X-Factor

I started watching this show last year. It's along the lines of American Idol, America's Got Talent, etc. The first two episodes of the season have aired and some of the performances have been pretty amazing. I've posted my favs so far below (in ascending order).

First we have Rozelle Phillip. She has a bubbly personality, soulful voice, and that "wow, I didn't think she would be any good" vibe that these types of shows seem to be loving lately.

Next up is Daryl Markham. While his voice isn't super-fantastic, his story is packed with emotion. At the end of the clip, I literally burst into tears. Totally inspiring.

Then there's Jamie Archer. Aside from the super-funky afro, he had an amazing ability to get the crowd into his performance and actually had Simon singing along.

Joseph McElderry takes the number 2 spot so far. Likable, cute, and the kind of melt-your-heart voice that I love.

And my fav for the first two episodes is Danyl Johnson. Incredible voice, even more incredible stage presence, the swagger, the looks. I'm not sure what an "x-factor" is, but he's definitely got it. Simon said it's the best first audition he's seen in his 9 years of judging these types of competitions.

Addicted to Cash

For all of you that crave cold, hard, cash...never fear. You're not struggling with the deadly sin of greed. As it turns out, you're addicted to cocaine. In a recent study conducted by the University of Massachusetts' Yuegang Zuo (and presented last Sunday at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington DC) it was found that traces of cocaine taint up to 90% of paper money in the United States. The bills become contaminated with cocaine through contact during drug deals, directly through drug use (via methods such as snorting through rolled bills), and through contact with other tainted bills in banks' currency-counting machines.

The amount of cocaine present varied from .006 micrograms (several thousand times smaller than a grain of sand) to over 1,240 micrograms (around 50 grains of sand). Washington DC had the highest incidence of contamination with over 95% of the bills testing positive, while the cocaine averse mormons led their mecca, Salt Lake City, to have the lowest average levels.

This seemed surprising to me, so I decided I should test the findings myself. First, I threw a couple one dollar bills into the blender until they reached a snortable, powder-like consistency. To ensure that the bills I were using would indeed be laced with cocaine, I made a quick trip to L.A. and asked dear, sweet, addicted, Lindsay Lohan for change for a five.

So I would have something to compare the experience against, I also took some cash and ran down to Nordstrom to purchase a pair of shoes--resisting the urge to sniff the bills on my way, so as not to cloud the results.

I recorded my findings using the patent pending 100 point Nathan Pleasure Scale. So you have a frame a reference, previous tests have found that watching the musical "Wicked" from orchestra level seats scored a 91, while cleaning spoiled milk from a refrigerator scored a 6.

Snorting the dollar bills wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. Aside from the headache, the nosebleed, and the three day sneezing fit, it didn't have much effect. I didn't find myself craving more cash to snort, I wasn't cruising the streets seeking out my cash dealer, and wasn't wasting all my hard-earned cash on cash. Meeting Lindsay Lohan didn't really provide any measurable benefit either--total trashbox. As a result, the experience scored a 9. Slightly better than the spoiled milk, but a far cry from a night at the theatre.

On the other hand, the shoe shopping experience scored a 76. I found myself gleefully perusing the myriad assortment of fanciful footwear--which, in and of itself was quite pleasant. And I was like a kid in a very expensive candy store when I stumbled upon a must have pair of totally rockin' Marc Nason loafers. I made the purchase and felt a high that no five-dollar habit of snorting five dollars can provide.

So it would appear that I'm not addicted to the cash itself after all. I was way to willing to exchange it for something of more tangible benefit. I'm not sure if this throws me back in the deadly sin of greed category, but if so, I'll be easy to recognize. I'll be the corpse with the kick-ass footwear.

I found this little program that takes all the words in your blog entry, and makes a graphic representation of them--with more frequently used words represented in a larger font. Totally useless for the most part, but I think I might start including one of these at the end of every post. Sort of a summary that throws word order to the wind.

Fox News Cartastrophe

I saw this map on a colleagues facebook page (thanks, Shari) and, of course, I had the same reaction I’m sure you are having…”OMG, Fox News has hired Sarah Palin to run their graphics department—perhaps she wanted Egypt closer to Alaska so she could see it from her house.” (Silly girl, you kinda moved it farther away.) I did some checking, though, and it turns out that wasn’t the case. Not even Fox News is crazy enough to hire her—which is saying quite a lot, they hired Bill O’Reilly.

Perhaps, then, something more nefarious was in the works. Could it be an effort to erase the missteps of the Iraq war from their viewers’ minds? How could there be an Iraq controversy if there isn’t an Iraq? Or maybe this was some sort of Nostradamus-esque warning…”leave too soon, and look what happens.” A cursory reading of the book of Revelations ruled out an Egyptian occupation of Iraq as a sign of the end times, so I threw that concept out.

Maybe this is just being “fair and balanced”. I mean, Iraq has been in the spotlight for a while now. Fox must have thought Egypt needed some time in the limelight. Or maybe Egypt really is there, and we occupied it instead. That wouldn’t be so bad. The pharaohs make Hussein look like a pussy cat. It’s high time we take out their ability to build monuments of mass destruction. And, I can only imagine the treasures we could uncover in the pyramids. Who needs black gold when you can have the real deal? I just hope we are more successful at finding that than we were at finding WMD’s.

Then, there is always the chance that this was an honest mistake by well-intentioned Fox News staffers. I have to say, this would be a bit encouraging. I’m much more tolerant of them accidentally relaying misinformation than their usual MO of intentionally relaying misinformation. And if that is the case, and the good folks at Fox really don’t know where Iraq is, we all owe poor Miss Teen South Carolina a HUGE apology. Turns out, she was right all along. Apparently, US Americans are unable to do so, because…uh….some people out there in our nation don’t have maps.