Oscar Night 2011

The only awards show I actually pay attention to is on this Sunday night, the 83rd Academy Awards. There are some great movies and actors poised to take home small, naked, golden men.

There's 24 categories (I think) but I'm just going to predict the big five for brevity's sake as best I can, as this year I didn't get see as many of the nominated movies as I would have liked.

Skip to the bottom to see a quick list

Best Suppourting actress:

• Amy Adams – The Fighter as Charlene Fleming
• Helena Bonham Carter – The King's Speech as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon / Queen Elizabeth
• Melissa Leo – The Fighter as Alice Ward
• Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit as Mattie Ross
• Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom as Janine "Smurf" Cody

In this category, I've seen all of these movies but Animal Kingdom, but of them, I think Hailee Steinfeld will take the award. She's young, she had a memorable and solid performance, she didn't get overshadowed by her two very impressive co-actors, and the academy has shown favoritism to breakout roles in the past.
Plus, I didn't think the actresses of The Fighter or The Kings Speech, while notable, were all that award worthy.

Best Supporting Actor

• Christian Bale – The Fighter as Dicky Eklund
• John Hawkes – Winter's Bone as Teardrop
• Jeremy Renner – The Town as James "Jem" Coughlin
• Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right as Paul
• Geoffrey Rush – The King's Speech as Lionel Logue

This will be one the awards to look forward to. Christian Bale is a god damn doppelganger! He moves in and out of role after role so seamlessly it's hard to believe that this man plays Batman. As the former champ boxer turned crack addict Bale stole every scene he was in in the Fighter. I think he'll take the award.
However, Roger Ebert thinks Geoffrey Rush will take this one, and it's hard to disagree with him. Rush was excellent, engaging, entertaining, eloquent, if he wins this award I won't be surprised, but I will be disappointed.

Best Actress

• Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right as Nic
• Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole as Becca Corbett
• Jennifer Lawrence – Winter's Bone as Ree Dolly
• Natalie Portman – Black Swan as Nina Sayers
• Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine as Cindy

I only saw one of these movies, and it was Black Swan. So by default, I have to pick Natalie Portman. But despite my lack of familiarity, I doubt that I'm wrong. Portman's performance was phenomenal.

Best Actor

• Javier Bardem – Biutiful as Uxbal
• Jeff Bridges – True Grit as Rooster Cogburn
• Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network as Mark Zuckerberg
• Colin Firth – The King's Speech as Prince Albert / King George VI
• James Franco – 127 Hours as Aron Ralston

You know what? I only saw three of these movies, but I think the competition is only between two of them, Colin Firth and James Franco. In my heart of hearts, I want to see Franco win. His performance in 127 hours was amazing, as the film's almost entirely sole actor, he truly had to "act."
But, I'm going to guess Colin Firth. You could almost feel the pain and frustration his character suffered. It made you want to shake the man. Plus, The Academy likes brits. I'll be happy to see either win.

And Finally...

Best Picture

• 127 Hours
• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
• The Kids Are All Right
• The King's Speech
• The Social Network
• Toy Story 3
• True Grit
• Winter's Bone

This is an amazing list of movies right here. I hate how there's ten nominees, I think it cheapens the category, but I understand how it would be hard to limit your choices.

If best picture were up to me, I think I'd have to give it to Black Swan. It was a film in which the lead actress truly gave it her all. The visual effects and cinemetography were creepy, yet engrossing. The way you began to question what was happening in the film as Portman's reality became distorted was mindblowing.

But, what will The Academy pick? the King's Speech probably. Once more, Brits are something they like, history based movies are something they like, and it really was an amazing movie.

To hell with the Academy though, I think Black Swan will take it. I really hope it does.

So, to recap:

• Best Suppourting Actress - Haley Steinfeld
• Best Suppourting Actor - Christian Bale
• Best Actress - Natalie Portman
• Best Actor - Colin Firth
• Best Picture - Black Swan

Your picks? Your likes and dislikes? I want to hear them all!

Smashing Pumpkins - Perfect

Quadruple Fortune!

I went for Chinese today, and while the meal was average, the fortune was amazing!

Boom, quadruple fortune, all the same one. That's pretty good.

On top of all this, people apparently appreciate my leadership qualities, which is always worth mentioning...IN BED!!!

Mom, you probably don't want to read this one...

The title goes for Aunty Pat as well.

I was in the lunchroom today, eating some reheated lasagna-esque dish, and chatting with some coworkers.

The subject of Google images came up, and how an innocent search for "Drilling" in reference to oilfield jobs turned up several gay porn images.

But then I though, if guys are pumping fluid into holes, would that be called Fracking instead? (short-form definition: Pumping sand, water, gels, even air, down an oil well to crack it open, thus stimulating the hole, allowing oil and gas to more easily be extracted.)

I proposed this to my friends who used to be Frackers, in which their official title is "Tight Hole Stimulator." Their responses were as such:

"Frackers are tight hole stimulating specialists. A driller is a no name that can put pipe in a hole. Anyone can do that."

"Well...you have to penetrate via the drill before you stimulate with frack fluid"

So, it seems you can't frac a hole unless it's already been drilled. And in the end, life drills us all.

The Black Keys - Next Girl

Award Insanity

The Grammys were on television last night and I almost never watch them. For the most part, the awards are all given to musicians I don't listen to, or know anything about. But, since my girlfriend was watching them, I sat with her on the couch and played computer games.

Just about every time I looked up I was taken aback. If there was a Grammy for “Weirdest Shit We Can Put on Stage” I think there would have been a lot of serious contenders from last night.

In case you didn't see it, here's the recap.

When it started I had no idea what was going on. I thought awards shows are usually prefaced with “Hey, you're watching this award show, honoring this, and now let's start.”
But last night they just kind of gave it the go signal, and started singing Aretha Franklin songs.

Several lengthy music performances later, they finally gave away the first award.

Then Justin Bieber came on stage, traded some really badly scripted dialogue with Usher, some dancing ninjas came out, one of Will Smith's kids popped out of the stage wearing leopard skin pants, and Usher came back out wearing what I'm pretty sure was one of the outfits worn by The Beatles when they released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I'm not even lying. That all seriously happened.

Next came Lady Gaga, who stepped out of some kind of egg-alien-pod-mobile. Sigourney Weaver was jealous.
This was followed by Mumford and Sons, who had a really good set. 2/3rds of the way through it Bob Dylan stumbled out with his harmonica in and started rasping about something. You could tell it was him too because you didn't understand anything he was saying.
A Dolly Parton tribute came on featuring John Mayer who looked like he had borrowed Jack White's wardrobe and face.
Then Cee-Lo, dressed as a battle-chicken or something played the radio-friendly version of Fuck You, backed by some muppets and Gwyneth Paltro, all on a set decorated with spaceships.
Some awards were presented somewhere in between here, but the award show organizers obviously took as much LSD as possible while planning the night's itinerary, and consequentially the excitement of winning a Grammy paled in comparison to the hallucinogenic-styled performances.

Seth Rogen showed up, who was obviously as confused as the rest of us about why he was there, and made a joke about Miley Cyrus smoking drugs. Then he left.

Rihanna lip-synced to a song of hers, and then Eminem came on and had a whole bunch of badly timed blackout censors interrupt his genuinely enjoyable song.

Then I left the house and saw The King's Speech.

It was excellent, but the projector wasn't working right so everything was a little blurry. And since I've seen the majority of the Oscar nominated movies now, it got me excited for an award show I'm actually interested in.

So, what was your impression of the Grammys?

CAKE - Sick of You

Scrabble Master!

Today I officially have been graced with the god-given ability to Scrabble like a professional.

I've played three games this week and in two of them, I Scrabbled twice (technically called a Bingo, but whatever) in the same game.

For those not in the know, in Scrabble, when you use all your letters in spelling one word, you get a bonus fifty points.

It's like getting a Yahtzee!

The pinnacle of my achievements was the word “Quilting” which netted a grand 101 points.

The next words were Murdered, Mitered, and Minarets. All M words weirdly enough.

Anyway, if you're a Scrabble geek, you can request an autographed photo of myself. Just leave me a message with your mailing address, and I'll send those out straight away.

If not, you can resume your regular schedule.

Anyone else been having a good week?

Grande Prairie Parking #2

For lack of content, I'm going to post yet another Grande Prairie Superstar Parker I caught from a sunnier time just a few months ago:


I was sitting in front of the local Marble Slab slowly regretting the choices I had made for my ice cream toppings, when this dude pulls into the (almost) totally vacant parking lot, throws his vehicle in park and walks into a nearby restaurant.


I know big trucks can be hard to park sometimes, but as you can, see, he didn't even try to land his vehicle between the lines.

Nice truck though.

High as a Caffeinated Kite

This morning I wasn't particularly tired but I was feeling quite adventurous. I've had a package of coffee from Australia in office that I forgot to try, so today was the day I decided to crack it open.


At first, this "Bangalow Coffee" was quite unassuming. It didn't smell particularly good, nor did it taste all that strong.

But now I'm high as a kite.

Those Aussies must put something in their coffee because I'm thrashed. Here's the cup-for-cup play by play of this whole morning:

Cup #1 – Bangalow Coffee
8:45AM: Drank a whole cup, felt fine.

9:15 AM: The tops of my eyeballs are buzzing. My coworker says I'm talking loudly.

9:30 AM: I have to control my volume. My peripheral vision is more colourful than normal. I have an insatiable urge to listen to hip-hop and dance music.

Cup #2 – Nabob
9:45AM: Tastes normal, little effect, my eyes are still buzzing and I feel tingly,

Cup #3 – Bangalow Coffee
10:00 AM: Tastes Great! Made a second pot with more grinds to add more flavour.

10:20 AM: My arms feel weird, my vision is still more colourful.

10:30 AM: I can't stop smiling! My face feels funny. Not like “Ha-ha” funny, just kind of numb.

Cup #4 – Bangalow Coffee
10: 50 AM: Tastes like regular coffee. I feel like swinging my arms around.

11:15 AM: I'M SO HUNGRY! I want to hug everyone and yell at them at the same time. I can't stop just looking around at stuff. The hallways seems confined yet vast.

11:20 AM: I'm tired now.

11:30 AM: I have a headache now. My teeth hurt.

11:35 AM: I pee for the 3rd time this morning.

11:40 AM: I can't type. I keep hitting three keys instead of one at a time.

And that's where I cut myself off. There's still another cup waiting for me, but my head hurts. I think I need to save this coffee for special occasions, because it's way too much for me handle.

Also, maybe I shouldn't drink about three quarters of a pot in one morning.

If I'm not careful, I'll be mainlining this stuff by Springtime. You can order yours here:

Bangalowcoffee.com.au

Apparently it's lower in caffeine. So it must be higher in meth content or something. Give it a try!


Fatboy Slim - Don't Let The Man Get You Down