I don't think Josh can take anymore "leave" from his duties. THe military got a lot of bad press for letting him do this show in the first place. I doubt he will even be doing the AI tour.

well i never watched any of AI2 except tonight and ruben seems really really cool. im glad he won. so much better than ANNOYING kelly and justin from last year. ruben just seems cool.

plus they said clay will get a deal too so thats good.

does anyone know if people can vote more than once?

Ok, I'm claiming rights to the name "Notorious B.I.G.G.E.R." right now.

Josh is back with the Marines. He definitely didn't have the clearance to be away for all the rehearsal time needed for the performance numbers on the show.

I must say, I'm tempted to actually get tickets for the AI Tour when they come to Atlanta because them girls wear some sexy outfits.

Looking back, I think Vanessa got robbed of some face time in the competition because that girl can sing.

The contrast between Ruben and Clay when they showed the respective local town support was amazing. Ruben was just dumbfounded and seemed sort of lost, his facial expressions was kind of bland. Clay had this look of amazement of the turn out at RBC Arena, but the show of emotion of his face throughout the bit was heartfelt.

I think Ruben sweated off about 10 pounds during the night of performances. He was getting slimmer as the night wore on.

news just said 134,000 difference out of 24 million votes.

btw; who was the HOT chick with the dark hair? omg...very nice.

The one with the huge tracts of land? That was Julia.

Fist it, I would.

Sigh.. I really really wanted Clay to win. One thing I thought that Clay could pull off any song Ruben sang during the competition...
But I seriously doubt that Ruben could do the same.

I was astounded by the turnout for Clay from his hometown... that was amazing.
I'm really glad that they both are getting record deals...I will certainly be buying that one, and the single too.
I look forword to seeing how well they both do when they come out.

My wife noticed Clay was, yelling "RU-BEN" what a good sport

Congrats to Ruben for winning

Julia

Glad Ruben won, Clay just has this look about him that makes me want to slap my TV every time he appears on it....And his hair! Don't even get me started on his hair!!

You could see it in Clay's face that he knew that Reuben was going to win. I am glad to see that they had become close friends and that Clay was happy for Reuben. Clay showed real class. Too bad the same can not be said for some of Clay's fans.

I voted for Ruben to win. Actually, I couldn't vote but I tried. The darn phone line was busy. Cheap AI couldn't leave the lines up longer.

We all now know Ruben won. But neither Clay or Ruben were ever going to be losers since they both will be having albums out soon.

I knew when they announced Clive Davis that he would be presenting Kelly a platinum album for sales of her album. "Miss Independent" is a pretty good song but I can't say I was knocked out with this performance or the one before.

Last night, the show seemed more like a 2 hour long plug of albums. Bringing back the old contestants (losers, whatever) and doing songs from the albums. Less focus on Clay and Ruben and who was going to win unlike last year. It would have been interesting seeing how differently they would perform the same songs like they did in the first AI.

Was that skit with Paula and Simon hot or what? Either they are really good actors or they really have something going on. I doubt they can really act. We know they are in relationships with other people but who knows they could end up dumping them soon and hooking up later.

Oh, where was Josh? I guess he must have gone back to the Marines.

Yeah, it works better for Ryan than Clay. Clay's face is too wide. Looks too much like Alfalfa.

On the show, they said it was less than 1,300 votes separating the two. But the 24 million votes is from the WHOLE SEASON of AI2 - not just one day...a bit confusing. They tried to make it sound like TONS of people voted and the vote was EXTREMELY close. It was close, but 24 million people didn't vote last night alone.

Can't believe I'm talking AI2 Watched the last half hour because absolutely nothing else was on. AI is only good for the first half of the series when they actually have something to televise other than 50 minutes of commercials every hour.

No, 24 million were cast last night. 250 million votes over the past four months. And the final spread was 130,000 votes. CNN article here:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/0...eut/index.html

Relevant passages:

Quote:

The two faced off in a finale of three songs each Tuesday night that sent 24 million Americans to their phones to vote for the winner.

... Organizers of Wednesday's two-hour Fox TV show at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles said only 130,000 votes finally separated Studdard and Aiken, who charmed audiences with their diverse personalities and vocal styles.

... Organizers said a total of some 250 million votes were received over the past four months, more than double those phoned in last year.

Yeah...remember, people can vote as many times as they want, within the 2-hour time span. So it's not actually 24 million people...maybe more like 5-10 million actually voting?

BTW, 130,000 / 24,000,000 x 100% = 0.54%. That's still an incredibly small margin.

his voting systems reminds me of the 2000 election (hangin chads,pregnant chants,etc..)

Does this mean Clay will aks for a recount??..

Too bad the monetary prize is an all-or-nothing deal. Even if Clay gets the recording contract, I think he really deserves some compensation for the tough challenge he was able to mount against Simon's favorite.

Anyone think Simon was relieved that Ruben came out on top?

Anyone have pics of Julia or Kim? I missed last nights show until they said who the winner was.

Btw, Rubens song at the end was the worst i've ever heard. Nice american Idol. I know he was probably overwhelmed from winning, but that was just bad.

What I noticed was how carefree the the final 3 contestants were last night since the competition part was over, and it showed in their performances. They all had nothing to lose at that point anymore, and they were just singing very freely. I dug that.

I think Simon would be more relieved to have Ruben on the bottom....

P.S. Not to go off on my rant of last year, but really, while both were good singers, neither one of these guys is remotely "Idol" material.