well, i survived. liesl loved it. here’s a pic:

and, for your enjoyment or annoyance, a little quiz i made up this morning…

possible answers:
Haley Scarnato
Jordin Sparks
Sanjaya Malakar
Blake Lewis
Chris Richardson
Chris Sligh
Gina Glocksen
LaKisha Jones
Melinda Doolittle
Phil Stacey

the questions:

1. Official sponsor of the tour?

2. Even though this Idol has a great voice and great looks, who is still completely unmemorable?

3. Who sang a Whitney Houston song (“I will always love you”) that gave liesl chills, and brought a tiny tear to the corner of my right eye.

4. Who has a great voice, but still looks like the love child of dr. evil and mr. spock? and (same answer), who yelled out “San Diego!” more than all the others combined?

5. Who talked about late-night girl chats about “the lord”?

6. Who is every youth pastors dream student?

7. Who is, in my opinion, the hottest idol?

8. Who got some boos mixed in with the cheers?

9. Who played the guitar on many of his performances and a few others?

10. Who got the loudest cheers, by far?

11. Who sang in more songs than any of the others?

the answers:
1. pop-tarts. it was ev-ry-where. a pop-tart in a costume was walking around pre-show. if only they’d handed them out.
2. haley. every time she’d come out, i’d lean to liesl and ask, “which one is she again?”
3. lakisha. the girl can sing. dang. and knowing a bit of that “from flint, michigan” story adds a bit of emotional punch.
4. phil. dude, sorry, but the navy is calling you back.
5. melinda, with jordin. in a bit of on-stage banter, we found out they love to have late-night girl talks. sometimes about boys. and sometimes about the lord.
6. jordin. cute and friendly. humble. spiritual. mature. and can front the youth group worship band like nobody’s business.
7. gina. rar (that’s my tiger sound).
8. sanjaya. oh, sanjaya. at least it looked like you were having fun. i’m sure you know it will be short-lived.
9. chris sligh. actually played acoustic, electic, and bass, at various times. oh, and chris r played the drums adequately. and phil stacey wasn’t a bad keyboard player. probably the most unintentionally funny moment of the night was when the five guys came out and sang and played as a band (without the real band backing them). chris r played drums, phil on keyboards, chris s on bass, blake occasionally strumming an acoustic. and, this was the funny part: sanjaya comes out with an acoustic guitar. but when the two songs start, he swings it around to his back, and played a tambourine. when the songs were finished, he pulled the guitar back around to the front to walk off stage.
10. blake. crazy loud, every time. i have to admit, the guy is cool.
11. chris r. the dude was almost omnipresent. you’d have thought he was the winner.