Oscar mania!

I'm sitting in the Fuddrucker's across from my movie theater. Two down, two to go. My thoughts, without spoilers, of course:

The King's Speech

A triumph, just wonderful. I won't be surprised or disappointed if it takes Best Picture and Best Actor. Also, it's fun to play Spot the Pride and Prejudice Actors. I haven't seen The Fighter yet, but I've seen the other four Supporting Actor performances and I'd be very happy for Geoffrey Rush if he won (although I'm secretly rooting for John Hawkes). This film was a delight from start to finish, and it made me guffaw in the theater quite a few times. Also, it allowed to me cross off my first Oscar category: Best Art Direction.

Blue Valentine

Great performances, but a serious downer. I can understand the furor over Michelle Williams getting a nom and Ryan Gosling not. Their performances are so intertwined, it's like one performance. But the Best Actor category is always super competitive so he got left out. To answer Liz's question, yes it was rather Black Swanish in that I was looking away a lot, but it wasn't quite as explicit. In the end, I'd rather go back and watch The King's Speech again.

I just crossed 13 items off my Oscar list and now I'm off to see The Fighter!

Update!:

Just saw The Fighter. So, Best Supporting Actor. Christian Bale has that all wrapped up. Fantasic film.

I'm entering the home stretch and my backside is partly numb. Here comes 127 Hours. I'm hoping I don't pass out or puke when the arm chopping part comes. Wish me luck.

Update again!:

127 Hours was tough to watch, but a really good movie. James Franco's performance carries the entire film and he's spectacular (although I still think Colin Firth should win Best Actor.) I could say a lot more really good stuff about his performance, but I don't want to give anything away.

Also, I stayed for the Indian movie, because I'm nuts like that. And now I'm hungry for curry at 1 AM. I love Oscar-readiness!

My schedule for tomorrow

11:05 AM: The King's Speech
1:55 PM: The Fighter
4:35 PM: Blue Valentine
7:25 PM: 127 Hours

Am I demented? Perhaps, but it's a lovely kind of dementia.

And if I'm not ready to drop from exhaustion and my eyes haven't gone all wonky, I might stick around for Dhobi Ghat at 9:20, just because I do love a good Bollywood film.

Oscar nominations!

It's January 25th, the day I've been eagerly awaiting. The day my Oscar madness begins once again. The nominations were announced this morning and I've already got my list made and my plans brewing.

Happiness:

Go Winter's Bone. I was really hoping for a Best Actress nod for Jennifer Lawrence, but I was delighted to see John Hawkes (I heart Deadwood alumni!) get a Supporting nod as well, and it snuck in there for Best Picture!

I was relieved that Hailee Steinfeld didn't lose out on a nomination because people might have split their vote for her between Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. I would love to see her win.

Toy Story 3 picks up a Best Pic nomination.

Jeremy Renner nominated for The Town. A gorgeously done film that sorta got forgotten in the mix, but Renner was the best thing about it so it's nice to see him recognized.

I think Christian Bale might finally get his Oscar. Dude is apparently psycho, but he's a talented psycho and has many Oscar-worthy perfomances on his resume.

Sadness:

Tangled shut out of the Best Animated Film noms. Boo! Booooooo!

I'd have liked to see Ben Affleck get recognized for directing The Town. He made a fantastic film, and has a great visual style. I'm really impressed with him.

Befuddlement:

The Kids Are All Right gets Best Pic, Actress, and Screenplay nods? Blargh. I hated this movie and almost every insipid character in it. I spent two hours wanting to smack so many fictional people. Just awful. However, I have no beef with the Supporting Actor nod because Mark Ruffalo is awesome in everything, including this terrible film. The one bit of goodness I clung to.

Christopher Nolan subbed for Best Director. What? To make a film as complex and innovative as Inception with such a clear vision surely warrants a nomination, no? I guess not.

What did you all think of the noms? I know what Jen thought. "Where the crap is Leo's nomination for Inception?" I'm gonna be hearing about that.

We trailed clouds of victory, is all I'm saying.

Who is this dude? Read on...

So, we kicked major amounts of tail tonight in the Trivia Tournament and extended our small overall lead to a rather healthy one. Woohoo! We also took first prize in the night's competition and got a $25 gift certificate that will buy some delicious appetizers next week. Go Team Ramrod! Also, the turkey reuben on pretzel bread is delightful.

Now, for the shocking part. You may have seen Melis' Facebook status already, but if not, here goes: there was a Steelers Trivia round and I dominated. Yes, me. Me! I spent some time last night cramming sports trivia like it was finals week at football college. And it paid off. It was like I left my body and was possessed by the spirit of the Mehall boys and Melis. Madness. Some of the crazy questions I got (answers below):

Who was the Steelers #1 draft pick in 2005?
Who was the first Steeler to be inducted into the Hall of Fame?
In what year did Art Rooney found the Steelers?
How many interceptions did Mel Blount have in his best season?
Which Steeler set a record for receiving yards in a single game in November 2002?

Yes, I answered these. "Ali, surely you jest." No, I swear! Cramming. It works. It's how I got through college.

Answers:

Heath Miller (I think of him as the Sidney Crosby of the Steelers)

Johnny McNally (Pictured above)

1933

Eleven

Plaxico Burress (Melis later pointed out to me that I was actually at this game. Oops! I totally forgot.)

Jen also came through awesomely when we were asked what was the only Steelers number to have been retired (70) and Melis and Brian knew that Chuck Noll used to play for the Browns. Travis is big on the sports knowledge too, and Jess and Kevin kicked butt in the other rounds. (Do not try to go up against them on PA trivia. Did you know the state fish is the brook trout? Jess and Kevin do.)

I love Monday nights.

It's nice to look forward to Mondays...

...because Mondays are Trivia Night!

Just to keep you informed of our trivia exploits, Team Ramrod is currently in first place in the tournament and we expect to extend our lead tonight.

Also, I'm thinking about trying the stromboli. I'm keeping you fully informed.

An ode to January

Everywhere I go, people seem down on January. “It’s such a bummer of a month,” I've heard people say. Well, I declare that that’s kooky talk. I love January. Truly adore it. Here are just some of the reasons why…

1. Everything is new again and a fresh start seems truly possible. Out with the old and in with the organizing. My house never looked so good.
2. I love winter. Everything about it. The sparkle of the ice, the crunch of snow beneath my feet, the spectacular way everything smells. Cool and icy and fresh, so much better than the sickly overwhelming scents that bombard me in summer.
3. Oscar-readiness begins! Plus, the Golden Globes and SAG awards are on.
4. Delays and cancellations and the promise of maybe, just maybe, if we’re lucky, getting good and snowed-in.
5. Hot cocoa, blankets, and books.
6. Leftover Christmas candy.
7. Fresh new calendars and day planners.
8. When you take your Christmas tree down, it feels like your room doubles in size. It’s like found space. My living room looks huge during January.
9. I start getting all my tax documents in the mail which makes me start dreaming of what I might do with my refund check.
10. It’s quiet. After the decadence of the holidays, January is when it’s perfectly acceptable to spend the evening doing nothing, enjoying the calm of a still house. That feeling is precious as diamonds.

Holy cow, I made a roast!

And I intended the heck out of that pun.

So, I'm trying to conquer my fear of cooking with raw meat. I suppose the time has come. I'm doing this by committing to cooking some form of meat each month this year. My mom thinks I should do this once a week. Clearly she does not understand the depth of my psychosis.

January's project was roast beef. I'm not going it lie; it was quite a saga for me, beginning with choosing a hunk of meat out of a terrifying case filled with hundreds of hunks of meat, proceeding to breaking this hideous thing out of the plastic and maneuvering it into the roaster, and finally browning each side which involved flipping the hunk over. The horror.

Once it was in the oven, though, I was struck by the awesomeness of how little effort is involved in preparing something so tasty. All the anguish was mental, not physical. And it all turned out like this, which is a good thing:


And what a lovely lunch for a lazy Saturday. There just might be something to this cooking thing.


I'd like to work my way up to something sorta complicated, like boeuf bourguignon. We'll see.

Well, it's about time.

Looks like I won't have to switch to wretched AT&T after all. Finally!

Mine!

Many thanks to J for the lovely news.

Results

Well, we came in fourth, just one point behind third place. We plan to do better next week.

Also, the toasted cheese sandwich at The Windber Hotel is magnificent.

Trivia Night!

Last week, Amanda, Jess, Kevin, J, Jen T, and I went to the Windber Hotel for Trivia Night. We were already delighted enough to participate in the regular contest, but imagine our excitement when we found out it was the first night of a three-month tournament? With a face-off against the top four teams at the end? Yes, please!

Jess and I bounced up and down in our seats like little girls and poor Amanda lamented that her status as a Texas resident would keep her from participating. (Texas, messing up stuff again.) J and Jen T are not the trivia fiends that Jess and Kevin and I are, so we filled out our roster by adding Jen, Melis, and Brian, as well as Amanda and Jess' cousin Travis. Tonight is our first competition as Team Ramrod (Kevin named us--he's a fan of Super Troopers.) I shall keep you apprised of our exploits.

And this is just volume 1, you say?

A while ago I placed a hold on the Autobiography of Mark Twain at the library. Today, I finally got to pick it up, and let me just say, I was unprepared for the massive size of this sucker. (That's a 17-inch laptop sitting behind it.)


It's 800 pages, and I'm convinced they only pared it down that low by making the pages themselves huge. They're 6.5 by 10 inches. Only my Riverside Shakespeare can compete with this for sheer size. My arm got tired carrying it back from the library.


All of this would be of little concern but for the sticker on the spine:


Are they kidding? I know it's new and in high demand, but really, is this a joke? I haven't read that many pages in 2 weeks since grad school. And that was only because I had no job and I was walking into a three-hour discussion session each week during which it became painfully obvious if one didn't read the book. (There's no hiding behind the other students when there's only six of them.)

I will do my best, but alas I have one thing hampering me: the person who checked this book out before me was a heavy smoker, and must have lived with at least one other heavy smoker. No, make that a commune of heavy smokers. Perhaps in an actual cigarette factory. What I mean to say is this thing reeks. Every time I open a page I get hit with a waft of heinous stench. Mr. Twain will have to be witty indeed to justify the headaches I'm about to incur.

I trust he won't disappoint.

Happy New Year, in cookie dough

Image from the New York Times.