Wonderful. Basically everything that wasn’t in place to prevent Columbia still isn’t in place two years later.

NASA Grounds Entire Space Shuttle Fleet

From MTV.com:

On August 17 Nine Inch Nails fans will have an opportunity to score the ultimate collector’s item — the ownership rights to Trent Reznor’s groundbreaking debut, Pretty Hate Machine. Yes, kids — you could own tracks like “Down in It,” “Something I Can Never Have” and, of course, “Head Like a Hole,” but it’s going to cost you millions. The disc is one of several TVT Records titles on the auction block, compliments of Prudential Securities Financial Services. Pretty Hate Machine and numerous other recordings from the likes of KMFDM, Sister Machine Gun and Gravity Kills were presented as collateral in 1999 against a $32 million loan the label was approved for.

TVT managed to pay back $10 million of that amount, but Prudential took the label to court three years ago, claiming the current home of the Ying Yang Twins defaulted on the loan. Pretty Hate Machine is part of an overall biddable package that also includes the rights to the Television’s Greatest Hits compilations and the “Mortal Kombat” movie soundtracks. In addition, the highest bidder will be able to collect a percentage on future sales of Nine Inch Nails’ other TVT-related releases, including Broken, Fixed, The Downward Spiral and Further Down the Spiral.

I think this is people making something out of nothing, but obviously NASA is going to look at it carefully. I don’t understand the whole thing about striking the bird with the external tank. How would that pose a problem? The orbiter is the only thing that could have problems at this point. But hopefully there are no damaged tiles this time around.

NASA Examining Video of Launch Debris

So I’ve been itching to do a writeup of Amanda and my experience seeing Kelly Clarkson in concert. I’m a little bit infatuated with her, so I appreciate Amanda even letting me near her.

So the opening act for Miss Clarkson was the Graham Colton Band at the Cricket Arena in Charlotte, NC, July 24, 2005. Nothing special about GCB honestly and I think that a lot of the audience saw them as a lot different than Kelly Clarkson’s music. Both are rock-oriented though. GCB were fine, but nothing spectacular. They came right on at 7:30 and were off right at 8:00, which is perfect for an opening act.

Then Kelly came right out at 8:30. The set was pretty cool. There was a little part of the stage that jutted out into the middle of the audience. Several horizontal light bars that could change colors (kind of like those new Aqueous TVs) werea ll over the stage. The main lights spanned vertically up the stage on four diaganol towers covered with curtains. Then above that, were two flat panel screens that off and on showed Kelly’s eyes blinking, looking up, down, left and right. That was kind of weird.

Kelly started out with a great live rendition of “Walk Away.” She had a full band with her — two backup singers, a drummer, two guitarists, a bass player and two keyboard players, if I remember correctly.

She mainly stuck to stuff from the “Breakaway” album, hitting all the good tracks from her sophomore album. The only tracks that strayed away from that album were “Miss Independent,” “What’s Up Lonely,” a cover of Annie Lennox’s “Why” and a new song I didn’t catch the name of. Throughout, she kept proving what a great voice she possesses and bounced around with a lot of energy and heart for pretty much an hour straight.

Prior to entering, I heard a Cricket Arena staff member say something about “she didn’t even do a soundcheck.” It kind of seemed like it in honestly. Some of the louder songs had Kelly’s vocals too loud, causing them to not be as pleasing as what was actually coming out of her mouth. The best ones were the couple she did acapella, and acoustic. They did “Breakway” acoustic and it was just absolutely wonderful. I also really loved her energy on “Behind These Hazel Eyes” (For which she did a quick costume change into the wedding dress from the music video). “Gone” was really great live too. But to be fair, I totally dig every track on the “Breakaway” and was continue to be blown away by KC’s total package. Take that however you want.

My only real complaint was at the end of the hour (9:30 almost on the dot). She thanked her band and they took a bow and said good night. I was amazed at all of the people who immediately started heading for the doors. Haven’t any of you been to a concert before? Everyone knows there’s always an encore. I envisioned Kelly’s encore to include some older tracks, such as “Low” and “The Trouble With Love.” Well there wasn’t. The house lights came up, and the crew immediately started breaking down the stage. I was a little miffed that she only did 60 mins. I later heard across town, Bruce Springsteen had a short set too. But still, I wanted a longer KC set to makeup for the 5 hours of drive time to and from Charlotte.

I’m still miffed that I didn’t get to do the meet and greet either. Am I obssessed with KC? I guess I am. But she’s the real thing in the music biz — wonderful singer, beautiful girl and seems really approachable. So get over it, even if I haven’t.
Now as for the picture below, I so wish it were real, but Schick had a little green screen setup. Next concert I go to of hers, I will get a real pic though. I hope!

Interesting ideas for all you fellow bloggers. Nice example with American Idol too.

How To Be A Blogging Idol Instead Of An Idle Blogger