The 5 W's of American Idol

Who: the heck does Ryan Seacrest think he is? He is getting really annoying with his incredibly rude behavior towards Simon. It really bugs me that someone can perform horribly, but when Simon says as much, Seacrest attacks him like Simon is the antichrist! Ryan Seacrest - you have no talent whatsoever and need to get over yourself. Bring back that Dunkleman guy!!

What: is the deal with Paula and the puns? I think that she has completely stopped listening to the songs and spends the full 2 minutes trying to figure out what clever phrase to say when its her turn to talk. Heard back to back last night for those of you who missed it: "A new religion has been formed tonight with 40,000 converts and that is the Church of Mandisa." (after Mandisa sang a gospel song) and "Forgive me if I stutter, but what if, what if, what if I'm your biggest fan?" (after Chris sang "What If?")

Where: do the families of the contestants stay? Do they have jobs and just fly in once a week for the show, or are they taking time off too? That wouldn't make sense, because even if their family member wins, they won't be able to just quit their day jobs. Random question I know, but something I've always wondered because the same family members are always there every week.

When: are people going to realize how freaking awesome Katherine McPhee is? Okay, I know most people already do, but I couldn't think of anything for "when".

Why: is it that Randy can say that he thinks a performance was bad, but as soon as Simon says the exact same thing 30 seconds later, all of a sudden Randy disagrees? It really is okay to agree with Simon every now and then - he really doesn't have that bad of an ear.

Observations from a Reality TV Junkie

Most of you know that my not-so-guilty pleasure is reality tv. If I don't want to watch a reality show, I can't let myself watch even 1 episode of it because I will be hooked, even if i hate the show (case in point...My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance'...hated it yet watched every episode.) Here are some of my thoughts tonight about the goings on of a few of my reality shows.

The Bachelor: I haven't watched this one in a few seasons, but tonight at the very end they showed a shot of some of the girls doing that thing where one person lays down and is the legs of another person sitting on top, most often used with a "fitness guru" skit. And the girls who weren't a part of it were hysterically laughing. Why do people still think that this is funny? I understand the 3rd graders at Iron Springs thinking it is hilarious because they've never seen it before, but seriously! Past the age of 8, its just kinda dumb, but yet there are always at least two people who feel the need to do it. I have been guilty of it at some points in my life and have the pictures to prove it, but the girls on here are my age and should know better by now.

Real World/Road Rules Challenge: As much as i have always wanted to go on reality tv, the thought of postponing my life for a couple of months is just out of the question for me unless it would fall on a summer break. These people have been reality tv people FOREVER! Seriously, they have a whole team of "veterans," people who have done more than 2 RW/RR challenges! Add in the actual season of real world or road rules that they were on, and some of these people have been doing nothing with their lives but these challenges for several years. How do you explain that gap in work experience when you finally realize you have to get a real job? "I spent 6 years as a contestant on Real World/Road Rules challenge, wasting any skill that I might have had at one point."

Survivor: I'm sad. I saw my first commercial for the new season that starts in February tonight. They are now having 4 tribes and the voted outs go to some exile island? You know a show is running out of steam when they start trying to throw in more and more twists to keep it fresh. Case in point: Amazing Race Family Edition. The great thing about reality tv is, the new people make it fresh - that is why The Real World hasn't ever really had to make any major changes to stay popular. The more complications you add, the less you get to see of interpersonal relationships and the more boring the show becomes (I'd also like to give kudos to the Bachelor...only minor changes to the format in 5 years).

Any and all reality shows: Why is there always one person who goes on reality tv shows hoping to further their acting careers? It is just so ridiculous! Like anyone would want to work with someone who they've seen acting like a total idiot (because everyone looks like an idiot at some point)? Colby is the only one i can think of that has gone on to have a "career" if you can call guest star on Joey a career....learn from other people's mistakes and just give up acting if you have to go on reality tv as a last resort.

And those are my thoughts for today. Let the "reality" roll!

Arson Ban

Ever since the infamous wildfires started in Texas, those electronic warning billboards have been flashing "Statewide Fire Danger" and "Burn Bans in Effect" and then a number to call to report violations. To be totally honest, these signs were the first thing that I ever knew about the fires - I hadn't heard it on the news or anything until after I saw them. Well today when I was driving, I noticed that the 2nd message had changed: "Arson/Burn Bans in Effect" Boy, am I glad they added Arson to the list of things that are banned! I mean, until this point, I think the general public thought it was okay to purposely set other peoples' things on fire. In fact, I was on my way to set Katie and Stephen's house on fire until I saw that sign, but it made me realize that arson is now banned. Seriously, don't you think that most people would assume that if its illegal to have a barbecue right now, starting larger destructive fires would be off limits as well? Thank you, State of Texas, for stating the obvious.

Snow Days

My Situation:

1. As I have mentioned before, most of my friends here are from the midwest or northeast - Chicago, Boston, Gettysburg, Omaha, Detroit, etc.
2. Starting on Thursday afternoon, we had a sleet/ice storm here in DFW. This caused the usual panic....cars flipping on bridges, semis jacknifing on the highway, schools cancelled, everyone urged to lock themselves inside because of the impending doom.
3. All of my friends decide to go on and on and on....and on and on and on...about how stupid Texans are and how "if they shut everything down for weather like this where I'm from, nothing would be open for 2 months" (imagine me saying this in a mocking voice)

My Response:

1. True, everything would have to be shut down for 2 months. I realize that. But just because you don't close things doesn't mean you shouldn't close things. It is just they don't have the luxury of closing down because of the number of days that they have bad weather. Here in Texas, we get maybe 3 or 4 days a year when roads are bad, and schools have snow days built in, so why not close down and be safe rather than sorry?
2. You're in my state now! Nobody forced you to come here. If you think its all so stupid, then go back to your stupid snowy state and leave me and my state's paranoia alone!

And last but not least:

1. I appreciate my friend Bill - AKA Boston Bill. Here is the conversation we had last night over google talk:
2. Bill: hey you didnt tell me it gets this bad out!
   Emily: you wouldn't have believed me
   Bill: it is like a suicide mission right now if you try to drive
   Emily: yep
   people from midwest and north think that we don't know how to drive in snow
   what you don't realize is we don't get snow....we just get pure ice
   you can't use chains in ice
   Bill: yeah and you have nothing to treat it
   i saw 4 cars get stuck on my hill at the end of mccart

Hope everyone stayed safe and warm during our snowy days! I got to battle the weather and come to campus to work on our big project, but on Wednesday, my 1st semester of MBA school will be done! I will be MIA for about a week while I work on this beast 24/7. Have a great week!

Anonymous Comments

A while ago, I wrote a post about my pet peeves. Today, I want to add one to the list....rude anonymous commenters. Today I went to read the blog of a friend who was expressing frustration about her current situation. She gave a nice disclaimer in the title, something about "WARNING....bitterness to follow" or something close. You could tell she was writing things in anger. And what were the comments? Anonymous posters berading her, calling her selfish and telling her that she is holding herself in too high of regards! Seriously! Do you think that THAT is what she needed right then?

Blogging makes it really easy to dehumanize the person you are reading about and eventually commenting to - you never see them so you feel invincible. So it becomes really easy to be completely horrible to them through commenting. In my opinion, it is one thing to disagree with someone, its another to be a complete jerk. And most of the time when someone is a complete jerk, they either use a pseudonym with no link to their own blog or just the title anonymous. This irritates me to no end. If you have something to disagree about, be brave enough to sign your name on it. If you are too embarrassed to have your name associated with your nasty comment, then perhaps you should rethink what you are about to say. Would you say it to the person face to face? If not, just bite your tongue. Lets all make blogging FUN, not HATEFUL.

A couple of side notes:
1. I do allow anonymous comments on my blog, not because I want mean anonymous comments, but because some people who leave uplifting comments do not have a blogger ID and I enjoy hearing from them.

2. I don't want 100 anonymous comments on this post flaming me, either serious or in an attempt to be funny. Cause really, its not.

I see your point...

Today I went to lunch with my dad and saw a guy wearing a shirt that said, "I see your point, but I still think you're stupid." I couldn't stop laughing because it really struck a chord with me. I used to be a debater. Not a technical goes-to-competition debater, but I loved taking politics, religion, anything I had an opinion on and talking it to death until I convinced the other person I was right. I did this any chance I got, so much that I even had my picture on MTV's Choose or Lose website during the presidential elections because I wrote a really well thought out post that caught their attention. A lot of times, convincing people I was right was pretty easy - several of my friends were severely uneducated on current affairs and would basically believe anything I told them. But every now and then, I would meet my match with someone just as opinionated as me, just as stubborn, and on the opposite side of the issue. Even if I knew I was 100% right and could prove it, these people would argue with me on and on because they thought they were 100% right.

In the past year or so, I have discovered that this debating is completely pointless. No matter how many concrete facts I present, no matter how much knowledge I have on the issue, if I am talking to someone who is just like me only opposite, the conversation will go nowhere because neither one of us will change our minds. My life has been a little easier over the last year or two after recognizing this. I have just decided that if it is an issue that I will never sway on, why should I expect someone else to? So from now on, when someone tries to get me into a debate about George Bush by saying he is the worst thing ever to happen to this country and trying to throw quotes from Farenheit 911 in my face (Michael Moore - another topic completely!), I will just smile politely and think to myself, "I see your point, but I still think you're stupid."

***Disclaimer***
Before people jump all over me in comments, I don't think that if you dislike George Bush, you are automatically stupid. People are entitled to their own opinions and I respect that. I just think that a lot of people use flawed reasoning in their dislikes, but I probably use some flawed reasoning in my dislikes of other politicians. The last sentence of the post was merely an example of a very common debate that people have attempted to drag me into.

50/50 chance

The last bridal show I worked at was 2 days long. During this time, we got to know some of the other vendors around our booth, particularly the ladies across from us that had a custom wedding dress shop. They would watch our videos while they sat in their empty double booth and sing along with the songs to pass the time. Finally, one lady came and talked to me to tell me how much she liked our stuff. Then she asked a question that really left me speechless...a feat in itself. She asked, "Does it ever make you sad or depressed that 1/2 of the weddings you film will end in divorce?" At first, I thought it was stupid and just brushed it off by saying something about, it didn't depress me because we only see the beginning so in my mind they all live happily ever after. But the more I thought about it, the more it disturbed me that people go into marriage thinking that they only have a 50/50 chance of making it work! I don't really have any profound thoughts on this except that when I get married, I plan on it sticking. Bad thoughts won't do any good from the start. The real reason I wrote this is to tell that little story that was too long for the comments portion of Trey's post, the original thought on this topic. Go read it, it's good. Also check out Ryan's comment. See you tomorrow!

The best cookies ever...only not at all

Have you ever had those really soft thick sugar cookies with the thick icing on top from the grocery store? Because if you haven't you probably don't live in the United States or are diabetic. I hate those cookies. Everyone else in the world thinks they are the greatest things ever and go nuts every time they are around - usually in Youth Group functions. I think they have absolutely no taste and the icing makes me sick. I thought I was the only one in the world who didn't like them until last week when I found out that Lindsey doesn't like them either! It made my day to learn that someone else doesn't like them either.

The reaction I get when I tell people that I don't like them is usually pretty horrific. Have you ever told someone that you don't like something they love? Here is how the conversation usually goes: Me - "I don't like those cookies with the thick icing on top" Other person "WHAT??? YOU DON'T LIKE THE COOKIES WITH THE THICK ICING ON TOP??? WHO ARE YOU???" I mean seriously, you'd think I insulted their mother or something! Why is it that it is awful to admit that you don't like something? The same things happens with movies, when you don't like a movie that everyone else loved (for me, its The Village. Great movie until the creatures were fake. The only good twist was Joachin Phoenix getting stabbed) or a speaker/preacher/teacher that you don't think is great (for me, its Stephen Moore at ACU. I think he is the most overrated teacher/chapel songleader ever). I am hoping that someday, society will accept me for who I am - someone who dislikes thick icing cookies.