I ADMIT THAT I AM SQUEALING WITH DELIGHT

AND JUMPING UP AND DOWN.


Update 10/10/09: Twitter trending topics as of 10:36 am Central (It's been bumping around the top 10 for 18 hours or so)


Update 10/11/09: Google knows. Adam is the top suggestion when you search just "ad":
I wonder if, before 2010 is over, Google will return "Adam Lambert" with merely an "a" in the search box.

Update 10/13/09:
(h/t ontd_ai)
From Wikipedia:

Greg Wells is a musician and Grammy nominated record producer and mixer [1] based in Los Angeles. Wells has produced, mixed and written hits with Katy Perry, OneRepublic, Mika, Pink, Colbie Caillat, Jamie Cullum, Deftones, Otep, The Veronicas, Jessie Baylin, Rufus Wainwright, Kyosuke Himuro and Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, Creeper Lagoon, Natasha Bedingfield, Team Sleep, Jars of Clay, Anna Waronker, Hilary Duff, Hanson, Latin popstar Belinda, and the Count Basie Orchestra.

Wells produced Katy Perry's #1 hit "Waking Up In Vegas", producing four songs and co-writing two on the hit album One of the Boys including "UR So Gay". Wells wrote Kelly Clarkson's hit single "I Do Not Hook Up" with Katy Perry and Kara DioGuardi which peaked at #8 on the US top forty, as well as writing/producing a track on the deluxe version of Pink's latest record Funhouse.
Wells produced the "'Apologize" remix by Timbaland and the original version by OneRepublic making it one of the most successful selling and charting songs of the decade.[2] With sales of over 4.3 million digital downloads in the US alone, "'Apologize" is now the second-highest legally downloaded song in US digital history.

Update II (10/13/09); Adam is going to perform live at the American Music Awards on Nov. 22. There will be fire and dancers.

Update III (10/13/09): We learn today from an interview that Lyndsay Parker does with Rob Cavallo (producer for TFM) that Adam can sing every note that a guitar can play (4 octaves; 5 E's, I believe).

Update (10/15/09): How big a deal is Adam about to be? He kissed his boyfriend Drake Tuesday night in the midst of paparazzi and press all over the world is covering it. Iceland here and Peru here, for example, both posted at livejournal.com/hooplamagnet. Thanks to our friend Asta for the Iceland story. So either Adam is poised for a global career the likes of which we've never quite seen before or the entire world is starved for pics of beautiful boys kissing.

Adam with strings

There's tons of tweeting, stories, rumors about who is writing, producing, working on songs for Adam Lambert's upcoming album (set to drop Nov. 24). Generally, I fret that it'll be too electronic/synthy for my tastes. But here are a couple tweets from yesterday that make me really excited that I'll love at least some of it:


The album is as yet untitled. No single has been released. Within hours of the album being available for pre-order on Amazon last week, it zoomed to the top of Amazon's "Best Selling" charts. It's now settled to No. 8. (This is obviously not all-time sale numbers, but a sales-frequency kind of ranking that reflects recent sales activity.) It seems that Time for Miracles, from the 2012 soundtrack, will be released as a single before RCA releases something else from Adam's album as a single. (It's possible that TFM will be on Adam's album, but signs were pointing to no.)

Update: a tiny segment of Time for Miracles can be heard here (h/t to ontd_ai).

Searching the blog

My experience has been that searching SSJ using the Blogger search box in the upper left corner of this window doesn't work very well. It fails to find everything that contains the search word. So I suggest we test an alternative search gadget. I put it below our This Day in History. I tested a couple searches and the results looked complete to me. See what you think.

Nobel

You know how I love Pres. Obama, but even I don't think he's earned the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet.

Update:

"Jerry World" (aka "The Death Star)

Last Saturday, my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks renewed an old rivalry with Texas A&M. We began a 10 year series with them, with all the games being played here in DFW at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. We don't live too far from the stadium and on a clear day, you can drive just a few miles to the south and see it on the horizon. The ticket prices for the Ark-A&M game were fairly high, especially for a college football game. I'm not sure we'll go every year, but I definitely wanted to go to the first game and wanted a chance to check out the stadium. The Razorbacks won rather easily, proving once again our dominance over A&M and our conference, the SEC. But I wanted to share some pictures and comment about the stadium itself, which has come under some ridicule for what it lacks, even thought the price tag was around $1.1 billion.

It is beautiful and spacious and very fan friendly (in regards to # of bathrooms, # of concession areas, wide concourses, friendly staff). All chair back seats with cup holders, and amble leg room between rows. And, of course, the video board over the field is truly amazing. Not just the size of it, but the quality of the picture. However, there are a couple of glaring problems which have have received a lot of press here in the DFW area and I wanted to see if the complaints were warranted.

Problem #1 - the sound system is awful. I could not understand one word the PA person was saying, nor could I understand anything said on any video's shown. It just sounded like garbled noise. The roof was closed and I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not, but the same complaints have been lodged when the roof was open. From the very first event at the stadium (a concert), this has been the #1 complaint. U2 is playing there next Monday and with the ticket prices being charged, I would be extremely p*ssed if the sound wasn't straightened out.

Problem #2 - scoreboards, or lack thereof. You really have to be paying attention to the game, because even with the 2 little scoreboards I could see, you don't get basic information. Like down and distance, # of timeouts remaining, what yard line the ball is on. And it didn't even say ARK A&M - it was just small logos of the schools. Also, no stats and no scores from other games. This has also been a big complaint here, because if the PA guy is telling you this (as the Cowboy officials claim), you can't understand anything being said and you have no clue. One would think that if you're already spending $1 billion, what's another hundred thousand or so for a decent sound system and a couple basic scoreboards.

Here are a few pictures inside the stadium:












As for the title of this post, the media here in DFW all call the stadium "Jerry World", while the guys on The Ticket (local sports station) call it "The Death Star".

Unemployment and accountability

I see that Mankiw has been keeping an eye on unemployment relative to the predicted path in the report supporting the stimulus plan, like I have been. Apparently, he started this in May. He's doing it better too, of course. I swear I hadn't seen his May post when I posted in June and September.