Let's take a brief moment to discuss last night's first big eliminations episode. Are you surprised? Disappointed? Thrilled to the point of exploding?

Well, no, no one is that last thing, I don't think. As we drive on into the muddy night of these already lackluster Idol games, I trust that no one, save a few hundred thousand underpants-dampening Tim Urban fans, is giddy with abandon over this pack of warblers and wanderers. At least I hope not. We're in bad shape, guys.

Anyway. I've miles of Housewives to go before I pile myself into an Amtrak headed to the North Country, so let's dispense with this quickly.

Ashley Rodriguez
 High hopes dashed, eh? The girl I loved in the auditions, she's from the North Country just like me, just mucked the whole thing up on Tuesday night and now she's gone. Ryan did his usual hurdy-gurdy dance of faux regret, asking her "So... whaddaya think?" What does she think, Ryan? She thinks she's just been humiliated and shamed on the most popular show since Wings. That's what she thinks. She thinks it's over and that stony, stupid old Boston can go suck a big one. See ya in the Combat Zone, my dear.

Janell Wheeler
 On Wednesday I waxed rhapsomething about how nobody will ever go to a Janell Wheeler concert. Tini Frobush will never run up to you in the hallway after Mr. Stengler's math class and shrill on about how her dad, a bigwig down at the toupee factory, got tickets to the big Janell Wheeler concert because he's friends with the mayor and pretty close with the Chamber of Commerce, toupees being Farmdale's chief export. And you will never take the extra ticket, after Tini gets sick from eating bad chicken in the cafeteria and can't go, and offer it to Skip Michaels, the boy with the broad shoulders and sun-hugged hair and kind smile. And he will never take it and you will never go to the concert together, and afterward there won't be fireworks and he won't kiss you and your whole body won't feel like it's lifting off the ground. No, that won't happen. You'll never go to a Janell Wheeler concert. No one ever will.

Joe Munoz
 Who is this person?

Greg Brady
 Can you BELIEVE that Greg Brady got sent home in the FIRST ROUND? Man, I have misjudged America. See, I thought that most people who voted for this show totally voted for the novelty acts because they are either a) too dumb to realize it's not real music b) savvy enough to realize that Idol means nothing so why not have fun fucking with things. But no, America is neither that stupid nor that cynical. We are hard, stony pragmatic folks. Presented with the chinny offerings of a soft-shell turtle headed magoo like Greg Brady, America said "Ohhhh hellll to the no" and voted that mothersucker off. GOOD WORK, everyone. You haven't given in to the gimmick. What? What's that? Tim... Tim Urban's still on the show? Because he looks like a Fry Kid that's finally sexually blossomed? Oh. Oh nevermind. You guys are idiots, America.

Can you believe that's all I'm going to say? That's it. No more. Goodbye, our four fallen friends! Hellooooooo Krissy Allen. He's like caramel soup, isn't he?

Anyway.