jmh123

Personally I prefer Coke! Pepsi was created in New Bern, NC, whereas Coca-Cola originated in Georgia.  

Ta-da!!

Woo-hoo - got the top menu off of the bottom of the banner!! That was NOT easy. The admin theme area is structured quite differently since the upgrade, but once I gave up trying to alter the template, which is divided into many pieces, I found the right setting and it was deliberately set to minus 36 px!! So I guess they figure we want the top menu on the banner??

The simpler settings to change colors of many different parts of the board no longer correspond to the parts of the board in the way they did before. That top menu that was sitting over the banner is still set to be light blue. But I was able to change the font on the two light-colored tabs so they can be seen.

Next goal will be to put a margin to the left of the lines of text in a post, and that's going to be harder I fear. Luckily I love to play around with stuff I know nothing about. But no more today. I'm spent!

Hey, just to let y'all know that I didn't change the look of the board today. For whatever reason some changes have appeared. Settings have not changed. I'm mainly annoyed about the lack of a margin on the left before text appears. There are some other changes  as well, minor. Given the new "like" button and emoties that appear when you hover over the new heart, I'm guessing that Invision has made changes to the default template. I'll look into it one of these days soon.

Beautiful banner by ldyj!!

I love that he turned down all those "PR opportunities" that most people would have jumped all over - what a guy!!

I'm surprised anyone is surprised about Clay's statements as far as Trump's acting role in the show. I did think he decided whom to fire at least some of the time. I thought I read an article somewhere about producers running around editing film to try to justify some of Trump's decisions in the boardroom. Who knows? My point is, it doesn't really matter to me who decided. It's a reality show, it's manipulated to create drama, it's obviously edited a lot, and it's always been obvious that Trump himself had little to do with it. And it's a piss poor imitation of how business actually works--how could it be otherwise? How anyone could get the idea from that show that Trump is a great businessman I can't imagine.

ETA: Found it, or something like it. Not the NY Times or anything for sure: http://cinemontage.org/2016/10/editing-trump-reality-tv-star-who-would-be-president/

Quote

A grand editorial struggle on the show was to make the star’s decisions about which contestant was fired each episode look legitimate. The editors reported that when the boardroom was shot, the producers would offer their observations about who did well in the challenges and deserved to stay, and who was not pulling his or her weight and deserved to go. But invariably, Trump would ignore factual information and instead go with his gut.

“Trump would often make arbitrary decisions which had nothing to do with people’s merit,” confirmed another Season One editor who requested anonymity. “He’d make decisions based on whom he liked or disliked personally, whether it be for looks or lifestyle, or he’d keep someone that ‘would make good TV’ [according to Trump].”

Setting up story beats to justify the contestant that Trump ultimately fired required editorial gymnastics, according to the show’s editors. Manipulating footage to invent a story point that did not exist organically is common in reality TV editing, although with The Apprentice, it proved a tremendous feat.

“We’d often be shocked at whomever Trump chose to fire,” Braun explained. “Our first priority on every episode like that was to reverse-engineer the show to make it look like his judgment had some basis in reality. Sometimes it would be very hard to do, because the person he chose did nothing. We had to figure out how to edit the show to make it work, to show the people he chose to fire as looking bad — even if they had done a great job.”

This article is about people who worked on the 2004 to 2007 seasons so it doesn't necessarily reflect how the firing worked on Clay's season.

Twilight, gorgeous photo!! I've never heard of an escape room - it sounds like fun!

There's a link on the upper right to click on to register. Then ldyjocelyn has to click something on the admin site. After that, just log in using the username and password you registered with.  If it's dabrand who registered today, it looks like she's ready to go, just needs to log in, but I'm somewhat uncertain as this is a part of the admin area I've never admin-ed before. On some sites there's an email you have to click on to prove you are you, and I'm sure we have a "prove you are human" thing as well before you can complete the sign-in. Does any of this help? Meanwhile ldyj obviously just took care of it!!  LOL.

And welcome new member!! We're always happy to have new folks joining and participating. Me especially, since I don't say much but always read.

I am also a "do what he wants" person. Clay on TV for an hour a day once a week and radio three hours a day every other week is a lot to me!! I still have an "I survived the drought of '05" tee-shirt, for Pete's sake. That was no Clay at all for months. These days he posts now and then and blogs now and then and there is new music pretty often and new photos--what's not to like?

I don't try hard enough either. I know I should, but frustration builds quickly. I admire Clay for sticking with it.

I like "listening" so post all you want!!

17 hours ago, soulsista4clay said:

Watching the American idol 2 tour special on my old decade old computer. Now i understood why the fan segments were hated. There's just so much that could have been done. They could have showed clay's BAF founding in Raleigh, the behind the scenes of clay's TITN music video, more of rube's visit to b'ham and a few other idol related stuff. The fan segments (I sorta liked them at first as a teen cause i thought they were cute) sorta actually dragged it down a bit. In fact there is a lot of Clay stuff that could have been shown instead of the fan segments. 

And also rewatching it also made me miss rickey a lot.

ETA: that scene with the teen claymate and ruben  fan fighting should have been left on the cutting room floor, unnecessary as heck to include that scene. Very unnecessary, it contributed nothing but to cause mess.

Hey, long time no see!! I'd just about forgotten that tour special. I remember it being soooo exciting at the time, just because. I do agree with you about the fighting scene--I remember it well and totally hated it. Your comments are very smart--too bad you aren't working for them. I feel like the show tried so hard to manufacture drama - and so much of that was just totally distasteful. Like the people they gave tons of attention to based on nothing but their bad behavior during the auditions. There have been a few very memorable bad auditions, but many, many forgettable ones. I always thought one of the reasons for those choices for what to focus on was that Simon Cowell was such a cynic about people. It would never occur to him what kinds of things people might have enjoyed watching much more than the crappy stuff. For me, that first season, my first, Clay's, the show was like Glee before there was a Glee.

Don't know about NY, but here in NC I've been running the AC day and night most of the week! I can't believe y'all are still so cold.

Welcome to more newbies!!

1 hour ago, ldyjocelyn said:

Glad so many of you are either coming back or registering!

I thought of this earlier -- I think one of the reasons why message boards are dying is that there's so many other choices for sharing information.  I was talking to my hairstylist a few months ago about message boards, and she had no clue what a message board was!  Facebook is her medium.  Facebook is a major way for fans to share information anymore, I think.

Good point. And clack is available everywhere now--YouTube didn't even exist until February 14, 2005 (I just looked that up.)

We do have a few emoties, for special occasions.

In case you start to think you've lost your mind, yes, the colors keep changing. I'm done now til next time. New banner courtesy of ldyj!!!

ETA: OK, I lied but I'm really finished changing colors now. 

Welcome to the new folks--we're happy to see you!

I can relate, Clay. I have such mixed feelings about UNC basketball and such a long and storied history with it..........but still, a fan for a weekend.

pic.twitter.com/m3xT2g0qE9

— Clay Aiken (@clayaiken) April 4, 2017

Just watched the MSN clip--that man can TALK!

I think they are all coming back, ldyj, and thanks for doing the update.

Just a heads-up to anyone that drops by and is shocked at the colors--I mean more than usual - haha. Ldyj has made a gorgeous new banner and it isn't going to match anything that's already here. For the next couple of hours you may see some strange combinations as I work my way through the changes. Don't worry; it's temporary! 

where's that thud emoticon?

That previous post thing has been true for me for a good while but there wasn't one already in the box just now. 

Another weird thing to watch out for--sometimes the first time someone posts a tweet from Clay, I see an old one. If I refresh, then I see the new one instead. Took me awhile to figure that one out!

Just got an email from ldyj's husband. She is fine, everything went well; she is back in her room and they expect to have her up and walking a bit this afternoon!!

Hey, ldyj, I think that works only if you are posting from the iPad, which I don't do, but it didn't occur to me to just post from the iPad as a simpler workaround. Although, I also wanted to trim the photos and make them smaller, and that's something I've never tried to do on the iPad. 

Oh yes, I'm always ready for ice storms and power outages--we get them too often.This was a storm that could've done anything from snow a foot, to ice down the area and wreak havoc, or just rain, and I was very nervous about it last night, but fortunately, I didn't lose power at all. It was definitely just plain luck. Just a few inches of snow. Of course I'm not going anywhere--driving on a ice skating rink is not a good idea.