E! Online has this interesting tidbit about why Analog Heart was pulled from Amazon in April:

At the behest of Idol producers, Cook says he pulled the album pulled from Amazon’s MP3 downloads section last month shortly after topping the site’s charts, due to “fairness issues.”

Fairness issues? A-HA. I knew it was only because he was selling more than the other contestants who had albums out. Though it only sold about 1200 copies in its last two weeks on Amazon, this was apparently significant enough to cause the producers alarm, even though the voting was in the tens of millions every week.

If the producers were really interested in being “fair,” they should have blocked sales of any existing records by any contestant, but of course they couldn’t do that, because the vast majority of those had legal ties to other recording companies. Cook got screwed there because AH was solely his and the producers could lean on him.

of doctor’s visits: ~4.
Monthly health insurance premium: $200.

Knowing you have to pay out of pocket every time anyway: priceless.

Semi-good news, Cook fans! Amazon again has a page up for Analog Heart, though it is not available at this time—you can sign up to have them email you once it becomes available. I’m assuming that, now Cook’s won Idol, he’ll be free to release it for sale again, unless, of course, his contract with 19 Entertainment somehow forbids him to do so.

From CBS News:

Desperate to get attention for her cause to seat Florida and Michigan delegates, Hillary Clinton compared the plight of Zimbabweans in their recent fraudulent election to the uncounted votes of Michigan and Florida voters saying it is wrong when “people go through the motions of an election only to have them discarded and disregarded.”

“We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe,” Clinton explained. “Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people,” Clinton told the crowd of senior citizens at a retirement community in south Florida.

Y’know, maybe she’s reaching just a little bit. (Via Free exchange)

my Indian heritage the credit or weight I should for influencing my outlook; mea culpa. And while this post won’t correct the oversight, it may go some way to addressing the lack.

There has been a recent mini-trend of Bollywood megastars starting their own blogs, complete with thin-skinned cattiness and sycophantic fan commenters:

• Amitabh Bachchan is the godfather of Indian cinema and arguably the biggest star to come out of the formidable Bollywood machine, with a career that will have spanned 40 years in 2009. Even I, a notorious detractor of Bollywood films, am a fan—what can I say? I grew up watching the guy.

  I have to say here that I don’t know who did the design for the site, but the ludicrously large picture of Big B (I presume his son, Abhishek—a star in his own right—is affectionately known as Little B?) used as the banner graphic, as well as the fact that all the posts on the main page are just headlines followed by “more…” links, with no meaningful content on the main page, mean that s/he should be fired forthwith. Poorly done, dude.

• Aamir Khan is film royalty as well, and talent-wise one of my favorite Indian actors. His blog, by contrast, has a much more functional but still attractive design. Kudos to that designer.

Both Bachchan and Khan have recently taken potshots at reigning top dog Shah Rukh Khan—No, seriously. He’s in more commercials than Peyton Manning—on their blogs and subsequently been vilified in the press. In their defense, however, SRK has been known on many an occasion to poke fun at his fellow stars, perhaps not in the best of taste.

That said, both Bachchan and Khan are articulate, if a bit self-absorbed, but when they spend their lives being fawned over and given near-diety status from their fans, can you blame them?

Fun fact: Aamir Khan likes German board games! Especially Settlers of Catan. Who knew?

Even though I said yesterday that I thought Archuleta did a better job, and even went so far as to vote for him, I could not be happier that Cook won by a commanding 12M vote margin.

Because, yes, while he’ll be stuck singing This is the Tritest Song Ever Written (Rise from the ashes? More than just a face in the crowd? Magic rainbow? Fucking seriously?!), well, he’s my favorite, and he deserves recognition. Woo!

Also, for those of you starved for more DC until he releases his next album, be sure to YouTube his performance of the Foo Fighters’ My Hero from his homecoming trip. Awesome arrangement.

I’d think someone was playing a particularly tasteless joke on me:

American Airlines will start charging $15 for the first checked bag, cut domestic flights and lay off workers — probably in the thousands — as the nation’s largest carrier grapples with record-high fuel prices.

The second checked bag will cost $25, and the third, $100. No kidding. Well, that tears it. I’m going to do my damnedest to never fly American again.

I had already been fed up with them, because I’ve had enough frequent flyer miles to get a free domestic ticket for over two years now, but I haven’t been able to use them, because apparently every day is a blackout date for award travel.

The worst part of this, though, is that United, my airline of choice, is “seriously studying” doing the same thing—translation: will do it once AA takes the flak for doing it first and the uproar has died down—and Delta is “considering all options.”

So the upshot of all this is that air travel will get even more inconvenient and expensive than it is already, possibly prohibitively so. I predict a sharp downturn in casual travel. (Via citrusboy)

I’ve made no secret of my David Cook favoritism all season, but I have to say that after tonight’s finale, Archuleta has a slight edge. Both Davids brought it, but the difference is that Cook wasn’t, quite, at the top of his game—none of the three songs, with the possible exception of The World I Know, gave me chills like some of his earlier performances—and Archuleta was.

I still think Cook is a better artist and performer, and that it would be better for the show if he won, because he’ll sell records, whereas I think Archuleta will sink into adult contemporary obscurity within months. However, it’s better for him (Cook) not to win, because the very last thing he needs as an artist is a restrictive contract and an obligation to sing the schmaltzy AI songwriter competition winner.

Archie, on the other hand, is tailor-made to be the Idol, and would (probably) benefit from the “guidance” of the record execs. I will tell you, though, that I’m not going to buy his eventual hands-tied, over-produced debut, whereas I’ve already bought Cook’s self-produced one, and am looking forward to whatever he does next.

So all in all, it’s better for Archie to win, and he deserves it: my vote goes to David A.

I watched NBA basketball with any regularity; I grew disenchanted with it, and eventually switched my loyalties to football, where they firmly remain.

That said, now that I have an HD-capable TV, I look for HD content above just about anything else. Of the HD channels I get (limited by the satellite hardware in my building), two big ones are TNT and ESPN HD, both of which show a lot of basketball this time of year, it being playoff time. So I’ve been watching basketball on TV a lot.

Right now, I’m watching game 1 of the Eastern conference finals, where the Pistons are battling it out with the Celtics, and I have to say, watching good basketball is stirring my interest again. Good stuff.

Oh, and in other news, the Bulls, my hometown team, and the reason I spent much of the 90s absolutely obsessed by basketball—to the extent that in 9th grade (1991), I won a Bulls trivia contest—have gotten the number 1 overall draft pick in this year’s draft. Woo!

but I am loving this Crossroads series. The latest two episodes I saw are the Martina McBride and Pat Benatar one (great!), and my favorite: Maroon 5 and Sara Evans.

I fell hard the first time I heard This Love, so I was predisposed to like this episode, but what’s great is that both Adam Levine and Sara Evans are wonderfully funny, making the interview portions of the program (almost) as much a joy to watch as the singing bits.

I have to hand it to the producers; they have a wonderful instinct about picking the vocal combinations that have great impact—it’s what made the Martina McBride and Pat Benatar episode so great, even though I’m not too familiar with either artist’s discography. The combination of Adam Levine’s and Sara Evans’ voices flat out gave me chills (the two of them singing She Will be Loved was a near religious experience).

Sigh. It makes me so happy.