Academy Award Predictions

Tonight is the Academy Awards. Wall.E is the only movie on the list I've seen, so I don't know who is going to win, but I still have several of predictions about the ceremony:


1. Nobody will have a speech prepared. To me, this is the height of dropping the ball. Seriously, who doesn't prepare for winning an Oscar? Case in point: Raise your hand if you have an Academy Awards speech written or could write one on a moment's notice or would write one if there were a one in five chance of you winning. See? Everybody's hand is raised.


2. An exception: the nonactor nominees, such as the costume designers, will have a speech prepared. And Mickey Rourke. In a prewritten speech at the Golden Globes, he thanked his dogs. Given that most white actors don't even bother to thank their mothers or the Lord, I thought that was refreshing.

3. Somebody will say they are humbled to win an Oscar. As an English major, I'd like to point out that "humbled" and "honored" are not synonyms. Granted, they both start with the letter "h," but don't let that confuse you. You are "honored" to win an award. You are "humbled" to, say, appear in Us Magazine with the headline: "Stars Pick Their Nose...just like us!"

4. If host Hugh Jackman cracks a joke about anyone in Hollywood, nobody will laugh. This makes me think actors hail from another planet on which people don't laugh at others' expense. I've tried to relate to this. For instance, what if a comedian came to a PTA meeting and starting cracking jokes about the other parents at the school? I would be laughing my head off and so would everybody else. Jokes about other people=funny.

5. On the red carpet, the same question will be asked over and over: What are you wearing? As if the viewers are jotting it down on their grocery list. Question for those watching at home: Does it run big or small? Is it machine washable? In contrast, when Kathy Griffin hosted the event, she asked hilarious questions such as "If you don't win tonight, who are you going to fire tomorrow?" But she won't be working the Oscars this year, unfortunately.


6. Regardless of these annoyances, I will watch the Oscars as if my life depended on it. The glamour. The glitz. The tears. Even the over-seriousness. I eat it up like buttery popcorn. I cried when 3-6 Mafia won three years ago for the song "Hard Out Here for a Pimp." Not because I thought the world was going to hell in a handbasket. Or because I think it really is hard out here for a pimp (I would think it was harder out here for a ho, but honestly, I have no idea.) I cried because they were so excited to win. Likewise, I hope Slumdog Millionaire wins because it would be a Cindarella story worthy of a box office hit.

All these things make the bull honky/lack of preparation easy to take.

As for my speech, I would like to thank the Academy, my mother, and Jesus. To the other actors nominated, there must have been some pregnant chads involved because you guys deserved to win. But seriously, they double checked everything and I did win.

Hmm...maybe it's harder to write these things than I originally thought.

In Your Face(book)

So I joined Facebook. I'd heard it was a place to narcistically show people photos of yourself while nosing into other people's lives. Let me tell you, it is all that and more. I love it!


The best part is that, when you join, you have to ask people to be your friend. I haven't done that since kindergarten, and let me tell you, the answer has changed since then. It used to be across the board no's. Not that anything was wrong with me, as far as I know, but back then you'd show your coolness by being exclusive.


Whereas Facebook, in its awesomeness, shows people how many friends you have. If you have 768 friends, you look like a rock star. Hence, everybody says yes to being your friend. The more the merrier!


I'm friends with 154 people, some of whom who would never, ever be friends with me in real life, so yeah, I'm pretty popular.


Everytime I get that friendship confirmation notice, I feel all warm inside.

I wish I could get an electronic confirmation on everything in my life. "I'm going to get a new client who needs tons of work done. Can I get a confirmation on that?" Confirmed. "My three year old will one day be pottytrained. Confirm?" Confirmed. "My eyebrows will never grow as long (or curly!) as my granddad's did. Please confirm." Confirmed. Yes. Yes. and Yes. Awesome!


I'm sure some people have also denied me as their friend, but luckily I don't have a long enough attention span to keep track of that. There's an option where you can confirm someone as your friend and then covertly delete them. Which is adorable. So mindful of others' feelings.


One of my friends (in real life) says she only lets people she wants to talk to be her friend. If she writes them a note on facebook and they don't respond, bam! she deletes them. She is hardcore.


She says she could care less how many friends she's shown to have on Facebook. Me neither. But on a side note, if she added four friends, then I'd have exactly double the amount of friends she has. Not that it matters, but just as a point of mathmatical interest...


Here is my second favorite thing about Facebook: The list of 25 things. People write 25 things about themselves. I love it. I'm finally getting to know some of the parents at the school who I used to only say hi to in passing.

I think that at the kindergarten orientation meeting, this should be the only thing on the agenda. As opposed to handing out a carpool diagram that looks like the blueprint for World War III it's so frickin complicated.


I mean, if somebody has four sets of double cousins due to the fact that four people in her mom's family married four people in her dad's family, I would like to know that upfront. Because it's just incredible. It's the makings of a TLC reality show.


If somebody sends you their list, you're supposed to send them your list back. I wrote a list of 25 things but then chickened out on posting them because, frankly, I'm a little Facebook camera shy. But I know you guys, so here's my list of 25 things.



1. I have three sons. Being a girl myself, I’m constantly shocked when I walk into a room and they have, say, taken apart a lamp. Why would you do that? I don’t know. I’m not a boy.

2. Secretly, I like when they do crazy boy things. It’s like seeing childhood happen in an alternate universe. I love them to pieces.

3. My husband is from Boston. I like him (love him actually) except for the fact that he beats me at everything: Boggle. Basketball. Word searches. Etc. It’s embarrassing. Especially when you’re a trash talker like I am.

4. My favorite food is sandwiches. I worked at a Subway in college and got a free sub after every shift. This only made my love grow fonder.

5. I’ve written five children’s nonfiction books about: Jay-Z, Ronde and Tiki Barber, Peninsulas, the Alkaline Earth Metals and Wisconsin. They will be in school and public libraries.

6. My favorite books are mysteries.

7. I appreciate an outlandish story. Like when a soap opera character comes back to life. Or somebody floats away carried by balloons.

8. My son’s names are very common: Johnny, Richie and J.J. If we ever had a fourth son, I would name him Vedder Apple Rapid Rewards Sundown. Or Reggie.

9. I have a large purple birthmark on my tongue. Sometimes people ask me to stick out my tongue and show them. This makes me uncomfortable.

10. My mom has nine siblings and growing up, her parents took lots of home movies. In almost every one, my uncle Mike is wearing an Indian headdress. We are not Native American.

11. My husband and I hate sad movies. We saw Million Dollar Baby thinking it was a lady’s version of Rocky. Needless to say, it wasn’t the feel-good flick we hoped for.

12. However, I love movies and T.V. shows that make you laugh and cry, such as Scrubs and Little Miss Sunshine. When you’re like, “Ha ha ha ha boo hoo hoo,” that is the mark of a great show.

13. I have two brothers. One is a vascular surgeon. The other is a public relations representative. They seem to have had an interior career counseling voice that I was deaf to.

14. My family is several nationalities, but we picked one to run with, Irish-American, because it fits our lifestyle the best.

15. When I was growing up, I crossed the street without looking and almost got hit by a car. Now, I don’t let my kids cross the street without a grownup until second grade.

16. As a little girl, I was an old lady. My favorite T.V. show was Murder She Wrote, my favorite singer was Anne Murray, and I couldn’t wait to be my grandparents’ age so I could play cards and watch Cagney and Lacey all night.

17. I have two goddaughters and one godson...that I know of. I love them very much.

18. My friend has a theory that if you grow up with funny parents, you develop immunity to funniness and don’t laugh easily. I think this happened to me, but I do think a lot of things are funny. I guess I’m just laughing on the inside.

19. I don’t understand why people have a problem with pan handlers. When rich people swindle you out of your money, they're all tricky and secretive about it. Beggars ask for it outright. They don’t try to make it sound like a good business deal or anything. They’re just like, “Can I have some of your money? No? Okay.”

20. I have seen the following celebrities at the airport: LL Cool J, Naomi Judd and Alice Cooper.

21. My policy when seeing famous people in the airport is to smile at them and not ask for their autograph, in hopes that they will be like, “Yeah, she’s cool. She didn’t ask for my autograph.” But they’re probably really like, “Oh, she’s doing the smile thing. She wants us to think she’s cool.”

22. The real reason I don’t ask celebrities for their autograph (or say anything to them for that matter) is that my voice shakes when I get nervous. And my hands. And my head. It's a total palsy extravaganza.

23. I cook dinner almost every night and we eat together as a family. Family dinners are not the utopia people crack them up to be, but I still think they’re a good idea.

24. My goal in life is for my kids to be happy, nice people. I think the two usually go hand in hand.

25. I believe in ghosts but have never seen one. Sometimes I get jealous when other people have seen them, which is ridiculous. Why would I ever want to be haunted by a ghost? Answer: So that I'd have an awesome story to tell, maybe even on Facebook.