After last night I wonder why I thought the guys were so good. I wasn't impressed by anyone. David A was off his game but safe of course. And we had a good preformance by Micheal Johns but he had a weak ending. He sounded good in the lower range and I kept thinking, this guy is about to go up an octave and blast this song into the stratosphere but he never did until the last note and then he struggled to keep it steady.

David Cook has been a strange outsider figure all these weeks. Last night he seemed like a contender for the first time. He appears to be the most "complete" musician in the group. There is something about him that I think will discourage votes but I can't put my finger on it. I think it might be that he is pretty guarded-like he has been told 100 times that he doesn't have "it" when he knows he does. He does.
And what was Simon smoking when he told Jason C that he thought Halleujah was "brilliant". I recently learned to sing that song and I studied the best version ever recorded (KD Lang); and if you compare what she did with it and what he did with it, his version was a car wreck! He even smiled when he blew a note and had to cover up the mistake- Simon didn't even notice.

Now I get to predict a complete dark horse will win, and if I am right, I will seem like a bloody genius in a few weeks. Little Oregon cowgirl Kristie, now barely hanging on at the bottom of the girls, will end up the next American Idol. Ok, I confess, I was born in Oregon. And I now live in Kelly Clarkson's hometown.

if you want to hear what Kristie Lee Cook sounds like recorded, here is her myspace page with a few songs demoed: http://www.myspace.com/kristyleecook

If she gets her chance to sing "Blue" for country week, she will be singing her favorite Leann Rhimes song and then it will be like what happened when Hillary won the Texas primary- a new ball game.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein