Green Room - Week 12 - Day 7

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I'm looking over the polls and this week has every indication of a nail-biting down to the wire (and maybe even beyond if immunities are thrown into the mix) batch of crazy.

My own advice is to make sure to take the time to read and encourage other people to do so as well. Read. Comment and vote. It's the best of all possible worlds for your favorites! http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/424270.html

Which means that it's the best of all possible worlds for you so that the Idol Mob doesn't show up to see if you want to sleep with the fishes.

I have no idea who this Idol Mob might be, and imagine that there are probably some people out there with a lifestyle/fetish/whatever for actually sleeping with fishes. This is something completely different than you and your scaly friends!

I imagine though that the Idol Mob has old timey gangster hats and instead of tommy-guns carry laptops and iPads so they can get their entries in on time even if they are in the middle of whacking someone.

Which of course also sounds completely inappropriate.

Possibly inappropriate, but definitely something that Idol Mob will find interesting, is the other entries this week - http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/424567.html over in the last weeks of Second Chance-land.

Completely appropriate for any situation is a column from a really good RL friend of mine. Either that or the boyfriend of a really good RL friend of mine. Depending on which one of them I'm claiming as a friend at the moment. :)

Usually I don't hype this sort of thing here. But every once in awhile I make an exception. In this case, I just think it's really fun and I think a lot of people here will like it, and help it go viral or come down with some sort of virus or whatever it is that you kids do these days with your newfangled magick light boxes.

Geek Valentines Day cards - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/42852/inspire-geek-love-with-these-hilarious-geek-valentines/
Because like it or not, it's coming. So link it all over the place out there in cyber-land.
Read and vote first, obviously. But if you have a little extra time, go do that too. :)

Results - Week 12

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

What a brutal week.


Thanks to kithan being a fundamentally bad person, as well as a Packers fan (nothing wrong with the Packers, other than that they won. They completely deserved to do so. But that doesn't change the fact that kithan is rotten to the core.) we are losing two people from each tribe.


Which means that some folks that I expected to see getting much further into the competition will be leaving us today.


I would say that "I'm sad to see you go", but apparently since I say that to everyone it's become a drinking game. So I'll just think it really hard.


Because every single person to takes part in Idol during any given season adds something valuable to the mix and is a part of what makes it special.


Fortunately, they can continue to hang out and write for the Home Game, so it's more of moving them from the "active" column to the "no longer participating but still around" column. Still, it's one of the worst parts of the job.

But the time is here for the announcement, so here it is:

The contestants leaving us this week are a combination of newbies, veterans and vet/newbies:

dawnstar4idol
mephron
banyangirl1832
streetnights
i_id
scriblesnbraile (leaving the game with a "immunity - others" token in pocket)
pricelessone

and m_malcontent WOULD HAVE BEEN GOING, BUT thanks to participating in an "off week" over Christmas, received one of the special powers. In this case, a personal immunity token. Which he notified me that he would be using.
That means that the person using can not be eliminated this week.
So it goes to the person with the *next* lowest vote total.

In this case, that means that az_starshine who is saying goodbye.

Vote - Second Chance Idol - Week 5

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

A few words from clauderainsrm:

It's getting down to the wire in Second Chance Idol.

But for all the pressure, there still is a bit of Softness around the edges.

Or at least that was the jumping off point for the week.

Where they went from there - well, that was up to them. But you knew it was going to be interesting!!

This week the ante is upped just a little bit more.

The Top 6 will have the opportunity to join the main competition and the Bottom Six will be eliminated.

Given the number of contestants left at this point, that's a pretty sizable group!

Especially with nannerz2cool, queen_pepita, purplehaze9 and zehlyah bowing out.

The poll closes Saturday Feb 12th at 5pm EST.
Good luck to everyone!

( Click here to Vote! )

Topic - Week 13

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

You ready for the new topic?

Yeah. I thought you were.

I would go into the makings of this week's topic, and how it was selected - but that's pretty much

Inside Baseball

and I doubt it would be of much interest to most of you.

As it happens though, this week's topic actually IS "Inside Baseball"!!!

So you got lucky! :)

The deadline to link your entry to this post is Saturday Feb 12th at 6pm EST.

Have fun!

Work Room - Week 13

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

There is a new topic http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/425810.html
Saying goodbye to the people leaving us http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/425238.html
and of course making a decision about who might be *joining* us http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/425695.html

So there's a lot on the plate.

But there is also the Work Room. Your space to discuss your entries and writing in general.

A few weeks back I introduced the concept of the "Mentor Program". I think it went fairly well and have been having some conversations with various people, trying to convince them to step into the role of herding cats for a week.

This week, I am completely honored to be able to say that I was able to talk one of my personal favorite Idol contestants, ever, into taking the time to be our Guest Mentor.

You know him. You love him. Or at least you better because the guy is just plain good.

He needs no introduction. But he's getting one anyway.

Welcome to the Work Room alexpgp!!


***

"Right now, I'm feeling a little like a goofy private that has agreed to set off at the suggestion of platoon sergeant Gary on a jaunt, under a sunny cerulean sky, across a summery green, flower-dotted field whose soil may potentially be riddled with high-explosive mines.

So why'd I volunteer? You don't want to know.

(You do? Well, it's because I don't know if I'll be any good or not at this "mentoring" gig, okay? Mentoring is not something people learn to do, generally speaking, and among people that learn to do anything at all, surprisingly few can put their knowledge to good use with others.
In the end, though, it boils down to this: there have been moments in my life when a sentence or two from a full-dues-paid someone who's been there has had a positive impact on my life, and while it may be my ego talking, I think I'm capable of having that effect on someone else. In any event, if I don't try, I'll never know. So there.)

You might be wondering, what do I like to read? Generally speaking, I like to read pieces that pull me through to the end and make me either laugh, cheer, or think. Said in a slightly different way, I'm a huge fan of Elmore Leonard's tenth rule of writing, which exhorts (marvelous word) writers to "try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." Obey that rule, and my eyeballs will follow you to hell and back.

As mezzominty before me, I shall do my best to either offer something constructive or admit to being out of my element. I shall endeavor to share my opinions civilly (and if I don't, take it as a compliment, because it means your writing made me forget my manners). Either way, recipients of said remarks are exhorted (there's that word again) to refrain from attempting to read anything other than their plain, evident meaning into them, as severe pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis may result otherwise.

Excelsior!"