Useless Snow

It’s no good unless it gets me at of work. It’s flying around like mad outside my office window, but it won’t stick.

Your Sister’s cold has now settled in her chest, giving her a most reptilian voice. We watched some “Jeopardy” and “Mythbusters” before she went to bed early. I organized some old paper files and drew a bit before calling it a night. She’s going to be gone most of tomorrow helping another teacher get reading for her wedding, and I find myself with no clue how to have a bachelor night in Mayberry.

UPDATE: Looks like I'll do nothing. I'm getting the rough throat that signals the onset of sickness. Joy. Rapture.

Picture of the Day
The view outside my window. If our office was a few thousand feet higher, I’d be home right now.

In the news
With both UNC and Duke out off March Madness, I no longer care who wins.

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Rumors again swirl that Rumsfeld will step aside to give the GOP a scapegoat going into the mid-term elections.

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The Supremes ruled this week that police cannot make a warrantless search of a house if both occupants do not agree. There’s debate on whether this will hamper investigations of domestic abuse.

Love Me With Glaze

One of the boons of being Publications Manager is that local printers bring you doughnuts to win your business. I’ve had this one guy calling us once a week for more than a month, and today he brings a bakery bribe. There are no plain glazed, and thus he does not win my affections. Fie upon him.

We ate Mexican last night and watched a new “Lost.” The season is close to wrapping up, and it appears the season will end with some shake-ups possibly as seismic as what happened this time last year.

Picture of the Day
Undeniably, the funniest ad campaign in many a moon.

In the news
You know all the rhetoric that there was no warning about 9/11? Turns out, um, not so much. The sentencing phase of the Moussaoui trial hinges on the argument that the FBI and FAA could only have prevented 9/11 if the “20^th hijacker” had told authorities what he was up to when he was arrested the month before the attack. But FBI agents and others are testifying that they tried to warn superiors that something was up at flight schools concerning the hijackers-to-be. This means a) the feds knew about these guys; b) they didn’t heed field agents’ concerns about their plans; and c) they are trying to shift all blame to the one guy they did capture. I think the guy deserves to burn. If he was involved, yeah, he’s got to go. But let’s be clear: Those who shrugged off the alarms deserve some public flogging as well.

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Snakes on a Plane just got awesomer.

Do Not Go On With The Show

The school hosted a Theatre and Dessert event last night, offering coffee, cake, and short performances by the drama kids. This is the same group whose teacher asked me to give notes to after watching their one-act play last year. What I didn’t know until after I had taken the notes was that they were leaving the very next day to perform. My notes would have been meaningless as they had no time to rehearse after hearing them. Mostly, I gave them basic stage advice: speak up, turn to the audience, know what your character means even if you don’t understand all the words. Very basic stuff. This event was to show off what these kids were readying for a statewide competition on April 1. I was in competitive drama in my senior year of high school so this was right up my ally. But I wouldn’t be taking notes this time (wasn’t asked), and I could just watch the kids show their stuff.

Their stuff, however, is weak. It all began OK. The school office lobby was strung with lights and filled with fancy table settings. It was a small gathering of parents, the kids, Heidi, and me. We sat with Ms. D’Onofrio, the sister of Vincent, the guy from “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” Heidi knows her son well, having taught him at least one year. Great kid. Handsome as hell and seems genuinely nice, at least around us old folks. Heidi, her, and another mom talked up school and kids while I counted the strewn coffee beans on the table cloth. This is normal. There’s very little I can offer for school talk except to say what I remembered from days as a student in another school district in another state. The dessert was great, and the kids were the wait staff. It’s a nice touch and, as Ms. D’Onofrio said, prepares them for a life as actors holding real jobs. I recognized one of the girls from her article in the town paper; she’s going to be in a movie produced and filmed locally. I got bad vibes from the article as the filmmakers wouldn’t say what the film was about -- as if someone else in this town would rush out to make the same film. Seeing this girl in person and later watching her act, the bad vibes grew; she doesn’t convey real skill or charisma, and I question the motives of people who cast her. She’s very attractive and young, and small movies like this one tend to get that type naked so they can sell the movie to distributors. She probably sees this as her way out of Mayberry. She might be right.

After the food, we went into the auditorium – maybe 30 people at most – and watched the kids onstage. The show began with short scenes from Romeo & Juliet and Midsummer Night’s Dream. Very easy stuff for this age group. Very few props, no costumes. This is exactly what I did in competitive drama, minus The Bard. I was in two scenes, one from The Foreigner and one from Neil Simon’s Hotel Suite. The latter featured my first and only completely blank; I simply forgot everything, and we improved the rest. I got overconfident and thought I knew it. I never let it happen to me since.

But back to this night. When the first scene started, Your Sister whispered to me, “I owe you one,” meaning she thought I was mortified for watching this. I shrugged it off. Hey, they’re high school kids. You can’t expect them to learn everything so early. After the scenes, they took turns performing two monologues each. D’Onforio did the “to be” speech in Hamlet and had trouble with the lines. He then followed up with one of the cliché melodramatic monologues offered to kids for drama classes. Horrible stuff. Because the kids at this age aren’t expected to show subtlety and range, the monologues give them a chance to display Big Acting Emotions. They just have to hit those spots. One girl worked two different accents, one as Eliza Doolittle. She was good, one of the better performers.

The worst was saved for last as a gal performed a song from South Pacific. At least, she was supposed to. She completely and totally blew it, singing maybe a third of the words. She had a nice voice from what I could hear, but she was painfully soft. Was she freaked for performing in front of her parents (the single worst scenario for a kid that age) or did freak because she hadn’t learned the song? Can’t tell. But as bad as that was, the last bit, a duet of “All That Jazz,” was just embarrassing. The two girls were performing the very last song from Chicago, except they weren’t singing, and they technically weren’t dancing. They were walking their half-forgotten, half-hearted choreography while a CD played the song from the movie soundtrack. They didn’t know it, and yet this got the loudest applause. One can only assume it sprang from gratitude that there was no more to follow. This is when I turned to Your Sister and whispered, “Now you owe me.”

I don’t blame the kids. I blame the director. She has not prepared them for a state competition. They didn’t project, they ran through their lines, they shuffled their feet, they didn’t know fundamentally what the material was about, and some simply didn’t know their lines.

Now let’s assume there were mitigating factors. As I said, performing in front of your parents is hell. You are reminded instantly of standing on stages in elementary school, and that feeling of being cherished but wholly off-key and clueless clashes with teen expectations of leaving home and being your own capable person. What makes it worse is performing in front of such a small group. It’s much easier to put on a show for a large crowd; with a smaller one, you are aware of each person, and you don’t develop a sense of the communal mind and reactions.

Then again, I don’t know that these kids were ever prepared to perform onstage. Some have in earlier productions, but competition scenes are rehearsed in classrooms and might be ultimately performed in classrooms. Or you might perform them onstage in front of all the other competitors. If those kids weren’t prepared to do this stuff onstage, it’s no wonder they were so soft and shy. And if they do perform onstage at the state event, they are gonna get hammered by the judges. It’ll be a slaughter, and the kids from stronger programs are gonna chuckle all the way through.

Your Sister suggests that their teacher comes from a musical background and doesn’t know how to direct acting. That may be. I know from experience that plays and musicals are directed differently. Acting in a musical is a distant second to the singing. It’s possible the kids are inadvertently hung out to dry. If so, I feel for them and wish I could have a week to work with them. I’ve been there. I can get them ready. But it’s not my call and offering my help would be like Angry Dad armchair coaching from the stands when Your Sister coached the team.

When we got home, I showed her some of my mementos from high school drama: pictures, programs, small plastic awards. Then we watched “Sex and the City” to cleanse the palate. She’s gonna go out with a teacher gal pal on Saturday and is encouraging me to have a bachelor’s night with guys or throw a small party. It sounds fun, but I don’t know how well I can entertain her teacher friends alone. Teachers talk shop. It’s what they do. I can’t offer that. Unless they only talk to each other, and I get enough of that teacher parties.

Picture of the Day
Mr. Yuk turns 35 this week.

In the news
Don’t tell Your Sister. Adam Vinatieri signed with the Colts. They just took one of the most clutch players in NFL history away from their biggest rivals.

So Far, Spring Is Lacking

Sleet and snow welcome you to the first day of Spring. Your Sister is still sick, but she was able to enjoy the Monday ritual of Wings ‘n’ Rasslin. She’s a trooper. We’re just two weeks away from WrestleMania, the giant PPV of the year, and I’ll offer you a run down of the card later to entice you and your Boston pals to hunker down for four hours to watch it.

I hope to go back to the gym today, depending on what the weather does. I may just do some exercise at home instead.

Picture of the Day
I tweaked the cover, and I like this version better. Can I convince the boss to use it? Stay tuned.

In the news
Bush signed a bill yesterday raising the debt limit. It’s the fourth time in his presidency that he’s done so. This means he doesn’t have to raise taxes or cut domestic programs, but it means we are running at a higher debt than before. This is conservatism?

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The Whitewater investigation of the Clintons may have finally ended as the Supremes refused to hear an appeal of a related case.

The Wachowski Weekend

Got home on Friday and helped Your Sister polish off some essay rough drafts. We went through a stack if about 25 since Tuesday, and my life is brighter for having them all behind me. We ate dinner at a new steakhouse owned by Juan, the guy who owns Cielito Lindo. It was much better than we expected. I mean, Juan has a great Mexican restaurant but a steakhouse is a whole other kettle of fish. And now, I have found my new favorite steakhouse in the area. Our waitress was a former student of Your Sister’s, and this happens virtually everywhere we go.

Saturday, we saw V for Vendetta. You know I’m a fan of the author, Alan Moore. I’ve got a copy of almost everything he’s written. And you know I was afraid of what this adaptation would become; the previous Moore-based films – From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – went laughably off the rails. Moore never lets his name be used to sell a film because of his blood feud with DC Comics and by extension its owner, Time-Warner. The lead-up buzz for Vendetta has been worrisome because the source material is so incendiary: Fascist future-set Britain is beset by an anarchist who kills bad bosses and blows up buildings. There’s an obvious worry over analogies to terrorism and the possibility that the story might glorify it. But that’s just dumb. Robin Hood and the Dukes of Hazzard could be called terrorists if one merely considers a rascal running about, frustrating and flouting the authorities. The book was made to warn against the spread of frenzied Margaret Thatcher policies in the early 1980s. The Wachowski Brothers, the guys who made The Matrix, have been working on this project for years; some say it even predates The Matrix. They updated it to reflect current technologies and concepts, but left whole the theme of combating government corruption and cruelty.

And it’s fabulous. There was a lot good about the Moore comic, and a lot that weakened the story. The Wachowskis judiciously kept the good and culled the bad, refining the story’s focus. It packs a wallop. Several times last week, I said that I couldn’t believe they made a movie out of this. Of all the comics to adapt to film, this was the least likely. It’s political, dark, intelligent, and complicated. Now, I can’t think of anyone who could have done it better, and I really think Moore might have been be proud to have his name on it. You still have to keep up, and you have to listen carefully, and consider what the imagery of the film really means in places, but it makes for an evocative, surprisingly emotional experience. I was moved to tears twice (but I’m a self-admitted sap). As with The Matrix, there are layers to the story and symbols, and as with The Matrix, I’m having a ball dissecting them. I was surprised to find the film is rated R; it doesn’t strike me as a particularly violent or gruff film. But it is a powerful one, and one I’d like to see again as soon as possible.

Many have tried to make political hay out of Vendetta as a Hollywood attack against the Bush administration. There are new bits of detail to connect the spread of fascism to modern troubles, but anyone saying the film explicitly attacks Bush is looking to be offended. Then again, there is a guy who sounds like Bill O’Reilly and the torture of political prisoners. If story elements hit close to home, doesn’t that suggest bothersome events are afoot?

But this is ultimately not liberal vs. conservatism; this is nobility vs. inhumanity. Vendetta is about principles and will to power. It’s about waking up and acting. It’s a great film.Not to say it’s perfect; the first time we meet V, you want to clobber him. He comes across as a dandy fop. But the Wachowskis have a history of weak beginnings to their films. The first five minutes of Matrix are the worst in that film.

We caught their first film, Bound, this weekend, and its first 15 minutes are wince-inducing. It’s ostensibly about two women who fall for each other and team up to screw over a low-ranking Mob thug for $2 million. It eventually becomes an interesting movie, but initially it’s just another soft-core Cinemax time-killer. Bound is an odd duck of a film because we follow the two women through their scheme, and then the movie smoothly switches over to the guy’s point of view as he acts differently then they expected. We’re supposed to watch this twerp squirm and fumble, but he summons up his courage and becomes a shocking capable guy. Unfortunately, the end of the movie switches back to us rooting for the gals, leaving the audience with no sense of stability. Bound reminds me a lot of the early Cohen Brothers films like Blood Simple, and while you can see touches that suggest what the Wachowskis would do later with Matrix, it’s still a giant, colossal leap between this tiny, cheap noir film to the Gnostic epic sci-fi, martial arts trilogy. Anyway, if you watch Vendetta, give it a few minutes to get its sea legs and then enjoy it.

Sunday, Your Sister got sick and stayed running at minimal function all day. I top-toed around the house, watching some March Madness and playing some games. I finished up Harry Potter. It’s such a small story that I’m surprised it became a sensation. But it is well-written, charming, and quick. I’m curious enough to try the next books.

Last night, we watched "West Wing," a show that has drastically shifted focus from the administration to the candidates for office. It's been a standout year of television writing and acting. Alan Alda is knocking it out of the park very week. I wish they could continue the show with the two candidates teaming up to create one ticket and winning the White House. A Smits/Alda White House show would get my hour of TV every week.

Sketch Day
I worked on a cover of the magazine last week. We didn’t have any decent color pictures for the front so I cobbled together brass instrument parts from online pictures and drew them on the computer. This probably isn't the finished product.

In the news
The Prime Minister of Iraq says Iraq is in a civil war. People living in other countries with political vested interest in success disagree. Because, hey, what does he know?

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Rumsefeld made the clichéd Nazi reference when defending the Iraq policy. Godwin’s Law states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” This is also the desperate resort of those who argue hysterically no matter their political stance.

I Have Been Exploded

We left Mayberry around 4:30 and made it to Greenville by about 5:30, plenty of time before the show. Because that town offers so many more eating options than Brevard, we were flush with choices. We picked Barley’s Taproom and used the parking garage just one street behind the restaurant. We had beaten the dinner rush, but remembered that Barley’s can be slow to serve and we grabbed a copy of The Beat (formerly MetroBEAT, my paper) and Link, the Gannett weekly allegedly designed to put MetroBEAT out of business. There’s a whole conspiracy theory behind daily papers squashing alt-weeklies by stealing the advertisers at a virtual revenue-loss rate. Even if true, my old paper slit its own throat.

Inside The Beat, Your Sister finds an ad for a new production of A Doll’s House and is keenly interested. We’re gonna try to get tickets for a show next weekend. In Link, I find many ads for St. Patrick’s Day parties, including an ad using a drawing I did for a local bar. It was technically a commission piece: a partying leprechaun for March party. I got two t-shirts out of it with my design on them. Still, I figured they would have found another piece of art to use by now. It was a bit of a shock to flip the page and see my guy there. He has to be three years old by now.

After eating, we sashayed down to the venue and ran into a collegiate running buddy of Your Sister. They went on foreign study together. He was strolling with two kids and his wife who also went to Furman. It was a fun little chat until I mentioned we were going to a concert. What concert? Nine Inch Nails. And shock swept over them as if I said “and then we’re going to tattoo our eyeballs.” But they wished us well and we parted ways.

Got to the venue a little after 7. My God, the youngsters. We skewed the age curve hard and became so conscious of it that we spent a good half hour guessing the age of passersby, hoping to see people nearer and above our age. We had great seats, elevated off the floor and right in front of a wall. No one was sitting behind us. We immediately noticed that the floor area was general admission; there’s no way I would risk that mob during this show with a wife in tow. The opening act hit right at 7:30, a rapper named Saul Williams. More of a street poet, really. The kind of act that spends so much time railing against hip-hop clichés and society’s ills that he forgets to bring the party like a good MC. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I liked it. We used this time to test our earplugs, making sure they felt right. It was a very noticeable difference. Everything was crystal clear, just turned down several notches on the speaker dial. I could hear every word Saul spoke. He played for about thirty minutes.

Unfortunately, NIN didn’t hit the stage for another 45 minutes, an interminable wait spent watching the stage crew and drunken audience members. But when they did hit the stage, it was like a bomb went off. For two hours.

I am utterly wiped out. I hurt, I ache, my voice is shot, and I’m blinking too much. I’ve had workouts that weren’t that intense. But am I complaining? Oh, no. I stepped into a Wind Tunnel of Awesome. A raucous, hard-rock party filled with an audience and band losing their collective minds to stomping, screaming rock and roll. They played stuff from all over their career, which I realized last night stretches through half my lifetime. I was in complete glee. Your Sister was hearing much of this stuff for the first time, and she seemed to dig it too. Part of the reason I’m so shot is that the arena was smothered in smoke. Once the audience realized the band was going to launch dry-ice fog for the entire show, they all lit up, and the air was like we were walking through a forest fire. Compound that with me screaming lyrics for so long, and yes, my voice is hammered.

Once, and only once, did I take out an earplug to test the noise, and holy crap. Imagine standing behind a jet airplane as it ramps the engines before takeoff. That’s what it sounded like. We looked like goobs with our plugs, but we’re able to hear today. The show ended with their first single “Head Like A Hole,” and the band thanked us and destroyed some instruments. They did this not in a “we’re so very angry” attitude, but one of “this means there is no encore” style of communication. They left the stage, the lights came up and the roadies started dismantling the stage. Nine Inch Nails hit the stage, never stopped playing, and left. There were a few nice moments like when lead singer Trent Reznor tossed water bottles into the crowd to hydrate the moshers or when he chucked a microphone into the crowd so they would sing while he played guitar. It was a fantastic show, and I’d see it again today if I could.

We drove out of town and found a Walgreens to buy drinks. I needed carbonation to soothe my throat and bought a big enough Pepsi to burp my way merrily back up the mountain. We got home at about midnight. I used my cellphone to record bits of the concert, and as I listen to them today, the clips sound like they recorded an exorcism.

Picture of the Day
I tried to find something to convey the full elation and glory of the show. The best visual representation is Hulk Hogan playing guitar in front of Old Glory. Feel the rock!

Bonus: A picture from the show taken from the band’s website. We’re in the picture, just tiny. We’re just next to the top edge of the guitarist’s left shoulder.

In the news
The news is that my ass has been rocked off.

Deafness Is Imminent

I’m leaving work early to catch Nine Inch Nails in Greenville. I’ve listened to this band since my senior year of high school 16 years ago. I’m one of the diehards buying every CD, including the remixes and live concert recordings. Whereas most folks I knew back then leaned toward Nirvana, Guns N Roses, and Pearl Jam, I went for NIN. Your Sister is going too. I corrupted her with NIN CDs about two years ago. Turns out, she originally liked NIN’s first song, “Head Like A Hole,” without knowing who sung it. This will be the first concert we’ve seen since Sting and Annie Lennox played Charlotte in 2004. It will also be the first hard rock show I think she’s ever been to. Loverboy doesn’t count, I don’t care who says otherwise. I picked up hunter-quality earplugs at Wal-Mart this weekend. I don’t expect to have a voice when I go back to work Friday.

Gas prices are going whacky again. Since the beginning of March, prices have gone up 33 cents including a 12-cent jump overnight.

The alt-weekly website came back, which makes me think it was an administrative foul-up.

I again stunned Your Sister with a "Jeopardy" answer. The last question asked us to name a native Hawaiian mammal of the order Chiroptera. Once again, comic books told me the answer: bats. Thank you, Batman, Batgirl, Man-Bat, Bat-Mite, and Ace the Bathound.

Picture of the Day
In order to garner a larger audience, the Weinstein Company is packaging their Transamerca DVD with a lenticular cover photo. It changes as you turn the case in your hands. But the original photo of Oscar-nominee Felicity Huffman shows her all dolled up to the nines. She never looks this way in the film. She always appears as she does on the right of the photo, in character as a transsexual. At best, this polarizes the audience into two camps: 1) the gang that says “wow, look at her hag it up for the role;” and 2) the gang that says “wait, where’s the hot blonde? REFUND!”

In the news
Iraq has a new parliament. They were all sworn in, and then they promptly went back home.

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Bush reaffirmed his first-strike policy against enemy nations, and one has to think this was meant for Iran’s ears.

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Star Wars producer Rick McCallum says the upcoming “Star Wars” TV series would run at least 100 episodes. Given modern network scheduling, that would take about five years. The series would allegedly cover the years between Sith and New Hope.

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The University of Alaska-Fairbanks won the NCAA rifle championship. This is their seventh win in eight years. But the real story is that the Army and Navy teams came in third and fourth. The armed forces are getting trounced by hunters.

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An Ozarks family lost a home to a tornado on Sunday night. One hundred Amish neighbors rebuilt the whole thing within 15 hours.

Happy Julius Caesar Murder Day

The alt-weekly I escaped right before its collapse rebooted as a smaller paper a few months later. Just yesterday, however, the domain name lapsed. I don’t know if the company is still operating anymore. It’s possible they plan on moving to a new domain. Now that I think of it, this isn’t the first time such a thing happened. When I still worked there, the domain lapsed. Turns out the publisher paid a lawyer to nab the URL we wanted, but he held onto the rights to the site name. And because he was the contact for the domain company, we never got the notices that the domain was about to close. The new publisher may have gotten the website from the last publisher, but he may not have gotten the rights to the domain. The lesson for the day is this: That paper was cursed with mismanagement, and the inability for the higher-ups to get their act together is still frustrating to me. I hope my production officemate is doing OK. He’s not with them anymore either.

Something I forgot to mention yesterday is that I affirmed my long-held suspicion that caffeine makes me sleep. I ate some chocolate-covered espresso beans and downed a half-glass of Pepsi and was out cold within a half hour. Some say this proves I have ADD. I don’t quite buy that because it’s the hot go-to diagnosis.

Last night’s “Sex and the City” featured some Russian lingo. My “Jeopardy” answers would not have been impressive at all had we seen this episode first.

I tried a new recipe using asparagus last night and learned that, unless you blend it into a dish, asparagus tastes a lot like weeds. I also overcooked the steaks to the point that they became sausage.

I don’t know if this is getting much play up in Boston, but the sports world is abuzz that superstar kicker Adam Vinatieri might leave the Patriots. I don’t have the heart to tell Your Sister yet. The team homepage doesn’t list him as a player.

Picture of the Day
A closer look at Enceladus, the Saturn moon that might have liquid water. Or not.

In the news

Israel and Palestine continue their war of occupation.

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The judge overseeing the Saddam trial closed the court to the public and media. Hussein used his testimony time to deliver a speech claiming to still preside over Iraq.

Shock The Wife

There’s nothing more satisfying than correctly answering “Jeopardy” questions so seemingly obscure that one’s wife pauses the TiFaux, turns with mouth agape, gasps “how the FUCK do you know that?” and then compares your rinky-dink, party school education with the one she got from her expensive, hoity-toity, high-falutin’ university. The topper, however, is when you tell her you gleaned the info from comic books. It can’t happen often but that makes the occasion that much sweeter.

So I know some Russian. Big deal. You’d think she just discovered I was ex-KGB.

On the way home yesterday, I pulled over and called her on the cell phone as a test. One large reason we bought them was so I could call her at work. Her classroom phone doesn’t ring, and the message light doesn’t work. She has to pick up the receiver and listen for a distinctive message signal. There have been many a night when 8:00 has arrived and I had no way of reaching her besides going to the school and banging on the lobby windows. We had definite conversations about her turning on the phone after school hours so I could call her. And because I’m writing this, you can guess what happened. I called. She didn’t answer. But, it turns out, the phone was on; she had however gone back home and gone to sleep. She didn’t hear the phone ring as it was on the other side of the house. I love it when a plan comes together. Mainly because my plans rarely come together.

I can't get Blogger.com to upload images today.

In the news
Baghdad police have found more than 80 bodies in 24 hours. Again, the crime rate comparison for Iraq and the States doesn’t convey the intensity of violence.

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The government managed to successfully prosecute Zacarius Moussaoui as the “20^th hijacker,” but it has twice crossed the judge during the sentencing phase. The most recent allegation is that a TSA representative sent transcripts to witnesses with tips on how to testify. At stake is the pursued death penalty.

Cells

Friday was the nine-month anniversary of the legal wedding, and we had dinner out at Jason’s, the restaurant that catered the formal wedding. It both does and doesn’t feel like nine months. A lot has obviously happened since then: We’ve moved into the house and settled into it; she’s started two semesters of teaching and coached a volleyball team; I’ve produced a comic story, three magazines, and five newsletters; and we’ve had another round of holidays. We haven’t had anything like what I’d call a real argument, just geysers of stress here and there.

Your Sister has also started working on the yard as the warmer weather lures out outdoors. She’s pruned quite a bit to give me more space to mow, killing my excuse to let some patches grow wild. We’ve talked some about the rows of plants in the front yard and the garden. We might build a new compost box.

She received surveys from both the Republican Senate Committee and the Democratic Congressional Committee. She anwered the Dems' survey, and I took the GOP one. The GOP survey stated that it wouldn't be tabulated unless you paid an $11 "donation." This strikes me as designed to received feedback from those who are either wealthy enough to spend $11 or loyal enough to want to. Doesn't this skew the survey toward those with more money? We didn't send it in.

On Saturday, I hit the gym while Your Sister worked the Altar Guild to prep the church for the Sunday services. We had our usual Saturday lunch out, this time at Ceilito Lindo, where you heard the mariachi band. Then we did the unthinkable, the most horrid of all deeds, we bought cell phones. We checked out the local Verizon store but weren’t encouraged by the look of it. It’ll do fine as a part and accessories store though, and indeed we went back to buy a car charger. No, we instead, drove back to Best Buy and followed up on the previous look-see. This time, they had the styles we wanted in stock and we signed all the paperwork and bought nifty little clip-pouches, and left the store armed with our new cellosity. That night, after sitting by the firepit and having a beer, we delved into the working and options of the phones for about two hours. And went to mind with our minds reeling. The ringtones are despicable, but we enjoy using nicknames for the voice-activated dialers. The cell phone puts me at ease with my commute and now I won’t be reliant on passersby if I need to call in a phone accident. Also I can stick by the car and talk to AAA or the insurance company. Because the phone has a clock, I don’t need to buy the watch I was contemplating.

Sunday had a slow start as Your Sister was enrapt with watching “Mad About You” and then napping. I worked on the below sketch and used the Feast Day to get in some PlayStation wrestling. I don’t find the absence of gaming and ice cream annoying at all. I’ve managed to weather Lent pretty well by staying busy with Things That Need Doing.

One of those is delving into “Harry Potter.” I’ve only gotten as far as the Sorting Hat chapter, but I’m enjoying the book and going through it quickly. I can’t ell if the book is this well-written, or I’m reliving the enjoyment o the movie adaptation. The movie, from what I can remember, follows the book almost word for word so far. I can easily see myself reading the whole series. I don’t know if I would have enjoyed this if I read it when I was younger. I didn’t have much interest in magic stories back then. The highlight of the weekend was seeing Your Sister laugh at a stand-up comic, a rarity that rivals Halley’s Comet. But what made it even better is that she laughed at Eddie Izzard, one of the best funny guys around. BBC America showed his “Dress To Kill” concert last night.

Sketch Day
DC Comics has reworked Catwoman a lot, trying desperately to find another heroine who isn’t a simple spin-off of an established character. Wonder Woman sprang from no previous hero, but Batgirl and Supergirl are, essentially, sidekicks. As has virtually every other female hero DC has managed to sell successfully. Catwoman is also that most beloved of comic clichés: the redeemed villain. Comic writers love to make bad guys turn good or at least become a sympathetic antihero. Catwoman is that now. She fights crime but also steals when the mood strikes, like an itch that escapes scratching.

In the news
Scientific American provides 15 answers to pro-creationist attacks on evolution theory.

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March Madness begins with the list of the 64 teams making the tournament. The ACC Championship game between Duke and Boston College was tight. BC had a few chances to put away Duke but couldn’t make the shots.

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V For Vendetta opens this week as the first big film of 2006. It was to be released last November but the London bombings and tight editing schedules forced the move to spring. It’s getting a big profile for its subject matter – revolution against fascism – as well as its pedigree. Genius comic writer Alan Moore crafted this with artists David Lloyd back in the mid-‘80s of Thatcher and Reagan social policies, and the film is the first by the team behind The Matrix since that trilogy’s end. While I treasure Moore’s writing, “Vendetta” is not a great comic. It’s bogged by multiple subplots and character arcs. The hook is the progression of V and Ivey, the two leads. One segment of “Vendetta” is the biography of a government prisoner long since dead, and it’s possibly the best written chapter Moore’s written, which is saying a lot. There will be a lot of babble from the pundits about what this film says about Homeland Security and the war on terrorism, but it’s no different from the previous centuries of rascal heroes fighting corruption in authority. Give this guy a car, and he’d be that much closer to the Dukes of Hazzard. Give him a horse, and he’s Robin Hood. Your Sister has read the book, and we both geeked out for Matrix so we’ll be seeing this movie when it opens. We root for the success of the film mainly because we want a studio to give a big director a pile of money to make the long-attempted adaptation of Moore’s masterpiece, “Watchmen.” After the mixed results of adapting “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and “From Hell,” we hope the Vendetta film will convince people that the stories work as Moore designed them and don’t require updating.

Pizza Party

We went over to Angela and Dan’s last night. She teaches drafting at the school, and he can fix just about anything. They’re as agreeable a couple to hang out with as one could hope to find. It’s a bit surprising how many couples we hang out with, and I look forward to socializing much more now that I reside here in the boonies. Angela made homemade pizza after they gave a tour of the house. It’s a fixer-upper, and they’ve gone wild on it, repairing everything from whole additions to the front awning to a brand new back porch and landscaping. It’s inspiring; I want to redo our whole backyard.

She and I made a pact a while back to trade kids books; she’d get my copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I’d read the first Harry Potter. Yep, I’m giving in to the series after seeing all the movies. I dread reading it a bit because I so detest the Golden Child cliché. Thus, I heartily root for Voldemort. I just finished up America by the Daily Show staff and could use a new book. I also need to start the Bible project I have in mind. We ate pizza and salad and talked TV shows. We want to have them over to the house to watch “Lost.” They’re curious about it but daunted at the couch time needed to catch up. With summer approaching, they can easily borrow our DVDs to get up to speed.

The Picture of the Day
Possible evidence of liquid water geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, as seen from NASA’s Cassini probe.

In the news
Bush’s numbers keep slipping. The Dubai port deal has taken an odd turn as the UAE company pledged to divest its control of terminals to a U.S. company, but there’s no specific mention of selling it. They might move control to a subsidiary.

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National Geographic says Easter Island’s civilization may be younger than previously thought.

Cooking with Villainy: Dr. Doom

Much too busy working to offer a proper blog post so here’s your guest host for today, noted supervillain and overdramatic Eastern European despot: Victor Von Doom.

When the Great Victor Von Doom seeks respite from governing the filthy peasantry of Latveria (and the constant scheming for the downfall of that accursed Reed Richards), Doom likes to whip up some fried chicken. Doom graciously bequeaths to you all the secret Gypsy Momma Recipe handed likewise to Doom from his Beloved Mother.

To begin this epicurean delight, Doom commands you to thaw boneless chicken breasts.

Doom commands you to mix equal parts kosher salt, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder in a parmesan cheese shaker.

Doom commands you to shake an acceptable amount of the spices into a bowl of wheat flour.

Doom commands you to soak the chicken with milk, water or egg for no longer than 20 seconds.

Doom commands you to then coat the breasts with seasoned bread crumbs, available to all at Doom-Mart.

Doom commands you heat a skillet with a liberal coating of peanut oil.

Doom commands you solve the conundrum of Doom’s Nuclear Reed Richards Exploder: Does Doom require more purloined energy from the Negative Zone to power the engine or does the problem lie with the transfer coils? The matter is too mundane for Doom’s brilliance, otherwise Doom would need not your aid. What? Of course Doom can fix it if Doom really wanted. Doom is merely preoccupied with the delicious chicken. QUESTION NOT DOOM!

Doom commands you to cook the chicken on high heat for ten minutes, then flip and cook for another ten.

During this, Doom commands you make Stove Top Stuffing, the one weakness Doom will confess.

Remove the chicken, apply them to your plates without draining and consume the glory of the Gypsy Momma Recipe.

Swear fealty to Doom and fetch Doom some tea from the Beacon Drive-In. It washes the taste of confounding defeat from Doom’s mouth. Doom remembers the days before he heard of that accursed Richards. Doom longs for such halcyon days. Doom … Doom just wants to be alone for awhile. Bother Doom no more. Hast thou seen Doom’s copy of the latest Cosmopolitan? Doom requires a soak in the Doom Tub. Doom needs none but the company of the Doom Ducky which alone grasps the burden of genius Doom carries each day.

Begone!

Greenville Gets a PPV

A comic story long percolating in my head is starting to take shape. I jotted down some notes at home yesterday while Your Sister cooked from the curry book you gave us. The red paste, we think, has gotten hotter. It’s fermented. Ripened. Plotted our demise. The dish tasted fantastic, but we couldn’t have seconds because of the searing tongue pain. We’ll cook with smaller doses from now on. One of her school co-workers is buying a house, and we're giving them all the boxes saved from our move. She came over yesterday for the first load. The absence of boxes finally opens up the storage room for the painting studio. Guess I have no excuse now not to start that dining room painting.

Holy crap! Greenville hosts its first wrestling pay-per-view in June. Finally. That area has been a wrestling staple for thirty years, and the venue continually sells well for WWE shows. I have to be there for this. Your Sister should come too; this is during summer vacation.

The Picture of the Day
Parking one’s car overseas. I can’t tell by the tags if this is in Europe or Japan. I’ll wager the latter.

In the news
Tensions with Iran continue to rise.

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Arrests in the Alabama church fires are being made. I think Your Brother worked on that for the FBI.

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The Patriot Act gets new life when Bush signs it this week, but it now contains some restrictions the original act’s powers.

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A Cornell physicist has created an algorithm that eases biological imaging and solves all Sodoku puzzles.

Tuesday

Your Sister is feeling the stress of recent school obligations. I help as I can, but she’s swamped with workshop and testing processes. You know, all the stuff apart from teaching. Me, I’m dealing with an unjust gaming schedule that presents great new games right after I give them up for Lent.

The Picture of the Day
This is a new photo from the upcoming Superman Returns film. It seems like the film is going to pick up a few years after Superman II and ignore the last two sequels.

In the news
The new trailer for the third X-men film is out, and it makes the film look better than the previous two.

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Dana Reeve, the widow of Superman actor Christopher, has died of breast cancer.

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The Secretary of the Treasury is asking Congress to increase the amount of the debt cap. The government is nearing the established $8.2 trillion limit.

The Oscar Diary/Weekend

Unlike previous years, this show really and truly starts at 8 p.m. instead of starting at 8:30 after red-carpet interviews. We didn’t see any of this.

8:01 The theme of the evening, “A Return to Glamour,” is established right away as a CGI opening presents a city of movie stars. Characters are clipped from movies and put side-by-side on the street as famous vehicles fly overhead. It looks really expensive.

8:04 The previous Oscar hosts turn down the chance to host this year in a pretty funny segment. It ends with Jon Stewart waking up to find himself in bed with George Clooney, and he’s more than happy to host.

8:08 The stage is huge and gorgeous, a slick silver and gold set highlighting class and glamour. It’s meant to convey a movie theatre, underscoring the appeal of going out to the movies. That theme will pop up again throughout the night as studios desperately try to win us back to the theatres so we can overpay for drinks while watching under-lit screens and craning to hear over the dumb-ass audience members who think they’re sitting in their living room.

8:10 Stewart’s funny, but he’s not trying to turn the show into his own show. We may finally have our new Carson. Although Steve Martin was just fine, his recent teen movies have turned him into an onscreen glorified bumbling babysitter.

8:18 Clooney wins best supporting actor. “Guess this means I’m not winning best director.” He then proudly admits that Hollywood is out of touch with America as it has made AIDS movies when no one would talk about it and offered civil rights stories before Brown vs. Board. It’s a classy speech, befitting the tone of the evening.

8:29 The obligatory wacky presenter dilutes the class of the proceedings. Ben Stiller wears a green-screen effects suit as he announces King Kong as the winner for special effects. Imagine being the winner. You’ve got your tux, you’re surrounded by stars, you win an Oscar, and this is the guy handing it to you. Try to act amused.

8:31 Wallace and Gromit wins best animated feature. The winners get their Oscars from Reese Witherspoon. If one had to choose between Stiller in that costume and her, would anyone over the age of 12 pick Stiller? Then again, the winners wear giant cartoon bowties and immediately slip smaller duplicates on their awards.

8:35 Dolly Parton sings her nominated song. There’s no abstract set or interpretive dance. It’s just her, being Dolly, singing her song. Like the woman needs more props. Funny story: A syndicated radio host named Albert Mohler took some shots at her song last week, condemning its interpretation of Christian tolerance and salvation. Because, God knows, the one thing you don’t want Christianity to appear is tolerant. Also, what kind of schmuck thinks he’s gonna win over an audience by knocking Dolly Parton? All the people in showbiz to demagogue to make a name, and he picks the saint of Tennessee.

8:40 The Wilson brothers announce live action short. Eh.

8:46 In another of these mindboggling lame traditions, cartoon characters (this time from Chicken Little) present the nominations and winner for best short animated feature. Hey, indy animators proclaiming the power of hand-drawn animation, you just got your gold from Disney characters. You can never escape The Machine.

8:51 Jennifer Aniston gives the best costume award to Colleen Atwood. Maybe I’m just callous, but it’s about time she made a movie that turned a profit. Otherwise, she looks like she won’t be anything than The Ditched Girl from “Friends.” I say she’s back on TV in three years.

8:56 Will Farrell and Steve Carrell announce best makeup while wearing too much of it. Unlike Farrell, who has to be Loud Zany Guy to be funny, Steve just has to stand there. It’s no contest. Will wants to be funny. Steve is. Narnia beats out Star Wars, and the winner’s mic is cut after 60 seconds. The Academy is stern this year about the show’s running time.

9:00 Your Sister about Jon Stewart: “Is he supposed to be funny?”
Me: “No one bats a thousand.”
My brain: “I married this woman?”

9:02 Morgan Freeman gives the best supporting actress award to Rachel Weisz. Being English, her acceptance speech is confident, concise, and beautifully enunciated. Remember this later when Phillip Seymour Hoffman wins and delivers his thank-yous like he’s working off a hangover.

9:11 Lauren Bacall has trouble reading the teleprompter as she introduces a montage of noir films. She looks great, by the way. And she embodies the theme of class. Shame she’s making a living these days hawking Fancy Feast cat food.

9:15 A home-run comedy skit straight from “The Daily Show” presents best actress nominee campaign ads. In a time of war, do we really want to give the Oscar to someone who sounds foreign when we can anoint a gal named Reese Witherspoon?

9:18 Best documentary short. Eh.

9:20 March of the Penguins wins for best documentary. The winners carry stuffed penguins to the stage. The theme of class just walked backstage to throw back some scotch.

9:24 The nominated song from Crash is performed in front of a burning car and people moving in slow motion amid heavy dry-ice fog. That’s the abstract sledgehammer of poignancy we’ve come to expect from the Oscars. Remember when Savion Glover tap-danced to the score from Saving Private Ryan years back? Ah, mindless incongruity, thy name is Oscar.

9:29 During a commercial break, ESPN2 announces the Oakland Raiders cut their starting QB, Kerry Collins. Speaking as a franchise-long fan of the Panthers – the team he quit on in their third season – I congratulate karma for doing a fine job.

9:32 Memoirs of a Geisha wins for best art direction. It really does look like a sumptuous film. Too bad Your Sister disliked the book so much. I didn’t get more than fifty pages into it.

9:35 Samuel L Jackson presents a stand-out montage on films of social and cultural commentary. Inherit the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird should be required viewing in high school. Also, everyone should watch In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner because Sidney Poitier is just that damn good.

9:40 Academy president Sid Ganis underscores substantive filmmaking and storytelling as vital forms of art. Also, DVDs are stinky poo-poo, and you should only see movies in a theatre. If I could taser the jerk behind me narrating the film, I would. This should be the rule: Every adult gets a taser and can zap two rude people each movie. This will be my platform when I run for office.

9:43 Salma Hayek (who is 4 feet tall and three inches wide) introduces Itzhak Perlman performing a medley of the best scores. His is the violin we hear in 1971’s Fiddler on the Roof. He also used to pop up on “Sesame Street.” Brokeback Mountain wins the Oscar, beating out two John Williams scores.

9:50 The show is flying by.

9:56 Jake Gyllenhall introduces a montage of epic films. Oh, and DVDs eat babies and steal your boyfriends. Go to a theatre. Wait, included in the montages is a clip from Smokey and the Bandit. Even I, who played with my parents’ CB and built model Trans Ams, can’t get behind that.

9:59 Jon Stewart announces the show is all out of clips. If you have any at home, they need them.

10:00 King Kong wins for sound mixing. Seeing the clip for War of the Worlds makes us want to see it again. Not so for the Kong clips. Not only was Kong more recent, but unlike the Lord of the Rings movies, it feels like a three-hour film.

10:15 A great M. Night Shyamalan American Express commercial. I like each film this guy has made regardless if they all use the gotcha plot twists. I don’t care. They’re really well done.

10:17 Ludacris presents the nominated rap from Hustle and Flow, “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp.” If it wins, it won’t be the first rap to win best song; Eminem already did that. But it will be the first gritty rap by a black act to win, and that makes a big difference. The song is accessorized by more pantomime, and I’m pretty sure she’s saying “shit” in the chorus. But it’s almost 10:30; the kids should be in bed by now anyway.

10:22 Latifah announces that the rap wins, and the rappers go nuts. More importantly, only three songs are nominated this year, and none is from a Disney film or a Broadway adaptation. The latter always include a new song for Oscar consideration, and neither Rent nor The Producers got a nod. Interesting. Stewart notes the elation of the winners and says all Oscar recipients should act like that.

10:26 More campaign ads, this time for sound editing. King Kong wins its third technical Oscar the night.

10:30 Clooney presents the In Memoriam. Always an emotional moment in the show.

10:37 Will Smith gives the best foreign award to Tsotsi, a South African film. Maybe it’s coincidence, but NPR pushed this film hard in the past few months.

10:40 Zhang Ziyi gives Crash the Oscar for editing. She totally blew everyone out of the water with her dress. No one else even came close. I admit it: she’s incredibly hot. If Your Sister can have her harem list, I can call dibs on the Chinese gal.

10:43 Hillary Swank (looking swank) gives the best actor Oscar to Hoffman. You know the big guy from Twister and Boogie Nights. And indeed, he thanks everyone while looking like he just woke up from a bender and realized he drunkenly joined the Taliban.

10:54 I TiFaux the show to tuck Your Sister into bed.

10:57 Travolta gives Geisha the cinematography award.

10:58 Jamie Foxx gives Reese Witherspoon the best actress Oscar. And she utterly deserved it. She again shows the small-town poise that suggests that even if she discovers her husband is an octopus and her dad is a Wookie, she’ll still smile and stand tall. She was also good in Vanity Fair. Wait, did I miss the writing awards? Are they finally giving the category its due by moving it next to the director and film nominations? Astounding. Usually they’re given out in the first 90 minutes between scenes of puppets acting out best song candidates.

11:08 Dustin Hoffman announces Brokeback wins for best adapted screenplay. Co-winner Larry McMurtry wears jeans to keep his Western writer cred.

11:12 Uma Thurman, turning more and more into Glenn Close’s clone, gives Crash the Oscar for original screenplay.

11:19 Tom Hanks gives Ang Lee the best director award for Brokeback. It’s well deserved.

11:20 Jack Nicholson milks his stage time a bit before shocking the crowd with the announcement that Crash won best picture. Yet another director/picture split. The producer’s mic is cut off for an ad break. Her joy is diluted.

11:28 Stewart says good night. This was a speedy three hours plus, and there was no scandalous moment to besmirch the ceremony. Stewart was good; he deserves to come back next year.

So how did my predictions work out? 2-6. That’s one for three and pretty darn good as a batting average.

The dinner Friday went OK after some initial discomfort. We hadn’t all been in the same room for more than a year and the last time I talked to the priest, he had a different perception of me. Since then, I haven’t gone to All Saints at all, feeling as I did that I was party crashing. The lasagna was bland as the original recipe was designed for sausage and not ground beef. But eventually the dinner conversation got rolling and a good time was had. I’m somewhat in shock that I traded Depeche Mode memories with a priest, but Father Mark’s truly a cool guy.

Saturday, I got back to the gym for a light workout and read a solid Rolling Stone article on Scientology. It’s in the issue with snowboarder Shaun White on the cover. We visited my parents to spoil mom for her birthday. She wanted Eagles CDs, and I got her the two hits collections. It went well; they love Your Sister like mad. They’re getting a gas stove similar to ours so we gave them the lowdown of what we discovered when we switched from electric. Mom needs new cookware, and Your Sister uncharacteristically leaped at the chance to go shopping with her. Gadzooks.

Sunday, I awoke at a mind-splitting 7 a.m. and was so bored and addle-minded that I actually got work done. I polished off some grading paperwork, drew a bit, dusted off an old Star Wars computer game and read my monthly haul of comics. I’ll go into that with more detail later on, but I get my stuff shipped to me from my old store in Spartanburg. Your sister, I might add, was so wiped out from the evils of shopping that she slept until 3 p.m.

Sketch Day
I can’t recall if Spider-Man was my first favorite superhero, but he was definitely early on. There was the original cartoon, the comics, the coloring books, and the live-action skits from “Electric Company” all before I was five. It was great to be a kid in the mid-‘70s, what with the Batman reruns and Wonder Woman, Superman, Captain Marvel, Isis, and Spider-Man all performed by live actors.

Oscar predictions

We’re hosting Your Sister’s Anglican priest and his wife tonight for din-din. I’m a little worried how this will go for two reasons:

1. Can they eat lasagna on the Friday after Lent begins? If not, we’ll go out to eat somewhere. I spent an hour last night getting the fixin’s ready. All we have to do is bake the dish.

2. Is he mad because we didn’t get married in his church? Officially, the Anglican church doesn’t recognize our marriage, but he strikes me as the kind of guy to move aside the hardline dogma when dealing with his parishioners. If it’s a real problem (and if it is, why would he come to dinner?) I can take off for a few hours and bowl. Your Sis can show off the house and cover all the pictures of me with cut-out faces of Antonio Banderas.

Since the Oscars run on Sunday, it’s very unlikely there will be another post between now and Sunday night. I love watching the Oscars. I have no idea when I picked it up, but I remember Johnny Carson hosting. I have lots of good memories over the years:

-- The roar of the audience when Daniel Day-Lewis won for My Left Foot

-- David Letterman’s truly funny hosting job, a gig that’s almost universally panned

-- Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White and Corey Feldman trying to dance like Michael Jackson during his “think I’ll be a choreographer” phase.

-- Halle and Denzel winning, the first time black actors have taken the best actor and actress Oscars in the same year.

-- Goldie Hawn mistaking a Kurt Russell flirtation for an engagement proposal

-- Tom Hanks winning for Philadelphia, a moment I, who grew up with his ‘80s comic work, never thought could happen.

-- Morgan Freeman finally winning an Oscar and giving a short thank-you.

Whoopi Goldberg was a far better host than Billy Crystal, whose show-opening medley was brain torture. I have high hopes for Jon Stewart as host this year. He’s easily the finest guy currently on TV and has owned that distinction since Dave Chappelle went nuts.

This year’s crop looks like a solid group of nominees, so let’s look at the big categories with a list taken from Oscars.com. Picking the winners this year will be tricky; for the first time in years, there are no nominees for a handicapped role.

Best Actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Capote"
Terrence Howard in "Hustle & Flow"
Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain"
Joaquin Phoenix in "Walk the Line"
David Strathairn in "Good Night, and Good Luck."

Hoffman seems to have momentum by winning the SAG Award and the Golden Globe for his work. I like the guy, but I was stunned by Heath Ledger’s work; he’s almost unrecognizable. Both are up for homosexual roles, which I think is a first for this category. I want to root for Joaquin, but he can only win if Phillip and Heath split the vote enough to give Phoenix the majority. David only wins if Good Night sweeps. Howard can sit back and enjoy the party.
The probable winner: Hoffman
My pick: Ledger

Best Supporting Actor
George Clooney in "Syriana"
Matt Dillon in "Crash"
Paul Giamatti in "Cinderella Man"
Jake Gyllenhaal in "Brokeback Mountain"
William Hurt in "A History of Violence"

The Academy likes to give consolation Oscars to those who should have won in previous years. Nichole Kidman won for The Hours the year after she lost for Moulin Rouge. Renee Zellwegger won for Cold Mountain after losing the year before for Chicago. I think Giamatti could see a win after failing to receive a nomination for Sideways, a film he carried like a champ. Jake is getting short shrift for his work in Brokeback, and William Hurt wasn’t onscreen long enough to really deserve it, even though Beatrice Straight and Judi Dench both have won for appearing onscreen for less than 15 minutes. Dillon can only win if Crash sweeps (as some project), and Clooney strikes me as guy people like but not enough to give him an award for this kind of film.
The probable winner: Giamatti
My pick: Giamatti

Best Actress
Judi Dench in "Mrs. Henderson Presents"
Felicity Huffman in "Transamerica"
Keira Knightley in "Pride & Prejudice"
Charlize Theron in "North Country"
Reese Witherspoon in "Walk the Line"

This is Reese’s to lose. She owns the film and works her ass off to perform onstage. She also has a sterling reputation in Hollywood as a star it can boast with no scandal. Right role, right actress, right year. I love Hoffman’s other work, but I don’t see her winning in this role. Not enough people saw Theron or Dench’s films, and Keira’s nod seems like it was made to fill out the list.
The probable winner: Witherspoon
My pick: Witherspoon

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams in "Junebug"
Catherine Keener in "Capote”
Frances McDormand in "North Country”
Rachel Weisz in "The Constant Gardener"
Michelle Williams in "Brokeback Mountain"

This is perennially the tightest group to choose from; anyone could win. To give you an idea, children have won this twice: Tatum O’Neal and Anna Paquin. Marisa Tomei’s win in My Cousin Vinny is long rumored as a mistakenly read name the Academy is too embarrassed to fix. Weisz has the vocal momentum, and critics have openly supported Adams’s work. McDormand won before for Fargo. I like Williams’s chances. She of all the characters has to react for the audience as she realizes her husband loves another man without knowing how to respond. She did a fantastic job.
The probable winner: Weisz
My pick: Williams

Best Director
"Brokeback Mountain" Ang Lee
"Capote" Bennett Miller
"Crash" Paul Haggis
"Good Night, and Good Luck." George Clooney
"Munich" Steven Spielberg

Simply put, Brokeback doesn’t happen without Lee. If he doesn’t win for this, we will have a true scandal of the night. Miller is an actor stepping in as a first-time director, and that doesn’t mean he can’t win. Redford and Costner won for this first direction, both beating out Scorsese, for crying out loud. Spielberg’s inclusion is to honor the subject of the film. Crash is getting momentum as the pundit pick because of its subject matter, and because people want to write about something other than Brokeback.
The probable winner: Lee
My pick: Lee

Best Picture
"Brokeback Mountain”
"Capote"
"Crash"
"Good Night, and Good Luck"
"Munich"

Unlike some years, the best director nominations are the same as the best picture group. The winner here is not dependent on who wins best director. Chicago, Gladiator, and Shakespeare In Love all won best picture without their directors winning. And this is where Crash could slip by Brokeback. Some feel Brokeback can’t win because Hollywood is afraid of the political backlash. Some say it only wins because Hollywood is daring such a reaction to happen. But Hollywood loves a decade-spanning romance blocked by culture, and that’s what the film ultimately is. It wins because it’s a great film, not because it makes a great statement.
The probable winner: Brokeback Mountain
My pick: Brokeback Mountain

The Picture of the Day
This is an editorial cartoon by legendary artist Thomas Nast (who brought down the corrupt officials in New York’s Tammany Hall) in reaction to the death of Lincoln. It’s from the online version of Harper's Weekly, April 29, 1865 edition. You can see the whole issue here.

In the news
A new video obtained by the AP, shows Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco assuring the president that the levees had not been breached. This comes just a day after a video shows a weatherman warning the administration that the levees might not keep out hurricane waters.

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The NY Times is reporting that the GOP may consider a former Pentagon spokeswoman (free registration) to run against Hillary Clinton for the N.Y. senate seat. This follows the disastrous campaign of Jeanine F. Pirro as the GOP frontrunner in that state. Of course the prominent conservative talking heads in the media are convinced that Hillary is going to run for the presidency in 2008. They think a Senate loss two years before that election will kill her momentum.

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Here’s a special link for you: The online archives of This American Life. This week’s show, “Cat and Mouse,” is really good. David Sedaris is giving an evening of readings here in April, but you couldn’t drag Your Sister to the show.

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This is coming to the Cartoon Network this year:

Class of 3000. The half-hour series featuring a group of musically gifted kids at the WestleySchool for Performing Arts in Atlanta is set to premiere in November. When former student Sunny Bridges returns to regain something he lost on his way to fame, he brings sunshine to the lives of the culturally diverse students. The series was created by Outkast member Andre Benjamin, who will contribute music and his voice talent to the series. Other cast members are Tom Kenny, Crystal Scales (Static Shock), Jennifer Hale (The Powerpuff Girls), Janice Kawaye (Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi) and Jeff Glen Bennet (Johnny Bravo). A dozen half-hour episodes and a one-hour premiere are being produced at Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, Calif.

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And just for fun: Triumph The Comic Insult Dog goes to Chinatown.

Lent and "Lost" (no spoilers)

Your Sister stuck to her Lent guns and hit the gym again. She wears mighty cute workout clothes. Mighty cute. I did not go to the gym yet as I promised myself I wouldn’t until I finish the pile of paperwork she needs help with. School stuff, you know. The day I begin my non-PS2 Lent is the day I hear about this fantastic new game released on Tuesday. Grr.

“Lost” was new last night, and it was solid from start to finish. You have to catch up so we can yap about it. But if you start watching new episodes without seeing the rest of the first season, I think you’re brain would pop. The progress made in two years is both completely out of left field and strangely underwhelming. I mean, if you watch that spectacular first episode and then watch something from the last two months, you may as well be watching two different shows. I can’t tell if I’m happy with the direction they’ve gone, and I admit that’s perhaps because of a full year of online speculation. I’ve seen so many theories – and presented and amended my own – that I’m saturated by the myriad potential directions. It’s still a great show to watch, very well done on all levels. The best I can say about it is that the writers seem to know where they want to go and what the answers will be. If we get a satisfying conclusion when the series winds down, it may become the best, most accessible sci-fi show TV has produced since “Twilight Zone.” What’s that, you say? “Star Trek?” Nah, Fan fiction and nostalgia made that show last. The subsequent series all surpass what the original show presented, although the original “Next Generation” seasons are painfully dated. It took a few years before it became really good.

The Picture of the Day
I waited a few days to post this pending some proof that it’s fake. But apparently, it’s real. Let’s say it is. As much as I support wide-open debate, this smells instead like desperate spin.

In the news
A newly released administration video conference call tape shows the president and former FEMA chief Mike Brown were warned that the levees could be “topped” during Hurricane Katrina. Some are saying this counters the president’s subsequent comments that no one could predict the levees would break. I don’t think this is proof of an abject lie. It does however suggest that higher-ups failed to toke seriously the potential damage warnings. The end result is the same: FEMA dropped the ball, and while Bush can’t be held directly responsible for that, it does leave another bruise on his tenure. The continuing mismanagement of resources isn’t helping.

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Bush convinced India to join a nuclear treaty that would allow inspectors to check some of that country’s reactors. We’ll give them equipment and material even though they have yet to sign the proliferation treaty, just like Iran. Granted, India is a lot more friendly to us than Iran. A suicide bombing before Bush’s visit killed a U.S. diplomat in Pakistan.

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The cardinal of Los Angeles is leading the effort within the Catholic Church to ignore the Immigration Reform Act calling for churches to validate immigration status before offering services. The cardinal and a group of church officers say they won’t obey the act if it becomes a law, even if it means jailtime. I have to say I agree with them. The church has historically been a locus of sanctuary; it’s almost a cliché in storytelling. You can’t expect priests to turn in illegals or turn the needy away without paperwork. They can’t ask for a green card while delivering the wafers. If the government wants to grab these people that badly, they need to beef up border security, not rely on the clergy to turn them in.

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The NFL is nearing a fiasco as talks break down between labor and management. The argument is, of course, over money. The players want a bigger percentage of the collective bargaining agreement; this provides for all teams to share an equal percentage of a profit pool and limits teams to a salary cap. They can only spend so much on payroll. The talks break down just a free agency begins, and the question looms: If there is no new deal on the CBA, will the 2007 season have any salary caps? Will owners have any limits on what they can offer players around the league in order to build a Super Bowl-ready team? If you’re a lowly perennial cellar-dweller team, would you spend everything to make a team that can instantly contend? The absolute worst outcome would be another player lockout, like the one that lead to the scab-player season. That would be worse than no season at all, as with pro hockey last year. I think this will get worked out; the NFL is the nation’s biggest sport culturally and too many would lose too much by its stumbling.

Lent

As Ash Wednesday loomed, Your Sister and I hashed out our Lent surrenders. I, of course, am not Anglican, but since we’ve dated I’ve joined her in solidarity. This year, I’m giving up the PlayStation2. Your Sister will start exercising again. We both need to; the holiday season has bequeathed many parties and leftovers, and we need to shed the winter weight. The cold weather, hearty meals, and TiFaux have lead to a couch-based hibernation. She thinks she’ll need to bring more work home, and that’s fine with me. I can work on the comics while she dishes out grades. Also, we’re starting to look at the yard and making mental lists of what needs to be done with it.

Speaking of TV time, we watched “Sex and the City” last night. I think Your Sister has added a new man to her mental harem: David Duchovny. He played the high-school sweetheart of Carrie. In one scene, he shows up at her door in a white Izod polo shirt, and I believe I heard Your Sister gasp. This makes, what, 13 guys on her wish list now.

The new glasses frames don’t work with my previous short haircut, and I’ve grown out my hair a little. I had it cut yesterday to clean it up and got my first cut from a guy since I was in high school. Did a good job too, but he was meticulous to the point of being obsessive. I thought I was never going to get home. I go to a local stylists hop in the Wal-Mart plaza because they do a good job for the $8 price. (Note: I’ve gotten bad haircuts for $20 and bad haircuts for $7. A good haircut for $8 is something that does not embarrass me). The only problem with that shop is that the women tend to get each other worked up over their lousy husbands and boyfriends. If you happen to sit in their chairs while they’re in a rant, they’ll chop your hair like they’re pruning hedges. I’m surprised I can still wear glasses with the way they’ve snipped my ears. Why do I go back? Good haircuts for $8.

The Picture of the Day
Making the online rounds today is this photo of Harry Potter star Emma Watson striking a pose. She’s 15 and British so swigging Corona should be OK for her native fans, but it’s bound to give her street cred in the States as a Paris/Lindsay/ partygirl. After seeing the most recent film and Ralph Fiennes rocking it as Voldemort, I’m squarely in the bad-guy’s corner.

In the news
More bombings in Iraq today. That curfew may need to go back in effect.

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Bush heads to India today after stopping over in Afghanistan to talk shop with new president Hamid Karzai.

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NPR’s “On the Media” host Bob Garfield talked with Farnaz Fassihi, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal about media coverage of Iraq:

BOB GARFIELD: When you read criticism of the press in general, that it is somehow so fixated on bad news that it doesn't report the good, that it's essentially suppressing the good news out of Iraq, what do you all say to one another? How do you react?
FARNAZ FASSIHI: I can just say that if there were five car bombs going off in New York and 50 people kidnapped a day, I'm sure that metro reporters would be writing those stories and not talking about the school that was painted. When you're sitting in Iraq and putting your neck on the line to try to bring as balanced a story as possible, it's very frustrating to hear criticism like that, because you know, as a professional reporter, that the only reason you're there is because you want to convey the truth. And I can say that everyone is trying to go out their extra mile to find out exactly what's happening there, good or bad, to try to find progress, obstacles, frustration. And I think, considering, we've done a pretty good job. I'm proud of what my colleagues have achieved.

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Several former members of the “West Wing” cast are returning for the last episodes, including Rob Lowe. The new show from “WW”creator Aaron Sorkin is still being cast, but WW alums have joined the project: behind the scenes at a faux Saturday Night Live. Sounds a lot like “SportsNight,” the Sorkin show that preceded (and created character templates for) “West Wing.”