La Bene Vita

Thursday

I judged the February round of Ohio Idol video submissions this morning. Adele is great. Really. Love her.

DEAR IDOL CONTESTANTS: PLEASE STOP TRYING TO BE ADELE. Thank you for your attention in this urgent matter.

I blogged recently about song choice, but apparently none of the contestants thought to read the blogs of the judges (um... duh.) Want to sound good in an audition? Be yourself. Stop trying to be some singer you're not. You sound like a cheap imitation.

Moving on.

Student count = 277.
So I sent out our annual "we're about to increase your tuition" email and sat back to wait for the rotten tomatoes:

Ok.  So, what would be the cost for us?  I honestly don't know what we pay, so if you could break it down for me I would greatly appreciate it. (Ooh. She sounded mad. )

Oh yeah, sure, the Federal Reserve prints more counterfeit money, further devaluing their currency, (a capital felony crime, by the way), which even now is worth less than two cents on the dollar, and Vista Plaza demands a greater amount of this ever-falling dollar for rent on the same property, and utilities are demanding more money for the same services, and your teachers can't pay for their yellow punch-buggies, and you want to take it out on your new students. I sure appreciate being regarded as a grandfather. (We informed 2011 customers that they'd been "grandfathered in" until April, where 2012 customers had the new pricing effective January 1st. Also, his teacher drives a yellow punch-buggy.)

You guys do some really neat and motivating things here at MT!!! Thanks for always emailing too! WE love it! (Just to explain, we also reminded parents about our upcoming St. Patrick's Day Party and Irish Carnival in the same email. Apparently she overlooked the tuition increase in favor of fun parties. I even asked her if I could post this on our testimonials page.)

You should handicap the price increase for those that are really bad and will need years of lessons to become respectable….just a thought. Luckily, he's got career prospects as a comedian.

So, yeah. Annual tuition hike: Check.