Well, all I seem to post about these days is predictions, so why should this be any exception?

I suppose I'll pick some Oscar races, for better or for worse.

Best Picture:
Strike Little Miss Sunshine - too small of a movie, a comedy and a little too quirky for Oscar
The Queen - I think this is a little bit too quaint and foreign, and Helen Mirren near definitely winning the Best Actress is not enough
Letters from Iwo Jima - this is a possibility, but I don't see a film entirely spoken in Japanese winning - lots of critical fanfare, but not enough commercially I don't think for this to take off, though I wouldn't rule it out entirely - Oscars love Clint of late

That leaves I think the biggest two contenders, Babel and the Departed
Both have a decent shot - Babel winning the Golden Globe, though that's not necessarily worth all that much -
My deciding factor will be that since I think Martin Scorsese will get his long awaited Academy Award, and the Best Picture is more often than not linked with Best Director.

The choice: The Departed

Best Director:

I feel like the Academy Awards have been waiting for a chance to finally make up for past wrongs and hand Marty his statue. I was a bit surprised that they passed him up on Gangs of New York, and then again with The Aviator. Third time (in the 2000s) I think will be the charm. His biggest competitor is Clint, but they let him win last time he faced off against Scorsese, I think they'll even the score.

Best Actor/Actress:

These are the easiest categories to predict - as long as I go with the prevailing logic, and I will - Helen Mirren for The Queen and Forest Whitaker for Last King of Scotland.
I could go on a long explanation about how much Oscar loves portrayals of real people, or how these particular performances fit the mold - but the heapings of praise and awards these two have recieved nearly unanomously so far should be more than enough.

Best Supporting Actress:

I'm going to take Jennifer Hudson - people loved her.

Okay, I've gotta go, quick picks (less words than the last one even - well, maybe not that few)

Best Supporting Actor:

I have no fucking clue - I'll take Mark Wahlberg, becuase I love his recent output.

Original Screenplay:
Babel

Adopted Screenplay:
The Departed

Okay, we'll see how I do.

First, how about a good prediction out of my for the Super Bowl? I know I was impresed with myself. I didn't predict it. Well, I predicted the game, but I didn't predict my prediction being fairly accurate. So I'm 1 for 2, but that's a number I can live with.

From the stupid things out of peoples' mouths category, I read that our good friend Rush Limbaugh said this piece of drivel:

"And before we go to the break here, folks, I've got to get something off my chest. You know, the game was the game. And the game was what it was. But I - I can't handle any more press criticism of Rex Grossman. They're writing his name W-R-E-C-K-S. They're just ... worst quarterback ever to play in the Super Bowl. And it's been like this since the Green Bay game -- actually since the Arizona game, a little crescendo of it in the Green Bay game, the last game of the season for the Bears. And it's just unrelenting! It's just -- they're focusing on this guy like they don't focus on anybody!

"And I tell you, I know what it is. The media, the sports media, has got social concerns that they are first and foremost interested in, and they're dumping on this guy -- Rex Grossman -- for one reason, folks, and that's because he is a white quarterback.'

I really don't even have anything to add. This just speaks for itself. Now every person reading this blog I guarentee already feels the same way as I do about Mr. Limbaugh - but this should just give more reason to the people who haven't tuned him in lately.

Baseball:

Now, I'm no nostalgia craving old timer who thinks every little thing ought be like it was in the old days. And I understand that in today's sport, people change teams - it's just a fact of life. Here and there we can have the Craig Biggios of the world, but for the most part, at best there will be Tom Glavine's who play for years and years on one team but then when they get old, have to go somewhere else to find someone interested in paying them.

That said, it's always nice when you have a chance to keep around a guy who can still help you out and who is willing to accept a reduced payday.

This could apply to a lot of people, and really in any sport, but probably more in baseball, where former starters, can still if they want, often be useful bench players.

In particular though, I refer to the case of Bernie Williams. Now, I'm no Yankee fan, so know my bias ahead of time. And I understand Bernie is old, and he is not as good as Abreu or Matsui or as promising as Cabrera. But there is one answer to why anyone has a right to say that Bernie deserves a place somewhere on the roster. The fact that the Yankees have made the moronic move of guarenteeing Doug Mientkiewicz a major league contract. Besides signing someone whose name is unspellable, the Yankees have signed someone who simply, sucks. Sure, he's better than Jason Giambi on first base, but hell, a Jason Giambi bobblehead is better than Jason Giambi on first base. Now, of course, I don't really give too much of a shit, I'm not a Yankee fan, and I have no right to speak for them. But I'll try anyway. If I was, I'd sure rather have a guy who poured his heart and soul into the team for 15 years and won four world championships than a guy who had just over 100 at bats for the Red Sox all 2004 season and attempted to steal the world series ball from a baseball mad city salivating for a championship like a couple of pit bulls starved for over 80 years without food.

Hell, I mean, I was sentimental about losing Cliff Floyd, and he'd only been on the Mets for four seasons, and maybe played for a total of three. (Though who knows when the Mets are going to have another shot at a player named Cornelius?)

But it just seems worth considering every once in a while keeping a player who can still be useful
over a player who can still be useless.

With the bye week, there is not a single thing about the Super Bowl that can be said that hasn't been said yet. That said, I'll at least take a stab at a prediction. Colts 27, Bears 14. There it goes, if it's half as good as my baseball predictions, the Patriots will return in win the Super Bowl somehow.

All right, me blogging is back - somehow fighting off laziness at least temporarily. I will dare I say, attempt to do this more often, but let's see it before I believe it.

Firstly, I'd like to complain about the moronic reaction to a number of Aqua Teen Hunger Force advertisements in Boston.

Here are a couple of links with the story:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/advertising-campaign-causes-terror-scare/
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/31/boston.bombscare/index.html

I can't believe they're threatening Turner and the creators of the advertisement. Beyond being absolutely moronic, it is scary that the people protecting this country, and that city from terrorists could not identify an ad from a bomb, especially an ad for a fairly popular TV show. Had one eighteen year old male been shown this, all of the concern over this potential threat would have ended immediately.

So this shows to things - first of all, how incompetent the people who ran this thing are, and how irresponsible they are in trying to put the blame on Turner. Take responsibility, idiots, for you screwing up for thinking an advertisement - not a "hoax" as many are reporting, was a bomb - and not being able to figure it out before over a million dollars. These have been in 10 cities and no other city freaked out. They're in public places and not causing a disruption. Imagine seeing a giant Lite Brite and shutting down a couple of bridges over it. That's pretty much what happened.

Here's some more.

"

A furious Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed yesterday to throw the book at the masterminds behind a guerrilla marketing campaign gone amok that plunged the city into bomb-scare pandemonium and blew nearly $1 million in police overtime and other costs.

As city and state attorneys laid groundwork for criminal charges and lawsuits, cops seized 27-year-old Arlington multimedia artist Peter Berdovsky, who posted film on his Web site boasting that he and friends planted the battery-wired devices, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown. Both were jailed overnight on charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct.

"This is outrageous activity to get publicity for a failing show," said Menino, referring to the battery-operated light-up ads for the Cartoon Network's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," which sparked at least nine bomb scares in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville."

The second thing it shows is of course how out of touch with pop culture the people in charge are. Pretty sad, frankly, You don't have to like Aqua Teen Hunger Force. But someone in the entire fucking government should know what it is.





More later.