The Academy Awards this past Sunday night were very good. Here’s what I thought:
- Ellen Degeneres was a great host - she’s funny, and very real. I especially loved the vacuum skit towards the end.
- The dancers who created logos and other things from nominated movies was very, very awesome. I loved the Little Miss Sunshine one with the guy running behind it.
- Helen Mirren winning best actress for The Queen was pretty obvious, nice speech. Also, apparently she has been invited to have tea with the real Queen of England.
- Forest Whitaker for best actor was also obvious, but from the clip they showed from The Pursuit of Happyness (which I have yet to see) Will Smith looked like he had a good chance at it.
- And Forest Whitakers’s speech was definitelly better than the Golden Globes one, but it’s so weird how he’s the vicous and terrifying dictator in The Last King of Scotland, and then he’s like so nervous and stuff when he gets the award.
- The awards seemed pretty even until The Departed took the last two big ones: Best director and best film.
- Finally, I barely recognized Jack Nicholson bald. Here’s why.
I think I’m going to have to revise my Top 5 CDs of All-Time list, because this is seriously the best album ever. Weird Al is out, and Stadium Arcadium is #1!!! But really, I got the album for Christmas (sorta) from Alex, and it’s just plain awesome - doubly, because it’s a 2-disc album.
There are so many good songs on this album! And they’re not all the same - it explores a wide range of music, from alternative to hip-hop. I highly recommend that everyone who reads this checks it out, because it’s simply just great.
Here are some of my favorite tracks from the album:
- Dani California (Won 3 Grammys)
- Snow (Hey Oh) (The most popular Chili Pepper song on iTunes)
- Stadium Arcadium
- Slow Cheetah
- Especially in Michigan (This one isn’t even a single!)
- Wet Sand (My favorite one, the guitar solo at the end is AWESOME)
- Desecration Smile
- Tell Me Baby
- 21st Century
That’s about a third of the 28-song album, and those are only the REALLY good songs! So get it now from Amazon!
I actually heard a song on this album (Especially in Michigan) on Last.fm which is what ultimately pushed me to get it, so thanks a lot!
The Academy Awards are next Sunday, and here’s the nominations list.
Here are a couple of my predictions:
- I think that Forest Whitaker will win (or at least he deserves it) for best Actor - he was simply amazing in Last King of Scotland.
- Best animated feature has to be Pixar’s Cars.
- Achievement in directing will be The Departed most likely.
- Best motion picture is tough - I think Babel or The Queen will win.
- Visual effects is flat-out Pirates of the Caribbean.
I literally haven’t seen a tenth of the movies that I wanted to this past year, so here are movies I definitely want to rent on DVD, whether or not they win:
- The Departed
- The Queen
- Babel
- Letter’s from Iwo Jima
- Pan’s Labyrinth
- Borat
- Blood Diamond
- Dream Girls
- An Inconvienent Truth
I know, I know you’re saying “And he calls himself a film buff?!?!?!” But I’m really looking forward to seeing and reviewing all of these movies, in addition to some that I’ve already seen like Little Miss Sunshine and The Last King of Scotland.
FWAY posted this on Yahoo! Answers:
Viruses
Infections
Spyware
Trojans
Adware
Which inspired me to make this up:
Obnoxious
Silly
Xtremely slow
And also this…
Liked by
Extremely
Obnoxious
Prats
And
Really
Dumb
OK, I know that they’re not that good, and not that true. But if I’m gonna put a Vista-bashing in this post, I’m also gonna put a Mac bashing. It’s as simple as that.
One month from today (March 24, 2007) is Shutdown Day! That means that people are going to shut down their computers and, get this, not use them for 24 hours. I could probably do this if it weren’t on a SATURDAY!!! I mean, if it were like a Tuesday, then it’d probably be OK, but a Saturday? Still, I’ll give it a try when it happens.
Note that Shutdown Day doesn’t appear to be a “national holiday” or anything, but just a very well done idea that seems to have created a pretty big following.
While we wait for that terrible day to come, check out this video about the uses of a computer when it is not turned on.
I’ve just started using Yahoo! Answers, which is actually pretty cool. I think Yahoo! got it pretty bad when Google came around, but they seriously have a very nice array of tools lots of other things that by far out-numbers Google’s. If you’re able to get the fact that it’s Yahoo (always the competitor of Google) they have some REALLY cool stuff - like Yahoo! Answers.
Yahoo Answers is a Q&A online community. Members ask questions on a variety of topics, and other members answer. The different answers are rated upon by the asker and other members, and a “best answer” is chosen that appears as the main and first answer.
I’ve answered a couple dozen questions now, and I’ve earned “points.” I started with 100, and every question I answer I get 2 more. And if it’s chosen as a “best answer” (One so far!) I get 10 more points. With these points you can either brag, or spend on questions. (Here’s the full point system)
Unfortuanally, before you have a certain number of points, you can’t answer more than 20 questions a day! Oh, well then I’m SORRY for TRYING TO HELP THE COMMUNITY!!! OK, I’m done.
Anyway, it’s really a nice community and really fun because you know you’re doing a good thing, and you feel good (I know that’s cheesy, but it’s true.)
Unlike in the United States, they seem fairly happy…
Although this is a bit old news, I have just tried out two beautiful Windows XP themes: Royale and Royale Noir…
They are supposedly “lost” Windows XP themes that never made it to the final cut (although Royale is the featured theme in Windows XP Media Center Edition. Royale is basically a more glossy finish for the default blue theme, while Royale Noir is a black version of Royale. Both are very beautiful, but I prefer Royale Noir over Royale, and therefore all other Windows XP themes. You can click on the images to download the themes.
