Results!

It's been nearly a week, and I think the results of my vote are definitive enough now to close the polls. So I received seven votes total (two were sent in via email), five for Blue Man Group, and two for American Idol.

Those who voted Blue generally had very good justifications for their votes. Allison rightly says that "any job where you get to cover yourself in paint on a daily basis is an opportunity you can't pass up." Matt pointed out that Blue Man Group is "karaoke, for your body." And Anne seemed to take a page from the "Anyone but Bush" book on voting technique, placing her vote with Blue Man Group simply because "American Idol is stupid." And, really, she does have a point.

So what do we hear from the minority leaders? Mostly, they saw fit to point out the possible humor factor involved in an appearance on the show. Josh thought that "[I,] on [my] own, in any setting, including singing in front of a national televised audience, would be way the hell funnier than Blue Man Group." And Hannah agreed, employing the excessive use of alternating question marks and exclamation points to express how excited she is at the prospect of seeing me sing in falsetto and dance on television.

However, the people have spoken. To those of you who voted for Idol, though, do not give up hope. There may still be time, after my Blue Man career has run its course, for me to take part in American Idol XXXVII.

For now, my next goal in life: Become a marginally famous celebrity, so that I can appear on "Dancing with the Stars."

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In other news, I just received two emails, both of which contained quotes that I found so hilarious that I had to share them with you all. The first was from Josh in Japan, who writes:

"I'm writing songs now dude, it's awesome! I'm like Paul Simon. Or that other guy. Bach."

And the second was from my mother, who likes to insert little pearls of dubious wisdom into her emails. She was telling my sister and me that we should write thank you notes to our family. This was her reasoning:

"This is an important part of adult life. Formally saying thank you is what separates us from the animals."

Cue hilarious mental image of a gorilla sitting down to write a thank you note, then becoming frustrated when he realizes he doesn't know how to read or write.

I had a hard time ruling out America's Next Top Model, as well

So after watching nearly two hours of American Idol on television tonight, I have come to two conclusions:

1) I am going to throw out our antenna, because there is no reason anyone should ever watch television, and
2) I could totally be on American Idol.

Seriously, each passing year when they truck out hundreds more people to audition for this show, the standard necessary to pass the first round is significantly lower than the year before. I mean, you should have heard some of these people who made it. I can sing that well. Which is why, in a couple of years, after I get some formal voice training, and the bar has been lowered even more, and Simon is just flat out telling all the bad singers that they don't deserve to live and should kill themselves (he gets more sarcastic and mean every year), I'm totally auditioning.

Of course, this may be in conflict with my other dream, which is to be a member of the Blue Man Group. I could totally be a Blue Man. Sure, I would need to become a more reliable drummer, and probably get into better shape than I am currently in, but I don't see how they could possibly turn me down after that. So the real problem is, which one do I go for, American Idol or Blue Man Group? Because we all know that you can only pursue one dream at a time. Well, there is the whole "becoming a professional trombonist" thing, too. Maybe you can pursue two dreams at a time? But definitely not three. So one of these has to go, and seeing as I have almost six years of higher education invested in my trombone dream, I should probably nix one of the other two.

Here's where you come in, my loyal base of readers. I need advice. Help me choose between becoming the next American Idol, or the next Blue Man. Cast your vote. I'll present a list of pros and cons of each. Oh, and for the sake of voting, let's just assume that I could easily achieve either one of these, so don't vote for one just because it seems more likely that I could do it. Go with your instinct. Which would you rather see me do, for whatever reason? I'm counting on you.

American Idol:

Pros:
-Get to basically sing karaoke, one of my great loves, except instead of a smoky room full of drunk people, I would be singing to a national television audience.
-Promise of a record contract when I undoubtedly win, leading to possible fame, fortune, and eventual VH1 Behind The Music documentary feature.
-Possibility of appearing on national television.

Cons:
-Being famous might not agree with me. Maybe I would rather blend in with the crowd, you know, like being a Blue Man.
-As a musician, associating myself with American Idol would probably blacklist me from any serious musical pursuits afterwards. Auditioning for a professional orchestra would be sort of like running for Congress as a Communist in the 1950s.
-Possibility of appearing on national television.

Blue Man Group:

Pros:
-Being able to combine two things, drumming and acting, which I have always loved.
-Being part of a rogue troupe of players all looking exactly alike in a hip new show.
-Getting to cover myself in blue paint.

Cons:
-I would have to get into shape, which would kind of conflict with my inherently lazy lifestyle.
-Possibility of being forced to catch 50 marshmallows in my mouth at one time.
-Having to cover myself in blue paint.

Okay, that's the info, now get to voting (by leaving a comment, of course)!

Jolly Good Touchdown, Old Chap!

Wait a minute. What? American Football coverage on the BBC? Does this seem funny to anyone else? If not, try reading the article and imagining that the person writing it has no idea how the game of American Football is played. That's pretty funny. Wait! This is even funnier, I just found it: a guide written by British people to explain American Football to other British people. Notice how offense is spelled "offence." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

More funny stories about this strange foreign sport in the "see also" box to the right. My favorite is about Denver ending New England's "Hat-trick bid." Okay, so now they're confusing Football with Hockey.

And on the left, click on the different sports under "Other Sports" for all the information you could ever need about Badminton or Darts! At least American Football is above Badminton on the list.

Oh My Poor Car

So I have not been writing here much lately, and my reason, I told myself, was that nothing really blogworthy had happened to me in a while. Careful what you wish for, I guess.

Yesterday afternoon, I was driving out to teach as usual. I was driving down the middle lane of a three lane road, with a line of stopped traffic in the right lane, when suddenly, a RotoRooter van pulled through the line of traffic to make a left turn onto the other side of the road. I slammed on the brakes, but there was nothing I could do, and I hit him. Hard.

I realized right away that I was fine, no injuries. The van pulled further to my left and out of traffic, then stopped a few feet away. My foot was still on the brake, because I wanted to avoid going any further and hitting any of the cars on the right. My hood was crumpled up and smoke was coming from the engine. When I collected myself, I decided to also move to the left and out of the two rightmost lanes of traffic.

I decided that the smoking meant I should turn off the car as quickly as possible. I had some trouble getting the gearshift into park, however, so I just turned the car off in neutral, then managed to force it into park. Before I could get out of the car (the driver's side door was difficult to open), a woman came up to the door. She was on the phone with the police. She had been driving right behind me and saw the accident, so she decided to stay as a witness, which was very nice of her. She even gave me her name and phone number before she left, which I didn't know I would end up needing later.

It took the policeman about a half hour to get to the scene. However, within five minutes of the crash, five tow trucks arrived, all waiting to carry my car to a body shop. These men were wreckers, who, in Texas, all have a chance of towing a wreck, as long as they arrive before the police. When the policeman arrives, they all put a small chip with a number on it in a hat, and the cop pulls one out. The driver who owns that chip gets to tow my car. This is quite a strange system, I think, but another of the many Texas quirks.

So the chip was chosen, the lucky winner hitched up my car and pulled it off the road. The policeman talked to the witness first to find out what happened, then asked both drivers for their licenses and proof of insurance. I gave him my license, but didn't have proof of insurance, so I called for my policy number and gave him that. He didn't talk to me again, however, he only concentrated on the other driver. Eventually he gave the other driver a citation, and me a card with the case number and information on it, and then left. I exchanged information with the other driver (which was fun because I didn't know which information I needed, but everyone was very helpful, the wrecker, the witness, and even the other driver himself, who reminded me that I might want to take down his license plate number and such things).

Then I was towed to the "collision center" of a Chevy dealership nearby. Fast forward past a few hours of phone calls, confusion, clarifications, and more confusion, and things finally started to calm down. That was when I went out to my car to get my things, and finally got to fully survey the damage. Here's what I saw:

Not a pretty sight. I waited at the dealership for Lilly to come and rescue me after she finished teaching. Finally, about seven hours after the accident itself, I was back home.

Now I've had a day to shake it off, get things arranged and squared away, give my statement and such, and I am now set up with a new rental car, a Mazda 3 no less! It has been roundly agreed that the collision was not my fault, that I had the right of way, and that the other driver was at fault, so his insurance will pay for all the costs, including the rental. All that remains to be seen is what will happen with the repairs. If the insurance company decides the repairs will cost too much, they will instead make me an offer for my car, and I will have to sell it to them and get another. If it's gone for good, that would be very sad. I'm going to miss you, car. I'm so sorry I crashed you.

But now hopefully things are settled down and I can breathe and relax again. It's been a hectic two days, and it will be nice to let things get back to normal again.

MAKE MONEY AT HOME $200/HR (help I am being held captive in Archangelsk, send backup)ENLARGE PENIS SIZE TODAY!

Ahoy!

So, in my blogging absence, I have also been in complete neglect of my blogging friends, who have recently been having many interesting adventures all over the world. Go read about Josh in Japan, Allison elsewhere in Japan, Hannah in the DR, and Jill's Family in London. That is, if you care. Which you should!

Returning to Houston was a little strange, kind of like traveling someplace new, only to find that all your stuff is there and you've been living there for months. It's a hard feeling to explain. But now I'm all depressurized and settled in, classes have started, and the busy semester is springing into full form.

One recent development: Emily, acting on an inside tip, tried plugging our antenna-less television directly into the cable in the wall (we are hell no not paying for cable), and, lo and behold, the cable itself acts as an (extremely weak) antenna, and we now get upwards of four highly garbled channels. So tonight I watched Alias for the first time. My favorite moment came when Jennifer Garner's character was reunited with a fellow agent and ex-boyfriend who disappeared suddenly a few years ago, apparently. She is mad because he disappeared and didn't say anything to her. He is mad, also, because apparently, he tried to contact her, told her to meet him somewhere, and she didn't show up.

"I never got any letter," she says.

"I didn't send a letter, I can't afford to give any information about my assignment, you know that." Well, yeah, of course, I've been watching for five minutes and I know that much. But here was the kicker: He then says, "I sent you an encoded message in a junk email. You should have been able to pick it out from the subject line."

Okaaaaaaaaaaay....but get this. Then she says, completely seriously, "Oh. I set my computer to filter out junk emails!"

Duh-duh-DUUUUUUUUUUUH! The plot thickens! Within the next half hour, including commercial breaks, the two of them are in a place called Archangelsk, or something, retrieving something called a core hard drive, which must be kept at a temperature "halfway to absolute zero." Halfway from where? Anyway, apparently -150 degrees Fahrenheit is sufficient, and just as Alias is getting the computer out of the cold room, she falls and her helmet cracks, and she begins to freeze (I'll just call her Alias, I'm sure that's not the name of the character). But, never fear, the guy breaks in and gets her, and revives her with some good old mouth-to-mouth. Hey everyone! New cure for hypothermia! Just administer CPR! The rest takes care of itself! Works in seconds!

So anyway, the show is completely ridiculous, but I watched it in its entirety, because, well, we get four garbled channels.

So the moral of the story is, never set your computer to filter out junk email, because you never know when your friend who is a CIA operative will attempt to contact you through a subject line. I will always be prepared for that possibility.