Am I the only one who noticed that within 24 hours a pair of guys with the same last name were sent packing from reality TV shows? On Survivor Ryan Aiken, the little weasel, got kicked off. Then on American Idol Clay Aiken wound up in the unenviable third spot in his set of 8 wherein two move on. I missed the Survivor opening 20-25 minutes because I had to work late, but what I saw was pretty unimpressive. Mark Burnett has burned up almost every trick up his sleeve, and his battle of the sexes has been done on MTV for two seasons now, so that's not all that "new". Jeff Probst is still the best reality TV host, but has very little to work with.

American Idol's second season has been decent. Mostly good singers have moved on without last season's blatant "screwups" by the public voters. Clay Aiken was the so close, but yet so far victim in round 2 of the 4 x 8 finals format wherein 8 folks move into the elite 10. The judges (Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell, if you're living on the moon) then get to pick a pair of wild cards who were slighted by the voting public.

The bigger news was the fan favorite Frenchie, a plus size young lady with a booming voice and dyed hair being booted out of the final 40. She told producers she had been in porn movies, but they didn't seem to care until she worked her butt off to make the top group. Then they used her free publicity to cry out (paraphrasing) that they don't want "porn and American Idol" in the same sentence. Then WHY DID YOU LET HER AUDITION? Sorry, I had to yell that. I'm done for now...