E.K. NATION

Here is Albert Pujols last night, turning on a Chris Young pitch and changing Young's face from an actual human face to a meal of mashed yeast and beet juice. That's gonna take a lot of Tide. Oh, and then two batters later, Albert chugs around third, slides home and turns catcher Josh Bard's left leg into a bag of Twisty Stix. Maybe they should just rename Petco Park "Cloverfield." Just think about what Albert could do if he were actually trying to hurt someone.

American Idol finishes up: Not much to talk about today except for the final result. I did not watch most of last night's schlockfest, wherein I'm guessing they brought out the Top 12 singers and some celebrity singers to do random songs that have nothing to do with anything. I did tune in to catch the results, though, and was pleasantly surprised when David Cook's name was called out as the winner. The voters got it right: David Cook is the more talented singer of the two. Archuleta is still just a kid, and he has some polishing up to do before he'll make it big in the music world. He can sing, but he had a few moments of messing up the lyrics and such that are not typical of an American Idol winner. Cook, on the other hand, performs like a seasoned pro and is a lot more versatile than Archuleta. The only problem is, Cook's gonna have to have some cheeseball songs on his first album. Oh well, he'll get past all that.

Just got done watching the shootout to determine the winner of the Champions League, and it turns out that deciding a championship on free kicks (it can't be "penalty kicks" because being tied is not a penalty) is a lame-ass way to determine to wins a soccer game. Anyway, there was a team wearing red jerseys with "AIG" on them, and they beat a team wearing blue jerseys with "Samsung" written on them. This whole spectacle, which had nothing to do with soccer, was like having the Spurs and Lakers take part in a free throw contest to determine who wins the Western Conference in the NBA. Shootouts suck! They suck in soccer, they suck in hockey, they suck everywhere. Tip: When you get to overtime, play the damn sport you played during regulation time. Is that so difficult to grasp? Sheesh.

Jon Lester, who battled back from a spell with cancer not too long ago, pitched a no-hitter tonight for the Boston Red Sox against the Kansas City Royals. And I don't have a clip yet of the last out, so what I'm going to do is post the last inning of Don Cardwell's no-hitter at Wrigley Field on May 15, 1960 against St. Louis. YouTube is quite the amazing project. If enough people hear about YouTube I think whoever invented YouTube might be able to make a couple hundred dollars one day.

What tonight's no-hitter means is that E.K. Nation must select a new E.K. Nation Next Pitcher To Throw A No-Hitter™, so let's just choose someone at random from tomorrow's starting pitchers. I'll be right back...

...I'm back. You know, I had already thought of selecting Tim Lincecum, seeing as how he's a really good pitcher and all. Turns out he is pitching tomorrow. He would become the second consecutive Giant to be E.K. Nation's Next Pitcher To Throw A No-Hitter™...and so it is. Congrats, Tim, on your selection. Nobody has ever actually thrown a no-hitter while being E.K. Nation's Next Pitcher To Throw A No-Hitter™, and might I remind you that no Giant has thrown a no-hitter since before I became a Giants fan way back in 1978? It's time. Do it, Timmy.

E.K.: Going through my mind right now is how when the Top 12 was announced I said that Syesha would be the first one eliminated. Congrats to her for making the final three, and congrats to the two Davids for their upcoming finals appearance.

Smooth: We started out with judge's choice songs, which were delivered to the contestants in the most contrived ways imaginable. David Archuleta did "And So It Goes", which is definitely a song that fits into his oeuvre. He kept his eyes closed through much of the song, and my eyes were closing too. The accompaniment is nearly inaudible. I like this song, and he sounds good, but it is so low-key that I think it's not really something you want to perform on Idol.

E.K.: I think the inaudible nature of the music was on purpose. David is a great singer, if not versatile, as we saw later in the show. And he did well with the minimalist backing. He (or whoever fixes the songs for their inexplicable 12-second-long arrangements) definitely chose the right lyrics to use. But the eyes closing was a weird thing, I will agree.

Smooth: Syesha Mercado was happy to be singing "If I Ain't Got You" by Alicia Keys. She was wearing a dress that would have looked at home on the Titanic. She hits all the notes, but her voice just doesn't have much character and she doesn't try to tweak anything. It wasn't bad, and it had more energy than D.A.'s song, but it wasn't anything special.

E.K. It was pretty much an Alicia impression, and I've never been an Alicia Keys fan, not that she's bad or anything but just 'cause it's music I don't normally have in my CD player, but I thought it was pretty good. The only thing is, she needed to do a showstopper to have any chance of making the Final Two, and this one wasn't it. She had two more shots at it...

Smooth: David Cook is tasked with Roberta Flack's "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". Good choice by Simon, since David can't just do a copycat version (or at least, he sure shouldn't try). I could tell it would be more interesting than the first two songs. Indeed it was. It started off a little scary because it's very high in his range, but he pulled it off, and the song got better as he went. Randy calls it predictable (?!) because he's a moron.

E.K. I thought he did as best he could with the song choice, and I started throwing up because at this point in the show the judges really started to make it all about them and not the singers. It's really been horrible this year with the back-and-forth among the three of them, and really, it makes me want to puke in a baby's mouth.

Smooth: Next were the contestant's choice songs. D.A. did Chris Brown's "With You", a recent R&B - almost hip-hop - song. It was laughably bad. He absolutely cannot pull a song like this off. The vocal style doesn't match his voice and (since he is asexual)--

E.K. I'm going to have you pause here for a moment while I laugh. "He's asexual." Classic. I don't know why I find that hilarious but I do. Okay. Continue.

Smooth: --the lyrics seem nonsensical. His utter lack of street cred makes me chuckle every time he uses the term "boo" to refer to a woman. It's honestly pretty embarrassing, especially given the stage of the competition.

E.K. Yeah, I mean, he hit all the notes and everything but there was just something so odd about it. And Simon called it "dancing", when it really was just bouncing back and forth and, well, not dancing. Again, it's like a performance from a New Mickey Mouse Club episode.

Smooth: Syesha picked "Fever", which I find odd. This seems really played out, like a song someone might do in the audition rounds or something. She tried to sex it up, but although she looks pretty good, her movements come across as somewhat awkward and desperate. The vocal is OK, not her best, as she gets off tempo a bit at times. This song requires a bit more of a growl, and again her voice is just too vanilla.

E.K. I guess I found it much sexier than you did. I realize that the nature of a performance like that is pure cabaret, but it still gave me a bon--ahem, um, it still, ummm...I was very aroused.

Smooth: D.C. did a Switchfoot song ("Dare You to Move"). The vocal at the beginning isn't very good. It's a tad too low for him and he's mumbling. Oddly, like the last time he did a contemporary rock song it doesn't work as well as his versions of older stuff. It gets better towards the end when he can launch into his full rock voice. All in all the contestant's choice round reminds us why music producers are valuable.

E.K. Yeah, the last few times he's done a rock song he hasn't gotten much of a chance to launch into that rock singer voice he has. It's pretty ridiculous that they still can't do a full three- or four-minute performance, even with just three people left. The singers can't adequately let a song build to a climax. Can't they spend more time on the singing and less time with the judges bickering amongst themselves and all the iTunes reminders? Well, maybe they can't. No, wait, yes, they can.

Smooth: Finally we had the producer's choice songs. D.A. did a Dan Fogelberg song, which... totally. Generation Y has been screaming out for a 21st century Dan Fogelberg, and now they've got him. D.A. was wearing his (crazy) dad's shirt. It sounded good, with some nice harmony, although the backup singer should get some credit for that. Other than that it was the same boringly boring thing he always does, but people seem to like it, so I can see why it was chosen for him. Randy keeps saying he can "sing the phone book". Well, he sure can't sing Chris Brown, so that theory's out. Simon called it "gooey" which is disturbing but accurate.

E.K. Once again, he sang adequately but I agree. It's pretty much the same thing over and over. And the girls screamed with squealy glee yet again, pretty much confirming what we already knew, which was that Archuleta had no chance of not being in the final. Also, I'm a bit on the fence as to whether it's been long enough since Dan Fogelberg's death to start trashing the guy's song.

Smooth: Because the producers totally didn't want Syesha in the finals, they gave her an obscure song ("Hit Me Up" by Gia Farrell). It's energetic and she seems to enjoy herself. It doesn't sound all that great, though. Again, it's not a good fit for her voice. I think she did the best she could with it, but as Simon points out she needed a bigger moment to win votes, not just a fluffy dance number.

E.K. I thought it was pretty blah. You're right; there's no way you can connect with the audience in a Fantasia-"Summertime"- or Katharine-McPhee-"Rainbow" way if nobody knows the song. I must admit I didn't. I don't even know who Gia Farrell is. She sang it well, but there was nothing she could do to avoid being voted out.

Smooth: D.C. wrapped it up with - - "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing". I hate this song so I knew I wouldn't like it. Anyway, he did about what you'd expect with it, with the rock glory notes and whatnot. I'm covering my ears to avoid this song's horribility, but I think he hits the requisite high notes. Whatever, is it over yet?

E.K. The arrangement, for starters, was ridiculous. Yet another example of how screwed the format is. The singers can't let anything build up to a big finish in ninety seconds. It's a good song for him to do, though, and I'm glad he didn't try a Steven-Tyler-style yelp. Cook should be the favorite going into the final, but with so many teen girls voting, Archuleta might take it.

Smooth: Syesha, you had a good run.

E.K. Congrats, Parvati. Oh, wait, wrong show.

# posted by E.K. and Big Smooth @ 5:31 PM

Here's last night's unassisted triple play by Asdrubal Cabrera. Looks like he didn't know how many outs there were for a moment, because after the second out, he almost starts to run off the field, then he realizes he can tag the runner and get one more out. Nice play. But you gotta know how many outs there are.

On YouTube, we're finding several clips by The Batting Stance Guy. He's got some 3-to-4-minute-long clips of impressions of baseball players' batting stances in recent years. And this is very entertaining stuff, although I suppose only if you know who these guys are and know how they swing the bat. I can do Will Clark and Willie McGee, but this guy can do a bunch, including those two, and pretty much everything is spot-on and usually hilarious. Here he is, doing Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, and a bunch of guys from the 80s and 90s. I fully expect that he will do more...

A condensed version of the Sports Night episode "The Giants Win The Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant!" Of course it's better when you see the full episode, and of course it's even better when it's watched during the show's two-year run. And maybe the next paragraph is why I posted this link. The line "He hit a baseball" might not seem like it means much when read here, out of context, but it makes sense the way Josh Charles reads it near the end of the clip. Sports are important, but there are important things in life than sports, and sometimes we forget that.

To a special dog: I lost you yesterday. Your name was Bandit and you were a Siberian husky and you were one of the reasons why dogs are the finest species that walk the earth. I will always remember how your spot was the little corner in the staircase. I will never forget that night when I let you out into the front yard thinking that since you were feeling sick you'd do your thing and come right back in, but no, you suddenly took off and I had to chase you wearing nothing but boxer shorts at 2:00 in the morning on a sub-freezing December morning. I will always remember how you were a "talker"; the way it seemed that when you had something to say it was almost as if you were actually saying the words "bow wow" in your growl. I will always remember the "'Dito Dance". And of course, I will never forget the time when you chewed through two leashes in the span of a half-hour while we were eating dinner and raced around the house and down the street, making me chase you twice more. The tears I cried at midnight Friday when I got home and you couldn't walk out to the front yard and I realized something might be dreadfully wrong, and on Saturday morning when you couldn't get up and you whimpered all the while, and Saturday afternoon in "Noodles' Lobby" at Dove Lewis, and yesterday after Siri and I had our final discussion about the toughest decision a dog lover can ever make, those tears were all of sadness. Every tear from here on out, however, will be out of joy for having known you, Bandit. I was never your official owner, and I didn't get to live with you in your last couple years of life, save for those weekends when I dogsat you and Maggie, but I always felt you were my dog anyway. I don't believe in heaven or in any afterlife, but you're one of the reasons that I hope beyond all hope that there actually is some sort of afterlife where I will be able to see you again. I love you, buddy, and I'm going to miss you for the rest of my life.

E.K.: Here we are with yet another American Idol recap, and I must say, the themes this year have been ridiculous, in that they've hardly gotten to do any songs from this decade, let alone the last couple of years. Somebody singing "Proud Mary" or "Love Me Tender" doesn't mean a whole lot if there isn't a balance there. Anyway, Smooth, start us off with David Cook.

Smooth: His first song was "Hungry Like the Wolf", and he did a surprisingly straightforward rendition. It's fine, but it just sounds like Scott Weiland at a karaoke contest. Also (maybe this was just my TV) it seemed like the mix was way off, I could only hear the lead vocal, with everything else being very quiet. I found it strange that he didn't try to do more with it. The judges were not kind. His second song was "Baba O'Riley". He eliminated the trademark keyboard riff and slowed it way down. It was OK, but I had some issues with it. I've heard Pearl Jam's cover a number of times, so this version doesn't sound terribly fresh, and it's just too slow for an inherently energetic song. At the end it sounded like he was going to jump up to the normal tempo but he doesn't. It was not Cook's best night, but he was OK. I'm starting to wonder if his musical bag of tricks has been turned upside down and shaken one too many times.

E.K.: His take on "Hungry Like The Wolf" was completely "So what?" for me. You've got all these songs from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame classes and that is what you choose to do? Sheesh. I was much more interested to hear his take on the Who song, because I figured, here we go. He'll let the showmanship thing fly right now. And he didn't. I was simply stunned by his lack of energy Tuesday night, and also by his admission last night that his head wasn't in it that entire day. Huh?

Smooth: Next was Syesha Mercado, who opened with "Proud Mary". Not a fan of this song choice - she even pointed out how much it's been covered. Don't do it, then, Syesha! She even dressed kinda like Tina Turner, further inviting comparisons to her version. The vocal is surprisingly poor. She was all over the place pitchwise and some of the phrasing is odd. Maybe she's concentrating on the rather lame "choreography" too much, I don't know. Simon is the only judge to agree with me.

E.K.: I'll at least give her credit for trying to do the showmanship thing. It did seem like a somewhat bad Tina impression, but at least there was energy there. I wasn't too horrified by the vocals. And by the way...she is getting hotter and hotter every show. Must be the hairstyles. Wow.

Smooth: Before the second song, "A Change is Gonna Come", Syesha compared her time on American Idol to the Civil Rights movement. Yeah, she did that. I feel like I want to punch her.

E.K.: I'm just glad I don't recall hearing anyone refer to the competition as a "journey".

Smooth: Anyway, the vocal on the second song was pretty good. It's got a lot of glory notes that she did well with, although overall I think she did oversing it a bit. Afterwards she started blubbering, because when Randy doesn't like her vocal that's basically comparable to Martin Luther King being assassinated.

E.K.: I dunno, I thought she was crying because she was happy about Paula and Simon liking what she did. But I like your ire at the spectacle. And then last night she said that "A Change Is Gonna Come" was an appropriate song because we might have our first female or black president. If they're still lame, though, who cares? Okay, enough politics. What is this, Hardball? No, this is definitely much more important.

Smooth: Jason Castro's first song ("I Shot the Sheriff") was a train wreck, no doubt. Bob Marley is simply iconic and should not be attempted, especially by some goofy white dude.

E.K.: With dreads!

Smooth: And Jason didn't sound very good while attempting it. The second song ("Mr. Tambourine Man") had the potential to be good, but he totally forgot half a verse, and it's like another train comes in and smashes into the still-smoldering wreck of the previous song. After that I didn't even hear the rest of the song because I was lost in my amazement how he possibly even got this far. Awful.

E.K.: We should never have to deal with hearing contestants forget lyrics. Not in the auditions, not in Hollywood Week, not in the prelims, and certainly not the final four. Ridiculous. They should have done that whole cane-coming-out-from-the-side-to-pull-him-off-the-stage thing. How come that never happens anymore? I would love to see that.

Smooth: I have to laugh at the way David Archuleta is being dressed, like there's any way he would choose a T-shirt that didn't have a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh on it. Actually, make that Eeyore. He sounded pretty good on "Stand By Me", doing the standard Archuleta thing with tons of vocal runs. Luckily (for him), the song is right in his range and it has a very simple melody so the ornamentation wasn't quite as off-putting as it normally is. It ended up being one of his better performances in a while, I think. The second song is... pretty much more of the same, except now he's doing "Love Me Tender". I think he's a lot more comfortable singing songs he already knows, and it shows in his vocal.

E.K.: Yeah, I don't have any problems with what David did. He got out there, did his thing, and it was pleasant if not spectacular, and I can not stand the squealing from the little girls in the crowd. Tuesday night it seemed to go on forever and I just wanted to throw something. So anyway, what did you say about what would happen if Jason hadn't been eliminated?

Smooth: I would have eaten my left arm.

E.K.: Good thing you are right-handed. I, on the other hand, would have pulled my own arms off, beaten myself to death with them, and then put my left arm back where my right arm had been and my right arm back where my left arm had been and then carried my own dead body out into the street for pickup by Waste Management. All the while wondering, how the hell is it physically possible that I am doing this?

Well, those of you who just watched the Kentucky Derby heard the sad news that Eight Belles had to be euthanized almost immediately after the race due to two broken front ankles. That sucks.

Here are some things I found on the interwebs today.

• Paula Abdul's batshit-crazy comments after the first round of American Idol songs on Wednesday night. She tells Jason Castro what she thought of his second performance, which hadn't happened yet. Again, she should be fired. (Fast forward to about the 3:32 mark.)

• A dissertation on playing A-J in no-limit Texas hold 'em. Thank you, Hammer Player's Poker Blog, for reminding us how silly many poker players are.

• YouTube clip: What it would look and sound like had Star Wars been made around 1960 and had Saul Bass done an opening title sequence for it. I don't know who made this video but it's classic.

• A San Jose Sharks fan was killed by a shark recently. Remind me not to go to any mountains any time soon. I'm a Colorado Avalanche fan.

• You know, everyone does a Christopher Walken impression, but I think Anthony Ahern from the Australian comedy sketch show The Wedge has everyone beat. "I find it amusing, it makes me laugh...but, he's an asshole."

• An online Deal or No Deal game. I know it's not for real money, but I still get pissed when I knock out the $1,000,000 case. Also, be prepared to spend hours on this damn thing.

You're playing in a poker tournament along with, say, 5,483 other contestants. Day 1 goes by and you've survived, Day 2 comes and goes and you're still stockpiling chips, Day 3 arrives and you start barreling over your opponents with your chip stacks, and pretty soon you find yourself at the final table. Nine players left. You feel like you're on the roll of a lifetime; you're playing the rush, as they say. Now you're ready to take on the lights and the atmosphere of the feature table at the Rio...

...and you've gotta wait four months.

The World Series of Poker announced that for this year's main event, which will take place in the first half of July, play will stop once the final table of nine players is set...and will not continue until November.

My initial reaction was, "WTF"? Note: I actually said the letters in that abbreviation.

Man, I hope this works. Right now it sounds incredibly silly.

Kentucky Derby pick: I don't know anything about horse racing, really. But I do think that the favorite Big Brown's being stuck in position 20 means he has a considerable portion of track to make up during the run. It's not a whole lot but down the stretch it could make the difference. My guess is Colonel John. Take that, Vegas!