Elliott Yamin: The Return to AI

What did I say last year, something like "Mark my words, Elliott will be big". A look at my archives for April 2006 shows that I had blogged about Elliott Yamin 3 times in a row. So no, I didn't like the guy. I loved him!

To make a long story shot, Elliott finished at #3, and I along with a lot of Yaminions from all over grieved for some time (yeah we were bat-shit crazy, as noted by fellow Yaminion Progressive), and then agonized about Elliott not getting a record deal etcetera etcetera.

A year later and voila! Elliott got the best deal possible out of all the AI contestants from his season - he went independent and struck a unique partnership deal with publisher Sony/ATV, which allows him to share copyright ownership of his material. Under this deal, they share 50-50 profit - not bad for an industry that is notorious for giving artists only 6-10%. Elliott's album was released in March 20 under a virtual label, Hickory Records. The Croshal Group was in charge of advertising and promotions.

Elliott Yamin (the album title) debuted in Billboard at #3. It has made, to date, the highest new artist debut on an independent label in Soundscan history. I could bombard you with a lot more figures and statistics, but I won't. Just trust me when I say that he's selling a whole lot more than anyone would have thought during his AI days.

Elliott performed his first official single, Wait For You on American Idol last night. And he made us all proud. See, what did I tell you?

My kinda Hiro

Just saw Episode # 20 ("Five Years Gone") and it frigging rocks! Not enough time to write these days so I'll just post these. Cool Heroes links:

Heroes 360 Clues (lots more great links at right sidebar)
Heroes Gallery (Photos, Screencaps, Scans, etc.)
The 5 EW cover variants
EW Online feature: Yesterday's Heroes
EW Online articles (spoilerish! Note to self: Read these later.)

The Dog Whisperer

My friend Isa lent me The Dog Whisperer by Owens and Eckroate as I had been attempting to train Papa Suresh's pups. A couple of weeks ago I began teaching them to sit. Hiro has turned out to be the smartest and quickest of the lot. Momo, bless his tummy, is kinda clueless on the matter. What I did was pat the floor with my hand while I said "Sit [pup's name], sit!", and held a treat in my hand. Hiro got it right away. In fact, he understood it so well that he would just sit there and would not stand anymore, the smart aleck. Micah took quite a while but she got it during our second session that day. Momo? Entirely clueless. He'd look at me expectantly, and when I wouldn't give him a treat, he'd turn away. A few times he went way back behind the pups, tired, and began to sit. I'd go, "Aha! That will do, puede na `yan!" and proceed to give him his reward. (That's successive approximations for `ya!) It happened a few times - Momo got treats by accident, unintentionally. *sigh*

`Course all that was before I had read The Dog Whisperer chapter on sitting, which states that one should hold the treat over the dog's nose so that he tilts his head and looks up. This will make his back end go down, so presto, he's sitting! (It also said the word "Sit" should be introduced after the dog already knows how to do so.) I tried this trick the following week (I get to see the pups only on weekends), and like before, Hiro totally got it. Micah would sometimes stand on her hind legs (she loves doing that, such a show-off) but she knew that didn't earn her a crunchie. Momo? *sigh* Still getting her crunchies by chance. And I thought it would be easy to get him to rest on his behind, it being heavy and all. *sigh*

A couple of pics to remember our training session by (click to enlarge if you can't read the text):

Micah was unavailable for a photograph. She was probably somewhere burying her secret stash - which consists of stuff that aren't always edible, silly girl.