Oh boy! 'American Idol' Returns Tonight!

American Idol, a show a small number of you may have a passing familiarity with, returns tonight (8 p.m., Fox) with a sure-to-be-scintillating two hour eighth season premiere. Of course, the first few weeks are always just auditions, so if you're one of those people who only like to watch bad folks fail spectacularly (like say, this guy), then this is definitely the time to tune in.

The first round of televised auditions are from Phoenix (home of season six winner Jordin Sparks; check out a totally awesome article I wrote about that here), which is sort of weird for me. Not only is that where I'm from, this is also the first year in a while that AI has started and I'm not doing TV coverage of any sort as part of my job. I can only imagine the great night that I would have in front of me sitting at home and watching all this on TV! And writing about it! Sigh. Instead I'll just go out and see music instead. But if I'm lucky, maybe someone from around here will end up as one of the finalists! And I can write about that! Oh, that'd be great. Almost as cool as that interview I did with the kid that won the "Grease" reality show two years ago.