Final standings: Read 'em, and in my case, weep

Well, here it is: Tuesday and no American Idol. I have to say I preferred last season, I wonder if my hero Syesha has gone on to the Broadway stardom that all the judges pigeon-holed her into.

This year, in the end, my favorite was probably Matt. He was like the Final Four George Mason basketball team of American Idol — few thought he should have been there to begin with (he got in as a wild card and he was one of only two contestants not picked by any of us) and in round after ensuing round fans said he would reach the end of the liine. Yet he kept defying the odds, even earning the judges' saved, and finished in the top five before he could no longer make it purely on grit.

Despite that save, our eloquent team of Idol judges pigeon-holed him early on as a blues singer or something like that. Not that I was a fan of his fabled Coldplay performance, but I felt bad for him when the judges chided him for trying and he whimpered in reply: "But this is the kind of music I want to sing."

He apparently also wanted to win, at least more than to sing Coldplay, because he went back to doing as told by the judges. But I still cheers you, Matt, for putting on what I would say was the best all-around run in Idol.

I guess Kris had a pretty good run too, seeing as how he came from almost nowhere a month ago to winning it, I think pretty much on the strength his performance of Heartless.

The performer who was most ripped-off goes to Alexis. Her early-round defeat derailed several of our entries. I still wonder if she had to pay the price so the produces could say, "see, it's not rigged," after this story leaked. (They later added, "no, we won't publicly release results for a reason that has nothing to do with the showing being rigged. Oops.)

The biggest choke goes to Lil Rounds, who went from early front-runner to one of the blandest performers in mere weeks. Maybe she couldn't take living with the rest of the Idols.

Anyway, that's my take. The site will stay here, and we'll back and running again in January (although it sounds like Kara, a.k.a. Poochie the unwanted character, won't be). Final standings are below:

1. Vicki 77
2. Megan 64
3. Caroline 53
4. Angie 46
5. Allie 43
5. Johnny 43
7. Kelly 42
8. Andrew 40
9. Kate 36
10. Nicole 36
11. Lori #1 35
12. Lori #2 27
13. Jason 26
13. Nate 26