Go for third place!

Arsenal won over Fulham 3 - 1, with 2 goals in the dying minutes of the game. Been a long time since I've watched them play. They've no chance for any silverware this season (no FA cup, no Carling Cup, no Premiership title, no Champions League title), and they've already secured a place in next season's Champions League by landing a solid 4th place. Now all they got to do is aim for a third in the premiership.. hopefully... Next they face Chelsea though..

GO GUNNERS!!

American Idol Season 6 - The Season of Sanjaya

I started watching American Idol only last year, Season 5. I was lucky and spoilt that it also happened to be the season with the most talented contestants as well, my favourite being rocker Chris Daughtry, who is currently dominating the charts with his band Daughtry, and the soulful voiced Elliott Yamin, who also just released his new album. When the gray haired Taylor Hicks won last season, it was the only low point for me.

Last year's top 4: (from left)Elliott Yamin, Taylor Hicks, Katharine McPhee and the very successful Chris Daughtry

However, even Taylor would have been better compared to this season's male contestants. Yeah sure, the females have more talent this year..but most of them are all *yawn*ho-hum* typical diva singers. (FYI, diva singers being lady singers with uber powerful voices, along the lines of Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston etc etc etc). Yes they sing well..but they're too... predictable and boring in my opinion. Worse thing is, none of them are even that pleasant to look at..and by pretty I mean Katharine McPhee-pretty. Here's 20 reasons this season is not up to par, and I agree with a lot of it.

The only person that made this season interesting besides the beat-boxing Blake, is of course the newly eliminated, hair transforming, Michael Jackson silhouette, half Indian Sanjaya Malakar. The media has touted him as being one of the worst contestants ever to be on the show besides William Hung. Initially he showed promise in his initial audition, but once he made it to the top 24, he showed nothing of that promise in terms of singing.

Week after week, he delivers a very sub par performance vocally, and gets the bad side of the critic from all 3 judges, with Simon Cowell delivering the usual onslaught of British sounding words such as 'dreadful', 'horrendous', 'beastly' etc. However, with VoteForTheWorst and Howard Stern campaigning for people to 'vote for the worst', he has survived up until last week.

Judges reaction to Sanjaya's singing every week

Personally I think he's a nice kid, who sings decently (but not decent enough for this level of the competition) and he lacks stage experience. Initially I kinda rooted for him..up until he sang for the top 24. From there I was hoping he'd get voted out the next week..and the next week...and the next week... It was up until he got voted out last week, did I realize that he was what defined this season's American Idol. Sure, he can't hold a candle to the other contestants, but he has brought along a horde of die-hard supporters to the show who vote for him either because they're teen girls, or because they want to make the show a laughing stock.

But then, although Simon stresses that the show is a Singing Competition, it actually is not. It is still at it's core, a popularity contest. And Sanjaya has earned that popularity even without terrific singing skills. Every week I tune in to the show for 2 reasons: to watch Blake (he doesn't have GREAT singing skills.. but he's a great and interesting performer..another proof that American Idol is no longer just a singing competition) and also to see what Sanjaya can come up with, regardless if it's his hair or his bad singing.

The many faces or er.. hairstyles of Sanjaya Malakar

So now with him eliminated, I have lost one reason of watching the show. Season 6 is truly the season of Sanjaya, whether you like it or not.

Featurisms

Nowadays the more popular songs on radio seem to stem from one genre. No, I am not talking about hip-hop, rock or pop or whatever..I'm talking about 'Featurisms'. It's pretty simple.. I noticed that nowadays most songs MUST feature a hip-hop artist or someone similar...don't believe me? here's a short list....

1. Sexyback - Justin Timberlake featuring Timbaland
2. The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani featuring Akon
3. Smack that - Akon featuring Eminem
4. You don't know - Eminem featuring 50 cent
5. Cupid's chokehold - Gym Class Heroes featuring Patrick Stump of Fallout Boy
6. Break it off - Rihanna featuring Sean Paul
7. My Love - Justin Timberlake featuring T.I. and Timbaland
8. Wait a minute - Pussy Cat Dolls featuring Timbaland
9. Promiscous - Nelly Furtado featuring Timbaland
10. I wanna love you - Akon featuring Snoop Dogg
11. Hips don't lie - Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean
...... and it goes on and on...

And for the most part, all they need to do is rap a few lines... or for track no.2's case, howl a few lines as well... Timbaland is featured the most, and the songs that he either produced and gets featured in are usually hits.. Very successful considering the guy's last official album was in 2003...

I guess being a solo artist is not so easy anymore eh? At times you just need a little bit of help.

Trivia: Akon's full name is Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Locku Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam....hoo boy.. he must have an A4 sized ID.

Effort to keep blog maintained

Today I did something I should have done 2 weeks ago. I found out that my laptop (yes, that defected one) was still at the PC shop, and since they weren't doing anything with it before my new one arrives, I decided to take it back for me to use until the big day when a brand spanking new and defect-less model graces the shop. Ain't too bad, the main flaws it has is the sound(sort of screwed up, the speakers still play when u plug headphones in), the burner (failed 2 out of 3 burn attempts) and disk check(20 mins for 1 disk check) Basic functions are still intact.

However when I turned it on just now, the screen went black and there was a long beeping noise.... after I got over that, when it started up, the mouse cursor wouldn't stop scrolling ... just like the scroll wheel is being rolled continuously.. It's all ok for now.. the symptoms seem to have stopped..but I just can't wait for the new one to come in. REALLY good thing that I'm exchanging the whole laptop and not just getting it repaired.. HP weren't kidding when they told me "your laptop unfortunately has many problems" -_-|||

(P/S: Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix + is out! here i go back to the gaming world ..)