“Uh, in the same place it’s been for months, where do you think?”

“You think it’s in the CD player?”

“Yeah, I haven’t taken it out soooo…”

“Jack’s Mannequin has been in the CD player for months.”

“Yeah…”

“I’m asking you about the Alkaline Trio CD.”

“Yeah…”

“Have you been thinking that the CD we’ve been listening to in the car for the last few months was Alkaline Trio?”

“Yeah…”

“But… it’s Jack’s Mannequin.”

“Yeah…”

“Um, completely different?”

“Eh… ?”

“Oh, my god. Oh, sweet fancy Jesus.”

(I know that very few of you will understand this, but still, some of you out there are all, “Oh, sweet fancy Jesus!”)

No?

Well, whatever. It would at least serve my purposes in terms of post title.

Anyway, this guy is adorable. I was originally considering his Mario Kart Love Song as a first dance song, but I think that maybe it is too long, or the jokes too obscure*. Regardless, he is TOO CUTE.

And in my grand tradition of writing about Britain’s Got Talent and basically ignoring America’s Got Talent, because I am OVER your talent, America, check out Spellbound and Christopher Stone, neither of which I can embed but are worth your click, for astoundingness and “OH I AM SO IN YOUR CORNER, SHY LITTLE MAN!!”-ness, respectively.

And ALSO, I was damned to hell by no less than four skrillion people on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, for spreading this around, so why would I not also unleash it on all of you who may or may not have seen it yet, because even though I KNOW what will happen, I continually watch it because oh my god, you guys, the Santa girl.

I am an asshole, I am an asshole eight hundred times over, but now you are in this snot pit with me, and that is worth it. To me.

And have I talked about Jordan Frisbee & Tatiana Mollman on here at all? I like to watch for videos of the new routine each year – they eventually make their way to YouTube and they’re always fantastic. I’m not even INTO dancing, if a person who is not a dancer of any kind CAN actually be into dancing, but oh man, I get a kick out of these two:

Also, check out this completely improvised dancing between the two of them. For the love of pete, Phil and I can’t even kiss each other without awkwardly smashing face parts off of other face parts, or sleep in the same bed without SOMEONE’S elbow crossing the clearly defined line, directly into the ribcage of someone else, an innocent second party who STICKS TO HER SIDE.

I meant for this post to introduce you to all of the stuff I have found to be interesting on YouTube recently, but instead, have ended up somewhat depressed at my complete lack of discernible, video-worthy talents. What have you found on YouTube recently that makes you realize how little you have managed to do with your life? A six year old who wrote an opera? A blind trapeze artist?

(*I am also considering Skullcrusher Mountain.)

But every year about this time, I end up talking to you about the same thing – Britain’s Got Talent.

First, in 2007, I wrote to you about Paul Potts. You can see that video here.

The next year, 2008, it was George Sampson who got my attention. Oh, George Sampson, are you 18 yet? My goodness. He was on one year and just ADORABLE, and then the next year he was like, 15 feet taller and 15 times more adorable. He’s just about the cutest thing on two dancey legs, I swear. I still remember when he popped up on the screen for the second year in a row, I immediately remembered him from the year before and shrieked, “IT’S GEORGE!!!” Since I get all of my Britain’s Got Talent-ness from YouTube, I very carefully avoided spoilering myself and watched all the videos, all the way through to his amazing semi-finals performance, which I still watch from time to time. You can see that here.

Of course, do I even need to talk about 2009 at all? Susan Boyle? Of course. I don’t really have anything else to say on that point, because we all know Susan Boyle by now, and if you haven’t watched that video at least 15 times, I am doubtful of your humanity.

Every year, it doesn’t even occur to me to go looking for that year’s crop of videos. Every single year, finding a video that absolutely blew me away or made my day or made me laugh my ass off has been an absolute surprise. In that tradition, today was no different. It was absolutely by accident that I stumbled across this video today and it made my entire day. My day continues to be made. It will be made some more when I watch the video again as soon as I post this.

Click the picture to go through to YouTube, as I can’t embed the video. I promise, the tendon-strain of a single click is totally worth it. If it isn’t, I owe you one click.

I am pretty sure if I tried to move to the UK, they would send me away for complete lack of talent.

If I am not that awesome when I am 80, IT WON’T EVEN BE WORTH BEING 80.

I don’t know if what I’m about to say crosses some unspoken boundary Phil might have about what I’m allowed to put on the Internet.

HOWEVER, I’m not in bed because just coming up the STAIRS I was hit in the face with a wall of his butt-smell so thick the air is hazy.

Maybe as a man, that’s something he’ll be proud of when he wakes up. As a woman, I’m afraid laying too close to him might clog my pores.

LINK TO SOMEONE ELSE THURSDAY EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE PROBABLY READING THIS ON FRIDAY

So last week? I was really busy on Thursday, so I told myself I would just invent something called LINK TO SOMEONE ELSE THURSDAY and even though I probably wouldn’t do it every week, it would at least be convenient to have such a tradition established just in case laziness/busy-ness ever again fell on a Thursday. And? Thinking in an even more creative fashion? Since it’s my blog, if I didn’t have anything to write on a Tuesday, I could call that Tuesday LINK TO SOMEONE ELSE THURSDAY and it would be fine, because it’s my blog.

But you know what? Today is Thursday (EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE PROBABLY READING THIS ON FRIDAY) and I didn’t even manage the relatively small task of linking to someone else. I mean, talk about setting the bar low and then failing to meet even your own expectations, and do you know how most people have expectations for you, but your own expectations for yourself are actually way higher? I’m totally the opposite of that. I expect way less from me than other people do. That’s why you’re always so disappointed in me, but I remain relatively happy and carefree.

Honestly, you could learn something from me, Internet. It may sound like I’m trying to teach a course in Setting Ridiculously Small Goals and Not Even Bothering to Pretend to Achieve Them, and at first glance, that doesn’t sound like much. But if you really think it about it, Internet, aren’t I just teaching you that it’s okay to be you?

Temerity Jane – come for the humor and fart talk, stay for the moral at the end. I’m basically the Aesop of the Internet.

Anyway, Internet, the point is that early in the day, I made the mistake of listening to “Who Wants to Live Forever,” and if you didn’t know, that will basically shut down your entire day.

I was way too busy being morose and watching early episodes of Full House thinking about how sad it is the John Stamos doesn’t even realize that his mullet which seems so hip and happenin’ and bad boy stylin’ in the early 90s was going to be so mockworthy before he was even dead. And that little Stephanie Tanner has no idea she’s going to grow up to be a meth head.

WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER INDEED, MR. MERCURY.

You may be asking yourself, with the ridiculous amount of half-baked, not quite enough to build a sentence around, let alone a post kind of stuff that’s been showing up here, how is it possible that there are things I hold back? Well, Internet, I am an extremely surprising person.

So when one of these things occurs, I need to try to develop it into a fully baked, or at least two-thirds baked idea, because while I like to believe that my blog presents an accurate picture of who I am and what I’m all about, we don’t want anything getting TOO REAL around here and making people uncomfortable, and the truth is, Internet, I’m pretty far from a fully baked person. Another option is to wait around for another series of events to happen which I can somehow coherently, or, at least, the definition of “coherent” we use around these parts, relate into a cohesive blog post.

Or? OR?

I can just smack them all down in one post and call it blog soup, so this has basically been a huge lead in to tell you that I am totally about to give you blog scraps, and don’t even THINK you’re above blog scraps, Internet, because there are people in Africa who don’t even HAVE blogs.

*****

There are two things that are kind of semi-related that I’ve been thinking about lately, and maybe you can come up with more examples. I think it mostly comes down to marketing people and figuring out exactly what planet they are living on, and if they’re even come to Earth to work every day or just telecommuting, which would totally explain why they seem to have completely lost touch.

Example one: The SciFi channel is now the SyFy channel. Ok, SciFi? Is already an abbreviation. A widely accepted, widely known abbreviation for the genre that YOUR TELEVISION STATION FOCUSES ON. So now you’ve changed it to an incorrectly spelled abbreviation? Are you now showing SyFy programming instead of SciFi programming?

No. You’re not. Do you know why? Because SYFY ISN’T EVEN A THING.

Who told you that would be a good idea? No, no, let’s set aside why you thought it was going to be a good idea. Tell me what it was supposed to accomplish. I don’t get the goal. It’s like when Stephanie Tanner wanted to change her name to Dawn.

But she was a little GIRL, in the FOURTH GRADE. You are a television station, and you’re not even in a grade.

Also, example two? I was watching Fox, because that seems to be where all the good shows are, and promos were on for upcoming shows – So You Think You Can Dance, specifically – and the voice over guy kept referring to it as “Dance.” Do they do that because it’s supposed to catch on? Is Fox trying to tell us that they want us to refer to that show as “Dance?”

Well, you know what, Fox, then you should have named it Dance, because screw you.

*****

Remember how I talked about how scary it would be to find Michael Stipe in your closet?

And how I said I’d tell my kids that he would get in if they didn’t close their closet door?

I totally wrote (and by wrote, I actually mean “bellowed at the top of my lungs as it entered my head”) a song about it in the car last night.

To the tune of “The One I Love,” by R.E.M., because I’m a WORDsmith, not a musicalnotesmith.

This is why we close our closet doors.
This is why we close them up so tight at night.
Because if you don’t
Michael Stipe will get in
This is why we close our closet doors.

CHORUS

STIIII-IIIII-IIIIIIII-IIIIIIIIIIPE,
STIIII-IIIII-IIIIIIII-IIIIIIIIIIPE.

It’s not really a song, exactly.

It’s a LULLABY.

*****

Skid Row – An awesome sequel to AWESOME.

Awesomeness Redux.

Awesome, all over again.

You’re welcome.

Three awesome things for you today.

So, I live in Arizona, where the United States comes to volunteer where barely needed and then die, either of old age of by driving their damn golf carts on the road.

Oh, wait.

I’m sorry.

Golf CARS.

Anyway, what do old people like? They like senior specials at Denny’s. They like taking all of the early salon appointments. And they like home shopping networks.

Seriously, Internet, I have never seen so many home shopping channels all at once, ever. THERE IS A KNIFE CHANNEL.

The best ones, though, are the jewelry ones. The live auctions hold my attention for about a minute, but there’s another one that I watch before bed every. single. night.

What it is is this over excited obnoxious woman (there’s several, but they’re all the same, really), showing off different pieces of jewelry like you would on QVC or something. She talks about it a bit, how it’s just about the best thing ever ever and oh my god if you miss it, you’ll be so sorry. Then, the screen changes and these words flash across the screen:

“LET’S PLAY THE GAME!”

So, then the price comes up and a quantity, and the lady keeps talking about it and talking about it, harassing you to call in. AND? As she’s talking? The price DROPS. And you call in and I guess you press a button or something to say you want one, and the whole time, the price drops and drops until all of them are gone and then EVERYONE gets the LOWEST PRICE!

I, of course, have never called. My enjoyment comes solely from elbowing Phil just as he as falling asleep.

TJ: LOOK! Look at that ring!
Phil: Ugh… what about it?
TJ: It’s an 11 carat glacier topaz!
Phil: It’s a what?
TJ: OH LOOK! The price just dropped a hundred dollars! Give me your credit card!
Phil: No! Go to sleep!
TJ: THEY’VE ONLY GOT 3 LEFT! I’M PANICKING! I’M PANICKING! GLACIER TOPAZ!
Phil: Do you even know what a glacier topaz IS?
TJ: You can only get it from a specific spot in Russia! THERE’S ONLY TWO LEFT!
Phil: Uh huh…
TJ: You can only get it a few months a year because of the storms! ONE LEFT! PRICE CRASH! AAAAHHH!
Phil: *mumble*
TJ: Aw, they’re gone– HEY LOOK AT THAT NECKLACE!
Phil: *snore*

Second, it has been way too long since I have done this for you:

If you’re in London, it would be extra silly of you to miss out on seeing Julia Nunes. You know it would.
(if you can’t see the video, well, there is one there. So, you know. Curse your feed reader.)

And the last, super special, extra awesome thing is after the jump.

FOOLED YOU.

IT’S THIS!

(Again, a video. Sorry if your feed reader hates you.)

Got you again, Internet. Got you again.

Or, if you’re a newer reader, got you for the first time.

But rest assured, I’ll get you again.

Your pal,
TJ

PS – addendum

TJ: What? I LIKE this song.
Phil: I know.
TJ: Well you LOOKED at me.
Phil: I LIKE looking at you.
TJ: *scowl*

*silence*

TJ: Well, how do you like YOUR french toast?

PPS – “How do you like YOUR french toast?” is the new “So’s your face” in this house.

So, as probably evidenced in part by my love of Julia Nunes, I have a thing for cover songs. Not just some other band singing a different band’s song, though. I like cover songs that make a distinct change to the original.

For example of what I’m not a huge fan of – one of my favorite bands when I was in college was The Ataris, and they kind of operated under the radar a bit until they put out their cover of Boys of Summer:

It’s good, I like it. I’ve always liked The Ataris. However… they didn’t really DO anything with it, now did they? The original was a good song, thus this is also a good song, but… it’s kind of the same song, just in Kris Roe’s voice instead of Don Henley’s. So, I liked this one just because I like The Ataris.

But then you’ve got a different kind of cover all together. A band I really love, I have a tattoo of their logo even, is Alkaline Trio. They came out with a new CD this year and I got a chance to see them live, and it was awesome. They sound fantastic live, their new album is fantastic, I’ve really been continually enjoying it. And today, on a friend’s myspace page, I stumbled across this video. This girl takes my favorite song from the album and covers it, changing it just enough that there’s enough of the original song to remind me of why I love the song, and enough of her own twist on it to make it a new and different listen:

Original

And then you’ve got these guys I found on YouTube a couple of weeks ago and kept meaning to tell you guys about. They’re called Tennessippi and they at once crack me up and seriously impress me.

This is their copy of Chris Brown’s Kiss Kiss:

Obviously, if you look at the original here, they’ve definitely put their own… er… spin on it.

And they’ve done it again, as well, with Baby Bash’s Cyclone. I LOVE this one.

Original here.

So hopefully that makes it clear what I mean about cover songs – I like them, with specific qualifications:

1. That the new artist put a distinctive spin on it, and
2. That the new artist not make it suck.

So, what I want to know from you, Internet, is if you’d mind pointing me in the direction of interesting covers. To make it more difficult, let’s assume I am completely aware of Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies and things of that nature, such as NFG’s “From the Screen to Your Stereo” albums.

What can you come up with for me?

The Redhead: well that makes all the difference.

TJ: Don’t sass. It’s so unattractive.

The Redhead: i’ll sass all i want to, missy!

TJ: …. missy?

The Redhead: yeah i dunno
sometimes i get tired of calling you a slut
and i don’t really have a fallback

TJ: Lack of planning and preparation is no reason to morph into someone’s 80 year old spinster aunt.

The Redhead: well i’ve never needed a reason to do that before.

TJ: I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY TO YOU RIGHT NOW.