Tag: Steve Wozniak

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DANCING WITH THE STARS WEEK 3: LINDY HOP AND ARGENTINE TANGO

Okay, at the very beginning you saw a clip of someone (I think it was Denise from last week) doing a crazy Jitterbug aerial (Jitterbug is a form of Lindy, or East Coast Swing). That is how people are fracturing tibia, etc. — not doing straight ballroom! I know Jewel was injured early on, but I’m sure they were practicing everything that was to come just to give the competitors an introduction. I don’t really know how I feel about the inclusion of these dances with rather difficult lifts and tricks in a show like this, where the vast majority of contestants are well into adulthood and have little dance and / or athletic training. We’ll see how this week’s dances go…

Kym Johnson and David Alan Grier Lindy Hop: Cute. That’s all I can really say though.

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Dancing With the Stars, Week Two: Samba and Foxtrot

Maks and Denise’s Samba: Okay that was awful. Sorry but it was. She was hopping and running and skipping and doing just about everything but Samba. It is the hardest of the Latin dances — Len’s right, but still. I agree with Bruno that it wasn’t so hot, but don’t know if I’d call if flat as a “waffle”. And I agree with Carrie Ann– how frightened and stiff did she look?! During those Samba rolls, it looked like he was pulling her on top of him, then pushing himself onto her. Like she was the cat being forced to dance with Pepe le Peu. Interesting choreography from Maks — the one-legged hops, the waving his chest toward hers, flirtatiously. Extremely corny having him come to practice dressed as a Carmen Miranda-esque sambista to get her to stop being so serious. And don’t tell adults to feel and not think, Maks! Can’t be done. You learn by feeling as a child, as an adult you have to think; you’ve lived too much of your life by using your brain by then.

Chuck and Julianne’s Foxtrot: That was pretty good. Fairly suave, though he looked a bit of a goof on those side by sides in the middle. A little too much on his toes, I think was what it was. And it was pigeon-toed at that. He just looked a little Pee Wee Herman-ish. But overall, very sophisticated and he looked fairly comfortable in the close hand-hold. Yeah, Carrie Ann just said on the grapevine it looked like he hunched over a bit — maybe that’s what made it Pee Wee-like to me. He’s better at Standard than Latin.

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DANCING WITH THE STARS' FIRST DANCE-OFF

Sorry this post is late! I went out with friends to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day last night and stayed out a bit later than planned 🙂 Happy belated St. Patrick’s Day, everyone.

So, DWTS had its first dance-off last night. Belinda Carlisle and Jonathan Roberts and Steve Wozniak and Karina Smirnoff were the bottom two and thus required to dance. Both did their Monday-night routines: Belinda and Jonathan the Salsa and Steve and Karina the Quickstep. And I think both received the same actual scored: 17 — although the judges were much more kind to Steve and Karina than Belinda and Jonathan. I thought Belinda was cute, but she still didn’t get the hip action right (of course, you’re not going to be able to get something like that down perfectly overnight — literally overnight) in that it still didn’t come from the floor, working through the foot, and the shoulders and back muscles weren’t involved. So she was “shaking it” like the judges said, but not properly. And I agreed with them that Steve did improve. Somehow he looked more at ease and was more smooth.

I’m sad to see Belinda go because I think she could have improved but I’m glad Steve stayed. There’s something sweet and sympathetic about him that makes me want to root for him and I think he’s trying very hard, seems like he’s having fun out there, and he has a good attitude about the whole thing. He seems to have a strong sense of self and isn’t going to let the competition-nature of the show get to him.

I like that they’re now doing a dance-off. So the couple still has a chance to redeem itself and possibly keep itself from being booted. So going into that results show they probably don’t feel so powerless. But, I guess unlike with So You Think You Can Dance, here the judges’ votes are still only counting for half of that final vote instead of the whole. So, I guess depending on how many audience votes they received the night before, they may or may not still have a chance.

Beyond that, I liked Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, liked that group dance — Julianne Hough is such a performer, she really shines out there — but didn’t care for the Macy’s Hall of Fame dance. That routine looked kind of chaotic to me. And, with Cameron Mathison picking up Bruno’s “dry cleaning” — a pile of thongs — and then the female contestants comparing how many times they’d been centerfolds, I feel like this show sometimes has the tendency to turn into a goofy Benny Hill sketch. I think that’s the person I’m thinking of — that British comedian from the 70s who’d make the corny sexual jokes that were so taboo-breaking to the British audiences back then but that now you just want to roll your eyes at and think “how ridiculously immature”…

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DANCING WITH THE STARS, SEASON EIGHT, WEEK TWO

Steve-O’s injured, but they’re going to wait until later to let us know what that means.

Holly Madison and Dmitry Chaplin Quickstep: Well, she’s cute. It looked a lot like he was kind of pulling her around the floor and she was just hopping without really having the steps down pat. But she hasn’t had as much training as the rest, so there’s that to consider. I agree with Len that her frame was part of the problem — she didn’t have a firm center and that’s why it looked like he wasn’t leading, but dragging her. I don’t think she’ll get kicked off first. I think she can improve.

David Allen Grier and Kym Johnson’s Salsa: Uh, it was okay. I mean, it’s so hard to judge amateurs learning to dance in adulthood. He looked uncomfortable — I mean with the dance form, with the rhythm and speed. But he looked like he was having fun, which is part of the battle. Hmmm, he might be first to go tomorrow night, depending on how audiences feel.

Denise Richards and Maks Chmerkovskiy’s Quickstep:

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LIVE BLOGGING DANCING WITH THE STARS SEASON EIGHT PREMIERE

Yay, tonight is here! I’m ridiculously excited, even though I wasn’t in love with last season. So, have decided to live blog. Upstairs Godzilla unfortunately just came home and is whacking her tail all about, crashing into walls, thundering down on my ceiling / her floor. She must be excited about the show too.

Oh well; I’ve turned on the closed-captioning.

Shawn Johnson trips on her way down the stairs during introductions. Doesn’t fall or anything. Kind of funny.

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Live Blogging DWTS Name-Dropping

I guess I’ll try to post the name-drops (for Dancing With the Stars Spring season 2009) as they’re announced. I think. Unless I get tired. Or need to get a cupcake. I should probably do that now…

Anyway, they’ve so far announced that new stars will include a famous male reality TV show star (who won’t be famous to me since I never watch reality TV), a football star, some kind of celebrity gossip show host, and someone else who I’ve already forgotten… When are they supposed to start announcing the names for real? It’s 8:30 already.

Okay, first four are:

1) Rapper L’il Kim;

2) reality tv star Steve-O (I think that’s the right spelling);

3) NFL star Lawrence Taylor;

4) Nancy O’Dell (missed who she is);

they said the next four will be announced during Desperate Housewives, coming up next. So, making a cupcake run.

Okay, got cupcakes. Did anything happen?

Well, they just said they’re dropping all names in less than 30 minutes, but I’m tired of waiting. Awesome Katrina just posted the list down in the comments! Thanks Katrina, you rock!

So, going by this list that Katrina linked to:

5) Belinda Carlisle, formerly of the Go-Gos. Oh cool, I haven’t seen her in forever. And I used to love them. They were the first group I ever saw on MTV (back when it was first created :S) — ah memories 🙂

6) David Alan Grier. I think I remember him from In Living Color. I can’t remember exactly which one he was though without looking him up, which I’ll do in a minute. I used to like that show though, so this is a good one by me.

7) Jewel, the pop star. Hmmm, I like her.

8) Shawn Johnson, the youngest ever contestant on the show, at 17, and Olympic gold medalist in women’s gymnastics on the balance beam. Ridiculously, I’m not even sure I remember her.It was the Bejing Olympics! What’s wrong with me?

9) Gilles Marini, from Sex and the City. I never watched the series, but Katrina says he’s a hottie!

10) Ty Murray, a rodeo star. Hmmm, a shit kicker? Interesting.

11) Denise Richards, the movie star.

12) Chuck Wicks, singer and song-writer. Don’t know him. He’s dating Julianne Hough, Katrina?

13) Steve Wozniak, a “Silicon Alley icon and philanthropist” who designed for Apple, according to the Reality TV website.

I’ll edit the post again if there are any changes in the announcements. Otherwise, I guess it’s overall an okay cast. I like a few of them anyway. Several I don’t know. Without seeing anything so far, I predict Wozniak is first to get booted. An entrepreneur, intellectual type? Maybe he’ll defy stereotypes, who knows…