Well, I’m sure it comes as no surprise that today is the start of Eurovision 2013 – you’ve all had today’s Eurovision 2013 Semi-Final #1 marked on your calendars, right? Yes,  the annual song contest starts today, with semi-final #2 taking place on Thursday and then the big final on Saturday.  How will Germany and their controversial entry, Glorious, fare? We’ll have to wait to Saturday to find out. That’s because Germany is one of the “big 5” countries that don’t have to compete in the Semi-Finals – they go straight to the finals.

I had thought that meant that Chris and I could call in, should we choose, to vote in both of the semi-finals this week; the rules are such that if a country is competing in the semi-finals, the people from that country can’t vote on acts during that semi-finals. But it turns out that  people in the Big 5 countries can’t vote in either semi-finals. Ah well – we can vote in the Final, I guess that’s what counts, eh?

You can scope out the competition on the official website here; over on the left is a way to see the list per Semi-Final, and from there get to info and clips for each country’s song/act.

In case you have (too much) time on your hands this week, you could also check out this website, where a mathematician has posted information on his blog about the statistical model he’s done to predict the Eurovision 2013 winner.  I didn’t read the whole blog post. I just looked at the charts and then cut to see his prediction: he says either Azerbaijan or Russia should win.

However, it’s another note in the blog post that caught my eye and had me looking up the Irish entry in the Eurovision 2008 contest. Let’s just say they came quite a ways from the simple pop song sung by Colm Wilkinson in 1978. 30 years later, the Irish entry in was sung by Dustin the Turkey.

He’s a puppet.

I’m serious.

He didn’t perform alone, however, his performance was accompanied by women in gold sparkly turkey costumes and men jumping around in feathered costumes. You must see it to appreciate the fact that it’s even weirder than that sounds.

The cultural phenomenon that is Eurovision continues to fascinate me. I’ll keep you posted on this year’s contest as noteworthy performances make an appearance. Stay tuned.