How to Turn Your Backyard Into a Swamp

If you ever wondered how to turn your back yard into a swamp, just follow these simple instructions.

Supplies Needed: One house with the outdoor water faucet in the back; bushes that need watering in the front of the house; one, 100-foot garden hose stretched around the house (important note: be sure to have an older hose that has the possibility of bursting); 100% forgetfulness and 0% common sense

1. Work on the yard by first mowing the grass.

2. Turn on water faucet to water the bushes.

3. Water the bushes.

4. This is where you use the 100% forgetfulness and 0% common sense and do not turn off the water, just leave it turned on.

5. After watering bushes, enter house to relax from the heat, take a shower to clean up, call a friend and talk, eat dinner, watch a movie and go to bed.

6. On the following day, get up and go to work.

7. Upon returning from work, and hearing some kind of water running in the house, quickly check the kitchen and bathroom to make sure there are no problems.

8. Go to the back of the house and find previously mentioned hose that is wrapped around a hose-caddy with a hole burst open in it.

9. Watch the water from that burst hole in the hose shoot about six feet into the air and out into the yard, running all day while you are at work.

Viola! You instantly have a swamp for a backyard!

(side note: don't mow that area of the year for at least a week)

R.I.P. Rocky

I came home from work today and went to mow the yard. I started the mower, and started in on a trim for the grass. Before I made one full pass around the yard, I came up on something laying the yard next to the tree. Once I got close enough to see, I realized I had come across the scene of a suicide.

It turns out, one of the gazillion squirrels in my neighborhood had decided to take a swan dive from somewhere up high in the very large tree in my yard. Needless to say, that squirrel's dream of flying was burst. Or rather squashed.

The poor little guy was just laying there, with flies all around. He hadn't been there long. I know for a fact that he wasn't there yesterday afternoon, so it had to have happened within the last 24 hours.

After scooping him up and depositing him in the trash container, I continued with my yard mowing but couldn't help but think about that poor little squirrel. I wondered what the last thing was that went through his mind before he took the plunge. Was he trying to hop from one branch to another? Was he trying to chase or run from another squirrel? Was he eluding another predator? Did he finally succumb to the pressures of squirrel life and not being able to store enough nuts and food?

I always see squirrels running around in pairs, one chasing the other, and I couldn't help but wonder if there was another squirrel out there who was missing this poor little fellow. Or if there were a couple little baby squirrels waiting for mom or dad squirrel (not sure which - I didn't bother to try and check).

I do have to admit I did chuckle a bit with the goofy look on the squirrel's face. He had buck teeth that were sticking out a bit, and hit front legs were pulled up towards his chest with paws facing out, like he was trying to brace himself from a fall. Like that would have helped save him or something. His little beady eyes were still open too, probably still wide-eyed from his freaking out while watching the ground come at him at an incredible speed.

Whatever the situation, I'm sure the little guy is at peace now up in little squirrel heaven. That or he'll just sit an decompose while tied up in a Target bag in my trash can outside until the garbage man comes on Monday. Which can't come soon enough with the horrendous smell that emanates from a dead squirrel.

Killing the Movie Channels Not So Bad

I am a huge movie buff. I'm talking large. A total fanatic of all movies. I love the Oscars and the history of the awards. I'm just a huge, huge fan of movies.

That being said, I recently made a painful decision in regards to my cable subscription. Due to some kind of technical mistake, I was paying roughly $6 a month extra on my cable bill for a subscription to the Showtime movie channels. Thanks to my good fortune, I was also getting all the HBO, Cinemax and Encore movie channels in addition to the Showtime channels. Well, somewhere along the line Charter Cable must have figured this out. Two months ago they started charging me the full $34.99 monthly fee for all those movie channels.

I have to admit I got addicted to those movies channels. It was great to turn on the television and have a total of 34 different movie channels to choose from. There was usually at least half a dozen movies at anytime that I either had not seen and wanted to see, that I had seen and didn't mind watching again, that I had seen and would love to watch again, and a few that I had not seen, watched, and later regretted it. Either way, I could always watch my movies.

I have to admit though, the thought of saving that $35 a month by not subscribing to those channels was one I debated about in my head. And the thought that $35 could get me two rounds of golf if I book them right. With a recent kitchen remodeling project coming up and the need to save as much money as possible in these tough economic times, I made the call and had the movie channels deleted from my subscription. It was a hard choice to make and a tough phone call, but I did it.

A couple weeks have passed now, and I've managed to survive without my 34 extra movie channels. It's been hard, but I've made it. I have found that I've gotten addicted to a few other shows on the 'regular' channels. Not that I have to watch them every time they are on, but I do find myself watching them on a regular basis. Some of them are actually quite embarrassing to admit to (like Dog the Bounty Hunter - it's actually a cool show and easily addicting).

There are times when I wonder if I made the right decision and if I can make it without my movie channels. But then I come home from work tonight and realize I made a great decision. As I flipped through all the 'regular' channels to see what was on, I came across a bunch of really good movies. The following were all on tonight for me to choose from: Catch Me if You Can, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Pearl Harbor, Transformers, Toy Story which was followed half hour later by Toy Story II, The Pelican Brief, Scarface, License to Kill (it's not Sean Connery, but its still James Bond), Field of Dreams, Enemy of the State, and of course, one of the best movies of all time, Hoosiers.

With a selection like that, who needs the movie channels? At least for tonight. Tomorrow could be a whole different story.

Failure as a Bird Savior

I tried to be a savior, but I failed.

I went outside this morning and noticed there was a pigeon sitting on the ground on my front porch. The little guy looked odd, just sitting there. I walked over closer to take a look and quickly realized that something was wrong. The pigeon was just sitting there looking at me, and didn't flinch or try to move or fly away.

I thought maybe he had flown into the front window and was dazed, so I figured I'd run my errands and give him time to recover. When I got back, the pigeon was still there. He had moved into the dirt and mud of my flower bed, but he was still just sitting there not moving. I got closer again and noticed he was still breathing, although it looked like he was breathing hard. His eyes were alert as well as he was following my every move. He seemed more alert than when I left on my errands so I thought I'd give him a little more time to recover from whatever was bugging him and see what happens.

After another half hour, which gave him almost an hour and a half total, he we still just sitting there and not moving. At this point, I was concerned for the little guy, so I hopped on the internet to look up what to do. I found several sites that had information on how to care for injured birds, some sites specifically about pigeons. I also found a link and called a local animal rescue place to get advice, which gave the same advice as the internet sites I found.

So here's what I did. I got an empty shoebox and cut some holes in the lid for air. I put a soft, cotton towel in the shoebox for padding and warmth. I then used some work gloves, just in case the bird had some kind of disease (i.e. West Nile), and gently picked the guy up and put him in the shoebox. All the advice I found said to give him a warm, dark, quiet place to relax and recover. If he had banged against the window he could have suffered a concussion. The dark, quiet spot to recover would help increase blood flow to his head and thus improve his recovery. I even put a small ramekan of water in the box with him in case he was thirsty.

So I did this and put the shoebox in the house for a while. After a little over an hour, with constant checking back to see how he was doing, I thought he might be getting back to normal. His breathing was more constant and steady, his eyes looked more alert, and he was trying to move a little bit. I thought he was on the way to improvement.

He still looked out of it though, so I got a little dropper and fed him some of the water. He was lapping it up quickly, so again, I thought this was a sign of him feeling better. As I continued to check on him, my hopes of him recovering got worse. His breathing got a lot slower and his attempts at movement were less and less. Before long, the movement stopped as did the breathing. His eye movement, which was constant and active the whole time, had stopped completely, with one eye closed and the other nearly closed. At this point, it was evident that the poor guy didn't make it.

I waited a little while longer, hoping he would still bounce back, but to no avail. With the gloves back on, I picked him up to look at him better, and quickly noticed he had more than just a concussion from banging into a window. It was easy to see that his neck was broken, as it was at a very odd angle and on one side I could feel the little bones bulging out and that was likely what caused his demise.

I was initially hoping that I could be some big savior and nurse the bird back to health and send him on his way. But it didn't work out that way. I guess I can only hope that I at least made him warm and comfy during his final moments and alleviated some of the pain.

Too good to be true? Probably

It's funny how often the phrase "it's too good to be true" applies. Even on those times when you think it can't apply this time, this is legit. More often than not, it really does apply.

I had a voucher for a free night's room at a golf resort and spa place about two hours from St. Louis in Illinois. The deal had a special offer with it saying you could stay a second night with a round of golf for just $50. Sounded great. Drive over, stay one night, play golf the next day, stay the second night and it would only cost $50 plus whatever taxes applied. I was looking forward to a couple days off work and out of town to play some golf and relax. I watched the weather, picked out my days for this week, then called to book the reservation.

Then reality sunk in with the details and the whole thing unraveled. Turns out I was being penalized for being single and coming to stay by myself.

According to the reservation person, the whole package was based on double occupancy. They wanted you to come with someone else, and if you didn't, and came by yourself like I was doing, you would still be charged for the second person. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but that was the catch that made the offer too good to be true.

Here's the breakdown as the lady explained it to me. The first night would be free for the room, plus a $6 resort fee per person, and based on double occupancy it would cost me $12 for the free night - not unreasonable and I could live with that. The deal with the second night and golf basically broke down to paying for the room and getting a free round of golf. Still not unreasonable. But, and there's always a but, the room would be based again on double occupancy. So, instead of paying $49.95 for the second night for myself, I would pay that much for me, and that much again for the invisible second person with me, which would be $99.90. Plus, there was still the $6 per person resort fee even for that second night, and for the double occupancy charge, would really be $12. Plus, there would also be any taxes involved that would have to be paid for, and those would apply for both nights, and roughly cost about $10 extra per night. Now, the free golf thing was still the kicker, until they explained the free golf was for the greens fee, you still had to pay for the cart rental, which was $19.

So, what I initially looked at and thought okay, two nights, one round of golf, $50 plus any taxes, etc, turned out to be a lot more. Adding it all up, it would be:
Resort fee, first night = $12
Resort fee, second night = $12
Room for second night (double occupancy) = $99.90
Cart fee for golf round = $19
Estimate of Taxes for 2 nights in room = $20 ($10 per night)

Total cost: $162.90

That doesn't include the gas money to get there, plus I would have to eat out the whole time, and you know the prices at the resort place would be astronomical.

So much for a nice, quick, cheap couple days of hotels and golf.

And to think the whole time I knew it was too good to be true, I just refused to believe it because I was blinded by two words included in the deal: free golf.

Needless to say, that trip was cancelled and I will be staying at home and trying to find a place to play golf around here for most of the week.

Talk About a Week of Tragedies

So I was watching a documentary on the History Channel last week about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It was showing on April 15, the day Lincoln was killed. Have read something the previous day about another tragedy that happened in history, it got me curious and I started looking at dates from last week. It was scary how many tragic events happened within the same week throughout history.

I started by looking at April 12. Back in 1945, World War II was starting to come to an end. The U.S. was led throughout the entire war by one of the best Presidents in history. But on April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage and never got the chance to see the end of the war. He also never got a chance to see a booming post-war U.S. that he helped rejuvenate after the depression.

The next day, April 13, marked another somewhat tragic event in U.S. history, although this one ended happily. In 1970, Apollo 13 was in flight to the moon when there was an explosion on the spacecraft that nearly ended the lives of three astronauts. I'm sure most people have seen the movie with Tom Hanks, so we all know the story and how they made it back, but it was on April 13 that the near explosion occurred.

April 14 was the next day that marked a tragic world event. In the late night hours on that date back in 1912, the RMS Titanic struck a large iceberg in the North Atlantic and later sunk, killing over 1,500 passengers. The ship didn't actually sink until the early morning hours of the next day, April 15, but it started with hitting that iceberg on the night of April 14.

As I mentioned earlier, April 15 was the day that Abraham Lincoln died. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth on the evening of April 14, and died the following morning. Sort of like the Titanic, the event took place the night before, and the tragedy occurred the next day. One of the two best President's in U.S. history, Lincoln was the first U.S. President to be assassinated and brought our country through the Civil War and kept in intact.

In 2007,on April 16, a student at Virginia Tech went on a shooting spree, killing 32 people before taking his own life. It marked the deadliest peace time shooting incident by a single gunman in United States history.

On April 17, tragedy rested. But only for a day.

On April 18, the people of San Francisco were awakened in the pre-dawn hours to a major earthquake. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was felt as far north as Oregon and as far inland as Nevada, and was estimated to have killed over 3,000 people.

The next day, and nearly 90 years later, Oklahoma City was the victim of a domestic attack when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building. The April 19, 1995, bombing claimed the lives of 168 people, including 19 children who wer eat a daycare in the building.

Four years and one day later, on April 20, 12 students and one teacher were killed and 21 others were injured when two students went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School.

All in all, that's a pretty rough week of tragic events. Some involved big name politicians, others involved everyday, ordinary people. I just found it odd that all of these events took place during the same one-week time period in April.

April Fool's Day Has Lost Luster

Maybe it's a part of getting older, and more mature, but it seems like April Fool's Day has lost some of its luster to me. I used to look forward to this time of year, and I used to plan for it weeks ahead of time. Now, it's just another day.

I just remember in years past, I would plan out things weeks in advance. Whether it was a simple trick on one person, or a big trick played out to a large group of people. I've had some good ones in the past, if I do say so myself - which I do. Perhaps the best was a few years back when I wrote out this long, 10 paragraph, three-page rant about how I was selling off my possessions, going around the U.S. to travel and live out of my car for year or so. It was great - with the answer to the April Fool's trick cleverly hidden inside the long writing. The best was a phone call I got from my mother, who just about blew a gasket. I still remember answering the phone and after saying hello, hearing her say, "You son of a bitch." According to my dad, who laughed at it, she was ready to fly to St. Louis and rescue me.

There was another year I pulled a similar trick at a home softball game for the college I was working at and played the trick on the crowd that was at the game that day. I remember times in Tulsa when we pulled pranks on some of the people at work, filling it with balloons, or filling their desk drawers with styrofoam peanuts.

It was always fun just doing crazy things that made people laugh. That has always been enjoyable to me though, doing things to make people laugh. I'm a firm believer in the phrase 'laughter is the best medicine.' So I always try to do my part to make that happen. Seriously, who doesn't enjoy a good laugh? And most people enjoy a good laugh even if it's at their own expense.

I think that's why I enjoyed April Fool's Day so much - it was a chance to do make a joke or pull a prank that would make people laugh and feel better. But, the last couple of years, I really haven't done much of anything, and I'm not sure why. Lack of motivation maybe. Perhaps its just that I'm getting older, wiser and more mature (on second thought - it couldn't be that, and if you know me you'll agree - haha).

For whatever reasons though, it has kind of faded in its importance to me in terms of doing some kind of joke. Or maybe I've just run out of ideas. Maybe next year I can start planning out ahead of time and pull of another doozie, who knows. So be prepared, you never know when I'll get the urge to pull something off again.

US Census

So I got my US Census in the mail the other day, and after getting the reminder post card in the mail yesterday, I finally sat down to read through it and fill it out. I couldn't help but notice some odd and funny things in the census.

It starts off saying to count all the people living in this house, apartment or mobile home as of April 1, 2010. Specifically, it says, "Count all people, including babies, who live and sleep here most of the time." The including babies part is the first thing that caught my eye. As if they need to remind everyone that babies are people too. Then the part about live and sleep here most of the time. This is yet another reason not to sleep around, so you don't get counted at home and at the home of your mistress. At this point, Tiger Woods might get counted a dozen different times with as much sleeping around as he's been doing.

Another part says the census must count people without a permanent place to stay. Think about that one. This form was mailed to people at a home address. If you have no home address, how are you going to have this form to read that part of it?

After it goes through all of this, explaining who to count and who not to count, it asks for the number of pepole living or staying at this home. Then question 2 asks, "Are there any additional people staying here that were not included in question 1?" Huh? If you gave us all these guidelines to fill out question 1, then the very next question basically says, "are you sure you got everybody?" It says in question 1 to included babies. The first part of question 2 asks if you forgot to count any babies living in the house. Seriously?

The third questions asks about the property, whether it is owned with a mortgage or rented. The other two options on that question are a little funny. One of the options says "Occupied without payment of rent." Is that asking if you're a squatter? Or a bum who is living there illegally? The last option asks if the property is owned by your or someone in the house hold "free and clear," meaning without a mortgage or loan. It just struck me as funny that an official document of the US Government would use the term "free and clear" to describe a house without a mortgage. Just sounds funny to me.

Question 4 asks for your phone number in case they don't understand an answer. Funny thing is, other than the number in the first questions, all the other questions are all an X in a box. What's hard to understand about that?

Then they fun part. It goes into asking for the names of the people living in this house, starting with hte person who owns or rents this property. After the name, it asks for male or female, then the third part, which asks for the persons age and birth date. When it asks for the persons name, it says in italics, "please report babies as ago 0 when the child is less than 1 year old." Makes sense, except for the fact that its asking this age for the person who owns or rents the property. I don't know about you, but I don't know too many babies less than 1 year old who own their own house or rent their own apartment.

When it asks for the persons race, one of the options says "American Indiana or Alaska Native." Now, this may be ignorance on my part, but when it says "Alaska Native," to me that means anyone who is born and bred in Alaska. A native of Alaska. So you could be a white person, born and raised in Alaska, and be an Alaska native - correct? Now, I know what they are trying to say by this questions, but there's a lot of room for interpretation on that one. And again, this may be my ignorance, but would natives of Alaksa (eskimos, etc) be considered the same race as American Indians? Should those two races be grouped together? That's like grouping together Chinese and Japanese. They're both Asian, but not the same. Then again, they do list Asian as one of the races, but also list Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese. The question of what race someone belongs to is a tough one, especially in America, where we are basically a group of different races mixed together. How does someone in a mixed family answer that question?

The last question for the person being detailed is whether that person lives or stays somewhere else. Seriously, how many times are they going to ask that question.

Anyway, those were my thoughts as I was reading through the census to fill it out.

Inconsiderate Drivers Frustrate Me

Okay, so I'm driving home from work today and came across the following scenario:

I'm sitting at a red light, going straight, and waiting for it to turn green. Over the radio, I heard a siren from somewhere. I turned the radio down and started looking around, and saw an ambulance coming down the street from my right, towards the intersection. As the ambulance got closer, the light for vehicles going in the opposite direction as me got their green light - the two straight lanes and the left hand turn lane got the green turn arrow - while my side still had a red light.

As I watched the ambulance get to the intersection, I noticed the driver in the car across the intersection, facing my direction and waiting to turn left. This driver also noticed the approaching ambulance and despite having the green arrow, the driver waited, making sure he was out of the way so the ambulance could get through the intersection. As he waited, the vehicle behind him became inpatient and went around the first car so he could go ahead and turn left. Around as in crossing the center line and going in the wrong lane of traffic before cutting across to make their turn.

The first thing that bothered me was the nerve of that second driver - to pull out into the wrong lane and create a dangerous situation just to make their turn. What made it worse, was because of that second car's actions, the car behind him DID THE SAME THING. The oncoming ambulance was turning right - to eventually go in the same direction I was heading. As the ambulance came to the intersection and prepared to turn right, the driver was alert enough to see what these two idiots were doing.

Because those two vehicles had cut across the center line and into the wrong side of traffic, the ambulance driver had to come to a complete stop and wait for those two vehicles to complete their turns and get out of the wrong lane of traffic. Thankfully the ambulance driver was alert enough to notice what was going on or there may have been a need for a couple more of his coworkers.

The whole situation just irritated me that these two idiots couldn't wait. Maybe they didn't hear/see the ambulance coming, but to me that's irrelevant. They still created a dangerous situation by crossing into the wrong lane. Were they in that big of a hurry? Instead they had to make their turn and get going, causing the ambulance to stop and lose time on their way to either meet an injured victim or get an injured victim to the hospital. Impatient and inconsiderate.

My Thoughts While Watching the Oscars

Here are my running thoughts while watching the Oscars ceremony tonight.

- When Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin came out for the opening monologue, I had to look it up to see if either one of them ever had an Oscar nomination or win (for the record: Baldwin - 1 nomination, Martin - zero nominations). Then I wondered of all Oscar hosts ever, how many have actually won an Oscar? I'll get back to you on that one.

- I loved the John Hughes tribute. As a big fan of his movies, it was amazing to see how many great movies he has been involved with, as well as all the big name actors/actresses he has worked with. Not only that, but how many of those actors/actresses he worked with when they were young. So many of them got their start working under his guidance.

- I actually heard my name during the Oscars. Geoffrey Fisher, winner for best adapted screenplay for Precious thanked his brothers, one of whom was named Todd.

- Is it just me or is there an annoying crackling sound in the background when presenters and winners are talking on stage? At first I thought it was part of the presentation, thinking they were doing the sound editing category or something. And its getting worse as the ceremony goes on.

- Back to my opening point, there have been 70 people who have hosted the Oscars. 36 have received an Oscar nomination, 21 have won an Oscar. Laurence Olivier has the most nominations with 10, followed by Jack Lemmon with 7. Frank Capra has the most Oscars with 3, all for directing. Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, Micheal Caine, Hellen Hayes and Fredric March are all former hosts who have won 2 Oscars. And yes, I was actually bored enough to look all that up (thank you IMDB)

- How come the winner for Best Costumer Design is wearing such an UGLY dress? How ironic is that.

- The first two times The Hurt Locker and Avatar were nominated in the same category, The Hurt Locker won both times in sound categories. Would this be a sign of things to come for the bigger awards?

- Is it just me, or does Demi Moore look about half her real age? Amazing. She sure doesn't look like the same person who played in the movie One Crazy Summer.

- I want to say how corny the whole dancing thing was, but I can't. That was really cool. Some of those people were amazing. I think I pulled a muscle just watching them.

- I like the way they do the Lead Actor/Actress intros now. I think last year was the first time they did it - but having other actors/actresses who worked with the nominee at some point in their career is pretty cool. Gives it more of a personal touch. Of the recent changes they've been making with the Oscars ceremony, I hope this one stays around.

- I can't believe "The Dude" Lebowski just won an Oscar. Wonder if he'll go celebrate with a White Russian and a round of bowling.

- Did they really have Barbara Streisand give out the Oscar for Best Director? Where's the connection there? Unless they knew the winner and wanted a female to present to the first ever female director to win an Oscar. Well deserved too, what a great movie.

- How anti-climactic was the Best Picture presentation? I know they did a thingy on the 10 nominees throughout the night, and they were pressed for time, but would it have hurt to read through the nominees before the presentation? It looked like Tom Hanks had a plane to catch when he came out and just said boom, here's your winner, thanks for coming. Build up the drama at least a little bit.

- Overall score on my predictions: 13-11 Not bad, and I even won all the big ones - each of the four acting categories, best director and best picture and best original screenplay. Oh, and I even got the ever important Best Costume Design category.

2010 Oscar Predictions

I've made my predictions on the Oscars for the past several years. Despite my lack of success, it's still kind of fun. This year was a little tougher, as I didn't have time to see all the movies nominated with the expansion to 10 movies for best picture. That and theistrategic marketing of not releasing the movies on DVD until after the Oscars made it hard to see them all.

For the sake of not showing how much I guess on some of these picks, and avoid the boredom for the 'who cares' factor, I'll just make predictions on the bigger awards. I mean seriously, outside of the people who made the movies, does anyone really care what wins for best foreign language film of the year?

As far as the acting awards, I think most of them are probably locked up already based on pre-Oscar hype and results from the previous awards that have been handed out. I haven't seen any of the movies for my picks to win the acting awards, but based on what I've read I don't think there will be much suspense. In the supporting roles, Christopher Waltz in Inglorious Bastards and Mo'Nique in Precious are both locked up winners in my opinion. They've swept the pre-Oscar awards and should both take home the top prize this weekend.

For best acting awards, I have actually only seen two movies that have the nominees, and I don't think either of the two will win. For best actress, Meryl Streep got her 200th nomination (or so it seems), but Sandra Bullock has gotten all the pre-Oscar hype her role in The Blind Side that has shocked a lot of people, in a good way, and is my pick to bring home the Oscar.

In the best actor race, Jeremy Renner's performance in The Hurt Locker is the only movie I've seen, and I have to admit he was outstanding in that role. However, Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart has gotten on the hype and won virtually all the pre-Oscar awards (not counting BAFTA, who gave it to Colin Firth to keep the award on that side of the Atlantic). It's hard to imagine "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski winning an Oscar, but Bridges is my pick to take home the award.

For best picture and best director, it's been an interesting race for the Oscars with the Avatar versus Hurt Locker talk. The pre-Oscar campaign e-mails sent by one of the producers from The Hurt Locker gave a little controversy to things as that's a huge no-no in the Oscar world. Call it naive, call it stupid - either way it wasn't good news for a movie that was on a huge roll with nothing but good press until that incident.

In the debate between the two, let me start by saying that Avatar is an amazing movie to watch, especially in 3D. It was a great movie and I loved it. That being said, I don't see it being a huge winner this year. I think it will walk away with its fair share of Oscars, most notably for best visual effects and editing, and I could see it taking the Oscar for best music, original score. But other than the biggest two nominations for best picture and best director, Avatar has no acting nominations for obvious reasons (which is another debate in itself), and no nominations for writing. That could be an indicator of the Academy's continues history of not awarding the big awards to the blockbuster sci-fi fantasy type movies (see Star Wars and E.T.).

Let's start with the best director debate. I think the Academy will hand out the award to a female director for the first time in history and give it to Kathryn Bigelow. The Hurt Locker was an amazing movie. When looking back on Oscar history, there have been numerous directors who have taken home the statue for directing war based movies: All Quiet on the Western Front, William Wyler for both Mrs. Miniver and The Best Years of Our Lives, David Lean for Bridge Over the River Kwai, Franklin Schaffner for Patton, Oliver Stone for Platoon, and Steven Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan. This is the first movie based on the Iraqi war that has received this type of recognition and it falls in line with the quality of some of the before mentioned movies. The fact that Bigelow is just the fourth female director to be nominated for this award and could be the first to win is irrelevant. The fact that The Hurt Locker was a tremendous movie with a great story line, made you feel a part of the movie and tied in with the characters, and kept you in suspense the entire time is why Bigelow should receive this award for her amazing work.

The best picture race could be interesting, and this could be the first year since 2005 where Best Picture and Best Director awards are split. If that happens, I could see Avatar getting Best Picture and Bigelow getting Best Director. Obviously Avatar was the huge blockbuster and was a tremendous movie. The Hurt Locker was suspenseful and an amazing movie as well. I could see either movie winning the award and either would be well deserving. However, my pick is for The Hurt Locker. I tend to favor the same history the Academy has shown and that is favoring movies that have great story lines, great directing and great acting - the whole pie. Avatar was a great movie and James Cameron's vision to make such a movie was amazing. But looking back at the history of the awards, not many sci-fi fantasy films have won. In 2003, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is really the only movie of that genre to win the award, surprisingly beating out Mystic River that year. The Hurt Locker on the other hand, has more of the whole pie and more of an all around great movie in all areas - story, directing and acting, more of the whole package that the Academy tends to favor. That and the fact that despite liking Avatar in entertainment value, I just thought The Hurt Locker was an overall better movie and would give it my pick for the Oscar.

Now if I only had a vote, my opinions might actually matter.


My full list of predictions:
Best Picture: The Hurt Locker
Best Lead Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Best Lead Actress: Sandra Bullock, Blind Side
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Waltz, Inglorious Bastards
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, Precious
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Best Cinematography: The Hurt Locker
Best Editing: The Hurt Locker
Best Art Direction: Avatar
Best Costume Design: The Young Victoria
Best Makeup: The Young Victoria
Best Music, Original Score: Avatar
Best Music, Original Song: Almost There - The Princess and the Frog
Best Sound Mixing: The Hurt Locker
Best Sound Editing: Avatar
Best Visual Effects: Avatar
Best Animated Feature Film: Up
Best Foreign Language Film: Das weisse Band
Best Documentary Feature: Food, Inc.
Best Documentary, Short Subject: The Last Truck
Best Short Film, Animated: Wallace and Gromit; A Matter of Loaf and Death
Best Short Film, Live Action: The Door

Back in the Saddle

Well, I've decided to get back to writing on this blog again.

I started this blog a couple of years ago to highlight a trip I took to San Diego (see links for 2007). It was an idea I copied from someone I know who used an online blog to highlight his trip around the world. While my trip was not as interesting as his, it was fun to write about what I was doing and keep people updated on everything that went on during my trip. I then wrote about the Oscar ceremonies that following year before abandoning the blog after that.

Having moved on to a job where I don't write at all anymore, I've kind of missed doing it. I decided to get back on here and start writing again about whatever thoughts, ideas or opinions I might have on whatever topics pop into my head at the time. It may be serious, it may be silly, it may be a little of both. It may be good, it may be bad, it will probably have numerous grammatical errors. I figured since my last post on here was about the Academy Awards back in 2008, I might as well start again with the Oscars this year, and which happen to be this weekend.

I won't promise any great writing on here, I leave all the professional and good writing to my sister - she's the writing talent in the family, I'm just the goof ball writer in the family.

Anyway, enjoy. Feel free to comment or e-mail me or pass it along to others you know.