On Scott’s recommendation, I just read two books by Daniel Suarez: Daemon and Freedom™.

Daemon is the first in the set; it was originally self-published, and was then bought up and republished by Dutton, a branch of Penguin books. The sequel, Freedom™, was also put out by Dutton. And thank goodness these books got picked up by a big publisher, so they’re available to all of us. Because you guys, everyone should read these books.

They’re billed as “high-tech thrillers” and “technothrillers”, which is both accurate and not. The thing is, these books cover many different genres. Daemon starts out as a murder mystery and police procedural, but as the book moves on and the world of the book opens up, the scope of the novel grows. And Freedom™ grows even larger in scope, touching on diverse subjects from Chinese manufacturing to corn subsidies while still remaining tense and exciting.

At its most basic, Daemon is about the investigation around a pair of murders linked to a recently-deceased software developer, and the rogue computer program (daemon) triggered after his death. As the daemon grows and takes over systems, it also recruits humans to join its network and become operatives. The ensemble cast of characters is split between those working with the daemon and those set on destroying it. The book ends in a somewhat abrupt cliffhangery manner, with Freedom™ picking up immediately and increasing the scale and number of the groups working with and against the daemon.

I had issues with Daemon overexplaining things at the beginning; the first few chapters seem to all start with overly-detailed descriptions of characters, and a few technological things are described in too much detail as well. But after the first few chapters, the overexplaining is done, and the story gets cooking. And I suppose for people not as familiar with technology, some of the description is helpful. My library copy (a first-edition Dutton hardback) also had a number of glaring typos and punctuation errors, which have hopefully been corrected in later printings. Probably not a big issue for most people, but they popped me right out of the immersive reading experience. My other big issue with Daemon was a sudden romantic relationship out of nowhere. But those things aside, it was a fantastic book. Well-paced, exciting, with a great number of twists and turns.

I then dug straight into Freedom™ — the library had perfect timing, delivering it the same day I finished Daemon. No glaring errors like in the first book, hooray. And again: a swift pace, twists and turns galore, and at least one event that had Scott watching me as I read, so he could laugh at my shocked gasp (I didn’t disappoint). There was at least one character from the first book who wasn’t followed in the second, but the ensemble was a whole was great; as opposed to a lot of ensemble pieces, there wasn’t that one story that just wasn’t interesting (that is to say, there was no Nikki & Paulo story, or even a Michael & Walt).

I’ll be thinking about these books for a LONG time to come. And I’m glad that Scott has read them as well; we’re sure to have some great conversations about them. The movie rights for both books have been purchased, and sites like IMDB are showing a preliminary 2012 release for Daemon. Which is probably highly inaccurate, but it’s enough to wet my whistle. I agree with Scott’s casting choices for a couple of characters, and I’m sure we’ll do even more sky-pie casting in the future.

Daemon: 9 out of 10
Freedom™: 9 out of 10

I put my pictures in a separate entry. Here’s the deets on the reason for the trip.

Back in January, I took the online Jeopardy! test. I’ve taken it the last couple of years. Don’t know if I’ve passed it before — usually there are too many sports or bible questions, which are my Kryptonite. I think I lucked out this time with my standard “if it’s a basketball question, the answer is Kobe Bryant” approach. Because I’m pretty sure it actually was Kobe Bryant.

Anyhoo, got an email back in March letting me know I’d passed the test, and I’d been chosen randomly from among the test-passers to go to the in-person audition. I immediately wrote back saying yes, please, thank you. Booked the vacation time, booked a cheap hotel (well, cheap for the Miami beach area) and this past Thursday, we hit the road.

We killed thousands of lovebugs on the way down. The trip was a little over 200 miles each way, and I have to admit, I’m not up to distance driving anymore. It’s hard to believe that back in 2007, we drove anywhere from 9 to 13 hours per day to get from Seattle to Orlando in 6 days. Even 4 hours on the road (we made several stops to clean off bug bodies) is too much now.

Got to our hotel, checked in, scouted the area. Hoofed over to the Atlantic:

Then we rustled up some dinner, and visited a local mall so I could look for a shirt. I’d brought a shirt with me, but I wasn’t entirely happy with it — the paperwork asked for us to dress as we would if we were appearing on Jeopardy!, so I wanted to make sure I looked the part. Happily, I found a great item on the clearance rack at The Limited — a dark blue button-down. Plain and classy.

Back to the room, and then we suited up and visited the pool for some night swimming. Not only did we have a pool and a whirlpool available, but there were also ladders down to the Intracoastal Waterway. Scott wouldn’t let me even climb down and dip my toe in, since it was 8 to 10 feet down a slimy ladder into questionable and very dark public waters. Full of wildlife. Oh well.

Friday, we kicked around the room for much of the morning, and managed to catch some Lazy Town dubbed into Spanish (WTF that show, I don’t even know) and part of The Abyss (in which the effects don’t hold up). Then I put on my fancy pants (and new shirt, and shoes with heels), we checked out, and we ambled down to the Westin.

Scott set up with his gadgets and headphones in the beautiful lobby, and I headed upstairs. There were a couple of guys there already, but I was one of the first, since I’m always way too early for everthing. I filled out my application form, with full disclosure that I work for WDW (the rules state that nobody can be on the show who works for CBS/Sony Pictures, but this application also asked about anyone working for ABC (Disney), NBC (Universal), or any local TV stations. So I don’t know what kind of grey area I’m in as far as eligibility.

Eventually, there were 20 of us. Some dressed appropriately, some not so much. A t-shirt with a cute skirt? Not good. Ren-faire-inspired clothes? Not good. A ratty, beat-up golf shirt — well, at least it had a collar. But not good. We got checked in, had our Polaroids taken, and moved into the conference room. The casting folks, all very nice, talked a little about what to expect in the audition, and then we took the written exam. Just like the online test, it was a 50-question exam, with 8 seconds to answer eash question. They collected our tests, went out to score them, and the room exploded into “what was the answer to this one?”

We’ll never find out our scores, by the way. It’s totally pass/fail — get 35 or more right, you pass. 34 or less, you fail. Period. And I think I cut it pretty close. I aced the pop music and movies stuff, but there were some sports and poetry and such that I know I got wrong.

Either way, pass or fail, nobody found out their results. We all moved on to the mock game, and they explained that the audition process used to have everyone who failed go home, but they decided to invite fewer people and let them experience the entire process instead. I applaud the choice. So onward to the fake game! We got up in groups of three, and got to use the genuine buzzers. I’m delighted to say, I got the country music question correct. A fluke!

At the end of a dozen or so questions, we got to do a little one-to-two minute interview. And I know I aced this part — clear eye contact, enunciation, personality. It was kind of shocking to me how many people mumbled their answers while staring at the wall above the casting peoples’ heads. But I guess the ultra-smart sometimes aren’t known for their social skills.

They asked me what I do at WDW, and I told them that I host a game show about Velcro. At which, the other woman in my group laughed out loud and said, “Oh my god, that’s where I know you from! We did that show when we went to Epcot for my birthday!” As they say, it’s a small world after all.

It took a little over 2 hours for everything, then we were set free. I gathered up Scott, changed out of my fancy duds into shorts, and we hit the road back to Orlando. We could have stayed another day, but we opted to get back home so we could have a leisurely Saturday off here. And happily, there were a LOT fewer lovebugs on the way home. I don’t know if the swarm moved on, or if they’re more active in the mornings, or what. But we didn’t have anywhere near the same death counts on the return trip.

So now, the waiting game. None of us will know if we passed the test or not, or if we made the contestant pool or not, until we maybe possibly get a phone call at some point in the next 18 months inviting us to LA to appear on the show. So for all I know, I’m in. But for all I know, I failed the test. Or it may be that my employer eliminates me from consideration. I’m not going to wait by the phone with bated breath; if a call comes, it’ll just be a fantastic surprise.

In the meantime, we had a fun road trip with many a laugh, and I got to walk on some beach. And have a fun experience that few people get a chance to have.

So we just got back from a quickie trip down to Miami (Well, okay, to Hollywood. Which is right next to Miami.) for reasons I’ll explain in the next text post. I figured I’d make a seperate entry for my snappies.

First off, BUGS! The first 100 miles or so of our trip from Orlando to Miami was through lovebug country. If you don’t know about lovebugs, count yourself lucky. You could look them up on the Wiki, but the short version is that they’re pairs of bugs joined at the junk, both of them trying to fly at the same time, which ends up in a staggering, shambling trip through the sky. I don’t know if it was time of day or location, but the bugs were heavy over the turnpike.

This was just after the first stop. We had to wash the windshield, and I scraped corpses off the bumper. 40 miles further along, we had to make another stop for another wash-n-scrape. My car looks like it has a flame job from all of the bug guts. We’re hitting the car wash this morning.

We stopped at a couple of service plazas along the turnpike on our way down. They’re so much more than a rest stop — it’s like a rest stop meets a food court meets a truck stop. A few quick-service restaurants, large restrooms, stands selling perfumes and belt buckles, and tons of brochures and coupon booklets. We were surprised to find Earl of Sandwich representing, so we had that for lunch.

Our hotel was the Crowne Plaza at Hollywood Beach. I priced it out at $170 per night, then managed to get it for $75 at Hotwire. This may well be the first hotel I’ve stayed at that supplied fluffy white robes. I think the only problem is that there aren’t enough pillows.

Here’s our view to the east. Our room was on the top (10th) floor, on the north side of the building. As you can see, we’re right across the street from the Atlantic Ocean. Faboo!

And our view off to the west of the Intracoastal Waterway. There’s our hotel’s pool down below, too. Nice pool, nice hot tub, expensive pool bar beers. I mean, five bucks for a Miller Lite?

And there was Friday’s goal: The Westin Diplomat. About 5 blocks to the north, on the beach side of the road. Man, that place was nice. But I wasn’t about to pay $300/night to stay there.

After all, we were already staying someplace with the gall to charge five bucks for a bottle of water.

We did walk over to the beach and got our sandals full of sand. Which I guess is what they’re made for. I find with the Atlantic, approaching the beach is prettier than the beach itself. Because the beach itself is just a uniformly wide strip of sand, lined with hotels and condominiums.

So yes, Miami was lovely. Well, not actually Miami, but Hollywood. And more technically, Hallandale beach. Did we have fun? This sign says it all:

Here are a couple more books from the past month: one I just finished yesterday, and one I forgot to include in yesterday’s post. I think this catches me up; the library says a book is on its way, but I’ve read everything on hand. I’ve also just discovered that our library lends e-books, although the DRM on the books (issued from Overdrive) means I can’t read them on my phone, nor can Scott read them on his iDoodad. I’ll have to read them on my computer, which isn’t terrible, but it’s hell to read from a desktop in bed.

Eoin Colfer – And Another Thing…: If you haven’t heard of this book, it’s the new sixth book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Of course, the first five books were written by Douglas Adams, may he rest in peace. I’m not entirely sure of the reasons why the Adams estate authorised Colfer (author of the Artemis Fowl books, none of which I’ve read) to write this additional sequel, and it certainly doens’t add much to the series.

The Guide series already went downhill with the last Adams installment, Mostly Harmless. In my opinion, the series should have ended with So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish — especially with Arthur Dent in a happy place. Mostly Harmless just screwed everything up, depressed the hell out of me, and introduced at least one loathsome new character (Random). So where does Colfer have to go from there?

On the one hand, I wished that Colfer branched out into new territory more. He frequently makes reference to established persons/places/things, like Squornshellous Zeta, Eccentrica Gallumbits, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, Vogons galore, and the cows who beg to be eaten. I yearned for more creativity; more unique and never-before-seen people and places. But in the spots where Colfer does develop new ground, it just feels awkward and out-of-place (see the entire interaction with Chulthu). He also has clearly watched the 2005 movie for inspiration, because Zaphod is now described as having curling blond hair, and Trillian is clearly written as that icky Zooey Deschanel.

The one thing Colfer could have done to make me happy was to give a little bit of Arthur’s happiness back. But alas; he hints at it for a brief moment near the end (for a whole half-page), then gives Arthur an even more depressing fate. Colfer could have righted many of the wrongs of Mostly Harmless, but instead wrote a plodding-in-places and not-clever-enough volume that leaves many characters in even worse places, and has others act in ways that five previous books prove to be completely wrong. 4 out of 10.

Richard Castle – Heat Wave: Of course, this book isn’t really written by Richard Castle; it’s a lightweight (208 pages) ghostwritten novel from the folks at ABC and Beacon Pictures. It’s a brilliant tie-in — if you have a hit TV show about a writer, why not actually release the book that’s released in the show? I can only imagine how many Murder, She Wrote books would have sold back in the 80s with this same concept.

Anyhoo, the book is light and fluffy, corny and cheesy. It actually reads like a well-written piece of Castle fanfiction with the names changed. Which I think is the feeling they were shooting for. The crime in the novel has plenty of twists and turns, especially the second half when the clues start rolling in and things come together. The first half of the book was a little slow at times as far as the crime, and weirdly fast and jarring as far as the attraction between Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook — the initial spark seems to come out of nowhere. It almost feels like the writer(s) finally hit their stride and go comfortable midway through the novel, then forgot to go back and spruce up the first half with the appropriate groove.

Still, it was a fun little romp. And when the characters in the show make eyebrow-wiggling reference to “page 105″, now I know what they’re talking about. I’ll definitely be checking out Naked Heat when it hits the shelves in September. 7 out of 10.

I’ve been reading my face off lately. Seems like every time I finish a book, I hear about two others I’d like to read, and the library is being exceptionally speedy about sending the book couriers to my front door.

Orson Scott Card – Treason: All right, I know, chastise me now. A sci-fi geek who’d never read any Orson Scott Card. And I probably wouldn’t have read his stuff anytime soon, if not for someone looking for a book over at AskMetafilter. Go ahead, read how the describes it. It sounded amazingly weird to me, so I thought, “What the hell,” and ordered it up from the library.

I expected the novel to take place at least partially in space. And the cover of the book led me to continue that belief. But no, the whole thing takes place on the surface of one planet. But putting that perplexion aside, this novel was surprisingly good. Weird and strange, very imaginative, and really like nothing I’d ever read before. Card did a lovely job of developing the main character throughout his journey, and the universe he created is one I’d love to experience. 7 out of 10. And then the book led me to …

Orson Scott Card – Ender’s Game: I didn’t know anything about this book at all — I just ordered it from the library because Card intrigued me, and this was what looked to be his most famous novel. Reading the introduction to the “author’s definitive edition”, I was perplexed again. Gifted children being taught to go to war against a race of bugs? So it’s Harry Potter in Starship Troopers? But once again, I got sucked into the book and couldn’t stop reading. Ender was an amazing character. And even though I was getting near the end of the book and thought, “They better start getting to the heavy action soon,” I totally didn’t see the twist ending coming. Amazing. 8 out of 10, and I’ve put in a request for the sequel, Speaker for the Dead. It looks like there are eight or nine books total in the Ender series, so I’ll be nibbling at these for quite a while.

Gail Carriger – Changeless: In a previous book post, I scored the first book in this series, Soulless, an 8 out of 10. And I thought this book, second in the series, would get a similar score. Certainly, the story started out clever and witty and interesting, but there were also problems for me. I’m not sure if we, the readers, were supposed to figure out so early on what the big dramatic reveal was. If not, it was handled in a pretty ham-handed manner; throughout the entire book, when certain situations happened, I thought to myself, “Well, it’s because of [big dramatic spoiler], duh.”

But even worse was the ending, after the big dramatic spoiler has been revealed. Carriger sadly uses a classic romance novel trope that drives me crazy — the Big Angry Misunderstanding. In a couple who supposedly love and trust each other, I’ve never understood how one party can suddenly explode in an angry rage, with jealousy and mistrust and fiery venom, without even being willing to listen to their loved one or attempt to see reason. And this angry rage is exceptionally explosive; it felt completely out of character for the rage-filled person. So yay Carriger for the mystery and adventure (although it wasn’t as good as the first book), but a big fat BOO for the relationship, especially the tired trope at the end. 5 out of 10. Although I’ll still read the third in the series, Blameless, when it comes out in September.

Julia Child and Alex Prud’Homme – My Life in France: After watching the movie Julie & Julia, I dropped this book onto my library request list. On the flip side, I refuse to read any of the original Julie/Julia Project blog, because I’ve heard that in it, Julie Powell comes across as a not-very-pleasant person. I also didn’t care for her in any of the interview footage in the DVD featurettes, so there you go. But Julia Child, on the other hand, seems like a delightful woman. This autobiography is a meaty book, and it’s entertaining the entire way through. It covers not only the Childs’ years in France, but also the post-France years with books and TV shows and fame. Throughout it all, Julia Child reads as a charming, inquisitive, fascinating woman who I’d love to have known. 8 out of 10.

The New Atkins for a New You: Written by three doctors who’ve clearly done their homework, this new book updates the Atkins program (the last book from the good doctor himself was published well before his untimely 2003 head-injury death). It takes into account the ten-plus years of new scientific research about low-carb diets and human physiology. If you’re looking into trying the low-carb way of eating, you could do much worse than this for your first book. It does get a little self-indulgent in places, constantly referring to the “Atkins Edge” and other things that aren’t necessarily Atkins-specific, but overall it covers a lot of good territory and updates the Atkins diet in a way that continues to make it easy for anyone and everyone to enjoy. There are even guidelines for vegetarian and vegan versions of Atkins, crazy as that may sound (but then again, I find anything vegan to be crazy; at least with these guidelines, veganism might border on something sort of healthy). 8 out of 10.

Mark Sisson – The Primal Blueprint: The new rage in healthy eating is primal. Or paleo. Or caveman, or whatever else you want to call it. Eating foods that our hunter/gatherer ancestors ate, and exercising the way that they would have, instead of breaking our bodies with too much cardio or running. Primal shares a lot of common ground with low-carb: avoiding grains, eating meat and natural fats (especially animal fats). In his book, Sisson (who writes the great blog Mark’s Daily Apple) outlines his ten commandments of primal living, ranging from eating habits to exercise to playing in the sun.

Sisson doesn’t cover a lot of the scientific evidence to support his plan in the book, but he does make many, many references back to his site/blog, where more information can be found. I think this book is also self-published, which may explain the multitude of typos and grammatical errors. Still, if you’re sick and miserable and unhappy while eating a low-fat diet and exercising to exhaustion, this might be an eye-opening book. Nothing much was new to me, since I already read Mark’s blog (and a dozen other paleo/primal blogs as well), but it was nice to have so much of Mark’s wisdom in one easy-to-reference volume. 7 out of 10.

Every now and then, I realize that I have a load of vaguely-interesting snappies on the ol’ phone. So here’s a bit meaty wad of them.

Lots of construction walls are up in the Magic Kingdom, and instead of just telling us something like “This area is being refurbished for your enjoyment”, they have signs on them with inspirational quotes. The grammar on this one perplexes me. I think the period after the first word should actually be a comma, to make this one complete sentence. Either that, or an additional word needs to be socked in there, like “it” after “me” — although “Togetherness. For me, it means teamwork.” still sounds awkward. I’m sticking with my preferred two-comma, one-sentence approach.

And you know what? Don’t even get me started on the font. What a weird mishmash of lowercase and uppercase letters.

There really should be a “People of Costco” photoblog. I never see anyone weird enough at Wal*Mart, but there are frequently good snaps to be taken at Costco. This guy was totally into the pool table display. That’s right, this guy. And did you know, I have a phobia about ultra-long, untrimmed hair? Can’t stand the idea of it touching me. Neatly trimmed and well-kept isn’t nearly as bad, but when you can tell they haven’t had a haircut in a decade? Ewwwww.

This display was at a McDonald’s out on the coast. They had their Easter display all set up, with the glitzy tinsel cross and the creepy, doughy bunny. Both of which seemed inappropriate for a McDonald’s.

Last but not least, I visited the mall with a buddy this last week. And we always like to try on weird and unusual things. I paired together this ribbon-shouldered shirt (Tommy Hilfiger, forty bucks!) with some ghastly plaid shorts — the waistband is almost all the way up to lower boobsville. Add in some ankle socks and sandals, and I think I could fit in with the best of the tourists.

So Scott has acquired a gadget. I’m sure from the photos coming up, you’ll figure out what that gadget is. He also has a birthday coming up in less than a week. Combine that with me and a sewing machine, and I knew what to make him for his big day.

I studied a couple of other gadget case blog posts, namely the Padded iPad Sleeve Tutorial and the Slightly Self-Cleaning iPad Sleeve. I liked the padded sleeve because no closure was necessary, but I liked the soft idea of a self-cleaning sleeve. So I built a fleece-lined sleeve that I think hits both nails.

I started by cutting, freehand, four rectangles of fabric. Two of the grey fleece (I thought about using black, but the only choices at the Wal*Mart fabric section were grey, maroon and navy blue) and two of the outer patterned fabric. I gave myself a good healthy inch on all sides of the gadget, so I’d have plenty of room to maneuver. I’d just trim the excess off later.

Next, I put one panel of fleece and one panel of pattern together, with the right sides together. I stitched across the top of each, so that they could then be flipped right-sides-out. This made a two-piece front and a two-piece back, pattern on the outside and fleece on the inside, with a nice neat lip. As you can see, I didn’t stitch all the way across the top; I knew I’d be cutting some of the sides away, so I stayed about an inch in from the left and right sides so as to not cut through any of my stitching.

After flipping the panels, I made a gadget sandwich. The two double-fabric panels should have the right side of the pattern facing each other, and the right sides of the fleece on the outside. Line up the top of the gadget with the nice tidy sewn-and-folded edges, and pin it tightly on the sides and bottom. The key is, you’re not going to sew where the pins are; you’re going to sew a little bit outside the pins. Because when you flip this thing around right-side-out, there’s going to be a little bit of space taken up by the extra fabric just outside your stitches. If you pin this tightly, then sew outside the pins, it should give you enough room for that extra fabric while keeping the pad a snug fit.

Sew outside the pin lines, all the way around the outside. As you can see (if you squint really hard), I started and ended my stitching about a quarter-inch below the lip; they won’t come undone, because I back-and-forth stitched a couple of times, and this way I won’t have any little bitty thread ends sticking out the top.

Trim the edges. And on the bottom corners, trim diagonally. That way when you flip this thing right-side-out, you won’t have big waddy bulges of fabric down in the corners. I cut this fairly close; probably a little less than a quarter-inch.

Flip the whole thing inside-out, poke a finger or the end of a pen down into the corners to square them out, and you’re done! Your gadget of choice has a cozy, fleece-lined, happy little home.

I also made a smaller one for my phone. (Different fabric — for the phone, I used the same grey fleece and some cute material I got in a set of fat quarters.) Same steps as above, but on a smaller scale. And you’ll want to stitch outside the pin lines a bit further, because there’s not as much wiggle room in the smaller format. This case fits, but it might be a little too tight.

And hey, you’re wondering — is Missy going to talk about the fabric she used for Scott’s case? Why yes, yes she is. Here’s the deal: I had it made at Fabric on Demand. They gently walk you through the whole process, from uploading an image or pattern, deciding how you want it displayed on the fabric, and what fabric weight and amount you want. I chose the 6 oz. cotton; it’s a little tougher than the 4 oz. (typical quilting and calico cotton is 4 ounce) and feels almost like a good cotton duck. I made one PNG file of the six-logo flower, and they laid it out in a half-brick repeating pattern for me. I ordered a “fat quarter” (18″ x 21″ rectangle), which was more than enough for this project and a matching phone case.

The turnaround was amazing. I ordered April 28th, was sent a proof of how it’d look on the 29th, it shipped on May 5th, and it arrived today, May 7th. Less than a fortnight from having a crazy idea to having the fabric in my grubby little hands. I love the internets, and I love living in the future!

And speaking of things I love: Happy Birthday, Scott Meyer!

Top 5! Frank Sinatra songs! Harry Connick Jr.! I always look forward to standards week, and this is no exception. Bring on the good ol’ tunes!

Seacrest reminds us that Siobhan was sent home in a surprising manner last week. We need to vote for our favorites, so who will we vote for this week? The audience screams, “LEE!”

Turns out that this week, HCJr is working with the contestants to arrange their music. Which is a fabulous change from previous mentors, who pretty much say, “Find the meaning of the song, make it entertaining, and smile at the camera more.” Harry will even be playing on stage with the contestants. Now this is what mentorship should be! Let’s hope it all works out.

Oh, and one of Frank Sinatra’s daughters looks good, and the other looks like a warmed-over plate of plastic surgery.

Aaron Kelly – “Fly Me to the Moon” – He’s taking a semi-upbeat song, and starting it out slow and droning. Which just amplifies the nervous quavering. The beat gets peppier into the second verse, but he’s still hitting some really awful notes throughout. It’s just not that exciting, and not that great as far as the performance factor. Bland and dull. 6 out of 10.

Casey James – “Blue Skies” – Casey’s all pulled-back-hair and stubble, once again looking like a bad guy on Miami Vice. His second note is a massive clunker. The arrangement is a slow, drowsy one, which only serves to emphasise his goatlike bleating. I’ve heard that he’s this week’s pick at Vote for the Worst, and I can totally see why. It’s off-key in a majestic way. 4 out of 10.

Crystal Bowersox – “Summer Wind” – It’s a jazzy arrangement, and Mamasox actually looks really good in her gown. And of course, she sings the song beautifully. She’s had a rougher week or two, but she’s back on top again this time. I don’t know what her personal meaning is for the song, but you can totally tell it has meaning for her. It doesn’t rock as hard as it could, but I think I’m glad. This song isn’t a hard-rockin’ thing. Still, I think there’s room for improvement. 8 out of 10.

Michael Lynche – “The Way You Look Tonight” – The question is, will he sing this as a slow, plodding, nasal ballad? The answer is yes. Oh, but it gets a little peppier after the first bit. Still nasal, still boring, but a little faster. Is it just me, or does this guy bore everyone? I mean, this performance was totally predictable. He never comes out of his comfort zone, the way Crystal did just before. I just find him bland. He’s Blando Calrissian. 6 out of 10.

Lee DeWyze – “That’s Life” – Once again, dreamy Lee gets the pimp spot. Harry’s wife thinks Lee is pretty. for the performance, Harry’s playing the Cheesemaster 5000 organ. And maybe it’s that he shares a little winky-nudgey with Harry at the beginning, but Lee seems much more comfortable than usual. He actually looks like he may be having a tiny bit of fun. He goes up in pitch a half-step or so before the music at one point, which is awkward, but overall it sounds good. 8 out of 10.

So of the five, Crystal and Lee are my frontrunners, Aaron and Michael are wallowing in mediocrity, and Casey was the clunker. Will his attractiveness keep him in the race? Not with that villainous look. Although Aaron had the deadly opening spot and wasn’t memorable, I think his tinyness will keep him in. Casey for the boot.

I posted previously about the Atkins Muffin-in-a-Minute recipe, and my tweaks to it. Well, I’ve continued tweaking.

I’m still making these with coconut flour, instead of the original recipe’s flax meal. We just now got a bag of flax meal, so I’ll have to play around with it and see if I like it. Meanwhile, the base recipe:

1 heaping Tbsp coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp sweetener (1 packet of Splenda)
1 tsp butter
1 egg

And the add-ins:
1 tsp liquid flavoring
1 tsp powdered flavoring

Now, you can be as creative as you want with the flavorings. Usually I do cinnamon/allspice with cream, or with some sugar-free maple syrup. But here are a couple of other options.

Banana nut muffin: add 1 tsp banana flavoring and a dozen or so pecans, chopped.

Lemon poppyseed: add 1-2 tsp lemon juice or extract, 1/2 tsp poppy seeds, and make a lemony frosting from 1 Tbsp cream cheese, 1 packet of Splenda, and 1/2 tsp lemon juice. Tart and tasty!

Thanks to our buddy Bob and his red mill (ooh, that makes me want to visit Red Mill Burgers in Seattle) we’re all set for various flours and meals. In the past, I’ve used the almond flour for cookies and cheesecake crusts. I bet that would add a bit of body to these muffins. And the flax meal is a popular choice for low-carbers, since it’s almost all fiber. I’ll have to go light on that.

A couple of days ago, I posted about our trip to Texas de Brazil, our local awesome Brazilian steakhouse. I put up pictures I took with my cameraphone. Scott has since then sent me pictures from his own phone, so I thought it’d be interesting to compare the quality.

Here’s the picture I posted of my salad bar choices:

It doesn’t look awful, but it’s not all that great. And this took an extensive amount of tinkering in Photoshop — mainly adjusting levels and color balance. So for the sake of comparison, here’s the same picture, without any tinkering, taken by my HTC G1:

The light wasn’t great in the restaurant, but we were in probably the most well-lit place (I’ve tried taking pictures in there before; the “mood lighting” makes everything dark and red). I had my back to the big wine room, which added a little more light.

But Scott also let me take a picture with his phone, which has a flash! Well, it’s not the brightest flash in the world — mainly just a gentle little bulb that turns on at the exact right time … which I guess is something that could be loosely defined as a “flash”. Anyhoo, here’s the picture from his camera, again without any tinkering:

The salad items look great, with true-to-life colors. However, the flash made a hot spot, and the more distant items (like the bowl of amazing lobster bisque) are much darker. I tried adjusting this image in Photoshop, and there’s no way for me to neatly balance everything out. Bringing the soup up in brightness washes out the salads.

Despite the sharpness of Scott’s picture, I think I prefer what came out of my camera. Sure it needed some tweaking, but most pictures do. It’s weird — when taking them, I thought I’d like his pictures more. I guess I’m just a flash-off kind of girl; after all, I leave my point-and-shoot flash turned off, and only use it maybe 5% of the time.