TVSquad

According to a recent survey that answer may be 'yes'. However, since the survey was conducted by IBM there may be a bit of favoritism towards the Superinternethighway. Not that I'm pointing fingers or anything, but the survey was conducted by IBM.

Did I say that the survey was conducted by computer company IBM? Just wanted to make sure.

What the survey found was that more people are spending time on the Internet rather than with their TV. Nineteen percent said that they spend six hours or more surfing the web. This is opposed to the 8% who watch television for the same amount of time. Ironically, these Internet users are spending most of their time on sites that contain television material. Thirty-nine percent of those surveyed mentioned that they spend most of their time viewing content on YouTube, while 33% go over to network TV sites.

In what can only be described as the most upsetting moment in my musical/variety/game show existence, Chris Daughtry has been eliminated from American Idol. This is a disaster! I am angry pissed. I am absolutely at a loss for words. I know it's only a TV show and I shouldn't be so upset by it, but I am. It wasn't his time to go. He should have won. He was my next American Idol.

And I hate the way that it happened. It all happened too fast; it didn't even seem real. Ryan paired Elliott and Taylor together, then Katharine and Chris. Elliott and Taylor were safe. And then ... then ... then ... before I could even register what was going on, Seacrest half-ass mumbles, "Chris, a lot of people thought you'd be the next American Idol, but you're going home tonight." It was horribly shocking, and not in the good way that Lost is shocking. This is bull crap. This is a big pile of crap. This is a big pile of crap, piled on top of more crap, and Ryan Seacrest is on top of that pile of crap. It should have been Elliott for his weeks and weeks of not bringing it. Or, if we are going by an isolated bad night, then it should have been Katharine. But Chris? No, not Chris. It wasn't his time. It wasn't his time. It wasn't his time!

It's always been a dream of mine to take a road trip to Tennessee to visit Graceland and Dollywood -- a white trash pilgrimage of sorts. I don't foresee that happening any time soon, so I'll make do with American Idol's homage to Elvis, and keep my fingers crossed for Dolly's night next season.

Everything about tonight was backwards -- the favorites sorta sucked, and Elliott finally found his moment to shine. My crappy internet connection keeps going out, so enough of the pleasantries...let's do this! 

Am I the only person in the world who gets really annoyed when the contestants hold up their fingers to tell you what number to dial so you can vote for them? I don't know why that irks me, but it just does. Now that I got that off my chest (she breathes a sigh of relief), I must say that I found tonight absolutely boring. Practically every performance was just boring. I normally sit and watch Idol  with semi-enthusiasm, but tonight I think I got up in the middle of virtually every performance. I helped my roommate make iced tea. I looked for my nail clippers. I put socks on because my feet were cold. I flossed my teeth. Tonight's performances were just plain boring.

Typically, I give my two cents on each of the contestants, but I don't even feel the need to do that. Every performance was so similar in mediocrity that I feel like I would just be repeating myself with every evaluation.

Al Franken recently moved his radio show to my humble little metropolis of Minneapolis, the city where he grew up. By sheer coincidence I know one of his producers and I asked them why he was back in his homestate of Minnesota. Turns out Franken is giving some serious consideration to making a senate run in 2008. He hasn't officially thrown his hat in the ring, according to an interview with AlterNet he did recently, but the fact that he moved the whole shebang to Minnesota pretty much makes one think it's going to happen. I think the "celebrity to politician" move is a crap shoot at best, but this is Minnesota, and Al is a hometown boy. I figure if Jesse Ventura could get his hulking frame into office Franken probably stands a pretty good chance.

In the interview, Franken talks about humor revealing a deeper truth (something I completely agree with), but even with his recent political affiliations, do people still think of him as just Al Franken the funny guy from Saturday Night Live? Put another way, can a person add a new dimension to their public persona after so many years of being seen only one way? It has happened, but that move is always a tenuous one.

Recently some pictures of Britney Spears were shown on this blog. Web surfers, never needing much provocation to become livid over something that doesn't really affect them personally, were up in arms over Brit's total disregard for her son's safety, who you can see is resting on his mom's lap and not in a car seat. Apparently the pictures made the rounds on some news programs, prompting Spears to release a statement where she explained that she sped off in a hurry to avoid what she considered a dangerous situation brought on by aggressive paparazzi. She claims a similar incident with photographers trapped her in her car without her baby. My speculation is that her mother instinct kicked in and she made a split-second decision, that's all. Or maybe she really is just a vacuous scatterbrain with no regard for her child's safety. I don't necessarily believe it, but it does make for a more entertaining story.