30,000!! and American Idol Top 3 Performance Show Report

Since there is not as much to talk about on American Idol because there are only 3 people left, I decided to mention something else in this same blog post.

I am referring to the 30,000 in the title of this blog post. By now if you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably know I am referring to the number of votes for the top vote-getter in the Kroger/Fred Meyer Design a Reusable Bag Contest.

In approximately 10 days, a bag jumped from 20,000 to 30,000 votes. That is 10,000 mostly illegal votes for that bag. You are only allowed to vote once in the contest per day. In order for 10,000 votes to be cast for one bag in 10 days, 1,000 people would had to have voted once every day which obviously couldn't have happened since like I explained in an earlier blog post that it is very simple to vote over and over again in the same day. And I can tell that the votes are not being cast in a pattern that would be realistic.

I know I probably should just let it go since Kroger seems uninterested in making this contest fair. But my problem with this is that I want to continue doing business with Fred Meyer, and I regularly review products from their store on this blog since I do not get around to many other stores these days. I feel uncomfortable to be recommending products at a store whose corporate management team is obviously not taking actions when there is known cheating in a contest like this one.

But to be fair, since I shop at Fred Meyer, I am much more familiar with their stores' operations unlike some of the other retailers and I am certain that other retailers operations have issues too and many of them are worse than Fred Meyer.

So enough about that and on to last night's Idol episode.

Lee DeWyze stole the show last night. He was the best in my opinion for both rounds. Lee just ran away from Casey & Crystal in the first round. The second round Casey didn't fair much better. For Crystal in the second round she was OK, but I didn't really think Ellen picked the right song for her in the Judges song pick round.

And Crystal's personal pick in round one, "Come To My Window" by Melissa Etheridge felt like an imitation of the original performance. She should have been superb on this song. Ironically, Michael Burgi of Marc Berman's Programming Insider Podcast said that he thought that Crystal already knew what kind of artist she should be. That song was non-risky and kind of predictable for someone like Crystal. She didn't take any real risks with her song choice this week which she should have if she knows what kind of artist she should be.

So Lee is going to be in the finals unless America votes really crazy this week. The question is who will join him. Crystal or Casey? I think it could easily go either way. Crystal has been good on several occasions this season which would put her through if people voted how well they performed the entire season. But if you are going with last night's performances alone as the criteria who should advance to the finals, I am sorry to say that Casey probably should go to the Finals over Crystal because she was the much bigger disappointment this week of the two.

I am leaning towards a Lee & Casey Finale because Casey is the only representative left this season from the South and almost all of the previous 8 winners of Idol were from the South. Plus I believe Crystal will lose a lot of votes because of the poor rendition of the Etheridge song she chose.

So here is the order that I now believe the Top 3 will finish in this season:

3rd Place: Crystal Bowersox
2nd Place: Casey James
1st Place: Lee DeWyze

Yes, I think Casey will make it to next week but will lose to the non-Southerner this year for a change which will be Lee.

We shall see tonight if Crystal goes home like I am predicting or if the obvious choice Casey goes tonight.