Tidbits 7/24

I've never seen this photo before! It was taken shortly after May 2003's AI2 finale. Discovery credited to our friends over at Clayversity.

• Parade magazine wants to know who had the best celeb transformation. Vote for Clay!
  
• Clay still turns up in the weirdest of places. The Dallas Ft. Worth Star Telegram has an article about RFIDs (little electronic chips that track the movement of object)... Clay's mentioned:

  Maybe you think that just because a clerk passes your new CD over something that goes "thunk" that its RFID tag is deactivated. Maybe the thing just goes "thunk," and the chip is still broadcasting. Maybe the chip is even playing nearly inaudible Theremin music as you leave the store. Maybe you suddenly have a strange urge to head back and buy yet another Clay Aiken album. If you think about it, that's the only way to account for his record sales.

• Raleigh News & Observer article about Martha, a competitor on So You Think You Can Dance. The Raleigh dancer is popular, but it "hasn't reached the pitch of 2003's Claymania, when hometown belter Clay Aiken made it to second place on Idol."
• A new Clay photo of Clay arriving at LAX last month (returning from Sweden). Clay looks ready for a good nap. Update 7/25: Rainlover says this is Clay coming back to LAX from Raleigh, not Sweden. Taken July 5. CDD cannot confirm this. >>>
  
• A manager from Best Buy in Baltimore called the CB's tiggy52winkle about the possiblity of hosting a Clay CD release party there... ATDW is so close!!! Post from tiggy:

  Just heard from the manager of a local Best Buy that I had contacted several months ago about the possibility of hosting our Baltimore CD Release Party there. He wanted to know if we were still interested (because they really are!!!) and if we had a date yet. I told him the unofficial date being tossed around in the media is Sept. 19 but stressed that that was not official or confirmed by Team Clay. I did tell him that we now had the name of the CD and he was very surprised that Jaymes Foster had been the one to tell us! Too funny!!! Anyway, he said as soon as I had the date to let him know. They are really excited about hosting the party! How cool is that when the stores start calling us???

• Chexxy tackles the continuing controversy over 'Claymate'... "The haters use the Claymate term like it's a bad word and I'm tired of it. Mates=friends and I'm definitely a friend of Clay's. I'm going to embrace the term and shout it loud and proud from now on."
• ConCLAYve's mostly non-Clay blog about birthdays.
• Oops.. .think I missed There Was A Man's Friday post about the studio version of 1000 Days.
• Wednesday's Child has a montage from Shades of Clay for us.
• Several non-Clay posts on Southern Girl's blog. Also a post about Clay in Parade magazine which we covered here on CDD last week.
  

Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, American Idol, Invisible