American Idol predictions 3 and celebrity impersonations

I think Luke and Jason Yeager are on the way out this week. But more importantly, I think we should take a look at some of the contestants and their eerie resemblances to certain celebrities. Last week, I mentioned Jason Castro's resemblance to a young John Travolta in dreads. Take a look:



And speaking of young versions of celebrities, how about Danny Norriega? Young Steven Cojocaru, anyone?



Now for those two, I think the resemblance depends a lot on certain facial expressions. I had a tough time finding pictures of John Travolta or Cojo that looked exactly like these guys, but yet these contestants remind me SO MUCH of those celebs.

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But then of course, there was Colton, who looks a lot like Ellen Degeneres:

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And Chikesie could be a younger, slightly chubbier, Blair Underwood:

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Finally, Jason Yeager. Or is it a young Val Kilmer?

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***Please forgive the crappy formatting. I couldn't get the pictures to work right for side-by-side comparisons.***

Valentine treats

If you're like me, then whenever you are presented with a snack sign-up sheet, you sign up for whatever day is available as far in the future as possible, because SURELY BY THEN you'll have your shit together enough to bake some cookies or something. So I invariably end up with Valentine's Day. Then February rolls around and it turns out that while I THOUGHT my shit would be together, in fact IT IS NOT.

The good news is that there's an easy way to make it look like you worked hard on something, when really it only takes five to ten minutes of your time. Also, these are good for ANY holiday.

Step 1: Buy a package or two of individually wrapped Rice Krispy Treats or some ready-to-decorate pre-baked cutout cookies.

Step 2: Buy icing that comes with tips. It comes in either bags or cans that work like Redi-Whip.

Step 3: Wander through the bulk-candy section of the store and purchase holiday-specific candies to decorate the tops of the treats. These can be anything: gummies, hard candies (depending on the children's ages), chocolates, etc.

Step 4: If you bought Rice Krispy Treats, unwrap them.

Step 5: Using the icing, decorate the cookies or Rice Krispy Treats. Stick on a candy, and you're done.

This year I bought pre-baked heart-shaped cutout cookies and used a large-sized conversation heart as the candy. I don't have a picture because our digital camera is broken. But last year I made these using Rice Krispy Treats and a large heart-shaped gummy candy:



Awesome, no? They're a HUGE hit and seriously only take a few minutes.

Campaign of Indignation

First off, I KNOW there was a relatively important football game last night, that people may or may not be talking about (I haven't checked anyone yet), but at our house, that football game is just an excuse to eat hors d'ouvres and other snack foods for dinner while we check out new (hopefully funny) commercials. Case in point, this was the discussion at our house at about 4:00 yesterday afternoon:

Me: I'll have the food ready and we can start eating at 6:00.

Mr. Picklebottom: Do you know who's playing?

Me: No, but I think Beth knows. There was some kind of voting graph with footballs at her school when I picked her up Friday. [calling] Beth!

Beth: What?

Me: What teams are playing tonight?

Beth: I don't know.

Me: Didn't you vote on who you thought would win at school?

Beth: Oh, yeah!

Me: So who's playing?

Beth: The silver helmets and the blue helmets.

Me: Oh. Well, which one did you vote for?

Beth: The silver helmets.

Me (to Mr. Picklebottom): Well, there you go. Silver helmets versus blue helmets.

So obviously not a terribly important event at our house. Except I made a chocolate gooey butter cake (which I THINK I found via All & Sundry, but I can't find it now), and OH MY GOTT IN HIMMEL! It was AMAZING!

Anyway, a MUCH MORE IMPORTANT development in my life was brought to my attention by Tessie (HA!! Google Blogger, you CANNOT keep us apart!!!), and that development is that a decision has been made by some INCREDIBLY STUPID and IGNORANT and HEAD-UP-THEIR-ASSES, and did I mention STUPID?, BUTTHEADS at NBC to cancel Journeyman, probably the best new television series this season.



So Tessie and I discussed this (telepathically, yes, because THAT [holding up two fingers side by side] is how tight we are Blogger, so THERE) and decided that WE MUST DO SOMETHING! But then reality reminded us that WE ARE LAZY. So then we came up with the BRILLIANT idea that OTHER PEOPLE should DO SOMETHING!! You, my friends, are other people. And at first we were going to dump all responsibility for doing something in your laps. But then Google redeemed itself (slightly) and presented me with a site called Save Journeyman. These folks are ALSO other people. Other people who ARE NOT as lazy as we are. And they are DOING SOMETHING!!! They are doing a Rice-a-Roni mailing campaign. I urge you to join in. Apparently, it was mailing nuts that saved the show Jericho, which I never watched and so don't care about except as it pertains to mailing food items to save a television show. There's even a place where you can just donate and SOMEONE ELSE will buy and mail the Rice-a-Roni for you. It just doesn't get any easier.

So PLEASE, PLEASE go forth and save this show. If not for yourself and the chance to watch (if you haven't seen the show) or continue to watch (if you have) intelligent and intriguing programming, then for Tessie and myself and OUR viewing pleasure. Because we deserve it. And so do you.