I don’t watch American Idol. I have about seven billion reasons not to, and at least nine hundred alternative activities for when then show is on. Somewhere on that list is “Massage Aunt Edna’s corns.” And I don’t even have an Aunt Edna. Anyone’s Aunt Edna will do.

Part of it is because I consider myself a bit of a musician. Sure, I haven’t done much over the last two years, but I think writing more than 120 songs and over 14 years of experience on guitar qualifies me. Call me crazy. While there is a lot of talent — everyone who made it past the tryouts can sing far better than me — I just don’t see the big deal. I see it almost as a mockery of the music industry (which in itself is a mockery of what the industry could and should be, and I use most bands out today as exhibits A through Z and then some) and I see a lot of irony in the fact that many of the losers are far better off than the winners after their first year, because they get contracts completely separate from Simon the Hun and his traveling circus.

Really, the only part of the show that is remotely entertaining to me is the first few episodes, and only then because I can stroke my own ego. It’s always nice to know that, while I’m no Luciano Pavarotti, I’m a better singer than 90 percent of the people who try out.

With that in mind, I have to finally voice the opinion of the masses: stop voting for Sanjaya! Partly because the boy just isn’t even top-10 worthy, and partly because he looks like the love-child of Diana Ross and James Brown (and got the worst of both worlds). And before anyone says so, I am aware he is Indian, not black. But the unfortunate similarities to the aforementioned are striking no matter what the ethnic background may be.

No, I don’t give a rat’s behind about the show, nor do I care who wins. But apparently the people who are voting for him — purely for the shock value, no doubt — fail to realize that, should he manage to win, we will have to listen to him and look at him for at least the next year. Please, for the sake of all of us, stop voting for someone who no one honestly wants to listen to.

That, and without him the show wouldn’t be half the story that it is this year. And the sooner American Idol dies, the sooner I can sleep peacefully at night.

And now, on with the show…

…For ‘panty-raiding’ above and beyond the call of duty
A Washington man was arrested and charged with theft and burglary after police found him in possession of 93 pounds — that’s five trash bags — of women’s undergarments. Police are now(I soooo wish I was kidding) trying to identify the victims by matching the garments to their respective owners. I have nothing else to add, because nothing else can possibly be said.

NASA’s workmanship is obviously slipping
While viewing satellite photos of Saturn, researchers found a mysterious hexagon atop one of the planet’s magnetic poles. Some researchers are attempting to identify the cause, from magnetic pull within the planet to strange Coriolis effects. I, for one, am now convinced that NASA did indeed fake the entire moon landing. The photo is nothing more than an still taken of an elaborate backdrop of planets for the grand hoax, and the shape is nothing more than the nut holding the two halves of the planet together.

Hypocrisy at its finest
Two of the biggest champions of efforts to stop global warming these days are Al Gore and John Travolta. Both ‘believe’ in the idea of reducing or eliminating your ‘Carbon Footprint’, or a measure of the amount of carbon emissions you are responsible for — both from transportation and from electricity use, which is usually generated by the burning of fossil fuels. What do they do when they aren’t lecturing on the evils of burning fossil fuels? Gore burns through the equivalent of 20 homes worth of natural gas monthly in his Tennessee mansion; Travolta flies any one of his five personal jets, including a Boeing 707 that was originally designed to carry hundreds of people.

And finally…

This panda ain’t no prude!
Ninety-three pounds of women’s underthings can only be out-WTF-ed by one thing: Panda Porn! Because I once again cannot possibly add anything else to this to make it any funnier or stranger, I bid you adieu