djs111

Couchie, are you smutting????????

Heh, I always regarded Whitney's cover of that as having given it the Star Search treatment, nowadays it would be the American Idol glory-note version! Yes, she can sing, but Dolly's rendition is so sweet. Sniff!

Like others have said, there is the idol connection and the tour, etc. Besides, after Clay came out even random people at Red Carpets were being asked what they thought about it - I would imagine most were surprised to be asked. Hell, I almost expected Baba Wawa and/or Larry King or James Lipton to ask about that as a routine question! I always loved Xtina's voice the most, of all the "divas". Except for the overdone melisma at times. Of course, I think waaaaaay back to when I sorta liked Buffy Ste. Marie - maybe I used up all my tolerance for the warbly stuff!

I think any singer in the world, real, fake, no-so-good, whatever, can and will miss a note now and then. Yeah, Tina can dance and sing, but she is not really going for the higher notes, either. Plus I don't think anyone at the Super Bowl was there just to hear Jennifer sing - and if she had missed a note, it would be all over youtube instantly. Whitney's pre-recorded Super Bowl performance (also in Tampa) sold jillions - good business move! Barbra - it was her fear of not hitting a note that paralyzed her, it didn't matter, really, that she was awesome live, it was her own personal fear.

Heeee, KAndre - you KNOW this is gonna happen, plus minute inspection of song lyrics!

Heeeee.....I googled to see if The Fat Guy was still around, and got stuck on this find.... "Nickname: The team was named the "Magic" after beating out "Juice", "Heat", and "Tropics" in a contest" "I never knew that possible names were the JUICE & TROPICS!? Thank God they werent named that! Its amazing how time and habit change things. When the Magic were named, NOBODY was happy and everyone had a better idea. " "One of my favorites was the birth of Stuff. One day a huge egg showed up on the steps of City Hall and after a few days there Stuff was hatched. Stuff has not really changed over the years and I have gone from thinking this was silly as hell to having a Stuff doll on a shelf in my office." "In retrospect I am glad the nickname Magic was chosen, however if they had chosen the "Tropics" we would probably be writting about how great that name was and laughed that the name "Magic" was even considered." "I've never been a really big fan of Stuff. Ah what am I saying...when I was younger I used to hope he'd come over to my section... " "TROPICS??? JUICE???? who ever thought of those names oughtta get shot.. What were they thinking a basketball cheering squad!!!?? :lol:" "I saw the "Fat Guy" at the last game I went to back in November. I remember maybe 6-7 years ago he was having health problems and wasn't able to run around the arena, but he has been running the past couple of times I've been there from what I can remember..." "The Fat Guy is getting kind of old and does have those health problems. He still goes to most Magic home games, but he doesn't run around the arena much, only when we need the crowd to get excited. Stuff and the Fat Guy are the key symbols of Magic basketball. Stuff is one of the best mascots in the league. But what REALLY separates us from other teams is our PA announcer, Paul Pressly. That dude kicks a**!!!!!! He is one of the most loud and energetic PA's in the NBA. " "you guys are talking about the fat guy that wears the shiny shirt, right? " "yea i see that guy on tv all the time. " "yeah he is a great announcer. but i hate when he says "here come the magic" and he says magic real long like mmmmmmaaaaaaaaggggggggiiiiiiiiiccccccccc he says it so horrible, like he has a dick stuck between two teeth." I gotta disagree about the announcer - Paul Porter was awesome!!!!! Anyway, guess there is nothing new under the sun! I was happily surprised to see this: Fat Guy still having fun - 2008 My favorite post from here - "fans like him make it fun to be a fan." I guess that is where I am at, I just want to have fun being a fan! Mr. Salvaggio sorta reminds me of the fuss about Ethel. Of course, when you are fan of a team, you are not feeling you are competing for the attention of just one guy. Sniff.. now I am getting all nostalgic and whatnot. I had such great times at those games, but they remind me so much of the guy I went with, and now that he is gone I don't know how I would feel if I went to another game!

Yessssssss! Heeeeee........except those people are the only ones who truly embarrass me - it seems ludicrous to spend wads of time bitching and complaining and being generally unpleasant about someone you are a "fan" of - being a fan is not a job or an obligation - just move on to something you DO like. If there is anything, of course. But yeah, people I know are more puzzled by the haters and bitchers than the fans, everybody I know is a fan of something. Shoot, when I was a yooge Magic fan, I was puzzled by all the venom towards players and management and owner, and at first I was embarrassed by the pudgy lawyer (his official name was The Fat Guy) who would dress in a team uniform and run around the O-rena floor yelling and waving his arms and stirring things up - then I started to miss him when he wasn't at the game! Just being at the game was the fun part - the fans, the familiar fans, the OOT fans - it was the experience that made it fun. I just learned to ignore the grimly critical people because they sucked the fun out of my day. Why should I let them do that? The people who only wanted to be fans of a team that won all the time eventually moved on. And we all paid a whole fucking lot more for tickets than a fan club membership. If people say they hate "Claymate" and other people say they don't, that is expressing different opinions. If anyone thinks that their opinion should just shut everybody else up, or only be answered with agreement, they should prolly start their own board, and mod furiously or hand-pick their members. Um, for some reason, that sounds smutty. Anyhoo, that is NOT saying "leave the boards", it is saying "expressing differing opinions is how boards work". I used to not care one way or the other about 'Claymate" - but now I am finding myself kinda liking it. Certainly nothing to get all spazzed out about! Talking about all boards here. I understand that Pittsburgh won! Heeeee...back in the day when I followed football players, um, I mean teams, I was irrationally mad at Pittsburgh because they dumped Franco Harris. And Franco seems to be doing just fine. So I got over it.

cindilu2, Ron is partying in a private box at the Super Bowl. He says he can only take so much drama, and he has been hanging out with Kid Rock this week, hoping to make a move on Pamela Anderson.

For the record, I am not saying that everybody should re-up to the OFC no matter what. I confess I don't really care all that much. Just, well, sign up or don't. It is all the ongoing calculations and enumerations and figgering of percentages and whatnot that were either going to be depressing reading or else crack me up. I chose the snark. More fun, which is why I'm here in the first place!

Bottlecap - Bwahahahaha!!!!!!! That's all I got.

When does the pregame start? Bwah! Here in Tampa, it is All Super Bowl All The Time - Example of BREAKING NEWS!!!!! - the Lingerie Bowl was canceled because people who lived near the proposed site objected to the unseemly display of skin. Those mean people questioned the intent of the sporting event, saying that they didn't think it was really a sporting event. So a nudist resort offered to host the Lingerie Bowl - but then some of the scantily-clad participants quit because they were horrified at possibly playing football whilst clad only in wispy undies in front of old people who might be unattractively nekkid. I would not have been surprised to switch to a local channel and see reporters huddled in front of Raymond James Stadium, talking quite seriously about whether there would be Dijon mustard available for hot dogs, or just the regular bright yellow kind, and see a crawl at the bottom of the screen announcing a meteor was going to strike Earth next Wednesday, obliterating large parts of the planet. First things first. I do wish to report that I went to the Publix on Boyette Road yesterday and I did not see P. Diddy. That is the extent of my on-the-scene Super Bowl reportage. I'll update y'all if I run into Bruce Springsteen at the Hess station.

Heeeeee.....they are not standing next to each other. So it is entirely possible that they both just happened to be in Florida and just happened to attend the same show because they got primo tickets thru the Brad Fan Club pre-sale and of course know some of the same people in show business. Coincidence!!!! But what a nice happy picture! Thanks for the enlargement. So to speak. Foreskin. What.

That's QUITE enough of that happy crap, Missie! (Happily peruses FCA) I'll be off in a corner, setting up a complicated spreadsheet with formulas and percentages, so I can determine whether I am still a fan. I had no idea being a fan was so, um, formulaic. Lessee, # of blogs / # of words in blogs oops, other way round? multiply by offerings of personal life ...... this is more complicated than I had thought! add bonus points for blogging when I personally would have been just gazing at my baby subtract 2/3 of those points for keeping personal life personal subtract # of career plans revealed that are not on MY list divide by # of cover songs rumoured to be on next CD multiply by number of cover songs I personally like add 10 points because I did not like Tears Run Dry factor in # of views/fans/blogs by other artists who I don't really care about, but whatever add # of tours near meeeeee (this is too difficult, I just love to hear Clay sing.....) Damn, I need Quickbooks or something! I won't know until later tonight if I am happy or still a fan or what!!!! Yes, this post brought to you by sarcasm'r'us, just keep on reading, I needed to vent a wee bit...then I will be googling around to see what the fuck Lucinda Williams is doing. I buy all her CDs and I love her and she never writes, she never calls.....sniff. No need for rebuttals or whatever, I know everyone is different and fandom means different things to everyone. Truly I do. But some days the happy part of being a fan just gets suuuucked out the window (fear of flying joke) when I read fan boards. So I get a bit bitchy and then I feels MUCH better! Happy Sunday! Thanx for all the fish!!!! Ooops, end-of-the-universe-as-we-know-it joke, sorry! Thanks for all the pix!!!!!!!

Heeeee.....I don't think anyone is saying not to love it, just saying that, like any other site, there is no requirement TO love it, or even to go there. Actually, I wouldn't even consider that anyone anywhere could truly force me to visit a website, or not - so I am always surprised when I read how people feel they are being "told" not to do stuff, and they take it seriously. "cut" can mean circumcised, or it can mean that muscles anywhere on the body are quite sharply defined, usually a term used by bodybuilders. Reed's muscles in, say, his chestal area, look quite "cut" or defined.

Don't think anything is rotten in Denmark, don't think this this applies here, I think the simple explanation is that Chexxy's did post pictures of people and whatnot, and were quite the fan police that are, ironically, now being complained about. That did affect some people quite personally. If you don't have all the "backstory" information, then of course you would not understand! That's only natural, but it doesn't mean something is rotten. Just means you don't know why some people have bad feelings, is all. Anyway, I am sure the newsletter will have quite a few readers and hits as it is, unless, like Couchie says, it starts with the creepy blog crap again. It is not like anyone is going to miss any Clay news forevah if they don't read that one particular site. Personally, I never click on anything Clay-fan-related except this board and one other board, I figure anything important will show up!

I am older than Jaymes and have had complete care of my grandson for almost his whole life - he is almost 14 now, and I think he keeps me younger! Since Jaymes can afford help, I can see why she would want to do this before she gets older. Plus both Jaymes and Clay have extended families, and I do not, so I am jellus. I think Clay's version of "hands-on" doesn't exclude grandmom(s) and others, just like any other large family. Plus, while of course she is not getting any younger, I would think it more dicey to wait! Reed is cute, he does look like Jake G.

Claytonic - it never occurred to me that it was not a stray dog...like I said, our guide was horrified that I was trying to approach it (I didn't have any food) and realised he had not mentioned the dingo situation. The dingo was hanging back, not friendly, but wary. I guess we went to Uluru at the height of fly season (Thanksgiving week here) - I have never seen so many flies. Thousands followed us into the van we were driving in and we had to drive with doors and windows open to flush them out. We didn't climb on Uluru, after the guide said it was disrespectful, but some guys from Europe announced they had come all this way to do that, and they did. We didn't wait for them, though, they got another ride back to the hotel. Our guide said this is not the United States, if you break a leg or whatever, you can't sue. The guide also told us that the aboriginal drawings on Uluru were getting washed away due to people throwing water on them, so they could see them better. I never thought in a million years I would get to visit Australia or New Zealand, but I started dating a guy I met through work, and on the second date he told me he had enough United miles for two first-class tickets to Australia, and he would pay for the entire three-week trip, and did I want to go with him? Hell yes! We ended up being together for five or six years, he passed away in 1999, and that trip to Australia/NZ is still bright and fresh in my mind!

Heh, I wonder if the entire fandom will now embrace "Claymate", since I have decided it is an endearing term. Desertrose - when I was in Australia, I fed and petted lots of kangaroos, plus the place where we rode the camels, near Alice Springs, had both kinds of kangaroos we could feed, lots of baby camels (velvet-covered and gorgeous, all craning their heads out to be petted!), plus a large collection of venomous snakes that I passed on holding. Even when the keeper said he would show me how to do that safely. I understood from the guide at Uluru that petting a dingo would likely result in getting bitten or snapped at, he was a bit horrified that I had wandered off towards one! We went to a little zoo near Christchurch NZ where we drove into the lion enclosure and then chunks of raw meat were thrown in front of the line of cars and we watched lions eat up close and thankfully not personal. Saw some saltwater crocs in a little aquarium on Sydney Harbor that made me realise that yes, they are quite dangerous and will stalk you. Shudder. Saw some Tasmanian devils in another little zoo (yes, I wanted to see animals!) and found out that when it is very hot, their scrotums descend on a thin tendon or whatever - and it was very hot, and I figured out that Tasmanian devils might be mean because their balls keep getting banged up as they scramble through the brush - ow owowowow! It was fun to hear kids ask Mommy, what is that hanging off that poor thing? Heee. Went to a koala preserve and the guide did not want people bothering the koalas, so he announced that all the females had Chlamydia, which caused all the tourists to step back immediately. Went to Phillips Island (stopped at a place where we fed lots of kangaroos day-old bread and petted them!) and saw the teensy penguins come in from the sea at sunset. And yep! some asshole tourists used flash cameras even after it was explained at length that this not only frightened the penguins, disorienting them so that they might not make it to their burrows before getting grabbed by predatory birds, but that it could actually harm their eyes. Snapflashflashflash. People who got caught got their cameras confiscated and had to come back the next day to get them. Not easy on a tour. Heh. Took a helicopter ride over the Reef while my boyfriend SCUBA'd - awesome! Even better - he said he would pay for the helicopter ride, thinking I would turn it down because I am afraid of heights and flying - heeee! Then, bless him, he tipped the guide so I would get the front seat next to the pilot, nothing but Perspex beneath me. Beautiful! What ldyjocelyn said.

For those who like the restaurant wars - BBCAmerica just started a new season of Last Restaurant Standing - ten couples each get their own actual real restaurant and each week they have a challenge and one restaurant closes. And FINALLY they have closed-captioning for the guy who is the judge - he is French and I confess I rarely understood a thing he said, I just love the show.

Big Night (one of my very favorites) The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover Babette's Feast has already been mentioned, but I love that movie!

Lard. Awesome pie crust. Muriel's Wedding is a great funny movie, as is Strictly Ballroom. I always tear up a little at the end of Strictly Ballroom, when everyone is dancing to Love is in the Air - on the other hand, Brian's Song and Love Story made me snicker. Go figure. Once Were Warriors is great, but I cannot bear to watch it again, it is about the Maoris and their problems. Aikim - I was that way until I transferred to a job where I had to fly to Holland and Japan and such - I found that once I got through the take-off, which still terrifies me, I was okay as soon as the plane was up and level and the seat belt sign went off. And my company paid for business elite, so I could drink champagne from the second I sat down until the plane started moving. The longer the flight, the more kind of boring it got. Although I was never able to sleep. When vacationing in Australia, we flew everywhere, because, as ncgurrl says, it is vast distances of nothing, and one time I was in a small plane bouncing around and was quietly terrified. The guy I was sitting next to was a rancher, he said most all ranchers fly planes, it is the best way to get around, and he explained why turbulence was bumpy, it made sense, and I was okay. I really like that picture of Clay, he looks like such a guy. If that makes any sense.

I have come to think of Nancy Grace as a horrible insane nasssty opportunistic self-serving dangerous bitch. She reminds me of the Martians in the newest, Jack Nicholson version of Mars Attacks! only she is less kind and less attractive. She throws out the judge and jury of one's peers, and evidence, and all that other non-headline stuff, and has appointed herself as the sometimes deadly version of Judge Judy. The Crap Network News version of a hanging judge. The Melinda Duckett suicide kind of hardened my heart against Nancy Grace. At first I thought she had a brash charm. Melinda Duckett suicide I don't know why anybody would consent to being interviewed by her. Yes, Couchie, 8 babies!

claytonic, I remember sitting in the little airport in Alice Springs, waiting to see if we were going to get to fly out, because the guys who put fuel in the airplanes were on strike. Everybody was quite happy - because we were all drinking beer and watching football on TV. And a couple of years later my sweet boyfriend from New Zealand explained all of cricket to me, with voluminous diagrams written on bar napkins. But I think I would have to be just as drunk to understand it all again! Australian football is amazing!!!!! I think one gets an extra two points if one actually puts an eye out!!!! And I adore the guy in the long white duster who seemingly does nothing but raise his arms up if a goal is scored!!! For some reason, the serious demeanor and deliberation always makes me think of Leon Redbone. I have no idea why. Heeeee......you remember a wardrobe malfunction.....I have watched a lot of super bowl "music" (like Whitney lip-syncing the national anthem) but the song that I remember the most was sung by an Australian group, tattooed and studded, singing all the verses to Waltzing Matilda, very slowly and deliberately, at some Australian sporting event. Stopped me in my tracks. A couple of weeks ago there were ads in the papers asking for groups of people to try out for the privilege of dancing at half-time for Bruce Springsteen. The ads said to not expect to see any football, one would be pretty much sequestered in a tent in the parking lot, shuttled in to the stadium to dance, then whisked right back out again. And all the local news stations started the 6 am news today with reporters standing in the dark, outside the stadium, talking about something or other. Usually it is only the wisp of projected hurricane news that gets the reporters out and about this early.

Can they fax them or email them? No online entry? Bummer. The ad nauseum thing? I really don't care if someone doesn't like something, it is just an unpleasant waste of time when someone equates differing opinions with "telling them they are wrong" or "telling them how to think" or whatever, when people just have a different opinion. The "subjective" concept seems to have been mislaid sometimes, as has "expressing a differing opinion is not the same as saying you are wrong". I dunno, maybe they need validation or something, which is kind of silly on a fan board. Also have no interest in the martyr stuff, I tend to stop reading as soon as I read a martyr-poor-wittle-me intro to a post. On any board. Heeeee.....if Clay sang songs from his latest CD he would prolly be accused of using his charity to sell CDs, I would bet.

Hey, Couchie - Chuckie is available now! It is just that he didn't seem to be particularly building anything towards a championship here, and the Bucs still have an iffy Qback situation. Plus Tony Dungy was much loved, and a hard act to follow. Tony moved back here recently, in retirement - I wonder if he will spend any timehanging out with the team! I always watch Any Given Sunday when I see it is on - one of my favorite Al Pacino movies. Football, Miami, weird casting (Cameron Diaz, John C. McGinley with a bizarre hair thing going on, Lauren Holly as a mean wife) - and I truly adore the ending - the last few minutes that are interspersed with the titles.