Oscar, oscar, oscar pt. 2

So of course Sean Penn is getting some pipe for his clearly unprepared Oscar acceptance speech, which opened with "One thing actors know, besides the fact that there were no WMD's..." But waitaminit! There were no WMD's! And people who suggested there weren't were being called traitors!

Who's turned out to be smarter: George W. Bush or Jeff Spicoli? Both seemed to have had the same high school record.

Ananotherthing... Think of those technical guys holed away in computer labs, basements and workshops, slaving away to devlop some new motion capture system or way to keep a handheld camera from shaking. Finally, your hard work pays off and you're going to the little dinner where the Academy gives out the technical Oscar. And there's Charlize Theron, happy to be handing out the awards. Wouldn't you wish you could pull a Brody and plant a big wet kiss on her, too?

Oscar, Oscar?, Oscar!

Despite my affected cynicism, I'm just a sucker for the Academy Awards. I usually think of myself as being able to reliably pick the minor and technical awards based on previous observations (which I'll summarize below). But had I gotten up the gumption to enter, say, the Outguess Ebert contest, I would never have thought to punch a straight party ballot for "Lord of the Rings." Wanna bet the winners of these contests are all D&D geeks who will watch their DVD prizes on a player balanced atop the 13" TVs in their parents' basements? Sorry, I'm stereotyping, but only because I have too much in common with them anyway.

Every year we have the complaints and jokes about the Oscar broadcast going on too long, and the Academy reacts by cutting the alloted time for recipeints to give their thank-yous. But let's see, they gave out 24 awards this year; if each winner got a whole 'nother minute to talk--and most wouldn't use it all--that would add less than half an hour to the proceedings. That would be time better spent dispensing with that terrible "Oscar Count-Down" that ABC had on at the announced start time of 7 pm, where Joan Rivers wannabes with microphones badgered whatever actor was unfortunate enough to be seated near the aisle. Even Keisha Castle-Hughes seemed mortified at being introduced to her movie-star crush, Johnny Depp.

Another place they could have cut the time was Billy Crystal's song montage. After 13 times, we're all coming up with funnier songs before he does. Add that to the half-hour "count-down," and it was 50 minutes before the first award.

Another dead spot came when they clustered the tributes and the Special Award in the middle. As Mark Evanier blogged, a montage of Bob Hope's hosting clips might leave one wondering whether the guy made any movies, and ending it with a shot of him standing up from his seat in what appeared to be the Kodak theatre looked like it was another cheesy posthumous computer effect done for no reason.

Other things I notice they've done away with in the interest of time:

• The Irving Thalberg Award
• The Jean Herscholt Humanitartian Award
• The accountants who read the official balloting procedure
• The practice of having the voiceover announcer introduce some star who, in turn, introduced the presenters. That was a big time-waster that was nothing but an ego-stroke for the presenters.

And they could stand to go to commercial without the instant replay of the people who just won.

Oh, yeah. My favorite moment was hearing Adrien Brody practicing his pucker before announcing the Best Actress winner.

Gotta go for now. I'll eplain my Oscar picking skills in a later posting.

A Flash at the Bell

So today's the day the place I work at merged with Moore Wallace and changed its stock ticker from DNY to RRD. To commemorate the event, our office was invited to the posh lounge to watch our new CEO ring the opening bell at the new York Stock Exchange, an honor already bestowed to the likes on Martha Stewart, Vince McMahon and Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Mr. Potato Head.

We're gathered around CNBC, waiting for the big moment. The announcer mumbles something about the merger. The CEO steps up to the bell. Two dings... CUT to the opening bell being rung at the NASDAQ.

That was it. Janet Jackson's boob got more airtime than this big event.

And if you click on the stock symbol link, you'll shortly see that most of the online stock market sites have no historical chart information for this "new" company. Oh, yes... the style guide says that on first reference, it's always the "tech-heavy" NASDAQ.

Feeding the Boobage Beast

I realize that I'm just adding to the frenzy by commenting on Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl, but as an allegedly cultural observer, I must! I MUST!!!

I actually did not see the incident in question; I looked away from the screen for that instant or two. What I did see was the amazing ending to one of the best Super Bowls ever (had the Panthers gone for and made the extra-point kicks instead of going for two twice and failing...), so I was not yet aware of the brouhaha, except for the bumblemouthed announcers joking about a streaker who was on camera for only half a second. Anyway, here are more observations, arranged for quick comprehension by the PowerPoint generation:

• I gave up on Super Bowl halftime shows when ZZ Top and the remains of the Blues Brothers joined 100 showgirls who lay on the ground flexing their "Legs" in an "Up with Poontang" number.
  
• Why do halftime shows in the first place? After shoveling in the announcer highlights and extra commercials, they're left with about seven minutes for those five acts to lip-sync about half of their current hit songs. If they want to entertain the stadium crowd, do a full-length halftime show and air it on whatever basic cable service the broadcast network owns. As HDTV comes in, your local station would have up to three extra free channels to do that kind of thing anyway.
  
• CBS expresses its shock and dismay that MTV would put on a show like this. CBS OWNS MTV! That's the "corporate synergy" they keep talking about.
  
• MTV has been around for 23 years now, and apparently some folks are still just finding out about it.
  
• I can't really be sure, but I believe Justin Timberlake has put out a single or two before "Rock Your Body." Yet that's the only song of his I've ever heard played in bars and on commercials. Should anyone be shocked to hear the lyrics "Gonna see you naked by the end of this song" when it's the song they made a big hit?
  
• This year's crop of Super Bowl commercials added the words "erectile dysfunction" to the vocabulary. Shouldn't we be a little more embarassed by the commercial for "Mike Ditka's Hard-On Helper?" But as Richard Roeper pointed out in the referenced Sun-Times article, is Michael Powell going to be calling out the pharmaceutical industry? Don't think so.
  
• Kid Rock wears an American Flag like a poncho. Hello? Anyone else notice?
  
• Interesting that this "Family-friendly" program has an "Official Beer Sponsor of the Super Bowl." And while that sponsor was Miller, it was Budweiser who had more commericials. And what do we get in those commercials? Do they talk about their watery beer? No, we get Animal Stories. So now, when you think of Bud Light, think of horny talking monkeys and crotch-biting dogs. I've already equated Bud Light with flaming horse farts, thank you.
  
• At least Beyonc� did a nice National Anthem, in a nice Sunday dress. Maybe Miss Jackson could get some pointers from her (something must happen to your inhibitions when you're pushing 40). But fill me in again on what the guy in the astronaut suit was for. Either he was posing for an MTV Award stature, or it was George "AWOL" Bush pretending to be a hero again.
  
• I only found out about the boobage incident while surfing my news sites Monday morning. And who showed the uncensored photo of the Mammary of the Minute? The Republican organ "The Drudge Report." Who's watching out for you?
  
• The WGN-TV 9 o'clock news on Monday night devoted five minutes to the continuing story. During the course of the taped segment, they re-played the event three times (but of course they pixilated the moment of boobth). Had it not been for a snowstorm and a man who stuffed his wife in a garbage can, this might have been the lead-off story.
  

Another reason I'm not in retail

At the first of the year, I have to suspect that drugstore pharmacists have the most thankless job around.

January has now become the time that millions of workers and retirees see their prescription drug benefits switched to a new provider or a new cost-cutting plan--cost-cutting for the company providing it, that is. While waiting for my daily meds at the Walgreens counter, I saw people who had to cut their vacations short to switch their prescriptions, and at the counter, they find out they're paying $100 more for a month's supply of something they need to live.

Somehow I got off easy. My meds are pretty common, and I paid the same amount I had the month before. But I'll have to jump through hoops later because the new provider will insist I sign up to get my pills by mail.

For the most part, the customers were angry, but at least they knew the people ringing up the sale weren't responsible for the prices. I bet that at another time or place, a fist or two might have been thrown around.

Consider that just to stand behind a pharmacy counter, you need at least a Pharmacy Technician certificate from the state, and at least one of the staff needs that Pharmacy sheepskin. That's a four-year degree, the receipt of which implies you could have had a shot at med school, or a decent research job at a drug company. Instead, you're doling out pills to people who don't understand why all their meds aren't free. There's usually five customers at the counter, two on hold on the phone, a crabby computer that you're trying to pull someone's benefit coverage up on, and, if you're at Walgreens, two or three cars honking in the drive-though window (that's one reason Walgreens closed all its strip-mall stores in Chicago and opened free-standing buildings across the corner: so they could have a drive-through). If you're at a 24-hour Walgreens, you're probably covering for associates who call in sick on third shift.

And every four or five customers is going to harass you over the fact that their meds cost more than they did last time.

You could always consider becoming a copier machine repairmen. People are always glad to see you, and the employees who sign your invoice aren't the ones who have to write the checks.

More Signs of the Times

I saw these driving up I-65 from Indianapolis this weekend, meaning millions of people have already seen 'em, but here it is anyway:

• The "Flying J" truck stop chain's usual series of billboards now proudly proclaim themselves to have "WiFi Hotspots."
  
• There have already been Starbucks at the oases on the Indiana Tollway, and I believe they're coming to the Tri-State in Illinois. This was the first time I saw a Starbucks advertised on one of those "Food" signs placed ahead of each Interstate exit. Some may see this as a bad sign of encroaching Starbucks domination (like McDonald's doesn't already dominate the highways). Many travelers who've endured bad gas station coffee will see this as a good sign: finally, a place to be assured of a decent cuppa Joe. Just as long as they're open 24 hours and will fill Thermoses.

Even though the exit with the Starbucks was still in the Indianapolis suburbs, it suggested to me another part of a trend noted by people who marks such things: the resettlement of populations along the interstates. As rural areas continue to empty out, only the interstate corridors show any potential for growth. Industry locates there for easy access to trucking, and small town reinvent themselves as retail centers, extended rest stops or tourist attractions (like my father's hometown of Walnut, Iowa turned all of its empty stores into an "Antique City."). Not suburbs, or even exurbs. Call them "exit-burbs."

Just a few days after I first posted this entry, the Chicago Tribune had an article about hotspots at truck stops becoming a big draw. That's me: two days ahead of the curve.

People Are Wonderful/No Damn Good

I�m back from a long stretch of business and distraction with a couple stories about my adventures in beer geekdom. Although you can probably substitute �Wine,� �Cheese,� even �Cigars� for �Beer,� and there�s a similar story out there.
Back in November, my homebrew club, BOSS, held its usual meeting with samplings of various beers. We popped open one bottle from a brewer with a good reputation for strong, over-the-top beers that age very well. We lifted our sampling glasses and were immediately hit by the smell of� a dirty diaper. Somehow, we had gotten hold of a contaminated bottle, or one that had simply gone stale.

These kinds of things with microbrewed beers. Despite scrupulous attention to sanitation, many of these beers are not pasteurized so they can be �bottle-conditioned:� some active yeast is left in or added to the bottle to continue working on the beer over time, which means a beer like this should improve with age. But the odds are that at some point a bottle will be contaminated or staled.

I said as such when I posted my opinion of the beer at RateBeer.com. That's the link to it on the right, and no, the beer in question is not on that list underneath, those are the latest ten I�ve rated. I give it a low rating, yet explaining that this was likely a single bottle that had gone bad.

Probably not more than five minutes after posting the rating, I had a message in my account from the beer�s brewer. He wrote asking for more information on the bottle, what the date stamp was, so he could find out why there was a bad beer out there. After finding the bottle (which I took home because it could be reused for homebrew), I wrote back that it was dated for last December; and whether it had sat on a store shelf under flourescent lights all that time, or in someone's fridge, could not be determined for certain.

He wrote back asking for my address so he could send some new bottles as soon as they came off the line. Five weeks later, a UPS package arrived with the two new bottles, plus two more of another beer they only have on draft at their tap house.

So first off, I haven�t mentioned the name of the beer involved, so moochers don�t start posting bad reviews in hopes of scoring free brew. But it just goes to show ya that when you�re really interested in someone else�s work, be it beer, or what have you, and you demonstrate your interest with complementary comments (or helpful comments if something goes wrong); then if the people on the other side of the counter also care about what they do, they will sometimes reciprocate that appreciation.

Gotta go now, but I'm also adding some thoughts about the second half of this title. For now, here's a preview at
Pubcrawler.com

Time to leave Cub Fans alone

No, I mean it. I had even been planning a new blog dedicated to collecting photos and stories demonstrating how pitiful Cub fans are. But a little while ago, I caught an A&E �Biography� episode about Siegfried & Roy which had, of course, been hastily updated to cover Roy�s being attacked by one of his tigers. The story also showed the hoardes of crying fans gathered outside Roy�s hospital, leaving candles and little stuffed tigers by the entrance. Yep, people who are even more pitiful than Cub fans.

But then again, these people won�t be whining about Roy for the next 60 years.

Parenthetically, even though video does exist of the actual tiger attack, A&E had the taste not to show it (or maybe didn't want to pay for it). Instead, they used their trick of combining existing stock footage to suggest the sequence of events.

And this incident forced me to grudge a little more respect to S&R. Heck, even Penn Jillette was interviewed, saying absolutely no one was doing what S & R have been doing for over 30 years. And he�s right, of course. It�s not like the Mirage has �Magical Manfred and His Mighty Lions� standing by.

I'm littering up the Web even more

I'm trying to place links to other places where I've written pithy or worthwhile stuff. Here you can find an index of comments I've left about movies on the
Internet Movie Database. Worth a try.
Also, when I contributed a plot summary about the "Fargo" TV pilot, it was indexed under this search link.
Finally, wayyy back in college, my roommate Tim was building a card file on which he had entered all of the actors who had appeared on �Star Trek� (this was before the name needed to be qualified with the subtitle �The Original Series�) and was combing through TV Guides to find other shows on which these actors had appeared, clipping the program descriptions, and pasting them onto the index cards. That's right, kiddies, this is exactly the analogy they use to describe a computer database, which, before everyone had computers, had to be done laboriously by hand.

At some point I inherited the card file, with the intention of updating it. Then I had the intention of putting it in the computer. Finally I realized this work had already been done on the internet. So I�ve been taking a few cards at a time, and checking the credits against the IMDB, adding new credits where none were noted before. This is mostly for guest shots on TV shows that no longer have much of a following. I can see the list of update when I�m registered to imdb, but others can�t, I�m afriad. So far, I've updated info on 15 TV shows.

Must be a new baseball rule

So just how is a guy trying to catch a foul ball going into the stands responsible for eight runs? Don't Cubby errors have something to do with it?

Cub Fans Share the Love!

Here's a sampling of Cub fan reaction to the "fouled ball," from the Oct. 15 Sun-Times, in brief:

BY GREG COUCH Staff Reporter
Five outs from the World Series, and Florida's Luis Castillo hit a fly ball that went to Cubs left fielder Moises Alou. He drifted over toward the stands and jumped for the ball, but then a young man in the crowd in a dark shirt, Cubs cap and headphones reached over with both hands looking for a souvenir and knocked the ball away.
The play was ruined, and Alou jumped out of control in anger, reportedly yelling an obscenity at the fan. A few minutes later, the man cried while holding a sweater over his face as three security guards escorted him in safety out of the stands.
Later, they gave the man, maybe 25 years old and 5-7, a tan jacket as a disguise so he could leave the stadium safely.
Cubs security wouldn't release the man's name, saying they worried for his safety.
[...]
"Did you see the replay? Did he interfere?'' asked fan Paul Springer, who was sitting two rows behind the unnamed man.
"Then they should kill him.''
Afterward, the man just sat there. Sat there listening to his headphones as if he had no idea of what the heck he had done to the Cubs, the fans, the city. History.
And that seemed to gall the fans near him. They threw beer at him, screamed "Thanks a lot, [expletive].''
"He had those headphones on and wasn't paying attention,'' Springer said. "He was just sitting there in the whole maelstrom.''
The maelstrom included the fans chanting an obscenity. Outside the stadium, people looked for the man, figuring he had been thrown out.
Some fans in the stands ran down from nearby to yell at the guy or worse. Security escorted several people out of Wrigley Field.
Cubs manager Dusty Baker, who has spent the season shooting down the idea of curses, telling fans to forget about the past, was still able to keep cool afterward.
"It had nothing to do with the curse,'' he said. "It has to do with the fan interference, the very uncharacteristic error by Gonzo, because he doesn't miss anything. And then they just started hitting.''
Alou had calmed down afterward, too, saying, "I had a 100 percent chance to catch it. [But] any fan in any ballpark would go for the ball.''
But other Cubs fans weren't so willing to absolve. A man named Matt, who wouldn't give his last name, sat nearby.
"It's a good thing they got him out of there,'' Matt said. "They were going to beat the hell out of the guy. He was going to die.''

Cubs fans: hapless, hopeless, homicidal.

Sheb Wooley

Gosh, darn it, I've been wanting to tell this one for weeks, and it slipped my mind. After going on for some length on my previous posts about the "proper" way to memorialize the passing of a well-liked entertainer, I think Sheb merited the one I had in the back of my mind. No speeches, no cheesy cartoons of the guy meeting St. Peter... as the composer of the Hee Haw theme (and now that there are "Hee-Haw" videos for sale, the official web site has become much more than the mere placeholder I first found), Sheb rates a big "Cornfield County Salute:"

"SA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-LUTE!!!"

Sheb is best known for writing and performing 1958's "Purple People Eater," one of the few rock'n'roll novelty songs that's still fun to listen to after you've heard it a few times. His "Ben Colder" songs wear thin after a while, though. Anyway, Barb and I passed through his hometwon of Erick, Oklahoma on our 2001 Rt. 66 tour. There, the two main cross streets are named after him and fellow homeboy, his brother-in-law Roger Miller. The picture below shows the two streets, but the signs keep getting stolen. One is the old Rt. 66, the other is the road to the Interstate. Unfortunately, like many small, rural towns, there's not much left to see. The corner I stood on to take this 2-picture, expertly stitched together, panorama, was empty, just an old tile floor where a building had been. The cater-corner building is the "100th Meridian Museum," but it was apparently open only by appointment (besides, 100? W is actually the Texas Border, a few miles away). There's a story about our visit there that Barb wrote, perhaps I'll get around to posting it.

Here's a link to some other pictures of mine.