I Heart David Archuleta

Oh. My. God.

Have you all heard this David Archuleta kid from this season of American Idol? I know, I swore not to get attached to another contestant after Melinda Doolittle broke my heart last year. But this kid...if he isn't destined to be the next American Idol, something is seriously wrong in the universe.

I don't usually like precocious kid singers. There's usually something fake about them. Something overly groomed. Like they don't want fame nearly as bad as their parents do. But this guy is the real deal. He's incredibly talented, he's sincere, and I think I love him.

(Yes, he's 17. I don't mean that I "love" him, not in the way I "love" Viggo or Jon Stewart or Bono. I mean, I want to adopt him. And hug him. And have him be a walking lullaby for Ainsley. Like Dori says about the cute little baby jellyfish in Finding Nemo, I shall call him Squishy and he shall be my Squishy. He's that freakin' cute.)

I've liked him from his first audition, but last night he killed me. He sang "Imagine", which is quite possibly the most beautiful song in the history of ever, and as a general rule I hate it when anybody screws with that tune. I love it the way Lennon wrote it, and the way Lennon sang it. When somebody adds extra instrumentation, or improvises the melody, I can't stand it. But then this little 17-year-old gets up there and sings it with a simple guitar accompaniment, and arranges the melody a little to make it his own, and 5 notes in I'm crying because it's so beautiful.

Jason wasn't in the room at the time, but thanks to the magic of DVR, I replayed it for him. I'll be darned if I didn't get choked up AGAIN. And when it was over, Jason gave it his patented "That pretty much sucked," which in Jason-sarcasm-ese means, "Wow."

I think it's pretty much a no-brainer at this point to say this guy's gonna win it all. The crowd went nuts when he finished, Paula had snot all over her face (which would usually gross me out, but since I was in the same situation, I let it slide), and Simon said the 19 other contestants had just become miserable.

I think this guy will be bigger than any other AI finalist or winner. Even if all he ever does is release that version of "Imagine", he'll sell like a bajillion records and retire before his 18th birthday. It was that good.

So, what do you all think? Does anybody else in the competition stand a chance?

(I know some of you scoff at American Idol and don't watch...start now. This kid's worth it.)