First and foremost, Fantasia Barrino is NOT the best Idol contestant ever. I had written out a long, drawn out argument as to why this is so, but I realized I was attacking someone's character that I don't even know, which isn't really fair. Let me just say that the way she carries herself is not necessarily what I have in mind for the winner of a glorified popularity contest. She deserves a lot of credit for her talent and ability to showcase that talent on such a large stage. But living in Hollywood, working with a vocal coach, and singing in front of a "journey" man musician, a successful-but-past-her-prime pop star, and a grumpy Englishman doesn't qualify as "working so hard to get here". Talk to people like him who have just as much talent as you do who work hard for their own money to spend on their self-financed recording sessions and then tell me what hard work you've done. And don't get me started on what normal people do everyday while dreaming of superstardom.

Oh, right, I think I'm bordering on "attack" mode again. Before I stop though, I have to ask. What kind of person, after winning a contest voted on by any kind of large audience, thanks themselves first before thanking those who voted for them? Who even thanks themselves at all? I just can't believe this. Does this not bother anyone else?

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If you've been watching PTI the past couple of weeks, this is hardly an original thought, but I enjoy their comments about the Lakers "not giving everything they've got every night". And being a Michael Jordan fan, I like how they compare it to how Jordan's Bulls (yes, they were his Bulls) played hard every night and played to win each and every game, each and every quarter. I agree the players themselves don't owe us anything. It is enough for them to win 4 out of 7 each series if they want to win the Championship. But that's not enough if they want to be revered as one of the greatest teams of all time. And though none of them care, that's why they'll never stick out in my mind as some of the greatest players and competitors of all time.

Oh, and the point of all this is to tell you Thunder has written a new column which I encourage you to read, cause there's a nice little "homage" to thedustin at the end. Well, sort of.

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The last two weeks (the past couple of days excluded) I've made really good progress on my thesis work and the unspecified but horribly overdue side project I've been working on. Unfortunately, I think there's an additional project that I'm gonna have to help out with coming up which is related to a piece of software created by my bossman. Since I started working for him, I've been helping out with updates/bug fixes related to this piece of software. But now that I have my own big project to work on, it's not quite as enticing working on someone else's stuff. Hopefully it won't turn out to be that big of a deal.

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Big race this weekend. The Coca-Cola 600. That's right, 43 cars, 1.5 mile track, 600 miles of racing. Luckily only half of the race will be spent under the hot sun; the rest being suffocated by the humid North Carolina night. Lookin forward to enjoying a southern tradition, though, in the company of Thunder and JohnnyH. Anybody want us to bring 'em back a practice tire?

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Don't forget to read Thunder's new column.