Eurovision

Last Saturday the BBC broadcast the finals of the Eurovision song contest. For those of you not familiar with this phenomenon, Eurovision is a pop song contest amongst European countries (with some random entrants like Israel, Armenia, Azerbaijan -- are the honorary Europeans?). Each country selects an artist and song to represent at the competition and then the winner is selected by votes cast by telephone. The thing is that people cannot vote for the contestant from their own country. So, what happens is that people vote for countries that they like, or for countries from which a number of people in the country come from (ie, German usually casts a large number of votes for Turkey). Nothing like a little geopolitics to go with your fluffy pop music. Russia won and all the neighboring countries voted for the Russian song.

What is so fantastic about this contest is the crazy variety of cheesy pop songs coupled with the snarky commentary from the BBC presenter. Some of the songs are awful, and some songs are done tongue in cheek. Spain's entry was one of the tongue in cheek variety.


Azerbaijan took themselves a little too seriously (this is so awful):


Latvia gave us a little Pirate Pop! Soooo cheesy:


Here's the BBC presenter for Eurovision:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/eurovision/index_aa.shtml

Pronunciation, addendum

I forgot to add this one. There is a very small play center near our house that the girls have been to a few times. The main reason they remember it well is that this play center hosts birthday parties, and several of Anna and Elsa's friends have had their parties there.

The play center is called the Lollipop Club. This name is proving to be quite a tongue-twister for Anna. She usually calls it the Plopliplop Glub, or some variation of that. Makes me laugh.

Pronunciation

Anna generally does not have problems pronouncing words, but there are a few that remain steadfast stumbling blocks.

Piano = pinatio (like a combo piano and patio)
Mozzarella = macarona (which makes me think of the Macarena - hey macarona!!)
Her close friend Kaitlyn is still known as "Cake-lyn".

Antidote

As an antidote for my sadness, I'm publishing pictures of Anna and Elsa that were taken the weekend before last at our local May Fair. They had a blast.

These two girls make my heart sing with love each and every day.

Don't Go

Someone I've known for a majority of my life died this weekend. He took his own life. I think this came as a shock to everyone who knew him. It is so strange to think that he is gone. It is so sad to think that he was in such pain from depression that this was his solution. I am simply heartbroken for his family.

I wish he could have heard how many people would have said to him: "don't go." Then, said again: "DON'T GO." No, really, "DO ... NOT ... GO!" I wish he could hear all his loved ones saying that it is ok to feel as sad as he felt. Please don't go. I wish he could hear all of his friends' voices saying that they love him and please let them help. Please don't go. I wish he could hear his family asking him to share his pain with them and telling him how much they need him. Please don't go.

He was warm, funny, generous, gregarious, smart and one of the most charming people I have ever met.

I wish he wasn't gone.