The Oscars

I didn't have anything going on last night (surprise!) so I figured I'd catch up on my email & RSS feeds with The Oscars on in the background. Then a few minutes before the show I remembered that Jon Stewart was hosting so I decided to watch it and do my email during commercials and boring parts of the show. While usually I've only seen half or less of the movies nominated for the major awards, this year I haven't yet seen a single one of the movies that were nominated for the major awards. But based on good things I've heard / how much I've liked the director's previous films I have been really looking forward to seeing:

Juno
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood

And to a slightly lesser extent:

Michael Clayton
Eastern Promises
Into The Wild

Back on the have seen side, my list is still pretty short even for movies nominated for the lesser awards:

No End in Sight
Sicko
The Bourne Ultimatum
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Once
Transformers

But even though I've seen so few of the nominated movies, the show was pretty good. A few of the highlights:

* Steve Carell presenting the award for animated feature, deadpanning his intro implying it was for documentary feature. I would love to see him do that deadpan thing for an entire episode of The Office, not unlike the time Dwight got a concussion and was nice & funny for an entire episode. Maybe Michael Scott could get his own concussion, or have some sort of minor aneurysm, or something like that.

* When troops stationed in Iraq announced the award for Best Documentary Short and the award went to Freeheld, a movie about lesbians being denied basic rights. How crazy it would have been if they also announced the award for Best Documentary Feature and No End in Sight had won!

* Katherine Heigl in that red dress presenting the award for something or other.

* While I have not yet seen No Country For Old Men, it seems likely that at least part of the reason it got so many awards last night is because of the way Fargo, one of the best movies of the '90s, got stiffed for Best Picture, and the Coens got stiffed on the Best Director award that year (at least they won for Best Original Screenplay and Frances McDormand won for Best Actress), not unlike the way The Departed won so many awards last year in no small part because they've failed to recognize Scorsese so many times over the past 30+ years. Sure it was a great movie, and probably the most deserving, but it was a remake for goodness sake.

* Jon Stewart did a pretty good job hosting, although he wasn't as good as I remember him being when he hosted 2 years ago.

* By far the highlight of the show for me was when Jon brought Markéta Irglová back on stage so she could give her acceptance speech after she won for Best Original Song along with Glen Hansard for "Falling Slowly" from Once. I was so pissed when the music cut her off, and so happy after the commercial when Jon brought her back on. Her acceptance speech ended up being the best of the night. Here is the video in case you missed it:



As I said before, the show was pretty good, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more if I had already seen more of the nominated movies.

Comparing Hanzo Swords

"If you're gonna compare a Hanzo sword, you compare it to every other sword ever made... that wasn't made by Hattori Hanzo." - Budd, Kill Bill Vol. 2

So the other day on OfficeTally they started OfficeTally Survivor Poll: Season 2. Now, as with the previous Survivor Polls for Seasons 1 and 3, I intend to vote on each elimination. The only problem is I have no idea how I'm going to vote.

As I've said many times before, I think Season 2 of The Office (US) is one of the best seasons of any show ever. The consistency of the episodes is phenomenal, as every single individual episode is jam packed with many hilarious moments. And taken together as a whole, the season is simply a remarkable achievement.

I've long considered my favorite episode of the season to be The Secret, and my least favorite episode of the season to be The Carpet (which is still very good). Beyond that, though, I've never taken much time before to consider my order of liking for the rest.

A couple days ago I tried to separate them into 3 tiers, top, middle, and bottom. This didn't work, and I knew I'd have to try something else to get this figured out.

So yesterday I took the always enjoyable step of rewatching all 22 episodes, and if anything, ranking them is going to be even more difficult now.

I've watched all the Season 2 episodes at least a dozen times, and enjoyed them every time. But it takes something away when in the back of your mind you know that when you get done you're going to have to rank them.

After much deliberation I eventually managed to come up to the following list. I'll probably change my mind as soon as I post it, but I'd go crazy if I updated it every time I changed my time so I won't even try.

1. The Secret
2. Casino Night
3. Conflict Resolution
4. The Injury
5. Halloween
6. Email Surveillance
7. Drug Testing
8. Booze Cruise
9. Office Olympics
10. Christmas Party
11. The Dundies
12. The Client
13. The Fight
14. The Fire
15. Sexual Harassment
16. Performance Review
17. Michael's Birthday
18. Valentine's Day
19. Dwight's Speech
20. Boys and Girls
21. Take Your Daughter to Work Day
22. The Carpet

Edit (2/26/08): I have broken my word and have rearranged my list slightly, to the following:

1. The Secret
2. Casino Night
3. Halloween
4. The Injury
5. Conflict Resolution
6. Email Surveillance
7. Drug Testing
8. Booze Cruise
9. Office Olympics
10. Christmas Party
11. The Dundies
12. The Client
13. The Fight
14. Michael's Birthday
15. Sexual Harassment
16. Valentine's Day
17. The Fire
18. Performance Review
19. Dwight's Speech
20. Boys and Girls
21. Take Your Daughter to Work Day
22. The Carpet

Edit (3/6/08): Rearranged again.

1. The Secret
2. Casino Night
3. Halloween
4. The Injury
5. Drug Testing
6. Email Surveillance
7. Booze Cruise
8. Office Olympics
9. Christmas Party
10. Conflict Resolution
11. The Dundies
12. The Client
13. The Fight
14. Michael's Birthday
15. Sexual Harassment
16. Valentine's Day
17. The Fire
18. Performance Review
19. Dwight's Speech
20. Boys and Girls
21. Take Your Daughter to Work Day
22. The Carpet

Smoking

Over the last few days I've repeatedly been getting in my mind the visual of a smoker struggling to quit smoking crushing a full pack of cigarettes in his hand. It comes from a series of government PSAs against smoking that regularly aired a few years ago. I don't know why I've been thinking of it, considering I've never been a smoker. Thinking about this has led me to wonder if the visual of a full pack of cigarettes being crumpled made smokers who saw it anxious / uncomfortable / irritated and made them want to go smoke a cigarette.

Now all the commercials on TV about smoking are advertisements for various products to help people quit smoking, and the Last Thing In The World they would ever show is a person struggling with the very difficult task of overcoming nicotine addiction. Instead they have a small, unrepresentative sample of people relating their success story of how they quit smoking using that particular product, ignoring the fact the small percentage of people who do manage to quit smoking were probably so dedicated doing so that they would have been able to quit smoking using just about any of the various major methods they now sell.

not too good.

...serenity now?

Don't rack my balls, bro!

Saw this on OfficeTally this morning.

A few thoughts on the 2008 presidential election

Over the past few weeks Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has shot up in the polls despite being outspent by his rivals, a distinct lack of organization, and most notably a string of exposés of questionable things he did as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. Today I read a particularly damning and exhaustive article about Huckabee's term as governor on salon.com. The article was originally published November 13, 2007, but was just posted on Digg.com today. Here's the link to the article:

The dark side of Mike Huckabee by Max Brantley

While this and the other recent articles exposing Huckabee's record as governor of Arkansas are interesting, frankly, I think everyone needs to shut the hell up about what a terrible person and candidate Mike Huckabee is until the primaries are over. If Republican primary voters haven't figured out already how awful he is, and by his recent rise in the polls they have not, then they deserve to be stuck with a horrible candidate. After the heartbreak and disbelief of the election being stolen from Al Gore in 2000, and the depression after John Kerrey lost a close race in 2004, I would like nothing more than the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she may be, after emerging from a difficult primary process, to have a cakewalk to the white house facing Mike Huckabee. While it seems likely that the Democratic nominee will become president no matter who the Republican nominee is, he would no doubt have an easier time pushing his agenda if he were to get 300, 350, 400, or even 450 electoral votes. Plus, if Huckabee was the Republican nominee, as knowledge of his misadventures as governor of Arkansas grew, and horror spread at the prospect of President Huckabee, this would probably help Democrats in Senate and House races, hopefully helping them to get a filibuster proof majority of 60+ in the Senate and an even larger majority in the House. Surely the major reason for the negative approval ratings of the Senate and House has been their inability to get things done with the Republicans not letting anything move forward, not the Democratic agenda. What an appropriate rebuke for the Bush administration than for him to be turning over power to a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate and House that the Republican minority can't stop.

As for the Democratic candidate, I think John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hilary Clinton would all do a fine job as president. Even though Clinton is the most conservative of the three, it seems pretty clear that she'd have the most difficult time in the general election. If Huckabee does indeed get the Republican nomination, The Last Thing In The World I'd want is a close race heading to election day. So that leaves Obama and Edwards, and I'm currently leaning towards Edwards. For the longest time I was hoping that Gore would run again, and if he did Obama would make a good vice president. Then after 8 years of experience as vice president, he'd have the experience in governing, as opposed to just legislating, to be a great, as opposed to just good, president. While I prefer Obama's personality to Edwards', I agree more with Edwards on the major issues, and I also think he'd have a more aggressive leadership style. This was made perfectly clear when Obama attacked Paul Krugman after he criticized the obvious deficiencies in Obama's health care plan. Obama seems sincere when he says he wants to put an end to the partisanship that have marked the Bush years. This is what people say they want, but then they also say that they don't like mudslinging in campaigns, even though the evidence clearly shows that negative ads work. After 8 years of the Bush administration, I think the first thing we need is not less partisanship, but a quick reversal of all the horrible policies that Bush has enacted. Then when Bush's policies have all been nullified and replaced with progressive alternatives, then we can try a less partisan adminstration. While it isn't as attractive as the no longer possible Gore / Obama, I think Edwards / Obama is the best option available.

So, in short:

1. Huckabee sucks, but please stop telling everyone until the primaries are over.

2. Edwards / Obama '08!

Keith Olbermann on Bill Moyers Journal (2007-12-14)

Last Friday Keith Olbermann was a guest on Bill Moyers Journal. The interview provided a fascinating glimpse of some pivotal behind the scenes moments at Countdown. Here's a link to the video along a transcript of the interview:

Keith Olbermann on Bill Moyers Journal (December 14, 2007)