The networks had their midseason press conferences recently, and American Idol used the opportunity to show off the skills they got from Faux News: forgetting anything that would make them look bad if they could bother to remember it. So they started with bashing the other singing shows by noting that the competition hadn't produced as many U.S. hits as they had, happily forgetting the respective length of air times. Then they said the other shows were all about second chance professionals while they were personally all about amateurs, merrily ignoring every plant they've ever pushed into the ground and Lee DeWyze's entire non-career. And for a finale, they looked to their partnership with MCR and joyfully dismissed the idea of MCR members having standards.

http://tinyurl.com/7kkznsg

Kind of makes you want to castrate Nigel all over again, huh?

Bad code... we've talked about the Arctic Home Initiative. Apparently donations are going slowly. In fact, I know they're going slowly because the goal is a million dollars in public handovers and the main AHI site posts a new total every day: they've barely crept over a quarter-million. So MCR decided to sweeten the pot a bit. They announced that if you could find a red diamond while searching the virtual Arctic, you would get bonus MCR points.

People flocked to the site. And for many, the thing would not completely load. Regardless of connection speeds or browser or raw computer power, the site would get to the point of asking for them to log in -- and then wouldn't let them do it. The 'waiting' image for AHI is a spinning radar needle. It can spin for hours and hours without going anywhere or finding anything, especially your password. Sometimes you could spend a whole day trying with no results. Some people got in immediately and then never again. And for those who did manage to get in -- no diamonds.

Then some of those who had donated reported finding (typically) a diamond a day. And the only ones finding anything were those who'd given money or points.

So, cautiously, other people slowly donated and then warily tried the site again. Which still wouldn't load. And had a giant movie file at the start to make the dial-ups cry. And if they did get in? Surprise! Sometimes there would in fact be diamonds! And if you clicked on them to add the points to your MCR account, you got -- a spinning radar needle. Which could spin for hours and hours and hours without ever finding your points... And you couldn't even try to trade with people for bonus codes because the points were applied directly to your account. Or, mostly, not.

I did donate points. I have, after a week of reloads and trying not to rip the radar needle out of the screen, gotten my donation back through red diamonds. But at best, I can get into the site one time in fifteen. Diamonds freeze the code about a third of the time. And while I found the key to skipping that movie because it drags you down on any connection -- use https://www.arctichome.com/web/index.html#/login/ instead of the main URL -- it's still a Flash site which refuses to operate at anything over a low crawl.

It might be possible to find thousands of bonus points over the life of the donation program: we may have until 3/15 and the smallest diamond is worth 35 points. But getting in...

At some point, you kind of have to believe they're doing this on purpose.