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An Average, Gimme Week of Dancing with the Stars

Week 2 of Dancing with the Stars was a gimme. Seemingly no matter how bad the dancers performed, the judges gave average but encouraging scores. I guess it’s just too early in the season for the judges to break down the performers with scathing comments and low scores.

This week’s standouts are Aaron Carter, Mya, and Donny Osmond. Hey, these could be the finalists for Season 9.

Local boy Mark Dacascos had a slight slip up but still managed (surprise, surprise) average scores of 7,7,7.

So who went home on Week 2? The dancing disconnect, Kathy Ireland, who never looked connected to her performances.

Paramore’s Misguided Ghost for Grey’s Anatomy?

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Picked up a copy of Paramore’s new release, Brand New Eyes, and I’m thinking the track Misguided Ghost is perfect for Grey’s Anatomy (assuming it hasn’t made the Grey’s soundtrack yet).

The entire CD is still available on Amazon for the special price of $3.99, but that price is going to change before the night is done.  Get it at this great price while you can!

TEDxHonolulu Coming

Have you ever watched inspirational TED videos of people changing the world.  Two of my favorites are Clay Shirky’s “How Twitter Can Make History” and Seth Godin’s “Tribes.”

Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) has gone global and continues to expand with local, self organized events called TEDx (where x denotes independently organized events).  Thanks to familiar faces, Hawaii is fortunate to have its own TEDx event, TEDxHonolulu.  Slated for Friday, November 6, 2009, TEDxHonolulu is themed “Shift” and will feature “speakers who can inspire the audience to make changes physically, mentally, and emotionally to change their worlds and inevitably the world.”

Attendance is limited to 100 and you must be invited to attend, but still, this is simply awesome!

Get Inc-ed for 5 Bucks

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For a limited time, you can get a subscription to the awesome Inc magazine for only $5. Amazon is now selling an one-year subscription for one Abe Lincoln if you act before October 3.

That’s $45 off the regular subscription price!

A Box of Old Legos

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Opening a box of Legos from small kid time revealed all kinds of goodies.

Exxon branding

Exxon lego

Trees

Lego trees

Part of an astronaut

Lego astronaut

And the instructions for the astronaut and lunar lander kit

Lego lunar lander

Dancing with the Stars Season 9 Is Not Good

Season 6 of Dancing with the Stars might have the best ever. Or maybe it was last season? In either case, Season 9 won’t be vying for that distinction. Simply stated this season is not good. After one week, the leaders are Aaron Carter, Donnie Osmond, Joanne Krupa, and Kelly Osbourne. I’m hoping things only get better as the weeks go by, but I am fearful.

Aaron Carter has youthful exuberance going for him… and that’s his hair. Fighter Chuck Liddell is built for the ring, not the dance floor. Okay, okay, local boy Mark Dacascos has a chance of going far in this competition. His martial arts background translated into an interesting Kung Fu Fighting cha cha cha. That and he’s not afraid to show his “man boobs.”

Donny Osmond didn’t get the highest scores but rocked the crowds like his sister Marie. The Osmonds are showmen and know how to work that PR machine. I just hope for less drama. Louie Vito surprised me, but I have to question his work ethic. Sorry, but Michael Irvin won’t be making the former NFL-players-turned-dancers proud. Tom DeLay? Sadly, we won’t be seeing too much of partner Cheryl Burke this season.

Debi Mazar is too soft and so is Kathy Ireland who I didn’t recognize. Melissa Joan Hart is okay, and Mya and the muscle-toned Natalie Coughlin could be mirrorball contenders.

The dance of the night belonged to Kelly Osbourne who has talent. Coupled with her background, Kelly has a compelling story to watch.

So who didn’t make it through the first week of Dancing with the Stars? Ashley Hamilton, the son of George Hamilton, was the first guy to go and rightfully so. With him goes the ever-popular Edyta.

While I thought Kathy Ireland might be the first female to be eliminated, hazy Macy Gray didn’t make it. What was she on during her performance? And I thought that comment about popping her cherry might have carried her to week 2. Not so.

If Project Runway’s Tim Gunn were to critique Season 9 of DWTS, he’d say, “Make it work!”

What Does New Moon Sound Like?

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Twilight’s New Moon is taking full advantage of MySpace (seemingly one of the few engaging on MySpace) and announced the lineup for the New Moon soundtrack. New Moon will sound like this:

  1. Death Cab For Cutie – Meet Me On The Equinox
  2. Band Of Skulls – Friends
  3. Thom Yorke- Hearing Damage
  4. Lykke Li – Possibility
  5. The Killers – A White Demon Love Song
  6. Anya Marina – Satellite Heart
  7. Muse – I Belong To You (New Moon Remix)
  8. Bon Iver and St. Vincent – Rosyln
  9. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Done All Wrong
  10. Hurricane Bells – Monsters
  11. Sea Wolf – The Violet Hour
  12. Ok Go- Shooting The Moon
  13. Grizzly Bear – Slow Life
  14. Editors – No Sound But The Wind
  15. Alexandre Desplat – New Moon (The Meadow)

What?! No Glambert? Bummer, but there’s still Eclipse and Breaking Dawn…

I’m a Fan of the Thesis Theme

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I’ve been asked about the Thesis theme for WordPress now and again so here are a few words why I’m a fan of Thesis.

Yup, I am a fan of the Thesis WordPress theme. I was a little apprehensive paying for a WordPress theme since there are good ones freely available. I forget the exact reason why I went with Thesis, but I’m glad I did. I think it was reading through the Thesis docs and user guide that convinced me. Or it might have been the many sites that started using Thesis as well.

Why Thesis? It’s easy. Plain and simple. Many of the common customizations of blogs can be done with some CSS knowledge. With Thesis, you don’t necessarily need to know CSS, even for somewhat complex customizations since they are all configuration items of this theme. What to show, what not to show, how to show it (font, size, etc) are all controllable by Thesis via checkboxes, drop down menus, etc. Thesis has defined styles for notes, alerts, drop caps, and frames around images to make your stuff look good without having to figure out the CSS.

Thesis makes common changes easy to implement. It has dedicated sections for adding scripts in the header and footer. You can change your RSS syndication feed to Feedburner for example. I know these are not hard changes to make, but Thesis puts these common options right in front of your face.

There’s a plugin called Thesis OpenHook that makes placement of items on a blog even easier. Thesis has these defined hooks where you can stick code/text. With OpenHook, it better exposes these defined areas so you can place items exactly. For example, there’s placement for Before Header, After Header, Byline, Before Sidebars, Before Sidebar 1, After Sidebar 1, etc. so you can easily place a Google Adsense ad, images, or anything else you can imagine.

Lastly, the Thesis support forums are actually good. There’s a lot of activity and really helpful people. If you have questions, issues, or want to know how to do it in Thesis, it’s probably covered in the forums already.

Oh yeah, the Thesis creator, @pearsonified, is on Twitter and frequently points out 3rd party mods and changes to Thesis, so you can see how others are using this theme.

I’m sure I missed something describing Thesis, but for me, Thesis is the ONE thing that got me off of Blogger and on to WordPress full time. I was always looking for a solid theme to start Pulpconnection on WordPress, and once I started with Thesis, I got so far so quickly there was no turning back.

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