NB: This post would be for ThePopSite.

If you've been watching American Idol religiously this season (like, um, my friend has), you know that Hollywood theater kid Adam Lambert has all but stolen the crown already. With his dark emo haircut, black fingernail polish and perfectly smudged guyliner, Lambert belts out a brilliant mix of falsetto screeches and tenor power notes while flitting around stage like a Goth Elvis on Red Bull.

But not everyone is sold on the so-called Glambert; always-cynical Simon Cowell branded him "theatrical" at his audition and just last week sneered that his rendition of "Born to Be Wild" reminded him of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Lambert has never denied that his performances are over the top, and he's also never apologized. Citing Freddie Mercury and David Bowie as role models, he continues to ignite the Idol stage with his reckless takes on hits from the past.

Music fans have never been content with boring performers, and especially not today. If you've seen a Lady Gaga video, you know that eccentricity is in. Kanye West's latest album was an electronically-warped voyage through the rapper's overflowing ego, and even pop-diva Beyonce sported a glittering robo-hand in her smash video for "Single Ladies." And admit it: did you go to Britney's "Circus" tour for the lip-synched vocals or to see Britney's high-impact, glitter-soaked big-top-gone-berserk?

But maybe Simon's right. Adam's wild Egyptian spin on Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" was labeled "self-indulgent rubbish" by the infamous British judge, and many in the media panned it as bizarre and distasteful. Perhaps you can damage the integrity of songs in the name of musical creativity.

What do you think?  Is there a difference between being theatrical and being, well, just plain weird?

My favorite social networking site appears to have morphed into a wedding alert system.

NB: This post would be for Revelife. Also, I apologize for the text in the bottom paragraphs - I can't get it to unsquish!

Not to trivialize the apostle Paul’s suffering for the gospel, but I too have a “thorn in my flesh.” It also comes as a messenger, but not one from Satan. It’s from Facebook.

The evil envoy is a tiny pink heart that periodically pops out on my Facebook homepage, its pixellated cuteness searing a digital dagger into my single-girl side.

As Facebook users know, this heart symbol shows up on the website’s “News Feed” to announce that a friend has changed her relationship status. When you’re in your mid-twenties like me, this usually means that someone has scaled the next rung on the commitment ladder. Fresh relationships, engagements, marriages—all these are documented and dispatched to one’s Facebook community, heralded by a small fuchsia heart sitting smugly on the computer screen.

This particular Saturday night I had just arrived home from dinner with some friends. Stumbling through the darkness of my apartment, I switched on my computer, and there it was: the electronic emblem of romance gone right. Masochistically, yet dutifully, I clicked. In this case, the salmon-hued harbinger trumpeted the engagement of a college friend who, after multiple failed relationships, had met The One at work. Alone, against the glow of the moonlight, I clicked through her series of digital pictures with zombie-like automation, my monitor swelling up with traumatically-close-up snapshots of the new fiancee’s 2-carat diamond stunner.

In all truthfulness, I should really be happy for my blissfully yoked friends. We all know that we should be, even when we receive our fourth bridal shower invitation in two months while the only thing we get from Williams-Sonoma is the credit card bill. But in my egocentric world, I’m usually too busy wallowing in my self-pitying cyber-voyeurism. My dating life does not brim with exciting news. I never get to send out the little pink heart. Heck, the most scintillating update I provide to my Facebook friends is to let them know that I have now included The Kills among my “Favorite Music.” Momentous.

But that should be fine. After all, I have a master's degree, a great job, fun friends, a church I enjoy--and in real life, I'm actually pretty secure with my singleness. So why was I lusting after an electronic status symbol? Did I really want to be one of "those girls," the ones who post photo after saccharine photo of them kissing their fiances at sunset? Who clog myriad inboxes with wedding details and update their statuses to let everyone in the Western Hemisphere know that they are "GETTING MARRIED IN 64 DAYS!!!!!!"?

Maybe, secretly, I do. But maybe that’s because I put too much stock in what other people think of me. Through Facebook I can scrutinize my friends’ lives in complete anonymity, free to pass judgment on their mates, their careers and their life choices—and I know well that they are doing the same to me. And in this online spectacle, I pridefully want my little show to be the one to inspire jealous squints and pangs of inadequacy. I want everyone clicking through my profile to be boundlessly impressed with my magnificent life.

But of course, here is the rub and the checks-and-balances system to my cornucopian ego. I’m a Christian who believes in the reality of God’s will. And accordingly, I’m supposed to let God, if you will, be the one who updates my Facebook profile. God’s supposed to furnish me with that slick, high-powered job; that boyfriend so dazzlingly attractive he’ll inspire swoons all over cyberspace; all those ecstatic memories that I can cram into a digital photo album, overflowing with online evidence of my success and popularity. Or, more realistically, God should at least help me be at with peace with my lack of all these things.

Returning to our apostle, I think Paul would have been a fan of Facebook. He could have emailed out passionate pleas for donations to his collection; kept a watchful eye on his churches by checking their blogs; posted photos of his bedraggled self to really drive home his boasts of his suffering. But I can’t picture Paul spending untold hours hunched over his Macbook, scouring for new friends to boost his virtual popularity and self-censoring his list of favorite bands to appear hipper (Soul Asylum gets nixed for Santogold).

I don’t think Paul gave too much thought to the loftiness of his self-presentation. And neither should Christians today. We should bear the same transparency and humility online that we ought to exhibit in our churches and our workplaces. Instead of spending time preening my online overcoat, I need to switch off the computer, go outside and make a difference in peoples’ lives without regard for how they’re evaluating my job and my hobbies. We as Christians should lose track of ourselves in sight of our sublimely important divine mission.

So, vaya con Dios, little pink heart. I’ll try not to shoot the messenger.