My votes (and the votes of others)

Natalie posted on my review of last night's show and asked a good question: Who am I voting for?

Contradictory to what many of you probably assume... I don't vote my fingers off for two hours straight (at least not at this point in the competition). :-) I usutally attempt a few votes here and there for certain people that I think deserve them and need them. And I usually vote for several people. In my mind that is almost like voting against the people I don't like.

Here's how I voted last night:
---Called for Adam once and it was busy. Didn't try after that because I figured he was safe (plus if for some ridiculous reason he would be the lowest vote getter, the judges will save him, no question).
---Called for Kris a couple times until I got through (the FOURth try... fourth times a charm). After I got through I figured I did my part.
---Spent about 10 minutes voting for Matt. I actually only got through ONE time out of that 10 minutes... which bodes well for him. I just feel like I owe it to West Michigan and my roots to vote for him, and I will probably continue to vote consistently for him throughout the rest of the competition.

A few weeks back I did vote a couple of times for Megan (in honor of the "caw! caw!") but haven't in the last two weeks. Last week I think I remember voting for Anoop a time or two as well because I thought his "Always On My Mind" was a good comeback from "Beat It". Other than that... I haven't voted for anyone else.



Now for other people's votes....

The day after a performance show I usually check out a couple websites because they are good predictors of eliminations... plus I like to see what other people are thinking. I thought I'd share those sites with you.

---latimes.com: The Los Angeles Times newspaper has great coverage of Idol. I especially like thier "Idol Buzzmeter". They get predictions from a dozen and a half pop culture analysts across the country for who they think is getting ousted. This week, the Buzzmeter shows a slight lead for Michael as the person getting the boot with Megan closely behind. Scott also got a few votes.

---dialidol.com: Dialidol is crazy, awesome and confusing all at the same time. Basically its a computer program that you can download and have your telephone modem automatically call in for your favorite Idol. The catch is that the program also sends the results from your calling back to the dialidol HQ. Here, they analyze the data from the number of calls placed for each contestant and the number of busy signals... and they compute it out with a prediction of where each contestant will rank (if they are safe, at risk, etc.). Surprisingly, dialidol is right, A LOT. Their website says that for Season 7 they were 97% correct with the eliminations. This week, dialidol shows that Scott, Megan and Michael are in the bottom three... with Michael being at the bottom of that ranking.

---ew.com: Entertainment Weekly has really good American Idol coverage as well. They have experts that give predictions, and then also have a spot for people to register and place votes that they then clump together as "America's Prediction". This week, America has predicted Michael Sarver... but they also predicted him last week and Alexis went home.... so not too sure you can use this as a accurate prediction tool... but still cool to see how others are voting.


I'll try to round up these predictions each week for my faithful readers and let you know what these sites are saying. :-)

Enjoy the show tonight!