An Honest Video Review of the Vivitar ViviCam 15 Digital Camera

This is the video review of the cheap digital camera I bought to take photos and video for my video reviews. I created a new opening title sequence for this review.

Please let me know what you think of my latest review.

Lee DeWyze and Gary Coleman

I Just wanted to write about the American Idol Finale. I thought for sure Crystal had it in the bag after her performances during the final week of the competition. I guess I was wrong about that! As much as I like Lee, I thought Crystal probably deserved to win more after the final performances. I will not be a bit surprised if Crystal has a bigger music career than Lee now that Idol is over. It seems America keeps voting for the "underdog" contestant each year on Idol.

2 years ago, David Archelleta seemed to be the presumed winner only to lose to David Cook. Then the next year, there was Adam Lambert who everyone thought would beat Kris Allen except Kris won. Now this year Crystal who should have won based on her finale performances gets beaten by Lee DeWyze.

I think Michael Burgi of the Programming Insider Podcast made a very good point the other day when he mentioned that Crystal was better off NOT winning because she will have more freedom what she can do than what she would be able to do under the Idol winner's music contract. So I think Lee and Crystal will both do just fine. I don't know about American Idol though when Simon is gone and Ellen is still there!! We will have to wait and see what happens to American Idol next year.

Now on to Gary Coleman. I never met him. But I did drive by the area a few times where he lived in Utah recently up until his death today. I have relatives who saw him around that area. While he was only 42, his death was not really a big surprise to me because there has been many reports of his poor health and my relatives seemed to say he was not that healthy looking when they saw him a few weeks back in the Provo area.

I hope maybe he will finally be at peace since he seemed to be very angry all of the time. And hopefully I will get to see his movie "The Fantastic World of D.C. Collins" which I haven't seen in ages! That had to be one of the first shows to include scenes that had a parody of "Star Wars" in it.

Hope everyone has a good Memorial Day Weekend!!

My American Idol Finale Week Confession

Well tonight is the big night when the next American Idol will be crowned.

I have been a big Lee fan since the Top 24 days. I was not really a fan of Crystal's throughout the entire season.

Well it hurts me to say this, but I must confess that after watching the Finale Performances on Tuesday night, it was obvious that Crystal was the more deserving contestant to win the Idol title for 2010 based on Lee and Crystal's performances that night. I think Crystal has the Idol win in the bag at this point and most people will probably agree with me even though they won't announce her as the winner until the very end of the 2 1/2 hour show tonight.

I felt Lee's song choices were not as good as last week's while Crystal's song choices were much better this week. Lee was more subdued in his performances while Crystal was very energetic and her performances seemed to play much better to a TV audience and with the giant screens in the large Theatre they were performing in during the Finale week.

Crystal's final song came off very genuine while Lee's final song was about average for him in my opinion. The momentum has clearly shifted to Crystal after tonight. I just can't see Lee winning now. Too bad he wasn't doing the Hallelujah performance this week instead of last week.

Here is who I thought did better in each of the three rounds:

Crystal won slightly over Lee in Round One
Crystal & Lee tied in Round Two
Crystal won by quite a bit in Round Three

So I am not really going to be watching for the suspense tonight, but mostly to see Simon on the show for the last time as well as some of the musical guests. I thought it was odd that they didn't mention who is performing tonight on the 2 hour results show. I sure hope General Platt is going to be there to perform his "Pants on the Ground" song. I would hope so because he generated more buzz than Ellen did on the show this season.

Hopefully this will be Ellen's final regular appearance on Idol as well tonight. As for who should replace Simon Cowell, I would like to see a male judge with a good musical knowledge and who is like Cowell in the sense that they are brutally honest. I don't want his replacement to be someone who is going to tell singers they are great when they are terrible.

So far replacements for Simon that have been mentioned include Jamie Foxx and Adam Lambert. Adam Lambert is way too new to the world of Idol to be a judge while Jamie Foxx would be a great judge based on musical knowledge. But I doubt Foxx would give very critical reviews to the contestants.

If I were Idol, I would choose someone who has been in a band recently such as Bret Michaels, Mark McGrath, or a Tommy Lee. But not Ozzy Osbourne, because you would need subtitles to understand what he is saying half of the time. And we all remember how Osbournes Reloaded turned out for FOX.

FOX will announce Cowell's replacement shortly after the end of Idol this season, so stay tuned!!

An Honest Video Review of Hunt's 24 oz. Ketchup

This is another video review. This time it is for the "New" Hunt's Ketchup. ENJOY!!

If you have any suggestions on how I can improve future video reviews, please let me know!

2PM Pacific Time Friday is the end of voting period

If you want to vote for my "Let's Talk Renewable, Not Trash" bag design, you have until 2PM Pacific Daylight Savings Time Friday to vote for my design in the Fred Meyer/Kroger Design-a-reusable bag Contest.

I know my odds of winning are very poor because I only have around a half dozen votes and the top half dozen vote getters have around 30,000 votes each. And Kroger said that special consideration would be given to these bags with the highest vote.

Unless a miracle happens, there is practically no chance that I will win. If we want to defeat the people who cheated in the contest, please tell everyone you know who has a computer to vote for my design. My bag number is #22186. If I can get enough votes maybe I will get noticed by Kroger's judges this year and actually win the contest this year instead of one of those people who cheated.

I don't want a repeat of last year where my entry was most likely ignored by the judges.

An Honest Video Review of the AVIA 104 Men's Cross Training Shoes

This is another one of my video reviews. This time I used a new cheap quality digital camera I just bought to take the photos and video that was used in this review since I don't have much of a budget right now. I will probably review that cheap camera I used to take the pictures for this video in a future review.

As always let me know what I can do to improve my future video reviews.

30,000!! and American Idol Top 3 Performance Show Report

Since there is not as much to talk about on American Idol because there are only 3 people left, I decided to mention something else in this same blog post.

I am referring to the 30,000 in the title of this blog post. By now if you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably know I am referring to the number of votes for the top vote-getter in the Kroger/Fred Meyer Design a Reusable Bag Contest.

In approximately 10 days, a bag jumped from 20,000 to 30,000 votes. That is 10,000 mostly illegal votes for that bag. You are only allowed to vote once in the contest per day. In order for 10,000 votes to be cast for one bag in 10 days, 1,000 people would had to have voted once every day which obviously couldn't have happened since like I explained in an earlier blog post that it is very simple to vote over and over again in the same day. And I can tell that the votes are not being cast in a pattern that would be realistic.

I know I probably should just let it go since Kroger seems uninterested in making this contest fair. But my problem with this is that I want to continue doing business with Fred Meyer, and I regularly review products from their store on this blog since I do not get around to many other stores these days. I feel uncomfortable to be recommending products at a store whose corporate management team is obviously not taking actions when there is known cheating in a contest like this one.

But to be fair, since I shop at Fred Meyer, I am much more familiar with their stores' operations unlike some of the other retailers and I am certain that other retailers operations have issues too and many of them are worse than Fred Meyer.

So enough about that and on to last night's Idol episode.

Lee DeWyze stole the show last night. He was the best in my opinion for both rounds. Lee just ran away from Casey & Crystal in the first round. The second round Casey didn't fair much better. For Crystal in the second round she was OK, but I didn't really think Ellen picked the right song for her in the Judges song pick round.

And Crystal's personal pick in round one, "Come To My Window" by Melissa Etheridge felt like an imitation of the original performance. She should have been superb on this song. Ironically, Michael Burgi of Marc Berman's Programming Insider Podcast said that he thought that Crystal already knew what kind of artist she should be. That song was non-risky and kind of predictable for someone like Crystal. She didn't take any real risks with her song choice this week which she should have if she knows what kind of artist she should be.

So Lee is going to be in the finals unless America votes really crazy this week. The question is who will join him. Crystal or Casey? I think it could easily go either way. Crystal has been good on several occasions this season which would put her through if people voted how well they performed the entire season. But if you are going with last night's performances alone as the criteria who should advance to the finals, I am sorry to say that Casey probably should go to the Finals over Crystal because she was the much bigger disappointment this week of the two.

I am leaning towards a Lee & Casey Finale because Casey is the only representative left this season from the South and almost all of the previous 8 winners of Idol were from the South. Plus I believe Crystal will lose a lot of votes because of the poor rendition of the Etheridge song she chose.

So here is the order that I now believe the Top 3 will finish in this season:

3rd Place: Crystal Bowersox
2nd Place: Casey James
1st Place: Lee DeWyze

Yes, I think Casey will make it to next week but will lose to the non-Southerner this year for a change which will be Lee.

We shall see tonight if Crystal goes home like I am predicting or if the obvious choice Casey goes tonight.

CW and MyNetworkTV this Fall

Since I already mentioned the big 4 commercial broadcast networks and haven't mentioned CW and MyNetworkTV yet, here are my thoughts on these 2 smaller networks.

MyNetworkTV announced their Fall 2010 lineup like a month ago. Without Wrestling on Friday next season, this network has very little going for it. I think this network should focus on niche programming such as the game show combination of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and Don't Forget the Lyrics they are planning on Tuesday nights and the occasional magic specials since magic specials have been largely ignored by the other major networks these days. They need to get away from the repeats of dramas such as The Unit or Monk. Since it is getting easier to watch old series repeats on the Internet, MyNetworkTV's audience will probably shrink to levels of some of those basic cable channels if MyNetworkTV sticks to mostly drama repeats in the next few years.

The CW announced they were renewing most of their current series like months ago. While that sounded like a good idea at the time, they reduced the likelihood that they would pick up some good shows for this Fall. They probably should have waited to renew their shows after hearing the buzz for their possible new shows for this Fall.

As for which shows CW should have ended this season, I think One Tree Hill should end this season. The new Melrose Place should definitely end. High Society and Fly Girls should definitely end.

CW should definitely consider canceling next season the new 90210, Gossip Girl, and Life Unexpected (assuming Life Unexpected is renewed for next season) if ratings for these shows continue to decline next season.

Vampire Diaries and Next Top Model should stick around for another couple of years. Supernatural should stick around for at least one more season after this one and maybe another season yet if ratings don't decline much next season.

Now what does CW do with one of their biggest successes of last season which really just happened by accident? Of course I am referring to Smallville. This show is entering its 10th season next Fall and likely its last according to the people close to the show. It is obvious that the show has had a good long run and that 10 seasons would be a good place to end the show. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the CW and Smallville people discuss an eleventh season. I wouldn't be surprised if was picked up for an 11th season which would start in Fall 2011 if it should happen. Stranger things have happened!!

For Smallville to get around 2 million viewers on some episodes still after 9 seasons and for Vampire Diaries (even with all of the recent vampire popularity) to do no better than 4 million viewers per episode in its first season is a good reason to consider what would seem like a far-fetched idea to bring Smallville back for Season 11 in 2011. What CW should do for Fall 2011 is to replace Smallville with another DC Comics property and air it after Vampire Diaries for a season or two, and then they can move it to the Friday slot that Smallville currently has assuming the new DC Comics show does well on Thursdays after Vampire Diaries.

Now I am not going to discuss ION or any other TV networks since I do not get them where I live and/or I rarely watch them.

What FOX should do this Fall

In this blog I have previously mentioned what NBC, ABC, & CBS should do starting this fall. It is now time for me to discuss the last of the big 4 broadcast networks which is FOX.

Let's start out with FOX's strengths (not including "fading" shows):

Glee Tuesdays at 9PM

and that is it!!

Now FOX has a lot of decent performers but they are all fading though. They are:

Animation Domination Block Sundays

House Mondays at 8PM

24 Mondays at 9PM but is ending this season

American Idol Tuesdays & Wednesdays in Winter & Spring

Bones Thursdays at 8PM

So here is what I think FOX should do each night of the week:

Sunday: Stick to all animated comedies on this night. Sons of Tuscon which I liked a lot and was pulled after just 2 or 3 episodes is the latest in a long string of failures of non-animated comedies on this night for FOX.

Monday: Keep House on this night. If House is moved again it will probably start going down in the ratings a lot at this point. They need to put a new scripted show (not a reality show) to put on before or after House on this night.

Tuesday: They could put reality shows on this night in the Fall such as Hell's Kitchen or a pair of new reality programs. Then in Winter, Idol can come back on this night like it always does each year. Another option in the Fall is to put Fringe back on this night at 9PM (if it doesn't get canceled this season) after a reality show at 8PM because it is not up to the task of facing all of the big shows on Thursdays at 9PM. And here Fringe could attract Lost's viewers since Lost is ending this season.

Wednesday: They could use Human Target here in the 8PM hour like this past season and pair it with Lie To Me or some other new drama. Or they might want to save Human Target for mid-season so they can release the First Season DVD set in the fall to give people the chance to see all the episodes and get exposed to the series more. If they do save Human Target for Mid-season they could do 2 new dramas here until Idol returns in Winter.

Thursday: Keep Bones where it is at 8PM. It does rather well against Survivor on CBS and Vampire Diaries on the CW. But they should move Fringe off of this night. They should put a new scripted show here on this night to follow Bones.

Friday: They should just use this night for reality shows and low-rated shows that they plan on burning off episodes of.

Saturday: They should just stick to Cops and AMW since nothing will do any better than those shows these days. There is no need to start experimenting on this night as long as Saturdays continue to be low rated.

Now you might be wondering where Glee is above. Well Glee is a special show that I think would work for FOX on several nights. I think it could work on Monday paired with House, or on Tuesday paired with Fringe, or on Wednesday paired with Human Target or a new drama. I wouldn't try this show on Thursdays-Sundays though. And I would not pair Glee with Hell's Kitchen because many people might get turned off of seeing Hell's Kitchen on the same night leading into or out of Glee.

So we shall see what FOX announces this coming week. So stay tuned.

An Honest Video Review of the Philco TB100HH9 Converter Box

This is my second video review for this blog. It is about 11 minutes long as I was rambling quite a bit, but hopefully it will be helpful information to those people who aren't as tech savvy as myself.

Please let me know what you think. And if you have any good ideas on how I can improve my future video reviews let me know.

What ABC should do this fall

It is time for me to say what ABC, the current #3 network out of the big 4 networks, should do this fall.

Let's start with ABC's Strengths (note: I am excluding the "fading" shows):

Dancing With The Stars on Mondays (Fall & Spring) starting at 8PM

The Bachelor on Mondays (Winter season)

Castle on Mondays at 10PM

Modern Family on Wednesdays at 9PM

College Football Games on Saturdays in the Fall

and that is about it!!

Now I will mention the fading shows that ABC will have to put on the same nights because a move would probably kill them in the ratings:

Desperate Housewives on Sundays at 9PM

Brothers & Sisters on Sundays at 10PM

Rest of ABC's Comedy Wednesday Block

Grey's Anatomy on Thursdays at 9PM

Private Practice on Thursdays at 10PM

So here is what ABC should probably do each night of the week:

Sunday: Should be left alone since these shows would be hurt by a move to other nights.

Monday: Should stick to Dancing With the Stars in Fall & Spring with the Bachelor Edition in the Winter. Also should leave Castle in the 10PM slot.

Tuesday: This is the trickiest night to program for ABC because the Dancing With the Stars Results Show airs on this night part of the year and ABC has to deal with Lost not coming back and no new show with mass appeal to replace it with. ABC's best move would probably be to put the most buzzed new series here along with one or two other new shows that might be able to benefit from the buzz of the other show. They might also consider doing a news magazine-type program at 10PM on this night to take up one hour of the night.

Wednesday: They should stick with the comedy block with Modern Family as the 9PM show. At 10PM they will have to put a new drama there.

Thursday: They will have to stick with Grey's and Private Practice from 9PM-11PM because a move of either show would kill those shows. ABC might want to try another comedy block from 8PM - 9PM Thursdays next season.

Friday: They will have to stick to reality shows like Supernanny and to their 20/20 news magazine program on this night because scripted shows are doing very poor on Fridays for now.

Saturday: They should stick to College Football in Prime Time in the Fall, and Movies and repeats and low-rated shows finishing their unaired episodes after being canceled the rest of the year.

It appears ABC has not been able to break the "LOST Curse" yet. Every show launched with a Lost star in it has been a failure or has done poorly such as "The Unusuals", "Flash Forward", and "V".

What is interesting is that ABC is going to pick up V for like a half season order. My advice is to wait until around November to bring it back for a second season. That way they can release the new "V" series Season One on DVD during the early Fall so people can get caught up on all of the episodes, because this show seems promising, but it may take people several episodes to get really interested in the series because in my opinion the story was moving kind of slow at first.

So that is it for ABC. Next up will be FOX.

American Idol Top 4 Performance Show Report

Well last week I correctly guessed Aaron Kelly would be leaving over Casey James who had a bad week last week.

This week I agreed with Kara and Simon that the Duets were better than the Solos. I think they should strongly consider doing duets during earlier parts of the competition and on a more regular basis to mix things up next season should FOX decide to bring Idol back next season.

Lee was good vocally (like he would sound good on the radio), but I felt his stage presence was not nearly as good. He could be in a little danger this week, but I think he will probably be safe.

Michael was good again this week, but not really superb. I felt the judges this week were giving him bad advice about what songs he should be doing as an artist like they have done quite often this season with various contestants.

Casey, like Michael Burgi had mentioned a while back on Marc Berman's Programming Insider Podcast, is still being treated like a sex symbol when they started to call Kara "Mrs Robinson" from the movie "The Graduate." I felt Casey was too safe and predictable and laid back during this stage of the competition with only 4 people left.

Crystal, I thought had the best solo performance of the night this week (even though I am a Lee fan) based on both vocals and stage presence. She will likely be safe this week.

So I think the bottom 2 tonight will probably be Michael, who was good but not really great, and Casey who was just too laid back and didn't really try to do anything new.

Out of those two I think Casey will go this week.

Since I am predicting Casey to leave tonight, I am going to stick with my earlier Top 5 prediction for now.

An Honest "VIDEO" Review of the Coby DP862 Digital Photo Frame

This is my first attempt on the Nathan's Road in WA Blog to do a "VIDEO" review of a product. For now it will be just pictures, as I am not ready to be on camera. If anyone out there watches this video review, please let me know what you think about it.

20,000 and counting!!!

This is a blog entry that should NOT have been necessary.

20,000

What does the 20,000 represent? That is the number of votes (probably 99% of them were cast illegally) received so far by the highest "Kroger design a reusable bag" entry vote getter.

Kroger apparently is still in denial that the cheating is happening.

Now if I could just get another 19,992 votes for my "Let's Talk Renewable, Not Trash" bag design, I will be at 20,000 votes myself with the half dozen vote leaders. I know that is just very wishful thinking however!!

What NBC should do this Fall

I had an awful Mother's Day Weekend, but I decided not to blog about it today. Maybe I will in the near future.

For now I want to talk about what 4th place NBC should do starting this Fall.

Let me point out their current strengths (The things they should leave alone):

Sunday Night Football in the Fall

Biggest Loser on for 2 Hours on Tuesday starting at 8PM

The Office on Thursdays (Poor ratings compared to the other networks but still a "strong" anchor for NBC's Thursday Comedy Block)

Dateline NBC for 2 Hours on Fridays starting at 8PM (Not great ratings for a weekly series but good ratings for a series on low rated Fridays.)

And that is about it!

Here is what NBC should do for each day of the week:

Sunday: Reduce Celebrity Apprentice down to one hour next season and put a new show or two in the other hours.

Monday: This is the night NBC could really improve on if they do the following. Do not bring back Heroes! Bring Chuck back mid-season for a small episode order to finish it up. Do not bring back Law & Order either! NBC will likely bring it back for one final season to beat the old Gunsmoke record. Nobody cares other than Dick Wolf & NBC whether it beats Gunsmoke's 20 season record. The advertisers are going to regret paying for ad time on another season of Law & Order when they see the ratings continuing to be around the 5 million range which is about what it does in repeats meaning nobody thinks of this show as must see TV anymore.

Tuesday: One of the nights NBC should actually leave as is.

Wednesday: Should be all new shows on this night.

Thursday: NBC should cancel the lowest rated comedy or maybe even two of them. Then move Law & Order: SVU to Thursdays at 10PM. It would be a risky move, but you got to put a better show on a more watched night to get ratings. Wednesday is not the night to put a buzz worthy show on the schedule in at least the 8PM hour as ratings results have clearly shown in the past season.

Friday: Another one of the nights NBC should actually leave as is.

Saturday: NBC has to stick with repeats here since they are in such bad shape.

But when Winter comes, NBC ought to consider playing around with their Tuesday & Wednesday schedules as Idol will likely be weaker in the ratings next year and should give NBC new opportunities on those nights to pick up viewers.

My comments about Kroger's Response to the Design A Reusable Bag Contest Rigging

OK, here is the e-mail response from Kroger:

Dear Nathan:

Thank you for contacting The Kroger Co. I understand your concern about the "Create a Bag" contest. Please be assured that we have done our best to prevent any cheating in this contest. I am forwarding your comments for review and consideration.

If you have any further concerns or comments please feel free to contact us at 800.576.4377.


Sincerely,



Christie Metropulos
Consumer Affairs

Reference: 8939704



CUSTOMER COMMENTS:
I am patiently waiting for Kroger to issue a statement that I can put in my blog.

This is regarding what Kroger is planning to do about the cheating by all the top vote getters in the 2010 Design a Reusable Bag Contest. I already sent an e-mail to Candice Kendrick of the Consumer Affairs Division to make her aware of this cheating but I have heard nothing back.

I don't want to keep telling my blog readers that Kroger hasn't issued a statement and that they have not done anything to stop the cheating by all of the top vote getters. This is because there are many good Kroger employees and I don't want to hurt their reputation along with the Kroger Brands.

But if the cheating continues, I have no choice but to let people know that the contest is not fairly picking winners.

Please respond ASAP so I can put something in the Blog saying that Kroger will delete those entries that are cheating or that Kroger will eliminate the voting in this contest.

End of E-Mail Message

So Kroger is basically saying that they are probably aware of the cheating in the contest and they try to convince the people who know the cheating is going on like myself that they are doing something about it, but they really can't do anything about it.

I never have voted for myself in this contest before the other day because I usually feel that it doesn't feel right to vote for yourself. I would rather have other people vote for me because they actually liked my "Let's Talk Renewable, Not Trash" design. I changed my mind to see if it is possible to vote more than the limit of once per day.

So I voted once and then I couldn't vote again. However, I was easily able to vote 3 more times in less than an hour using the same computer by changing program settings or using other cheap programs. I could have kept voting but only stopped because I was just curious to see how easy it was to keep voting for the same bag. That is how the top half dozen bags got over 10,000 votes total so far each is through people voting over and over in the same day using these rather easy methods. These cheaters can easily vote several hundred votes in one day instead of the single vote they are allowed that day.

Even with a thing to keep computers from voting over and over again by making you enter a number that a computer can't copy, it wouldn't take someone long to type in the numbers and re-vote again just seconds later.

So now I am debating whether I should cheat like the rest since Kroger can't seem to do anything about the cheating. Because all they really need to do is just delete the top vote getters to send the message to the cheaters.

If only I could get 10,000 people to vote for my bag daily, then my design would leave those cheaters in the dust. But that will never happen! So we shall have to wait and see if Kroger really does do the right thing and stop the contest cheating.

I want to disclose that I will continue to shop at their Fred Meyer stores though, because I feel it would be wrong to punish the employees of Kroger for bad decisions made at Kroger's Corporate Headquarters in Ohio. The store employees have nothing to do with this contest situation.

Sinatra Perfomance Show on American Idol Report

Last week Siobhan Magnus got the fewest number of votes and was eliminated instead of Lee DeWyze who I thought was in danger of going home last week, and I have been a big fan of his since the Top 24 performance episodes. Apparently people finally got tired of Siobhan screaming at the end of nearly every performance which made me think like she was a one trick pony.

This week was Frank Sinatra songs. I really enjoy some of Sinatra's lesser known songs.

I thought the judging this week was quite off on several contestants. I rarely agreed this week with what the judges had to say about the contestants.

Aaron: I thought he was way too old-fashioned for his performance based on the song choice and the clothing he had on. He just did not feel like a big star when he performed "Fly Me to the Moon" in my opinion. I thought the judges were being way too nice to him based on their comments.

Casey: I actually thought he was better than Aaron, but yet the judges seemed to be critical of his performance unlike the comments Aaron got.

Crystal: I thought she actually picked a good song "Summer Wind" which isn't a song that is usually picked in singing competitions for Sinatra songs. Kara made a good comment about how Crystal said the lines which is one of the very few times I agreed with her this week. In my honest opinion, I think Crystal actually did the best making this week's song sound contemporary, even better than Lee and I am a big Lee fan and not so much a Crystal fan!

Michael: I thought he was good, but not as good as the judges thought he was. I thought his performance was maybe a 7 out of 10 at best.

Lee: He was good and picked another good underused Sinatra song "That's Life", but with me being a big Sinatra fan, I actually thought that he didn't say the lyrics "That's Life" with the authority and expression that Frank Sinatra did it with. But he was still good even though I thought it wasn't his best.

Now I am sure Lee and Crystal will be safe. So the bottom 3 will definitely be Michael, Casey, and Aaron. I think Big Mike will be sent to safety first and will move on to next week.

Now I am torn on whether Casey or Aaron will leave Wednesday night. Casey is who everyone thinks is going to be eliminated tonight, and remember Aaron wasn't even in the bottom 3 last week.

However, I believe Tim Urban & Siobhan Magnus were not even in the bottom 3 the week before they left.

Therefore, I am going to lean towards Aaron going home, because I think America will feel sorry for Casey, and I think most of the Idol viewers are going to see Aaron as being too old fashioned like I did and vote for one of the other contestants this week instead of voting for Aaron again like they did last week.


Here is my revised order of how I think the Final 5 will finish since Siobhan who I had in 4th Place was eliminated instead of Aaron:

5th Place - Aaron Kelly
4th Place - Casey James
3rd Place - Michael Lynche
2nd Place - Crystal Bowersox
1st Place - Lee DeWyze

We shall see tonight if my pick Aaron does go, or if Casey the obvious choice goes instead. So stayed tuned!!

What CBS should do this fall, & a Kroger update

First I want to mention that Kroger has not yet addressed the cheating scandal involving all of the top voted bags in this year's contest which involves a good 20 or more bag designs. I have not gotten any e-mail saying they will stop those cheating and the ones cheating are still cheating as I am writing this entry.

Well last night CBS had what they called a "Season Finale" of "Cold Case." Well Marc Berman of Mediaweek and myself both believe that "Cold Case" will be canceled later this month when CBS announces their fall line-up. That will mean "Cold Case" had their Series Finale instead of the Season Finale that it was advertised as.

I think CBS would actually be making a mistake to cancel "Cold Case" for the following reason. CBS has 3 CSI series in Prime Time. All 3 are down in the ratings this year. Even when they did the CSI crossover event this season, it didn't improve ratings by much. If they keep all 3 CSI series again next year which they most likely will do, they are going to cause the franchise more fatigue than it already has now. Marc Berman on the Programming Insider Podcast mentioned the possibility that CBS may wait until Mid-Season to bring back one of the CSI's.

Well my suggestion to CBS is to bring back CSI: Miami for a full season, move the original CSI to Tuesdays after NCIS while NCIS: LA would move to CSI's old slot on Thursdays. Then do a reduced order for CSI: NY and have new episodes in the Fall & Spring and have a reduced mid-season order of Cold Case take the Wednesday 10PM slot during the winter months. And if one of the new hour Dramas doesn't work out for CBS, they could just air CSI: NY repeats at Wed. at 10PM and use Cold Case to replace the struggling new hour show on the network.

So here are the shows that CBS is not going to mess with and will air in the same time slots next season in my opinion:

60 Minutes Sunday 7PM
Amazing Race Sunday 8PM
Big Bang Theory Monday 9:30PM but might move to 9PM if Two and a Half Men ends
CSI: Miami Monday 10PM
NCIS Tuesday 8PM
The Good Wife Tuesday 10PM
Criminal Minds Wednesday 9PM
CSI: NY Wednesday 10PM
Survivor Thursday 8PM
The Mentalist Thursday 10PM
Crime Drama Repeats Saturday 8-10PM
48 Hours Mysteries Saturday 9-11PM

These are the shows that CBS ought to move in my opinion:

CSI Tuesday 9PM
NCIS:LA Thursday 9PM
Ghost Whisperer Friday 9PM
Medium Friday 10PM

Here is where I would put the new one hour dramas:

Hawaii 5-0 Remake Sunday 9PM
Criminal Minds Spinoff Sunday 10PM
Another new drama Friday 8PM

By putting a new drama on Fridays at 8PM, and if it fails which is likely, CBS could easily bring in Cold Case as a replacement to start the night. So bottom line is CBS should think twice about canceling Cold Case.

And Numb3rs is all but dead from what I am hearing since one of the stars has apparently moved on to a new show pilot. That is why Numb3rs wasn't mentioned above.

Things appear to be improving at Fred Meyer for now

Like I have mentioned in some previous blog posts, I regularly shop at the nearest Fred Meyer from my house. The last week or so I have been very frustrated at the decisions Fred Meyer has been making.

Well I went to Fred Meyer yesterday to return the Dockers Dress Pants I recently reviewed on this blog because of the size problem. They took it back and I got a full refund without any real hassle. So there is one good thing for Fred Meyer.

They had a $10 off a $50 purchase savings certificate that was valid in most departments other than the food department this weekend. They haven't had one of these for a few months, so I went ahead and spent a little over $50 to get the $10 off. This is another recent positive thing for Fred Meyer.

In the food department, the price of a few picnic items have finally been reduced to their "picnic season" low prices such as the 8 Kroger Value Hamburger or Hot Buns for 50 cents each for the first 2. So that is a third positive thing for me to note.

A fourth positive thing that happened was that the donuts were only 3/$1 since it was after 6PM. I don't know if this is a regular type special or a one time thing since I don't usually shop that late. I think it may be only that price if there are donuts left over at 6PM. But it was nice to get a dozen fresh donuts for only $4 at Fred Meyer when they are usually more like $6 a dozen if I remember correctly.

Lastly, the woman who rang up my groceries, even though she seemed to have a personality like that of a robot, did remember to ask me for my Rewards card which I forgot to give her because of everything going on. If she had forgotten to ask me, I would have had to wait in line or call a phone number up to get my points earned on that trip, and I wouldn't have had an accurate points total for the Fuel Discounts and Rewards Program until my checkout on the next trip.


Now this is stuff Fred Meyer, in my honest opinion, still needs to address:

1. They need to go back to the 3 Rewards Rebate Certificates instead of the soon-to-come Expirable Gift Card.

2. They need to improve their electronics department. They need more big ticket items instead of cheap mini-laptops and really cheap mp3 players. I did notice that the Samsung P3 which I reviewed earlier in the blog is still carried by Fred Meyer. Apparently it was moved to a different spot and I just didn't see until the last trip.

3. They need to give men more choices in dress pants besides DOCKERS and HAGGAR brands. I just learned that the Dockers pair I bought and reviewed here also got bad reviews on Amazon.COM and not just from me.

4. They need to make sure that in the future the reusable bag savings are superior to those that do not use reusable bags and use the plastic bags instead.

and by far the most important is

5. They need to stop the rigging of the Design A Reusable Bag Contest by the highest vote getters. Kroger states that those with the highest votes will get special consideration. But I have seen proof that all of the Top designs are getting hundreds of illegal votes. This can be very damaging to the Kroger Family of stores' reputation if this rigging continues.

So the main problems are at Kroger's HQ, not at Fred Meyer in general. I have e-mailed Kroger about the contest and if I get a response about how they plan to pursue the cheaters of the contest, I will post it here.