Kathy is an American Idol addict. Every year we all clear our schedules and sit down as a family to watch and debate who is going to win. Danny and I can’t help but get sucked in. And now the two dogs have been sucked in.

Claire came up with a scientific test to figure out who is going to win. Imagine a large piece of paper on the floor with a grid of dog bones, each bone having a name written under it. Claire recorded all of this in a lab notebook and performed several tests.

Kathy (a.k.a. circleskirt) posted all of this on the American Idol forum. So far there have been 81 responses. The weird thing is, it could very well go the way the dogs voted. Of course the other weird thing is that this is all going on as I come home from work….

Excerpts below. Oh yeah… what’s the opposite of cirkcleskirt? (Get it?)

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Danny started playing with GarageBand which is music mixing software that came with our iMac a year ago. We had looked at it a year ago, but we did not understand what to do with it. Over the holidays, Danny made some amazing discoveries, and suddenly he was combining instruments, loops, and tweaking notes and phrases to create compositions that rival the best of cheesy television music. Some of his tracks could have been in any of the Beverly Hills Cop movies.

Then Kelly got in the act and started applying her more formal music training. Click here to listen to her first published composition: Modernize Me. Click on the picture to see just 10 seconds of Kelly’s composition in GarageBand.

I think Danny and Kelly are working on putting together an entire CD. Advanced orders can be placed here.

Nicole’s drama group put on the show they’ve been rehearsing all school year. Gramalie and Gradad showed up for the production which was all the way in Marietta. It took longer to drive to the show that the show lasted!

I video taped all the skits. It was very entertaining to everyone except Kelly who either didn’t like the dark or the singing.

Nicole starred in “How to Torture Your Sister” and “How to Be Sick”. She also made several appearances throughout the other skits, including the introduction line, “How to fight injustice.”

Several girls dropped out of drama before the end. We’re proud that Nicole stuck it out. She was rewarded by being in a very entertaining performance.

A star is born.

SATURN

Stevie Wonder / Mike Sembello

©1976

Packing my bags- going away

To a place where the air is clean

On Saturn

There’s no sense to sit and watch people die

We don’t fight our wars the way you do

We put back all the things we use

On Saturn

There’s no sense to keep on doing such crimes

There’s no principles in what you say

No direction in the things you do

For your world is soon to come to a close

Through the ages all great men have taught

Truth and happiness just can’t be bought- or sold

Tell me why are you people so cold

I’m…

Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow

Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow

On Saturn

People live to be two hundred and five

Going back to Saturn where the people smile

Don’t need cars cause we’ve learned to fly

On Saturn

Just to live to us is our natural high

We have come here many times before

To find your strategy to peace is war

Killing helpless men, women and children

That don’t even know what they’re dying for

We can’t trust you when you take a stand

With a gun and bible in your hand

And the cold expression on your face

Saying give us what we want or we’ll destroy

I’m…

Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow

Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow

On Saturn

People live to be two hundred and five

Going back to Saturn where the people smile

Don’t need cars cause we’ve learned to fly

On Saturn

Just to live to us is our natural high