Next month, we’re going on a little road trip down to Miami. I’ve been invited to the callback audition for Jeopardy!*, which is very exciting for me — I’ve tried out for it several times, and this is the first time I’ve made it to the second round.

The callback will last from 2 to 2.5 hours, and will consist of playing a mock game and taking an additional trivia test, as well as some light interviewing. I don’t actually expect to make it into the contestant pool (I’m a fairly terrible auditioner) but I’m definitely doing it for the experience.

I just booked our hotel room this morning, and here’s what tickles me. We were looking at booking a room at the Crowne Plaza hotel — it was the cheapest of the nice hotels. Which still means that rooms were going for $160 per night. The other options were the ultra-fancy resort where the callbacks are taking place ($280/night) or the little mom-and-pop questionable-quality beach resorts ($40/night). We’re not fans of questionable quality, so we were going to splurge.

Enter Hotwire, which is one of my former boss’s favorite travel booking sites. They give you an ultra-cheap price, but they don’t show you the name of the hotel until you book it. In this instance, Hotwire offered a $75 room in a 4-star resort. Since we were already going to pay $160 for a 4-star resort, we decided to be bold and booked it.

Turns out the room is at the Crowne Plaza, exactly where we were planning on staying. But for 60% less. Man, I love the internets! And living in the future!

* You may be wondering if a Disney employee can appear on Jeopardy!, since the show airs on ABC. Turns out, the show is produced by Sony/CBS, so it’s those employees who are ineligible. Sadly, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? blocks out all Disney employees, so I won’t be able to be on that show. And merely mentioning it makes me miss the Millionaire attraction here at WDW.

Once again, I’m late watching the performances. I know it’s the Lennon/McCartney songbook tonight, and I’m horrified to think of what the kids are going to mangle. Introductions and blah blah, let’s get to it!

Aaron Kelly – “The Long and Winding Road” – He’s actually not too bad starting out. He has a little rasp to his voice tonight; is it an affectation, or is he ill? Oh, but the nervous-sounding quaver comes back for the bridge, and there are notes that are both sharp and flat. In general it’s decent, but a slow and plodding choice, and a terrible arrangement. 6 out of 10.

Katie Stevens – “Let It Be” – My fear before she starts is that it’ll be slow and boring. Let us see. First off, she’s parked behind a microphone stand, wearing a dress that makes her arms look like huge sausages. As for the song, yeah. Notes are mostly OK, but she’s boring. Slow songs don’t have to be boring, but since she is boring, I don’t think she has the ability to jazz it up. 5 out of 10 for making me yawn.

Andrew Garcia – “Can’t Buy Me Love” – He’s up on the stage behind the judges, acoustic guitar and mike stand at the ready. He has his Buddy Holly glasses and hairstyle in place. And his arrangement stinks. From backing horns to slap bass, it’s a mishmash hodgepodge. And it sounds like how Engelbert Humperdink would try to “modernize” something. Randy calls it “corny,” which is apt. 6 out of 10.

Michael Lynche – “Eleanor Rigby” – I’m not a huge fan of Big Mike, but I have to admit, he’s made an interesting arrangement. Nice strings backing him, a nice cadence, and kind of an R&B vibe. Best arrangement so far tonight (although the final note sounds off). 7 out of 10.

Crystal Bowersox – “Come Together” – With a didgeridoo on the side. Not the most musically challenging song, and honestly, Sox isn’t rocking me as hard this week. It’s a good performance, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not one of her best. But it’s still the most compelling of the night so far. Also, she borrowed a scream note from Siobhan. 8 out of 10.

Tim Urban – “All My Lovin’” – Holy crap, is Terrible Tim improving?! His notes are mostly in tune, playing the guitar keeps him grounded so he’s not spazzing around everywhere, and it’s a somewhat appropriate (teenybopper) song choice for him. It shocks me to give him a 7 out of 10.

Casey James – “Jealous Guy” – A Lennon solo song. And maybe not as well-known as most of tonight’s choices. It’s a slower song, but it’s not boring, since he really seems to be into the emotion of the song. His voice is a little goat-bleatier than usual, but doesn’t sound too bad. Plus, his hair looks really soft and clean. 7 out of 10.

Siobhan Magnus – “Across the Universe” – This may be the Beatles song I’ve heard covered the most by women, so she’s in tough company. She’s wearing her Madonna-Like-a-Virgin costume, perched up on a boring stool. It’s just Siobhan and a piano, and it doesn’t sound like enough. I expect her to speed up or bust out for the second verse, but it stays quiet and sedate and somewhat dull. I’ll also note, I have to listen without watching, because her huge overglossed mouth is creeping me out. Not as boring as Aaron, but not as good a ballad as Casey. 6 out of 10.

Look out behind you, Lee!

Lee DeWyze – “Hey Jude” – A ballad to close the show. Please, please, don’t be boring. He starts out with just his voice and his guitar, and some of the notes are fairly bad. The band joins in with some drums and what sounds like a steel guitar (which sounds out-of-place country). This … could be better. Then a goddamn bagpipe player comes down the stairs! Playing the goddamn bagpipes! This just got surreal and awesome and magical. Not Lee’s best performance, but OMG LOL bagpipes for bonus points. 8 out of 10.

Let’s look at my low scores for the night: Aaron, Andrew, and Siobhan all got 6, while Katie got 5. So I’ll send Katie home. Although it’d serve me right to have Tim finally go home, just when he charms me a smidge. And oh — if any of the Idols want me to come down the stairs playing the melodica during their song, give me a call.

In my apparent ongoing attempt to try the salad and meatballs at every Italian chain restaurant in town, we visited Buca di Beppo the other day for lunch. Now normally, Buca is known for family-style dining. But for lunch, they do single-serving dishes.

1/2-pound meatball and side salad

Buca di Beppo offers their half-pound meatballs at $5.95 each, or three for $14.95. We opted for the three and split them. The side salad (either a mixed greens or a Caesar) is $2.99. I got the mixed greens, Scott got the Caesar. They’re pretty small side salads — if you like your greenery, you might be better off getting the big splittable Caesar ($10.45) which will get you each two good plates-full.

I signed up for their e-club, so I get frequent coupons in the email. They also advertise heavly in the Val-Pak coupon mailing here in Orlando. And the last two times I’ve visited, they’ve given me a fresh coupon with the check. The coupons are for $10 off of $20 or more, which can make lunch a pretty good deal for two. I personally prefer the Macaroni Grill meatballs a little bit more, but these are still tasty, and if we’re at the mall, it’s a convenient choice.

Located near where? Never heard of it.

Now for something I take a huge issue with. Buca has signs up all over the mall, because they’re in kind of a hard-to-find corner. By Nordstrom. Every single one of their signs has given Nordstrom an extra “S” at the end, which (being from the Nordy hometown) has always irked me. Although at least they didn’t make it an apostrophe-S. That would have made it clobberin’ time.

All right, so that’s not entirely accurate, but it certainly got your attention, didn’t it?

Here’s the thing — weight loss, which I accomplished through low-carb eating, makes your bra size go both down AND up. The band size goes down, but your cup volume can remain the same, which on a smaller band means you need a higher letter.

I used to wear a 36A bra at my largest — I probably should have moved up to a 38, but a combination of stubbornness and shame kept me in my too-tight, awkward-fitting boulderholder. So the first 20 pounds of weight loss probably brought me back down to a proper 36. Then the next 30 pounds of weight loss sent me to a 34, but with a B cup. You go down two inches in the band, you go up one letter in the cup.

30 more pounds, and my 34Bs were riding up in the back, which meant the underwires pressed into my ribs and guts, which meant it was definitely time to get re-fitted. I’ve moved down to a 32 band size, which means that my ta-tas (which have stayed relatively the same size, thank goodness; apparently a lot of women who lose lots of weight lose quite a bit in the ladyberries) are now techincally C-cups.

I wear a C-cup.

All it took was shrinking small enough so that you can count my ribs. (Don’t worry, I still have enough trunk-junk to average out to a regular person.)

The biggest problem is that, while 34B is a very easy size to find, 32C is shockingly rare. Most places that carry a 32 band (which isn’t many) only have it in a 32A, and most of those are little girl first-bras. A rare few carry 32B. But 32C? Even Victoria’s Secret only had two models to choose from, and the color options were white, pale pink, and one lonely green/yellow/brown number in a floral/leopard print. It wasn’t hideous, so I bought it.

There are a lot more color choices in the t-shirt demi style I like on their Web site. Looks like I’ll be buying my freakishly small-banded big-boobed bras on the internets from now on.

I had a couple of VS gift cards, so I’ve also stocked up on new undershorts from VS’s “Pink” store. As I told Scott, I’ve purchased “an ’80s rainbow of skivvies that fit.” I’m shocked to be wearing their medium, since long ago I had some of their stuff in X-large.

So it’s R&B week, with Usher as the mentor. I’ve looked at the song list, and there isn’t anything I’m really interested in hearing. So I’m going to blast through viewing the show as fast as possible, in order to save my sanity.

Siobhan: I still don’t get it. But even those who love her can surely hear how terrible she sounds tonight — her notes are all over the place, and where she’s not screaming, she’s whining. But she does have really cool high-top sneakers on. 4 out of 10.

Casey: A red guitar this week, and a chance to get a little bluesy. The song is musically boring (easy, safe), but he does all right with it, and gets in some good guitarin’. Nice horns section. 7 out of 10.

Big Mike: He’s up seated on the stage behind the judges, getting all soft with his guitar. And I don’t think soft works as well for Mike. It sounds all right, but it’s boring and plodding. Minus points for the boring, and for sitting in a place that makes me have to look into the bright lights. 6 out of 10.

Didi: She’s dressed to sing a torch song, but what comes out of her instead is a dated, plodding, “old”-sounding song. She’s flat in a lot of spots. She’s boring me. Her voice is all over the place. Dawg, it’s just not good. 5 out of 10.

Tim: I predicted in advance, without having seen the performances, that he’d be in the bottom three, but he’d cling on for yet another week. First: GET A HAIRCUT. Second: if this were a meal, it’d be corn covered with cheese. He can’t hit the high notes, nor the really low ones. And despite whining and twitching, he’s boring. And then he laughs at everything the judges say, which means points off. 4 out of 10.

Andrew: He’s perched up on a stool, with the acoustic guitar. It’s all right, he’s mostly on key, but he’s become so very boring. A little refining, and he could be on the radio right now. On one of those stations I don’t listen to, because the music is always boring and too damned commercial. 6 out of 10.

Backstage Cam: WTF is this crap? STOP IT.

Katie: Oh, that’s right! She’s still here! “Chain of Fools” is too old for her. And while she keeps more of the soul than Tim did, she’s still mostly soulless in this performance. Mostly in tune, but drab and dull. 6 out of 10.

Lee: Standing with a guitar, so at least he can be a little more dynamic than the stool-sitters. Nice and upbeat, and I think he’s learning to connect with the audience and camera a little better. Although the song itself is a bit repetitive (though I know now how to treat her [like a lady, if you're wondering]). The best male voice left in the competition. 8 out of 10.

Crystal: Her big amazing change-up: playing the piano instead of the guitar. And here’s the Sox difference — it’s a ballad, and it’s NOT boring. I actually wish she’d stay with the soft and moody, because it’s not quite as great when she stands up and wails a little. Not her best performance ever, but she’s still the top female in the show. 8 out of 10.

Aaron: It’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” time AGAIN (let’s retire this song, Idol), and I hope this time he does all 87 “I know”s. His voice sounds quavery and nervous at the beginning. He gets a little more into it, and his “I know” count is actually 14. Slightly more soul and emotion than Katie, and generally not TOO awful. 6 out of 10.

My bottom three are Tim, Didi and Siobhan. But I’ve already predicted that Tim is safe, and I think Siobhan’s incomprehensible fan base will save her. So it’s got to be Didi going home. Now I’m off to watch the results show, which I can probably tackle in under 7 minutes.

ETA: tackled the results show in 4 minutes. Siobhan didn’t even make bottom three! Her fanbase must be bigger than I thought. I DON’T GET IT! Anyhoo, I’m delighted and horrified that I was right about Tim. Toodles, Didi.