I Had The Swine Flu And Dreamed I Was In A Boat With Dan

Well, the three day weekend has come and gone, and now it's back to the grind. Oh, who am I kidding, I don't do grind. Still, except for a couple of issues we had a relatively nice little Homo Holiday.

I was struck with the Swine Flu at the end of last week. Well, maybe not the swine flu, but rather just the ordinary run-of-the-mill flu. So, I was asleep for the better part of three days, until I began feeling like my old self again on Sunday morning. And how, you may ask, did I celebrate my rebound into health? Well, I did what everyone does when they crawl from the slime of stuffy heads and sore throats and aches and pains, I power-washed the deck!

Yes, we are going to restain the deck and it needed a good power-wash to clean it and remove some of the old stain, so there i was, sprayer in hand, taking the wood back down to bare wood. I'll be able to stain it on Wednesday, providing it doesn't rain. I also took the time to pressure wash our teak table we have on the deck and it also looks good as new, ready for some more teak oil to keep it purty.

Of course, then Sunday night was Design Star, which started off with a shirtless Dan getting out of bed. I. Was. In. Heaven.

The challenge was to design a celebrity room, or a celebrity's room. Dan got Jason Priestley who looks a little "road hard and pout away wet" if you get my meaning. But Dan was charged with turning Jason and the lovely Missus Priestley's guest room into a nursery-slash-little-boy's room-slash-guest-room-slash-sitting-room. I guess those 90210 residuals aren't as good as they once seemed.

Lonni was given Tiffani Thiessen's--who lost her Amber apparently, and is also a 90210 alum--guest room and charged with turning it into a, wait for it, guest room.

Fred Flinstone, er, Antonio, drew the gay card and got Kathy Griffin who wanted to redo the offices of Team Griffin.

And off they go.

Dan gets boring with paint color, and furniture choices but redeems himself with the boat hull mobiles on the ceiling. I seriously want some in my house if Dan will come wearing just those snug show opening boxer briefs and make them himself. He also painted a mural and did a painting of the sea for the room.

Lonnie wallpapered, creating one wall with a wallpaper silkscreened with a repetitive design. Lonnie is nothing if not repetitive design. Lonnie is nothing if not repetitive design. See, she has me doing it. First there were the Chevrons, then the Home Plates, now she does some Fleur de lis kinda fother-muckin' thing.

Antonio picks subtle colors of purple and lavender--and he isn't gay. He orders desks, he buys clocks, he has a stainless steel map of the USA crafted, and he walls over the fireplace. Antonio is good with a big shock--that map was cool--but cannot accessorize to save his life. He also cannot pronounce the word 'the,' but I digress.

At the judging, they all go ga-ga over Dan's room, loving the mobile and the painting. Vern doesn't like Dan's giggle; Vern's an ass. Genevieve says Dan seems stiff in his hosting. I say, what's wrong with a stiff Dan? Candice loves Dan, from mobiles to painting to murals, and she didn't even see the show-opening-snug-boxer-brief-shirtless Dan.

Lonnie gets blasted for the one-trick-pony-focal-wall-paint-trick that she uses every week and for not being able to hang a headboard. Kudos, though, for her greening of the room, although I found it bland. She didn't even rearrange furniture; she papered, hung a few new things and made the bed. Ho. Hum.

Antonio gets points for the map. He gets knocked for the use of a placemat as a rug; seriously, it was like a washcloth dropped to the floor and a table set upon it. His room is just, well, incomplete. No art. No plants. Empty shelves. But he does get points for being unique, which is design-speak for What the hell is that?

I know I'm partial. I likeee Dan. But I think Dan had the more difficult room. He actually had to change a room while Lonnie had to merely redo a room and Antonio had to furnish a room.

In the end, Lonnie went home because she couldn't hang a headboard. I thought it should have been Antonio because his room didn't seem finished, but I guess a Charming-Dimpled-Shirtless-Giggling Dan versus Gruff-Dese-Dem-Dose-Tattoed-BedRock-Boy-Antonio final will pull in more viewers.

The way I see it, Dan will win because he has the design chops, the cute giggle, the telegenic face, while Antonio is a bit too gruff and rough around da edges. Dan is TV while Antonio is radios......AM radio.