'American Idol' Recap: Karen Rodriguez Says Goodbye And Adios

I’ll say this for America: They continue to get it right.

One week after America took down one of the few with absolutely no chance of winning, they repeat the feat with the ouster of Karen Rodriguez. I was worried about Karen. Worried that she’d found a way to ingratiate herself to voters with her unique way of switching to Spanish (Ya gotta have a gimmick, right, Ethel?) and her middle-of-the-road song choices. I was worried those voters would put her past some of the more deserving contestants like they’ve done with the Kristy Lee Cooks of the past who had a gimmick (super-overt patriotism) of her own.

Those worries were allayed last night when America sent Karen on her merry way while filling the rest of the bottom three with the two other girls that I can’t possibly see winning. (Retroactive spoiler alert: They’re in the bottom 2 of the power rankings). I have a sneaking suspicion that somehow either Naima or Haley (probably Haley, sadly) will hang around a bit too long and knock out some of the more deserving contestants.

It happens every year, and I thought Karen would be the stick in the mud, but now that she’s gone we may finally have the first ‘Idol’ season ever that’s going to come down to a shootout between seven top performers that all have a chance to win. And that would be a lot of fun. Even if it doesn’t include Molly DeWolf Swenson.

The Rest of the Show:

Hey, Lee Dewyze is back! Kinda forgot what he looked like. I can’t say much for this song. His voice sounds like Josh Kelley and the song sounds like a pop music yawn. Maybe these Idols would be more successful if they cobbled together a song writing team that had any idea how to write a hook. Kelly Clarkson got Max Martin, and from what I can tell Lee Dewyze got someone named “Tawgs” who doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page. Doesn’t take much to figure out how his career is a non-starter thus far.

It was nice of Fergie and Will.I.Am to let Taboo rap by himself on camera for a little bit after they shared the stage by themselves for the large portion of this song. And after about four minutes with get an apl.de.ap appearance! I’m beginning to believe these guys (formerly excellent independent hip hop artists) are just so embarrassed by the music they’re making and that’s why they hide in the shadows for the most part. And after that musical travesty, who can blame them?

Power Rankings:

Programming Note: Before we get to the power rankings, I’d like to remind everyone that I’m now officially the 47 millionth person to join Twitter (unofficially). If you like the idea of hearing every awful thought that streams between my ears, you can follow me @paynehumor.

And now, the Power Rankings…

1 (Rank Last Week: 6)  Stefano Langone

I’m a believer again in Stefano after he topped everybody this week. I’m telling you, in a year with no guitar playing rock guys – this is going to be the crush that rallies the screaming Facebook voters. I foresee it.

2 (3)  James Durbin

I’m still not sure what to make of his chances. He seems like he’s potentially a cross between Adam Lambert and the rock guys that won for three years straight, but I just can’t figure out if he’s quite got what it takes. Maybe he needs a guitar.

3 (1)  Casey Abrams

I thought he was the guitar guy. He felt like the guitar guy. He seemed like he had the chops to be the guitar guy. Then he actually used a guitar (albeit a bass) in his performance and scared America. I don’t know that I’m a believer anymore.

4 (2)  Jacob Lusk

There’s no good reason that Lusk should be this low. It’s just that he doesn’t really fit the mold of people who’ve won before. I don’t know that he’s very crush-worth for the tweens. But I could be wrong.

5 (4)  Pia Toscano

A girl hasn’t won since Jordin Sparks, but if Pia continues to consistently hit every notes in her songs perfectly, she’s going to be a force that runs deep.

6 (5)  Scotty McCreery

Clearly the most helped by the move away from really restrictive theme nights. Scotty can now stay in his country lane and continue to pick up voters. I don’t know if he quite has the chops to do it week-in-and-week-out yet.

7 (11)  Paul McDonald

Is Paul actually the guitar-dream crush? Is he too quirky? I just can’t figure him out.

8 (10)  Lauren Alaina

I’ve been writing off Lauren for awhile now, but she was quite good this week, and clearly has more chops than I’d given her credit for. Young, cute girls like her have traditionally been the females that find themselves running deep, so she could do it again.

9 (9)  Thia Megia

Of course, the young girl vote is going to get split this year with two strong contenders. They may both get picked off early as a result or one’s ouster will make the other stronger. I’m not sure which yet, or whom to choose as the last youngun standing.

10 (7)  Naima Adedapo

She tried to handle pop music and…didn’t do so well. She’s out of her element in this type of show. She’ll do great on “Avant Garde Jazz Idol”. Coming Fall 2011 to IFC!

11 (11)  Haley Reinhart

She keeps hanging around. I don’t know how, but she just keeps on keepin’ on. Can’t last much longer though.

Who Is Leaking All The Nude Celebrity Photos?

Partial List of Celebs Targeted By Hackers

TMZ now has a partial list of the celebs who had compromising pictures and video stolen from their computers and mobile devices by a group of hackers.

The list includes Vanessa Hudgens, Ali Larter, Busy Philipps, Scarlett Johansson, Miley Cyrus, Emma Caulfield, Addison Timlin and Renee Olstead.

TMZ broke the story ... the FBI sat down with Vanessa Hudgens Wednesday for more than an hour to determine how her Gmail account got hacked.

We're told 50 celebs had compromising photos and videos stolen by one group, and one of the ringleaders has his fingerprints on every job. 

Our sources say the hackers' primary motivation is the thrill and challenge of it all -- not the money.

Law enforcement sources tell us the FBI is closing in on the hackers.

Katherine Heigl Bares Her Bikini Bod in Miami

It certainly was a relaxing Friday for Katherine Heigl and her husband Josh Kelley, who spent the end of the week soaking up the sun and enjoying the ocean in South Beach.

The happy couple took a dip in the warm waters down in Miami, as Katherine flaunted her famous body in a two-piece black bikini. Kelley, meanwhile, kept things casual in a pair of boardshoarts and a pair of aviator sunglasses. Hey, what else does he need to do … he’s there with Katherine Heigl!

Heigl was perhaps swimming off the stressful news that her supposed-to-be-summer movie, One for the Money, has been bumped from July to June, which is a much less desirable month, box office-wise.

source: celebuzz.com

Katy Perry Wows On California Dreams Tour

Katy Perry kicked off the London leg of her California Dreams tour Thursday night in a skimpy ballet inspired outfit, among several costume changes.

Katy recently told Rolling Stone about going on a diet to prepare for the 95-date tour.

"I'm on a meal plan, which absolutely sucks," she said, "but on Sundays I get to have a cheat day where I go buck wild and eat In-N-Out Burger. Then I'll work out, go to a vocal lesson, run through the entire set at rehearsals, go to dance rehearsal until 10:00 p.m. and then go home and sort through e-mails concerning the production. I feel like I'm training for the Olympics!"

Hot New Wonder Woman Costume Revealed

By Lynette Rice

Red alert! Or should we say blue? EW has obtained an exclusive first look of Adrianne Palicki as Wonder Woman — aka Diana Prince — from NBC’s reboot of the classic 1970s series.

Image Credit: Justin Lubin/NBC

What’s different from what we’ve seen before? Well, how about those shiny blue pants? And blue boots instead of red ones? Compared to Lynda Carter’s get-up, this body-hugging extravaganza de-emphasizes the patriotism and seems to play up the comic’s Greek mythology. And a special shout-out to those bracelets!

Wonder Woman is being remade by Boston Legal writer David E. Kelley, who has incorporated the superhero’s signature lasso, cuffs, and plane in the pilot. NBC promises the project, if picked up to series, will offer a serious, non-campy take on the DC Comics character.

Along with Palicki, Elizabeth Hurley (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) and Cary Elwes (Saw, The Princess Bride) have joined the cast. Hurley’s character runs a pharmaceutical company that is creating a drug that makes people stronger while Elwes plays the CEO of Diana’s company, Themyscira Industries.

University Of Chicago Student Launches Casual Sex Website, UChicago Hookups

As "The Social Network" demonstrated, hormones and college stress can lead to a multi-billion dollar empire. Now, a student at the University of Chicago is trying to make his mark--by starting a sex-driven social networking site.

A U of C undergraduate student who has not released his name publicly launched UChicagoHookups.com to allow "UChicago students - and only UChicago students - to find casual encounters and campus entertainment events," according to the site.

"I'm sure many students have heard of the stereotype that we don't have any fun, that this is where fun comes to die, that the guys are desperate," the creator and site programmer told The Maroon student newspaper . "I'm not going to disclose anything too specific . . . but I can say that we've already had users who have had success."

The site says "Chastity is curable if detected early" and features a Victor Lownes quote: "A promiscuous person is a person who is getting more sex than you are."

CBS Chicago reports that more than 200 people have already signed up for the service, looking for a "no strings attached" sexual experience.

"This is a necessary step to allow people to feel free to hook up on their own time and unwind," Jon Clindaniel, a junior archaeology major, told CBS.

The site is similar to the "Casual Encounters" section of Craigslist, but allows students to scan fellow students--rather than random people on the internet.

"We're trying to change the ages-old stereotype that UChicago students are severely sexually deprived," the site's creator writes on the site.

School officials have yet to comment on the new social networking page.

For Women, Same-Sex Experimentation In College A Myth

A study (PDF) on sexual behavior, attraction and identity released earlier this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that women with at least a bachelor's degree are less likely to have had a same-sex experience than less-educated women.

Between 2006 and 2008, the study's authors asked 13,495 individuals aged 15 to 44 to answer a number of questions about their sexual habits and found that while 9.9 percent of college-educated women said they'd had a sexual experience with a female, 14 to 15 percent of women without a college degree said the same. According to the New York Times, only 1 percent of the 13 percent who reported having had same-sex encounters identified as homosexual, and only 4 percent as bisexual.

The report's findings call into question the popular notion that college campuses are a place for young women to explore their sexuality. Officer of the Council on Contemporary Families and University of Illinois at Chicago professor Barbara Risman says the Lesbian-Until-Graduation (LUG) stereotype has long been exaggerated. "I always thought the LUG phenomenon was overblown, in the context of it being erotically titillating for young men," she told the Times.

The study shows that although educational differences in same sex experience for males were less pronounced than for females, men with some college were nearly 3 percent more likely than men with no college to have had a sexual encounter with another male, and that women are almost twice as likely as men to have had same-sex encounters.

Read the full report here.

What do you think of the study's findings? Are LUGs a myth, or is there some truth to the old stereotype? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

7 Must-Have Free Programs For Windows

What's better than free software? How about free software that's as good as most commercial applications and fills a void that fee-based software doesn't? That's what it takes to make it onto any respectable list of must-have freeware.

Read on to see if some of these battle-tested free applications can make your computing life easier.

 

System tools

What do you use when you need to find duplicate files on your computer, clean your internet tracks, optimise the startup of your PC for maximum speed, shred or encrypt files, or remove spyware? You could turn to a lot of small add-on tools, or you could just use Glary Utilities.

This free utility pack beats the massive all-in-one utility suites of yesteryear because it contains efficient tools that are useful to most computer users but consumes a mere 19 megabytes of disk space. Tools are organized neatly into the categories such as 'clean up and repair,' 'optimize and improve,' and 'privacy.'

If all you need to do from time to time is clean the junk files that inevitably clog a Windows computer, CCleaner is the one essential free tool that many swear by.

Image viewers

A rudimentary thumbnail viewer is built in to Windows. But the moment you need to view images in the RAW format of your digital camera - or another less common format - you run into trouble. That's where dedicated image viewers come in, and most computer users need one.

Unfortunately, commercial image viewers have become unwieldy and slow, piling on features that most never use. XnView is a refreshing, free change. It's fast, simple, and ties in nicely with your image editor of choice.

With a drive tree on the left and the image thumbnail viewer on the right, it's compatible with most image formats today, and there's even a version that ties in with Windows Explorer to replace Windows' anemic thumbnail viewer.

 

Windows key automation

Windows 7 uses the Windows key better than any previous version of the operating system. But there's still much more that can be done with it. That's where the free Hotkeyz comes in. With it, you can supercharge your underused Windows key.

How about Windows key+I to open Internet Explorer? Windows key+W for Word? Windows key+C to open the Control Panel? The Hotkeyz functionality should be built into Windows. Since it's not, this tiny free application is the next best thing.

 

Media player

When you get tired of Windows Media Player crashing or failing to play some media file that you've downloaded from the internet, it might be time to turn to the free VLC Media Player.

VLC plays both audio and video and does so more reliably and quickly than Windows Media Player. Best of all, it can be used side-by-side with Media Player or another of your favourite media tools.

Zip and archive tools

For a simple and reliable archival tool that both reads and creates compressed archives in the Zip format, it's hard to beat 7-Zip. But if you need something even more robust - a tool that reads a number of other archive formats - then the free IZArc is worth adding to your toolkit.

Not only will IZArc handle popular archive formats such as ZIP and RAR, but it will also tackle less common formats, including IMG and ACE. Even better, the tool will also give your system the ability to open CD image files, including ISO and BIN.

 

Antivirus

There are so many capable, free antivirus tools on the market these days that it's a wonder why anyone still pays annual subscription fees to the former all-stars of system protection.

Microsoft's free Security Essentials is rated highly in most recent tests of antivirus tools, and for Windows users, it's an obvious first choice.

Others rely on AVG Anti-Virus. If you want a separate spyware utility, Malwarebytes makes many people's best-of list. It protects your PC from spyware, keylogging programs, and other types of malicious software that some regular antivirus tools ignore.

 

Installing freeware

While the tools on this must-have freeware list are proven winners, always be careful when installing free applications. Increasingly, during installation, developers are including tie-ins to add-on toolbars or home page changers.

These extraneous programs are usually offered to you on a screen or two during installation, and to refuse installation, you'll have to deselect check boxes or specifically say 'no' to the add-on applications. Read the installation screens closely so that you don't end up installing something that you don't want.