Well, Since You Asked...

 
Well, Since You Asked...
 

 
My commentary on sports, entertainment, the news and whatever else pops into my shiny bald head.
 
 
   
 
Saturday, March 22, 2003
 
Really? The Academy Awards are tomorrow?

Man, I've been so consumed by the NCAAs and the war that I haven't even commented on tommorow's Oscars. Well, here goes nothing:

BEST PICTURE
Right now, Chicago is the biggest favorite in this category since Schindler's List ten years ago. I loved the movie and I'll be happy to see it win. The only other nominee I've seen is The Two Towers and I was pretty disappointed by it. I've been meaning to see The Hours, but it's the kind of movie where I'm not exactly sprinting to the theater.

BEST DIRECTOR
I really hope Martin Scorsese doesn't win as some sort of bastardized Lifetime Achievement Award. The award should always go to whoever did the best work in that particular year, regardless of who has or hasn't won in the past. You don't see anyone handing Barry Sanders a Super Bowl ring "because it's so sad he's never won before." So here's hoping Rob Marshall takes the prize he deserves. But I think the Academy will punk out and give Scorsese the trophy.

BEST ACTOR
This should be the best race of the night. I loved Nicolas Cage in Adaptation, but Nicholson deserves it for carrying the best movie of the year, the underappreciated About Schmidt. But if I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Adrien Brody in the upset. Same principle as above: "Let's reward the guy who's never won before!"

BEST ACTRESS
In another tight race, I think Diane Lane was amazing in Unfaithful. But this race is going to come down to Zellweger and Kidman. I'm picking Kidman, because Oscar loves to award it's high-profile actresses who've never won. She'll also undoubtedly win everyone's Best Dressed award too, so that everyone can breathlessly proclaim: "Oh, it was Nicole's night!" (See: Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
I thought Paul Newman was the best, but sentimental favorite and guilty pleasure Christopher Walken will narrowly beat out a more-deserving Chirs Cooper.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
This will be another tight race. Bates, Moore and Streep are all well and good, but I think Zeta-Jones will win, just so that we can all be witness to the sight of a verrry pregnant woman gingerly stepping up the stairs to the podium.

OVER/UNDER ON LENGTH OF THE CEREMONY
3 hours, 52 minutes
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Friday, March 21, 2003
 
And then there were 32

Well the first round of the tournament is over and while I didn't get to see very many of the games, I can take solace in the fact that my bracket is looking excellent. I went 24-8 in my predictions and 15 out of my sweet 16 are still alive. Maybe there's something to my conservative strategy of picking every team seeded sixth or better. But then again, most upsets tend to happen in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, so I'll wait until Sunday night before I break out the champagne.
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And now for an all-new episode of War!

I thought it was interesting to see how different TV networks dealt with the war coverage last night. It was an odd mix, with some channels airing regular programming, one channel airing the NCAAs and others going to full coverage of the war. I think CBS did a nice job last night of showing the basketball games, with periodic news breaks from Dan Rather. The good thing about this strategy is that the audience learns about important events and they can decide for themselves whether they want to turn to a news channel or keep watching the game. MTV decided to repeat their post 9-11 strategy by showing videos from appropriate (read: non-hip hop) artists like Audioslave and John Mayer. Then we also got little news segments with Kurt Loder and MTV "news correspondents" who interviewed musicians and fans. It just felt like an overbearing attempt to get Generation Y thinking about this war whether they wanted to or not. The wisest choice of the night had to be ABC's decision to pre-empt Are You Hot? in favor of news coverage. For some reason they decided that images of Lorenzo Lamas critiquing some girl's thighs might not go over too well in war time. Judgement call.
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Thursday, March 20, 2003
 
Folied by Aaron Brown!

Dammit! My plan to catch a half-hour of tournament action during my lunch break has been ruined. I knew that the pizza place across the street from my office is the only restaurant in the neighborhood with a TV, so I went there hoping to get a glimpse of BYU-UConn. But when I got there, they had on CNN and the war coverage. What are people doing watching a war when there are basketball games being played? I mean honestly, where are your priorities?!?

So I'm relegated to eating lunch here in front of my computer as I track the games on CBS Sportsline, which does an excellent job of giving realtime scores and stats. I brought my headphones in case I have the chance to listen to the Stanford game. I hope I can pull this off without raising suspicion around the office...
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Wednesday, March 19, 2003
 
Bracket musings (since you haven't heard enough of them lately)

Well now that I've finally filled out my bracket, I can unleash my thoughts on the NCAA tournament. Rather than make my picks based on gut feeling and trying to predict every single upset, this year I decided to be ultra conservative with my bracket picks. In my elite eight, I have four #1 seeds, two #2 seeds and two #3 seeds. I feel pretty solid about predicting Oklahoma to beat Kentucky in the final. I think Hollis Price is the second coming of Mateen Cleaves, and he has more heart than any other player in the tournament. Along with Price, and an experienced coach in Kelvin Sampson, it's Oklahoma's underrated frontcourt of Brown, Ere and Bookout that will lead the Sooners to the national title.

For my other Final Four picks, I was tempted to pick Florida (a month ago they were my pick to win the title) but I don't think their players have enough intensity, so I'm picking Texas out of the South. I have been agonizing over whether to pick Arizona or Duke in the West. My head tells me to pick the Cats because they're so good on paper. But I went with Duke, just because of their three-point shooting, which can be absolutely overpowering. Redick and Ewing are shooting lights out right now and I just don't see Coach K letting the Devils lose. Also, I see hidden flaws in Arizona as a team. First of all, there is the glaring fact that two players quit the team at separate times during the season. Something must be wrong with your program when two guys decide to bolt while you're potentially a few months from a national title. This also leaves the Wildcats with two less bench players. Secondly, there was that candy-theft incident earlier this season. That type of bush-league shit just does not happen on championship teams. Arizona comes into this tournament under a bad sign, which is why they won't even make the Final Four.

As for potential upsets in the first weekend, if I weren't using my "conservative pansy" strategy, I'd have picked Penn over Okla. St, Tulsa over Dayton, and Butler over MSU. But I'd also watch out for Oregon over Kentucky and I was reallllly tempted to pick Gonzaga over Arizona. Well, now you know what I think. I'm probably wrong. Bring on the madness!
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Life Imitating Springfield

I think that's it was either a great coincidence or shrewd timing that tonight's syndicated episode of The Simpsons is the one where Bart organizes a militia. The scenes where Bart, Grandpa and gun shop owner Herman plan out their military strategy (in hopes of overthrowing the evil overlord Nelson Muntz) felt eerily appropriate given our real-live cartoonish plans to attack Iraq. I especially liked the last scene, where Bart tells the audience "We're not glamorizing war because all war is bad." I think Dubya could learn a thing or two from Bart Simpson.
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Access granted!

Finally, I'm able to post today. All day long I've tried to access blogger.com, but gotten a mysterious "Access Denied" message all day while I was at work. I wonder if my bosses are finally on to me...
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Tuesday, March 18, 2003
 
Stewart rules the airwaves

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is essential viewing this week as we head to war with Iraq. The show has really improved in the last few weeks as Stewart has become more and more political in his always hilarious satire of the day's news. The war "coverage" is great comedy but also it's quite informative, as Stewart and the correspondents present valid arguments that you'd never hear in mainstream news outlets. This is the only show on TV that calls out elected officials on their hypocritical statements whether they're Republican or Democrat. The Daily Show has also benefitted by switching from celebrity guests to more "news-based" guests like Senators and political authors. Beleive it or not, the smartest show on TV these days is on Comedy Central.
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Monday, March 17, 2003
 
The life of a post-college tournament junkie

As we begin the greatest week of the year (NCAA tournament week) I've been thinking about whether the fact that I'm no longer in school is good or bad. The good thing about it is that I'm not swamped with schoolwork and don't have to spend any time studying for winter quarter finals. Now I can spend every waking hour trying to fill out my bracket without feeling guilty. It's nice to be able to spend hour after hour watching ESPN and surfing college hoops sites as I soak in every last morsel of tournament information.

But on the other hand, I have to be at work ALL DAMN DAY Thursday and Friday, meaning I can't watch the games!!! I'm even gonna miss Stanford! In college, I would just plan all my studying around the tournament itself, allowing myself a large block of time to plop myself in front of the TV. But now, I'll only be able to see the night games on TV and I'll have to settle for those real-time scoreboards to track the games while I'm at the office. I guess I can bring in headphones (although it'll be suspicious since no one in my office ever wears headphones) and try to listen in via internet radio. But it just won't be the same. Next year I should plan ahead and take vacation those days. Sigh.
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