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Even in the puppet theatre world, the actors can have a bad day. Sometimes you know the old joke too well to be able to do it the new way. And other times, you just have idiots for stars. You decide.

Julian the Bear reprises a classic Fozzie moment:

Well, I CAN HAS BONUS, so purchases were made and arrived around the holiday weekend. Here’s a brief roundup of what came our way.

• Amazon Kindle, a present for Teri who had wanted one for a long time. I might do a mini-review at some point but it’s an interesting device. The electronic-ink screen is gorgeous, looks like the letters are stuck to the glass and it seems easy to use. Biggest downside for us is that there is no Sprint EVDO where we live so can’t download anything wirelessly, makes subscribing to newspapers/magazines sub-optimal.
• AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 dual-core processor 5000+ PC, 4GB RAM, Teri bought this for herself so she would have something reliable to hook the Kindle to. First one was dead on arrival, had to return it for another. First time I’ve seen and touched Vista and I can’t say there is much to be excited about, just another Windows operating system. Different to XP, had to find the things I normally use but for day to day use, seems ok. I installed AVG and within minutes it had found a Trojan horse in one of the pre-installed try-ware programs -wtf?
• Nintendo DS Lite (Cobalt), I couldn’t not have something to play with so got this for the weekend. Been wanting one for a while so had it overnighted from Amazon (yea, for $3.99 shipping on Amazon Prime). I have a feeling it won’t occupy me for long but right now I am enjoying playing with my virtual puppy, Lucky, and training my brain on a daily basis.

I anticipate adding the iPhone to that list in a few weeks but that’s it for the mad spending for now.

A little disappointed in tonight’s show. Maybe you can’t live-blog a show and still be involved in it? For the most part, the judges seemed to agree with me in most places. Mary surprises me a lot with her comments on ballroom routines, I am sure she would not say the same if it was a couple she was teaching.

Tough to come up with overall placings but ….. my top 2:

• Katee and Joshua
• Kherrington and Twitch

and bottom 2:

1. Courtney and Gev
2. Komfort and Thayne

Ok, this is what I think of as Broadway. Top marks for yellow dance pants, Courtney. I think they are portraying the story well, plenty of lines being hit well, maybe a little too much in the face rather than in the bodies? Er, it’s over and I haven’t really decided what I think.

Score: 8/10

We had Jive, now it’s time for it’s laid-back cousin. Last season (season before?) of course we had Benji, the undisputed King of Swing (at least in his own mind) so there is a lot to live up to.

Some difficult connections going on here, nice and laid back like WCS should be. Can’t help feeling they’ve dumbed Benji’s routine down a little. My favourite girl Katee isn’t doing it for me in this routine. Hmm… I’m left feeling “so?” at the end of that.

Score: 7/10

Dancing on a bed? huh. Man, I want a body like Twitch.

The Mia Advantage is in full effect – how can you compare a waltz to the emotion in this? It’s not fair. But it wouldn’t work without the performers. Twitch is awesome, Kherrington is there but not the star for me. Did I say I want a body like Twitch?

Score: 9/10

My favourite ballroom dance (other than the Tango, maybe). Chelsea is killing it but she is her idiom; lucky Mark. Mark needs more extension in the back and neck. It’s very tempting to think that you look cooler by looking down, pushing the head forward but it doesn’t give the right effect (trust me, I was the king of looking down), so he looks unconfident. A very nice routine and well danced, though.

Score: 8/10

Alex is an awesome coach, does great latin routines. I hope this will be good.

Do you know the difference between mambo and salsa? No, well join 90% of the rest of the population who dance them the same.

Ugh, where is the latin fire from Kourtni? She looks great but there’s no latin action, fire, passion, anything! Matt is doing a decent job of being the foil to his partner, but his partner isn’t there. Reminds me of that Florida salsa girl a few weeks ago, where is she when we need her? Ugh, did not like that much at all.

Score: 5/10

I think the waltz is one of the kiss of death dances on this show, so difficult to do and yet so hard to show that it’s difficult. I’m liking Komfort’s emotion in this, though. Thayne is trying to be ‘the man’, supportive, showing her off but to me he isn’t showing the strength. Love this music, hmm. Ok, Thayne needs to elongate his neck to give him the presence in this dance, I think that’s what it is. Very nice though.

Score: 8/10.