New theme week, New bar graph!


They just reported that the newly named Top 12 will be performing songs from the year they were born. That means I should generate a bar graph of the years they were born with the genders separated by color based on their birthyears. Here are their years as I copied from MJ's Big Blog:

  • Casey Abrams – 1991
  • Haley Reinhart – 1991
  • Jacob Lusk – 1987
  • James Durbin – 1989
  • Karen Rodriguez – 1989
  • Lauren Alaina – 1994
  • Naima Adedapo – 1984
  • Paul McDonald – 1984
  • Pia Toscano – 1988
  • Scotty McCreery - 1993
  • Stefano Langone – 1989
  • Thia Megia – 1995
So there is an 11 year time span here with Paul McDonald and Naima Adedapo both being born in 1984 and then nobody until 1987 with Jacob Lusk, then Pia Toscano in 1988, and three in 1989 (James Durbin, Karen Rodriguez and Stefano Langone) to round out the 1980's. There are then two contestants who turn 20 this year, Casey Abrams and Haley Reinhart , and then the three teens, Scotty McCreery, Lauren Alaina and Thia Megia. So we have seven from the eighties and five from the nineties. The guys are on average older (average male birth year = 1988.8, median = 1989) since Lauren and Thia skew the women younger (average female birth year = 1990.2, median = 1990). This may well play into the results since two of the female favorites are the two youngest contestants here, Lauren and Thia. Both of them appear to have a lot of talent, but I am not sure if they have the maturity and poise to make it through the competition. Scotty is the youngest male contestant but seems much more composed, although he has not received any negative comments as of yet. However, with his very polite, low key personality I can see him taking negative criticism well. He is a pitcher on a high school baseball team and I bet he has been yelled at negatively by his coaches (and the other teams) plenty, so I bet that helps!

I was also looking online for the latest betting odds, and just found updated numbers on BODOG.

I had a feeling the Vegas odds on Lauren and Thia may have fallen, more so for how they act when they are not performing as to when they are. Whereas they both had lackluster performances on Wednesday, their responses to their critiques affected my opinion of them much more. And Lauren's reactions last night did not help her any either. Lauren is no longer the odds on favorite but remains high on the list being tied with Casey at 9/2. Pia has taken over as the favorite at 7/2 now but she needs to show more versatility and more personality herself if she wants to hold that position. James and Scotty are both at 11/2 so it is very close among the current top 5. Here is a lovely sorted bar graph of the current odds: