Well, it's getting down to the wire on both Dancing with the Stars and American Idol. This is where it gets the most interesting to me. You get rid of the hacks and get down to the real talent. Matt and I just finished watching the American Idol episode - I think this was definitely one of our favorites. Slash is one of his heroes, and we both like classic rock, so this one was very cool. I thought Slash did a great job of working with the kids.

Adam - I'm speechless. He's always amazing, but this was like amazing to the 10th power. He was just out of this world on both the individual and the duet portions.

Allison - she is definitely in the Jordin Sparks/David Archuletta club. I just don't get how High School kids can possibly be that talented and poised. Her solo number was good, but her duet was outstanding! Not so sure about the hair, I don't like the purple with the red, but at least she didn't go mousy.

Danny - I always love Danny, but I have to agree with the judges that this really wasn't his best genre. But I think the judges really gave him a harder time than he deserved. As I've said before, he's a dead ringer for my oldest son, so I'm probably a little big prejudiced. One thing I can't wrap my mind about is that he is a recent widower. I think I'd heard that his wife died just a few weeks before his audition. I know he doesn't ever mention her, which I really respect, but I just can't imagine going through all the stress of this competition and not having the person he'd most like to share it with around.

Chris - He's such a cute guy, but I have no idea how he has gotten this far. I honestly thought he should have gone home a couple of weeks ago. He's just not at this level. I think he's the one most likely to go home this week.

Simon, cranky as usual, but some of his criticisms are right on. Paula, is just in her own universe, but Randy and Kara, I think could carry the whole show. I am liking Kara more and more, he's very intelligent and you can tell that she really knows the music business.


Dancing with the Stars. I hate all the hype when you get to this stage. It seems like every 5 minutes they are talking about how hard this is, how many injuries the celebrities have, and how badly everyone wants to win, I hate all that. Just shut up and dance!

My pick to win is Gilles. He has so much natural talent and sex appeal that he could easily be one of the professionals. You can tell he really works hard at this and he is consistently amazing every week. He seems like a genuinely nice guy too.

My 2nd favorite is Melissa. She's a pretty decent dancer, and she is just so amazingly pretty. I always think she looks just darling, I can see why she'd had a whole room full of guys just dying to go out with her. I don't think I like her partner, Tony very much. He seems like a real hardass. I remember her yelling at Jane Seymour and I thought her husband was going to take him apart. I always wonder how the husbands and wives feel about their spouses getting so cozy with the dancers? My husband is not especially the jealous type, but I don't think he'd be too thrilled with me if I were hugging and kissing all over some guy every week.

Shawn - my goodness she is so chunky for a gymnast. Wasn't it just last summer that she was competing in Beijing? She must have packed on 20 pounds or more since then and she's built kind of weird anyway. Is that what's called "pigeon chested"? Compare her to Allison on Idol. They are about the same age, but they aren't even close in their level of talent.

Kim - that girl is so weird looking! I mean like freakazoid weird. She is at the top of the list on the Bad Plastic Surgery site. She's had cheek implants, lip implants, I think she has colored contacts, which make her eyes a really strange color, sort of a silver color. Then there's something very bizarre about her eyelashes, they're like huge spiders. And her body is even stranger. Huge boobs, huge butt and then she wears spandex that shows it off to it's absolute worst advantage, and she's had some kind of weird lipo because her stomach just looks unnatural. I can't even tell you how she dances because I'm so busy taking in all the strangeness and marveling at the fact that she actually PAID people to do this to her.

Ty - Oh my gosh, please send this guy home, pronto! I didn't think he was going to make it through the first two weeks. He is just ghastly - he totally has a stick up his butt and not the least bit of sex appeal that I can see. And you can tell he is very uncomfortable with having such a young and sexy partner. He just always looks like a fish out of water! He must have a lot of rodeo fans voting for him or something. I hope, hope, hope he goes home tonight!