Moment of Strange

American Idol Top 24 Season 10 With five spots already taken in the Top 24, American Idol starts collecting the other 19 contestants who will make up their Top 24.

Karen Rodriguez was the first tonight to be informed she was to perform next week. Robbie Rosen was told by the judges that he is "One of the best singers we have" and was told to be ready to be performing next week live. Also joining those two is Tatynisa Wilson.

Brittany and Jimmy were not as lucky as the others. They were told that this is the end of the road for them on Idol.

More contestants were told that they were coming back next week. Tim Halperin, Julie Zorrilla and Scotty McCreery all made the long walk and came back happy.



Jovany Barreto was number 12 in the Top 24. The judges particularly like his "crazy upper register". Lauren, Rachel, Kendra and Jordan Dorsey will also be joining the others in the stiff competition next week.


Sadly we had to say goodbye to contestant John Wayne Shulz. Seems like there is only room for one cowboy on this show. Jackie Wilson also said goodbye. Her last performance was a bit of a mess because she messed up the words. Not the best thing to do on the redemption performance.


Lauren Alaina, wearing a very Halloween-like dress, but the judges liked her anyways and compared her to Dolly Parton. Joining her in the top 24 is Stefano Langone and the always amazing Jacob Lusk. Jacob is always entertaining to watch, as his performances are phenomenal, but offstage he is just as fun to watch. Jacob danced off the stage, spun Ryan Seacrest around a bit, and continued running and dancing around.



Pia Toscano and James Durbin were quick verdicts with the judges since they took no time at all telling them they are in the top 24. Casey Abrams showed the judges in his last performance that "people like him can be sexy." Casey is in the top 24 and he was so excited that he knocked over his chair.


Thia Megia and Jessica Cunnigham were the last two girls left and were brought in to see the judges at the same time. Jessica went off telling the judges it was her birthday and this was her seventh time auditioning for American Idol. Sadly the judges told her she didn't make it again and that Thia would be moving on to the next round.


With one spot remaining, the judges bring in Jacee, Brett and Colton. Jacee became a quick fan favorite on the show while Colton crooned on the piano. But surprisingly the guy to get the last spot was Brett Loewenstern. All three guys were talented, but Brett was a bit of surprise over Colton.

Law enforcement officials in Homer, AK tell us they got a call at 12:52 PM yesterday reporting a deceased male at the Best Western Bidarka Inn. Upon arrival they found 33-year-old Tennison lying on a bed unresponsive.

We're told a search of the room -- which was registered to Justin -- turned up a small amount of marijuana, as well as several bottles of alcohol in the refrigerator. Cops tell us they believe there had been a party in the room the night before.


Captain of the Cornelia fishing boat on "Deadliest Catch," died after suffering a stroke, the Discovery Channel show endured an another loss: Thirty-three-year-old crew member Justin Tennison was found dead Tuesday in an Alaska hotel room.

TMZ reports that law enforcement officials found marijuana and a bottle of alcohol in the room where Tennison's body was found.

"It is with great sadness that the Time Bandit family announces the death of crew member Justin Tennison. Justin died peacefully in his sleep the night of Feb. 21, 2011," "Deadliest Catch's"

Here's the Video below:

Washington - The Supreme Court will let Mazda be sued in California courts in case involving a woman who died while wearing a seat belt across her lap in her family’s minivan. The high court in a unanimous judgment Wednesday agreed to let the lawsuit go forward, despite complaints from the car company that federal regulators gave it an option on whether to install lap belts or lap-and-shoulder belts in the middle seats in the back of the van.

Thanh Williamson’s family wants to sue Mazda Motor of America Inc. because it made its 1993 Mazda MPV minivan with only lap seat belts in the middle seat of the van’s second row. Williamson, who was from Utah, died in a 2002 accident; her family says her body jackknifed around the lap belt causing fatal internal injuries.

Federal regulations require lap-and-shoulder belts for the front seats and the rear outer seats but give companies an option on the rear middle or aisle seats. The Williamsons want a court to say that Mazda was negligent for not putting the lap-and-shoulder belts on the inner seats on its own.

But Mazda said it is immune from lawsuits because the federal government in 1989 gave it a choice of installing either lap or lap-and-shoulder seat belts in the middle rear seat. A lawsuit forcing them to use lap-and-shoulder belts, the company said, would invalidate the choice being offered by the regulation.

Four decades ago, voters in Seattle narrowly turned down a rapid-transit plan in the 1970 election, prompting the federal government to shift $900 million in rail funds to Atlanta, to launch its MARTA network.

This time, it's Washington state that hankers to spend rail money earmarked for the South.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday decided to reject $2.4 billion in federal stimulus aid for an Orlando-to-Tampa rail route. He cited the "potential for significant capital and operating cost overruns." Scott went on to list several port and freeway improvements he believes would bring more benefit.

A Washington State snow storm is drawing a lot of interest to King 5 news and the National Weather Service. Snow from Seattle to Spokane is expected on Wednesday and Thursday, and this could be a pretty powerful storm when everything is said and done. 30 plows have been commissioned and put on standby to help out the Seattle Department of Transportation, and plans on how to deal with the snow and ice are about to get under way.

The plows are on 24-hour-hour shifts in Seattle right now, and it could become tough to get around the city. Snow up on Snoqualmie Pass is expected to be bad, and then there is the East side of the mountains to consider. The West side of the state doesn't often get heavy snowfall like what might be coming, and the community is struggling to prepare for it. Out in the Spokane area though, snow has been hitting the major cities all winter. Now 4 to 8 more inches of snow are expected on Wednesday night, with the possibility of even more arriving overnight.

The National Weather Service has now suggested that people leave work early on Wednesday, because it could get bad. A winter storm warning is in effect until 10 am PST on Thursday, with up to 6 inches of accumulation possible in the Seattle/Tacoma area. Severe winter weather is expected, making the evening commute a possible mess. The East side of the state could possibly see even more snow than that by Thursday morning.

This angling competition will have the top prize of $500,000, so anglers will need to be prepared for some tough competition. The vent will be watched closely by thousands of spectators in site; people will also be able to attend the Classic Outdoor Expo held at Ernest Memorial Convention center.

Competitors in the Bassmaster Classic 2011 reach the event by qualifying to it. Each pro tournament they win will gather points that will dictate whether they qualify for this competition or not. You could spend many years trying to enter and never make it. Others, like Gary Klein, have years appearing in the tournament thanks to their skills. And well, winning is a whole other thing.

Although a lot of these competitors are veterans, 15 of the playoffs will be their first Bassmaster Classic with hopes of conquering the waters in New Orleans. One of the great things about how this event is handled it is the seemingly endless opportunity to meet alone with fishermen to provide sufficient insight for fans. There is no better way to understand what is the ideal day to day to hear the views of those who are actually fishing. Wednesday night, there was a Red Carpet event, by invitation only, for competitors and select members of the media offering additional opportunities to talk with the pros.

After several days of hard practice, the Elite Series pros converseed Media Prefish the period, offering predictions of what fans can expect on Day 1 of the tournament.
Each angler offered their views on how they feel conditions will affect their plans once the tournament starts.

Strong local favorite, Fishouflage Pro Greg Hackney believes that the big fish are. “Fishermen need to use a minimum of 16 to 18 pounds per day for a title shot. Ample numbers of large fish are available that this fishery is as good as it ever was. There are so many different places to fish there guys will travel up to two hours to reach their fish. You can also expect to see fishermen camping spots on fish producers hoping to load the boat each day. ”

Twitter has just posted a help document titled "I'm Having Problems Logging In to UberTwitter or twidroyd" that gives little hope for an immediate fix: turns out the company has outright suspended both apps -- among the most popular Twitter apps for the BlackBerry / iPhone and Android platforms, respectively -- for "violating [its] policies." They go on to say that they suspend "hundreds" of apps on a daily basis for policy violations, but decided to call out these two in particular because of the high number of users potentially affected. Considering the popularity factor, we imagine this'll be solved one way or another before too long -- but in the meantime, you might want to fall back to the official apps for all three platforms.

Twitter is now aggressively going after third-party sites and services that once helped it spread its name, message, and capabilities virally. What was once a beautiful, symbiotic relationship that appeared to raise the Twitter water level and float all Tweet-powered boats, is now a swirling mass of destruction, with Twitter at the vortex, seemingly eating its own offspring. Today, Twitter suspended UberTwitter and Twidroyd for "violating the company's API policies," and while much of the Twitter community expressed shock, I'm just waiting to see what else the whirlpool sweeps into its path.

I'm not shocked. In fact, this is pretty much what I predicted. Twitter is now doing whatever it can to shut down third-party and competing apps that tend to drag people away from Twitter's desktop and mobile clients. I had assumed that they would continue to do most of this quietly through technology (by tweaking the API). Have you noticed how poorly TweetDeck works on the iPad? The Twitter app, of course, works fine.

Turns out, though, there are other arrows in the Twitter's quiver. One of them is so obvious that I'm surprised I hadn't thought of it before. Twitter can bring out the lawyers.
According to a TechCrunch report, UberMedia's Bill Gross (UberMedia owns UberTwitter and TweetDeck), one of UberTwitter's offenses was its trademark-infringing name. Of course! This is the Apple strategy for brand-management control, and it is smart and extremely effective. In Apple's case, as soon as the iPod took off in the early part of this century, other companies started incorporating "iPod" into their names to try and drive interest to their iPod-related products. Apple quietly went around and reminded folks that while they were flattered, you can't simply use a trademarked name without permission. Go today and try to find something with the "iPod" name in it that isn't owned or explicitly sanctioned by Apple.
So Twitter is being smart, but that new laser-like focus on good business sure does sting. UberTwitter actually has to change its name to UberSocial. Not a big deal, right? Unless you consider that many of Twitter's third party apps got noticed by, well, using the Twitter name.

The 53rd Annual Daytona 500 is set to get underway this Sunday at the Daytona International Speedway.
NASCAR season is about to kick off with the 2011 Daytona 500 this Sunday. Fans eagerly await race day and want to know what the starting lineup looks like. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was supposed to lead the pack but got hit from behind during practice; he had to go to his backup car and got sent to the back! Right now Jeff Gordon will be starting at lead, followed by Jeff Burton and Kurt Busch who both won the Gatorade Duels yesterday.
It’s such a shame that Dale Earnhardt Jr. won’t be leading the starting lineup to this year’s 2011 Daytona 500. The NASCAR driver just can’t seem to get out of his own damn way. With his accident during practice, the freaking rainbow warrior (Jeff Gordon) got a free pass to the first position…boo! Rounding out the top 3 starters at the Daytona 500 are Jeff Burton and Kurt Busch who both won the Gatorade Duels yesterday.

Here is the (Top 10)of the official 2011 Daytona 500 Starting Lineup in order:

Jeff Gordon
Kurt Busch
Jeff Burton
Regan Smith
Clint Bowyer
Kevin Harvick
Michael Waltrip
Matt Kenseth
Kyle Busch
Kasey Kahne

Back at the 2001 Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt was killed in a final-lap crash at the venerable Florida speedway. Just three years before, Earnhardt, who won seven NASCAR championships, finally ended years of frustration at Daytona with his first and only win there.

This Sunday, his son, Dale Earnhardt, Jr, and 42 other NASCAR stars will race to the checkered flag in the 53rd version of 'The Great American Race.'

Dale, Jr. won the pole position for this year's Daytona during qualifying runs, but lost it when he crashed during practice on Wednesday. As a result, he'll have to start from the back of the field.

Also, on Sunday, Jimmie Johnson, who's won the past five NASCAR Sprint Cup championships, will begin his quest for a sixth consecutive title. Johnson won the 2006 Daytona 500.

The NBA All Star weekend 2011 is set to be a big affair, given the setting and the players. Tonight kicks things off with the celebrity game and rookie challenge, while Saturday has the long awaited debut of Blake Griffin in the Slam Dunk Contest. Sunday then brings the actual game, with the East and West likely to combine for at least 300 points. After the glitz and glamour of NBA All Star weekend 2011, however, the push for the playoffs can then take center stage.

With Chicago's win over San Antonio, and Dallas's road win at Phoenix, every team is now finished with their first half. Technically, they are well into the second half, since most teams are approaching the 60 game mark in their schedule.

But the NBA All Star weekend 2011 allows the contenders to rest, although their superstars are keeping busy in Los Angeles. It comes just in time for frustrated Lakers fans, as they need a distraction from the Lakers' last three horrific losses on the road.

Kobe Bryant qualifies as the host, but after that, he has to help Los Angeles get back on track in time for the playoffs. They have turned the switch on and off for two years, yet the likes of the Spurs, Mavericks and Thunder stand to make it harder this time. Although the Spurs fell to the Bulls last night, they still have a big lead for home court advantage in the postseason.

Rookie-Sophomore Game (Winner and MVP)

Blake Griffin, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Derrick Favors, Landry Fields, Eric Bledsoe, Wesley Johnson, Greg Monroe, Gary Neal, John Wall v. DeJuan Blair, DeMar DeRozan, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Taj Gibson, Jrue Holiday, Serge Ibaka, Brandon Jennings, Wesley Matthews

All-Star Game (Winner and MVP)

Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Tim Duncan, Kevin Love, Blake Griffin, Deron Williams, Pau Gasol, Russell Westbrook, Manu Ginobili, and Dirk Nowitzki v. Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Amar'e Stoudemire, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Al Horford, Joe Johnson, and Chris Bosh.

Slam Dunk Contest

Blake Griffin, Javale McGee, DeMar DeRozan, Serge Ibaka

3 Point Shootout

Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Dorell Wright, Daniel Gibson, Kevin Durant, James Jones

Skills Challenge

Chris Paul, Stephen Curry, Derrick Rose, John Wall, Russell Westbrook

Shooting Stars Competition

Team Atlanta: Al Horford, Coco Miller, Steve Smith

Team Chicago: Taj Gibson, Catherine Kraayveld, Steve Kerr

Team Los Angeles: Pau Gasol, Tina Thompson, R*ck F*x (Anyone who votes for Team Los Angeles automatically loses the contest and life).

Team Texas: Dirk Nowitzki, Roneeka Hodges, Kenny Smith

Meanwhile, NBA All Star weekend 2011 has the Heat and Celtics joining forces, for the moment. Their respective Big 3's are temporary teammates, before they fight it out for the Eastern Conference crown. Given the Heat's three losses to the Celtics this season, Boston stands to hover over LeBron James and company, until they can meet in May.

Other first half reviews center on the endless Carmelo Anthony trade talk, Blake Griffin and Kevin Love's emergence, the Bulls being carried by Derrick Rose, and the questions over the Magic's new lineup. This year has also seen the Knicks get back to .500, the Thunder rising up the West, the Jazz losing their iconic coach, and historic ineptitude by the Cavaliers and Wizards.

The Elizabethan Era venerable British bank, Barclay’s, founded four centuries ago right at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and NRG Energy Inc, the largest US independent power producer, have just completed a deal for the very first carbon permits to be offered by California’s planned cap and trade program to reduce pollution in its AB32 climate legislation.

The first time the word "Regietheater" appeared in these pages was in 1985. The German term, which means "director's theater," was described a year later by a Times critic as a trend that "consigned the 'outdated' wishes of composer and librettist to a stupid oblivion."

Twenty-five years later, "Regietheater" is no longer just a German trend but a significant part of operatic life in America — especially on the West Coast. When Los Angeles Opera presents the company premiere of Gioacchino Rossini's "The Turk in Italy" on Saturday, it will not be seen in costumes or sets reflecting the period in which the opera was originally set (18th century) or written (19th century) but rather in contemporary dress, complete with espresso machines and televisions. Does director Christof Loy's mid-20th century update of an opera buffa from 1814 go against the wishes of the creators or is it simply a way to view an old work with new eyes?

The Chinese artist does more than just wear camouflage pants and stand next to a bush. With the help of some assistants, Bolin paints himself, head to toe and unassumingly just stands there--in grocery stores, next to piles of coal, on staircases, you name it. And, unless you look really closely, you'll miss him entirely--which is pretty much the point.

It turns out that the process of making oneself truly invisible is quite painstaking. According to a report in the U.K.'s Daily Mail, Bolin spends hours perfecting his poses to ensure that he'll mesh with his background. Bolin then stands "in front of backdrops with a team of two assistants to paint the camouflage on his clothes." The "camouflage" can be anything, so long as Bolin segues seamlessly into the backdrop.
Aside from looking cool, Bolin's work does have a deeper meaning. Again according to the Daily Mail, the living sculptures are "designed to show how we all can just disappear in today's mass production world." And how! The photo of Bolin standing in front of a grocery store shelf full of soda cans and bottles is full of color, shading and shadow.