Mike D.’s Friends

A Delightful, Really Bad Idea

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:25:47 -0700

One of my favorite Six Apart traditions, even though it can only be described as a truly bad idea, is that sometimes when everybody is having drinks on a Friday afternoon, Mena cuts daveman692's hair. Thanks to Mr. Sippey for grabbing the video.

Mena Cuts David's Hair

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i'm on a roll

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:37:58 -0700

the last few days have been amazing, for reasons both personal and professional. but since this has somewhat become my running blog:

30 Miles in a month!

Hooray! I am definitely on a roll. The only thing that can make this better is finally going home and hanging out with my wife. :)

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Woot!

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:51:44 -0700

Just for me, as I am inordinately proud: Holy crap.

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Stand back or I will zune you.

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:37:36 -0700

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Twitter Roundup!

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:07:52 -0700

A lot of my friends cross-post archives of their Twitter updates onto their various blogs. And then others (usually quietly) grumble: "Aw, I want them to write real posts! Why are they just dumping their tweets into their blog -- they're the only one who wants to read them!"

Which, of course, answers its own question. People archive their tweets into their own blogs to give them a sense of permanence. We do it for ourselves. Which is not to say that I'm going to start dumping my tweets in here. Instead, I'll give you a narrated guide to my last several tweets, manually posted here, not copied by machines.

you people joining color teams know you're just setting yourselves up for @zefrank to make you feel really bad about race in america, right?

about 18 hours ago from twitterrific

That last one seemed obvious to me. Ze's been encouraging people to arbitrarily pick color-themed teams for a purpose that he's been vague about. One extremely-thinly-veiled racial allegory, coming up! But apparently a lot of people got annoyed by me saying this, with a few "Red team rules, dude -- you suck!" messages coming back. We deal with race pretty well! :)

One of my favorite bloggers ever is back at it: http://dollarshort.org/ "roots and growth and all that stuff" :) not a bad design, either about 21 hours agofrom twitterrific

Mena said I had to write this or I'd be fired! Just kidding. I'm really enjoying the new Dollarshort, and it's all done with basic templates in TypePad! Wow.

@davewiner you do have an extraordinarily disproportionate influence in tech and media -- you're saying that blogging isn't powerful? about 23 hoursago from twitterrific in reply to davewiner

Dave was carrying on a not-particularly fruitful debate about race in America, starting with the probably-correct basis that we're all racists. Unfortunately, he was trying to provoke people into a thoughtful discussion with inflammatory responses. I felt the technique was overshadowing the goal, and by the time he was saying that nobody important listens to him, I wanted to reply with a gentle correction, which to his credit he took very well.

the thing you need to understand is that fisking doesn't make you right. it does usually make you a dick, though. and it's bad writing. 10:42 AM March 20, 2008 from twitterrific

Inspired by nobody in particular, except the fact that I see people (men) who rather obviously think of themselves as Good Writers resorting to the lowest kind of rhetorical devices to "win" arguments while actually persuading nobody. Kids, it's all been done before. You can make any article look flawed by fisking it, but it doesn't mean you have any goddamn sense, and it decreases the odds you actually persuaded anyone of anything.

wow, 30 mins before a presentation to a few hundred people, and i just came *thisclose* to taking the nighttime version of my cold medicine. 06:30 AM March 20, 2008 from twitterrific

True story! This kind of thing is especially fraught for me because I'm a total lightweight -- since I don't drink or really take any drugs except caffeine, cold medicine hits me like a freight train, with slurred speech and all that kind of stuff. It would have left quite an impression. In the end, I ended up giving a pretty good presentation, though.

actual email msg i just got: "#Merge1#, I'm writing today with some exciting news that will enable you to promote your blog or podcast..." 11:36 PM March 19, 2008 from twitterrific

A few people let me know they'd gotten similar messages, too. I actually know the people behind the company that sent this out, and I do understand it was just a simple technical mistake. But I have a real fatigue in dealing with messages that are both disrespectful to me personally (omitting my name) and professionally (beginning with the assumption that I know nothing about blogging). I'm just saying.

Inadvertently genius headline: http://tinyurl.com/2wnmwx 08:21 PM March 19, 2008 from twitterrific

Before they corrected it, CNET's story said the widget company was worth four hundred dollars, not four hundred million. Funny because it's true!

Anybody have a favorite VPS webhost? Or strong feelings about VPS hosting in general? 06:43 PM March 19, 2008 from twitterrific

Some interesting responses. If i get a consensus, I'll post it, but a lot of people are interested in VPS, and this highlights to me (again) that so much of what seems like rational thought processes affecting tech adoption is actually the result of social behaviors. We think we pick web hosts because of feature lists, but we pick them because of our friends.

Neighborhood radios reveal that the reggaeton-autotune effect hybridization is complete. Me gusta! 06:22 PM March 19, 2008 from web

A neighborhood pizza joint was playing some truly awesome music that sounded like it was completely from the future. No humans were harmed, or likely even involved, in the creation of these recordings.

does Gloria Estefan have other Sound Machines in other cities? how have the Sound Machines dealt with DRM? 03:46 PM March 19, 2008 from twitterrific

A coworker momentarily brain-slipped "Gloria Estefan" for "Gwen Stefani" (funny it doesn't happen more, with the similar syllables), and I took it from there.

@rafeco watching my friends use EDGE takes me back to the anticipation of watching images load on a V.34 modem. it's not a warm memory. 01:52 PM March 19, 2008 from twitterrific in reply to rafeco

The compromises of using an iPhone may well be a fair trade for its experience, but the way that iPhone users apologize for it baffles me. I admit there are parts of all my devices that are great, and parts that suck. The only challenge here was figuring out which old-school modem reference would most warm the hearts of my nerdy friends in nostalgic recollection.

Oh hey, I made ThinkGeek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/ts... (i get no royalties on the shirts) 09:31 AM March 19, 2008 from twitterrific

I should have patented LOLcats instead of just writing about them. Everyone's getting rich but me! Oh cruel world.

aches, chills, coughing fits... i'm in total denial about being ill. Not Sick! NOT SICK! 10:49 AM March 18, 2008 from twitterrific

This method of faith-based illness protection works as well as every other faith-based initiative.

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negaTED

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:10:14 -0800

Sarah points out the unabashedly exclusionary tendencies of the TED conference over on the BusinessWeek site, and I think I've had that conversation with many people many times before, including former (and present) TED attendees. It is what it is, and it doesn't bother me; In fact, I kind of am shocked that not only does it not bother me, I'm not really interested in attending. I guess being able to just watch the videos and grok the ideas is good enough for me. This is especially true since a significant percentage of people who "attend" TED are watching the videos from another room at the venue, or from Aspen, and seeing a demo of a Microsoft app on a video screen in Aspen with a bunch of millionaires sounds to me like the kind of thing I'd pay not to do. YouTube FTW!

But. Back to the reason I was gonna post. Sarah says:

There's just something about TED that's exceedingly smug, and it's particularly troubling given the conference's proximity to, and enthusiastic support from, normally egalitarian Silicon Valley. California's tech haven is a meritocracy where what matters most is smarts and hard work, not pedigree, ethnicity, where you went to school, or what club you get into—or so it is most of the year.

Ho-lee-shit is that false. It's just not true. Is Google's incredibly egalitarian ethic the reason that an overwhelming number of the people who work there went to Stanford? Is the Valley's blind eye to ethnicity the inspiration for "Thank God you're white!"? I respect Sarah, but I think perhaps the reason she's let down by TED and I'm not is because she believed that idealistic view of Silicon Valley and I never have.

Here's a simple test: When I say "Monterey" or "Aspen", who do you picture? And I say this as an incredibly privileged person, someone who has access to more resources, and more people, than 99% of anyone who's ever lived. I'm a good networker -- if I want access to a creative person or expert or even a celebrity, I can usually figure out how to make a connection. I'm also someone who's lived in one of the poorest parts of the entire world, not as a visitor admiring the noble savages, but as a relative visiting family. Today, I also get to live the life of the carbon bigfoot, attending events of all sorts all over the country and the world. I am at an extreme end of the continuum of privilege, and yet even I am not in the tier of people who are made to feel welcome in communities like Monterey or Aspen. Choosing those locations alone is a signal.

And, as Sarah said in her story, I say this as someone who respects and even admires many of the people associated with TED. I also say this as someone who is an unabashed advocate of creating private events with exclusive invitation lists -- I think there's nothing wrong with saying "these are my friends/associates, and I want to hang out with them."

What I believe more than that, though, is that monoculture will be the death of innovation in the technology world if it is allowed to remain the default social and cultural behavior. TED purports to represent technology, entertainment and design. It does not trouble me that their view of who should create, support, and have access to these three areas is so short-sighted -- I'll still get access to the cutting-edge of all of these areas, and gain an advantage by reaching ideas they won't. But it should trouble the people who organize the event that they've limited their scope and eliminated some large degree of serendipity.

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It's the Oscars! Tee Em!

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:02:12 -0800

I'm gonna live-blog the Oscars for as long as I can stand them tonight! Which may not be very long, given the incredible horror of Barbara Walters that I already withstood, and now Regis Philbin is talking on the red carpet. Holy crap I may not make it through this!

George Clooney on why people want to be him and not Cary Grant: "That's because he's dead." No wonder everybody <3 Clooney, including me. Only thing I wish he wouldn't do is keep dogging Batman & Robin -- it's ungracious to everyone who worked on the movie. On the other hand, he's actually entertaining on the red carpet, which is really damn hard to do.

Blah blah, something about Jean Paul Gaultier. And that depressing Edith Piaf movie. Unsubscribe!

Oh shit, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, representin' Xenu! They're trying to paste over the ugliness of that Hairspray monstrosity he did. And we're back to Regis trying to shout over the crowd on the carpet. It's not nice to make an old man exert himself like that.

A little vignette about Javier Bardem. Holy cow does he clean up well -- he looks like Hugh Jackman right now, and I bet the ladies are gonna find him hot even though he's obviously batshit insane. We're secretly hoping that Cormack McCarthy is attending the Oscars. DYSTOPIAN NIGHTMARE LANDSCAPE OF CELEBRITY AWARDS!

Regis and Miley Cyrus... He's, what, a full 60 years older than her? She looks good without being overdone for her age. Here's hoping she doesn't have a musical number. And that Regis doesn't either.

We're back from commercial, and they're exuberantly praising Mickey Rooney for not dying! Oh, and there's Jennifer Garner. Where's Ben? I forgot she was in Juno... odd, since she was one of the biggest names in the film. Helen Mirren's up next... I can't dis, she's good people. There's nowhere negative to go on her.

Oh, Cameron Diaz! Now that she hasn't been with JT for a good while, I think her single claim to fame is as the definitive example of someone who's complexion can't handle the transition to HDTV. And there's Amy Adams, who probably had the most different roles this year. Where the hell did she come from? What was she doing before? A lead role in a Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts movie, a Disney lead, guesting on the Office -- somebody's doing something immoral to get those kinds of roles!

Some weird bullshit with Regis talking about contest winners who got seats from an online drawing. If you have to do these kinds of awards, at least have the dignity not to tell everybody about it.

Hey, there's Ellen Page! I don't really have a strong opinion on her, but I kind of want to shout YOU ARE A BIG OLE SELLOUT just to piss off Stereogum's audience. Aaand they're gonna do a musical number from Enchanted live? Hey, I'd watch that!

Something something, Regis is backstage, talking about how Jon Stewart is getting ready. If I were him, I'd open with a high-concept musical number mocking the various Billy Crystal musical openers. Of course, that's the kind of idea that lost me the gig and got Jon the show in the first place. Oh wait, Regis is winding down and misnaming Javier Bardem as Xavier.

OHHHH SNAP! MICHAEL BAY VERIZON AD! He's mocking himself by presenting his entire house as being rigged for explosions -- Awesome! Love love love Michael Bay! And we're just about ready for the big shoooow!

Weird cheaply-CGIed opening montage consisting of the Governator delivering Oscar statues in a UPS truck. Could have skipped that whole segment and sent 30 kids to college for that much money. And, here's Jon Stewart!

Ugh. Opening with a writer's strike reference. I forget Stewart has to take the writers' side. Did they put any funny in this monologue? That would be a good thing for the writers to do.

Incidentally, do spoiler queens hate the title of "There Will Be Blood"? Starting with a series of requisite nods to the big nominations. Hey, first Norbit joke! He stole my line.

Diablo Cody! Everybody take a drink! There's no dig on her by Jon Stewart that I won't applaud. Requisite political jokes. Pretty obvious stuff so far. And the show gets underway with JGarn. She does look good, but she's got a thankless task here -- Costume Design.

Giving a costume design award to Elizabethan period pics is weak and obvious -- they coulda snuck Norbit into this category too! Best Fat Suit.

Back with George Clooney. Is it fair to assume everybody has a crush on Clooney? Does anybody not love him? Blah blah blah about 80 years of the history of Oscar. Ah, introducing a montage of Oscar highlights. It seems like the whole point of this is "Well, at least we didn't give Milli Vanilli one!"

Wow, surprisingly includes a bit of Rob Lowe's notorious 1988 Oscar medley. Hmm, iPhone joke. Well, they got the Apple logo on screen pretty prominently, so jobs can't fuss too much. Steve Carrell somehow worked his way onstage with Anne Hathaway. Carrell is just doing his usual character, but Hathaway's timing isn't too bad. Doesn't seem like even mighty Persepolis is gonna be able to beat the mighty Pixar machine, tho. Did I mention Ratatouille is overrated? Aaand Pixar gets another one. Brad Bird thinks everybody else can just eat it. "I'd like to thank the new quad-core Intel CPUs!" He's got some boring anecdote about his issues as a young man. Shut up, Brad, you have the whole film to work through your daddy issues.

Katherine Heigl is nervous! That's really kinda cute. Or I'm a sucker for believing it. Whee, makeup. This is where everybody gets to beat on Norbit, but I hope the movie wins and they tell everybody to go screw themselves. IT also seems like it's got a good shot, because if you could vote, wouldn't you pick Norbit?

D'oh, La Vie wins. Boooring. And French. And no fat suit. They're gonna cut these folks short on their speeches because they're not pretty. Threatening the musical nominees showing up. Oh wow, Amy Adams gonna perform live! Them other dudes must hate Alan Mencken, world's most greedy Oscar grabber. "That fucker got a tropy for the mermaid movie, he should quit while he's ahead."

Pretty game of them to mock themselves with the Enchanted stuff, but I don't know if the song works without the visuals. Wow! You can see how incredibly old Michael Douglas is! That dude's rockin' the paleolithic shit next to Zeta-Jones, and he don't give a damn. Somehow I feel like all those creepy guys he played in the 80s were basically glimpses into his actual self. I'm glad his career is over.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, The Rock! Whom I inexplicably like. I even liked that horrible surprise daughter adoption movie he did. But yay, best effects -- I love the montages of scenes going from wireframe to rendering to finals. But then I'm a DVD extras whore. Give it to my Transformers, homeboys!

NOOO! YOu gave it to the goddamn bear-in-armor-hates-jesus movie! Whatever, Transformers could kick that bear's ass.

Oooh, segue to Cate Blanchett. Swooon. Is she doing cinematography? No, art direction. I appreciate art direction, but I wish they'd show more of the work and less of the people who do it. Is that not nice to say? One of the nominees is "There Will Be Blood" OMG, dude, spoilers!

Huh, "Sweeney Todd" wins -- do you really think anybody's working very hard if they do a Tim Burton movie and end up with a baroque, detailed dark whimsical set? This woman's accent is charming -- she just thanked "Tom Barton". And yay, some nods to Cate. We can talk about her as much as we need.

Montage of Best Supporting winners. Let's just agree that montages should start when the footage turns to color, skip the black and white stuff. It's disappointing to see the Cuba Gooding winning footage because it just reminds us how far he's falllen. Although GQ or one of them magazines did a story on him and he seems to be doing okay these days.

Oh hey, Jennifer Hudson. Think this'll be the last year she gets invited? :\

Javier Bardem! He should win, he was just in a different league than anybody else's performance this year. Scariest dood ever! They show the coin-flip scene from No Country, but there's no context. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was great in Charlie Wilson's War, but should have to wait for another year.

Wow I bet Dixie Carter's glad her husband got nominated -- no other way she was gonna get into the theater otherwise. Javier takes it! Hooray! Aw, his mom's his date and he thanked her in Spanish. I love this guy, and I'm glad he got the award he deserved.

Okay, a parody montage! That's what I like to see. Quality humor. Jon Stewart's got a good feel for such things. Hmm, Keri Russell, I forgot about her. Introing another musical number? Yaawn. A song called Raise It Up should be a Lil' Jon number from a bad dance-off movie, not an overdone choir piece.

Uh oh, the oversinging child prodigy soloist! Will this hell never end? I think I find these things especially depressing because I can't help but think this little girl is gonna spend the rest of her life saying "Yeah, well, I was on the Oscars when I was 11, you know."

Whoa, Owen Wilson! I guess this is his "hey, I'm okay" appearance. But he ends up presenting Shorts. Can't win 'em all! One good thing comes from the shorts winner, we have another multilingual acceptance speech.

OH CHRIST JERRY SEINFELD'S HORRIBLE BEE IS INFLICTED ON US AGAIN! God I thought our long national nightmare had ended. How does he have the power to get away with this crap? You're no Pixar, Seinfeld. Some British folks won for Peter and the Wolf -- maybe they'll end their acceptance speech with a little thank-you in English!

Montage of supporting actresses -- you really gonna remind us that Whoopi got one? What was that shit for, Ghost? Skip the black and white shit, peoples. Whoa, Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan -- I hadn't seen any footage, but that's some good stuff. Ruby Dee seems good, but I sadly don't think she can win this one. I hope they don't give the Atonement kid the award, they have a tendency to do that with the stunt performances by tween girls. And then what's-her-face from The Wire, whom I like, too. I haven't seen Michael Clayton, but hey Tilda Swinton won, and she already seems genuinely excited, which is great. Not a very flattering dress, but I'm kind of charmed by how off-kilter and non-Hollywood her thank-you is, by promising to give her statue to her agent, and mocking (second time tonight!) Clooney in Batman & Robin. That schtick even showed up in Time magazine -- do you think Val Kilmer is pissed?

I think Batman jokes are in bad taste this soon after the Joker's death.

Diet Coke keeps running ads about women's heart problems -- is caffeine a factor? And what woman wants to win a dress that fits Heidi Klum? "You're not fucking Seal, and you're fatter than her. Enjoy your Coke!"

Jessica Alba is introduced as "always fantastic". She hosted the scientific/technical awards, and I'm picturing a roomful of Unix nerds plotzing continuously for 5 hours. "Wait until the guys on Digg hear about this!" They just introduced Josh Brolin and James McEvoy. I know the latter's name, but know nothing of what he's done.

Hmm, they've done the throw-to-Nicholson humor twice in 3 minutes... when he kicks, are they gonna have to go back to Oprah-Uma jokes? Ooh, adaptation script nominations -- is Cormack gonna show up here? Yay, Coens win! McCarthy's there with his son, that's sweet.

Uh oh, the suits have showed up. Do we talk about accounting now? "Some people ask me, why do we give out Oscars?" No, nobody has ever asked you that. You schmuck. Yep, here comes the accounting talk. I'm hoping there's a fake film vignette about the Price Waterhouse process, but probably not. Have the winners ever leaked out in the past? That would be the best Oscars ever. They have some of the most valuable screen time of the year, and they use it to show accountants at work. :|!

Miley Cyrus is getting more and more creepy to me. But hey, another Enchanted song, this one's supposed to be the big number methinks. Ho hum. Was that guy the lobster in the Little Mermaid? Aaand commercial break. Get me a drink while you're up.

"What would you do if Oprah handed you a big bundle of cash?" I think I'd shriek and jump up and down and wail. We're back! They're doing a pregnancy infographic. Lolz. Jolie adoption joke.

Sound editing -- No Country rocks the diegetics, so they should probably get it, but I'd be happy to see Transformers get it. Oh, huh -- Bourne. Forgot about that one. The Americans are awful at this acceptance stuff; Let's stick to Europeans. More schtick, and then sound mixing. Give one to No Country, people!

Nope, Bourne again -- Hollywood loves the editing and technical work on that film. Even Spielberg has mentioned it.

Hmm, we're into best actress montage. Surprisingly boring. Hmm, let's see who our nominees are. I liked that first Elizabeth movie, Cate should be sharp in this one, but I ain't seen it. I've heard good things about Julie Christie's performance, too, but didn't see it either. I like Laura Linney, I won't mind if she gets one of these things. And Ellen Page. She can get a Most Affected Performance honorary one, right? Oh hey, Cate actually looked excited for Marion Cotillard. (I don't know how to spell her name, because I am a dirty American.)

"It is true there is some angels in this city." That's probably the sweetest line of the night. Good for her.

Oh sweet, a Wii cameo! They still let Colin Ferrell show up at these things? I think he's drubk. He is also chuffed, apparently. I used to like that word until he sullied it with his dirty dirty self.

Folks have a seemingly endless appetite for twee plink-plonk guitar songs. It's kind of charming, really. This song could easily be 25 years old and nobody would know. I suppose the nice way to say that is "timeless", but what I really mean is "old". They do look happy to be at the Oscars and onstage, though, so that counts for something. A nice little moment for these folks.

LOLOL they're gonna try and hit 80 winners in a 3 minute montage. I think that's 2.5 seconds per film. We're not even at 1950 yet and they've trotted out the Overdone Film Trailer Song from Dragonheart. Do people still feel okay about "Ordinary People" winning in 1980? Here's Renee Zellwegger. Her dress has a train that's as long as she is tall. I'm betting Bourne wins editing, since it's cleaning up on technicals.

Right now, they're doing pretty good on timing for the show -- there's a chance this thing ends nearly on time. Bourne dude doesn't seem that excited, but Bourne is really cleaning up on technicals. This must be the "award the third in the trilogy" thing working on their behalf. Poor Pirates, ending with a whimper.

Poor Nicole Kidman, ruined herself. Used to be fetching. I'm just saying. I do like her brave choice to wear a chandelier. And, round of applause for old dude not dying. I'm sure he deserves the award, but he's made a lot of clunkers. Good for him on the honorary Oscar, tho. And his family gets their own box at Oscars. His grandkids are bored silly, sadly. It's nice they're not truncating him with music -- let the man speak.

They're still threatening us with John Travolta. I don't want to see his creepy reanimated ass. I have to walk the dog, you guys wait right here. Okay, back -- I'm gonna skip the foreign films. Is that racist?

Finally, a musical number from Enchanted! Also, worst song intro of the night. Somewhere, Julia Allison is getting teary at this song. Phew! So glad I walked the dog -- we had enough buffer on the DVR to skip that tediousness. Whoa! Corpse of John Travolta shows up at the end of the number! Music award doesn't go to Enchanted -- that's sweet. They got a movie and an Oscar out of four notes or so, but I am charmed by his incoherent brogue. "It took us tree weeks to make."

Weird camera angle backstage showed 10 guys backstage in tuxes... I wonder what they were doing. They cut that sweet Irish woman off so they could do a plane joke with Travolta? Damn you all to hell. Mike trouble for Jon Stewart -- did they just realize they're putting the Oscars on? Yay! They brought the Irish girl back! Now just undo the Travolta gag and all's forgiven.

Please somebody make a Cameron Diaz is not hot enough for HDTV joke! Oh I just did. She can pronounce "cinematography" -- way to put those "she is as dumb as a rock" rumors to sleep, Cam. If No Country doesn't win this one, everybody in the academy should get a cattle airgun to the head. OMG There's Gon' Be Blood wins. Guess it's gonna get bets picture, too. :\!!

Hillary Swank always seems like a really plausible drag queen to me. What bet did she lose to have to introduce the Parade of Corpses? I want to see who gets the least timid smattering of applause. Again, skip the black and white folks; All their fans are dead. Do you think Jack Valenti knows that there's a whole generation that doesn't know him for his work with JFK or the Academy, but rather as a DRM proponent?

Suggestion for next year: An applause-o-meter next to each dead person's name, so we can see explicitly who was loved. When they applaud an agent who was dead, is it cheering for the person or their death? Aaand closing with Heath Ledger. Guess who the biggest star is! Do you think they put the Cymbalta anti-depression ad right after the Parade of Dead People on purpose? Smart use of ad inventory!

Amy Adams is trotted back out. At least she gets to dress like a grownup instead of a Disney character this time. Guess she's gonna do music. A little too giddy and grin-filled for her gig here. No Country can't win this one; No music. So let's say they give this to one of the Michael Clayton - Yuma films that didn't get nothin' else. Atonement, okay fine. Music nominees have to sit in the cheap seats, so it'll give us time to hear his work before he gets to stage.

It's America's most beloved object of Peter Scholari's resentment, Tom Hanks! Ah, yes, Tom is the official Hollywood representative of NASA and the military, so why not throw to Baghdad? These folks are a lot better at reading cuecards than actors are. Man, it's gonna take these people 30 minutes to get to the stage from their nosebleed seats. But hey, a heartfelt acceptance speech is a great thing. "Even a 38-minute movie can change minds." Tom Hanks is happy he helped get those women on stage.

Iraq, health care, torture.... documentaries sound like the worst of a presidential debate. "Taxi to the Dark Side" sounds like a sequel to Saw III, but I guess it's not. Ever notice how every time a male-female filmmaking couple get an Oscar, the guy does all the speaking? Shocking, that. Even with the indies and doc makers.

Hey, it's Indiana Jones. I like this Harrison Ford guy. They gonna make him do script now? OMG It's Diablo Cody, world's most annoying person ever. Oh no, she won! This isn't going to go well. Here comes the waterworks. I called it. Meh, no point beating up on her, I think it's unlikely we'll have to encounter her again in our Oscar travels.

Okay, best actor montage. Still not that impressive in montage format, but I like the nominees at least. In Depp's clip, they actually showed him singing! Surprising they let that sneak through. I forgot Tommie Lee Jones got nominated for a movie that's not No Country. Dude was on a roll this year. Viggo was good in Eastern Promises, but holy hell did I hate that movie.

And Daniel Day Lewis gets it. Coulda called that one. Ugh, don't camp it up on stage, dude. Lewis has some sort of overwrought manner to accepting this award which is kinda creepy. This also bodes poorly for No Country in the best picture category, and it'll really be a shame if that gets shut out.

Yay! Coens win! Totally right. And Scorsese is like a charming old uncle delivering it. Let's see what they say. Very short and sweet.

Oooh, bald-headed Denzel! Very hot. Almost ready for the big prize. No Country takes it! Yippeee! A very thoughtful acceptance speech, and this is the first year in ages where I'm pretty confident that the best picture won Best Picture. A quick wrap by Stewart, and we're out.

Thank you everbody, goodnight!

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this has aged surprisingly well

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:30:54 -0800

i'm wise enough to know when a gift needs givin'.

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The Grammies!

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:01:45 -0800

I haven't live-blogged anything before, but I love awards shows and the Grammies most of all so here goes. Oh noes! They started with the reanimated corpse of Frank Sinatra!

Wait, wait, Alicia has lots of songs that aren't horrible, and a handful that are fantastic. Why is she being forced into the ghoulish duo pairing for the night?

There's a poor little kid in the corner of the band box on a baritone sax who looks really nervous, without even knowing he's in the corner of the frame with Alicia. You're on national TV, look happy!

Bring on Carrie Underpants! This is the most hackneyed, boring song possible. I know what it needs -- a little bit of Stomp! I think this song is supposed to be ominous or tough, but it just sounds so forced and horrible. She's got a strong voice, but keeps trying to oversing it for no reason. I am against this! Also, shouldn't she have to do an anti-violence PSA after this song? It's talking about smashing people's cars with baseball bats. I call racism.

Yay, it's Prince! The original pimp is here, y'all can just go home now. "Best Female R&B Performer gets to come home with me." And he loves Alicia, so it's good he gets to give her the award, which she damn well deserves. <3 MJB, but this is Alicia's 100%. Prince said, "Frank Sinatra looked pretty good for 150, didn't he?" Early favorite for best line of the night.

Alicia was gonna keep talking until they made her stop, as proved by the fact that she thanked the dudes who paste up posters of her in the street. That's... generous.

Oh hooray! A Chevy commercial using MJB's (awesome) "Just Fine". If I were in the market for a crappy car, this alone would be enough to put them on the top of my list.

I forgot Jimmy Jam was Chairman of the recording academy. OH SNAP IT'S THE TIME! Wait, Jerome has a little percussion set now? I hope he gets the mirror out for Rihanna. We're 20 minutes into the Grammies so far, and we've had Alicia Keys, Prince, The TIme and Rihanna. My iPod is smiling!

Woo, Rihanna! Is there anybody in pop music right now who's prettier than this girl? I say NO! Please please let them funk up Umbrella. And hooray, "Don't Stop The Music"... this actually seems like a medley that's not butchering all the original tunes. This song even has something for the Time to do. Hearing them do the end of "Wanna Be Startin' Something" makes me wish The Time has been the backing band for Michael Jackson at some point.

Whomever at Universal is responsible for having The TIme back Rihanna gets a free round of drinks on me.

Uh oh, Tom Hanks is on to talk about Old People. Fortunately he's taken some time out mock them for being Canadian. I am pretty sure I can't name any songs by The Band.

Now he's talking about The Beatles. I've heard of them! I am not as certain that th Beatles changed the history of our planet as Mr. Hanks said, but okay, we'll let it slide.

Theory: Cirque Du Soliel never works on TV. Let's test my theory! So far I'm winning. The only act was picking a woman up on a trapeze thingy, and I saw Fergie do that much. I wonder what percentage of today's functional VW bugs are used in Beatles-related nostalgia acts.

I was right. Cirque does not wirque. Hmm, "Let It Be" -- isn't Paul still alive? Would he just not agree to be in the building with Yoko? I like how much ego it takes to sustain a grudge for a third of a century. Some part of me also bristles at the cynicism of relying on black america's gospel tradition to elevate the Beatles' work, but I am about 40 years late to have an impact on that.

That have succeeded in goal of every tribute, though -- they made the object of their adoration seem boring as shit.

Hmm, whom to inflict the best new artist curse on? Let's inflict it on Feist, just so we don't curse Amy Winehouse further. Wait, Cyndi, isn't it bad form to root for one of the nominees to win when you're presenting the award? Nevertheless, Winehouse wins.

Would anybody have predicted that Jason Bateman would be the Bateman who would still have a career 20 years after the heydey of Family Ties? Not me! He's threatening us with the Foo Fighters, whom I love, so that's okay. Though I think they will be paired with some reality show contest winner, which is less okay. They inflicted this on Justin Timberlake last year, and it wasn't okay then, either.

Oh no, I think we have our worst case, a justification for asian parents to force their kids to learn string instruments. nooo! Also, what kind of rocking out are these kids gonna do with string instruments? None, I say, even with JPJ helming the orchestra.

Ooh, it's Daft Punk's scary pyramid! Kickass! Only Kanye will be able to segue that into a moving tribute to his mother. Kanye's light-up outfit is cool, I must admit. Kanye's got the energy level that Carrie Underwood didn't, even with almost nothing going on behind him so far.

So, kids know those two dudes in the Tron suits aren't really doing anything that has to do with the music you're hearing, right? Do kids know Daft Punk is? Disappointing that Kanye didn't do the "since Prince was on Apollonia" line, though.

Man, Kanye knows how to stage "Hey, Mama". This is beautiful. I think Kanye just dropped one of the best hip hop performances ever on the Grammies, especially since they let him just do his thing.

And on the opposite extreme, Fergie, the worst person alive! Run away, John Legend, before she makes you age 100 years in a day like she has! She needs to lay off the botox or collagen or whatever the hell it is. And uh oh, best soundtrack.... this one's always a snoozer.

Hey, know knew George Martin was still alive? Not me! There's a really interesting weird dynamic with Ringo still basically telling Martin when to speak and when to stop speaking.

Cher making self-deprecating jokes about her age never gets... old. And now it's Beyonce! Woot! It's like House of Dereon has a whole wing dedicated to making unflattering outfits for Beyonce. Also, how's she gonna introduce Tina Turner and not mention her legs?

I love Tina, but they could probably have found a drag queen who would look more convincing, given all the botox here. This Cowardly Lion look for Tina isn't a good thing, especially in the Tin Man outfit.

I think we should go back to Beyonce singing exposition. Maybe she could do a medley about the voting rules for the Recording Academy! Now she's back out with Tina, and it's kind of striking how, similar as they are, I think Beyonce has even more charisma than Tina did at her peak. She's just on another level.

Another performance with way more energy than Carrie Underwood's boring ass. Also, isn't Beyonce's mom's name "Tina"? They should have worked that into the pointless narrative intro. Watching this performance also makes me suspect that Tina's choreography for "Proud Mary" probably hasn't changed in 30+ years.

Nelly Furtado! No performance? Andy Williams is looking like Skeletor's dad. Some yawnfest about Burt Bacharach. Oh hey, song of the year! Have any two nominees stunk of one-hit-wonder as strongly as "Hey There Delilah" and that Corinne Bailey Rae single? LOL! Another Winehouse win. They are setting up for one of the great trainwrecks of all time if she goes off the rails in her live slot.

<3 Dave Grohl. He's enduring the ignominy of being someone's reality show prize pretty well. I am kind of over his unkempt hair/beard phase, though. Clean it up, Dave! Can't front on the Foo Fighters, they always bring it. Even with the boring Grammy Moment interlude, they rocked out. Hooray!

George Lopez? Wow, he's unfunny right from jump. Introducing Brad Paisley, who I find it hard to get excited about at all. Gets points for the shiny shirt, loses points for the ugly guitar. Paisley seems to just be doing a stock version of his single, nothing particularly exciting or amped up for the Grammies. This is the big show, Brad, act like it!

Boring piece over, Salonge, Chris Brown, and Akon are out. Three of the most overrated acts in R&B right now! And Chris steps on his nominal tribute to Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince. Good nominees, though -- Common and Jay Z and Nas and T.I. and Kanye all did really strong records. Naturally, Kayne wins. His head says "MAMA". That's alright. He even got 'em to stop the music!

Wait, now -- did they introduce Ludacris as "Chris Bridges"? That's a sign my boy is trying to go mainstream in a big way. A little happy crappy about Cab Calloway, and now Aretha. Sweet.

On second thought, not so sweet. Kinda tedious. But hey -- a real horn group on primetime TV. I'll count that as a win. Okay, the gospel section is dragging into tedium now. Just once, I wish they'd feature the praise music of another faith -- where's the Buddhist hymns segment? Well, we're into the tedious requisite rave-up ending vamp, so this can't last much longer. Let's squeeze a little bit more histrionics out of Aretha and we're good.

Uh oh, they're threatening us with bluegrass. Earl Scruggs is going to get 20 seconds of love. Aaaaaand Feist. If she wins anything, she should thank Steve Jobs. Is anybody not tired of 1,2,3,4 yet?

Oh christ, awful things are happening with Kid Rock. I can't believe, either, that he's so much less funny than his brother Chris. Oh man, and now it's Dave Koz! This is like a pile of the worst things they can do to me, all at once. And is Kid Rock really flirting with this matronly woman old enough to be his mom? The best part is that Dave Koz is on stage and wasn't even on camera. No better way to flatter a woman than to say she's "still sexy", Kid. You detestable cretin.

Hmm, Best Rock Album. All pretty good nominees. Foo Fighters FTW! They look genuinely happy. Some old dude in a suit has followed them onstage -- he must be the producer. Andthere are apparently like 50 guys in Foo Fighters now?

Twenty-five time Grammy winner Stevie Wonder. They should retire his jersey. Is he going to do his "trying to read" schtick? Nope, some kind of nod to Berry Gordy. Will they mention that he's a manipulative tyrant? That was the shortest Industry Icon tribute ever. Gimme Alicia! I'll take John Mayer if we have to do it to get Alicia. I was kinda half-hoping she'd do a "Like You'll Never See Me/Purple Rain" mashup, but I'm guessing she doesn't want to admit she cribbed those notes. This is a nice rearrangement of "No One".

Now the big question is whether she can keep from trying to dance, because girlfriend jut can't dance. And they always want to anchor her to that damn keyboard -- we know she can play, people! Let her just perform. Being tethered to the keys gets in the peforming an anthem.

Crap, worst-case scenario... John Mayer is trying to be Prince on No One. The song can definitely benefit from a guitar solo, just as long as he keeps it in check. I liked this performance, but it was probably a lot better in person than on TV.

Aw crap, I don't care about Ringo Starr, but Dave Stewart I'm actually a fan of, and he's making me feel old. This year's country album nominations seem really uninspiring. The young big-hat guys are just not doing anything that breaks out -- giving it to Vince Gill is as good an idea as any.

OH SNAP Vince Gill calls out Kanye West, "I just got an award given to me by a Beatle. Have you had that happen to you yet, Kanye?" Okay, he's winning best line of the night so far. And on that note, we go to commercial. I gotta say, I'm feeling this horrible movie with the sabre-toothed tigers and wooly mammoths and shit. Opening Night!

Something tedious is going on with Joe Mantegna and Itzhak Perelman. Moving on! We're into a Gershwin nod with Herbie Hancock. This is the most airtime a clarinet player has gotten on mainstream TV in probably 40 years. Go, woodwinds! On a positive side, the direction on this is great -- top-down on two concert grands is a really beautiful image.

There you go! Umbella gets a well-deserved win. Rihanna is just such a charming kid to watch, and it was the best rap/sung collaboration of the year. And nobody else could stiff-arm Sean Carter. So good.

We're back from commercial with Cuba Gooding, Jr. Remember when he used to be an Oscar winner? Good times! And now, the shuffling remains of Amy Winehouse! So far, she looks downright functional. Creepy skinny, skeletal, unhealthy, but able to work.

I am pretty sure she's reading the lyrics off a low monitor, but that's not the end of the world. Her backup singers seem to be overcompensating with some egregiously overwrought dancing that makes the song seem more frantic than it is. There's also some truly terrible direction that's showing us closeups of the hardware on some saxophones. I don't know what the point of that is.

If she can struggle her way through "Rehab", she's home free. It seems touch-and-go -- her voice isn't perfect, but good enough. A return to the bad shot of the horn players shows them reading sheet music. Shouldn't they know their parts on her signature song by this point? Maybe they're just session players hired for the night. She wraps up, and the U.K. audience leaps to their feet, apparently largely applauding the fact that she made it through.

They cut to Tony Bennett and Natalie Cole. Even with a combined age of ~150, they look much better than Amy did. They're gearing up for Record of the Year! "Irreplaceable", "The Pretender", "Umbrella", "Goes Around Comes Around" and "Rehab" all deserve it. It's a good thing Amy just won, I wouldn't want any discord in the Jay-Z/Beyonce household. Wow, Winehouse looks genuinely excited! At least she's not that lost.

This, apparently, is for London. Very well. Nobody knows what she's saying anyway, let's cut back to L.A. They segue from Amy Winehouse to the parade of dead people... there's a joke here, but I'm not making it.

Speaking of dead dudes, President and CEO of the recording academy is trotted out. There are 110 Grammy categories -- and yet people still get excited when they win! Let's enjoy the boring explanation. Then he promises radio royalties to artists and everybody claps. Hint: If you're counting on terrestrial radio as a revenue stream in the future, you're not going to outlast Amy Winehouse, mon ami.

Wait, this is the real Parade of Dead People. Sweet! Let's see who gets the most popular applause.

Hmm, Pavarotti tribute. This could go either way. Meh, it turns out fine. Not extraordinary, but fine.

Oh hey, nice to see Bonnie Raitt. John Fogerty, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. Odds of tedium: High. Whoa... Jerry Lee Lewis sounds/looks terrible. Good thing rock&roll isn't about dignity, or this would be depressing. Let's see how feminine Little Richard looks next. Huh, he's in pretty good voice and completely fine on playing. Good for him.

Holy crap, Will.I.Am is the worst thing that ever happened to the world. Not only is Fergie his fault, he's desecrating a full 50 years of great songs. Even this audience isn't willing to indulge him. But here comes Usher and Q to save us! Quincy's looking a little older, but so far they've done a good job with the intros. Herbie Hancock? Incorrect. This will set a new standard for the Grammies being an example of irrelevance.

Herbie, naturally, sees it as an affirmation, after 43 years, of jazz albums being worthy of being album of the year. Meh. He even appropriates Obama. The thing that's made me so sad about Herbie for years is how incoherent and spacey he has been for years, but at least he can't do too much to make himself seem like even more of a cadet. And now they're chasing him offstage.

Well, looks like it's all over except for some poor sap forced into a perfunctory goodbye at the end. Let's see this through, since we're already 3.5 hours in. Nope, nothing but fine print! That's a wrap. No big huge winners, but Winehouse will see some big play, and there were a handful of good performances. I'm kind of glad we've avoided this Sgt. Pepper's mishmash for the most part. Even the audience in the auditorium hasn't stuck around for it.

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why my life is so good

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:25:43 -0800

so, i was furious an hour ago when i got bumped from the first multi-hour-delayed flight that i was on. then this second flight just got pushed back another hour -- we're going on 5 hours or so that i'll have been here before i get out. At least.

Right after the announcement of this latest delay, about 20 of the people who've been waiting here got up, and they all spontaneously picked up their instruments -- SURPRISE STRING ONSOMBULL!

Here's when they started playing:

Ohare-delay

A little quick Q&A reveals that they are the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. They just finished their first piece, and even accompanied by airport CNN, they sounded great to me.

Update: One of the members just commandeered the gate's PA system and announced that Orpheus is playing Carnegie Hall tomorrow, and that tickets start at $24.

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