OK, a couple things before I tally all the points here about the show.  We've got three Kats!  One who sings all of Kat's songs (Lakisha), one who sings & has a similar personality and glow about her (Jordin) and then another who simply looks like Katharine (kinda, Haley).

Does anyone else think Haley's going through the clothes Katharine decided not to wear last year?  She was doing Kat's CROCS look last night.  Except she doesn't have the stage presence, voice or personality that Katharine does.  She has 80% of the look though.  And then tonight for the results show...that outfit was directly out of the Katalog!

First, Lakisha.  I can't handle her.  I know she sings well and all but if she does one more Kat song I'm going to scream.  Blah, blah, blah whatever she sings great.  So friggin' what.  Let's see what Kat would have done with "God Bless The Child" with the fancy wardrobe, the big stage, the band and all of that.  She nailed it in the auditions (90% of it at least).

Which leads me to Miss Sparks.  She's been my favorite since auditions but after this week I can fully proclaim that I have a new Idol girl.  She's not replacing Katharine in any way but I'm fully on the Jordin bandwagon all the way now.  She's got the pop star look and personality.  Isn't that what we're looking for here?  Maybe I'm missing the point.  But isn't the reason Taylor's scuffling to make any mark on the music industry because he's not doing mainstream stuff.  And to some degree that hurt Fantasia & Ruben as well (I stress SOME degree).

Jordin can do anything.  She's stepped out of the R&B box so far and did a Christina ballad and a Pat Benatar rocker tune.  Lakisha & Melinda have stayed in their comfort zones.  It'll be interesting to see how they handle it when forced out of that.  I can totally envision a really cool Jordin Sparks album.  It would probably be along the lines of what Katharine did.  Not exactly but similar.  Not sure if Jordin wants to sing some "Open Toes" but she'd probably have fun with it.  Hahaha.  Yeah, Jordin could work a little "Open Toes" I bet.

Maybe that's what they should do.  Katharine McPhee Night!  I do think a former Idol night would be cool.  Have the contests sing songs from all the former Idols CD's.  Gina sings "Since U Been Gone".  Jordin does "Over It".  Haley does "Don't Forget To Remember Me".  And so on.

Anyway, the guys are hopeless but I think one of them will make the Top 4.  Actually Top 3.  I think Lakisha gets bounced Top 4 because Jordin will have her core fans, Blake will have his and Lakisha will be second favorite to Melinda and they'll be competing for the same vote.  I think it'll shake down similar to the Fantasia season.

OK, time to go tally the votes!  I sound like Seacrest.

First...updating our survey info.  With now 23 full, completed and official ballots accounted for this is what we have:

Rank		Avg	#1's	#12's
1	Melinda	1.96	10	0
2	Blake	2.39	5	0
2	Jordin	2.39	7	0
4	Lakisha	4.22	1	0
5	Chris S	5.26	0	0
6	Gina	6.43	0	0
6	Chris R	6.43	0	0
8	Stephanie	7.09	0	0
9	Brandon	9.65	0	2
10	Phil	9.78	0	3
11	Sanjaya	11.17	0	7
12	Haley	11.22	0	11

I'm amazed only two of us picked Brandon to go this week.  I know there are three listed but the rules committee needs to make a ruling on the third one because of the timing of the entry of the picks.  OK, now I go figure out the scores...

OK, let me explain what all of these numbers mean below.  Your semifinal scores are listed under the heading.  Easy enough.  Now the way this works out for this week is you either get 1 or 2 points for Brandon (if you had him #12 you got 2 points...anything else 1 point).  Why?  Easy.  You assigned 4 points for him if you placed him 9th.  You lose 3 of those points for him being #12.  Now that's where the "Max Points" column comes in.

The "Max Points" for this week started at 12 (this semifinal maximum points) and I added however many points you bet on Brandon plus one point for the elimination pick.  And then I ranked everyone by percentage.  This isn't as confusing and maybe I'm making it.  By the end of the year it'll just matter what your total points is since everyone will have bet the same amount at that point.

Maybe none of that makes sense.  I'm not sure.  You'll just have to trust me on this.  Here's a simple way to figure it out for this week.

If you had Brandon 12th....14 pts max....11th, 15 pts max....10th, 16 pts max...9th, 17 pts max...8th, 18 pts max.  So Bill & I got 2 out of 2 for this week for nailing Brandon (1 pt bet - 0 penalty = 1 + 1 for correct elimination pick).

OK, good way to explain this.  Your "penalty" shows up in the max points.  There we go.  Because it's hard to understand why everyone got 1 point here except for Bill & I.  But you didn't.  You either got 1 of 3, 1 of 4, 1 of 5 or 1 of 6 depending how far up you had Brandon.

As I said before it'll make more sense the further we get along here.

Here's the standings.

Rank	Player	Semis	Top 12	Totals	Max Pts	Pct%
1	sjwolves	7	2	9	14	64.3%
2	bcollan	6	2	8	14	57.1%
3	Marmie467	7	1	8	15	53.3%
4	cobabycmw	7	1	8	16	50.0%
4	zzyzx	7	1	8	16	50.0%
6	Vadia	7	1	8	17	47.1%
7	Katatonic Fan	6	1	7	16	43.8%
8	Proof	6	1	7	17	41.2%
8	sirdoug	6	1	7	17	41.2%
8	Spree	6	1	7	17	41.2%
11	ASiriusObsession	5	1	6	16	37.5%
11	Margarethsuherman	5	1	6	16	37.5%
13	AI12345	5	1	6	17	35.3%
13	Barlo	5	1	6	17	35.3%
13	Gregoriancant	5	1	6	17	35.3%
13	Misty	5	1	6	17	35.3%
17	Collette_Leyton	4	1	5	17