This is my 100th Post!

What a centennial feat! 100 blog posts! Hooray! I will celebrate with this fun game:

make your own random album cover!

STEPS:

1. Get the name of your band by using the first article title on the Wikipedia Random Articles page.

2. The title of your album is the last four words of the very last quotation on the Random Quotations page.

3. The third picture in Flickr's Interesting Photos From the Last 7 Days is the cover artwork of your album.

Use photoshop or any other graphics program to put it all together and make your album cover (extra points if you use paint!)

Here's what I got -
I Can Have It, the newest album by everyone's favorite folk rock band, Walter of Châtillon, hits stores March 7th. Keep yo' eyes open for it....

And the Oscar for excellence in oscar prediction goes to.....drum roll please......

ME!




Kudos to me for getting 100% of my Oscar picks correct yesterday. That's a pretty staggering statistic, I'm quite pleased with myself. So in the self-aggrandizing spirit of the Oscars, I will congratulate myself on how good I am, tell the other nominees that they are wonderful (but not as wonderful as me apparently), and give a little speech:

Wow. Oh my god... (pause to breathe). I'm so overwhelmed... I have been dreaming of predicting the Oscars ever since I was a little girl predicting which swear word would appear in the background of my Disney movie. (pause to look at Oscar). Wow, this is heavier than I imagined! I have so many people to thank, those who've supported me along the way, Entertainment Weekly magazine, InContention blog for helping me do research for my picks, Blogger for hosting this blog where I posted my picks, my mom and dad for pushing me each and every day and believing in my power of prediction, and everyone in my Yahoo! Fantasy Basketball League for showing me that life can be made more meaningful with useless online gaming. I also want to thank (music starts playing) ... the-loyal-readers-of-my-blog-without-you-I'd-be-nothing! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

(Cue music as I saunter off the stage)

Final....Oscar Night....Predictions!

The Oscars are tonight! You know what that means, time for me to woman up and make my official day of the Oscar picks that are, yes, my final answer (note the Slumdog reference). I just watched Frost/Nixon and now am happy to say I’ve seen every Best Picture contender, though I’m not sure it will help me in any way in my predictions.

I know you’re all busy, so let’s just get to the point – here are my picks:

Best Picture
Who I Want: I’m not sure… I think I’d love it if The Reader won because I liked it more than everyone else seems to and it would just piss everyone right off.
Who Will Win (if I say it with authority it makes it seem like I know what I’m talking about): Slumdog MILLIONAIRE

Directing
Who I Want: David Fincher. I also liked Ben Button more than everyone else did. Cheers to my alternative tastes!
Who Will Win: Danny Boyle

Actor in a Leading Role
Who I Want: Sean Penn. He was amazing as Harvey Milk, a real transformation
Who Will Win: Sean Penn

Actress in a Leading Role
Who I Want: Kate Winslet
Who Will Win: Kate Winslet, though if Meryl Streep does in fact take it, I will be mad at myself for being upset about it because Streep really was phenomenal in Doubt.

Actor in a Supporting Role
Who I Want: Heath Ledger. I don’t think much more has to be said here. Amazing performance by someone who filmmaking will sorely miss.
Who Will Win: Heath Ledger

Actress in a Supporting Role
Who I Want: You know what? I can’t really say who I want to win this category. I think this is one of the hardest ones to call, and I’ve seen every performance except Penelope Cruz, who is the “front runner.” I’m going to have to say Taraji P. Henson for me, and I don’t know if I really can give you educated reasons to support my opinion.
Who Will Win: Penelope Cruz I think will win, I heard she is brilliant in the film.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Who I Want: The Reader! Read the book after I saw the movie and I think the transformation to script and screen were done very well.
Who Will Win: Slumdog MILLIONAIRE

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Who I Want: Milk. Sadly I am not super familiar with all of these noms.
Who Will Win: Milk, if only to make up for not voting it Best Picture. Those Holllywood Liberals!

Art Direction
Who I Want: Revolutionary Road. Throw the poor flick a bone, Academy.
Who Will Win: Ben Button. It was a beautiful film.

Cinematography
Who I Want: Ben Button
Who Will Win: Slumdog MILLIONAIRE

Costume Design:
Who I Want: Anyone who won’t give too long of a speech.
Who Will Win: The Duchess

Film Editing
Who I Want: Actually, after seeing Frost/Nixon today, maybe that!
Who Will Win: Slumdog MILLIONAIRE

Makeup
Who I Want: NO BRAINER. Ben Button.
Who Will Win: Ben Button

Visual Effects
Who I Want: Ben Button
Who Will Win: Ben Button

Animated Feature Film:
Who I Want: I don’t really care… is that bad?
Who Will Win: WALL E


I know there are more categories but you know what? There’s no money on this and frankly I don’t feel like much predictions anymore, even more so on things I know nothing about like docs and foreign films that I’ve never seen.

So those are my picks! Have a happy Oscar night, America. (and by America I mean my huge readership from the American general public, all 5 of you…)

Buffalo Ranked #8 Most Miserable City. Ever.

Forbes has named the 8 most miserable cities in America, and coming in at number eight is… Buffalo, NY!!

“If you like snow, Buffalo is your place--to the tune of 90 inches a year, more than any other metro area that has a million people. Buffalo's population has been steadily shrinking since the mid-1990s.”

So what, it snows! Do you know what that means? Snow days. So shove it, Forbes. And a shrinking population only means one thing. More room for the rest of us. It’s never a problem to get tickets to Buffalo sporting events, like Bills and Sabres games, so thanks for leaving town, everyone who did (including me I guess…)

I may be in NYC right now, but I still am and will always be a Buffalonian at heart. And I can tell you one thing for sure: nothing can make a person happier than Mighty Taco, Jim’s Steakout and Duff’s chicken wings.

So bang it, Buffalo.



look at that skyline

A Glamma is an older version of a hustler, of a hustler...

From my Time magazine:

Glamma n. - Glamourous grandma; one of the terms adopted by boomer grandparents in favor of more traditional names like Grandmother.

USAGE: "Boomers want to pick with grandkids will call them: Meet Glamma and Papa Doc."
-Wall Street Journal, Jan 23, 2009

put some sleeves on that blanket

I was babysitting last night. A six year old, Val. He’s a cool guy. Anyways, we were watching Hercules cartoons and the commercial for Snuggies, the blankets with sleeves, came on. First of all, I am sorry I have not posted about the Snuggie commercial before right now. Because it is golden. It is a visionary for people in advertising. It is absolutely hilarious. First of all, who came up with the idea of a blanket with sleeves in the first place? Is it too much work to wrap the blanket around oneself when cold? Do we not have articles of clothing called sweaters that already have built in sleeves when we are so cold that we need more layers of fabric to put over ourselves?

But the fact that this product exists is irrelevant. There are dummies everywhere who will buy silly things (my brother owns a Snuggie). Let’s get back to the commercial. I don’t know if the Snuggies come in various colors, or if they are only available in Monk-Maroon, because everyone in the infomercial looks like they are waiting to pray with the Dalai Lama, whether it be after the sporting event they are all high-fiving during, or when they’re done making s’mores.



I'd like to honor the copywriter of this commercial for the first few lines that rhyme. Really sucks you into the world of the Snuggie. Also, it highlights wonderfully the many things you can do with your Snuggie on, like eat a snack, use your laptop, watch tv, or even knit! All things that you can do with a normal blanket on you as well. But god forbid your arms be exposed to the air outside your blanket…

It’s perfect for men, women and children too! Just like all clothes are! It’s also ideal for those drafty dorm rooms—if you want to be ridiculed by all of your peers and probably never get laid because you’ll be known as that Snuggie kid or the idiot who wears their bathrobe backwards.

And isn’t the Snuggie really just a bathrobe that you put on backwards? Anyways, back to the commercial. And the kid I babysit. Because during this commercial he made me laugh so much and gain so much more respect for him at the same time.

So the scene appeared where the entire family is watching an outdoor sporting event in their Snuggies, and they look like a weird cult in their maroon backwards robes and they are all high-fiving each other. And the little boy starts laughing. Hysterically. At this ridiculous commercial. At the tender age of 6 this kid had more sense than my 24 year old brother. Enough to realize that the Snuggie is absolutely absurd in just about every way. It just made me laugh so much. Kids are so much smarter than adults.

I guess that’s all I have to say about the Snuggie, except I have one more qualm. The commercial says it only comes in one size – Super Large – and one size fits all. If it really is meant for men, women and children then maybe they should make a few more sizes so the little ones don’t trip over their Snuggies on the way to sporting events.

Okay I gotta go. The blanket I currently have draped over myself is shifting and its so annoying and I can’t type anymore…if only they made blankets with sleeves…

Vanity Fair Shots

Some really great photos of directors/actors by ANNIE LEIBOVITZ from March's Vanity Fair.