Beware, it's long....

Okay, so this is my running commentary on the 79th annual Academy Awards. Get ready for nonsense. I love this. Joe is sitting over there, nearby, but with headphones on in order to properly ignore tonight’s festivities. Joe says this is liveblogging.

Red carpet notes? Thank you Andre Leon Talley for agreeing with me that Kirsten Dunst was a vision. Fantastic dress. Cate Blanchett, always a vision, I think I have a girl crush. Gwyneth? Love it. I love Eddie Murphy again, and who knew? Cameron, you’re a beast.

As for the nominees, I saw very few. I was away during the height of Oscar movie season (end of the previous year…), but Joe and I saw Pan’s Labyrinth, and I think it should win lots of things. We saw the Departed on DVD last night, and while it wasn’t the best movie ever, Scorsese will probably win (as he probably should considering his career).

Will Farrell? He’s funny and I HATE that I like him. I just watched Ricky Bobby the other night, and I loved way more than I ever wanted to. Jack Black! I love him!!! Michelle, I think you still should marry him. Best duet ever. John C. Reilly might be the best ever. “I chose to be in both Boogie and Talledega Nights!” May I please note that we saw JCR and last year’s Best Actor winner, Phillip Seymour Hoffman in a silly sort of Broadway play a few years ago, written by Sam Shepard (you remember him as Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff). It was good, and the actors switched roles every other night which was interesting, but JCR as the guys in both Boogie and Talledega Nights? Way better. Also, remember him as the only good thing from the Jennifer Anniston flop The Good Girl.

Okay, can I just say that Ellen may have saved the Oscars? She is very funny and when I’m home at 11am, I watch her show. I love her, and I love her red velvet suit. Am I wrong in thinking that it’s the Gucci suit that Gwyneth Paltrow wore in 1996? The first year with Tom Ford at the helm? The gospel thing? Eh…But that wasn’t her fault. I find her so charming and delightful!

Did you see Little Miss Sunshine? I was *shocked* when it was nominated for best film, because I didn’t like it at all (although that usually isn’t a factor. It’s like if they ask me what were the worst movies of the year, they disagree and give them awards. Is my taste that bad?). Alan Arkin was genius as usual, but I felt like the rest of the movie was boring and regular, maybe formulaic? The overachiever dad, the supportive mom, the suicidal gay uncle who ends up being normal, the silent son who talks in the end…boring. Right? Did you like it? Tell me why.

This choir making movie noises is weirding me out a little, and yet, I wish I was in it. I can make funny noises…Okay, since this is live, I’m 4 out of 6 for the winners. Yay for me! How many categories are there?

Jessica Biel, what were you thinking in that belted pink ick? Rachel Weiss, love the gown.
Make that 5 out of 7…Alan Arkin is the greatest in his straightforwardness.
You know it’s the Oscars when old bald feely James Taylor (for that Disney garbage Cars) comes on, followed by Randy Newman. It’s like El-uhn on the Grammies, ri-yuht? It’s a guarantee from America. It’s the thing you can trust in besides death and taxes.

Melissa Etheridge asks us to write to Congress. Betsy, does that really work? Please tell. And I AM for the environment and I support all kinds of changes in the way human beings do things like fuel cars and re-use materials, but I do not like the sanctimonious way Hollywood sets it forth. Again, I repeat, I AM FOR all of this. Just don’t be a jerk about it. Matt Drudge just called Al Gore “Orsan Welles like.” If only he was as powerful.

When are they going to show the people who died this year? That’s always when I’m most surprised during this show.

Hmm, I like that they are reading parts of the screenplays wile they show that same part as produced. Very good addition. I really like seeing the writer vs. director’s point of view. Ooh, and first guy to get cut off by the music! The screenwriter for The Departed. Is Tom Hanks not the best sport in Hollywood? What a square.

Meryl Streep is amazing and gorgeous, but always makes some serious mistakes in what she wears to the awards shows. I love her. Yay! There’s a corgie at the Oscars! Hooray for puppies! Marie Antoinette wins, and I love Sofia Coppola, but I haven’t seen this one yet. Comments?

SHUT UP! They let freakazoid into the show! Tom Cruise! *shiver* Mrs. P, I know what your neighbor says about Joe being Tom Cruise gorgeous, but I think your son is much better looking, and not at all weird! 

Yay! Now we’re up to 7 out of 11…and at first, I thought Catherine Deneuve looked not so great, but I take it back. She’s still a fox.

Hooray for Jennifer Hudson! Just another American Idol loser, but now able to say FU Fox! And announced and escorted by George Clooney? Welcome to Hollywood, lady! Despite your space age freaky dress…welcome.

Hooray for Jerry Seinfeld! At least he watched the movies he was introducing. Good lord, there’s Al Gore on stage. Larry David looks a little uncomfortable. I know we have to solve the “climate” issue, but ew. I’ll act, happily, but ew.

Yay for Ennico Morricone! Best soundtrack ever ever ever! Wah wah wah…ooeeooeeooooo, wah wah wah…I wish I could hear what my Italian Cinema professor had to say about this tonight. I’m sure it’s hilarious. Just to note, he hasn’t even gotten on stage yet, and wikipedia says this: He received the Honorary Academy Award (Lifetime Achievement Award) in 2007, only the second film composer to be so honored. I love wiki for that. Way to ruin my good mood, Celine Dion. Blech. At least she grew her hair out. Why the long face, Celine? (joke courtesy of Christopher John of Garren New York, circa 1997).

I’m losing my average…I’m down to 10 out of 18. That old VJ from MTV says it’s because of all the surprises. I say it’s because I vote with my heart, and that I’m incapable of predicting what Hollywood will actually think. It ain’t easy being green.

JLo looks adorable. I love her dress, I love her hair, she is always immaculate. A doorbell! And she’s announcing the song from Dreamgirls (which I haven’t seen). It’s really so obvious how Beyonce is a product of Hollywood and the music industry and how Jennifer Hudson is actually a real talent. I love that the “discovery” won the award and the “product” wasn’t even nominated. That makes me believe in the old school American Dream. :D

Umm, Please welcome the Travol-tar and the Queen of Latifa. Well, it wouldn’t be the Oscars without those two naming Randy Newman, right? Spread the peace, y’all. I love that Melissa E. just thanked her wife for her song about waking up about the environment. Hooray for the future!

It is SO not about the outfits when it gets this late, right? I started this blog at 8:30 pm, and now it’s 11:40…and we still have 5 awards to go…hrmph. Why are Oscar movies always SO depressing? Okay the big 4 left, but they changed the order, am I wrong? Wasn’t best actor the first award before? Or was it Supporting Actor? Even so, they changed the order….

Jodie Foster in Vera Wang, it’s like a heresy! What does Armani say? They were the original Designer/Actor duo…at least she’s announcing my favorite part, the people who died this year. It’s so morbid, but so wonderful, non? Don Knotts! Joe Barbera! Philippe Noiret! Jack Wild! James Doohan! Peter Boyle! Didn’t Jack Palance die like 15 years ago? Robert Altman. May you all rest in peace and make fantastic movies in the next world. Ooh, it’s getting late, isn’t it?

Ellen, you peach. It will be that wonderful Helen Mirren, it must be! What is this movie Little Children? I’m so out of it! But I was right about Ms. Mirren! Isn’t she gorgeous? But so is Meryl. What bone structure and bad fashion sense! Who couldn’t love her? And super kudos to Ms. Mirren for saluting the Queen of England in her speech. How quaint!

I love love love Reece Witherspoon, but she looks too skinny since her breakup. Her dress is amazing, however, and I do not dispute her absolute power to look fantastic all the time, I just wish she didn’t look so break-up-y. Make no mistake, I find her impeccable. And so the best actor category goes to Forest Whitaker. And I’m right! Hooray! 12 out of 22! Only director and picture left!

I’m pretty confident (like 75%) that Marty Scorsese will win best director, but while I put my marker mark next to the Departed for best pic, I will be surprised by whomever that wins.

Hardy har har, aren’t Spielberg and whatshisnames funny? Non! But at least they think they are. And yay for Marty! He finally won! Like my dad, he opted to join the seminary and then channel his interests and skill elsewhere. What a great cast he had, and also what great glasses he wears all the time! May I please recommend his movie “Mi viaggio in Italia” (1999) It’s Marty introducing all kinds of marvelous Italian movies that we may have never heard of. Please for to watch this. He has some great insights about the films.

And so now, we wind it up…best pic announced by a freakishly bald Jack Nicholson. Good for the old men! So, 14 out of 24 without seeing most of the movies? I say I did pretty well. :D Happy Oscars, y’all, and get out and support those movies you liked that didn’t win!

Yay for movies!

Hooray!

My brother is moving to Philadelphia! That means my niece and nephew will only be 2 hours away while we're in DC and an hour and 20 minutes from New York! I'm so excited and I hope it all works out and they stay there forever and ever. At least until the kids are old enough to come into the city alone. I won't be Auntie Remote anymore! More excuses for my parents to come out East! Emily and Tyler can meet Oskar and Clara! Molly, I'm sorry to say, there is no Paper Source in Philly. I really thought there was!

Anyone who has recommendations about Philadelphia, please leave them in the comments with your name so I can forward them along. Yay!

If you were wondering...

That's not a prison jumpsuit below...it's a monksuit.

Old men part 3

Happy Valentine's Day, dearest readers! I have heart shaped cards with sweethearts inside for you all (here in my hand, just trust).

So, I joined a new yoga class, and I have been there twice. I'm dropping this class like a hot potato. Let me tell you why! The instructor is a man with an unidentifiable accent, like maybe British or just pretentious. Hard to say. He wears those pants that should have been banned when they came out in the 80s...you know the ones, high elastic waist at which a LOT of obnoxiously printed fabric is gathered, tapered at the ankles. Ew. And he wears them with t-shirts tucked into them. Today's had some sort of comic strip on it with an E=mc2 joke that I couldn't quite make out. He has a receding hairline, a gray ponytail and glasses like a German philosopher might wear (see pic, left). And his name is Peter Sage. I'm pretty sure that's fake.

So the first class I went to was bad, but not unbearable. The yoga didn't flow like I'm used to, and he didn't say the names of the asanas we were doing, which was odd. He also said things like "now, please, put your left leg forward" and would giggle to himself. I've had odd yoga instructors in the past, so I found these things only mildly strange.

TODAY, however, I almost left in the middle of class. It's Valentine's Day, so today's class was themed to love. Really? Yes. And Peter Sage decided that to kick off the love themed class, we should dance. Not just put on the ABBA and get down (okay, I don't really get down to ABBA, but you know what I mean), but hold hands and go in a circle, then look at each other with hands in prayer position dancing. Oh yes. That happened.

The next thing we did in yoga class today was sit in a circle on our mats and hold hands and talk about what love meant to us. Yes, that happened too. That's when I really wanted to leave, but I stuck it out, hoping to get to the yoga part of the day, which I did eventually. But that part stunk just like last week, and my cynical self is out of there. I take yoga to get stronger, become more flexible and more focused and to do a little personal meditation, not to twirl with that Sophomore from my Italian class. Oh, and did I mention that at one point, he had us swaying to that horrible Michael Jackson song about making the world a better place for you and me. I'm not generally that awkward of a person, but while I like yoga, I must draw the line somewhere. It wasn't last spring with the flute playing actor, it IS with Mr. Sage. I have nothing against monks in general, just this one. Thank God my class on Mondays is normal!

So, all, open your hearts today. Grab the hand of the person next to you, make a circle, take 8 steps to the right, 8 to the left, put your hands together and look into the eyes of the person to your left, then look to the center, then look into the eyes of the person on your right, then every other person (me, of course) put your arms up in the air and circle around the person to your right. Do this 100 times and hope no one walks past the giant picture windows on either end of the room.

Scary scare.

I had quite a day today. First of all, I was so excited because my tennis class was finally meeting outside on the real courts instead of the basketball courts at the gym. When I got to the gym to change, I realized my wallet was missing. I ran out, retraced my steps including Italian class, although I was relatively sure I left it at the library. It wasn't there, so I went to the library, where they told me they'd found it and turned it in to University Police. Phew. I went to pick it up, everything was intact, but it took half of tennis class to get it back, so I missed playing outside. There's supposedly a big storm coming, and I'm sure we won't get to play outside again for a long time, so mer.

But the upside of that is that I got an extra hour to work on my paper that was due today and that I started last night. Slacker. So while I was working on it, I got an email from the adviser who is looking over my graduation application, and since I dropped my business class, I was ONE CREDIT short of graduating. I'd be finishing out the semester with 119 credits instead of 120. How could I have miscalculated so poorly? So when I went to turn in my paper, I was able to talk to my prof who happens to be the chair of the English department, and she's letting me take my Shakespeare class for 4 credits instead of 3. All I have to do is see an extra play and write an extra review. Lady Luck is on my side again! Since Fortune has come around, I promise to stop complaining and slacking and I will give myself a leg up by doing all I can to help myself. Oy, what scares I had today!

I'm a quitter

I dropped my small business class. Well, technically, I withdrew from it (that means it will still show on my transcript, with the notation "W" next to it). I'm sorry to say that means no more Toftoy anecdotes for you, although I'm sure once was enough. I feel like I let my team down, but I could not be bothered with all the nonsense and stress that class was bringing me.

On another note, I have a new job idea...what if I went to work for my old agent? I'd be good at the work, and I already know all the people...the problems are that I'd be back with my old crazy/slightly evil boss (the G man) and who knows if I'd like being back so close to the old industry? *sigh* Life was so much easier when I was 19...wasn't it?

Is anyone even reading this? Tanny, I know you're there.

My shoes are growing.

So my whole life, I've worn an 8 in shoes. Well, my whole life until about 2 years ago, when strangely, they went down to a 7.5. I thought, "well, the shoe industry must be making shoes bigger and calling them smaller." So I did an informal poll of my peers, and no one else seems to have experienced this. "Well," I thought, "maybe they just haven't noticed." But yesterday, I went to Payless, yesssss, Payless (it was buy one get one half off again and they have some really cute canvas shoes, not pleather) and I tried on the 7.5s. They were too big. I tried on the 7s and they fit just right. I've again begun the informal poll of peers, who when I tell them of this phenomenon say "well, the shoe companies must be making shoes bigger and sizes smaller." But no one, not ONE of them has experienced this. Are my feet shrinking? All my old shoes still fit fine...have you noticed your foot size going down in the last few years? Please tell me I'm not crazy!

Frustrations

I'm SO a college senior right now. I have no idea what I want to do with my life after graduation. I know I've told you all different things, but don't take any single thing I've said as "I'm going after this job." Darling Karen of Florence Roommate fame told me to just start writing things out, mind mapping she called it. I haven't gotten to the big picture like that just yet, but I started composing a list of things I might like to do. If anyone has advice, contacts, job openings, etc, please let me know. Here's the list, don't make fun. I'm practically pouring my heart out here. :)

Wedding/event planning/coordination
Writing: mag pieces, web content
Editing: beauty stuff
Website? Theknot.com, style.com
Fashion: ? history, books
Beauty: writing, consulting
Food, restaurants? reviews?
Tv: comedy central, cartoon network, food network, what not to wear
Children’s lit: scholastic
Publishing, art books, fashion books

Bad things I don’t want at all:
Accounting
Corporate number-hood
Paper pushing
Filing
Meetings with powerpoint where people say you have to think outside the box and other corporate nonsense and where lunch gets ordered in
Squares/suits
Memo composition
retail
conference calls
government work (no offense, Mom!)

I hate my semester right now, but it's just because the real work is kicking in. Ultimately, I'm glad to have this time to brainstorm and "network." *shiver*

another old man

No photo this time, unfortunately. I just wanted to tell you about the man who brings the mail to the Philosophy Department every day. He always says, "Hello, nice lady!" I try not to laugh, but it really tickles me.

Old Men part 2

This is Charles Toftoy, my Small Business Management Professor. He has white hair now that is much shorter, and he is at least 10 years older than this photo. I thought you might find him as amusing as my entire class does. Apparently, he was very successful in business (and still is), but he is absolutely one of those nice-guy business men. He says things like, "Shoot!" when you raise your hand, and he says numbers in Spanish. He also says "Por que" instead of why, and concludes most statements with "True story!". He wears, exclusively, mock turtlenecks under blazers and pleated Dockers. At the beginning of the class, he told us he had "a bunch of real neat Powerpoints" which, as it turns out, means he has a BUNCH of annoying and useless Powerpoints in which he has put sound effects for every single bullet. *shiver* We also get the accompanying printouts of said Powerpoints, plus at least 4 other handouts each class.

Last night, he told us a story about two women "best friends, always at each other's houses making coffee" who went into business together in Florida (true story!) and "long story short" both ended up hiring hit men to off each other. But my favorite was when he was talking about working on some "real weird teams." He told us he used to work on a team with some "real weird scientists? With beards? And they would rub them like this? No offense to weird scientists with long beards who are real out there..."

He made us all folded paper nametags that sit in front of us during class. He then makes sure to use us all as examples in his fake businesses. His favorite is Russell Associates. Poor Russell. Long story short, Toftoy is one of those people who can convince you he's a nice guy, but really he's one of those people who always make me feel weird to be around. Am I abnormal, or is he?

Obsascinating

Do you know about Library Thing? I'm obsessed. You can catalog all the books you have (or have read for you library users--Mom) and then it tells you what other users have read your books, and then you can pillage their lists or make suggestions, or get suggestions. It has this fun graphic thing called "author cloud" and it is like a picture of all the authors you read with the ones you read more in a bigger font. I'm sure it does lots of other things too, but I haven't figured it all out just yet.

I always thought my reading lists were pretty uncommon, but it turns out they're not. Join up today! My user name is hbomb (thanks Tan!) so you can look me up.