POST#34: THE VOICE!!!!!

On Monday, The Voice started it's third season. Here's some info , just in case..... :

The Voice is an American reality show that premiered on April 26, 2011, on the NBC television network. Based on the reality singing competition The Voice of Holland, the series was created by Dutch television producer John de Mol and is executive produced by Mark Burnett. It is part of an international series. The Voice immediately proved to be a hit for NBC and as of September 2012, the network is airing the third season. The second season premiered February 5, 2012, immediately following NBC's broadcast of Super Bowl XVLI.

The series is part of The Voice franchise and is based on a similar competition format in the Netherlands entitled The Voice of Holland won by Ben Saunders. The first American series was hosted by Carson Daly, with Alison Haislip serving as the backstage and social networking correspondent. The winner received $100,000 and a record deal with Universal Republic. Daly and the entire judging panel returned for season two; however, Christina Milian replaced Haislip as the social media correspondent.

[edit]Format

Promotional photograph of the coaches

The series consists of three phases: a blind audition, a battle phase, and live performance shows. Four judges/coaches, all noteworthy recording artists, choose teams of contestants through a blind audition process. Each judge has the length of the auditioner's performance (about one minute) to decide if he or she wants that singer on his or her team; if two or more judges want the same singer (as happens frequently), the singer has the final choice of coach.

Each team of singers is mentored and developed by its respective coach. In the second stage, called the battle phase, coaches have two of their team members battle against each other directly by singing the same song together, with the coach choosing which team member to advance from each of individual "battles" into the first live round. Within that first live round, the surviving acts from each team again compete head-to-head, with public votes determining one of two acts from each team that will advance to the final six, while the coach chooses which of the remaining three acts comprises the other performer remaining on the team.

In the final phase, the remaining contestants compete against each other in live broadcasts for the public's vote. The coaches have the power to save one contestant that had not received the public's vote that week. As of season two, these contestants would give a last chance performance to win their coach's save. However, in deciding who moves on to the final four phase, the television audience and the coaches have equal say 50/50. With one team member remaining for each coach, the contestants compete against each other in the finale where the outcome is decided solely by public vote.

The Voice was AWESOME!!!!

Have a good weekend!!!

Maria.

POST#33: KARA'S PARTY IDEAS

Hello fellow earthlings!!!! Today I'm talking about Kara's Party Ideas, a party planning website in which you can get anything anything and EVERYTHING party supplies. Here's how it all started: 

At a very young age, Kara Allen started planning birthday parties for her family & friends. Always planning a party in her head, Kara started KPI in January of 2009, as a creative outlet & place to post all of her many events. After only a few months, Kara’s followings & fans were soaring. Her creative mind, attention to detail & love for party styling became evident as her site grew quickly with clicks & viewers from across the globe. Kara has been featured on HGTV, numerous morning TV shows, The Party Dress Magazine, TLC, Parenting Magazine, The Rachael Ray Show & more.

Kara is excited to announce her new party idea show on the Online TV Network, My Craft Channel. Kara also recently signed a book deal with Cedar Fort Publishing. Her book, Kara’s Party Ideas, is scheduled to hit national bookstore shelves this October.

Kara’s Party Ideas.com is a huge online resource for thousands of party ideas. Its purpose is to inspire those who are planning parties around the world. On a daily basis, Kara showcases her favorites of the hundreds of party submissions she receives each month. In addition to featuring her own events, Kara shares these parties styled by others to increase the number of creative ideas available on KPI… plus, let’s face it, some of the party submissions are just too amazing NOT to share!

Kara’s Party Ideas also just opened its very own party supply shop, making KPI literally ‘THE place for all things party’!

Kara & her loving husband, Ben, along with their three little boys- Kaden {5}, Gavin {5} & Easton {1}, live in Utah.

Here's the link to the blog, which has a link to the shop: http://karaspartyideas.com/

Have a great weekend!

Maria.

POST#32: AGT!!!!!!

Hey!!! So, today we are talking about America's Got Talent!!!

America's Got Talent (also known as AGT) is an American reality television series on the NBC Television Network, and part of the global British Got Talent franchise. It is a talent show that features singers, dancers, magicians, comedians, and other performers of all ages competing for the advertised top prize of one million dollars. The show debuted in June 2006 for the summer television season. From season three onwards, the prize includes the one million dollars, payable in a financial annuity over 40 years (or the present cash value of such annuity), and a show as the headliner on the Las Vegas Strip.

Among its significant features were that it gave an opportunity to talented amateurs or unknown performers, with the results decided by an audience vote. The format is a popular one and has often been reworked for television in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The current incarnation was created by Simon Cowell, and was originally due to be a 2005 British series called Paul O'Grady's Got Talent^[2] but was postponed due to O'Grady's acrimonious split with broadcaster ITV (later launching as Britain's Got Talent). As such, the American version became the first full series of the franchise. Despite Cowell's involvement in the show's production, his contract with FOX for his involvement which prevented him from being involved in the show as a judge. After leaving American Idol however, Cowell began to produce and judge a version of The X Factor for Fox in 2011.

Have a good weekend!!!!

Maria.

POST#31: THE BIG BANG THEORY!

Hi! It's Maria, your info provider of urban and AWESOME things! So today we are talking about the famous TV show "The Big Bang Theory". So, who's your favorite character from the show? Leave a comment saying who's your favorite, why do you like him or her, who plays the character, and your Facebook or Twitter name, and the first 10 who comment gets a shout out from me on Twitter AND Facebook! Anyway, I am putting my top 30 episodes that I love:


1."The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification"
2."The Large Hadron Collider Collision"
3."The Einstein Approximation"
4."The Bozeman Reaction" 
5."The Vengeance Formulation"
6."The Adhesive Duck Deficiency"
7."The Pirate Solution"
8."The Gothowitz Deviation"
9."The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation"
10."The Monopolar Expedition"
11."The Vegas Renormalization"
12."The Terminator Decoupling"
13."The Cushion Saturation"
14."The Maternal Capacitance"
15."The Friendship Algorithm"
16."The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis"
17."The Vartabedian Conundrum"
18."The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem"
19."The Pork Chop Indeterminacy"
20."The Bat Jar Conjecture"
21."The Middle-Earth Paradigm"
22."The Nerdvana Annihliation"
23."The Peanut Reaction"
24."The Jerusalem Duality"
25."The Luminous Fish Effect"
26."The Excelsior Acquisition" 
27."The Precious Fragmentation"
28."The Wheaton Recurrence"
29."The Robotic Manipulation"
30."The 21-Second Excitation"

So, there you go! My top 30!

Have a good weekend!

Maria.

POST#30: GABBY DOUGLAS!!!!!

On this edition of my blog, we are talking about America's new sweetheart, gold medalist at the 2012 Olympics in London, Gabby Douglas! This is her bio:

Gabrielle Christina Victoria Douglas was born on December 31, 1995 in Virginia Beach, Virginia to parents Timothy Douglas and Natalie Hawkins. She has three siblings. She began training in gymnastics at age six when her older sister, Arielle, convinced their mother to enroll her in gymnastics classes. Douglas began her training under the supervision of coach Dena Walker at Excalibur Gymnastics in Virginia Beach. At the age of eight, Douglas won the Level 4 all-around gymnastics title at the 2004 Virginia State Championships. Douglas and her teammates, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Kyla Ross and Jordyn Wieber (nicknamed the "Fierce Five"), won the team all-around gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. She then won the gold medal in the individual all-around, becoming the first African-American woman, as well first woman of color of any nationality, to win the event. She is also the first American gymnast ever to win both the team and individual all-around gold at the same Olympics. Douglas finished eighth in uneven bars, which was last among the finalists, and seventh in balance beam. On August 3, the Kellogg Company announced that it would feature a picture of Douglas standing on the podium with her gold medal on special-edition boxes of Corn Flakes in the fall. This breaks the tradition of Olympic athletes appearing on Wheaties boxes. Douglas appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno where she spoke to Leno and fellow guest U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, a health advocate, about a post-Olympics celebratory purchase of an Egg McMuffin from McDonalds.

So there you go, America's sweetheart and her road to superstardom!

Have a great weekend!

Maria.

POST#29: SCHOOL

So, yesterday was the first day of school for me. I know, it's a bummer that summer is over, right? I started fifth grade and it's pretty great. My teachers are really nice, I got my friends, so I think it's going to be great. I do think that the teachers are going to pile on the books, homework, schoolwork, projects and all that stuff, for sure. I also bought my school supplies, the textbooks and, most importantly, my backpack. 

So, yup, that's me in my uniform.....

Have a great weekend!!!

Maria.

POST#28: STEP UP REVOLUTION AND THE FAB FIVE!

Yesterday, I saw the new move Step Up Revolution, the fourth movie in the Step Up series of movies that started in 2006. The first two movies were set in Baltimore, Maryland. Then, the third movie was set in NYC, New York City. And now, this fourth movie is set in the colorful city of Miami, Florida, In the Spring Gardens neighborhood to be exact. It is about Sean, a restaurant waiter who has his own dance crew that organizes flash mobs, called "The MOB", hence the name. I'm not going to tell anymore because I don't want to spoil it, but it was awesome!. Everyone has to see it! 





On a totally different subject, The USA's Women's Gymnastics Team, also known as "The Fab Five", made of Gabby "The Flying Squirrel" Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Jordyn "Jo" Wieber, Kyla Ross, and Alexandra "Aly" Raisman, won the gold medal in the London 2012 Olympics Artistic Gymnastics Team Competition. Also, Gabby Douglas won a gold medal in the all-around gymnastics competition, the silver and bronze medal belonging to Russia, Aly Raisman barely missing the bronze medal. 


Have a great Olympic weekend!!!


Maria.