Look What the Cat Dragged In

A quiet California neighborhood is being terrorized by Dusty the Klepto Kitty.



My favorite part is Dusty coming down the street with a bra hanging out of his mouth.



But there are so many questions:
1) Why can't they lock Dusty inside the house? How does he keep getting out?
2) Why can't the neighbors lock up their stuff? I can see the bathing suits, but why are your tighty whiteys outside?
3) Why do his owners still have a collection of the stuff he's taken? Don't they give it back? Why are the holding onto their neighbors' dirty drawers?
4) Why do people own cats?

Poker's Black Friday

On Friday the U.S. government shut down Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars effectively outlawing online poker in the U.S.
Several years ago Congress prevented banks and financial companies from doing business with offshore gambling sites. The poker sites found a way around that, using third-party payment processors to get the money from individuals' bank accounts.
Now the government says those workarounds were illegal.
11 people were arrested and now the sites are shut down.
I tried to logon to my account and was told I cannot play because of the government crackdown.
This is wrong on so many levels:
1) I am a grown person who should be able to do what I want with my money
2) the hypocrisy of banning an activity online, but making it legal in a casino
3) protecting us from the social ill of gambling which ruins so many lives. In this country we should not punish the responsible to protect the irresponsible, we should help the irresponsible or let them suffer the consequences of their actions
4) robbing honest, tax-paying citizens of their livelihood. Thousands of people make a living playing poker online and they should be allowed to do so and pay taxes on the proceeds
5) poker is not a game of chance. It is not gambling, for the people who do it well. Yes, there is luck involved, but over time luck evens out so those who succeed do so because of skill.

The only possible bright side of this would be if now that our backs are against the wall, right-thinking lawmakers heard our cries and legalized our hobby/profession. Otherwise April 15th will live in infamy as Black Friday for poker.

If that doesn't happen the worst part of this will be the almost total eradication of poker on TV. ESPN will broadcast the 2011 World Series of Poker, but they have already canceled one NAPT event because it was title sponsored by Poker Stars. Fox has already pulled "The Big Game" (the best poker show on TV) because of it's affiliation with Poker Stars. And every other poker show on TV relies heavily on advertising from poker sites. If those sites go away, those ad dollars go away, if those ad dollars go away the shows go away too. And that would hurt me the most.

Fashion That's Clashin

My favorite announcer in any sport is Walt "Clyde" Frazier. And he has been so for many years because of his dual loves, vocabulary and fashion.
A recent article in the New York Times explained how Clyde makes his fashion choices.

Walt Frazier — Always in Style
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
In Walt Frazier’s closet hangs a polyester cow-print suit with brown-and-black splotches. However absurd, it fits in a menagerie of 100 or so suits that hang on five racks and with patterns of tiger stripes and leopard spots; designs of bold plaids and checks; and colors of yellow, red, salmon and orange.



The closet is actually a small, disorganized bedroom in Frazier’s Upper East Side apartment where he mixes and matches his dozens of ties, shirts and handkerchiefs to his suits. He spends hours inside thinking about what to wear to announce a Knicks game for the MSG Network; he will work and rework his suits and accessories (“Sometimes, I’ll let the tie dictate the colors I’ll mix with it”) to gratify himself and stun others, something he has done since soon after he became a Knick in the 1960s.

“I like unusual combinations,” he said Thursday afternoon, dressed in a white pullover and sweatpants as he eagerly prepared to broadcast the first Knicks playoff series in seven years. “I have to entertain myself. I like combinations that people wouldn’t think would go normally together.”

Frazier exhibits a delicate touch as he moves among two hangers jammed with a riot of colorful ties to an armoire packed with pocket handkerchiefs, the suit racks and a floor littered with boots made of alligator, ostrich, eel and stingray skins. This is where he seeks an alchemy befitting the Clyde persona that was summoned to brash life more than 40 years ago, when he starred for the Knicks and often battled the Celtics. Here, a wild plaid suit is tempered by a pink shirt and a pink tie. Here, the leopard-spotted suit is tamed with a black silk shirt and black-patterned tie.



“If your suit is popping,” he said, “your tie can’t.”

As he considered his choices, he sometimes said, “Now, where is that hankie?”

He had returned from Boston that morning from the Knicks’ last game of the regular season. On Sunday, he will be back in Boston for Game 1 of the Knicks-Celtics playoff series. He eyed a bright green suit — not Celtic green — that he was tempted to pack for the trip to TD Garden.

“For years, he wouldn’t wear green in Boston,” said Mike Breen, his partner at the MSG Network. “Now he’s going for the reverse jinx.”

The green suit shares space with the cow print that Frazier first assessed as sofa fabric for rental property in St. Croix. He was in Zarin Fabrics, on the Lower East Side, when he spotted the cow print, along with the leopard and tiger designs, on rolls. These could be suits, he said, offering the sort of idiosyncratic style judgment usually reserved for Las Vegas extravaganzas.



“I asked the guy and he said, ‘Yeah, it could be a suit,’ ” Frazier said. “But he might have told me just to sell it.”

He toted the fabrics to Mohan’s Custom Tailors, near Grand Central Terminal, which makes nearly all his suits and has a celebrity clientele.

Frazier occasionally spends hours studying swatches for future suits and shirts on a scholarly hunt for what he calls jazzy, and what others might call gaudy.

“He thinks and thinks and tries to match things,” said Mohan Ramchandani, the proprietor of Mohan’s.

Ramchandani trusts Frazier’s vision, yet still had a question about the cow print. “Are you really going to wear this?” he asked. “Because it might be too heavy?” Frazier assured him he was, and Ramchandani turned the cow and wildcat prints into suits for $700 to $800 each.

In the months before Frazier picked them up, they were ogled by other customers.

“Sometimes, we show people the Clyde suits,” he said. No one else asked for a cow suit.

A funny thing happened in January when Frazier broke out the cow ensemble for a game at Madison Square Garden. He left the pants hanging at home. “I wasn’t brave enough to wear the cow pants,” he said. He wore black trousers instead. “Man,” he added, “I thought it was going to be too much.”

Breen remembered the night in January when Frazier wore the leopard suit in Los Angeles.

“When the camera came on,” Breen said, “he said, ‘This might be one and done.’ ” That night, Breen added, Frazier hinted at the cow suit that was to come. “He said, ‘Mike, you ain’t seen nothing yet.’ ”

The leopard print might go into seclusion, but it will be replaced by something provocative. Frazier challenges the tailors at Mohan’s: “Show me something that nobody else would wear.”

Frazier has so many suits in his closet that he said he did not have to spring for any dry cleaning in the 2009-10 season. “I said, ‘Man, I’m saving money by having all these suits.’ ”

There is a touch of frugality to him; he enjoys ironing, and said he was appalled recently when it cost him $34 to dry-clean four silk shirts.

Frazier plans his next season’s outfits during the current one. On a table in his kitchen are swatches (one that looks like cheetah) for 10 or 12 suits that Mohan’s will make for him. He has a bagful of buttons that will be sewn onto his jacket sleeves. And inside a folder are pages clipped from women’s magazines and catalogs to help him visualize his future designs. He stopped reading GQ long ago.

“I look through these for different patterns for shirts,” he said, flipping the pages of a Bloomingdale’s catalog. “I like these open collars for summer. You can see what you’re getting more than in men’s magazines. Here’s a suit. See how that lapel looks? And here’s a sort of Nehru suit.”

The closet will soon close its run after about 30 years and move to Harlem next week, where Frazier acquired three penthouse apartments last year. There is more closet space there, and he vows to be better organized and to ruthlessly color-coordinate his wardrobe. He is also planning to open a sports bar and restaurant on 10th Avenue between 37th and 38th Streets in December. The ceiling has a design that is based, in part, on Frazier’s shoes. A Frazier-themed mural will span a blocklong stretch.

“It will be,” he said, “a shrine to Clyde.”

Song of the Week

"Sure Thing" - Miguel
A strong follow-up to "All I Want is You."
I haven't gotten an e-mail from JLeary about it yet, but I am sure I will.

Way to Insult Half Your Target Audience

Manhattan Mini Storage has come up with a smarmy and mostly clever ad campaign you can see on billboards across the city. I like the one saying "If you watch Hoarders and wonder what the big deal is..."

This one however offends me:



"Why leave a city that has six professional sports teams, and also the Mets?"

Ok, so it is kind of funny and it shows how Mets fans are an agreeable bunch who can laugh at ourselves and our team, as opposed to those humorless cretins who root for the Yankees.

Story Suggested by Golzilla

Barry Bonds Gets Away With Murder

Well it wasn't quite murder but he definitely got the OJ treatment from the jury. How could one woman on the jury of 12 not think Barry Bonds knowingly took steroids?
How could anyone look at that man and the physical changes he's undergone and the tremendous improvement in his performance and not think he had done steroids?



And if you can get there, you have to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew what he was taking. Especially after all the other athletes testified they got steroids from Greg Anderson and knew what they were taking.

And speaking of Greg Anderson he's either the best friend ever, or he's getting a lot of money. And whatever he is getting, Bonds ought to double it. But isn't that witness tampering? How would they not find out if Greg Anderson gets out of prison and has millions of dollars? Would he do this for less than $5m?

So the one idiot juror who didn't believe Kathy Hoskins when she said she saw Anderson inject Bonds with her own two eyes, held up the guilty verdict on at least one of the perjury counts. Every other observer, including the 11 other jurors considered Hoskins a very credible witness.



A big part of the defense's case involved painting the prosecution as overzealous in its effort to convict Barry Bonds. First of all, shouldn't prosecutors and federal investigators be zealous in pursuit of a criminal. Secondly, I detest the notion that this crime wasn't big enough to pursue because it was a mostly victimless crime. Why would anyone ever tell a grand jury the truth if there was no penalty for lying? Or should there be a penalty, just not for Barry Bonds or other famous people? Lastly, does the government's zeal mean Bonds didn't commit a crime?

Here's what's going to happen next: the Feds (tired of public opinion turned against them) will offer Bonds a deal. They will agree not to pursue a retrial on the three charges that hung this jury, if Bonds agrees not to appeal to the obstruction conviction. That will mean 6 months of house arrest for Bonds.

Barry Bonds will never go to jail. Or the Hall of Fame.

Tough Guy Cops Beat Unruly Pirates Fan

There's not much to get excited about at a Pittsburgh Pirates game and there's probably a 1 to 1 ratio of cops to fans, which could explain this scene.



Why did the first cop hit the guy in the side of the head? There was no reason to do that? He seemed to be taking his ejection in stride. So he gave one guy a forearm shiver, big deal. But I loved the way the guy just stood there after the first strike.

Song of the Week

"Goodbye Game" - Chrisette Michele
Another strong soulful performance by my new favorite chanteuse.
Plus, Grandma Poop and Chase play the goodbye game before they hang up the phone.

Chase Picks Wrong Role Model

During the winter, prior to one bad snowstorm, my employer put me up in a hotel in Manhattan for the night to ensure I would be able to make it into the city early the next morning.
Chase was so distraught he couldn't come with me to the hotel, Grandma Poop decided to create a phony "Hotel Chase" for them to play.
There is a minibar to stock, bags to carry to rooms, mints to place on pillows, reservations to take and most importantly customer satisfaction surveys to take following a guest's stay.
For this there is a staff: reservations clerk (Julian), maintenance man (me), belldog (Diesel) and hotel manager (Mrs. Poop). Unfortunately Grandma Poop gave Chase a moniker that was already taken: The Concierge.
Now Chase tells everyone he is a concierge, including his teachers:

A Pretty Good Consolation Prize

Jason Day may not have won the Masters but his wife Ellie has to be making him feel pretty good anyway.
In fact, Tiger Woods shot 5-under on the front 9 and seemed to lose his focus on the back. Perhaps he saw Ellie Day on the fairway.

The cameras seemed to focus on her for every shot hit by her husband, but still I couldn't find good pictures of her on Google.

This one is too blurry.


This one was clearly shot from a TV screen, the program info is still there.


It looks like she's giving me the finger in this one.


Ok, that looks a little better.


She even looks hot dressed as a caddy.

Idol Chatter

Biggest outrage in the history of American Idol. Pia was clearly the best singer, the hottest idol contestant, (maybe ever) she was likable, I just don't get it.

A few theories:

1) the voters are overwhelmingly teenaged girls. They vote for male contestants, to wit, the first five people voted off so far this year are all female.

2) Pia was too hot. She made the aforementioned teenage girls and older women feel insecure about themselves, or she reminded them of a pretty girl who was mean to them in high school

3) Simon is gone. Without Simon to bash the weaker contestants, the stronger ones, like Pia did not stand out. The judge's praise every contestant all the time (except Randy occasionally) which likely energizes voters for people like Stefano. Also, I doubt they would have saved Casey so early in the season if Simon had been around.

4) Prejudice. When reached for comment, Joe Pesci said, "Can you believe this shit? Prejudice 'gainst 'Talians? In this day and age? What is this world comin' to, Hendry?"

Note: Reader JustMan contributed that witty remark

5) Too many ballads. Pia's song choice was repeatedly called into question as she sang ballads every week. She killed them, admittedly, but some may have found it boring. When she finally went uptempo perhaps some people found the effort uninspiring

6) Gwen Stefani sabotaged her. What the fuck was that thing Pia was wearing?



No matter what the reason it as an absolute travesty that she didn't even make the top 8. Our only consolation would come if she is a complete washout in the music industry and has to resort to softcore porn.



A few other non-Pia related thoughts:
Jacob was also in the bottom 3. If he gets voted out who the fuck is going to win this thing? Scotty? He's one of the few left who I don't think has been in the bottom 3.

The Hulk Hogan appearance was very cheesy.

I call Casey "bearded Taylor Hicks" and James is "Adam Lambert on Ritalin."

I hate Naima's reggae performance of an Elton John song. Good idea but why couldn't she have done the exact same thing without the phony accent.

Would anyone have complained if they randomly decided to give the judge's another save?

Despite what I have said previously about Hayley's legs I really don't like her face and I think she overdoes the huskiness in her voice.

I do like that this year they have been showing more behind the scene's stuff. The results shows seem less boring for whatever reason. Though I always scan through the awful performances by people like Constantine Maroulis and Iggy Pop.

Chase thought Russell Brand and Constantine were the same person.

Hayley seemed interested in a threesome with Brand and Katy Perry.

Chase's Life as a Dog

Every parent worries. We all hope our child will grow up to become a happy, healthy person. With Chase, I just hope he grows up to be a person.
He seems to be going through an identity crisis right now. He has at least 5 imaginary dogs (his girlfriend Sarah once said to Mrs. Poop after school "Chase's mommy, can I come to your house and play with your three dogs), so he thinks he is a dog, this manifests itself in the following ways:
1) he pantomimes pooping in the grass and demands that we pick up his poop
2) he pantomimes urinating on trees by lifting his leg
3) after doing 1 and 2 he kicks the dirt to spread his scent
4) he refuses to hold hands while crossing the street because he insists he is on a leash
5) everyday when I get home he is lying under the table barking "arf! arf!"
6) he sleeps on the floor and not his bed
7) he thinks his Kix are kibbles

Song of the Week

"Send Me On My Way" - Rusted Root
This song was played ad nauseum in a car rental commercial during the tournament.
Reminds me of the days this song was played ad nauseum in the Concierge's car.
If you want to feel old consider this song came out in 1996, 15 years ago.

I Wonder If I Need a Referral For This

It certainly does make me feel better and forget whatever's bothering me.

Mrs. Poop Wins Again

For the second time in three years Mrs. Poop is the winner of our tournament challenge group. With perhaps the worst score in years (630) and only one final four team, not even one in the final game.

Once again, she did this in large part because she did it while I wasn't around, she picked all chalked, and she went with her heart and picked UConn.

So once again I salute my beautiful wife with my favorite picture of her.

Microcosm of Life

Some days you just can't buy a bucket. Butler had one of those days last night.

That was the worst performance in a national title game ever.

12 of 64 shooting. 18.8%. If you thought they were bad in the first half (and they were) the second half was even worse. After Chase made a 3-pointer early in the second half to make it 25-19, they were outscored 22-3 over the next 13 minutes. And missed 22 shots over that time.

It does sort of change Butler's place in history, but you can't just be terrible and win 5 tournament games two years in a row. They just had an exceedingly bad game at the worst possible time.

So did Jim Nantz. First of all, he called Kemba Walker "Walker Texas Ranger."

Note: because I was watching on tape and scanning prodigiously I would have missed that nugget if Bill had not texted me about it.

He also said "the Huskies are the top dogs" as soon as the game ended. What's most galling is he claims he doesn't plan those cheesy lines, of course he does.

Jim Nantz is absolutely the worst announcer ever. In a game where one team missed more than 80 percent of its shots, he was still the worst.

What the Big East lost by having so many teams go out so early it regained by having its 9th place team win the whole tournament. UConn went 9-9 in the conference and unbeaten against everyone else.

As I have said on several other occassions, this is the downside of a tournament with a lot of upsets. The quality of play in the biggest games can be poor. This didn't happen last year with Butler but it certainly did this time, by historic proportions.

NCAA Tournament Thoughts: Final Four

Butler hits the first two shots and Shaka Smart switches to a full-court press which keys an 11-2 run. As a Syracuse fan that hurts because Jim Boeheim hasn't made a similar adjustment in 25 years.

Thank you Jim Nantz for confirming that Darius Theus is not related to Reggie.

By the way, that's the third mention of Reggie Theus I've seen in 24 hours. I watched the HBO special on UNLV. And I also watched an NBATV show on Kevin Love in which he chided his assistant coach for being on "Hang Time."

What you are about to read is the greatest insight I have written this entire tournament:

Late in the first half they showed video from before the game of Shaka Smart jumping around with his players in something of a mosh pit. Nantz, Kerr and Kellogg then praised Smart for his "energy" and said his team "feeds off it" giving that intangible "energy" at least some credit for the team's success.

Nantz said there's a long list of coaches who would never do that with their players. One of those coaches would undoubtedly be Brad Stevens. In fact, I have heard announcers praise Brad Stevens for being "even keel" and saying his team takes it lead from him, and indirectly attributing Butler's success, especially late in close games to the example of their coach.

In summary, the announcers pointed to two different coaches with two polar opposite demeanors and gave those very traits credit for the teams success. Now, if two opposite approaches are each equally successful (or have the potential to lead to equal success) perhaps neither of those approaches is right or wrong and neither has any impact on the team's success.

And this is my problem with mainstream media (and it's shared by many, especially in the statistical community), in lieu of examining things differently they just trot out the same platitudes they've been using for 50 years as an explanation for success. This especially happens in college athletics when the players turn over so quickly and the coaches don't. Everything is attributed to the coaches when in fact very little of what they do matters (the aforementioned strategic adjustment notwithstanding).

I hope I made myself clear. The mainstream sports media is intellectually lazy and it often contradicts itself in an effort to explain things that either can't be explained or are too difficult to explain.

Ok, back to the action. Lots of fouls called in this game. And a lot of stupid reach-ins and over the backs and stuff like that. You don't want to see a game like this decided by fouls, and with best players in foul trouble the entire second half. The fouls also slowed the pace of the game considerably compared to the up and down pace we saw early in the first half.

I love Shelvin Mack. What a great player.

I also like Joey Rodriguez as a leader and a passer, but not as a shooter. He has poor form on his jump shot. He leans his upper body into it and it looks like he is throwing the ball at the rim.

It's amazing when any team goes to the final game, loses a top 10 pick, then makes a return trip. It's even more amazing when it is Butler.

"Butler says 'let's do it again.". Really Jim Nantz? You had all week to come up with a cheesy line and that's what you came up with?

And then he breaks out "Okwandu says 'no can do'" And this guy is the best announcer CBS has? Between him and Joe Buck what is it about these guys with their cheesy lines that network executives love?

Now he just said Kemba Walker performed at the Apollo with his dance troupe when he was a kid. At least that was intesresting.

Non-stop action. After a foul with 8:15 left in the second half there wasn't another official's stoppage of play (foul, ball out of bounds) until 2:09 left. There were timeouts called by each coach but those doesn't satisfy the requirements of TV timeouts. So the under-8 timeout came at 2:09 and the under-4 came with 56 seconds left.

Why do teams insist on shooting 3s when they are only down 2 points? I just don't get it.

Rough game for Brandon Knight in what I still think will be his last college game.

Terrence Jones is going to leave too. He'd be well-advised to practice his free throws.

Shabazz Napier must watch a lot of European soccer. He took one dive, and then faked a low-blow that didn't get called.

At least we don't have to worry about the championship being vacated in a few years.

Or maybe we do.

I think every Big East team is going to try to play on the first day of the conference tournament next year.

I think Butler would have had a better chance beating Kentucky. I don't doubt them, but UConn's size is going to be a problem.

Chase Sold Me Out

Chase is supposed to be my buddy. He looks just like me, acts just like me and will probably grow up to be just like me. I care for him, I feed him, I love him, I teach him things. And for the most part this arrangement works. But every once in a while Chase works against me.
We were in the local smoke shop/news stand buying tickets for the big Mega Millions drawing. There were 3 people on line in front of us including 2 middle aged ladies.

Note: middle-aged used to mean old, now it means "a couple years older than I am."

Chase runs right up the counter where there was a magazine display and says "look daddy, just like the magazine you have."

And he points at -- the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

2011 Baseball Season Predictions

NL East: Philadelphia Phillies
NL Central: Milwaukee Brewers
NL West: San Francisco Giants
NL Wild Card: St. Louis Cardinals

AL East: New York Yankees
AL Central: Minnesota Twins
AL West: Oakland A's
AL Wild Card: Boston Red Sox

NLCS: Phillies over Brewers
ALCS: Yankees over Red Sox
World Series: Phillies over Yankees

NL MVP: Albert Pooh Holes
AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera
NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay
AL Cy Young: David Price
NL Rookie of the Year: Domonic Brown
AL Rookie of the Year: Mike Moustakas
NL Manager of the Year: Ron Roenicke
AL Manager of the Year: Bob Geren
NL Comeback Player of the Year: Javier Vazquez
AL Comeback Player of the Year: Justin Morneau

Note: I looked back at last year's predictions and couldn't figure out a winner. I had the most playoff teams with 6 (if you include my late change to Giants). Several of us had King Felix as Cy Young Award winner, but Master Bates was the only one with two individual award winners correct (both Cy Youngs). Nails got the incredibly difficult Comeback Player of the Year correct (Tim Hudson) and Freedo was the only one who had both the Rangers and Giants in the playoffs, and he even had the Giants winning a round.

Idol Chatter

There is no style of music I love more than Motown so there couldn't be a better time for our first Idol Chatter of this season.

I saw Casey Abrams when he was called Taylor Hicks. I didn't like him then and I don't like him now. Though Mrs. Poop loved his performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," she turned against him after his awful rendition of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine." I can't believe the judges used their save on him. Even if they loved him and thought it was too early for him to go out they had to realize that if he was low man with 11 left, no matter how well he does from here the viewers don't like him and he'll just end up getting voted out again in 3 or 4 weeks. It's way too early in the season to use the save, what if someone better has an off week later on?

Thia Magia is in the bottome three-uh. She's the typical young teenager who gets on this show and sticks around a couple weeks longer than she should. She can sing, but is too bashful/inexperienced to really cut loose on stage.

A similar problem derailed my all-time favorite Idol contestant, roly-poly teenager Jacee Badeaux (no relation to Neon). I was so sad when my little pudgeball got kicked off but he just wasn't good enough because years of being called fat hurt his self-confidence and didn't do anything other than just sing the song as it was written.



I hate Paul "Jelly Legs" MacDonald and his goofy smile. But I loved his rendition of "Tracks of My Tears."

I also hate the Tourette's kid James Durbin. He sings as if he has Tourette's, each note is an uncontrollable outburst.

I kind of like that girl Haley, because she has great legs. What's with girls named Haley on American Idol wearing booty shorts? Remember Haley Scarnato?

Speaking of sexy, I think they are showing too much cleavage for 16-year-old Lauren Alaina. And while we're talking about her, she suffers from the other problem that often befalls young contestants. She's singing songs with mature subject matter without the life experience to back it up. It ends up being an act instead of a heartfelt performance. Being that I love soul music, precisely because the singer's feelings are palpable, this really turns me off about Lauren.

Scotty McCreery is not going to win this competition. But there is a possibility he could have the best career of any of these people because he fits so perfectly into the country genre. He seems a little arrogant though.

I'm not ignoring Naima and Stefano, I just have nothing to say about them.

Now on to the two favorites:

Jacob Lusk is a really awesome singer, but he tries a little hard at times. And he opens his mouth so freakin wide when he sings. But his rendition of "You're All I Need To Get By" was one of the 5 best in the history of American Idol.

But the real favorite is Pia Toscano. She is the best pure singer of anyone. She delivers great performances every single time. She's seems really nice and friendly. Plus she's hot.



The one criticism of her is that she sings the same kind of power ballads every week. I agree I would like to hear something different, especially during Motown week (why not something by the Supremes?) but the judges constantly tell the constants to figure out who they are and stay true to themselves. And then when they do it, the judges say they need to switch up.

Speaking of the judges, I thought this season was going to be the beginning of the end for the show but I now I have changed my mind. First of all, I think the talent decline over the past few seasons has stopped. There are a couple top people, and a lot of dept this year.

Second of all, I am actually enjoying the more positive tone to the judge's comments. I was always uncomfortable in the audition rounds when they would so thoroughly embarrass someone, often someone who had a questionable grip on reality. There were a lot fewer awful performances during those shows this season.

And I think all three judges have done a good job of straddling the line between Paula and Simon.

Paula was on mood stabilizers and refused to say anything negative. Steven Tyler and J.Lo have both had their moments of criticism, but they try to do it in a constructive way.

Simon hated everything and looked like he wasn't having a good time. You can tell J.Lo and Steven Tyler are both really enjoying being a part of the show and it's always more fun to watch someone who is having fun.

Even though she wears her hair in a different style, and often has silly outfits, J.Lo is still has hot as ever.

And I love the goofy things Steven Tyler says. "Hell fire save the matches, fuck a duck and see what hatches" is the greatest quote in the history of humankind.

One guarantee: at the finale both of those judges will do a duet with the two finalists, especially if it's one male and one female.

My prediction: Paul McDonald third, Jacob Lusk second and Pia wins it all.