American Ido;- And the Winner is....Scotty!?

Yep, evidently our American Idol is a 17 year old boy who sings really low and also sings inappropriate songs for his age.  He'll go far...

Actually, if he was a regular pop singer, those song choices would be fine, but country listeners like to pretend that they have higher morals or something. 

Beyonce preformed twice, J.Lo danced to Marc Antony's song, Steven Tyler sang beautifully, The Edge and Bono tempted fate with a Spiderman song and a Spiderman stunt double, Casey sang with Jack Black, Jacob sand with a gospel star, Haley sang with a very spry 85 year old Tony Bennett, James sang two songs with  Judas Priest(very good), Scotty sang with Tim McGraw, and Lauren sang with Carrie Underwood.  Scotty's performance showed his weakness, which is singing with others and harmonizing.  Lauren's performance was a little better.

I don't know.  I mean, of all the talent that the show had this year, we get two country singers as our finalists?  This is what happens when the judges say no constructive things at all.  We need some honesty from the judges' panel.

American Finale-Who will go hoem tonight?

It's down to the final two: Lauren and Scotty.

Lauren sang three country songs.  Scotty sang three country songs.  It was kinda painful to watch.  Lauren had a better single, but remember how she sang Aerosmith to audition, where is that girl?

Scotty sang Gone again.  It was awful, he looked so nervous and he flubbed the lyrics a bit.  Lauren did the same on her Flat on the Floor.

At this point, does it really matter?  Don't the people who vote already have their opinions made?  They know who they want to win and for the whole competition Scotty and Lauren have been gaining more votes.

Neither one of these kids is going to make it big.  They don't have the talent.  Scotty doesn't have the charisma.  Lauren doesn't have the confidence.  America doesn't have a big time market for these kids.

Scotty will be crowned the American Idol and sing his awful single again.

American Idol- Who's going to the finale?!?

Scotty and Lauren.  That's right, Scotty and Lauren.  Not Haley and either of the two others.   Haley had a shot, James had a shot, Casey had a shot, Pia had a shot, Paul had a shot.  These two left?  Not so much.

A telling moment for the future of Scotty: when he was giving his concert back home, Josh Turner showed up.  In case you don't know who that is, Josh Turner is a country singer who sings that song that Scotty always sings.  Most people who listen to just pop have no idea who Josh Turner is.  If you forced them to name some country stars, they would list Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, maybe Tim Mcgraw and maybe a couple others.  Would they list George Strait or Josh Turner?  No, because those artists are pop artists who are also country stars, but are simply country stars.  That's what Scotty can be.  And I'm not dissing those fans, since I know many personally and country fans are the most consistent and loyal in the business.  I mean, Garth Brooks still makes millions of dollars and he hasn't released a new album in years and he was retired for most of the 2000s.  So yeah, Scotty will probably make it big in the country world.  But not the whole pop world.  Pop is reserved for people who sing pleasingly, not disturbingly low.

And Lauren...Lauren is too young and too not confident in her abilities to be a star.  She still can't fill up the stage with any presence.  After she's done, I'm always like...what did Lauren sing again?  Oh well, I didn't like it anyway.

American Idol-Down to Three

It was a shocker!  James went home!

I thought for sure it was going to be Lauren, but she was the first one to safety, followed by Haley.  Leaving James and Scotty.  Then, I was hoping that it would be Scotty.  But it was James.

Criticism for the remaining three: Lauren is too nervous and never pushes herself, only sings what is safe.  Also, Lauren chooses songs that she doesn't like to sing.  Scotty only sings country.  Every single time.  The same way.  With the same creepy leers and weird way of holding the microphone.  Haley is the only one that gets any criticism from the judges.  The last few weeks, she has been very good.  Before that, she had her ups and downs.

She better win it all.

American Idol-Theme Unclear

Something about inspiration, but I wasn't really sure what the second set of songs had in common.

An okay night.  James was solid, even though he sang "Don't Stop Believin'" and you can't not sound like you aren't singing karaoke for that song.  His second song was Love Potion Number 9.  It sounded vastly different than the original, but was still good.

Haley sang a song by Michael Jackson called Earth Song.  Randy said it was the pinnacle of Michael's career and I said, Hmm?  What?  I'd never heard it before.  It was good and a cool song, but of course the judges decided that only Haley can take criticism.  She got a little defensive and then Steven stood up for her, which made me happy, if only because Haley is far superior to Lauren.  The second song was I(Who have Nothing).  She came out and fueled by her anger at the judges, sang the crap out of the song, which should have been boring and lounge-singy.

Scotty sang "Where Were You(When the World Stopped Turning)."  Which is a song about September Eleventh.  Cashing in a bit on Osama's death?  It sounded like every other country song Scotty sings, which is to say, boring and safe.  His second song was Young Blood.  I have finally realized where Scotty belongs: in a country-western lounge act.  That's him. 

Lauren sang a song called Anyway.  I don't really remember it.  Her second song was Trouble, which she seemed to be really nervous about performing a song about badness and I said, choose a different song then.  Duh.  It was okay, but still nothing spectacular.

My prediction:  Lauren will go home tonight.

Amazing Race Finale!

The four teams (Zev and Justin, Gary and Mallory, Keisha and Jen, and the Globetrotters) started out in Switzerland.  They were then told to get to Rio de Janeiro.  Zev and Justin and the Globetrotters initially had a much better flight, but evidently Big Easy isn't a good liar, so Gary and Mallory and Keisha and Jen found out about the earlier flight. 

They then had to ride this tram to a staircase and find their next clue.  The Globetrotters got a bad cab driver and missed the first tram, which put them 30 minutes behind.  Except that the next clue led to a Road Block and Zev had to do it....It was a dance challenge and as Zev said, he has white-boy rhythm.  It wasn't pretty.  He tried to complete the challenge at least twice as many times as anyone else.  So the Globetrotters caught up.

Gary and Mallory finished the Road Block first with Keisha and Jen close behind.  Then the Globetrotters and then Zev and Justin.  All team members then had to undergo a Brazilian wax.  Looked painful and awful.

Then it was the Detour.  On the Rocks or On the Beach.  In On the Rocks, teams had to correctly make 100 cocktails, while in On the Beach, teams had to sell bikinis on the beach and have the buyers model the bikinis until they made 100 Brazilian currencies...  Gary and Mallory, Keisha and Jen, and the Globetrotters chose Rocks, while Zev and Justin chose Beach.  Rocks was easy, once the teams got the recipe down, Beach, not so much.  Finally Zev and Justin switched to Rocks, but they were too far behind.

Gary and Mallory finished first, followed by Keisha and Jen, Flighttime and Big Easy, and finally, Zev and Justin.  Justin said some pretty nice things about Zev and the race and both looked really happy to have done it together.

That was Brazil.  Now, for the race to the Finish.

Amazing Race Finale Tonight

Super-sized episode tonight!
Who will win?  I hope that Zev and Justin pull it off, but they had a really brutal last leg.  So who knows, it's really anyone's race.

American Idol-Thursday Elimination

Finally...Jacob is done.  Thank goodness.  According to my not tone-deaf fiance, he has been awful and pitchy all season.  That's the problem with these judges.  They like everyone except for Haley.  Which I don't understand, since Haley is one of the best left.

Also on last night we had Lady Antebellum and J. Lo.  Lady Antebellum's new song sounded a lot like Need You Now except happier.  Same style of singing, same sharing of verses.  J. Lo's new song, on the other hand, was about sex and was absolutely awful.  I remember when I thought she had talent.  Back in the Selena days...

American Idol-Now and Then

I was only able to watch about thirty minutes of the show last night, my fiance and I had to pre-marital counseling.  That was supposed to be on Monday, but the pastor had to reschedule for last night, which Kevin accepted, regardless of my preferences.  So I missed most of American Idol.

So, now they are each singing two songs in the 90 minutes slot.  The theme this week was Now and Then.  They had to sing one more current song and one classic song.  And surprise, Jimmy Iovine had another helper and once again, it was Will.I.Am.  It was Sheryl Crow.  Yay.

First up was James with a song by 30 Seconds to Mars.  It was definitely one of his weaker songs, if not his weakest.  Kevin said he sounded like karaoke and I have to agree.  Of course, the judges loved it.  They are pretty worthless.

Then we had Jacob.  He sang some song by Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown.  I had issue with that.  He wouldn't sing that one song because it was about sex, but he would sing a song by an abuser?  Okay...
Anyway, it was awful as well.  I just don't like Jacob's voice or stage presence or facial expressions.  He looks awkward and sounds worse.

Next was Lauren.  She sang a song by Carrie Underwood.  Ooh, a couple former Idol songs...  She was okay, but it was the same old, same old.

Then, there was Scotty.  He sang a song by Montgomery Gentry.  It was country and it was Scotty, so I didn't like it.  It sounded the same as every other song he sings.  It was boring.

That's all I got to see.  I don't really know why the kids were having trouble with this theme.  There are a lot of songs to choose from.  Choose something that pushes you, but not so far that you fail.

Finals coming up

Next week is officially finals' week.  However, I have two of my three final projects due this week.  That doesn't seem fair, does it?  Why couldn't my huge paper be due during its final slot?  That's what I would enjoy.

Amazing Race-The Alps

The Race started out this week with five teams left: Zev and Justin, Keisha and Jen, Kent and Vyxsin, Gary and Mallory, and Flightime and Big Easy, in that order.  They opened up their clues and found out that they had to go to a heliopad and there, they would receive their next clue and their destination.  Kent and Vyxsin kept trying to take a taxi and they were all full.  Gary and Mallory managed to pass them to the heliopad. 

All the teams arrived at the heliopad and they started taking off after they found out that this was the detour.  On this detour it was search or rescue.  For search, the teams had to use a gps device to find a beacon.  At this beacon, they had to dig through several feet of snow to find a dummy and then they had to completely uncover it.  Zev and Justin and Gary and Mallory chose this detour.  All the other teams chose rescue.

In rescue, one team member lowered the other using a pulley into a crevice until they could hook a line to the person "trapped" in the crevice.  Then the team member pulled the other up using the pulley and they pulled up the stuck person.  This sounded really hard, but they all had a much easier time than the teams doing search.  With search, only one team member could really dig and the other just tended to get in the way.

All of the teams except for Zev and Justin got done at about the same time.  They then had to take a train back to down and get their next clue.  Finally Zev and Justin finished, with Justin having snow and ice all over his face.  The next task was a road-block.  In this road-block, one team member had to paint a travelocity gnome mold with colored chocolate, fill it with more chocolate and wait for it to cool.

It was pretty easy, except at one point, someone took Flightime's mold out of the freezer.  It was probably Vyxsin, but there is really no way to know.  Zev said, looks like there are too many cooks in the kitchen.  Big Easy got upset and Kent said, just to the cameras, that he could beat Big Easy up.  I don't think so.  Big Easy could poke Kent and Kent would cry.

Anyway, Vyxsin managed to finish first, but her and Kent made a huge mistake.  They were supposed to make their way on foot to the Pit Stop, but instead they took a handy little electric taxi.  The first team were the Globetrotters, followed by Jen and Keisha.  Then Kent and Vyxsin, but they incurred a thirty minute penalty.  Gary and Mallory showed up fourth and received third place.  It was now down to Zev and Justin and Kent and Vyxsin.  Kent and Vyxsin argued their entire penalty about whose fault it was that they read the clue wrong.  Finally Zev and Justin showed up.  Phil told them they were last, but then he told them about the Goths' penalty.  Zev said, we'll take it.  Kent and Vyxsin were eliminated.  Thank goodness.  Kent has so much negative energy, it was terrible.