Click here for my latest article. Tonight, each of the final three contestants had to sing three songs.  The first song would be one chosen by music mogul Clive Davis.  The second song would be chosen by the show's judges (and announced by each contestant's local politician of note.)  The third song would be chosen by the contestants themselves. As a whole, tonight's performances were really good.  Two of the performers (Taylor and Katharine) had at least one spectacu...

I was watching a baseball game tonight.  The Twins were losing to the White Sox by the score of 4-0.  It looked as if the Sox's pitcher had the game under control, and that the Twins' offense was going to take the night off. With that in mind, I started flipping through the channels.  (Ironically, the Twins came through with a 5 run inning at just about the time I stopped watching.  They eventually won 8-4.  Goes to show that it really "ain't over. . ."  (Don't l...

Click here for my latest article After last night's show, I was certain that either Elliott or Taylor would be going home.  Both of those two performed reasonably well last night, but I figured that their elimination was an inevitability en route to a Katharine and Chris final. Surprisingly, it was Chris who was sent home. (With Elliott and Taylor being the top two.)  Tonight's result was probably the most surprising one in series history. What went wrong?  Chris w...

Click here for my latest article. Tonight the final four Idol contestants gave the songs of Elvis their best shot.  Helping the contestants was special guest arranger Tommy Matola. The Performances: Taylor Taylor's first song was "Jailhouse Rock".  I'd imagine that this is the type of performance one would expect from a "Taylor" concert.  It was fun, but the song itself wasn't all that marketable.  John Belushi sang it better.  Grade: B Taylor's se...

Click here for my latest article. Tonight Chris, Taylor, and Katharine found themselves in the top-three.  Elliott and Paris were in the bottom-two. After a suspense-killing 9:00 local news promo which implied that Paris would be eliminated, we found that it was indeed Paris Bennett who was eliminated.  (Minnesota media outlets love to push "Minnesota ties."   Apparently Paris lived in a Minneapolis suburb for a while.) The competition is getting really tigh...

Click here for my latest article. Since the number of contestants is dwindling, each contestant was to sing one song from the year of their birth, and one from a current "Billboard Top-ten" list.  (Apparently these top-ten lists are pretty wide ranging, as Taylor was able to find a "this week in history"-type song to sing. All in all, the performances were either average or good.  Nothing too terrible, so that's nice.  By this point in the contest, the contestants are...

As the title says, I am wondering about people's favorite episode of "The Simpsons".  Forgive me if this is a rehash for some of you.  (It is possible that a similar discussion has been posted in JU before.  As a matter of fact, I may have even written the article.  I'm not sure.) Today is May 1st.  That means that it is the beginning of the sweeps period in American television.  For the next four weeks, we will be able to enjoy the best that TV has to offer. ...

When I was a pre-teen I enjoyed a lot of the world that Douglas Adams created. I read all of his "Hitchhikers"-related books. I watched the BBC TV series. I played the Zork-like text adventure game on my Commodore 64. I also listened to the radio play based on the book. That was all good stuff! Being a fan, I was surprisingly late to see the recent movie. (I think it came out in 2005.) The movie was shown on one of the STARS channels the other day, so I scheduled it to record. I watch...

Click here for my latest article. In an unusual move: the top-two, middle-two, and bottom-two vote-getters were announced as such. Chris and Katharine came in as the top-two. Elliot and Taylor in the middle, and Paris and Kellie were in the bottom two. In the end, we saw the elimination of Kellie Pickler. The top-two (Chris and Katharine): Is there any doubt that these two will be there in the finals? I like Katharine, and I am bored with Chris. I do however think that it is nea...

Click here for my latest article. This is a nice part of the American Idol season.  Once the competition gets down to six finalists, it is pretty clear that each contestant holds their own special appeal.  From this point, it gets increasingly difficult to seperate oneself from the competition. The theme of tonight's show was "Love Songs."  The guest coaches tonight were singer Andrea Bocelli, and his producer/ songwriter friend.  It was fun that those two were reason...

Click here for my latest article. The day after "The Great American Songbook" show, Rod Stewart stopped by to sing a song.  It is really interesting to observe how effortlessly a veteran performer can sing a song in comparison to the young Idol contestants.  Rod made it look really easy to sound good. Next week's guest star/ coach will be Andrea Bocelli.  He'll help the contestants with "great love songs."  -I doubt that this Bocelli fellow was chosen to appeal to the...

Click here for my latest article. Tonight, the Idol contestants worked with Rod Stewart on the classics of American Standards. The performers on the show seemed to be more on their game than usual. Rod Stewart was pretty cool. He was friendly, approachable, and very humble. Of all of the guests that Idol has ever had, Rod seems like the one that would be the most pleasant to be around. (Barry Manilow probably isn't all that bad either.) The Performances: 1. Chris Daughtry ...

Click here for my latest article. The other day as I was browsing around the internet, I visited the American Idol-related website: votefortheworst.com.  VFTW was interesting.  There is a spot on the site where someone does weekly reviews of each episode.  Name, song, commentary, and a letter grade. Reading through those recaps, I was struck by how similar the style and commentary are to my weekly recaps.  Granted there are only so many ways to "skin a cat", but I was...

Click here for my latest article. So there it was, the American Idol episode that I've been waiting for.  The songs of possibly my favorite rock group: Queen. Sadly, tonight's show was plagued with a number of poor song choices and below average performances.  I wish that the contestants would have spent more time looking for a song to sing than simply reading the back of the "Greatest Hits" CD. I think that if some of the contestants (namely Elliot, Ace, an...

Click here for my latest article At the end of last night's Results' Show, Ryan announced that next week's theme will be "The Songs of Queen". Wow! What a great theme! There are so many good/ fun/ entertaining songs to choose from. That said: there are a few Queen songs that are simply dangerous to sing. Here are some of my thoughts on song choice for next week's theme show. Good Queen songs to pick: Crazy Little Thing Killer Queen Breakthrough Love of my Life Don't Stop...