More This 'N That...

America's Got Talent:

So, this week, the two contestants who made it through were The Passing Zone, a pair of jugglers (the judges' choice), and Celtic Spring, a family who performs Celtic music while dancing (think of them as The Partridge Family Meets Riverdance, but more entertaining).

Unfortunately, that meant my favorite act of the week, Quick Change (an amazing magic act in which they change their outfits several times in a few minutes) didn't make it through... BUT! They're in the "Wild Card" show next week.

Doubly unfortunately, they'll also be up against another magician act that I enjoyed but didn't make it through before.

Again, I hope that next time around, the semi-finals group similar acts together, so that we can compare all the juggling acts, all the musical acts, all the magic acts, etc...

Then again, I still think they shouldn't allow anyone who could be competing on one of the other performance "reality" shows (i.e. American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance) to compete in this.

Stuff I Can't Talk About... Yet

Today, some stuff happened that I'm not allowed to talk about. It's potentially very cool for me, and once I can say something about it, you can bet I will!

Writing More Cover Stories

So this week I've managed to write four Cover Stories columns, including the next installment of "Comics They Never Made" -- it's a good thing that's what I was working on last night, because the Grand Comics Database wasn't operational! For that matter, Blogger was having some technical issues last night, too, which is one reason I didn't blog last night.

And That's All For Now...

Probably no post from me tomorrow night... maybe not even again until Sunday!

Jon

This 'n That...

Cover Stories at World Famous Comics:

So far, the past two nights, I've managed to write one more column each night... I may get another one batted out before calling it a night tonight!

I Still Can't Believe This Ad...:

You'll recall I mentioned this ad earlier... here it is, so you can see that it was, indeed, a real ad!



Unbelievable.

Recent Re-Reading:

I was starting to read this one book I bought about the history of animation several years ago ("Seven Minutes," or something like that), but it just proved to be way, way too scholarly for my tastes, not being interesting at all (cartoons shouldn't be studied academically, IMHO).

So instead, I've been starting to re-read some comics that I never sold on eBay... currently, the mini-series "Earth's Mightiest Heroes," an eight-issue mini that Marvel produced some years ago, written by Joe Casey, which provides the stories that happened in-between issues of the original Avengers series, covering through about issue 16 or so.

Honestly, I still find it as enjoyable as I did when it first came out -- probably the best Avengers story produced since Busiek stopped writing the series!

Work Stuff:

I finally remembered to bring the CD-ROM with wedding pictures on it to work, so I could add it to the other photos that rotate through as screen savers and background photos... there are about 765 photos in the rotation at this point!

I may, if I have a few minutes to spare tomorrow, place an ad on the "Occasions" page as a wedding announcement. I'd written it up last week, but kept forgetting to bring in the photo! I may go ahead and do it now... should be the easiest Occasions ad we'll ever do, since it's already laid out, I only have to get the photo toned!

Most-Often Asked Question Lately:

So lately, the question I get asked most often is, "Does it feel any different being married to Jessi?" Jessi herself asked me that yesterday, as a matter of fact!

The honest answer to that question: It doesn't feel any different, believe it or not. I mean, when we moved in together, I'd pretty much already made my committment to Jessi, and we'd been living together for a year and a half before we got married. So far, the only real differences are that Jessi's now on my health insurance, and I get to refer to her as "my wife" instead of 'just' "my fiancee."

I suppose that it still hasn't completely sunk in yet, and that could explain that... but I don't seem to recall that it felt any different when Barbara and I got married. I guess I just feel that if you've already made the committment in your heart, making it legal doesn't really change things.

Jon

Short Posts For Awhile...

...because I've got to get going on writing some more Cover Stories columns, since this coming Sunday's column is the last one I'd written and sent to webmaster Justin.

Let's see... any news to report?

I had my follow-up visit with the surgeon who removed my gall bladder, and he's very happy with how I'm healing. I'm getting closer and closer to 100% every day!

Any other news? Hmmm... nothing comes to mind, and there's nothing I'd been thinking about writing about during the day, so I guess that'll do it!

Jon

This 'n That Time Again!

Been a bit since my last post (don't worry, things are slowly getting back to normal around here, and I'll be back to near-nightly postings again), there's a number of things I want to talk about, so in brief, here they are!

America's Got Talent

I'm still enjoying watching this show with Jessi, even if I find myself wondering what the heck the judges or the voting American public were thinking... this week's show had one act that I thought was absolutely amazing: A magician who completely blew away the panel when he disappeared on stage and reappeared behind the judges.

The judges pick this week? The Rapping Granny. Yes, that's right, a grandmother who raps. You know, 20 years ago, she would've appeared on one episode of the Gong Show, and then Jamie Farr or Jaye P. Morgan would've gonged her right off the stage. These days? She gets a shot at a million bucks.

America's choice this week was for one of the pre-teen girl singers (this show is full of 'em), despite the fact that she picked a song she shouldn't have tried singing (note to singers who want to appear on TV talent shows: Don't try singing Janis Joplin songs, especially "Take Another Piece of My Heart" -- the judges will tear you a new one unless you can NAIL it).

I noted that this week's shows also included a commercial for the next competition, and I hope to hell that the next time around, if they REALLY want to get some variety in the finals, the semi-finals should be grouped by the kind of performer, so we can get a show of all magicians, and pick the best one, and so forth.

Thank Goodness for "Monk" and "Psych"

Otherwise Jessi and I would be going crazy for lack of new shows to watch. Oh, I should've added "The Closer" in that heading. All three of those shows are just starting their current seasons (well, in the case of "Psych," the first one), so there's some fresh stuff to watch, thank goodness! How else would we manage to deal with the wait for new episodes of "House," "Smallville," and the Law & Order shows?

Or "Cold Case," too -- we've nearly seen all those episodes, too.

Jon Is a Happy Cook

Why? Because today, Jessia and I purchased a brand-new gas grill. It was the last day of Lowes' 20% off sale, and despite the fact that I worked on their electronic ad (submitted to the newspaper as a PDF file, in case you're curious -- we always have to make sure the ads will print correctly, and color-separate the right way) I had no idea this sale was going on.

We also bought some barbeque tools and a wire brush for cleaning the grill surface with. This coming weekend, we'll be having people over on Saturday for a barbeque dinner of burgers, potato salad, baked beans, and maybe corn on the cob (if it's available for a decent price, which it should be).

Speaking of Electronic Ads

One of the car dealers' ads that ran in Saturday's newspaper here (and in other papers, too, if indications are correct) had a baseball theme to it... but really, couldn't someone have come up with a better angle to promote than announcing "Daily Ball-Busting Specials"???? I kid you not, that's what the ad said (tomorrow, I'll show you what it looked like). Didn't anyone involved in the creation of that ad realize what that phrase means???

Party Time

Saturday we celebrated my mothers' birthday and my sister-in-law Kristi's birthday (she's the one who coordinated the cake and bubbles for the wedding). It was a very good time, and lots of family stories were shared, mostly those wherein someone in the family said something that didn't quite come out the way they planned it, to hilarious results.

Jessi put herself firmly into the family when we were talking about drivers license numbers (which we were curious about -- we can figure out where some of the letters and numbers come from, but not the last three). Jessi's license ends in "BH," and after my sister Debi said her license number changed when she got married and divorced, Jessi said, "Well, I was a BH before, and I'm a BH now!" Of course, the way she said "BH" made it sound an awful lot like "bee-itch", and so the entire family burst out in laughter. I'm sure that'll be repeated at some future family function!

Final Thought

If you don't already check it out five days a week (and you should) Robby Reed's "Dial B For Blog" is having a Legionaire Rejects week with a contest -- the winning entry for a Legion reject gets to choose the theme of a Dial B column! I submitted quite a few of them over the weekend, and the first installment of entries for Monday included one of mine! The reject's hero name is Potty Mouth, and while some of the Dial B posters thought he was inspired by Evil Robby there, in truth, the inspiration was a cross between any Quentin Tarantino movie and Fowlmouth, from the Tiny Toon Adventures show.

Oh, if you don't have the link on your bookmarks already, it's at www.dialbforblog.com, although you may have to click on a "back issues" link to see my entry for Monday.

Jon