I was, however, surprised with Sanjaya going when he did.

Judging from your post, you didn't do your English homework, either! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! HAHAHAHAHA!

Whew.

Practicing your evil laugh for your future career as a supervillain? You might want to choose a more evil-sounding moniker, though -- not many supervillains could pull "twinkles" off.

I'm not sure if Idol has always been fixed, but I have a really strong intuition that it's fixed now. Maybe it was always fixed. This is the story I'm imaginging though:

Producers/Simon getting very irritated with the way this season is going, the influence of VTFW, and the longevity of Sanjaya. At the beginning, though, they're still respecting votes.

It reaches a boiling point when Chris Sligh gives a shout out to Dave. The producers snap. The next show the vote is ignored and Chris is given the boot as punishment - a fact he seems to have some inkling of, maybe he was privately reamed out earlier. This is fully justified in their eyes - Chris committed a "crime", after all.

After that they start respecting votes again, but Sanjaya's longevity is a mounting consternation. Sanjaya is getting more votes than any other contestant, a fact they carefully hide in the order contestants are read out, and can be confidently projected to make the top 3 at least before the combined "serious" fanbase becomes a threat to him.

At some point they realize that it is possibile to program a phone bank to be able to accept less calls, or to accept less calls from certain regions (maybe they had a chat with the producers of Canadian Idol, who I suspect may have used that trick last season to keep my home province of Newfoundland from stealing the show for the untalented singer and suspected baby dyke native-son Craig Sharp). Or maybe they decided to take vote totals "under advisement" as a factor in deciding who goes home but to just "guide" the show themselves. Regardless, Sanjaya is given the boot the first show where he seems even slightly weak (for plausibility), despite his no doubt commanding vote totals.

After that it's a total rig - they sweep the floor clean of long-living irritants and VFTW picks on a predictable schedule and salvage the "best" final four and now the "best" final three, up until Jordin's inevitable coronation. I think the only question left is whether the producers will select Melinda or Blake to go against Jordin, but I think Blake is going next.

If it's true though, the tragedy is that the best Idol fan site on the internet is bereft of purpose - why "vote" for the worst?

I basically think it's true but I still watch the show just cause...I do. I was dissapointed when Sanjaya went home because it would never be the same without him. I want Blake to get in to the finals mainly because I like him(yeah my opinion so sue me). But that would be facinating too.

Either Way I don't care. I am easily entertained.

Well, Blake is the only one left with any originality. I like him just for that. I have to confess, I love Melinda, though, even if that makes me Not Cool, I don't care if she's played by Mike Myers. I think crypto-fundamentalist Jordin Sparks is ordained to win, though.

Each of the contestants had home flights booked in the days prior to wednesday nights episode. There is your explanation. They ALL had travel plans. Howard Stern just thought he could fool everyone by saying he knew only the person who was voted offs travel plans.