Digital Brainwaves

Michael Yon, as part of an invitation to US Senators, including the presidential candidates, to tour Iraq with him to see what’s really going on and how well things really are going, makes “a stunning prediction:” the war in Iraq could be over by the end of 2008.

Confederate Yankee has the quote and more details, along with a line of his own: “History will not remember pro-defeat politicians or activists kindly.”

I wasn’t sure, and neither was Redstate.com. But they did endorse Barack Obama back in 1996.

Redstate did some digging, and was rather disturbed by what they found. See why this might be bad for Obama, and why it’s definitely bad for America.

Two hours of tripe followed by a few minutes of actual contest-related content… THIS… is American Idol!
Continue reading ‘American Idol 5/21 - THE WINNER IS…’ »

Finally caught up! I’ll have this one done in time to vote.

• Michael Buffer to announce the beginning of the show… cute.
• “Sugarfoot” Cook?
• Yeah, “Babyface” I can see.
• Huuuuuuuuge stage for the finale at the Nokia theater.
• Earlier contestants in the audience, along with Luke Perry and kiddies…
• Crowd sounds pretty even, though slightly in Archuleta’s favor.
• Simon’s dressed up a little more than normal.
• FOUR hours of voting time tonight.
• Clive Davis and Andrew Lloyd Weber mentor the two this week.
• Archuleta won a coin toss following the results show last week, and will perform last.
• The Davids talk each other up.
• Round one will feature songs picked by Clive Davis. Boxing match metaphors continue to abound.
  1. David Cook - “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” - This could be released as a single today. Awesome beyond words. The bar is starting HIGH.
  2. David Archuleta - “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” - This is one of my favorite songs. I’m not sure he’s doing all he can with it — he’s moving some notes around, but it sounds a lot like the Elton John original. Great job with it, but he can do more… which he does at the end. I think he’s redeemed himself a little from the beginning.
• I score round one, slightly, in Cook’s favor. Simon disagrees.
• Round two consists of the contestants’ choices from among the top ten submissions of new songs written for the show.
  1. David Cook - “Dream Big” (Emily Shackleton) - Perfect song and arrangement for Cook’s style, as he plays along on guitar. Hopefully that last long high note doesn’t blow out his voice, ’cause it sounded great.
• I’m not sure what song Simon was listening to, this was rockin’.
  2. David Archuleta - “In This Moment” (Ryan Gilmore) - He sings a decent song very well, but it sounds a lot like previous Idol winners’ winning songs. That’s one of the things I liked about the “Dream Big” performance, that it was different.
• Simon keeps calling it for Archuleta, but he’s been sounding like the same old Idol finalist. I like different, and I like the rocking-er music. (Yes, I’m making up words. Shut up. :-P)
• Final round: contestants’ choice.
  1. David Cook - “The World I Know” - Cook’s never performed this song before, but he does it smashingly. Same as the first two, I’d buy all three as singles.
• Cook’s starting to break down now that’s he’s done performing for competition.
• Simon’s obviously got his favorite. In the words of Tony Stark… “I respectfully disagree.”
• Nice comment from David: “Why do something I’ve already done?” Probably as close as he’s going to get to snarking at Archuleta.
2. David Archuleta - “Imagine” - David is reusing a song he’s done previously. I’d have preferred something new instead of a retread. Not to say he does a bad job with it, absolutely the opposite. But We’ve seen this performance once already this season.
• Ruben Studdard sings out the finale with “Celebrate Me Home.”

The judges appear to have their favorites, and I have mine…

My vote and my favorite to win: David Cook.

See ya tomorrow night for the grand finale!

One last catchup blog, with the results of the top three. The finalists are chosen tonight.
Continue reading ‘American Idol 5/14’ »

I’m not good at beating around the bush, so I’ll just say it.

Last Friday I told friends and co-workers that I was going to Canada to meet with florists and photographers for our wedding. But we’ve gotten so fed up with being apart so much, and Yvonne’s getting frustrated with wedding expenses to the point that we decided we just couldn’t wait anymore, and applied for a marriage license.

We’ve decided to elope this weekend.

We made an appointment for this Saturday with a judge in Niagara Falls, Robert Lirpa, who’s going to perform the ceremony. We might ask a couple of friends to come with us, we haven’t decided that part yet.

Don’t try to talk us out of it, though. On that point, our minds are made up.

Wired magazine tells “the untold story” about the creation and release of the iPhone:

The demo was not going well.
Again.

It was a late morning in the fall of 2006. Almost a year earlier, Steve Jobs had tasked about 200 of Apple’s top engineers with creating the iPhone. Yet here, in Apple’s boardroom, it was clear that the prototype was still a disaster. It wasn’t just buggy, it flat-out didn’t work. The phone dropped calls constantly, the battery stopped charging before it was full, data and applications routinely became corrupted and unusable. The list of problems seemed endless. At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, “We don’t have a product yet.”

The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs’ trademark tantrums. When the Apple chief screamed at his staff, it was scary but familiar. This time, his relative calm was unnerving. “It was one of the few times at Apple when I got a chill,” says someone who was in the meeting.

Interesting read, go have a look.

As I was getting ready to drive to Buffalo to pick up Yvonne and her sister Saturday, I had an interesting realization.

It doesn’t matter what I get for Christmas.

I noticed that I was less interested in what would be under the tree and more interested in seeing both my family and my fiancée’s family to hang out. This is something your elders try to beat into you, and you sometimes pay lip service to, but I actually got it this year, and it’s feeling like a really awesome Christmas.

What?

Oh, yeah, fiancée.

Didn’t I tell you about that?

Alas, the weather, it did not cooperate, and Yvonne and I spent our Thanksgiving here in Rochester.  We’ll meet up with friends tomorrow after I get out of work, and the family will join us for a visit on Saturday.

It’s all good, I still got to have turkey today.  It was cold cuts, but it counts.

This could prove interesting, and not in a good way…

The weather in western New York is not expected to be pretty tomorrow, so my original plans to visit the folks may be in jeopardy:

.A WEAK STORM SYSTEM OVER OHIO WILL TRACK ACROSS NORTHERN
PENNSYLVANIA ON THANKSGIVING MORNING THEN WILL MAKE ITS WAY TO THE
NEW ENGLAND COAST BY EVENING. THIS WILL RESULT IN MORE WIDESPREAD
RAIN ACROSS WESTERN AND NORTH CENTRAL NEW YORK OVERNIGHT...WITH
COLDER AIR ACROSS ONTARIO FILTERING TO THE SOUTH IN THE PROCESS.
THIS WILL GRADUALLY CHANGE THE RAIN TO A MIX OF SLEET AND SNOW AS
THE WEE HOURS OF THURSDAY UNFOLD. THERE MAY EVEN BE A PERIOD OF
FREEZING RAIN OVER HIGHER ELEVATIONS EAST OF LAKE ONTARIO DURING
THE CHANGEOVER. AREAS NEAR LAKE ONTARIO SUCH AS NIAGARA AND
ORLEANS COUNTIES AS WELL AS THE NORTH COUNTRY WILL SEE THIS
CHANGEOVER EARLIEST... WHILE THE SOUTHERN TIER WILL BE THE LAST.

IT NOW APPEARS THAT THE HEAVIEST PRECIPITATION WILL BE TAPERING
OFF BEFORE THE CHANGEOVER TO SNOW...SO TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS SHOULD
ONLY BE IN THE 1 TO 3 INCH RANGE...BUT THE COMBINATION OF MIXED
PRECIPITATION CAN RESULT IN VERY SLIPPERY DRIVING CONDITIONS
DURING THANKSGIVING DAY. SNOW WILL DIMINISH TO SNOW SHOWERS BY
AFTERNOON BUT TEMPERATURES WILL FALL BELOW FREEZING BY DARK. THIS
WILL BE THE FIRST BOUT OF WINTER DRIVING CONDITIONS OF THE SEASON
FOR MOST OF THE REGION...SO EXERCISE CAUTION IN YOUR HOLIDAY
TRAVELS.

They’ll be visiting here anyway on Saturday, so I’ll still get my turkey, but it does throw off my schedule.

All told, though, if the roads are crappy, it’s better we stay home anyway.