American Idol 7, The best Idol competition yet!(??)

In my opinion, so far the worst music competition yet. Up to now I don’t even know how they got 24 contestant to the final stage of the competition. During the initial interview process the were some real shockers and to add to it some of the weirdest people!

On Thurs/Fri (21st/22nd) they viewed the first 2 legs of probably the worst bunch on contestants in a singing competition I’ve ever seen on ITV in the UK. Thursday they had 12 guys performing music from the 60′s and on Friday 12 gals also doing the 60′s thing.

The song choice for each contestant was shocking. You had some crazy wannabe rocker chick performing ‘Come on Baby light my fire’ originally sung by The Doors. It was embarresing to say the least. Shouting the chorus over and over. Sure as hell didn’t do Jimmy any justice.
Then you had some real boring song choices, enough to put anyone to sleep.

The amazing thing, Randy Jackson was farely diplomatic, not always complimenting the performer but still not dissing the really poor singers. Puala Abdul seems to only have nice things to say to the contestants, she’s gone all phylosophical since all these stories have come out in the media about her being pissed on drugs in public. Being nice to a bunch of poor performers live on TV won’t fix her reputation so I reckon she should grow a set of balls on tell the singers exactly how it is. The only person sticking to his guns as usual is Simon Cowell. At the end of the day he is the person giving the winner a million $ contract but how can he give away a prize of that proportion to a winner that probably won’t be near the likes of Kelly Clarkson or any of the previous winners of Idols America. At least Cowell says it as it is! As usual the rent a crowd in the audience all yelp and boo at Simon but I’m pretty amazed that their responses should be anything but support for a judge that knows what star quality is and what he is looking for.

All I can say is the 4 contestants voted out at the end of the second session don’t deserve anyting less. Should they hope to make a carreer as musicians. Hell NO. As Simon said to the last contestant to go (Coleson) when asked if he could give any advice “Go and get a real job and rather consider singing to be a hobby”.

Maybe I’m being harsh and maybe the theme for the first week was a bit of a hard theme to choose any decent music from but hey you had bands like the Beatles during the 60′s and they sure weren’t boring or sang out of tune.

Anyway lets hope the competition gets better and we get to see some talent.

The pic shows the first 4 losers.

Ze Frank: What’s so funny about the Web?

Performer, web-toymaker and philosopher-comic Ze Frank offers his signature blend of comedy, technology and social theory, with hilarious takes on Google, video games, and haiku, to name but a few. All the while, he makes brilliant use of the screen to twist the meaning of his spoken words.

from www.ted.com posted with vodpod

Cheap International Calls

I’m based in the UK and you would expect that being in a country that’s at the forefront of technology making calls would be cheap. Well that’s sort of true. You have so many different mediums to make calls from so you need to be careful not to waste your money.

There is always the cheapest option which would be to use skype. You then get international call cards from various news agents around the city. The problem with these. For a mere 5 quid you get thousands of minutes of talk time. Somehow I find it hard to believe these are accurate and after only a few phone calls your credit is finished in anyway. Using BT or your mobile service provider is outrageously expensive! Always check with your SP what the per minute charge is to a destination before you make the call. You might get a fat surprise when you get your bill. If you’re travelling in the UK and you miss home don’t waste your money choosing the wrong medium to make your long hall calls. Use google for God sake! You’ll come across great deals like yoyocall. Easy to use and a lot cheaper than majority of the options out there. You can’t go wrong.

Evil Mr. Kerviel

The French bank Societe Generale needs a massive cash injection after the rogue trader scandal of January. On Monday 11/02 the bank unveiled its bid to raise 5.5 billion euros to plug a hole left by a Jerome Kerviel that dented confidence in the French bank and left it exposed to takeover bids.
Societe Generale estimates losses allegedly at 4.9 billion euros (7.1 billion dollars).

Is this guy crazy or what?? He has brought economies around the world to their knees. All in a few moments of madness to save his own ass. He kept trading bigger and bigger deals to try and make up for the losses he was incurring but in the end was overcome by the sheer depth of the shit hole he had dug for himself.

Kerviel was jailed on Friday after a Paris appeals court backed a prosecution demand that he be held in custody in connection with the worst investment banking scandal in history.
His lawyer said she would soon take the case to a higher appeals court. Kerviel, who has vowed not to be a scapegoat for Societe Generale, faces charges of breach of trust, fabricating documents and illegally accessing computers.

He escaped more serious charges of fraud.

Intro-Communicate

The world we live in is fast. Technology drives communication and as communication developes deadlines become shorter.  Sometimes I sit at my desk thinking if it weren’t for these computers, Internet, email and bloody voip phones I probably won’t feel the stress of having to finish projects so quickly. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the fact that we have access to anything in the world at our finger tips or we can talk to our friends and family abroad at a fraction of the cost compared to the good old days. I mean I can call South Africa from the UK at the same rate my mate Greg can make a local call for over there but that’s another topic in itself. The world needs to slow down for goodness sake! Or not. Besides the fact that global warming has materialised from the speed the world has developed over the past decade life is pretty sweet. Easy and cheap communication. Kids (and adults) have access to PlayStation, X-Box, Nintendo and other game play mediums. Computers and the internet, where accessible, aid in the developement and education of most individuals. Lets embrace it. Learn, have fun and if you’re boss puts pressure on you to meat unreasonable deadlines ask the question. “When am I getting a pay rise?”