LJ Idol Presents:

Here we are again. Elimination time.

After a week that seemed to go into overdrive at times, we end up at the point where we say goodbye to some more folks who have been with us on this journey.

Before we do that though I need to handle a little bit of housekeeping:

As previously noted, mandolinorange was given immunity by the jury. I repeat this because although all the contestants will no doubt remember that, I'm sure there is someone, somewhere who will look at the poll and go "She has less votes!" Keep in mind that once she received immunity she didn't receive that many votes as she might have from that point on.

I did see a couple other people notice that in some cases where someone either fell behind or got ahead that their vote totals seemed to "flatline". Which did seem to be true this week. It's a shame. Because there are quite a few people left in the competition who can tell you that anything can happen!

Also - I mentioned the "sock puppet" problem because (as I noted elsewhere) a contestant came to me to let me know that a couple of over-eager friends had created accounts to vote for her. It did appear to have an impact if the "un-voting" was any indication!*g*

For the record, I *always* check.

It didn't impact the results this time or any time during this season. But it's always good to make sure.

So we come to the part where we say goodbye to the five contestants with the fewest votes this week, and The Newest Members of the Jury who will be helping us as we close in on finding the next LJ IDOL!

Goodbye (and welcome to the jury) to:

Hideforshame aka winterberries For those reading this after the fact, I'm writing and posting this one last. I'm doing it for a reason, because although first alphabetically (although not anymore thanks to the name change) it was probably the roughest elimination for me to watch. I'm sure rougher ones are coming, but for this week this one was it.

Other people have said it before - but I am going to come out and say it: I really dislike the "and this week we were told to write about ____" entries. They get under my skin, especially at this stage of the game I don't think we should be seeing them. The best entries, IMO, are almost always the ones where if it wasn't for a mention in the header or as a tag line you would never know was anything but an exceptional entry you happened to read.

Her entry this week broke that rule and I think it suffered for it.

BUT not in the way people are going to think I was going with this.

I think it probably ended up being dismissed because of it. I know the sentiment against it and had the same reaction when I first started reading. "Oh no" were the very first words that formed in my head if memory serves.

I say that my personal theory is that it was dismissed not out of any conversation with anyone or anything beyond sheer gut feeling.

Because she went head on into one of my personal pet peeves and *made it work*. I could go back over the various exceptional entries from "hideforshame" over the course of Idol and there have been many. Many. But for my money, and I hope she understands this (even if no one else does*g*) that even in the entry she wrote the week she was eliminated made me stop and go "The RIGHT PERSON *can* pull that off". Thank you for a wonderful run and for teaching me that.


ka_crow: What happens when one of my personal favorites (and I can say that now! Granted, everyone left has a claim to it, but ka_crow was someone that I had an eye on fairly early on) combines poetry and a disclaimer to start off a post? Unfortunately more dice rolling than the poll could take apparently.

Which is an extremely frustrating thing to see. But I can't say that I was surprised to see it. Those moments when I thought she might just pull it out yet were both rewarding and frustrating. I love to see risks pay off, unfortunately it didn't quite work out this time.

Still, there is a lot to be said for playing with your gut and trusting your instincts. My personal opinion - without that disclaimer it might have stood a better chance because with it things were a little too choppy. Just my opinion of course. I had to read it a couple times though to make sure that I was actually seeing one of my favorite poems in five seasons of Idol.Sure enough though, it was.

So it really is a mixture here of "well, I saw it" and "damn, I wish I could have been wrong about this one!!!", because I don't even think that we've tapped into the wellspring of talent you possess.


lilmissmagic71: How do you do it? Seriously. You make it look so easy at times that I tend to just *assume* whatever you are going to be doing is going to be good. At some points being just a natural "well of course she made it through" after thought. That's especially funny because I think that overall you've managed to get better over the time that I have known you, but it's been in subtle moves forward instead of anything big and flashy, just a part of the natural process. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised to see your name on the list. But I think that they would have been surprised regardless of the week. "We lost lilmissmagic71, I can't believe she's gone already!" "Um - it's the finals." "Oh man, yeah. . ." *G*
You've done yourself proud though. I hope you know that.

mermaidkween:Of everyone at this point she is the one who has come the furthest. Not just (IMO) as far as developing skill wise but overcoming the disadvantage of falling through the cracks early on as far as readership goes. I've got to say I was shocked when that happened because I had been enjoying her entries quick a bit.

So when other people came on board and started enjoying her entries as well it wasn't so much of a surprise to me as it was a "What took you people so long!"*G*

I writing these as the first comments are coming in, and I saw her say "I'm not sure I'm the right kind of person to be doing this". I'd argue that she's *exactly* the type of person who should, and who I'm always glad to see do well. (and going now out of a crowd of 195, I think that qualifies as "doing well" by anyone's definition.)

supremegoddess1 Another one of those people who fall under the heading of "exactly the type of person that I like to see playing". Obviously quite talented from the onset, but it seemed to take longer than I had originally thought for her work to "catch on" with the voting public. Or maybe that's just in comparison to how long I thought it should take.

That said, as soon as I saw the poem this week something inside of me went "NOOOOOOO"! Not that it wasn't good. Because it was. But I just know the track record of poetry taking out good writers over the course of the last few seasons. It can make or break you - and once things start getting close, it's definitely a risk. That said though, it says a lot to go out on your own terms and saying something worth while, which that post definitely was. Another in a long line of powerful and engaging posts.


(I am going to come back in and add comments as soon as I write them.*g*)

It's a really sad day because once again we are losing a really talented group of people, including a couple of my personal favorites. Thank you so much for playing this season!!!