MY BRAIN IS MADE OF THINGS MADE OF GOLD

MBIMOTMOGold Medals

Good form or not, I am indeed returning to the blog this week to ask a simple question: How accurate a measure are Michael Phelps' gold medals against other athletes gold medal accomplishments? I mean he dominates a sport which offers a mind-bogglingly wide field of events to participate in and win; while other athletes don't.  There is no baseball gold for hitting only triples or RBIs or making double-plays; there are no gold medals for playing just the first half of a soccer game, or the second half, and the full game or kicking the ball 20 yards or 20 yards.

I don't want to demean his skill and I'm happy to accept the word of many a sports commentator who call him the most complete swimmer of his era, but greatest Olympian evar?  Really?

Again, I'm not suggesting he's a slouch; I'm just curious?

Also, I'm interested in seeing all of the gold medalists fight each other out during the closing ceremonies to finally award one ultra-gold medal. The event: Scrabulous.

Long Night

Okay, so Dark Knight was pretty good, maybe even great, but is there anything that an overwhelming hype engine can't suck the fun out of?  There' a lot of good stuff in there--Chicago being a big one--but for all the clever crime schemes, dramatic moral dilemmas, and incredible chases and explosions, the film actually felt a little bit long.  As a two-film double feature, it would have been unstoppable, as a two-and-a-half hour one-off, it was a bit bloated.  Pretty good, but bloated.

Yeah, I just thought I'd share.

There goes the weekend

Working a full week in four days certainly can tax the spirit. Working two full weeks in four days audits the body and soul. Also, it drives you to spend the morning watching Project Runway.

C'est la vie.

Open Lanes

While riding the bus along the great and wild one-way gaunlet that is Washington Ave my thoughts typically are given over to 1) calculating the transit time lost at the hands (or feet I suppose) of the hapless tourists that will board at Ogilvie, ask a question, and then disembark or 2) hoping that our bus doesn't obliterate the biker in the bike lane who is fighting with the bus as they alternately throttle up in a race for the bus-stop and then slam on their breaks to allow one or the other the narrowest margin of passage.

However, today I had an idea. For most heavily-bussed and biked one-way streets, why not move the bike lane to the leftmost side of the street, leaving the bus to compete only with the parked cars (which, if laws hold, give way to open spaces for boarding).

Maybe graph would help (below, the one-way street from left to right):

 
So while Chicago is talking about having bikes share the bus lane I'm not so sure--although it is pretty obvious that the existing system is total garbage.

Next up, my dream for a same-side bus-stop and a plan to totally tear down the CTA and make Chicago the 21st Century's first "City of Zeppelins".

There's Always An Upside

Just a happy observation: the boss finally having her baby and embarking on her maternity leave ensures that I'll have at least 3 months where I won't have to mask my terror during the completely-awkward, moderately unprofessional, and all-around cringe-inducing daily dilation overshare.

Face muscles, feel free to engage at will.

He Gu: Larry King Would Hit That

Oh CNN.com, unimpeded along your path to cultural semi-relevance by grammar or proper sentence construction.

Christina Aguilera talking about her new baby or Christina Aguilera talking about her new baby with Larry King...either way, what the world needs more of now is not Christina Aguilera talking. F'reals, Britney's down for the count, it's time to finish what you started and then go have Mick Jagger's kid.

And yes, if the above wasn't totally clear, I do consider Christina Aguilera to be a kind of Highlander figure.

Preserved In Transit

Some may argue that I've deafened up to culture or sold out good taste--and it's their right to do so--but I swear to you, listening to Coldplay's Viva La Vida on a set of decent in-ear headphones is a pretty rewarding experience. Bonus points if you're simultaneously blocking-out the sounds of the Damen bus, which is considerably more ruckus-filled at 7:15 in the morning than you might expect.

<condescending remarks about my musical taste>

Stray Observations

"As you know Len, I've been predicting an opposite field homerun for Fukudome since early March."

At what point did WGN's Bob Brenly start doing color commentary in the style of Jack Van Impe?  Mark my words, soon he'll be calling Len "Rexella".

By the way, if you've never stayed up late on a Tuesday night to watch the World Ministries program, you're totally missing out.  Full video podcasts are available at the JVI site--which bills itself as " The Bible Propechy Portal of the Internet".  Ironically enough, that was the operating title for MBIMOTMOG until just last year.

It's like Web 2.0!!!!1!

I've been thinking, restaurants should have their own domain, .nom.

Truly the internets would be a better place if I were in charge of them.

A Child's Work is Never Done

O, to be with child...

Five-Dollar Footlongs

I'm sorry, I just had to do one. 

In my defense, I strongly believe that you only get to blame awkward gesticulation on torture you endured as a POW if you stood with your principles and resisted political bullying from the Bush cronies who want to allow the US government to torture POWs.  If you caved, well, then you were just a victim of early adapter's syndrome.

Harsh, but fair.

Tops & Bottoms

Bottom courts rejoice!

Seriously, that's about as intellectual as I'm prepared to get at the moment.  Just wait until I reveal my montage of John McCain photos showing off his all-purpose "Five Dollar Footlong" gesture.

Putting the "Me" in Meta

I'm sure there's some knife-sharp, topical insight hiding behind my eyes just waiting to tear its way out through my fingers but, unfortunately for all those who would willingly be stabbed to brilliance by my mind, my fingers are pretty tough right now.  One more week of internal knife-fights it is.

Off-handedly, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly should have won best picture.  End of discussion.

Just you wait, something will happen soon and then I'll be all up on it.  Until then, I'll offer just a few more unchallengeable statements before this blog returns to being essentially non-essential reading.

• Whenever I look at cars that I'd consider buying I feel the same sense of premorse as I do when I look at an iPod or cellphone mid-product cycle.
• When expertly practiced, premorse is almost indistinguishable from patience.
• The CTA is a truly godawful mode of transportation.  Just when you think there couldn't be anything worse than the bus you transfer to the Blue line.
• No matter how early I leave, 8:45 is when I will arrive at work.  The space time continuum just won't let me get to work any earlier.
• The Riches, Battlestar Galactica, and 30 Rock are fantastic shows.  Law & Order is not.

See you in 2009!

Gone Gone Gone

The xA (first seen here) is officially an ex-car as of this morning.  It was a good little bastard and far too well-maintained to be stricken so early but in Illinois there are three things which are "for certain": death, taxes, and horrible Illinois drivers.  I'm just thankful I wasn't killed in an accident on tax day.

All in all, it was just a but sad to see a car with so much potential and such good gas mileage get scraped but new car potential is being evaluated even now.

CNN: In on the joke

Click on that handy little t-shirt icon next to selected stories and you too can own a piece of shlock journalism.

I'm not saying that it isn't a clever bit of counter-current marketing, it's just that with so many important issues at hand, just begging for the media to report with proper regard, CNN seems more intent on becoming the less-hip Threadless than actually fulfilling their stated purpose.

Now if I could get Quicklaugh question t-shirts, well, let's just say I wouldn't mind that CNN has been complicit in misleading the American public on the war.

UPDATE: Even more fantastic, the copy is generated by the URL, so just tweak the addy and you can make your own CNN shirts.

Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.

Point A/Point B

From c-a-r to c-t-a in a week.

On the plus side, the Blue Line is a totally improved beast since last I rode professionally.  At least half that improvement has to be attributed to the pioneering new strategy of riding into the loop from the south and avoiding the whole Chicago station 6-train wait.  Now all I need is an ipod to block out the leaking sound of everyone else's ipod making them deaf.

Oh yeah, and to not work 14 hours a day.  Whaterrrr.

Walking Away

Getting ready to meet the family ladies out for Easter brunch I spent a bit of my morning dipping in and out of Sunday political talk on TV and radio, much of it rather unimaginatively recapping the situation between Obama and his pastor, Dr. Wright.  While some of the conversation was positively sane by political chatter standards, there is a particular line of criticism that seems to have already become unchallengeable evidence of Obama's implicit endorsement of Pastor Wright's remarks, namely, that Obama didn't just get up and leave, so he must have agreed, either that or he's feeble-minded.

Okay, if that's the standard then I'd like to hear John McCain defend his enduring membership in the Republican party despite his distaste for some of Bush's policies—certainly his professed opposition to enshrining torture as accepted practice isn't the first. 

I mean comeon, if when judged by the media's standard, Obama's mere attendance in church signals endorsement (or stupidity), what then does Senator McCain's political career as a Republican mean, especially when you consider that, as a Senator, he certainly enjoyed more opportunity to influence his party's leaders than Obama enjoyed as a congregation member.

Hell, if McCain can answer that I'll give him a pass on his feelings about the truly hateful and bigoted remarks of his own cadre of religious surrogates; after all, if the media can, why shouldn't I?

The Multi-Purpose "G" and Narwha?

What can I say, sometimes stores with one sale need a logo and droplets need to be narwhals.  I fully expect to be an internets millionaire any day now.

My First World Problems, Let Me Show You Them; Vol. 5

A short lesson is releasing information, drafted from my humble experience:

Don't send out an internal memo announcing your new "innovative venture on the web" a whole day before the site is actually live and accessible.  One day in internets time is like a million years.  Don't believe me? I just forgot about thirty "innovative ventures on the web" in the time it took to write this.

High Five

"Don't leave me hangin' bro."

Seriously?

Seer-e-us-lee?

Some presidents go all second-semester senior in their lame duck years, they play golf with dignitaries, they start working on pet projects or pushing legacy legislation; Bush on the other hand seems to have decided to spend his remaining days in office auditioning for the role of Ta'xet. 

Straight on into darkness I guess.

Grooming Change, pt. 2

Wow, it's pretty damn refreshing to hear a speech like the one Barack Obama delivered today: smart, complex, heartfelt, and not-at-all folksy or evasive.

Now I'd like to hear Hillary Clinton address the divide between men and women...and then gracefully step away from her admirable, but no-longer-tenable, run for the White House.

While at times I've been worried that Obama was running on hope alone, at this point it's all but obvious to me, that his rhetoric is richer in detail and more carefully considered than the most well-rehearsed of John McCain's policy speeches and Cato Institute white papers.

I'll say it like this: Obama is Homicide, McCain is Hunter.

Don't worry. I'm all right. I can't help it. It's my body

Wow, who knew that le petite Prince was in such a dire condition.

Related: I shot down Saint-Exupéry.

A Plan Unfolding...

That's it you horrible, horrible conservatives, push him right into our arms.

Seriously, his running as a Democrat has so much design/pun momentum that it's all but inevitable. 

Comeon: "Favre 4 Senate" is the campaign, "4ward Progress" could be his populist progressive platform, "4ward Motion" could be his hype-team/dance squad, etc etc. 

I mean seriously, he's got name recognition galore and a positive cult of personality in Wisconsin that would virtually eliminate the need for the kind of endless fund-raising and lengthy tours of the state that scare many average people out of politics.  Additionally, he could run with the populist, anti-lobbyist slogan "Good. Outside The Pocket" and his touchdown pointy-fingers work just as well when celebrating a landslide election night victory as they do celebrating a deep toss in the final minutes of a game.

F'reals people. Somethings look too good on paper not to do.  Behold:

Now all I need to do is confirm Favre's politics.

Here comes the future and you can't run from it, if you've got a website I wanna be on it.

Whet posts a young Billy Bragg doing "A New England", absolutely perfect.  But for my day, I prefer the slightly older Mr. Bragg's "New Leap Forward".

I hope for a day when Aimee Mann and Billy Bragg meet over song lyrics.

The Internet is Serious Business

OMG.  There are so many hi-larious quotes in this article that it hardly feels fair to pull out only two:

And at the Gorean city of Rovere — a Second Life island given over to a peculiarly hardcore genre of fantasy role-play gaming — a player named Chixxa Lusch straddled his giant eagle mount and flew up to confront the invaders avatar-to-avatar as they hovered high above his lovingly re-created medieval village, blanketing it with bouncing 10-foot high Super Mario figures.
...
When a virtual campaign headquarters for presidential candidate John Edwards was erected, a parody site and scatological vandalism followed.

Just the thought of Chixxa Lusch straddling his giant eagle is enough to get me through the day with a smile on my face and I'll be damned if "scatological vandalism" is maybe one of the funniest "serious" terms I've read in an article, ever. 

I have no interest in forming an informed opinion about whether or not this "griefer" behavior is an ugly extension of bullying and abuse, performance art, or bad from in the extreme; all I'm saying is that articles written about this kind of behavior are comedy goldmines...at least for nerds.

A 2-Point Strategy to Win. Point 1: Read the Internets

Specifically, this post.  Then this one.

Point 2: Listen to them and do something about it.

It's really pretty simple actually.

Grooming Change

I think that a lot of the ugliness coming out of Democrats in this primary--and it's coming from surrogates on both sides, not evenly, but it's not a sole offender either--has to do with the transformative power of electing a Democrat this year.  Disregard the possibilities of changing policy, both Dems represent a real move forward in what "viable" and/or "credible" presidential candidates look like and that's been tremendously inspiring for both Obama and Clinton supporters who see their racial/gender identity mirrored in their candidate but it's also been traumatically eye-opening for supporters of the opposing Dem that are looking down the road who see this campaign as a once-in-a-lifetime chance.  Afterall, the field of nationally viable politicians of color/female/both is staggeringly low (some would say shamefully so); that's to say nothing of different religious and sexual orientations, disabilities, and age. 

So, in a way, I can sympathize with the emotional roots behind the aggressive rhetoric both campaigns have pursued in various degrees; think about it, if they see this as "their" only shot, it's all the more imperative to win, by any means necessary.

That said, instead of letting this go any further with sympathy, maybe it's time for both Obama and Clinton to publicly and repeatedly commit themselves and their eventual administrations to realizing a long-term strategy of diversifying, grooming, and increasing the visibility of the party's "power bench" so that this election isn't seen as a once-in-a-lifetime chance for a woman or African-American to be president.  Obviously, this doesn't mean egos won't drive politicians (and their surrogates) to ugly places, but demanding it might drive voters to more honest, and hopefully, productive positions.  Because ultimately, a historic win for either candidate isn't worth a damned paperless election if it's just a flash in the pan followed by twenty years of old white guys in the Oval Office.

Just a thought.

Blah blah blah.

Say What? Vol. 3 & 4

From Slate's round-up of political and sexual intersections:

Rep. John Jenrette, steps of the U.S. Capitol
Jenrette and his wife, Rita, had sex on the Capitol steps, giving new meaning to the word filibuster.

I don't think that technically does give new meaning to the word "filibuster".

And maybe it's bias, but why mention that "Spitzer was reputed to be a difficult customer who sometimes asked the women to do things that (in the secondhand account of one FBI witness) 'you might not think were safe.'" but not mention diapers in Vitter's write-up. Is it really too much to ask of the media to be uniformly salacious?

Even better is this revealing excerpt from a Newsweek article about the incredibly stupid Spitzer and others involved in cash for sex arrangements:

In [Spitzer's] encoded diary he recorded his encounters. "1 dot is oral, 2 dots is vaginal sex, and 2 connected dots is anal sex. In the event that someone questions the dots, they are associated with good or bad days: no dots are normal days, 1 dot is a good day, 2 dots is a great day, and 2 connected dots is the best day for that week."

Wow, just wow.  Sometimes the jokes on VH1's "Best Week Ever" just write themselves.

Same Sentiment, Slightly More Complicated...

Available at My Brain Is Made of Things Made of Gocco.

Say What? Vol. 2

Okay, so maybe it's too much to expect from Jessica Simpson, but  comeon: she's "having a blast"? 

Really, that's the exact term you want to use to describe traveling to a warzone and entertaining troops besieged by IEDs and suicide bombers?

Ugh, why not just say she's looking forward to "blowing the troops away like an IED" or that she's fallen in love with the troops and is hoping not to "leave her heart in Kuwait, like an amputee" or that her "talent" is "as much a magical fabrication as the administration's claims of WMD--except that no one's dying on her lie."

Seriously, which of the two Simpson sisters is "the talented one"?  It's so hard to tell.

Long Morning, Long-Form Journalism

If you've got the time and the will to keep your one-hour-ahead eyes open, read this. 

WIRED might just be doing some of the most impressive multi-media story presenting of any big magazine...although its "bigness" is probably subject to debate.  Leaving aside opinions about the stature of WIRED's print magazine, the online photo galleries, video, vector diagrams, and sub-stories really work together to make a pretty compelling narrative. 

That is to say nothing about the terrifying awesomosity of the thought of the tanker on its side or the really great writing that makes it all sound like a movie waiting to be pitched.

My Brain is Made of Things Made of Gocco

So yeah, Saturday was pretty productive.

Shop for all your narwhal-related half-cards and birds with knives greeting cards here.  All proceeds go to Jennifer's PayPal account, which she tells me is a very well-respected charity.  I think they do something with kids.

Art In Commerce

Is "Schweppervescence" the new "Colour. Like no other"?  For that matter, is The Cinematic Orchestra the next José González?

Compare, contrast, buy, etc etc.

Chicken Smoker Robo-Terror Says "I iz Fixin' to Ex-TARM-en-ATE!"

Whatever this Southern Daleks has in charm it certainly lacks in the design when compared with its British future-cousins.

Visualize This

One of the upsides of having to do so many drafts and mock-ups at work is the ever-ready supply of scratch paper.

"Hello-Hello" 4.25x6.25 manilla folder card.

Three-footed "Gentleman's pigeon".

Chubby Wieners.

Octopus in hiding, sort of.

Possessive car stereos.

Hello-Hello "Teef".

Hey, if you want my "Mover" and "Shaker" salt and pepper set from The Economist magazine (pictured blurry above), it's yours.

"A black"? A-Hole.

From the CNN's "Ticker":

"Let's say it is Obama and Hillary...Let's put Hillary at the top — That's a position she's familiar with," Limbaugh said on his radio show Thursday. "Therefore, you've got a woman and a black for the first time ever on the Democrat ticket. Ahem. They don't have a prayer."

Straight away I’ll admit, I haven’t heard the clip in question, but unless they dropped “man” from after black, we’ve got Rush Limbaugh—on tape—talking like a total fucking bigot.  I know: shocking!  Seriously thought, Don Imus must be rolling over in his grave.

Oh, wait…sorry.

No. Nothing.

CNN's self-described "Top News":

Sheesh, reading the above you get the sense that 360° Blog is getting pretty catty and that Ticker is basically Perez Hilton for election nerds (which is to say, full of pointed, speculative gossip).

"Hello"

Victory!  The Gocco actually accepted my design.  The above card is neither suitable for people who dislike birds with knives nor available on Jennifer's store.  Well, at least not yet.  There's a very real possibility that I'll have to start my own shop so as not to taint her respectable outfit with the stink of silver print, avian assassins.

Incurious Rush

ABC News' Tahman Bradley Reports: Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh issued an on-air apology to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., today after a caller said her daughter thought the Democratic presidential frontrunner looked like the cartoon character Curious George, a monkey.

Three options:

1. He's so fucking stupid that he laughs at references he doesn't understand.  For most conservatives, that's a conversation with Dennis Miller not a phone-call from a 12 year-old.

2. He's so fucking stupid that he honestly thinks people will believe him when he says that he's "never heard of Curious George."

3. He's a terrifically stupid racist with a completely unsophisticated sense of humor and a racial awareness that would embarrass anyone with a brain.

Not saying that those options are mutually exclusive by any means.  Also, what the fuck has conservative radio come to that a caller relating the impressions of her 12-year-old is air-time material.  Even if it wasn't a veiled racist comment, it's just plain moronic. 

But seriously, if you're going to make a Curious George comparison, there's a pretty obvious one.

Color Correction, Take Two

I've got to say, the coverage of the "Obama made 'blacker'" "scandal" at Daily Kos really is one of the most absurd examples of microanalysis.  I mean seriously, the graphical treatment of the Obama footage in the ad (i.e., desaturated color profile) is a pretty standard one used to visually signal the presentation of one candidate (usually the opponent) within the visual context of the ad as a whole. 

There's no doubt that Obama looks different than he does is person but I sincerely doubt it was an adjustment made with the intent of making him look "blacker".  But there's equally no doubt in my mind that with the strong numbers Obama's posting, that looking "blacker" would be anything but an asset to his candidacy; he's just that good.

And while we're going insane over commercials, it's worth noting that it's not exactly like the media or the Obama and Clinton campaigns themselves have been all that serious about color-matching-to-real this campaign.  F'reals, Obama's racial presentation has undergone an aesthetic metamorphosis akin to something like a non-linear Michael Jackson. Whiter (and redder and bluer) than real life, blacker than real life.

Blacker or whiter, whatever the case, it all seems pretty foolish to me.

au Favrevoir...

Wisconsin's heart breaks silently in the bitter cold.

Now's the chance to begin working on my master plan to get Favre elected to Feingold's seat (as a Democrat of course) as soon as Feingold is installed on the Supreme Court.  The work ahead, it will not be easy.

The Matchbox Twenty Presidency?

It's probably not the final nail in the aesthetic candidacy of Hillary Clinton coffin, but any ad that conjures visions of Rob Thomas in the service of highlighting a particular candidates strength on crisis management is probably doomed to lose.

Now, if only Obama had responded with Blondie's "Call Me" instead of unimaginatively remixing the Clinton ad with shots of him hanging around the White House lawn looking presidential.  All said, it's particularly sad that, given Hillary Clinton's impressive credentials and supposed media prowess, to date, Tina Fey has produced the most-honest and well-received campaign video for her.

Movie Notes: Long Titles

So it goes that only after The Oscars have I started to play catch-up with some of the heavy films of 2007.  Making my way through some of the most seriously un-happy films of the year may seem like a recipe for mild depression but March is here and I like my films to be important, crushing, emotional screw-presses...that is, until Shine a Light is released, at which point I'll happily fork over twenty dollars (or whatever wildly inflated price will be posted at the cinema door) to see Mick Jagger do merry violence to notions of bowing out gracefully.  Anyway,

The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford. A perplexing and humane film about a criminal thug whose death defined an era (as well as a subcultural identity) and more specifically, the later years of his friend-turned-assassin.  No death on film, at least recently, has seemed more un-filmic than that of James (Brad Pitt) who is snuffed out with a jarring head-smash and balletic tumble.  What makes Pitt's spectacular acting all-the-more heartbreaking is Casey Affleck turn as the figure of tragic destiny, outshining Pitt with an inconspicuous skill and charm that doesn't read as scene-stealing so much as coming-into-one's-own.

In the Valley of Elah. If Tilda Swinton won for acting-via-pit-stains then it's a crying shame that Tommy Lee Jones didn't win for acting-via-breathing.  He is so devastatingly "on" in this film that it should have been nominated for Best Picture just to celebrate his cheek-creases and Susan Saradon's spectacular one-line about the math involved in losing children.  It's odd that the reviews on Metacritic focus so sharply on the final act in the film, which most regard as out-of-character or uncharacteristically political.  Maybe it's the hopeful Democrat in me, but TLJ's performance is so much about confronting uncommon horrors (and there are many of them in this film) with quiet courage that it's not a stretch of the imagination for a father, who has seen his son so totally disfigured by the Iraq war, to make the "unthinkable" leap from war-supporter to troop-supporter.  Afterall, if war can make a good kid go bad, why can't it make an ostensibly Republican father go Dem.

Seriously, it's like every reviewer internalized this ridiculous idea that parents/citizens can't possibly love their children/country and be truly horrified by what the war has done to them/it, so much so that they finally decide to do something about it. 

Maybe this film's ending will play a lot more "true" for reviewers after January 2009.

The Oscars, Like I Care...

Without seeing most of the nominated films except Ratatouille (which I saw on a transatlantic flight of all places) and Michael Clayton (which I bought on DVD today and just finished watching), I'm going to venture to express justified opinions on who deserves to win an Oscar based almost entirely on movie trailers.  Should be fun.

Achievement in directing: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood.  I do love me some PTA but given that this film is billed to be different from his other films, I'm a bit nervous throwing my hat in the ring for it.  That said, the trailer makes a pretty compelling case for PTA winning.  The long unbroken shots, the music, the serious-face acting and long unbroken shots; that's all I need in a film, PTA directing is just icing. Although the Coen brothers probably will this one it's okay since Daniel Day Lewis should and will win for Performance by an actor in a leading role category and thanks to the transitive property of Hollywood awards, so will have PTA.

Screenplay based on material previously produced or published: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  I remember my mother being particularly impressed with this book so I'm going on her recommendation; that and an Explosion in the Sky song I like being featured in the third-act of the trailer.  But this category, like so many others, is packed full of well-deserved nominees, so I imagine any winner is likely to be deserving.  If it has to lose to anyone though, I'd like it to be PTA for There Will Be Blood, if for no other reason than that I liked Magnolia.

Screenplay written directly for the screen: The Savages.  Likely to be an unpopular choice given Juno's total domination of the press in this category.  Saying I prefer The Savages over Juno takes me back to my preference for The Thin Red Line over Saving Private Ryan--which is to say, it's not going to be very sustainable in many circles. Whaterrr, the quirky story of a plucky preggers pre-teen doesn't really capture my interest, a "serious comedy" about dysfunctional siblings coping with a father suffering from dementia or a thriller about a lawyer having to face his conscience, those are my kinds of film.  That said, I expect Juno will win and suffer the backlash of all Little Miss Sunshine backlashes for doing so.  It's too bad this whole thing couldn't be settled on the merits of the poster, in which case The Savages would win hand-down.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score) and (Original song):  I'll pick Ratatouille for score (since I actually liked it well enough) and I'll avoid picking a song since I gave up on the Oscars' judgment after Aimee Mann lost to Phil Collins.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role: Javier Bardem.  Just from his part in the trailer I'm pretty sure that he makes this movie the powerhouse that it is. Tom Wilkinson is damn good in Michael Clayton and certainly gives the role of a gone-crazy litigator impressive depth, but Bardem scared me in one minute flat and for that, he probably deserves something.

Performance by an actress in a leading role: I'd like Laura Linney to win if only for playing a character who this last year's events has made me incredibly sympathetic for but with Julie Christie is treading the same end-of-life, fading-memory family waters that has me pulling for The Savages, I'm going to split the vote and give it to Marion Cotillard who, from everything I've read is as close to Edith Piaf as anything I'm every likely to see on the screen.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role: Tilda Swinton.  It takes a lot of work to make an utterly ruthless lawyer come off as sympathetic, to do so when the entire inertia of the story is pushing against feeling anything but hatred for her is doubly impressive.  Whatever the case, she wins for acting-via-pit-stains alone.

Best documentary feature: I'd like Taxi to the Dark Side to win but I'm sort of interested in what Michael Moore might say if he wins for Sicko, so it's really preference vs. curiosity at this point.

Foreign language film: Beaufort.  Sure, why not.

Motion Picture of the Year: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood.  In all fairness to Juno, one of these things is not like the other.  My pick to win: There Will Be Blood.  Probably will win: No Country for Old Men. Like I care.

Tried, Tired, Dirt-e

What's the going reward for spending 108 of the last 120 hours working on a project for work?  Getting sick on Friday and missing the weekend because you can barely keep your eyes open.  Exhaustion, who knew it wasn't just a euphemism for coked-out-of-your-mind?

Web 2.OMG

The weekend yielded snow, icy snow, blowing snow, cold blowing wind, drinks at Tornado Club, and a webcam.

So, if you're like Nick, and in know with Skype, be sure to add mbimotmog to your contacts and prepare yourself for the future of casual phone conversation...casual phone conversation WITH VIDEO.  Comeon people, we need enough for a group chat!

Balancing Act - Early Valentine's Day

W.A.S.F.

Sheesh. It's like he's trying beat his personal best in the "I fucked this country up" record book.

"President Bush could authorize waterboarding for future terrorism suspects if certain criteria are met, a spokesman said."

Seriously, read that sentence and understand this: "future terrorism suspects" means "anyone W has a bad feelin' 'bout" and "if certain criteria are met" is the punchline to a very scary joke that everyone else in the secret court will think is hi-larious.

We. Are. So. Fucked.

Just a Game, In-between the Real Action

Enjoy the almost impossibly-quick, live-blogging of the Superbowl adverts at Adrants.  Or the game; whaterrr.

Roles

What better night to settle into stereotypical, gender-defined roles than Superbowl Sunday?  Jennifer hovering over the kitchen table like an admiral moving her armada of stamps across an ocean of craft paper, me with my videos of Top Gear running on the laptop while Superbowl coverage flashes mute on the TV.

In keeping with the general theme of videos-in-lieu-of-content, enjoy:

As a side note, I have officially, for the first time, seriously considered seeking employment in the UK, in no small part due to the quality of their TV.  Pangs of nostalgia for London manifest themselves in strange yearnings.