They are starting to get down to the final 10 on American Idol. So far, I haven't seen one singer that I would pay to see perform. One would think that with 70,000 entrants that there would be a higher level of talent at the end. Surely, there must be some new Elvis, or Joni Mitchell, or Elton John just waiting to be discovered. I don't know where they're hiding, but they didn't show up for this program. Actually, there was one woman who I thought was good, but she didn't make the finals. I think she made a mistake in singing a Melissa Etheridge song.
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Next week is the last installment of Joe Millionaire. I thought that it was going to be last Monday, but they just rehashed a bunch of footage on the two finalists. I think that the last show is going to be a disaster. He has to explain that he has been lying for the last few weeks and did not inherit $50 million. From the commercials, there is supposed to be some kind of shocking twist. What would be shocking to me would be to find out that this guy isn't brain dead.

It snowed again last night in St. Louis. It is so strange. Every time that I go to Chicago, I'm told that they haven't had any snow. Somehow, St. Louis seems to be getting all of Chicago's snow. I just know that whenever I return full-time to Chicago, that the snow will follow me. Maybe I should rent myself out to ski resorts that need snow. Instead of a rain maker, I could be a snow maker.
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A funny thing happened over the weekend. I was going out on Saturday and I saw a small Cheetos bag on the ground outside. I thought that I should dispose of it, but instead I just left it. On Sunday I went out and there was a squirrel sitting on the fence with the bag in its mouth. I felt like I was in a Disney movie and the squirrel was mocking me for not cleaning up the litter. We tend to forget how nature goes about its business when we are not around. Someday I would like to live like Thoreau at Walden Pond and just live deliberately and examine nature. It's a shame how we have interfered with so many parts of nature for our own gain. I bet this continent was beautiful about 10,000 years ago, before we arrived and started changing the land.
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I saw the film 'Chicago' on Saturday. I really enjoyed it. It broke my rule that I have never seen a movie set in a prison that I liked. It also went a long way towards changing my mind about recent musicals. There hasn't been a decent musical in over 25 years that I can remember. Evita, which should have been good, was horrible. I am so happy that Renee Zellweger was in Chicago. They originally were trying to cast Madonna. That would have been a disaster. Catherine Zeta-Jones was great in her role and she did a great job of singing All that Jazz. I don't know if it will be named best picture at the Oscars, but it is worth considering. It is very hard to take a stage play and turn it into a film. Too many times, it just seems like a play that has been filmed. This one was beautifully constructed and filmed.