Jordan's Life

I’m not much for reality TV… after all, most “reality” shows are either just game shows or situations that are unreal anyway. I don’t know about you, but I don’t live on a tropical island, nor in a house with a bunch of strangers, nor do I travel the world looking for clues to my next destination, etc.

One genre of reality show that has realy caught my attention is the entire live talent show series, such as American Idol and Canadian Idol, America’s Got Talent, and So You Think You Can Dance. I like the fact that people are putting out their true talents and passions on stage for everyone to watch and vote on. That, to me, is reality.

Recently, So You Think You Can Dance Canada started season 2. Kim and I especially like to watch the auditions, generally for the funny people who go just to have fun with no real expectations of going through to the next round… and then there are those with no real talent but still expect to go through. They are even funnier

After watching the Toronto auditions, I saw on my friend Laurie’s Facebook page that her daughter Jenna Lynn Higgins had auditioned and made it through to the finals. Laurie and hubby Dwight have five of the most mild-mannered and adorable kids in the world; Jenna Lynn is their oldest and only daughter.

Here’s one of the things I know about well bahaved kids at church: I don’t remember them well. Kim and I taught Sunday school at Pickering Hope Community Church where the Higgins family also attended, but I don’t really remember if any of them were in either of our classes. I know that Laurie is one of the most smiley people I have ever met, and Dwight is so polite and humble you have to squeeze words out of him to get him to talk.

So then I thought, how good could a quiet, well-behaved church-going teenager do at a competition like So You Think You Can Dance? See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-9NYycghq0

To say that I was stunned by Jenna Lynn’s performance would be an understatement. The judges’ comments were dead on, and the fact that Jenna Lynn never struck me as the type of girl who would flaunt anything means even more that she came out of character and nailed the audition perfectly. So of Jenna Lynn went to the finals…

Nearly 200 other competitors with a variety of backgrounds were up against each other for a spot in the final 20. While I knew that the judges loved Jenna Lynn’s audition, the next five rounds of eliminations were all in different genres of dance, requiring a lot of choreography, and one round of team dance. To say the least, the road to the top 20 was an uphill battle for all.

Kim and I watched every second of last week’s episode to see Jenna Lynn’s progress. Round after round, she went through, only the group dance put her at risk as her group failed to come together with a performance that was satisfactory to the judges, so Jenna Lynn had to dance for her life to avoid being eliminated. Once again, Jenna Lynn showed the judges why she was there – not because she can dance, but because she is dance.

In last night’s episode there were 46 dancers left, and the final 20 must have 10 male and 10 female competitors. Each competitor had to dance for their lives again, for once in the final 20, the voting is left to the television audience and not to the judges.

Kim and I were exstatic to see that Jenna Lynn made it through to the final 20!!! Hopefully everyone who reads this article will watch the first episode of the final 20 when it airs on CTV Tuesday August 25 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Your votes for Jenna Lynn would be truly appreciated. Let’s show Canada what true dancing is made of!!!

Congratulations on making it this far Jenna Lynn… you have a lot of proud people behind you!!!

Jordan, of the Biggest Dolt In the Universe award!!

Ok, picture this, 2009 (I’m an old fan of Estelle Getty’s character on The Golden Girls, so shoot me), it’s the final Saturday of the St. John’s Youth Soccer season. There’s been talks about Hurricane Bill coming through Newfoundland, so I decided to check the Environment Canada website every so often for updates. Good news! Nothing is going to impact us yet, and it looks like today is going to be a beautiful day. Other than a very light drizzle at about 3:20 p.m. that lasted less than five minutes, the day was perfect!

So I figured that since it was going to be partly sunny with a fair bit of cloud cover that  the day was going to go smoothly weatherwise, so off I went ref’ing from 9:00 until mid-afternoon… WITHOUT FRIGGIN’ SUNSCREEN!!!

Yes, the UV index today was pretty high despite the cloudy conditions, but Dolt of the Universe Jordan here stopped reading the forecast as soon as rain was ruled out. So here I sit up at the computer because I cannot get too comfortable in my chair with the back of my totally bald head as red as a beet and covered in Solarcaine gel with aloe.

What’s ever stupider is that I bought a tube of SPF 30 sunscreen while in Montreal in preparation for that beautiful day at La Ronde with André, and it’s sitting handily in my bathroom up on a shelf in clear view. At least André and I didn’t get burned that day!

Well, at least the kids had fun today… and that makes it all worth while

… when you go into your Yahoo e-mail account and delete e-mails in your inbox and sent folder dating back over four years ago

Anyone who sent me an e-mail since 2005 that I have not yet responded to, please resend

Oh, I see. It’s a trophy, not a piece of Federer’s sports equipment

So now World #1 Roger Federer of Switzerland is out, #2 Rafael Nadal of Spain is out, and #5 Andy Roddick of the USA is out… three of the four players that everyone was really eager to see in the semis and finals in Montreal. The fourth player being #3 Andy Murray of Scotland, who has barely broken a sweat all tournament. Murray got to a tiebreak yesterday en route to beating Federer’s quater-final spoiler #7 Jo-Wilfred Tsonga of France, and he hasn’t dropped a set yet.

For those who don’t recognize Tsonga’s name, he shocked the world last year in the Australian Open semi-finals when he beat Nadal in straight sets, and looked to be a threat to win the tournament when he took the first set from then world #3 Novak Djokovic… and Tsonga was an unseeded player at the time! Tsonga ended up losing the next three sets to Djokovic, but he has proven that he is not a flash in the pan. Tsonga is now #7 in the world and may soon be rising.

Today’s final will see Murray face Argentina’s Juan del Potro, who has also been quite the spoiler after beating Nadal and Roddick in the quarter- and semi-finals.

So what does all this mean? It means that the Roger’s Cup finals will soon be forgotten, and next month the US Open will be very hotly contested by all of the aforementioned players, and over 120 others. The big question remains around how long Federer can hold on to the #1 spot overall, and whether he can win another Grand Slam now that Nadal is back on the tour after double knee surgery earlier this year.

All I can say is this is one of the most exciting summers in tennis history – the last one being 2001, when Goran Ivanisevic came back from the dead to win Wimbledon.

I must say it’s nice to see a sport where all the top players are of completely different countries… unlike chess of course. Vodka anyone?

But here’s a sad tidbit for Canadian tennis fans: if you combine all the points of the 11 Canadian players on the ATP men’s singles tour, they don’t even place in the top 30 in the world! Sad, isn’t it?