This past Tuesday the month-long odyssey for Idol fans began with the first of what will be at least three weeks of cruel and unusual punishment auditions and Hollywood week performances. We’ll all be treated to the usual mix of the deluded, the attention whores, and the genuinely talented – with hopefully a little more of the last category than past years.

Like my friends at WNTS, the real work won’t begin here at TIG for a few more weeks. Unlike most of the other members of the Idolsphere, I can’t even offer live commentary – there’s the tiny little problem that I’m on the other side of the world, and sometimes I’m at work to boot.

It’s hard to say whether the audition episodes actually tell us anything about what’ll happen down the road – sure, no contestant has made it to the finale without their auditions being showed early on since Bo Bice – but so do a lot of people who shouldn’t be allowed within ten feet of a microphone.

For those keeping track, there are two things we’ll try to put out before the Idol preseason (as I like to call the whole AI run before we get to any voting). One, we’ll write an update to our last pre-season roundup (which you can find here). Secondly, we’ll be back to talk about Idolmetrics, which we touched upon very, very, briefly at the start of the year.  (In the mean time, if you haven’t already, check out the What Not To Sing editorial on the very topic.)

In the mean time, here’s our advice for the more analytically minded AI fan: kick back, have some fun, and consider the next few weeks a guilty pleasure.