A sharp contrast slaps many young people when they move West: Back home, they were envied -- the prettiest people in town; in Los Angeles, they joined the sea of great-looking waiters, waitresses and homeless people.

You may have heard about the global lights-out exercise last Saturday. At 8:30 p.m. in each time zone, many homes and businesses turned off their lights for an hour.

I mention it now only because of this: I'm quite sure that all the electricity saved then was cancelled out by Diddy's number tonight on "American Idol."

Lights flashed, lights glowed. I could almost hear people rushing new power plants to keep up. Beyond that, here are my comments; please add yours:

Wasn't this supposed to be the year that women ruled "American Idol"? By the end of Wednesday's show, the men could outnumber then 6-3. If Didi Benami goes, that will be OK; if Siobhan Magnus goes, it will be tragic. Here are my comments; please add yours:

1) On what was called "soul/R&B" night, many people chose songs that were neither soulful nor rhythm-and-blues. I guess anything that had been sung by an African-American individual counted.