Blake Lewis, who almost won last years AI, performed one his singles at the beginning of the show. It was terrible. Of course, I never liked him that much anyway … his beat-boxing stuff was inventive, but his vocals and charisma aren’t there. But hey, AI had some time to fill …

I’ll keep the rest short because none of the performers eliminated were a huge surprise to anyone, I think. Kady Malloy - no shocker. Luke Menard - ditto.

The only one that did surprise me just a little was Asia’h Epperson. I thought she might have had a bigger fan base that would pull her through. I have no rational reason for thinking that, but there you go. In terms of Chikezie vs. Danny Noriega, for me that was a toss-up. I really had no idea which one would have the lower votes. Both have their pluses and minuses. But apparently the voters decided (as I had) that Danny wasn’t entertaining enough to gloss over his lesser vocals and so out he went - torturing us with another performance of “Tainted Love”.

It’s uncharitable of me, but the past few days I find Paula Abdul so distracting I can’t focus on the show. Every time she opens her mouth I just want to roll my eyes and press the mute button. I know, I know, I should try to focus on the fact that Paula is cheery & sweet and that she tries hard to be nice and caring. I don’t mind that aspect of her TV presence at all, actually. It’s the blathering on and on and on and on to what amounts to completely useless (for the show) dribble … judging American Idol isn’t a personal video blog on YouTube where you can babble inanely about whatever pleases you for as long as you want. Argh … ok, I’ll stop ranting about Paula now.

Sorry, too much stress the past few weeks from all the buy-a-house stuff. I’ll be cheerier again in a few weeks, I’m sure - with new photos to boot. :D