We're off to Portland, where we're bound to find many miserably depressed contestants who smoke way too much pot. Thanks to the wonder of technology, we can see the contestants ditching school and work and getting ready in their mother's basement for their one big shot of making something of their otherwise lost life. People like Brittany Zika, or is it Britney, or Britnee, I can't keep up any more. Britney once held up a huge obnoxious sign at a Sara Barrels concert and got to sing with her on stage, proving she has the attention-whorishness needed to do well on this show. And boy does she ever as Britney will do anything for attention, whether it's falling all over the place, dressing like a doofus or just acting like a jackass in general. Britney transforms into semi-normal mode to sing and Randy's surprised she doesn't sound like she looks, which is a good thing as Britnay looks like ass.

Julissa Veloz released a video of an acoustic performance of her new single "Very Brady Day." What do you think? It seems like a somewhat new direction for her, though we don't know what the full version sounds like yet.

In the least surprising development in the history of civilization, Steve Jones and Nicole Shitzinger have been fired from X Factor. Poor Steve had never done anything like this in his life and was so awful VFTW actually began liking him! And Nicole proved that someone with the mental makeup of a six-year-old girl wasn't a good choice as a judge.

Breaking News: Paula Abdul's fired too!

Meanwhile, chalk up another failure for Simon Cowell. Or should I say three!

While VFTW won't miss Nicole, we will miss Steve. Read on to re-visit some of his greatest moments...

Tonight, American Idol goes to Galveston, Texas, the fifth out of eight (oy) audition shows. We get an intro from some guy up in the International Space Station. He's smiling because he's 250 miles above the Earth and out of smelling range of the crapfest below. Then, instead of a fun hour in space, we plunge back to the depths of American Idol hell. We are then reminded that Texas is the home of Season 1 winner Kelly Clarkson. We're also reminded that this show is unlikely to ever shit out anyone that successful again.

The Idol season 10 contestants all seem to be getting record deals like no other season before (except maybe season 5). So hey, putting entertaining and fun people on the show really does pay off, huh? VFTW favorite Naima Adedapo is the latest to get a record deal. She's been signed to Peak Records and will have a 3 song EP produced by Warryn Campbell, who has produced for Kanye West and Trey Songz. Not too shabby. Only 2 words seem appropriate for this announcment: BOOM FIRE!

Tonight, American Idol took us to Aspen, Colorado, which in my opinion is one of the most self-indulgent choices yet when it comes to audition cities. Aspen is a playground for A-List celebrities and other wealthy types, and accommodations are not cheap. For a lot of contestants, it probably meant having to fly into Denver and renting a car to get to Aspen. For the judges and high-level producers, it probably meant scoping out some vacation houses to snatch up. For us, it means another hour of hoping to find America's next great star, only to find a few flickering 25-watt lightbulbs hanging over a filthy sink in a tenement...with two wonderfully VFTW exceptions. Unfortunately, we have to suffer for 45 minutes before getting to that.

The search for the next Lee DeWyze and Kris Allen moves on to Aspen, although I see the contestants entering an arena that looks suspiciously about 15 000 seats too big for a place of that size. Jenni Schick is up first but it's more like Jenni Schtick as she's running around like an IBW with her head cut off. She's a music teacher and seems to like her job as much as someone who cleans out cess pools. Jenni wants a kiss from Ryan but has a better chance of getting one from The Pope. But Steven Tyler will be more than happy to kiss Jenni, although she's about ten years too old for him. Jenni sings Pat Benatar's Heartbreaker is good enough to get a gold ticket but not good enough to make the Top 24, which will put Jenni in quite the bind after her school fires her for making a complete ass of herself on National TV.

Idol Maniac sent us an email and pointed out something very interesting -most of  the rest of the Idol audition episodes this season are basically not worth watching. Out of the top 24, we've already seen 18 of them in Pittsburgh, Savannah, and San Diego. So only 6 people are left. In tonight's Aspen episode, no one makes the top 24. No one makes it from East Rutherford or St. Louis makes it either. One person from Portland (Haley Johnsen) and 5 make it from Houston (Baylie Brown, Hollie Cavanagh, Jen Hirsh, Skylar Laine, and Joshua Ledet).

So what do we suggest? Well it's barely worth watching the next few weeks so just tune out until Hollywood or  voting starts. Maybe watch Houston. Then again, we never actually suggest watching this show.

Reed Grimm is a frontrunner for the VFTW vote, and these pictures just help his cause.

Well, it's only Sunday, but here we are again. I'm less than thrilled about it. We had a decent Wednesday show, but a shitty Thursday show, which makes me think we're in for three more weeks of shitty audition shows. Why is there an OMG EXTRA SPESHUL episode tonight? Well, there were football playoffs tonight, so I suppose the programmers at FOX were hoping for a hefty lead-in from all of those football fans. After all, you know that butch male sports fans make up the core of American Idol fans. No, wait, that's just 50-year-old women who look like linebackers. Anyway, the game ran into overtime, pre-empting the show for nearly an hour. This overtime must have been great for FOX's ratings, because American Idol sure isn't helping with the network's ratings this year.