just sold my fantasia :(

[astroglide]

quoth granny mae: "50 million votes cast, and the winner won by only 1 million votes. this is per seacrest just now on his talk show."

[GrannyMae]

don't blame you a bit astro. am still digging. i want to see nygel's comment myself, not just interpret what i heard. i'll likely follow suit based on the close vote tho. a profit is a profit so i'll be happy bailing now. however, being greedy is just stupid.

i know who i think the best singer is, but with just a 1mil vote difference out of 50 million, it is too risky.

[jdl22]

Couldn't the voting just turn out to be a huge crapshoot of who can get their calls through?

I read an AP article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin where they tried to call from the home state of the final three during the call window. In all cases they got less than ten percent of their calls through (if I remember correctly they tried calling about twenty times, I think the most votes they cast for any of them were 2). In some cases the phones completely stopped working because the lines were overloaded.

What I'm getting at here is what if the people voting for the girl you didn't have your money on happened to be able to get through better than those for the girl you like?

[RiverMel]

Why would it make any difference in your prediction of who was going to win how big the margin is? Would you just assume that a huge margin of victory meant that a particular person had won? And if so, why?

[shandrakor]

Well, if Granny was right, then she felt there was one person with significantly more ability than the others. If so, then you would expect the winner to be decided by a noticable majority. The slim margin of victory suggests that there's quite a few different people each with strong followings, or that nobody has a strong following, in which case it's a little more a case of luck deciding the winner.

[Lori]

If Granny thought Fantasia would win by a huge margin, the only way Fantasia could lose would be by a tiny margin.

The vote has a tiny margin.

Lori

[BradleyT]

So how much money did you make and those of us that didn't heed granny's advice lose?

[GrannyMae]

Well, if Granny was right, then she felt there was one person with significantly more ability than the others.

this is exactly right. i expected a HUGE margin, and when the votes are close it is just crazy to hold on out of emotion.

HOWEVER, i have not sold yet. i have spent the entire day today researching every spoiler and comment made. one of the first things i ran into was the fact that i made an error. the margin was not 1 million votes. the actual statistic released was that there is only a 1% difference between the two. on 50 million votes, that makes it 500k diff, not 1mil.

here is the reason i have not yet sold. it is just one tiny factor out of many that are pointing me to sell, but this has given me the paitence to continue investigating before i pull the trigger.

directTV has had to issue a public apology today because a very large chunk of subscribers missed the first 15 minutes of the show. this means they missed diana's strongest performance.

another fact, while not as strong, was the analysis that in competitions like this, it is inevitable that there be a close vote. the reasoning is that there is limited phone lines being accessd by more people than the lines can handle. this means that both contestants will basically max out at around the same number, and the winner will only be determined because their fans were a bit more persistent when the lines eventually cleared some. last year, reuben won by only 180,000 votes, so the win margin this year, while still tiny, is larger than last year.

here are all the reasons i feel i should sell.

1. the judges trashed diana on third song and america hates that. the sympathy vote has proven its force already.
2. jasmine fans will likely vote diana because diana auditioned in hawaii. hawaii cast the most votes last week other than california and new york.
3. every forum i read has posters that claim to have voted diana hundreds of times, but nobody says that about fantasia. diana has some hardcore fans
4. cowell declared fantasia the winner last night, and the anti-cowell vote is more powerful than the pro-fantasia vote
5. the people who HATE fantasia, really HATE her. nobody seems to hate diana.
6. the judges have been sombre all day, and the exec producer was NASTY in an interview. that points to a diana win

what i am waiting for is the acess hollywood type shows that are coming on now at 7pm. i want to study nugel lythgoe's mood. that will tell me. the price has stayed at 72 to sell, so i have an hour to decide and still make decent money if i bail.

i have absolutely decided all or nothing tho. i won't sell a portion. maybe the smart move is to buy some diana's now to protect the potential loss, but i have not done the math on it to see if it does anything for me.

oh well. i'll probably hold them

oye



actually, randy jackson is on extra now and he looks VERY pissed.

[Senor Choppy]

Wow. Very smart move.

Shorting her at 75 seems like the only way to stay in the market given the fact that it's virtually a coinflip.

[GrannyMae]

i'll bet he made 30 points/contract. not bad, and too much of a gain to risk it for an extra 28