Is there even a question this week? ...well, okay, there is, about who'll come in second. But Latoya totally blew everybody else out of the water.
Otherwise... well, the nice thing about Jonah's performance is that it left no question about who was worst this week. Pity, as I kinda liked his pre-song rap. Working our way up my rankings, I wasn't really feeling Eric's performance, although, on the bright side, this ought to put an end to any comparisons of him with Clay. Elizabeth was okay, but a bit heavy-handed. Charly made a risky song selection, and it backfired; if you try to sing "Chain of Fools" like Aretha and you're not Aretha, you're probably screwed.
Especially if you come right after Jon, who successfully made "Tiny Dancer" his own. I had him just barely ahead of Amy, although I liked Amy's personality so much that I'd have been willing to give her the edge. But, ultimately, I'd put Leah slightly ahead of both of them. Any of these three would be an acceptable second to Latoya's first-place showing.
At any rate, we're back on track. I'm not sure I agree that this week, taken as a whole, was better than the first, but it was certainly in the same league. The shadow of last week has been dispelled, and good riddance.
...and, once again, I finished watching the tape too late to vote. This is starting to worry me. Once we get to the top 12, I'm gonna want my voice to be heard, darn it!
Oh, well. At least I have a journal. And the semester will be over by the time we hit the final weeks of the competition. It's something.
Posted by Shmuel at February 24, 2004 11:46 PMI was flipping channels and managed to miss Amy's performance. Gah! I'm a fool! She's my favorite!
So, Shmuel, I wonder: are you sure you're missing the voting period? I ask because the phones are open for an hour after *I* see the show, and that's midnight your time. Can they block calls from a certain time zone so you don't get extra time to vote? I'm not sure how it works, but I wondered about that when I read your post.
Posted by: Heather Shaw at February 25, 2004 4:21 PMHeather: I've occasionally wondered about that, but have assumed that they're able to block calls from a given area code after its time zone's voting window is over. As it happens, I have tried voting after 11 PM, when I've gotten done watching the tapes, but have always gotten a busy signal on repeated attempts, which I have since confirmed is also what you get if you try to call on, say, Wednesday afternoon.
It's slightly possible that the lines were still open and packed with callers, but my experience other years has been that while it's hard to get through just after the show, it's usually not that hard later in the voting period. Given the number of attempts I made -- and that I also, in the spirit of experimentation, tried voting for other, less popular contestants -- I definitely would have expected to have gotten through at least once. So I'm pretty confident that the lines were, in fact, closed here.
(I just checked, and the official FAQ seems to back this up, claiming that "If you are calling or Text Messaging from a cell phone and you are in a different time zone from your cell phone number, the systems will accept or reject your vote based on the time zone of your cell phone area code. For example, if you have a New York cell phone area code but are calling from Los Angeles you will be voting outside the East Coast voting window and your vote will not be accepted. Try calling again from a land line telephone during the West Coast voting window.")
That said, maybe I should look into the possibility of getting somebody on the West Coast to cast my vote for me? I hadn't thought of that...
Posted by: Shmuel at February 25, 2004 5:02 PM