It’s going to be a tough year – lots of talent, there is.

It has an amazingly clear picture (even with SD channels), and I like the menu interface much better than Time Warner’s. A few drawbacks include having to pay for each TV receiver (though that’s standard with other digital providers too), the menu includes channels that we don’t get in our package (so I have to scroll through a lot), and currently we can only watch recorded (DVR) shows on one TV. However, the tech said that by the end of the month, AT&T should be rolling out the “Home DVR” service, which lets you watch recorded shows on all TVs (it’s a simple software update).

One cool feature that we won’t get unless we sign up for DSL is the ability to record shows remotely. That would be cool, but it’s hard to complain about free broadband.

The technician was from Milwaukee. He said they’ve been busy lately due to the dispute between our local Fox affiliate and Time Warner (that means no Fox on Time Warner). He said AT&T was bring people in from other regions so they could keep up with demand. We didn’t switch because of the Fox thing, though. I wanted a maintenance-free, quality solution, and I didn’t like Time Warner’s DVR interface. AT&T’s interface is very decent (albeit a little slow). It’s based on Windows, so getting used to it was pretty easy because it’s very similar to Media Center.

• David Cook – Even though Simon picked a strange song for him, I thought he did pretty well considering. He second and third songs weren’t that good in my opinion. Wanda theorized he might be throwing his performance a bit to avoid the terms of 19 Management in favor of his own deal.
• David Archuleta – I thought “And So It Goes” was his best song of the three, though I also enjoyed “With You.” His performance of “Longer” wasn’t impressive to me. Overall, I thought it was one of his weaker days, however, I put him above Cook on Tuesday.
• Sayesha Mercado – She’s had some good ones in the past, but I thought she was historically the weakest of the three. On Tuesday, however, I thought she was fantastic. I thought she performed all three songs very well despite criticism from the judges. Even though I’ve always been a huge fan of the two Davids, she was my top pick for Tuesday night. It seems that America did not agree with me, however.

In the end, it will be the two David’s next week. It should be a good show. I think David Cook may end up being the victor.

My favorites this year are David Archuleta and David Cook. Next is Brooke White, with Ramiele Malubay and Carly Smithson tied for 3rd. In addition to some of my favorites, Wanda fancies Michael Johns. He hasn’t impressed me as much as the others, though his performance of “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions” was excellent.

As for a couple of contestants that I could go without – Kristy Lee Cook and Jason Castro. I will give props to Kristy for her performance of “God Bless the USA”. That was the only performance of hers that I really liked.

I wonder if Caesar would be willing to work with cats…

Prior to this week, I thought the final two would be Melinda and LaKisha. After tonight, I have no doubt in my mind that it will be between Melinda and Jordin.

Vista is taking a bit to get used to, and I’m not sure I like the new Media Center interface as much. However, as with any new OS, I’m sure I’ll get used to it and it will be old hat in a couple of months. I’ve found a fair amount of annoyances with it, but again, I’m sure I’ll get used to it. All-in-all, Vista runs very smoothly on the new machine (it really makes our old Media Center look pathetic).

My personal favorite still remains to be Chris Daughtry, hands down. There may be others with better vocals, but he would be the one I’d most likely buy an album from. I hope he makes it far – I would love to see him in concert. His rendition of Walk the Line was one of those performances I won’t forget. I didn’t know anyone could do that with a Johnny Cash tune

I thought Lisa Tucker and Elliot Yamin sounded pretty good too.