the best of the best

If anyone was wondering, the recent prolonged absense from doing this thing I do here a lot of the time was sorta planned but sorta not at the same time. I guess that doesn't mean that much, but work has kinda become a four-letter word and since I've had to talk about it so much in my regular life--both professionally and personally--I didn't want to have to spend the extra worry writing about it here. Safe to say, it's pretty much all I eat, breathe and shit lately, and not because I'm busy. I prefer to leave it at that because I'm not as funny as Dooce, and I don't have any savings; I may work for peanuts, but those peanuts manage to pay the rent, kinda.

Luckily, there are distractions like Sasha Cohen winning the silver, Two Gallants' What the Toll Tells, alcohol and, most importantly, tonight's Oscars broadcast. I watched the show with my new roommates and their boyfriends, for the most part, but most importantly, I was joined by a steady flow of rum and mixers from my fridge and freezer. (PS. I made that three picture thing all by my lonesome in Microsoft Picture editor. I don't know why it turned black and white, but it did. Still, I'm pretty stoked about it, even if i stole the idea from Steve, who's a lot better at finding pictures for his blog than I am, meaning, that I usually just pick a picture of some hot chick and he chooses images that actually coincide with the narrative of his entry. Go figure. Either away, I made that, so suck it bitches.)

I spent the better part of the day watching pre-Oscar coverage. What did I learn? Reese Witherspoon is just about the greatest white person on the planet (I think she's kinda awesome, to be honest). And if you're gay, you're pretty much allowed to say or do anything that you want. Especially if you're fabulous. And Ryan Seacrest really needs to die and take Simon Cowell with him (not that Simon had anything to do with the Academy Awards coverage, but really).

Unfortunately, I missed the opening monolog and a couple of the early awards, such as George Clooney taking best supporting actor because I was stuck in a far less glamorous place: the "Econowash" Laundromat just two blocks away from my house. Unfortunately, it's been dumping rain all day (and still dumping), and I don't have a car, so I had to walk, with clothes in a covered plastic bin, detergent and fabric softener in tow. I used to have a washer/dryer here at the house, but they went away with my old roommates. I did enjoy the laundromat culture, however. A nice Mexican lady pointed out which dryers worked best and I met this cute tweaker couple's precocious young pitbull (that I ended up talking at at length because I'm really good at embarassing myself when doggies are present). I'm actually looking forward to going back because when I was in high school, I always pictured that I would meet the girl of my dreams in a laundromat once I went away to college. I didn't go away to college until I was 25...and until today I've never been in a laundromat, which goes to show you how stupid high school kids are.

Anyway, since last year's Oscar's recap (excuse the missing pictures) was such a big hit in my own mind, here are some reflections on this year's Oscars:

Salma Hayek followed up last year's stellar cleavage performance with yet another dose of her ample bossoms as she presented the nominees for this year's best score. I don't remember who won, but I'll never forget her boobies.

Three 6 Mafia won the award for best song for their number from Hustle and Flow, which, I think, is hip-hop's first official Oscar. That's probably the coolest and saddest thing ever as some old dudes actually listened to "hippity hop" and thought it was pretty fresh, but may have effectively sent rap music to the same retirement home as punk rock. Either way, coolest acceptance speech of the night.

Reese won Best Actress! Seriously, she rocks. Have you ever seen Freeway? I didn't actually see her play June Carter Cash, but I heard the soundtrack and I thought she had an amazing voice. Even better than Joaquin Phoenix (who also rules) but only because I thought he was trying too hard to sound like Johnny.

Keira Knightley made me feel sweaty in my nether regions. And not just because I was wearing (and still am) the same underwear from the night before. Though I'm sure that played some part of it. Regardless the only thing that sucked about the dress she was wearing was that it looked like it would take quite a while to tear it off her body with my teeth. Just typing that made me blush a little.

I thought Jon Stewart was a good host. I loved that Stephen Colbert did voiceovers for the satirical awards campaign commercials. Sean Penn didn't feel the need to come to the defence of any of his colleagues, so I guess shit went pretty smooth. Though I can't believe they cut off the acceptance speeches of the people who won Best Picture (Crash). I mean, I don't really care who they wanted to thank either, but it is the biggest award of the night. Honestly, though I like the Oscars even when it sucks, so I'm probably not the best judge. It's the same mentality that has kept me from missing a single Super Bowl.