Posted on 05/08/2006 4:22:13 AM PDT by silent_jonny
Check out #7980 and go look at the BIZAR things happening in the vote.
http://dialidol.com/asp/predictions/Predictions.asp
Go by sort by totals on this page.
Disturbing trend with the votes/busy signals. When people text in a vote, are busy signals counted? (I'm totally ignorant about texting.) If landline voting generates more busy signals than texting, I'm wondering if this represents a generation-gap between the voters -- all the boomers who think of Tay-Tay as an honorary boomer, and the little prepubescent girls who think Kat is wonderful and don't know enough about singing to judge her on her merits.
Besides, Simon doesn't like Taylor that much.
Very strange. Very.
Simon has liked him better over time. Particularly the last couple of weeks. I think even he realizes that consistency pays off.
Went to check out Zabasearch's numbers. Nothing there. Just last weeks stuff.
Taylor Hicks #3 364956 78507 443463
Taylor Hicks #2 361451 78939 440390
Taylor Hicks 336321 73389 409710
Katharine McPhee #3 199165 98987 298152
Katharine McPhee #2 185341 99497 284838
Katharine McPhee 167339 85722 253061
Taylor is ahead.
Ping to my last post...
I find it odd that they would have results for the past weeks then suddenly stop at the finale.
Maybe they are just slow getting the information out.
Busy Signals....Votes....Attempts
From the numbers posted:
Taylor
Busy Signals....Votes....Attempts
1,062,728......230,835...1,293,563
Kat
Busy Signals....Votes....Attempts
551,845........284,206...836,051
Taylor received 27% more busy signals than Kat had attempted calls yet Kat ended up with more votes in this sample.
So, this being the case, one of two things is true:
1) Dial Idol's theory is acurate and those busy signals for Tylor were votes being cast by someone else.
or
2) The bandwidth, and therefore capacity, for Taylor was less than Kat.
If she wins then it's #2 and the fix was in......
Taylor Hicks: A long road to 'Idol' — via Atlanta
http://www.accessatlanta.com/news/content/entertainment/stories/0523lvtaylor.html?imw=Y
By RODNEY HO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/23/2006
A year ago, Taylor Hicks played Buckhead's Peachtree Tavern. The audience? About 30 people, virtually all friends of Hicks, mostly from his days at Auburn University.
Tuesday night, he'll be singing before 30 million viewers as he vies for the fifth "American Idol" crown.
"I've been denied many times," Hicks said Friday during a telephone news conference. "You have to really love music to be able to do it as often as I've done it."
Hicks, whose fans have nicknamed him "Gray Charles" because of his soulful vocal style and prematurely gray hair, struggled to break through for a solid decade, playing hundreds of gigs mostly in the Southeast and releasing a couple of independent CDs. At age 28 (he's now 29), he said, he began having doubts.
"I was at a crossroads before 'American Idol,' " Hicks said. "I had to decide whether I'd go work at a local bank or keep playing in clubs. Luckily, this opportunity arose."
As other Birmingham residents Ruben Studdard and Bo Bice excelled on "Idol," he said he began considering auditioning himself. His buddy Michael Hardee of Alpharetta said he constantly harassed Hicks to do it.
"I noticed his career wasn't going anywhere," said Hardee, a 33-year-old digital office equipment account executive who has known Hicks since their days at Auburn. "I lined up some gigs for him here in Atlanta but nobody really showed up. Nobody knew who he was."
Hardee wasn't the only person to bug Hicks to do "Idol," but Hicks said Hardee "was one of the stronger people that pushed me."
In fact, Hicks was in New Orleans last summer right before Hurricane Katrina hit and finagled a free voucher to fly back to Birmingham. Instead, he used it to fly to Las Vegas and audition for "Idol." He didn't tell most of his friends about the trip until he was given the golden ticket by "Idol" for the semifinals.
"I was surprised," Hardee said. "He called me and said, 'Hardee, I took your advice. I'm going to Hollywood. I'm going to win this.' "
He just might. Vegas-style oddsmakers give Hicks the edge to win Wednesday over Los Angeles singer Katharine McPhee, though unscientific online polls have the two contestants neck and neck.
Hicks has never lived in Atlanta but has plenty of friends here. Plus, his half brother Sean, a jazz saxophone player, attends Georgia Tech.
"Taylor would take off quite a bit and see Sean play," said Bill Williams, a 31-year-old health home care business owner from Birmingham who talks to Hicks regularly.
Hicks had a middle-class upbringing in Hoover, Ala., where Kelley Moorhead, a 29-year-old Buckhead accountant who went to high school with him, recalled him as a decent basketball player. And that premature gray was already evident. "He started going gray already but I really noticed it when we went to Auburn," she said.
Hicks, harmonica in hand, began working the Auburn frat party circuit in the mid-1990s. "He always stood out," said Spencer Forrest, a 29-year-old Atlanta recruiter and a friend of Hicks for the past decade.
Out of college, Hicks worked in cover bands, hitting every honky-tonk that would take him. He built up a solid base in Alabama in towns such as Tuscaloosa and Orange Beach, but success in the bigger Atlanta market eluded him.
He did have one major supporter here: Dan Nolan, co-owner of respected Midtown club Smith's Olde Bar and the Nick in Birmingham. Nolan first saw Hicks in 2002 on a stage during City Stages, Birmingham's huge June weekend festival. He was impressed.
"He had a good thousand people up dancing," Nolan said. So he invited Hicks, who primarily did covers at the time, to play his clubs and try out his original music. Hicks played Smith's several times, and Nolan liked his determination, his drive, his likability.
"He has some really good, solid original songs," Nolan noted. "That R&B, Doobie Brothers sort of vibe."
Hicks' role model has always been Georgia's late, great R&B legend Ray Charles.
In his grungy bachelor pad in Birmingham, "he's got a VCR player with an old video of Ray Charles doing 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' " said David Waters, a 34-year-old environmental consultant from Buckhead. "He plays it over and over again. I've had to ask him if we could put on other music and he'd say 'no way.'"
Once "Idol" is over, win or lose, Hicks looks forward to life on the tour bus.
"You'd see buses on the road in Alabama going to the next destination," Hicks said. "I always dreamed of being on one."
BTW, I easily dialed more than 1,000 times last night from my Verizon cell and got through exactly 1 time........
I figure all totaled I probably got through about 15 times. That sucks for 4 hours.
Frankly, I'll be completely shocked if Kat wins. Every online poll, every judge, every celebrity is saying Taylor is the winner. It will be awfully shady if he does not. JMHO of course....
If Kat wins, I think I'll skip watching next year and just wait for screen caps in the thread!
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