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Interesting point about vonzell. The judges were all over her this week and still a little cold toward Nadia. The Mohawk did n;ot bother me, I've seen much worse on stage. She is a stylish young lady and overall she has done the bset costuming for my money. She made a decision that didn't sit well with the audience and I think she'll have to do a booty shaking performance to get her votes back.

Vonzell does seem to be on the upswing and just at the right time for her.

I think if Carrie had a warmer, more lively stage presence to go with that big voice of her's, there would be no question at all who would win this year. However, over on the AI boards where all the youngsters express their opinions, there's a lot of resentment toward her because the kids think Simon has already picked her to win. His comment last week about her eventually outselling every other AI winner turned a lot of the kids off.

The kids watch this stuff even more closely than we adult AI fans do. They know (and that's how I learn) that Kelly Clarkson's song "Since You Been Gone" has been the #1 pop song in the nation on the Billboard charts for the past three weeks. Also that her song "Breakaway" has been #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts for many weeks, and that both songs plus her album "Breakaway" have all been certified by Billboard as having gone double platinum in sales.

The kids say Carrie is strictly a country music singer, which, for most of them, is not their kind of music. So when Simon says she'll out sell all the AI winners and contestants, they get mad and blame Carrie, not Simon.

The voting block that loves Fantasia also gets mad, because her first album has been doing pretty good in the R&B/Urban music genre. But once again, these kids don't blame Simon. They blame Carrie. Interestingly, many kids in this block say they love the rockers.

So adding all that teenage angst over Simon's comments to all the teeange crushes over Bo and/or Constantine, I figure there's no clear favorite this year.