Oscphoria

Day 4 of American Idol Hollywood round 2004. There was this girl who was wrapped in a silvery two-piece outfit resembling a jumpsuit. Because of the silvery fabric, it was seen that the girl has wrapped herself with alumunium foil. Simon Cowell said that she was wearing something that people wrapped a turkey in.

Fast forward to week 5 of semi-finals: the wild card round. Viewers can enjoy the performance of a girl sang "I Believe In You and Me". The performance was awesome. However, the girl was wearing a pink mermaid gown, borderline fugly. It was kinda hard to describe the mermaid gown. It's like a body-tight gown with bustier bodice down to your knees or a bit lower with widening fringe on the bottom. Like the gown when the Dreams sings the title song in Dreamgirls.

In the end of the show, Simon Cowell said and this is a paraphrased version of what he said, "We all know that Jennifer is good. But she may have an issue with her fashion sense."

The girl he was talking about is Jennifer Hudson.

Fast forward to two days ago.

That bolero is one of the most talked about piece of crap outfit going down the red carpet.

I love Jennifer Hudson to death, and I don't really love Simon Cowell. But girl, I think I'm siding with Simon this time around.

I'm so freaking happy you snatched Uncle Oscar, though. You totally deserve it!

Now let me play that song for the 3,928th time.

curiouser, curiouser..

OK. Anyone who was texting me after reading my previous post about top 24 with a Singapore-based number needs to come forth and tell me who they are.

Otherwise, you will be a guest star in my (potentially to be nightmarish) dream tonight, but without any form. You know? Like Voldemort in some first books of Harry Potter.

Update: Problem solved

after the 24 - idol related

It was really funny to see American Idol on the boys' night. I mean, not funny haha, but puzzling. It just raises some concerns on my part.

The first concern is that, I think, there are too many similar style of singing in the group. I can't clearly distinguish and see what's so special between like, Rudy, Paul, AJ, Brandon, Nicholas and Jarred. And then, Blake, Phil, Chris Sligh are also alike. What's up with that? I mean, I know .. I so know that their voices are different and bla bla bla. But seeing nine people singing two styles is kinda agitating, isn't it?

My second concern is Chris Richardson. I like this guy. I like him. I just worry that he will be compared side to side with either Justin Timberlake or Shayne Ward. And that's a compliment actually. Both are great singers and like Chris said, accomplished. But tonight, I really can't escape the fact that some of Richardson's vocalizing does sound a lot like Justin. Damn. Poor guy. People may think that he's just a knock-off of Justin. Or Idol producer will think that they can't sell another Justin. Ah, well. I hope he keeps choosing songs farther and farther than Justin's music. At least he's still interesting to watch.

Third concern. OK. I've watched Idol religiously since season 3. I've kinda informed myself with performances from the earlier seasons than 3. I'm guilty for being pleased seeing Idol week out week in. My problem is now, everytime I see someone singing with a "contest" song, i.e. songs so often being sung in competition like Idol, I am not really pleased. And tonight only ... brrr.. I think there are only 3 or 4 contestants singing songs that I've never heard before.

My fourth concern. Well, it's not really concern. My list has been changed. One contestant was officially erased from the guy block. Huehehhee.. And therefore, I'm adding another guy, who was previously not there.

Fifth concern, I can't wait to see Leslie Hunt performing.

-------------------------

Now on girls' night. Wooh! I'm just so glad that I scheduled two hours sitting in front of my television that night. The girls (where some of them, not all, unfortunately) were on fire. FIRE!! And the best of all things is that my girl Lakisha was AMAZING. Whoa!

Antonella was a bit disappointing because she's not wearing shorts or mini skirt. She still looked gorgeous though. But as I stated before, her singing was mediocre. Damn.

Funny though how the producers put the mediocre one in between the good one in order.

How about the list. Hmm .. one girl is included in the list, now. Three of the girls who were previously there were still there, but I can strike them off anytime, if they keep performing like tonight.

I hope people (by people I mean Americans) will be able to see past Melinda Doolittle and Lakisha physically and realize that they are so different vocally so that their votes won't cancel each other out.

Based on sentiment, performance, or simply dislikeness, I want Sundance, Sanjaya, Haley and Alaina to be voted off tomorrow.

Update: Forgot to say. If you caught Lakisha in glimpses during the others' performances, and she doesn't look enjoying herself or folding her face (that's an Indonesian idiom), she wasn't being crappy or something. I think she was either being nervous, or trying to get the mood of the song. You know, being angry, ignored, hurt, desperate, left, and ... Oh, come on .. You know how lunatic I may become should I have to talk about this song.. Hehehe..

idol quickie

YAY! Antonella ..

Currently I noted six stand-outs from the guys and seven stand-outs from the girls. Let's see from all of them who can sing really great or have a huge number of family members and friends and self to text message or call to vote.

But, Lakisha Jones (contestants' profile on Idol's website is not up yet). Damn, girl. You can really sing! Woot!

Update: Lakisha's page is up. (Aaaahh .. that's why they call it UPdate)

Tears, Tears, Tears and Matthew Buckstein.

That season has started. Again. The season where everybody's a critic. Everybody starts to think that they know about singing, performing, vocals, appeal and idolatry. Yes, baby, American Idol is back in our living room. And I'm one of that everybody who turns to be one of those critics, of course.

This afternoon, I started to see American Idol religiously again (before it got to the boring top 10-9-8-7-6-5) since it is the beginning of the Hollywood Week episode. The boot camp. Wait. The beginning and the end, to be precise.

To show the whole boot camp in only one episode reminds me a lot to German version of Pop Idol.

I was totally surprised to learn that I don't know anybody this year. The people that I know (and can remember) are actually contestants who were already there some seasons before. I saw Marlea Stroman from season 4. That two blokes from last season. Gina Glocksen (sp?) from last season. And my second contestant of the week of last season. I can't believe he's back and currently on top 40. Yay!

Now, the reason that I know no one was simply because the judges cut people with ample airtime. Baylie Brown was cut. Sarah Burgess was cut. That chick that worked out for a year was cut. Jamie Lynn was cut. I was like, who's still there, then? Other than Matthew Buckstein, of course.

OK. What interests me the most during Hollywood Week is usually the production of the episode. Nothing really stands out actually today. Except for the fact that there are so many returnees, I kinda wondered, were they invited back rather than audition all over again?

Second, the fast-paced episode left out a really small room for humour. Everything was decorated with tears, tears and tears. Matt Sato (the 16-year-old mate who said that he was never loved. I love this guy, by the way. Not so much on his singing, though.) was through with tears, cut with tears. Perla (Columbian Diva) was through with tears. Baylie was cut with tears and of course a washed-up eyeliner.

Who to root, then? I don't know. I really don't. I like Antonella. I think she's sexy as hell. But so so in singing. I like Matthew Buckstein last year. But I didn't really hear him singing yet. I like Tom Lowe (credited as Thomas Lowe). But rumours are already flying around saying he won't be through to top 24. And I think he's not top 12 material.

But I know who I don't like, though. That round mate who was told by Simon that he looked like that he was about to explode just being boiled. When singing.

We'll see. We'll hear and then, we'll criticise.

recipe for success

I won this morning! I finally won! Woohooooooo!

Won what, dorkus?

Well, OK. There is this race. It's been going on for like five months between me and my alarm clock. The race is being conscious first after sleeping on the previous night. I have never won. My alarm clock was always already blaring before I can say the word "Anderson Cooper". It beats the crap out of me. Like everytime.

This morning, surprisingly, I opened my eyes before the alarm clock was screaming demeaning words to my ear. So, I won! I fucking won! Consciously, I didn't plan this, however, I know that this is not a coincidence, and actually a fruit of what I did the previous night.

So in order to win the race, I have (in the previous night):

1. let the door open. It's like sleeping outdoors. Breezy, fresh, friggin freezing, when you woke up.
2. let the windows open but the curtain close. The wind will blow right to your body.
3. never had the thoughts that if both things are open, that rodent visitor that may come, may come.
4. welcomed the occasionally noisy but most of the times annoyingly loud sounds from the mosque nearby. The open doors and windows will help you a lot on this.
5. slept at 21-hundred hours. Yeah, be a baby, one night a while.

So. You will be having a plate of success the next morning. The very early next morning, that is.

Oh, yeah. Notice the sarcastic tone throughout this post? Yeah. It was intended.

PS: blogger.com revamped stuff a bit, it messed my layout up. Hrrr...

my own private pyramid game

This game was unraveled in my head.

Me #1: Grace Adler. Mike Delfino. Carrie Bradshaw. Jack Shephard.
Me #2: Err .. Umm ..
Me #1: GRACE ADLER!! MIKE DELFINO! CARRIE! DR. JACK SHEPHARD! GRACE ADLER!!
Me #2: Characters in TV series that you absolutely can't stand!

We answered at least one question right.

pitt, freeman, spacey, paltrow, plus three

Awesomest thing ever this week, perhaps!

That DE thing? Yeah, I'm pretending that I didn't just read it. :)

That BF thing? That's not a sin! That's a ... an ... a .. advantageous privilege which can easily spark off both of the sins. Huehehehe..

Updated some minutes later: Indexed, a blog by Jessica Hagy turns out to be one of the smartest yet underrated blog out there. Spare some minutes of your time to browse it. Love love lurve it!

I unconsciously lost my necklace today. I don't know whether it happened during T-shirt change, tennis session, or what. But I am extremely bummed that I lost it.

Case closed. It was found spookily loosened, rested and folded on my bed. Spooky .. Who took it off when I was sleeping?

my alter ego is jim, he likes to go to the gym, but not with my friend tim, who lives somewhat close to aa gym

After four months (FOUR MONTHS!!) I was gym free, today I finally visited a gym in Jakarta. The gym was scary. Not pet-peevy scary, but there were just a lot of things went wrong and gone awry.

So what would you do if things that make you consider that a gym is a bad one flashed one by one right in front of your face?

What would you do if you find that the equipments are old? By old, I mean the-year-I-was-not-born-yet old. Perhaps even older. So by that, it was unstable, squeaky, and dirty. Believe it or not, my hands were sort of covered with grease after my training session.

What would you say if there are not enough equipments? Variety speaking, that is. I had to improvise when I need to do dips and barbell shrugs. I mean this is dips, come on. You need to go to gyms to do dips, just because it is almost impossible to do it at home. And nope, there is no dip station. In this case, there is no pull-up station as well. And I have a feeling that that dip station was never used as a dip station prior my coming there.

Push-down station was used as a pull-down stations. Weird, eh. And amazingly, there are actually two other pull-down stations, but people were hogging the push-down station. There are no bench with a inclinable back support. That means, yeah .. I'm having sort of trouble doing stuff like military dumbell press.

Speaking about dumbells, how would you feel when you have no idea how their dumbells were organized? They were NOT regularly increasing. The adjustable dumbells increase every 2.5 kgs. I mean this is dumbells we're talking about. Not barbells. DUMBELLS. And then, I have no idea whether they have all weights, just because people who had used it, wouldn't put it back on the rack. They what?

That makes me question the quality of the gym bunnddies. Behaviour-wise. They have an ... a very ... indiscipline behaviour. And I haven't talked about the routines. But they sit on unused machines (which is so troublesome because there are only few of them). Nobody (except me, of course) uses towels on the benches. They, well, we sweat because we're in the tropics. But, since they don't use towels, you know what happens with the bench afterwards. Ick. They don't put the weights back, so in order to find a good pair of two-and-a-halves, you will always need to scour the room. Not only with your eyes. Gosh!

Now, how they do their routines is ... kinda ridiculous I may say. I'm not saying that I am perfect, but I know for sure, that there are a lot of mistakes in how they're doing it. The most apparent is that almost all the guys copy each other. So the skinny guys do the same routine as the ample (or fat) guys, but with a hell less weight. It is safe to assume that they have never heard of ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph.

There are no variations in their training. Like at all. Everybody was doing the same regime. The same pull-downs, the same concentration curls, the same decline sit-ups, the same same same. Weird. And boring, if I had to fall in that trap.

But I found one conclusion that I've been asking myself for a long time, though. You see, I considered myself as one of the weakest bloke in my old gym. Because an indian guy who stands almost the same cut as mine, can press much more than I can. A slimmer european (the platonic friend that I was talking about) can lift heavier than I can. I was thinking, am I being weak? Or am I just weaker?

Turned out yesterday, that some people who are more built than I am were using weights that are the same or less than my usual lifts and presses. So .. Hmm .. Maybe Indonesians are weaker physically. But then again, how come do we excel in weightlifting?

So to sum up, I think I hesitantly have to succumb to apply a membership in those franchised gym spread along Jakarta, a.k.a. marketplace where you could find yoga classes for sale, as my friend put it.

Or I should stay in this gym, to discipline them. Use a towel! Don't sit there! Put those back! Gosh, what a biatch.

PS: The last two words on the title is not typo. You can check more on the lad right here, for example.