A Simple Confession

I have to say that even this caught me by surprise, but it seems one night whilst blogging away, I happened to leave the TV on Fox a bit beyond a showing of The Simpsons. Happened to be during the early weeks of American Idol, normally a show I couldn't care less about. Apparently all it took was one of the female singers to pick an old Tiffany song ("Could've Been") and sing the hell out of it, so now I find myself deeply immersed in American Idol culture for a series run.

Carrie Underwood is the rooting interest. Honestly, I'm not sure her performances after that initial viewing are encouraging me that she'll be on for much longer. Still ... I'll seek out the appropriate help once the series is over and done with.

ADD-ON: Despite this one apolitical indulgence of mine (which quickly led to calls for me to shut the site down), I think it's worth pointing out that Ed Kilgore over at NewDonkey.com is offering something of an alternative and sticking to tried and true political interest stories like Social Security debates, bankruptcy reform, intriguing GAO reports, and whatnot. Here ... I'll let Ed say it as only Ed can:

I don't care if political news gets so slow that I'm writing about GAO reports on traffic-light synchronization; I just won't go to Santa Maria. Although it violates the religio-ethical principal of Avoiding the Near Occasion of Sin, I am not swearing off references to anyone named "Jackson." Jesse, Scoop, Andy--these are all legitimate Jacksonian topics. But no Moonwalking, I swear. In taking this hard line against Jackocentrism, I expect at least a few emails accusing me of blogo-snobbery. That's not fair. I'm one of the few political bloggers who regularly uses "ain't" and "sho nuff" and other crackerisms. Unlike David Sirota, I learned my populism at my grand-daddy's knee back in the day, not by working on some 2004 campaign. And with March Madness on the horizon, I'll certainly be watching a lot of cheesy beer-and-junk-food commercials and heading for the kitchen with Pavlovian regularity. But you have to draw a line somewhere, and as Martin Luther famously said: "Here I stand; no other can I do."

There ya go, folks ... something for everybody. Unlike Ed, I will be occassionally dropping references to Nicole Kidman, Carrie Underwood, and other assorted attractive females as I see fit.