Ms. Mandee

Twitter, how I love thee..

2010-02-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

Thank you Twitter @God for all that you do. Like bringing me one degree closer to my favorite celebrities, using only 140 characters and my sharp wit. I believe I'm the first and only person to be RT-ed by the American Idol himself--more specifically, my FAVORITE American Idol who is becoming one of my overall favorite artists ever. Two words: Red Guitar. Also, let it be known that I was holding a Greek yogurt in the dairy aisle of the food store while I tweeted that. I really don't think it'd be too much to ask for the aisle to be renamed to appropriately celebrate this momentous occasion.

I love that the Allens love me. Kris, you're forever my SHOE-in.

For me for you, dawg.. What the phuck?!

2010-01-04T18:51:00.000-08:00

What a Happy Monday we had today! A bunch of twitroversies bubbling over. First, Neil Lambert shamed a Glambert who stupidly Facebooked his ass right after being told not to, Adam Lambert's label shamed ALL the Glamberts after their spamming of the Open House Party twitter account disqualified Adam's single from its countdown, and @Glambert696969 declared a plague o' both @jambajim and all of Arkansas' houses as payback for their Kris-Allen-loving cheese dip breath.. so really, it was just a typical day in the land of Idol crazy.

BUT, then we got the Dawg himself, Randy Jackson, tweeting about Grammy nominations.

Ok, cool. He wants to hear his followers' opinions and get a feel for what his fan base is thinking. No biggie. But then..

Uh, what??? "Help Me!!" Really? A judge from television's most watched show that happens to be based on finding America's next singing superstar needs to beg for help from his Twitter followers when it comes to rating music? Seriously?

Hey Stupid!

I'm not saying that being a judge on American Idol makes Randy Jackson the most eloquent person or a musical genius (for me for you, us viewers all know that's not true), but come-the-freak-on! I'm sorry, Randy, I so appreciate and am honored that you, the dawg of all dawgs is following me on Twitter, but I can't let you slide on this one. What is going on here? Grammy winners and voting methods have been questioned over the past few years, and if Randy Jackson is even a slight representation of what really goes on behind the scenes, then we've got problems. Big ones. See below to get a better idea of this chaos.

Aww, look at that Randy go. He's obviously taking this so seriously and concentrating so hard on those nominees for the biggest music industry awards show out there.. so much so that he had time to give some randomly stupid shoutout to @LambertIsTheSex. Understand that I'm questioning both the owner of that username and Randy's state of mind when I ask: REALLY?!?!?!?!?!!

Randy has worked with some of the hugest names in music. I know this not only from Wikipedia, but mostly because he used to name drop about 500 times an episode in earlier Idol seasons. I'm really curious as to where things got a little cloudy for him. Is he too preoccupied with how to change up his Cowell "Booooooo" for Season 9? Or is he too preoccupied with randomly tweeting creepy usernames back to actually listen to and evaluate the nominees, ESPECIALLY those for record of the year?

I seriously am going to be ill.

This guy gets paid millions to judge people based on their MUSICALITY, their marketability, and their SINGING ability yet he has to go to complete randoms on the Internet to fill out his Grammy ballot? You might as well check off Taylor Swift for every single category and be done with it. My stomach can't take much more, especially with the Idol audition rounds right around the corner.

This whole episode just furthers my belief that they should have an Viewer Guest Judge at least once a season on Idol. Us crazy Idol viewers have the strongest opinions and the most to say. Plus, we are the ones buying these Idols' albums once all is said and done. Hell, I bought Kris, Adam AND Allison's CDs, not to mention the many iTunes video downloads from during the season. Don't the producers want to know what we as their target audience think? Last time I checked, the judges were waxing poetic every single week about Danny Fucking Gokey.. yeah, he's just tearing up Billboard's Hot 100, isn't he? Except NOT. I won't go into that though. Only so much hate can be contained in one post.

Randy's absurdity today is a perfect example of how he's becoming more and more irrelevant on that panel. With all of his high calibur industry experience, he can't even judge today's biggest names in music--how is he expected to judge and decide if the nobodies from throughout the country are worthy of the "chance of a lifetime"?

Ughhhh. I don't know why I bother. Shouldn't be surprised, I suppose.

Whatever you say, dawg.

Mail delivery from the 2009 American Idol? Sure, why not!

2009-12-29T10:55:00.000-08:00

Seriously, people, it's not everyday that you come home from work, and your family informs you that "something from a Kris Allen in California came in the mail for you today." Let me start at the beginning...

It all began with a little tweet from Kris Allen's lovely wife, @KatyAllen.

Hey Katy!

From cruising my Tweeter updates on a sleepless night, I learned that Katy was having a hard time finding Christmas gifts for her uncle and her father. Understandable. For this exact reason, I get my dad a wallet... every.single.year. So, Katy decided to turn to the lovely world of Twitter for gift suggestions. Browsing her @replies, I could tell everyone was trying very hard to think of the best O'Connell man-gift ever. Like, trying really hard. But being that I have no idea what any of those men are into, nor am I any good at shopping for men in general (see: wallet reference above) I decided to go my typical route: be ridiculous. It comes naturally.

First thing that popped into my mind was a lovely work of art called the Cupcake Car:

Featured in Neiman Marcus' Christmas Book this year, the Cupcake Car is a dessert on wheels -- traveling at speeds up to 7 miles with a little price tag of $25,000.00. Everyone likes cupcakes. Everyone needs transportation. Everyone enjoys a sprinkle hat. I knew I had no other choice but to introduce Katy Allen to the Cupcake Car. The next morning I woke up to random users congratulating me. Whaaaa?

Wellllll, I had won the honor of "#1 Funniest Gift Idea." I wooooooon! Wait, what did I win?????????? I didn't know I was competing. Clicking frantically through my tweet list, I finally realized that each winner would get a copy of Kris' CD Brand New Shoes.. and that Kris Allen himself had offered to sign them.

For all your normal people who don't live to read every single bit of trivia on American Idol contestants, Brand New Shoes is the CD that Kris put out on his own back in 2007. This was very much pre-idol and is very much a rare find--only a couple hundred copies were made. Fans found mp3s on the internet, but only one original has seen the light of E-bay.. and now I was going to have one. Autographed. By Kris. Sent to me BY HIS WIFE?!?!?!?!!? CRAZINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!! As a total Kris superfan and Idol fanatic, I was literally skipping around the house. Probably one of the most awesome and completely unexpected surprises.. of my year. Does that sound lame? I don't care, it's the truth! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I, the idol groupie of the century, came home to a package from Kris Allen waiting for me.

Hey Kris!

So Thank You to Katy Allen and Kris Allen who offered to do this when they most definitely did not have to. For people like me who watch every single episode of American Idol, who actually pick up the phone and vote, who pick favorites and follow them post-Idol and who continue to do this despite getting mocked relentlessly by their friends and coworkers for all of this, the CD is such a special gift. Who would've thought 140 characters and a pricey mobile dessert could bring me so much joy?!