Riddle Me This, Jishman

When we last left the American Idol women, it looked like things might have been set in stone but this week, things have changed drastically.

Couple of comments:

Heather Cox is horrible. Really, Heather is like Tanya Harding with a microphone. Really, send her home.

Brenda Gethers is just the most annoying person on the show… If you took Fran Drescher and the women who played Janice on Friends and asked them to merge their voices… they would still be better then Brenda. I’d even let take Manilli Vanilli or Vanilla Ice take the stage next week before I let Brenda sing again.

Okay… that is that… if you haven’t seen the show and you have it recorded on TiVo, don’t hit the more button!

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You start by making reservations at the Library Hotel in New York City.

The Library Hotel in New York City is the first hotel ever to offer its guest over 6,000 volumes organized throughout the hotel by the Dewey Decimal System.* Each of the 10 guestrooms floors honors one of the 10 categories of the DDC and each of the 60 rooms is uniquely adorned with a collection of books and art exploring a distinctive topic within the category or floor it belongs to.

But, it is so much more then just that!

Personal service goes one step further as guests may request their room based on their personal interests (subject to availability) such as the Literature floor featuring subjects from Poetry or The Classics to Erotic Literature. Such intriguing room themes offered on the Math and Science floor are Astronomy and Botany. Law, Eastern Religion, Money, and New Media are also among the 60 eclectic themes available on the room menu at The Library Hotel. Other distinctive features Library guests have at their disposal include the Writers Den a beautiful mahogany paneled room with working fireplace and The Poetry Garden, our sparkling greenhouse.

Erotic Literature?! Hmmm… this might work, where’s my credit card?

Oh, look at this, they have special packages!!!

This has everything for the reading enthusiast!!!

YES!!! Ahem, I mean, Bradley Whitford has signed on to join the cast of Studio 60, that new Aaron Sorkin project. Who’s with me? YIPEE!!!

The women get it started tonight in the American Idol competition…. we have ten women left:

As we realized last week, I was right and missed by one person for a 95% accuracy rating… (better then Chad Pennington and much, much funnier)

On the bubble after last week are:

WOMEN:

1) Heather Cox
2) Brenna Gethers
3) Kinnik Sky

MEN:

1) Gedeon McKinney
2) David Radford
3) Bucky Covington

Of course, that was last week. This is a new week and a new day… a solid performance this week could catapult these bubble contestants back up the standings for another life… a bad performance and it’s a one way ticket back to their regular lives.

So tune in tonight to check out the women and I will be back later tonight or tomorrow morning with a recap and a weekly prediction for the women.

Have a great night!

This is a really interesting article on Mardi Gras from the Washington Post and how the city is putting on a giant stage production that is hiding the real problems and issues that have yet to be overcome (or faced in some instances).

The truth of the condition of New Orleans lies somewhere between what the city wants us to believe (that everything is open and ready for business) and what many media outlets (CNN, MSNBC etc…) are reporting of the continued mass issues (not that there aren’t issues, it just that TV journalism tends to focus on the most “colorful” stories, because that’s what people want to see).

After seeing Brokeback Mountain a couple of weeks ago, Sarah and I left with an underwhelmed feeling and not understanding how this movie is the critics choice for Best Picture. We looked on the Academy of Motion Picture website and in our opinion, Brokeback Mountain doesn’t stack up against past winner (or even past nominees).

USA Today takes the opposite stance and says that Brokeback Mountain is important for social reasons and could change the face of what is acceptable in movies in the future.

Your thoughts Jishman?

Jishman and I are at odds this morning over the following report on ESPN.com (Insider)

Abraham for No. 1 pick?
Newsday is reporting that the Jets might be using Abraham as bait in an attempt to acquire the the No. 1 overall draft pick from the Texans. Such a deal would allow the Jets to pick USC QB Matt Leinart.
“The Giants traded up from No. 4 to No. 1 to get Eli Manning,” a source told Newsday. “So why not the Jets? This could be their chance to make the same kind of splash as the Giants. Leinart has that star quality that would play well in New York.”

after reading that Jishman and I got into a little debate that went something like this:

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I was reading through the some of the The NFL’s competition committee information over on the Washington Post when what to my wandering eye did appear, a note on the salary cap situation in the NFL.

Here is the interesting part:

Next season’s salary cap likely will be about $108 million per team if the owners and the players’ union can agree to an extension of their collective bargaining agreement. It probably will be set at $95 million to $96 million per club if there’s no labor extension. Last season’s salary cap was $85.5 million per team. . . .

Wait….What was that?! $108 million?! That’s HUGE with a capital H.

If Gene Upshaw and Paul Tagliabue cannot get a deal done by Friday… and/or, if they get a deal done and the owners screw it up next week because they can’t get a revenue sharing deal done…. then I would like to nominate all of the key players in this fiasco for Riddle Me This Jishman’s “Dumbass of the Week” Award.

If you are reading this, its because Jack Bauer wanted you to. Courteousy of Zimmy.

RIP Mr. Furley.

I know his part on Andy Griffith was bigger, but Three’s Company was one of my favorites growing up.

1.) Questionable Content — He updates it every day, and today’s is pretty funny (thanks to Warren for this one)

2.) If you’re into cars, Wired has a blog dedicated to them…or rather, the technology behind them. Its pretty good, with lots of interesting content.

3.) So, I always joke about what the world would be like if battery power/life had kept up with technology size/speed, well, someone might finally be attacking that problem. I’d love to have a laptop that I’d only need to charge once a week, for example.

And for you sports fans:
4.) No great shock here. The Texans are looking to trade the pick. That sounds familiar. (wouldn’t it just make me nuts if they trade it to the Jets?)

5.) No, I take it back, this would make me crazy. Here’s what I could see happening with this story: The Jets, in their infinite wisdom, trade John Abraham to the Redskins for Ramsey and their 1st rounder next year. Thus, not only do they get rid of a player they don’t want, but get no immediate help for having done so. (Man, maybe I am a bit of a pessimist?)

6.) and finally, I know it should come as no great shock to anyone who reads this that I spent part of the weekend watching highlights (and live action) from the NFL Scouting Combine. (Now, for those of you who don’t know, the Combine is where potential draft choices are measured, weighed, poked and prodded to ensure if that if a team is going to spend like $50 million on a guy, that he’s worth it. Unfortunately, its become such a cliche for guys to show up, and then not run, lift, whatever, but my thoughts on that another time). Well, so I watched part of it, and I agree with Michael Smith from ESPN. I’d already seen Vince Young and Matt Leinart throw, but Jay Cutler really impressed me. I watched every one of his throws with eager anticipation, and although he missed on a few tosses, it was always followed by an announcer or commentator saying “but that was a good miss” or “there’s no way a defender would have been able to get that one.”

I think the one thing that impressed me the most was that when I watched him, he had that competitive fire you want to see from your athletes. It reminds you why some people play the game, and that was inspiring. People knock his footwork, his motion, but there he is atop quite a few analysts draft boards because of his cannon of an arm. They said he wasn’t athletic enough, but there he was lifting the 225-lb weight 23 times, more than all but one player in either the QB or RB categories.

I know a ton has been written about him, and even I’ve talked about him before, but let me tell you, I had no real idea until I saw him how good he might be.

And with that, I wish you all a good Monday morning…

In a previous post, Donny and I both lamented as the horrible nature of this years senior class for men’s basketball.

Tonight, we got stomped by UNC to drop to 16-10 (6-8 ACC) and probably on the outside of the NCAA tournament bubble looking in. I can’t decide if Eric Prisbell of the Washington Post is right that we had a better chance of making the tournament last year than this year. All I know is that this team is terribly inconsitant and probably does not deserve to be in the tournament.

I can’t wait for this senior class to leave!

You love the 80s, now prove it! I got 131, for the record.

As some of you know, one of my pet peeves is customer service. I don’t really need much, but when I call someone I want they to at least have a clue of what i’m talking about. Here are two incidents that reinforce why some outsourcing (in this case call centers) is a really poor idea:

1. I had to cancel a trip I have coming up to San Antonio and to rebook the ticket for Orlando. When I called my airline of choice to take care of this, I was transfered to a call center in India. Now let me make this clear, I have nothing against India or Indian people, but the women who answered the phone couldn’t understand a word I was saying. I had to spell Maryland for her!!! In the end, I ended up having to hang up and call back because she was telling me that a flight that I wanted, and was listed on the website, in fact did not exist in her system!

2. I got home from the grocery store today and noticed that a piece of metal sheeting was hanging of the roof and blowing in the wind. Now mind you this is the same piece of metal I called the management company of our condo complex about last week and was ensured would be fixed immediately. I called the managment companies emergency line and had to tell the women 3 times where I lived, what my address was and what unit I lived in. The first two times she informed me that “we do not manage a complex by that name” ?!?!?!? and then finally she said, “oh i’m sorry, yes we do” !!!!

She promised that someone would come right out and would also call me to keep me updated. I won’t hold my breath, b/c I doubt it will happen.

Maybe it’s growing up with a family retail business, but I don’t understand how people have gotten so rude (and dumb) and how we let them get away with it!

While Jish wrote his 100th blog on this site about Mr. T, while 4 out of 5 interviews blew me off today and wasted my time, and the 4 losers of AI5 returned home today, I got to end my week on the best note!

I got to give away a car at 4:30pm today to the winner of my agency’s raffle!

And if you think that is cool, wait until you hear the story.

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