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American Idol is down to the Final Three, and we’re happy because Melinda is in it. She’s gotta be the best AI competitor ever, and probably the most wonderful human being as well. But we liked the other three, too, plus a couple of the other’s that didn’t make it as far: Chris Slye, and Sundance Head, who was blocked from the final 12 to make room for Sanjaya, of all people.

Interesting note: Three of the top four (all but Jordin) are only children.

Yes! Only children rule! At least my wife and I are of that opinion …

Anyway, back to the competition: Melinda for the win!

Next: Oh man, Lost delivered the kind of shockers (and answers, to some extent) we’ve come to know and love tonight: Ben’s backstory, a view of life inside the then-thriving Dharma Initiative, what became of that initiative, who “Roger Work Man” (the dead body inside the minivan) was and how he died, the true nature of Ben without a doubt, and the episode ending with one of the main characters laying shot and possibly dying (hey, it could happen) …

Man oh man: Lost is back!

I just wish they weren’t going to be dragging it out through 2010. They should wrap it up by the end of next season.

I think I’ve earned this light blog day:

Andy Griffith sues Andy Griffith; Andy Griffith loses. Floyd the Barber unavailable for comment.

Hey Hockey Puck, it’s Don Rickles‘ birthday today. What’s he famous for? Click here.

This is something like 18 posts in a row! I only plan to do this for a bit less than 2 more weeks, so I’m keeping on keeping on, with various things … Did like EVERYBODY but me see Spiderman 3 this weekend??? They did where I work — most of them, anyway … Speaking of heroes: Heroes is on! That’s another reason I can’t post much. Is Sylar actually getting a conscience?? He doesn’t mind slaughtering thousands of people, as long as it’s just one at a time … My wife, who is more of a musician than I’ll ever be, subscribes to the Sweetwater catalog — which is the coolest collection of musical stuff ever. Right now I use three main pieces of musical software, all of which cost under $80 each, but with my birthday coming up soon, I’m thinking of treating myself to a bit of an upgrade, mostly in the sequencer department, now that I’ve mostly mastered Cakewalk Kinetic 2. I think I’ll call them this week for some “counseling”, since we hear that their operators are very knowledgeable and helpful … Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon: It’s Teresa Brewer‘s birthday today; she’s 76.

Okay, that’s all I have time for, gotta get back to Heroes …

We hadn’t been to a movie in a theatre since before my pneumonia and surgery more than a year ago, so today we decided to indulge ourselves, if “indulge” is the word you would use for a movie as mediocre as Wild Hogs. (Can you tell it was my wife’s choice, not mine?) Everything to do with the writing, including the directing, was shallow, contrived, simplistic, cliched, and uncreative.

On the positive side, though, a great incentive for movie geeks such as myself to sit through this thing was the excellent casting work. Besides the solid selection of the four leads, the deep casting was as good as I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. Minor and even small parts went to the likes of John C. McGinley (my favorite person on Scrubs), Stephen Tobolowsky, Jill Hennessey, Ray Liotta, Jason and Randy Sklar, Marisa Tomei, Steve Landesberg (from Barney Miller! He only had about four lines in the movie, but it was good to see him again), Tenacious D’s Kyle Gass, Tichina Arnold (from Martin Lawrence’s old show, and Everybody Hates Chris), Dr. Drew Pinsky, M. C. Gainey (he’s Tom the “Other” on Lost), and, in a roll that couldn’t have gone to anyone else in the entire world, Peter Fonda.

Plus, the songs used over the action are pretty good, if a bit overused in other movies.

So, if you get dragged to this movie like I did, at least there’s a bright spot or two.

I continue to be amazed by the memory trip that I’m getting out of my new Mad Magazine DVD-ROM — and so far I’ve only skimmed over parts of three out of the fifty total years of issues.

The latest mindblower is this group political caricature from 1971 by master caricaturist Mort Drucker:

click here to view the picture with my notes, and here to see the largest size.

See how many of these people you can name, and, more importantly, how many you can’t.

Just remember that 36 years ago, these were the political movers and shakers, and very, very few are alive and active today.

Note also that there are zero women, and only one non-white, and I think he was a Black Panther, and not an elected or even appointed official.

It’s weird to remember how white-male everything used to be.

I told my co-worker Curtis that I’d email him links to videos I’ve been telling him about, but then I realized I might as well make those links serve as a blog post too!

Two birds, one stone, no waiting!

From Acceptable.TV, Gar the Unbearable:

That one didn’t get continued this week, but this one did: Who’s Gonna Train Me!

NBC Music Video: That’s what she said!

A couple of days ago I mentioned my new Mad Magazine DVD-ROM (50 complete years of every issue, plus specials and book covers!), but I didn’t mention one of the extras: All of those bizarre, surreal live-action-but-doesn’t-look-like-it Spy vs. Spy commercials. Here’s one that’s on YouTube:

And finally:

All Hail the Hypnotoad!

Okay, here’s some quick stuff:

Every once in a while, famous people from my childhood will die in clusters, and this weekend it happened again: Wally Schirra, Tom Poston (Vickie scooped me on this one), Tommy Newsom. Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’, into the future … Here’s the Best Videogame Title Ever … I mentioned last night that when we hunkered near the back bathroom during the tornado warning last night, my wife brought her purse with her. What I didn’t mention is that she didn’t immediately bring it back up front, in case the tornados returned, and later our little Destructo-Dog decided to check out the contents. I didn’t get any pictures, unfortunately, but it was pretty funny.

For me.

And finally: I keep mentioning VH1′s hilarious Acceptable.TV, and here’s a particulary funny video from that show, Lord of the Phils:

“Redefine hiiiiiiiiiim!”

Okay, I’ll go ahead and post, since I’m on a streak …

Tonight we had one of the hardest storms I’ve ever seen, with sheets of rain, up to 90 MPH gusts, and tornado warnings all over the area. Or electricity went off for about an hour, and the local tornado warning went off, so gathered up all three dogs (we’re keeping Pippin again this week), some bottles of water, my cell phone, her purse, and my MP3 player, which fortunately has an FM radio receiver, and prepared to huddle in the back bathroom.

We actually have an emergency unit that has a spotlight, fluorescent light, radio, and small TV, but unfortunately it takes nine (NINE!) D-cell batteries, and we only had five, silly us.

So it’s a good thing my player has FM, and luckily I found a station broadcasting the local ABC channel’s emergency weather coverage.

And it’s also a good thing that it all blew over without consequence, at least that we know of at this time …

Okay, I’ll do one more post to start the month, but no guarantees after this: I got my early birthday present to myself, Absolutely Mad, a DVD-ROM with scans of over 50 years of Mad Magazine, including specials and compilation-book covers. I’ve browsed some of the 60′s issues already, and it’s a real memory trip. I got my first issue in December 1968, and a few months later I got about 20 issues from about 66-68 dirt cheap at a used bookstore.

I guess you could call it something of an influencing factor in my life.

Anyway, looking through that is just one more thing that I need to be doing instead of posting, so I’ll get to it.