Author Archives: Rob MacD

So, yeah… The Balloon Boy.

What an odd little bit of Newstertainment.  I got a bit caught up in it yesterday afternoon at work when a co-worker came and told me it was happening.  I found a live local (local to the story) news feed on the internet and watched as the balloon sailed along high above Colorado.  It was rather fascinating. Horrible, of course, to imagine a little 6 year old boy in that balloon, no doubt scared out of his mind.
It’s always interesting when things like this get covered live, when there’s so much air time to fill up while everyone waits for something else to happen.  Often stupid things get said and ridiculous notions are brought up.
As I started watching, one of my first thoughts was “if it’s a helium balloon, I wonder is the boy breathing helium or does he have access to oxygen?”  Several minutes later, that thought occurred to someone being interviewed by the male and female local new anchors covering the story. “If there’s no oxygen, and he only has helium to breathe, well, he’d already be dead” said a somber expert of something-or-other.
This possibility struck the female news anchor rather hard as she gasped and said “Oh my, the thought of that takes my breath away!”   A bad choice of words there, perhaps, even if it was, literally, true.

So, yeah, they discover the boy wasn’t in the balloon, and that’s when I stopped watching.  I assume (in order of assumption) a) he never was in the balloon and that the boy is missing somewhere.  Maybe he went chasing after the balloon after it left the yard; b) he was in the balloon and fell out somewhere and is now dead; or c) it was a hoax.
Later I hear that the boy was found.  At that point, my interest in the story is done, especially after I start hearing reports about the family and its eccentricities.  It had turned from a legitimate news story to the usual voyeuristic nonsense that news channels love to investigate to death.  Count me out.

I considered it Case Closed as far as I was concerned.  But I couldn’t help myself getting back into it after I read the headline on The Huffington Post:  Falcon Heene Vomits:  WATCH Balloon boy Throw Up On Today & Good Morning America. 
That story is about how Falcon has the flu and threw up twice, once off camera and once on camera.

There is, of course, video.  I refuse to watch it, though.  However, for those of you who simply must watch, as the article informs you:  The vomiting starts 5:50 into the clip.

And this is what we have become.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

… one giant leap of awesome for me.

I remember watching the Motown 25th Anniversary show.  I remember it was a pretty good production, but when Michael Jackson came on and performed Billie Jean, it took the night to a whole other level of energy.
He was electrifying.  And when he did that moonwalk… man oh man, all kinds of people had to re-evaluate what awesome was.
Here’s the performance:
http://videos.nymag.com/embed/player/?content=RJB7PJ1B8F020WRL&widget_type_cid=svp&title_height=24

I was reading this quote about Tarantino’s new film Inglorious Basterds, and it struck me:  Harvey Weinstein’s response could so easily fit into a scene from some Tarantino film.  The cadence, the language, the feel of it.  Can’t you just imagine QT playing some harried character and spouting out the HW quotation verbatim? 
I know I can.

GQ grills Harvey Weinstein about the final cut:

GQ: So the stories about him being asked to cut 40 minutes out of the movie aren’t true?

HW: Those stories are all untrue. There’s no fucking way. Here, read my lips: That is nuts. Please don’t even write that, it’s insanity. There’s not even a question of that. Whatever you’re reading, it’s like some insane blogger… There’s no truth to any of this. He’s not gonna cut. What he’s doing is just reorganizing some scenes. I mean, the guy had six weeks to cut his movie [for Cannes]; most guys take six months. Most guys take a year. When I worked with Martin [Scorsese], we’d do eighteen months in post-production. Quentin Tarantino cuts a movie in six weeks? Come on, there’s shit on that cutting-room floor that’ll blow your brains out. I was telling Quentin the opposite—”You should put that shit back in the movie.” There’s scenes with Brad Pitt and the Basterds, and I’m praying he puts that shit back in, ‘cause it’s un-fucking-believably great. Listen—this movie will be between two hours and twenty minutes and two hours and twenty-seven minutes. I don’t think it’s going to be shorter—it’s just a question of rearranging. I know he’s putting footage back into the movie. I know he’s got some cool shit that he didn’t get time to address.

I’ve got a huge crush on Prince.  Holy sweet Jesus!
The man owns the stage, owns the falsetto, and may very well own my heart.

Watch it before it gets pulled.

Some people told me they couldn’t view the previous video of Chimp’s Poot, so here’s a YouTube version.

Let me know if you still can’t view it.

… and I love this ad.  I’d definitely shop at The Red House.

I missed last week’s AI, and didn’t review it.

You know what I’m really hating about AI this year?  The childish behaviour of the judges.  Especially Simon and Paula.  I don’t really care that they play-fight, but it irks me to no end when that play-fighting gets in the way of the other judges comments, and thus causing the show to run long.

There.

The performers:

Lil sang I’m Every Woman.  Oh man, baby’s got back-talk.  Yes, she has a huge bum and it was splendidly showcased in tight black spandex or whatever.  Her singing was awful.  The background singers’ vocals drove the song, while Lil hooped and grunted and tried to get soulful.  She failed.  Worst performance of the night.  I hated how she interrupted the judges comments and demanded that her performance wasn’t karaoke.  The issue, Lil, isn’t that it was or wasn’t karaoke.  The issue is you have no idea who you are.  You need to shut up and heed other advice.  Except, I expect you to be gone this week.

Kris sang “She Works Hard For the Money”.  I liked his acoustic, it’s-not-disco arrangement.  I thought his vocals were strong.  I just can’t see Kris as anything other than a light-weight musical entertainer.  Second best performance of the night.

Danny sang “September”.  I found this performance boring and screechy.  He seemed like he was going through the motions.  Didn’t care for this.

Allison sang “Hot Stuff”.  I am liking Allison less and less each week, and I was never much of a fan to begin with.  Another strong vocal, but everything around it – the arrangement, the too-old face, the purple hair, the attitude all brought me down.

Adam sang “If I Can’t Have You”.  Okay, he’s won me over.  I’ve been waiting for him to show his petulant, arrogant side but he’s either just a nice guy, or he’s expert at manipulating his persona.  I quite liked the slowed down version of this song.  And he didn’t ruin it with screechy high-pitched power notes.  Best of the night.  Again.

Matt sang “Staying Alive”.  I mostly liked this, although it did reek a bit of desperation.  And those awful high falsetto notes didn’t win him any fans.  Don’t know if he did enough to stay around.

Anoop sang “Dim All the Lights”.  I wasn’t familiar with this song, or at least this arrangement of the song, and didn’t really care for it.  I thought Anoop sang it well, though, except for that wrong last note which he thankfully cut short.

I’m thinking Lil goes home for sure.  And it’s a toss up between Matt and Anoop.  My suspicion is that Matt will stick around because of last week’s close call, and Anoop will end up this week’s loser of the Saving Matt tactic from last week.

Tell a well-known joke, but keep to the haiku format:  5 syllable line / 7 syllable line / 5 syllable line.

Here’s one from me:

Orange knocks on door
Keeps repeating “Banana”
Annoying, Orange.