This is all I got. The boy is, for some strange reason, laying low.  Boo. He even had a chance to go to the E! Oscar After party and passed it up.  I would have too, I guess.

Lookin’ fine!!

Gallery – remember to click, then click again on the page that opens.

That’s what I thought when I saw this picture from mrpoplife.

Love this picture!

The Nashville Predators WON!! Yay!! But now I have a sore throat and I just want to go to bed. Of course I missed some stuff while I was out having fun.

First – Derek’s picture.  Were people maligning this picture on twitter? What the hell is wrong with them?? I love it. He is really maturing beautifully.

Then there are a bunch of photos of he and Nicole out to lunch today, from WENN. Click the link. He really looks fabulous when he’s had a chance to rest a bit.

A few more lovely pictures:

This is gonna be HOT!!  :-)  From Access Hollywood:

Plus, Nicole tweeted a cute picture of her and Derek.

From USA Today, a cute little interview with Nicole:

She joked about her partner, saying, “I have been paired with Mr. Derek Hough, and as soon as I can get some personality in that guy and some charisma, then I think we can go far,” she teased. “Derek and I are pretty crazy. We’re probably the goofiest cats ever. We were electric from the start.”

But she’s got a lot to learn, she admits. “The first dance that we’ve been assigned is the Viennese waltz. I just learned how to say that properly — I’ve been calling it the Vietnamese waltz.

Pay close attention to what Conrad says. In fact, go read what he say about all the contestants at EW.com. I see the same thing he does – a cast that has a large number of potentially very good people. We won’t be able to be complacent on the voting.

NICOLE SCHERZINGER, Pussycat Doll
Pro partner: Derek Hough

Conrad Green says: ”For the Pussycat Dolls, she was primarily booked as a vocalist, not a dancer. I don’t think she’s got any more dance background than Mel B. had, or Joey Fatone, or Drew Lachey. We’ve had a number of people like that — Mya, last season — but only one of those people have won. I think the audience does compensate, you know? I think if they see someone come from nowhere and do well, they tend to appreciate that more. So she’s got to overcome that. It’ll be more pressure for Derek, too.”

From RadarOnline:

Now on to Nicole Scherzinger, who is the lead singer of The Pussy Cat Dolls.

She skipped the basics and advanced to doing the Tango with Season 7 champ Derek Hough. She was rocking her pumps with some designer sweats.

Well, it looks like most people like HoughZinger, and since Derek suggested it himself that’s what I’m going with until or unless he (or Nicole) come up with something they like better. I like HoughZinger – it has a jazzy ring to it. Gonna be hell on a tee shirt though.

Thanks to @prettybeaches for the heads up on the Press Release which implies that Derek and Nicole are doing the V. Waltz. Geez, two years in a row where Derek doesn’t get Cha Cha?? I like it!! He can do one hell of a good V. Waltz. ABC Press Release - get ready (again) for Design a Dance, people. We need to win it this year, although they are doing the celebrity thing again, which gives certain other pros an unfair advantage. Ah well – I’m just happy the boy is on the show. Period.

All eleven couples will dance for the first time on live national television on MONDAY,
MARCH 22 (8:00-10:00 p.m., ET), with couples either performing the Viennese Waltz or Cha Cha. In week two, all of the couples will return to dance their second routines in a two-hour show, MONDAY, MARCH 29 (8:00-10:00 p.m., ET). The couple with the lowest combined judges’ scores and public votes for both performances will be sent home on TUESDAY, MARCH 30 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET) in the season premiere of “Dancing with the Stars the Results Show.”

“Dancing with the Stars” returns with new surprises and all the elements viewers have come to know and love. “Macy’s Stars of Dance,” which features some of the most renowned dancers and choreographers of our time, will be back with performances on “Dancing with the Stars the Results Show.” One of the “Macy’s Stars of Dance” performances will be the hugely popular “Design-a-Dance,” where fans have the chance to select their favorite celebrity dancers, dance styles and wardrobe at www.abc.com. Three weeks of the competition will feature the return of the “Dance Off,” where contestants will perform a dance style of their choosing to fight for their spot in the competition, followed by three consecutive single eliminations.

Okay, I have to say that we don’t get NEARLY enough of our professionals dancing, so the whole Macy’s thing, plus including a celeb in the DaD is pretty annoying to me. I would like to see Derek dance with Cheryl Burke or one of the other women – someone who can dance at his level. Sabrina was fine because she’s so GOOD – but should have been with Derek.

Get ready for lots of ringer talk, similar to what Mya got last year. My view is, if they’re determined to have ringers (and Nicole is far less of one than Evan, Kristi, Shawn or Donny), then it’s about damn time that Derek got one. I’m not going to apologize or even be sorry about that. What I will do is smack any Mya fans, Dmitry fans, Shawn or Kristy (or Mark) fans that dare to complain. Actually, that goes for Sabrina, Mel B, and Erin Andrews fans as well, because Nicole’s “experience” is similar to Sabrina and Mel B’s. Of course, it figures that the season Derek gets a ringer, there is at least one bigger ringer on the show. Evan. Ah well – we Derek fans can get Nicole and Derek to the very end, at least, if we work hard. I included an excerpt from this blog on Syracuse.com because they make Derek part of Nicole’s advantage. Can’t argue with that!!

Nicole Scherzinger & Derek Hough: Famous for wearing skin-tight leather pants? Now that’s something I can get behind. (Oops). But really, I’m not too excited about this choice because she is already a professional dancer and she’s paired with Derek, the show’s best professional dancer and choreographer. I’m not stupid and I realize that many of the “stars” aren’t on the sub-par dancing level of most of them, but really, does this even seem fair?

I have no idea, but if you instead asked yourself “so Kevin, who are your blind final three picks and who do you see as being the first star voted out?” That I can answer! I would be stupid to not pick the team of Nicole Scherzinger & Derek Hough, so I’ll go ahead and group them with Evan Lysacek & Anna Trebunskaya (who I still hold a grudge against for blowing it for Lacey and Mark last season) and Erin Andrews & Maksim Chmerkovskiy as my blind final three.

That’s my final three pick as well.  From the Washington Post.com:

Bringing more than a bit of stage presence and sex appeal, The Pussycat Dolls’s Nicole Scherzinger could be an early dark horse for the title. She will be dancing with fan favorite Derek Hough.

From The Idolator:

While her onetime Pussycat Dolls are running off into the night like felines in heat (Ashley Roberts and Kimberly Wyatt are the latest to jet from the burlesque-themed girl group), head kitty Nicole Scherzinger is stepping in an entirely different direction—Dancing With The Stars. Below, find out who the singer, who was recently voted one of the Ten Sexiest Women In Music by Billboard, will be paired up with in the reality dance competition’s tenth season.

Many thanks to Dee for pointing me to Vegas Deluxe and these pictures – which look very, very promising.  Hit up that site for pics of some of the other couples, including The Bachelor.