It’s all about the Bowersox!

Crystal Bowersox appears to be one of the clear and uncontested frontrunners among American Idol’s Top 10 finalists. From the get go the competition looks like it’s hers to lose. Yeah, right. We’ve seen that kind of thing before. If there’s anything that watching American Idol’s past seasons have taught me is that America’s voting public can be unpredictable. Case in point, Chris Daughtry.

She has been my female pick to win the competition since Hollywood week. Her acoustic, singer-songwriter style has lended itself to some very consistently strong performances so far. Is the competition indeed hers to lose? Her back story of being a struggling mom, slash, wannabe singer has seen her get some support from the voting public. Her humble demeanor and quiet confidence only serve to reinforce her popularity. Yes, American Idol is a popularity contest as much as it is a singing competition. At times popularity seems to take a driver’s seat over talent, as seen in Lilly Scott’s early exit from the competition. That was probably a landmark in America’s cultural decline. Perhaps that was too strong. In the end, America is looking for someone they want to hear on the radio and see in various TV appearances. Scott’s music preferences may just have been too far away from the average mainstream tastes.

Andrew Garcia, Simon Cowell, and my last season of watching Idol

Image via BuddyTV.com

American Idol’s “Hollywood Week” was largely unimpressive, in my opinion. There were very few performances that stood out in my memory. Most of the featured “good” performances were lukewarm at best. One performance in particular though, cemented one contestant as my male-pick to win the competition this year.

Andrew Garcia and his acoustic rendition of Paula Abdul’s song “Straight Up” just blew me away.

Did it hit David-Cook-levels of amazing? Not quite yet. Was it at least in the same neighbourhood of quality that shows promise for Andrew to win the competition? I would probably have to say, YES!

Kara appeared to like it as well. Well that was at least my interpretation of her grooving to Andrew’s impressive acoustic version of the song.

I enjoy following American Idol with my wife. It’s our weekly ritual of following something we both appreciate and enjoy. We’ve turned it into a game of sorts; picking our favourites as early as Hollywood Week. We’re each allowed one male and one female pick. This season, it looks like Andrew is going to be my male pick to win it.

Google Buzz: A blogger’s new tool

The all-powerful internet entity known as GOOGLE to its minions, followers, users, and  everyone else who uses the internet  has launched Google Buzz.

The first thing I do in the morning is open my laptop and check my GMAIL. I opened it this morning and discovered that I now have Google Buzz. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was at first. This video explains the bulk of what it is and what it does.

Like any other responsible, non-spamming, email user I decided to look into it a little bit deeper and googled “Google Buzz” to see what’s up.

First impressions of Ellen as an American Idol judge

I wasn’t sure if Ellen Degeneres would fit well as a member of American Idol’s judging panel. I knew from watching her TV show, Ellen, that she does have an eye for talent and that she was big Idol fan.

I knew that watching Idol would not be the same without Paula Abdul to be there to sugar coat her negative feedback criticism to contestants. That was an assumed given, coming into this season of America’s most popular talent-search show.

After seeing Ellen in action in her first episode on Idol’s “Hollywood Week”, I must say I enjoyed how she fit in. I actually appreciated how her excellent comedic timing came into play and how the addition of that dimension to the show comes a fresh change. She’s an entertainer and so it should be expected that the judging end of the show should improve in that aspect. I’m sure that’s why the Idol big wigs added her to the show and not just to add masculine man-vibe to compensate their popular host.

You can only take so much squabbling between Simon Cowell and Paula every season. Right? At some point, it was just getting old and at times I felt it was taking away from the focus people should have directed at the contestants.

Ellen adds entertainment without any inter-judge antagonism. Well at least that’s how it seems to be going so far.

It’s just her first episode and I know we will have to give her more time to see her full impact on the show. This is, after all, just about my first impressions. Besides, the show is about the contestants. Isn’t it, Simon?

Adding Ellen Degeneres as an American Idol judge… so far, so good. At least now there’s someone interesting in the judging panel to watch other than Simon. Keep it up, Ellen!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. You’ve probably arrived here  by accident or through some random glitch in the internet. Well it’s either that or you’re a member of my family, a friend, or part of the growing community of people who have nothing better to and thus have addicted to reading I have to say.

Seriously, welcome to my personal blog. I wanted a place where I could just write about anything and everything that interests me, which by the clutter you see, is a plethora of various categories and topics. These basically represent pretty much everything I enjoy talking about in the flesh-world. I felt it would just be a great experience to reach out to and interact with the other denizens of this vast cyberspace and blogosphere.