books 2006: The Mysteries, by Lisa Tuttle

Eh, this was okay. I was intrigued because it's a cross between a detective story and a fantasy based on Celtic mythology: girl goes missing, her mom hires a private investigator to find her, he discovers similarities between the girl's disappearance and the myth about Etain, and all of this reminds him of a strange case he solved ten years ago. It's worth reading if you're a myth person (and I am), but overall, eh.

Saturday July 22, 2006: American Idol concert

I don't think I posted about the American Idol concert.

Yes, I said "American Idol concert".

Now, it's not like I watch the show or anything. My mom watches the show. She watches it, ridiculously enough, with my best friend Lauren. Lauren comes over every Tuesday after work and they have dinner and then watch American Idol. I'm not sure quite how they came up with this arrangement, but it's been going on so long now that neither of them can watch the show without the other one there to snark to. When the concerts started up a few seasons ago, Mom offered to buy the tickets if Lauren would drive, and they had a great time. This was their third concert. I went too this year, because how lame would it be if my best friend and my mom went off to a concert together while I waved goodbye on the porch? So Mom got me a ticket too, and I was firmly instructed not to make fun of them or the other concert-goers, and told that I had to sit on the end so Laur and Mom could sit next to each other, as they needed to discuss every aspect of each singer's performance. I was clearly a tag-along, but not unwelcome.

So the show was actually pretty good! The biggest problem we had was that something was wrong with the sound where we were sitting--we could hear the singers fine when they sang a cappella or with just a guitar, but when the whole band was playing and the backup singers were singing, we couldn't hear the main performer hardly at all, and that sucked. The concert started off with Micronisa, or something like that, who sang pretty well. Lauren commented that they'll put an ugly man or a fat woman on TV, but never an ugly woman. Micronisa had some serious hips on her, but she was beautiful. We all liked Lisa, and hated Paris, who looked trampy. Bucky the cowboy was fun. My favorite was Chris. He started off with Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" and did a great job. He also did "Wanted Dead or Alive". Every woman in the place started screaming when he came out. Mom says he got an offer to be the new lead singer for Fuel but he turned it down. The girl who was the runner up this season didn't sing, and they never explained why--we heard someone near us saying that she had laryngitis, but really, they could have made an announcement. It's not like a bunch of obsessive Idol watchers aren't going to notice that there are only nine people up there when there should have been ten. Taylor, the winner, was really good, but I didn't like him as much as I thought I would. The concert was sponsored by Pop Tarts, so we were able to snag some free samples of the new flavor, mint chocolate chip, which they recommend you freeze before eating. Pretty tasty. Overall, I had a fun time at the show.