Bingo.

Today we visited Grandma Gert. This wasn't just any old visit, you see, because today, Grandma Gert turned 90. One of life's cruel jokes is the fact that the older you get, the more reason you have to celebrate, but also the older you get, the more limited your options become. So turning 90 calls for something special, and that something special is...



Bingo.

Grandma Gert doesn't usually do bingo, but when a cute little girl wearing a pink Boston Red Sox cap asks you to play, how can you say no?



The room was packed to the rafters, and as the caller yelled out the numbers, you could cut the tension with a knife. No wonder - the stakes were high.



Behold, the prize cart!

Alas, our birthday bingo excursion was bittersweet, as we came away empty-handed. As Grandma wheeled herself out of the room, she mumbled to everyone in ear reach, "What a gyp!"

(Mark just reminded me that she also used some more colorful language to describe Saturday afternoon bingo, but since we like to keep a clean blog, I'll just leave it to the imagination.)

Happily, her disppointment was short lived, because when we returned to her room, there were birthday presents to be had.





***Begin American Idol blabbering***

The second semi-final round sure wasn't much of an improvement over the first. The first half of the show was practically unwatchable. During the audition rounds, I had complained that they were sending way too many barely passable singers to Hollywood, but I had hope that most of them, if not all, would be weeded out. As the semi-finals have demonstrated, it was not to be.

The song choices this week were only slightly better. Too bad the wrong singers chose to sing them. I mean, this your big break. A once in life time chance to perform in front of millions of people. So naturally you think to yourself, "I know exactly what America wants to hear! 'Man in Mirror' will win the hearts of the country!"

By some miracle (or maybe it was just the very thin talent pool), that kind of thinking got Kris Allen into the Top 12, so what do I know?

But I do know that Normund Gentle is a travesty. I get why he's there. I like to laugh. And I like to be entertained. However, it doesn't matter how much the judges tell me otherwise, I believe that he is neither. If they wanted to put a "joke" contestant through on purpose this year, they could have chosen much better. Although I have to say that Nick's parents are adorable. Did you see how angry his father was after Simon panned the performance? No matter how much we want these people off our screen, we have to remember that there are those out there that love them just the same.

I sort of liked Megan, but the nervous twirling thing she was doing while she sang was very odd. And I thought Matt B. was much better than the judges gave him credit for, but since they already have their beefy blue collar guy in Micheal Sarver, Matt was pretty much doomed before he sang a note.

So after 24 performances, I'm still not invested in anyone. The only person that is coming close to motivating me to vote is Adam. "Satisfaction" was a very smart song choice. It's always good to start off with an uptempo song, and well, after singing a freakin' Cher song in Hollywood, he really needed to present himself in a more masculine light. The way he carries himself continues to impress me as well. In post-show interviews, he comes off as charming and genuine, as well as very self-aware of his style and how it's not for everyone. If only, if only, I could get into his singing! I've watched his performance a couple of times, and it is growing on me...a little. He has mentioned that he's not going to always go for the high notes every performance, which is good because I could do without seeing the back of his tongue every week. Castro made funny faces when he sang too, so maybe I'll get over Adam's tongue hanging out. Speaking of Jason, one of the reasons that I was so insane about voting last season is that I felt like I had to vote in order to save Jason every week, especially after he made a boneheaded song choice. So far, I don't feel that way about Adam because he's got enough smarts, talent and experience that he's probably not going to need my help to get through week to week.

Come to think of it, the best part of this week's AI was Scott McIntyre's dancing. OMG - the cane flipping was hysterical! Does laughing at a blind guy dance make me a bad person, even if he meant it to be funny?