My first observation about the female version of American Idol’s top 24 last night: why do all the white girls look the same? If you lined them all up and told me to decipher who’s who or what they sang last night, I wouldn’t know where to start. With the possible exceptions of Antonella (is she white?) and Gina, the other white girls seem to be boring clones of one another.

Second observation: in general the girls blew the guys out of the Orpheum. I agree with Randy…there should be maybe four guys in the top twelve and the rest girls. And even those could quickly be wittled down to about seven people who even stand a chance of winning.

And now my assessment of the evening’s contestants (Brad wanted to play along, so the (b)s indicate his favorites):

Stephanie: yes (b)
Amy: okay
Leslie: okay (b)
Sabrina: yes (b)
Antonella: no, sorry
Jordin: yes
Nicole: okay
Haley: no
Melinda: yes (smiley)
Alaina: no
Gina: okay
Lakisha: yes!

Early favorites are Melinda because I liked her from her very first audition, and Lakisha because she’s representing Michigan (a town not too far from where I live no less), and also? Girl can sing!

My picks to go home tonight: Antonella and Haley. Alaina is a close third, but I like her name better than Haley, so she can hang out one more week.

And in closing, I will now try to adopt the phrase “You have the personality of a candle,” courtesy of one Mr. Cowell, into my vernacular. Some of the things that come out of that man’s mouth are splendid.