Dancing With the Stars - Season 11 "Stars" Announced

Dancing With the Stars returns to television on September 20. This will be their 11th season, and they're really stretching the term "Stars." Here's the list. (Thanks, USA Today!) The comments that follow are mine.


Singer Michael Bolton, 57 - zzzzz hope his dancing is more exciting than his catalog of music.

Actress/singer Brandy, 31 - I hope her dancing is better than her driving skills.

Actress/comedian Margaret Cho, 41 - OK, I like Margaret Cho. She should be fun to watch.

Actor/retired L.A. Laker Rick Fox, 41 - Sports person. Sorry...don't know him.

Actress Jennifer Grey, 50 - Baby is 50? How old is her nose?

Actor/singer David Hasselhoff, 58 - His professional partner can motivate him with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a cheeseburger.

Actress Florence Henderson, 76 - Mrs. Brady! Aww...she's the senior in this season's cast. Hope she sticks around for a while.

Actor Kyle Massey, 19 - No clue.

Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah Palin, 19 - Seriously? HELLO...in what realm is she a STAR???

Reality TV's Audrina Patridge, 25 - No clue.

Reality TV's Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, 27 - Wow...he's 27. I would have thought he was in his early 20's. I hope he and Bristol hit it off. If you know what I mean. ;-)

Retired NFL quarterback Kurt Warner, 38 - quarterback...that's football. Still no clue who he is though.

Not a very exciting cast. I'll watch though. I always do. Will you?

Speaking of The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck (see post below)

There is now a theme song for The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. It was written by the lovely, gracious and extremely talented Jane Wiedlin. Doug is a good friend of hers. I feel very priviledged that I can also call her a friend and because of this, I will now shamelessly promote her song. It can be downloaded for a mere 99 cents on iTunes. You'd be a fool not to add this happy little song to your music collection. After all, how many pop songs can you name that have the sentence "All of New York is swallowing" in the lyrics?

I'll even make it easy for you...here's a link right to the song on iTunes!

The Great Food Truck Race

As you all know, my friend Doug (The Big Gay Ice Cream Man) has a food truck in NYC called "The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck." Doug's truck is part of a long list of trucks included in the voting for season 2 of "The Great Food Truck Race," a show on The Food Network. Through September 10, you can visit the site, simply by following this link, and cast your vote (actually 10 votes per day!!) for The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. Winners receive $10,000 and a chance to appear on season 2 of the show. There's something in it for the voters, too...a chance to win a trip to The Food Network NYC Wine and Food Festival. How bad can that be?

Vote early and vote often for The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. I appreciate it and so does Doug.

Sniffle

I know, not the most exciting topic to come back with but that's what I've been doing on and off for the past four days.

A week ago, my throat was scratchy. I didn't feel sick, just annoyed by a scratchy throat. I didn't let it slow me down though. One night I had coffee with my friend Jim who was visiting from Wyoming (or Montana or some wilderness state...some place where chickens come knocking on his front door but that's a different story). The next night was dinner and theatre with Dan, Luis, Polo, Denise and Tina, then the next night was dinner with my pal Debbie who works for the same company and was in Chicago doing some training and education at our buildings. Each night was a delightful time. Well Thursday was laundry night and by the time it came time to do laundry, I just wanted to crawl into bed. I didn't though, I toughed it out and got my chores done, then I came home and went right to bed. I called off work on Friday. I just felt icky. My head was congested and I was tired. It never felt like I had a cold, though. It seemed more like allergies.

Case in point, Saturday morning I got up and felt great. I went shopping and had lunch with a new friend. Afterwards we hung out for a while. I did decline the opportunity to go out that night with him, deciding to err on the side of caution and just rest. Well at about 9, the flood gates broke and I was sneezing and sniffling and coughing. Sunday, most of the water works stopped but I was still stuffy.

Today at work I felt OK...not great but well enough to go to work and be productive. I'm still not convinced it's a cold, because of the on and off pattern. For my friend's sake I hope it's not a cold. That's all I'm saying. :)

I just took a couple Benadryl tablets. I'm sure I'll be asleep shortly.

Really exciting post, huh? Well at least it's not another "Dancing With the Stars" post. OH WAIT....

Hi

Yes...still here. Just haven't had a lot to talk about lately. I just get the feeling that what I do discuss really only interests me, so until I have something really great to discuss, I'll just stay quiet.

But, just to let you know what I've been up to, I took a trip to LA last month, had a great time. I've been enjoying summer in Chicago. It's been hot and sticky and it's just the way I like it.

Mom's doing alright. The cat is fine. My sister is back on track with her weight loss and is down 20 pounds.

I saw the Joan Rivers documentary, I liked it. I actually went to see it when I was in LA.

Okay...guess that's it for now.