STEVE JOBS IS LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK: According to papers filed in Federal Court in Colorado--as of last week, "the Apple iPhone App Store offered no fewer than 75 different flatulence simulation software applications from no fewer than 50 different developers." The complaint also features a discourse on various types of flatulence (Paragraph 11), and a detailed explanation of the "pull my finger" joke (Paragraph 13).

SINCE YOU PROBABLY WON'T GET PERMISSION TO SPREAD YOUR ASHES AT WRIGLEY FIELD: Ladies and Gentlemen, MLB licensed caskets and urns.

More disturbing, however, is their line of Precious Moments wormfodder.

Via BoingBoing

SEMI THIRD-TOUGH: In advance of tomorrow's Idol Group 1 semifinals I thought I'd handicap the field. This is an absolutely brutal semifinal group, with I think seven or eight people who in some past seasons could have laid a legitimate claim on a finals spot. As Adam points out, the odds are not that great for any given contestant, and they're made worse by an unusually strong Group 1. Anyway, here's how I see their chances, in descending order of the likelihood that Seacrest will tell them their Idol journey ends here.

Danny Gokey. DEFINITELY NOT DOOMED. Nice guy, looks the part, apparently beloved by competitors, has a voice that is strong, rich, warm, and boring the way that Idol likes it. HE HAS A DEAD WIFE. I think in the Idol backstory sympathy tree, dead wife trumps, in order: orphan; going to Iraq as soon as eliminated; one dead parent; single mom; uncommodifiably sick brother; abject poverty; prior failure as recording artist; debilitating stupidity; and closetedness. Gokey may be a little mature for the tweens, but what Idol-voting grandma isn't going to vote for him? They should play him in with the score from Sleepless in Seattle. I'm sad, though, that Jamar Rogers isn't still here, because every time they hugged I sang "it's guy love … between two guys."

Incidentally, my favorite thing about Rogers was that he looked like he walked into a piercing studio, blindfolded the guy with the needle, spun him around three times, and told him, "just poke a hole into whatever you run into first." It's Pin the Tail on the Donkey with a higher risk of infection. And not to spend half this post talking about somebody who's already been eliminated, but I disagree more with the reason given for Rogers's departure -- "took bad risks" -- than with his departure itself. As far as I can tell, by "bad risks," the judges mean that when Rogers came to the part of a song where every other Idol contestant would cram in as much melisma as would fit, Rogers did that staccato "aa - aa - aa" thing (Ann Powers attributes this tic to Jason Mraz, with whom I'm mostly unfamiliar because I'm not a fan of the Mraz/Mayer/Blunt frat-boys-getting-laid-music genre), which may be just as bad but at least was different and surely isn't worse.

Stevie Wright. MAY NOT BE DOOMED. I have no particular thoughts about Stevie Wright except that she seems likeable and competent enough to get into the top spot, for work-related reasons I've been almost everywhere in California but have never heard of her hometown of Phelan, and she has a giant mouth. I would like to see a competition between Stevie Wright and Kristen McNamara to find out which of them could stuff the largest whole cantaloupe into her mouth. My money is on Wright, though I think McNamara would work harder. If there were a biathalon where the two events were singing and putting whole cantaloupes into one's mouth, I would sponsor Wright.

Jackie Tohn. UNFORTUNATELY MAY NOT BE DOOMED. Every year there are a few bargain-bin Melissa Etheridges who think they're Janis Joplin. One of them usually gets through with the judges saying they want a bluesy rocker, and then the bluesy rocker gets a deserved weekly beat-down for having only one tired and amateurish note to play, but survives on the 10% of the Idol voting audience that loves the sound of cigarettes and cough syrup because it reminds them of the carefree days before the sobriety and the child-rearing and the dead-end job and the visits to the oncologist. Jackie Tohn is schtick, every bit as much as Norman Gentle but less funny. Her lean-back-arm-askew-limp-wrist-head-toss-strut is pure Jenna Maroney-is-Janet-Jopler. She even looks like she follows Joplin's fitness regime. It's not that easy to get love handles on a skinny girl. She has a better chance than she deserves. I think it's Tohn vs. Wright for the top female spot this week.

Michael Sarver. MAY NOT BE DOOMED. I see him anywhere from two to five in this group if he gets to sing something country. Remember that Joshua Gracin has a career. Those people are out there. Sarver has a much better voice than Gracin and seems like less of a dork, though more likely to mumble a vaguely threatening insult questioning your sexual preference. Given the right songs and arrangements, he could last a while.

Anoop Desai. MAY NOT BE DOOMED. I don't know if Anoop Dogg's stiffness will play on the stage, but he is goofily likeable. What was he thinking, doing "My Prerogative," I wonder? I think it was wry and subtly ironic, but he may just be an unironic nerd. Hard to say. After Scrubs, I kind of want to call him Other Indian Guy (Spacewoman said this first). He's non-threatening enough to maybe appeal to the tweens and grandmas, and he has the folklorist bloc in total lockdown. He'd have to knock off Sarver to get through this week, and I'd give the edge to Sarver. I would probably watch a sitcom where Sarver and Anoop have to share a one-bedroom apartment.

Alexis Grace. PROBABLY DOOMED BUT POSSIBLY NOT DOOMED. Alexis Grace has had the two mommiest haircuts in Idol semifinalist history. A streak of pink in a mom haircut does not make it young; it just means that mom fell asleep in the Kool-Aid again. Also, she wore mom jeans to her audition. When you are a teen mom going to an Idol audition, I would think you'd want to emphasize the "teen" half of your inevitable description. Frankie Jordan and Megan Corkrey are also young moms, but they didn't roll up with Honda Odysseys and canvas totes with their kids' school pictures on them. Anyway, I think I remember Grace lacking the pipes or star quality to gather enough votes. Then again, who doesn't love a teen mom? I don't give her much more than an outside shot at beating Tohn or Wright, but stranger things have happened.

Casey Carlson and Anne Marie Boskovich. DOOMED; REPRIEVE TO FOLLOW. Conventional wisdom says that Idol's most active voting blocs are grandmas and tween girls. That means that in Idol's world, and only in Idol's world, a boy's table manners and unstubbled chin are more valuable currency than a woman's bedroom eyes and long legs. I am guessing, though I'm not sure, that a very high level of attractiveness is actually a burden that a female Idol contestant has to overcome with Idol's core voters, outweighing the relatively small group of people who will vote for a woman because they saw her bikini shots on collegegirlsusa.com. My guess is that short of superstar chops, the only hope either of these women would have with voters would be if they were so cute that the tween girls wanted to be just like them -- an idea that may be more myth than reality. Incidentally, I don't mean to suggest that these women are pretty in the same way or measure. Carlson is magazine-cover pretty, and would fit right into the cast of any brightly-colored youth-skewing show you could imagine -- The Hills; 90210; Chuck. Boskovich could get there with a makeover, but right now she's more the kind of pretty that pens a horrifying tale of loss and reflection in Glamour, where the text is "perseverence blah blah character," but the subtext is "suffering is beautiful in proportion to the beauty of the sufferer." I guess basically the difference is that Carlson is out and about in bikinis or cowboy boots with puffy mini-dresses, and Boskovich is office casual. Both of these women sang competently the few times we heard them (though Carlson forgot the lyrics once), which I presume elevates them beyond all-look-no-chops contestants like Antonella Barba or Hayley Scarnato or Kristy Lee Cook. That leaves a theoretical chance that either could rise into the Underwood/McPhee "pretty but also good" category. Idol, though, seems to want to squelch that chance by putting both attractive brunettes in the same group, splitting their votes and signaling that Idol itself (as opposed to its judges) doesn’t believe that attractive women lead to better ratings. Whatever happens I think at least one of them will go into the Wild Card round by judicial fiat. My advice to them would be to sing to Simon, not to the cameras.

Stephen Fowler. DOOMED. I liked him, but his voice was less memorable than his inability to remember the lyrics to a song he said would be easy to remember. Also, he seemed uncomfortable moving around on stage, preferring the barrier of the piano. He seems like a better and less frivolous musician than this show requires. I don't think he has the charm to outdo four other guys in this group.

Ricky Braddy. DOOMED. Ricky Braddy is the assumed identity of an undercover agent added to this show at the last moment as part of a nationwide manhunt for sinister criminal mastermind Keith Brent. Even for men in deep cover, the habits of a Company Man die hard, and while a grey suit and red tie are out of the question on this show, "Ricky Braddy" managed to wear a sport coat in his happy dance video and a cardigan in his AI contestant bio shot. Since the key to being undercover is keeping a low profile, "Ricky Braddy" successfully avoided all cameras during the audition and Hollywood rounds. That's fine, because the government expects to have to chase sinister criminal mastermind Keith Brent elsewhere next week, and low profile = no votes.

Brent Keith. DOOMED. He used to be Keith Brent before the authorities got wise to his sinister criminal masterminding. One of the first things you learn when on the lam is to pick an assumed name that is close enough to your real name to kindle an immediate association when you hear it. The moment Brent Keith gets voted off, he will start setting up checking accounts as Kent Breith.

Tatiana Del Toro. MUST BE DOOMED, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY. Sepinwall's Fienberg's theory was that she and Norman Gentle (and, I'd add, maybe Nate Marshall so there can be one in every group) were pushed into the top 36 to neutralize Vote For The Worst, because VFTW only works when contestants start with a sizeable enough fan base for them to make a difference. An alternate theory is that Idol thinks she's good television (though, via Sepinwall again, note that Miss Alli believes that viewers aren't as enamored of villains as TV producers think they are). She sings poorly and is freakishly annoying. Even if you are a VFTW sympathizer, I would hope that you could find it in your heart in this case to VFT second-W.

THAT'S ONE WAY TO CUT THE SHOW'S BUDGET: There's more TV than just TAR and Conchords on Sunday nights, though I may be one of the few ThingThrowers still watching both Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. Both have been running in circles for much of the season with silly plots like "Nora builds the Ronald McDonald House," "Crazy Identical Twin Mix-Up,"and "Really Uninteresting Corporate Structure Debates," though Housewives had a very solid 100th episode with Beau Bridges as the neighborhood handyman. But what triggers the thread isn't anything that happened last night, but the previews that claim Brothers and Sisters will feature a major death in two weeks. Even money says it's Rob Lowe, whose character has grown tiresome, with other contenders being Patricia Wettig (turning her shares in Ojai/Walker Landing/Whatever over to Rebecca would be an interesting development) and Balthazar Getty. Anyone else care to speculate?

IDLE COMPUTATIONS: The changes in Idol's semifinals will make for a much different show, bringing a different type of talent into the final twelve:

• Before: Survive from 24 to 20 to 16 to 12 -- a 5/6, then 4/5, then 3/4 chance of advancing from week-to-week, an overall success rate of 50%. "Bottom two of each gender go" means that the goal is to not-suck for three straight weeks; no advantage to being a top vote-getter.
  
• Now: Three weeks, but each competitor has a 1/4 chance of advancing the first time, and then a (9 or 10, they've said) chance in 27 of advancing to a wild card round in which three will be selected by the judges, an overall 33.33% success rate.

What does this mean? It means that one great performance gets you into the final twelve this time, and consistency isn't as much of a factor. It's good news if you're a one-trick pony like Justin Guarini ("Get Here") or John Stevens, bad if your selling point is your competence rather than flash -- does an Elliott Yamin make it to the finals if he has to blow everyone away once? Jordin Sparks? Syesha Mercado? And remember that "Hello" was David Cook's third semifinal song -- neither "Happy Together" nor "All Right Now" probably would have advanced him into the final twelve.

Of course, given only one chance, Cook probably doesn't sing "Happy Together" in the first place -- he reaches high, pulls out a "Hello" or a "Billie Jean" sooner, and history rights itself. So maybe we do see more adventurous choices sooner and we won't feel like we already know everyone well by the time the Final 12 begins ... but I'm willing to guarantee that we'll also have 1-2 flukes make it through who'll be completely exposed soon enough. Song choice, gang.

THE LOVE THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME, WHICH IS KEITHA: We haven't mentioned Flight of the Conchords yet this season, and I suspect the reason is a combination of "Spaceman is the only one watching it" and "what Sepinwall said" (i.e., the songs aren't as strong as last year and the episodes have been somewhat uneven). But tonight's episode, in which Jemaine experiences the forbidden love of a New Zealander for an Australian, was the best this year, matching the highs of last season. Excellent visual jokes (which I won't spoil, except to say I appreciated the return of the camera phone), a nice opportunity for the show to get payback for some of the anti-New Zealand stereotypes the Aussies have dished, and one great and funny song that was beautifully filmed. If you've never watched the show but you're a fan of very dry absurdist comedy, this week would be a good one to track down Conchords on HBO.

ETA: Via Sepinwall, the really cool "Carol Brown" video, which is worth watching even if you don't watch the show.

WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? No Detour on this week's Race premiere, but a pair of uncommonly hard physical tasks for a premiere episode, multiple incidents of train fu, a new opening sequence, featuring "BOMP! (Techno Remix)," a minimum of shouty annoying teams (though team Harvard Law could get annoying really quickly with their over-strategizing, and the multiple teams who already seem to be experiencing preliminary stages of Killer Fatigue could be tiresome), and an ending (both at first and last place) that was suspenseful. I'm willing to bet that Team Schneebly already has a few fans around here, but this is looking like a solid season all around.