20 Things You Didnt Know About American Idol

Thank you Simone and Dawn for the picture!

As most of you know, JD and I got the chance to go to a taping of American Idol for this week's results show. We were so excited to go because we watch the show every week (along with 33 million other Americans) and it was so interesting to see how everything works. Here are a few secrets:

1. The judges are accompanied by 2 body guards each, even just walking in and out of the room.
2. The judges only actually sit in their chairs for like 4 minute increments. Literally, every commercial break they jump up, leave the room, and come back in like 30 seconds.
3. Simon has his phone in his hand for the ENTIRE show.
4. Paula and Simon are seriously in love. All they do is talk to each other. There was a time that she got out of her chair to sit in his lap. She held his hand, he rubbed her shoulders, and they whispered to each other ALL night.
5. Paula is even crazier than she appears on TV. While coming back from one of the commercial breaks she ripped her nylons and freaked out about it. She tried to stay underneath the desk from then on out. AND we saw her butt every time she took her seat.
6. Ryan's skin is really orange
7. Kanye West was a diva. His performance was actually taped before the show. He did it 3 times before he truly liked it. But when he got it right it was amazing. His vocals were awesome.
8. Kris Allen's family, especially his wife Katy, are some of the sweetest people we have ever met. They are in from Arkansas to support him. His dad makes custom men's clothing (JD talked to him about it for like a half hour- JD would love tons of custom clothing- i.e. south tower) and Anoop's Parents are the sweetest little couple But very shy. when they walked in the waiting room everyone stood up and clapped for them. so cute.
9. EVERYONE is smaller than you think. Kara is like a size 0. Simon is not as buff as those tiny shirts make him look. Kelly Clarkson really is not as fat as she looked on TV, the camera really adds 10 lbs. Allison (the red head) has always kinda looked a little bit bigger, but she's not. Except Lil Rounds Butt- thats huge!
10. The show is ligitemately live. The actual taping is airing live for the east coast. No edits were made at all. And besides Ryan's narrating, nothing is scripted. Everything that the judges say are ad libbed.
11. I know it looked the judges were proud of Kelly Clarkson's performance, they gave her a standing ovation, but as soon as she stepped of the stage they tore her apart. They critiqued everything about her, from her weight to the way she sings the word "suck."
12. Alexis's daughter and family sat right behind us and every time she caught glimpse of her on stage we could her "mommy, mommy!" and she blew kisses all night. The wig on Jazmin's mom is awesome.
13. Runners up, Justin Guarinni from season 1 was there, Chekeze from last season, Kelly Caldwell, and Miranda Doolittle were all in the audience.
14. When it got down to Jorge and Anoop's results, we cut to commercial. Jorge sat but Anoop ran off the stage in a hurry. We cant say for sure what happened but we assume he was so nervous he went to throw up. poor guy.
15. Simon could care less about the actual taping. Throughout the enitre show he was making faces at the audience, sticking his tongue out at people, and spinning in his chair.
16. I have heard the rumors about the animosity towards the "new Judge" Kara but I thought that they were just trying to start drama. But she truly is ostrasized by the others. Maybe its unintentional, but the other three will get up and totally leave her. And when they are supposed to be talking and deliberating together she is the one that is left out.
17. There is alot of waiting around. Doesnt matter who you are, even the families of the contestants were in the holding room with us.
18. After the taping the judges talk to the audience and make their way up to the stage to talk to the contestants. They give them kind of a pep talk. Tell everyone how well they did and hug the ones that got kicked off.
19. All of the producers told us that we have to react to everything they say; to be very EXPRESSIVE. We had to boo, clap, and be engaged in their comments. Thats why they caught us looking very serious, Simon was speaking so profoundly-ha! 20. It was SO MUCH FUN!!!!

Here and Gone Again

So there I was.... sitting at work just working on my Post to Broker report and I get a call from Scion Jim, the Turkish guy who sold Katie and I the xB. I was a bit worried to hear from him because we bought the car like 10 days ago and as far as I was concerned the transaction was done, all he had to do was transfer the title from him to Katie and me. So when I spoke to him he tells me that he needs to talk to me and that I need to come by the dealership. I swing by on my way home from work and he takes me into the back room (where his halfway rabid dog sits there and stares at me with her teeth showing, she isn't growling because if she does Jim smacks her, but she shows her teeth, its freaky) and he hands me a packet of papers. Long story short he tells me that when he went to the DMV to change ownership of Ron to me the DMV tells him that the title is not clean, its a "salvage". He was really trying his best to get me to keep the car and he offered me a 3 year warranty and all that. I was really upset because this is exactly what Katie and I were trying to avoid, we were willing to throw down a little more coin to make sure that we had a car that would be good for us long term. I spoke to Katie and she was just as uncomfortable as I was to keep a salvaged car so we told Jim that we wanted our money back. He was cool about it and he wrote us a check for the full amount that we gave him, and I handed him the keys. It was quite a downer to get something that I love so much taken from me, truly it can be said that I miss Ron. I miss his smell, I miss his musk. So join Katie and I in bidding farwell to Ron, axles to axles, rust to rust.