Oscar Oscar Oscar...

As you all know by now, this is the 51st annual Academy Awards. Two hours of sparkling entertainment, spread out over a four-hour show.~~Johnny Carson

Does a film being nominated for or winning an Academy Award (Oscar) affect whether or not you want to see it? Not really.

Have you ever watched a movie based solely on the fact that it was nominated for or won an Oscar? Nope.

How many of this year's nominees have you seen? 1 Which ones? Howl's Moving Castle

Do you think the film and/or actor deserved the nomination? YES

Are there any you wanted to see but have not managed to do so yet? Yes: Capote, Narnia, Harry Potter, War of the Worlds, King Kong, Good Night and Good Luck, Walk the Line, Munich, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Pride & Prejudice, The Corpse Bride, and Wallace & Grommit. No, we don't get out much. I will see them all eventually.

(Courtesy "Musing on Movies")

As far as a detailed commentary on the nominations, I'll leave it to Jeffrey Overstreet since I pretty much agree with him across the board.

CGI Captain

I've decided to remove the sidebar "What I'm Watching at Home" list, because it's a pain to update, manually, in my cheapo freebie blog courtesy of the wonderfull folks at Blogger. Henceforward I'll just comment on films in a brief entry if watchable, link to a lengthier entry if warranted, or refrain from posting at all if the thing is a bust. If it's very lucky, the offending awful film might get mention over at my Romance Novel Roundup.

Anyhoo: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. As a film: watchable diversion. As a CGI extravaganza: WOW!!! Very light on plot and with pretty much no character development, it's not exactly a masterpiece of storytelling...but it does have Jude Law, Angelina Jolie (all too briefly), and Gwyneth Paltrow, who opted for the frugal "three facial expressions only" (ernest observer, disarming cheerfulness, angry girl) acting style in this one. By the time the credit crawl showed up, I was pretty much convinced that the film really exists as promotional material for Computer Generated Effects shops. The whole thing was shot on a blue screen set, and even the Evil Genius bad guy was stock footage. Very well integrated stock footage, but still, just more of the "see what we can do these days!" kind of thing. The net result was that I felt I had just watched one of those films you see at a World Expo that is really advertising or educating in a very entertaining way.

Surprise!...not

Serenity (from Firefly) 100% Moya (from Farscape) 81% Millennium Falcon (from Star Wars) 81% SG-1 (from Stargate) 75% Nebuchadnezzar (from The Matrix) 75% Galactica (from Battlestar: Galactica) 69% Enterprise D (from Star Trek) 69% Bebop (from Cowboy Bebop) 63% You scored as Serenity (from Firefly). You like to live your own way and do not enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you that you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you. Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? v1.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Thanks to alert reader JT in Quebec for this spiffy quiz!

(Also: Is it just me, or are these folks just the best-looking darn crew ever? Am I right?!)

Update: JT does it again! Here's another great review of the show at Spiderman's Web.

Archie McPhee does it again

Are you as tired of all of those chirpy bright wristbands as I am? Well, if you're not, then bully for you. The rest of us are grateful for Archie McPhee, purveyors of fine rubber chickens and other pop sundries. Need a Skull & Crossbones shower curtain? Punching Nun puppet? Brain-shaped jello mold? You don't? Well, that's ok, you can spend your hard-earned cash at the mall, but I'll choose St. Archie every time. I particularly like the yellow wristband, because by the end of the day that's usually about where I stand.

Blog Watch: Faux Herzog

What if Werner Herzog kept a diary? OK, he may very well keep a diary, but it's probably not as funny as this. This should also serve as a warning to us bloggers: beware of pompous, self-absorbed, obtuse entries. They're only good reading if they're meant to be amusing...

It's the Little Things

Why am I so happy that, just now, as I was putting the insulator on the outdoor spigot (going to be in the 20s tonight)I looked down and saw a rat head at my feet? Because it means that one of my on-duty cats finally got one of the rodents that have been tunneling around the barn! Go team!

Yet Another V Day post...

So there was no way we were going out for dinner last night, for many reasons. I made pot roast (#1 fave of #1 man around here), and planned to make a heart cake for dessert...but I didn't budget my time very well so it didn't get finished until this morning. Anyway, there it is! For once I didn't use pink...I decided lavendar icing would be a nice change. Carrot cake: yum.

One of the reasons I didn't get it done last night was that my folks came by for coffee. When mom called and said they were coming over, I knew the reason. Every year since I was old enough to stand unaided, my dad has given his us kids a box of chocolates on Valentine's Day. When we were little, it would be left outside our bedroom door to be the first thing we saw on emerging. I thought maybe he would stop as we got older. Nope; this is one of the ways my very unsentimental, Norwegian, Engineer dad shows us he loves us. No matter where in the world I've lived, something would show up in the mail around this time of the year...and now that I live only a few miles away he can once again hand deliver. Thanks Dad!

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

Beany Cat thinks the red roses look charming next to her white coat. Also, this photo was taken yesterday, because this morning the view behind Miss Chublina looked like this:
Seasons, shmeasons...who needs them in any particular order? Not us, apparently. We were sneaking into spring, with things popping up everywhere, now it's downright chilly! That's ok, by this afternoon it will be gone, but it's really picturesque while it lasts.

A Valentine's Bouquet

Since I'll forget to do this tomorrow, here's a Valentine's Day Bucket!*
*(it's pronounced "bouquet")!

The Da Vinci Hype

Apparently some pastors* are encouraging Christians to see The Da Vinci Code so they can debate it with non-believers who buy into all the "Jesus was a fraud" hoo-ha. Sorry, I refuse to throw my hard-earned dollars at this film...it might be interpreted as a show of support. Barbara Nicolosi agrees.

I already read the book (borrowed from a friend...glad I didn't support Dan Brown that way, either). It was a real page turner, but not what I would call literature for the ages, and so full of crackpot spurious scholarship in the second half of the book as to render the serious tone of the first half null.

Says Amy Wellborn:

Me, I hope I can steer clear of The Da Vinci Code debate. The writing is nothing to shout about. Dan Brown treats a long-buried (albeit imaginative) heresy like hot stuff. And the movie's being directed by Ron Howard, who has yet to make a movie that I really enjoy. I can't wait for all of this to become ancient history, so we can look back and shrug and see how trivial all of the hoopla really was.

* The "challenge" website is functioning just fine.

Critters

Just got an email from my sister in Kona. Right after New Years they lost one of their cats to poisoning (grrrrrrr)...and came home from the vet with this little guy! His name is Billabong. He is cute. Great photo!

And now, for something completely different...

What is it?! This came in the same email. If I were a biologist and I'd just found this in the jungle, I'd call it the Jungle Camo moth. Wow! Big boy, too...must be a Marine. Any entomologists out there?

Nummymuffincoocolsweater

I must have this sweater. In a "large", of course (the model shown is for a wittle bebbee). Sarah over at SewGeeky is a knitting goddess and deserves special praise for this pop art confection.

On another note, the aforementioned "headache" situation has taken a turn for the surreal. My husband, who is more personally involved than I, has had some very bizarre communications from somebody whom he wishes would remain firmly in the past. Joel and the 'bots of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame did a wacky fun spoof/PSA about the joys of alcoholism several years ago (#402 - The Giant Gila Monster), and one of the segments was "the guy who gets blind drunk and calls you in the middle of the night to tell you 'what a great friend you are, man. Like, you're the greatest...you are sooooo cool. I love ya', man....' etc.". Now, just imagine that this lampshade chapeau person, say (the following is hypothetical), wrecked your brand new Lagonda ten years ago, and ran over your dog and took out the corner of your house while he was at it. And not only never paid for the damage but never apologized...and is now coming over all chummy and nostalgic. How do you say to this person, "I miss our friendship, but it's gone, and just wanting it back isn't going to make it magically happen."

Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me.

Needless to say, there have been some raised eyebrows around here. I think it's possible to wish somebody well and yet not want them in your life, especially if "welcoming back" would imply absolution from all past infractions when no attempts at restitution or reconciliation have been forthcoming. Nowhere is it written that we have to be doormats in order to be compassionate.

The Weekly Blog

Boy, I'm slow posting, lately. First, I've been getting busy working in the yard. Yes, this is one of the wimpiest Januaries on record (temp wise), and stuff is bustin' out all over. If I don't get the "Winter" pruning done it ain't never gonna happen. Put in a bunch more primroses in shady spots, and have continued to divide bulbs that obviously haven't had attention since the Bush Administration. Papa Bush.

Second, we had a big momma of a storm Friday/Saturday. Gusts up to 50 mph and 13' tides on the coast. We lost power at the stroke of midnight Friday...just as I was putting the conditioner in my hair. It was the quickest rinse in the history of the world, as I didn't want to run the pressure tank in the pumphouse down. Whew! I put on rain gear over my nightshirt and staggered down to the barn to nab the phone from the tack room (a nice luddite model) and let Woody in with Taxi to get out of the weather. Power came back on Sunday around 0700. Luckily we have a wood stove for heat and cooking, and I'd set up a rain barrel so we had plenty of water.

Back on the gardening theme, Mom finally decided to end the war with Bambi and simply take away the targets. All rose bushes (except the one climber that they never seem to notice) have been re-located here. I put two more in the ground today, and will do the rest tomorrow. This Spring and Summer should be 1000% more colorful and vegetative around here. What's the opposite of horror vacui? Affinito vacui? Horror baroqui? Well, that's what the previous owners of this place had. Their idea of landscaping was a big flat plane/plain of lawn. With a couple of tentative trees and the odd shrub. And a couple of wads of dwarf iris. Yawwwwn. I'm more of a "country (English) garden" type. Sam Gamgee all the way. Give me a riot of shrubs, perennial flowers, fruit trees, and indigenous stuff. And a huge veggie/herb patch. Got to get a rototiller...soon.

Anyway, sometimes life just gets wacky and you're so busy living it you don't have time to journal (a neo-verb that's since been replaced by "blog" in the computo-geek world).