ranked according to the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at the school in 2007 and is divided by the number of graduating seniors. Any school with a ratio of 1.000 or higher is placed on the NEWSWEEK website to indicate that the school had as many tests taken in 2007 as they had graduates.
Homewood High School was ranked 479 out of the 1,300 schools, a ranking that would place it in the top two percent of schools in the nation.
There were very few schools in our state that made this list.
Here's the article and the complete list.
I was going to blog today and write a bit about my Father. This is the first Father's Day since he passed away last July. It felt weird and sad. I decided I didn't want to write because it would make me too sad. I decided I just wanted to remember the good times with my Dad. He was a good Father and I have many wonderful memories that I will keep with me throughout my life and someday I know that I will see my Father again. The details of the day he died and the days to follow still haunt me: the phone call at 6:30am, hearing my sister say the words that wouldn't register in my brain, the funeral, the burial and visiting his grave a few months later and still seeing the dirt looking so fresh. I don't want to focus on those sad things. I want to focus on the memories I have with my Father. He is still alive in my memories.
So Junior FINALLY broke his winless streak today and won at MIS. While I was watching the race I was saddened by the number of empty seats. I don't think I've ever seen the stands so sparse at a cup race before. I'll bet some of those people who didn't go are kicking themselves now! Thank God Jr knows how to save fuel! And Thank God for that last caution. I think this was a very special win for both Junior and Rick Hendrick. These two have a very special bond in that Junior lost his Father and Rick lost his son. Very, very fitting for Father's Day. I know that Dale Sr and Ricky Hendrick were both smiling down from heaven today.
Way to go Junebug! Way to go! Happy Father's Day!
Sex and the City grossed $55.7 million dollars this weekend - the best opening ever for an R-rated movie. What did you think of the movie? If you didn't see it, do you plan to?
I haven't seen it yet but I definitely plan to. My sister saw it with her daughters (16 and 24) and said it was awesome! SATC is an awesome show and has a HUGE following so I'm not at all surprised that the movie's opening did well. We've all been watching re-runs of the show, anxiously awaiting this movie that supposedly answers the BIG question we've all been dying to know the answer to!
And I have to say I am SO SICK of hearing these ugly, uptight, frigid bitches on here calling them sluts. Lighten up and open up your mind and your attitude and maybe even your legs every once in a while. These ladies are not sluts, they are sexy women......there IS a difference! When's the last time you got it on with your dildo....or is that too 'slutty' for you? I can certainly understand why women who only have sex with their husbands on Wednesday, in the missionary position with the lights out would be intimidated by these free and sexually uninhibited women, but STOP calling THEM sluts just because you know that you are sexually retarted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda are perfectly respectable, upstanding NYC women. Samantha is the resident slut but even she does it with extreme class. She's open and honest about it. She likes sex so sue her!
It's so funny to me that most of these women on VOX that are so quick to judge the SATC girls and call them 'sluts' have never even freaking watched the show!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Four chefs have made it onto Forbes' Celebrity 100 Power List. And apparently it helps to be on TV - preferably with more than one show.
The highest-ranked among them at # 76, is the always-chipper Rachel Ray, who is not really a chef, but a cookbook author and TV personality. Coming in next at # 91 is Wolfgang Puck, one of the original celebrity chefs from the 1980s whose empire has expanded to include airport cafeterias and take-out stores to go alongside his more upscale restaurants. At # 95 is the cantankerous Gordon Ramsay, who has managed to accumulate an incredible 12 Michelin stars at the same time as run an expanding TV empire that includes the popular shows, Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. And just slipping onto the list with the final spot is relative newcomer Paula Deen, whose popular Food TV shows feature the most overindulgent televised use of butter since the Two Fat Ladies went off the air.
The list takes into account earnings, press coverage, magazine cover stories and television presence, among other criteria.
Notably absent from the list are the ubiquitous Bobby Flay and English culinary heartthrob Jamie Oliver.
If you had to go on a two-week vacation with any celebrity, who would you pick as your traveling companion and where would you go?
It would be a draw between Rachael Ray and Guy Fieri. I'd love to go wherever 40.00 a day takes Rachael for two weeks but I'd be just as happy cruising around in Guy's hot rod visiting Diners, Drive-ins and Dives!
So I decided to give Nashville Star a watch last night. I had watched a couple of episodes years ago when it was on USA and I wasn't impressed. I thought the show must have improved with all the hype about snaring Billy Ray Cyrus as the host and moving the show to NBC. As a passionate American Idol fan I was quite miffed when I read this article on the internet yesterday...
| Canwest News Service |
Monday, June 09, 2008
The star of Nashville Star (NBC, E! - 9 p.m.) has risen. The country crooner competition open to - yikes - actual adults moves from the backcountry obscurity of the USA Network cable channel to a real, big-time broadcast network, NBC, for its sixth season, starting tonight.
Nashville Star's new season will bow on E! locally, so now practically anyone with a working TV will be able to see the show that many country fans and music aficionados say leaves American Idol trailing in its dust.
The contestants' ability to write songs and play an instrument is a given, if not mandatory: no cheap karaoke acts here. The ability to hit a note and sustain it for more than a dog's bark is also a given; Nashville Star is for semi-pros rather than rank amateurs. Still, there's a certain bucolic charm to Nashville Star that seems far removed from the plastic glitz and glamour of Idol's Hollywood home.
This year's eventual winner has an added incentive: a scheduled performance date before a world audience at the Beijing Summer Olympics.
This season's host is Billy Ray Cyrus; the judges are singer-songwriter and record producer John Rich, 2006 BMI Songwriter of the Year Jeffrey Steele and Alaskan-born siren and three-time Grammy nominee Jewel. Nary a snarly Brit among them.
OK I don't even know where to begin to rebut this article. So I'll just address each slam at American Idol which I have underlined for emphasis.
There are a total of 4 teenagers in the top 12 so I'm not sure what the reference to "actual adults" means.
This show to me was extremely cheesy and seemed a little low-budget. American Idol fans have come to expect the best: the best from the host and the judges, the best in the stage and the audience participation and the best from the contestants. This show didn't deliver any of those things on even the same planet as American Idol does. American Idol "trailing" in THIS show's dust? I don't think so.
While a couple of these contestants did play a guitar during their performance, I heard no self-written songs. Every performance was a cover and with the exception of a couple of them, a cover of old, stale country songs that nobody ever wants to here again (Elvira?). It was on a whole, the biggest collection of "cheap karaoke acts" that I have EVER seen. I'm sure these contestants wouldn't have chosen these songs if they weren't forced to. American Idol has to get rights to songs before the contestants are allowed to perform them on the show. Nashville Star obviously has a very small songbook from the 'Old Country Music Hall of Fame'. Hopefully, if the show gains any popularity from the move to NBC they will get rights to some actual 'good' country songs.
If these contestants are semi-pros then I need to get my hearing checked. Comparing this bunch to American Idol's recent top 12, well there is no comparison. Talent-wise they aren't even in the same league as the Idol gang.
Is Nashville Star really shot in Nashville? I really don't know but I really hated the whole set, the opening music is not anywhere near as engaging as American Idol's "goosebump invoking" music. If Idol is plastic then give me plastic, at least I'll be entertained.
As far as there being no "snarly Brit" among the judges they can be thankful for that! I'd have to say that Nashville Star could use a bit of Simon's ability to spot talent and critique performances. If Simon were involved in this show, with these contestants, with the performances I saw last night...well they would all get voted off and nobody would win.
These are the performances I particularly hated:
Pearl Heart singing 'Wide Open Spaces'. An all sister singing trio that are so clearly Dixie Chicks wannabes, try to sound like them, and even sing....duh...a Dixie Chicks song. Yuck! I HATE the Dixie Chicks they are so GONE from country music and we DEFINITELY do not need another group like that. They were basically talentless anyway.
Third Town singing 'Elvira'. Ughh!! Another singing trio of guys who are very Rascall Flattesque, except without much talent. It was horrible in my opinion. I wouldn't even pay a 10.00 cover charge to listen to these guys.
I saw 2 performances that I liked:
Laura & Sophie. Even though they sang a VERY OLD country song 'Stand By Your Man' it really worked for them. I thought they sounded good and harmonized well. It was very obvious they have been singing together for a long time. Sadly, I don't see them succeeding as a duo. I think either one or the other (not sure which) would eventually breakaway as a solo artist.
Ashley Hewitt. She was the first person to bring a pop song to the performances. 'Bubbly' is a popular pop song but it really worked well with Ashley's country voice. I really liked her voice, her performance and her look. I could definitely see her bring a pop edge to country music the same way that Taylor Swift has.
I did not see Melissa Lawson's performance but from what I'm reading today she was the class of the field.
Will I keep watching Nashville Star? Probably.
Is it up to American Idol standards? Absolutely, positively, no way Jose! Not by a mile.
(New York, NY) American Idol winner David Cook has been signed to 19 Recordings / RCA Records and is preparing to start recording his debut album which is due for release in fall 2008.
"David Cook is an extraordinarily versatile and talented artist with an impressive sense of musicality," says Tom Corson, Executive Vice President and General Manager, RCA Music Group. "He is a natural performer and a true star. We are thrilled to welcome him into our family."
Cook, who's first single, "The Time Of My Life" skyrocketed to #1 on iTunes, will be recording his album over the summer while on the road with the American Idol's Live tour. The tour kicks off on July 1st in Glendale, AZ and wraps on September 13th in Tulsa, OK.
"The Time Of My Life" has sold 236,024 digital tracks in 4 days, making it the best single debut of an American Idol since season two. Additionally, Cook currently has 17 tracks on the Top 100 Digital Songs Chart, the most ever by any artist.
"The Time Of My Life" is blowing up at radio, coming in as the #1 most added at Hot AC and AC radio right out of the box and #2 most added at Top 40 radio, pulling in over 6 million listeners in less than a week without an official launch. Additionally, it was the biggest single premiere on AOL's PopEater site this year, garnering over 1 million streams in 24 hours.
"I am extremely happy to be signed by 19 Recordings / RCA Records. Signing this deal is truly a dream come true. I am looking forward to the recording process and creating a record. The support I have received from America has been overwhelming and I can't wait to hopefully do right by them," says David Cook.
25 year old David Cook hails from Blue Springs, Missouri where he discovered his singing skills while in the 2nd grade. Before his American Idol victory Cook independently released an album "Analog Heart" which earned him an URBY nomination for "Indie Album of the Year." Cook also belonged to two bands, Midwest Kings and Axium.
"David Cook is a remarkable talent and is a worthy winner of American Idol," says Simon Fuller, creator of the popular TV series and chief executive and founder of 19 Entertainment Label Group "he has an astonishing voice, and is capable of truly memorable performances as he showed throughout the season. He's mature, well grounded and knows what he wants. It's this quiet determination that sets him apart from other singers; I honestly believe that David has the potential to go on to become one of the most successful Idols of all time".
Congrats to DC! He now shares a record label with the likes of Christina Aguilera, Kelley Clarkson, Daughtry, Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters and many, many more.....recording of David's album will begin during the Idol tour, be finished up during the fall and should be released around November/December (I know what I want for Christmas!).
Hope y'all aren't tired of getting bombarded with David Cook yet....
Here's some of his studio recordings I downloaded last night.....very, very good stuff!
I'm truly, honestly and completely obsessed with Mr. Cook! As are millions of others! 942,000 downloads in a week! Sheesh! The boy is on fire!
The entertainment editor completely blew off American Idol winner David Cook for some DUMB show nobody has ever heard of...so I'm gonna give David the VOX kudos he deserves! Some entertainment editor!
More music to come....(songs from his pre-Idol album and some of his stellar live performances on the show)