For 7 seasons, this show has aired, giving millions of viewers an excuse to drop what they’re doing and get home before 8pm.  I spent a little time pondering the logical side of this show (which for me was much more fun than actually watching it) and came to the conclusion that, despite, or rather BECAUSE of, its success, the contestants on the show cannot possibly be the best singers in America — and hence not TRUE American Idols.

Put On Your Thinking Caps!

The idea of American Idol is to take THE BEST performers and pit them against eachother.  So, no matter how many people audition for the show, only THE BEST ones are allegedly selected.

It is also true that once a contestant has been selected and appears on the show, they will NEVER return to compete subsequent times.

Downward Spiral

So, in the 1st season of AI, THE BEST performers are selected, they duke it out, a winner is chosen, and those 10 contestants NEVER come back.  When season two rolls around, the show again chooses THE BEST contestants.  However, by the show’s own definition, it is NOT choosing THE BEST contestants, but rather THE BEST ONES AVAILABLE (because the previous BEST contestants are not allowed to return).  This continues in the third season and all others following as THE (alleged) BEST actually become less and less farther from THE BEST.

In other words: The quality of contestants on AI is constantly getting crappier.

The Persistence of Crap

So a show that is constantly becoming less and less entertaining should get canned lickity-split, right?  Well the problem in this scenario is that AI IS STILL RUNNING.  Why is it still running?  Because it gets good ratings of course!

The only way for a show to get good ratings is for lots of people to watch it, and of course people will not watch something that they don’t enjoy.  Or to transpose that last clause: people will only watch shows they enjoy.

You Like That Show?  It’s Crap.

See where I’m going? If people only watch shows that they enjoy, and people watch a show that is constantly getting crappier, then the obvious conclusion is that PEOPLE ENJOY WATCHING CRAP.

Please withold all “Two girls, one cup” jokes.

So, I head out to the local mall (a most wretched hive of scum and villany), for a quick refresher on the wardrobe.  A couple nicer pair of jeans and some button-down shirts (orginally $30/ea, on sale for $8 FTW!) later and I’m good to go.

Yesterday I go into one of my lovely institutions of employment only to be told that a “business casual” dress code is being implemented and the new digs I just shelled out for won’t cut it.

Wardrobe FAIL

Stupid People Keeping My Sanity

Several months ago, I re-designed the website for one of our local Presbyterian churches.  I used WordPress to build the site, allowing sermons, announcements, and events to all be posted easily by the church staff themselves.  The front page of the site has Google Maps integrated for directions, there’s a search feature on the site for lost people, and there’s a calendar that dynamically pulls events from MyChurchEvents.com.

That’s a lot of detail, but stay with me here.

I got an email from the pastor of said church earlier this morning…here’s the details:

Hey —,

Just wanted you to see what other folks are up to.  I don’t get too many of
these, but when I got this I thought of you.  Grace and peace,

——————–
———————–
——————–
————————
(—)— - —-

—–Original Message—–
From:—————————-
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 9:33 AM
To:—————————-
Subject: Your Church Website

Pastor ——,

I was wondering if anyone has been planning a redesign of the church
Website to either make look more up to date, have it better represent the
church or add new features to it (like online tithing, integration to
Google Map/Directions, automated electronic mailing list for
announcements/communications, online audio player for sermons, blogs,
interactive commenting, event invitation/management, automated photo
gallery, search feature, ability to sell church t-shirt/merchandise,
graphical website traffic statistics, etc.).

Also, are the church leaders and/or staff able to edit the Website content
themselves and keep information up to date and fresh? If the church is
unable to edit its own content then it may be beneficial to add to the
site a user-friendly system that allows leaders and/or staff at all levels
to just login in and edit the pages and text themselves through a word
processor-like interface.

I’m working for a Christian owned web and graphic design small business
where my supervisor is a partial tent-making church planter and pastor
that wants to see churches able to use leading edge but user friendly
Internet technology to build up kingdom of God.

Let me know if any of this may be beneficial for the church.

Blessings,

——–

———–

———@——.—

I LOL’ed excessively…

Is this spam or just a 30-something who lost his job and is trying to make it on his own because he read through the W3C’s HTML tutorials?

Look at that list of features.  90% of those features are included in blogging software.  WordPress IS bogging software.  Therefore: WordPress includes 90% of those features.  Did this guy even LOOK at the site?  Wordpress sites are not hard to spot, and I don’t try to hide the fact that I use that package as often as possible.

“online tithing”:  So Paypal has a 10% auto-donate now?

Google Maps Integration?  Did you see the homepage?  That big map of the church that takes you to the corresponding Google Maps Page?  How much more integrated can you get!?

And then he goes on to say that could “add to the site a user-friendly system that allows leaders and/or staff at all levels to just login in and edit the pages and text themselves through a word processor-like interface.”

IT. IS. BLOGGING. SOFTWARE.  If it wasn’t retardedly easy for a monkey with polio to post and edit content, nobody would use it!

Then there’s last paragraph that scares the hell out of me:  First of all, the white guy in me wants to correct your grammar.  It’s “who wants to see…” not “that wants to see…”.

Second of all the phrase: “…leading edge but user friendly Internet technology to build up kingdom of God.”  Seriously?  Do you know the demographics of Presbyterian church’s around here?  My estimate is that 80% of the congregation would shit their pants at the thought of using “leading edge technology.”  And not because they’ve lost control of their bodily functions…

AND the intarwebs are already being used to build up said kingdom.  Check it:

Oh stupid people, you make me lol…

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Image Maps

<map></map>

“Rollover” images and buttons

<a id="example">Cone of Silence</a>




#example{	background:url(picture.gif) top left no-repeat;	display:block; } 
#example:hover{ background-position:bottom left; } 

if ( document.images ){
 eg_on = new Image ( );
 eg_off = new Image ( );
 eg_on.src = "images/eg_on.gif";
 eg_off.src = "images/eg_off.gif";
 function button_on ( imgId )
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 }

 function button_off ( imgId )
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     document.getElementById(imgId).src = butOff;
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 }
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<a href="#" onmouseout="button_off('eg'); return true" onmouseover="button_on('eg'); return true">
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Not five minutes ago, I passed an Amish man coming out of the bathroom. The reason I say I enjoy being an asshole is because of the dialog which constantly runs through my head.

I was highly amused by the fact that the thing that instantly popped into my head when I saw this gentleman was “oh excuse me. I have to check my email on my iPod!”

Of course I would never voice the less than tactful things in my head, but I thought some one deserved a good laugh!

Yeah…I’m a jerk sometimes. It’s a blast. =D

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Next weekend, I will be at the Chicagoland Dance Festival and this will come in handy for posting quick updates as the event progresses.

I promise a more detailed review of the device once I get to a full keyboard!

Today I installed another plugin for the blog called Twitter Tools by Alex King. Twitter tools will turn each of my posts on this blog into updates* on my Twitter.com account.  Also, every Saturday at midnight a post will be created automatically that recaps my twitter activity from the past week.

Just another way for those of you who don’t have a Twitter account to stay up to date.

*called “Tweets”

What that means is that now all of you who may want to see those pictues but don’t have facebook accounts can do so easily.  Just click the “Photo Album” link at the top of the site and pick an album to look at.

It’s so easy, even grandma can see them!  Oh wait…she doesn’t have the internets***!

*What I use to run my blogs

**What every body between the ages of 14 and 40 uses to kill time. I’m not linking to Facebook because they frankly have plenty of links as it is.

***Nothing but porn and something about the trojans!