I have to totally agree with everything you said, Gats. Based on last night's performances, I think Lauren should win. At the end of that last song, I even saw a bit of that fire I've been hoping for, but never seeing, from Lauren all along. These kids are not without internet. She has to know that she's a long, long shot to win. But she put up a good fight. Scotty was just the same old Scotty ~ but, then, why should he be any different? It's apparently working just fine for him.

I find it weird that he's been leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else every single week in DialIdol's "vote tallies", but I have yet to find a single person who writes about American Idol to rave about him. It's like the people whose job it is to cover this show see something completely different than the folks who are actually voting. I don't remember any such wide discrepancy in previous seasons ~ although to be fair, with each passing season I find more and more places to read about American Idol, so I'm getting a lot more of my info from the internet than I did, say, in Carrie Underwood's season. But if I'm reading more sources, shouldn't I also be getting a wider view of opinions?

Speaking of Carrie Underwood, you are correct, Gats, in stating that she "branched out" in ways that we've sorely wanted to see from Scotty and Lauren. Carrie Underwood was no one-trick pony during her season. That performance of "Alone" you mentioned was stand-out ~ we still remember it all these years later, right? But Carrie also did Joplin's "Piece of My Heart", Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield", Donna Summer's "MacArthur Park", and Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" ~ so she didn't just step out of her box once or twice. And she didn't try to make every song she sang a country song, regardless of the week's theme.

As finale's go, last night's was booooring ~ the worst ever, in my opinion. There was no excitement, the whole thing seemed rushed, very little input from the judges...I could complain endlessly about the production of this show. That recap reel would have been nice to watch, but we can't watch that and watch David Cook at the same time. The clips of each contestant being shown on the screen behind them as they sang their "coronation" songs was completely distracting. Only the tiniest mention of our song-choosers, Carrie Underwood and George Strait ~ where was a video clip for that? And since when do we go straight from performance to performance without a chat with the judges? It seems with "The Voice" airing and "X Factor" looming, they need to step it up, not down.

I've been saying all week I honestly don't care who wins. Besides, does anyone still have doubts about how tonight's going to turn out? But after last night, I've decided I want Lauren to win. I wouldn't bet even a dollar of my hard-earned money on the chance that this will happen, so I'm just setting myself up to be disappointed yet again this season. But what the hey, I've gotta root for the girl who does less of "everything exactly the same" than Scotty.

Well, I guess that's that for this year. That ended up pretty much the way everyone expected. I wasn't that enthralled with the finale show, although I've read that a lot of people thought it was the best in years. I really enjoyed getting to see James sing with Judas Priest. Haley's number with Tony Bennett was perfectly suited to her. And I think Jack Black should put Casey in his next movie. Otherwise, I felt pretty "meh" about the finale.