Karaoke and Other Entertainment

We've been doing quite a bit of karaoke. Every year, we each pick a song and it gets recorded, then we usually watch it and someone supposedly edits it down to a neat little DVD or, in years gone by, a video. I've seen some and I have some.

This year, the attendance was so sporadic that not everyone was able to get theirs done. I, of course, did my song. I wasn't thrilled with it, but it was a decent performance. I couldn't even tell you what it was that I sang, only that I sang.

The big new fun twist on the karaoke is a video game. There are two versions. One is American Idol where you pick a character and a song and you sing and then the three judges say things about you and you get scored. After that, you get to advance or you're thrown off. We had it set on Medium because all they do on the Easy setting is pet you and tell you you've got "potential" and on the Hard setting they lambaste you no matter what you do. I was doing fine until Julie (one of Patty's sisters) told me to sing a particular song and I took her advice. Julie assumed that I had been a normal teenager. She didn't realize that I was raised under a Southern Baptist rock, and that my musical tastes are forever scarred by that. I was told by the judges that I couldn't sing and that I should give up all dreams of ever singing again. Essentially, I sucked. Patty ended up winning, even though she did it with my character.

Last night, we played the other version. I chose my own songs carefully and I won. Barely. Julie was right behind me and I even sang the song that she sang, which is a form of cheating. But I won and that's what's important.

These games are really strange. You have to sing the song exactly as the original singer sang it. Even if your version is nicer or more fitting to your voice (as some of mine were), if you do not sing exactly as it thinks you should, you have points deducted. For instance, when I sang, I Will Always Love You, I had to do it exactly as Whitney Houston sang it (when she covered the original Dolly Parton version.) All the trills and everything. Not easy. Sort of impossible really. Whitney probably couldn't even do that.

Today we saw Lars and the Real Girl. You know who was fun to watch in that? Kelli Garner. Yesterday Fred went with most of the other men and saw No Country for Old Men, which was a little too violent for me.

So I made my deadline. It's before midnight in Amsterdam and I've posted.