Amazing Race scorecard

~ m ~ Leave a comment

UPDATE: WE HAVE A WINNER!

Best choice of winners goes to… Larry, with only 2 team changes and 3 stage wins, barely beating out Jane, Wren, Reiley and Nick by one stage win, and tying me (but I’m disqualified since I’m the scorekeeper!).

Best choice of losers goes to… Larry by a landslide, with 5 correct eliminations!

I’m heading over to deliver Larry’s prizes now….  :>

—

Trying to get everyone hooked into an Amazing Race contest…

  • Pick the team you think will win, and pick the team you think will be eliminated next.
  • If your winning team is eliminated, you have to pick another. Least picks wins!
  • If your losing team is eliminated, you score, and get to pick another. Most scores wins!

Hopefully simple enough, here we go!

Team Symbol
Yoga vegans V
Asperger brothers A
Gay brothers G
Dad/son opposites O
Harlem GT’s H
Poker pro women P
Miss America interracial I
Weighlifters W
Nashville Christians C
Columbian fire couple F
Internet 50’s 5
Young soccer stars Y

 

 

WINNER PICKS

Viewer Ep01a Y
 Ep01c O
 Ep02 H Ep03 G
 Ep04 Y Ep05 Y Ep06 G Ep07 H
 Ep08 Y Ep09
Y		 Ep10 Y
 Ep11 Y
Larry P Y win!
Jane H

Y
Andrea G
Mike P Y
Wren H Y
Reiley H Y
Nick H

Y

 

 

ELIMINATION PICKS

Viewer Ep01a V
 Ep01c F
 Ep02 5
 Ep03 A
 Ep04 W
 Ep05 C
 Ep06 P
 Ep07 (O)
 Ep08 O Ep09 (I)
 Ep10 H Ep11 I,G,Y
Larry F

F

5

 A W O O O G win!
Jane

V

 P P I
Andrea W W I
Mike C C I
Wren

V

 P I
Reiley W W P P I
Nick W W P P I

Keith Lea and the two-footed chest attack

~ m ~ Leave a comment

Keith went for his 2nd-degree (or was it 3rd?) blackbelt test in Hapkido last month, and he gave me a ticket to get in to the 4-hour extravaganza. He looks great!  They had to run hundreds of miles to prep for the test over the last few months.  There was a veteran master that flew in from Korea, and other judges from far and wide. The most fun was watching Keith’s “skit”, which involved, among other things, joint locks and tumbles, a rubber-chicken nunchuk (no lie) and a beautiful two-footed chest attack that had him flying sideways like a backwards Superman – good thing Hapkido techniques involve learning how to fall without getting hurt! Although I am sure Keith was sore the next day. They served up dinner afterwards, including some nice spicy Kimchee. A great event, tons of fun. Too bad he has to wait 6 months for the results!

Poetry flows…

~ m ~ Leave a comment

Wren’s recent poetry assignment turned out this gem…

	I looked in the corner and there sat fear, small and hunkered,
	His big, googly eyes darting around the room, not missing a thing.
	I heard him, quietly, slowly mumbling to himself, staring blankly at the wall.
	When he stood up, his eyes darted toward me and stayed on me.
	He slowly strode across the room with big steps.
	Although his head was facing straight, his eyes stayed turned to me.
	I felt a little bit sorry for him, 
	But when he shut the door without a sound, I got the chills.

Ghetto Garage Band liftoff!

~ m ~ Leave a comment

I got duped into cleaning out the entire garage last weekend, under the pretense that I was setting up the music studio I’ve been dreaming of for decades – how could I resist? Well, it was a lot of work, and we threw away a trash container and recycle bin’s worth of old crap, but Andrea remained true to her word – we have liftoff! Here’s the barebones gear of the current setup. Everything is scrounged from ancient cruft, with the exception of the acoustic pickup (the little white circle on the cheapass video mixer), you stick the gum right on the guitar body, it works great! Everything is mixed and amped to match the level of the drums. The girls and I practiced up and cranked out Yellow Submarine in no time, and Nick stopped by to belt out the vocals. Yeehaw!!

9.5 Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Young

~ m ~ Leave a comment

I’ve always enjoyed bands that obviously put their time in composing their music.   It’s especially fun when the sound can be converted to something that sounds more live.  Bands like The Strokes and Collective Soul and The The sound like guitar bands,  but they are so tight and orchestrated that you know there’s more going on below the surface.  These guys can handle sequencers as well as Mark Mothersbaugh.

Here, Julian skips the conversion of his compositions to shiny homogenized guitar strumming, and this time it’s all the better for it.  All kinds of sonic textures to enjoy.

9.5 Weezer – Ratitude!

~ m ~ Leave a comment

(oops, I wrote one of those lame Rolling Stone-type “record reviews” where I rant and rant about some tangent and hardly even mention the band…rofl…)

Why does most new music sound so mediocre and slapdash?

I realize it’s become easier and easier for anyone, talented or not, to make music and publish it to the masses. And I realize that’s A Good Thing, as long as there is some form of quality filtering available. Social networking should be the perfect tool to provide this quality filtering, but it seems to fail me over and over. Grabbing the “most popular” music just isn’t working for me. There’s too much quantity, and too little quality. I’d gladly have access to twenty times less music that was consistently 20% better.

Do I really miss having all those AOR music reps vetting music for me? Am I that lame? Maybe I just need to try harder – I don’t scrobble on last.fm, I don’t use Apple’s Genius thingee, and my Pandora filters are crufty, full of old bands that don’t tie me to good new music.

The bottom line is… I want music that has a certain base level of polish and effort. In the early 80’s, I used to say that all I needed to be happy was a beatbox, but I’ve heard so much empty worthless copy-and-pasted MIDI techno nonsense, often excused with a trance or d&b tag, that I swear I will take the gaspipe if I hear one more set of empty looping beats. And one more lame meandering acoustic-guitar-strumming effortless “look at me, I’m special without trying” “modern” band will send me over the edge. And what happened to innovative rap or hip-hop? What cookie-cutter nonsense it all is! Seriously people, life is too short, stop publishing crap.

Anyway, what HAS sounded good lately is music that has a little spitpolish without losing the rock and roll edge. Weezer and White Sripes type stuff. It’s a bit embarrassing, I feel like I’ve gone back to high school and fallen in love with Van Halen, listening to Weezer sing “The girl got hot”, “Screw rehab, I love my addiction, I can’t stop partying, partying..”, etc. or the spoken rock of the White Stripes’ Rag and Bone (I swear they are channelling “Hot for Teacher”).

Help me out. What’s the best way to find good new music?

Girls ham it up

~ m ~ Leave a comment

The girls have been whipping up creative little plays for us ever since they had a “dress-up bin” from which to pull costumes.  Here are scenes from “Little Dead Riding Hood” (with the Prevost clan) and “The Noodle Master” (with the Dobbs clan).  Best entertainment around!