Harry Potter and the Sobbing Fans

I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the last Harry Potter movie comes out tonight. That was sarcastic of course. Everyone has heard about this last movie, because nobody will shut up about it. Mainly because this last movie allows us to sit back and properly reflect upon what young Harry and his band of merry magicians have meant to American culture.

And make no bones about it, these books and movies have meant a lot. I grew up in this weird little Harry Potter world, so as with most things, I consider myself an unrivaled expert. Okay, so I haven’t seen a few of the movies and I read all the books but I don’t quite remember anything about them. I liked the books, but I didn’t piss my pants every time a new book came out.

I mean, there are the fair-weather fans like me, and then there are the psycho serial killers. Haha that was a joke! Please don’t kill me. Of course these hardcore fans are harmless. Sure, they would probably point there wands at me and yell some sort of Latin sounding mumbo jumbo at me that is supposed to paralyze me or give me syphilis or something. My point is that there are some people who take Harry Potter very seriously. I’m talking about people who dress up, go to midnight book and movie premieres dressed up, and regularly quiz their friends on the book. Heck, I was in class the other day with a girl who said she cried when she didn’t receive a letter from Hogwarts. Might I remind you, this is a college class.

I’m assuming here that this series was popular mainly because people wished that they could cast spells and go to a place like Hogwarts. Me personally, the only parts I wished were true were the flying on a broom and drinking butterbeer. My friends Baddie and Midget went to a Hogwarts theme park in Florida, and they said they actually served butterbeer. Let me just tell you, it was the most jealous I have been since I found out Megan Fox was getting married. When they told me it tasted like cream soda on steroids I almost hit them over the head with the Nimbus 1000 I was using to sweep my floor.

But if you think Harry Potter changed our lives, just imagine how it changed the author’s life. Before she so famously scribbled Harry Potter’s story on a napkin, nobody cared who J.K. Rowling was. Now, I’m sure people still don’t really care, but she’s loaded now so neither does she. She has entered a rare and elite group that few authors have been able to crack: the league of writers who are too good to use their first names and instead use weird little initials, like T.S. Elliot and J.J. Abrams.

Of course, I would have preferred if she just limited the book to what she wrote down on that napkin. Instead, she decided to keep writing until each one of her books was the size and shape of a Chevrolet Suburban. There are poor children in Africa who would die trying to lift up one of these books (so it’s a good thing nobody ever taught them to read). Believe it or not, Alaska actually used to be one huge rain forest, but then they needed paper for all her books. Luckily, carrying around her books temporarily curbed childhood obesity. (Think I’ve made enough jokes about how big her book is? Yeah, me too.)

As far as the movies, they have been just as big a success. Sure, there will always be people who say “the book was way better,” and I will continue to spill hot coffee on these people. Okay, so maybe it doesn’t follow the book exactly, but which is better: paying money to go see a movie sort of get close to the book, or paying to go see the other crap Hollywood is putting out these days, like Charlie St.Cloud?

Now, I haven’t really been paying attention to the movies up until recently. What changed? Well for one thing, I don’t know when it happened, but all of a sudden Hermione started looking like this. Also, the last few books and movies took on a different tone than the first few. People start dying everywhere, everybody starts fighting, and all of the characters finally get past puberty. By the way, was anybody else super confused when Rowling kept referring to the make-out sessions in weird British terms I had never heard of? Half the time I didn’t know if they were kissing or hitting each other with dead eels. You can never tell with those wacky British.

Regardless of whether you liked the books, you can’t argue the impact they have had on us. It truly was a phenomenon the likes of which we will probably never see again. At least until some other lady writes a series of fantasy books that get turned into million dollar movies, the last of which will be split into two movies, possibly involving vampires. And I think we all know that will never happen…

"Who Is Alex Trebek?"

So by all appearances, today started like any other Thursday. I woke up at nine, realized I have no job or classes, and went back to sleep for another three hours. But then I realized that today is in fact a joyous day that should be celebrated with smug smiles, pompous arrogance, snide comments, and annoying trivia. That’s right, Alex Trebek turns 70 today!

Yep, everybody’s least favorite TV host is still alive (or for those of you who think he is a robot, operational). Why don’t I like him? For one thing, he is a Canadian and he tries to exploit the elderly by convincing them they are going to die so he can sell them Colonial Penn Life Insurance. But I mostly hate the way that he acts so arrogant on the show. Whenever people get a question wrong he smirks at them and tells them the right answers as if they didn’t what color the sky is. I mean, if he were like a Harvard professor and he wrote and researched all of the questions then he could be all pretentious when people get them wrong. But no, he just reads a card somebody gave him, which only requires the ability to read. Technically you could replace Trebek with a third grader and nobody would notice the drop-off.

Now, it’s not that I don’t like Jeopardy. If for some reason I find myself with nothing to do in the middle of the afternoon (like I forgot to go to my classes again), I often play along with the show. Not that I am any good at the show. On a good day I will get maybe one right, and that’s only because I scream “Who is Shakespeare?” after every single clue I don’t know the answer to and that normally gets me at least one point.

For some reason they never have trivia on anything that I know anything about. For instance, they tend to do a lot of things that involve very highbrow forms of entertainment, like plays and poems and classical music and crucifixion. I am lots of things, and cultured is not one of them. There are monkeys in the San Diego zoo that know more about the fine arts than I do. They also like to do a lot of history and geography, another two of my weak points. I have a habit of assuming that any place that I have never heard of is a city in Brazil that exports cocaine. Which could explain why I thought Rihanna spoke Portugese (I mean, where the hell is Barbados if it isn’t in Brazil?).

Now, if they asked questions about sports or oldies rock then I would be awesome. I remember on one show they had two categories: Body of Music and Great College Coaches. I got every single question right. Okay fine, I got every single “answer” right. You happy now? Geriatric Jeopardy diehards? That’s one thing that always bugged me about the show; that you had to answer in the form of a question. And by the way, does the question have to make sense if the answer is right? I have always wanted to get on the show just so I could answer using the wrong question form.

Alex Trebek: “It’s the number after five.”

Me: “Where is five and three-fifths?”

Alex Trebek: “It’s the main ingredient in pumpkin pie.”

Me: “Who is tofu?”

Alex Trebek: “They invaded Poland to start World War II.”

Me: “Why is PETA?”

Of course, I have acknowledged that I will never get on the show. Not only am I not smart enough, but I am also not boring enough. They always have that part of the show where we find out the interesting lives the contestants lead. And by that I mean “What they do when they venture out of their parents basement to visit the library.” I mean Alex will sit there and genuinely pretend to be interested in the time Janice over here accidentally got the wrong change back from her waiter and … GASP! ... didn’t tell anyone! What a rebel. Also, they would probably kick me off the show for drawing pictures of cows during final jeopardy.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but recently they’ve tried to make the show a lot more hip and happening. The set looks different and even that iconic theme music is now all electric guitarish. The next thing you know, game shows will have models to stand next to the big board and flip over the clues. Wait, what do you mean they’ve already done that? They have models on Deal or No Deal? Wait, on The Price is Right and Wheel of Fortune too? Why the hell am I wasting my time watching Alex Trebek age? I’ll tell you why, and in his honor, I am going to answer in the form of a question. What is a mustache? Wait, you mean he doesn’t have that any more either? Forget this. I’m going to go watch Family Feud.

Oh Ehm Glee!!

I am a manly man. I fart and burp unapologetically, I am never wrong, I watch sports, and I grow a prodigious amount of facial hair. So I am man enough to admit that I do some not so manly things to balance myself out. For instance, I sometimes ask for directions and bake cookies. And yes, I also… watch Glee.

Maybe some of you don’t know what Glee is (and by that I mean you are telling yourself you don’t know, even though you do know). Glee is a show about a high school singing group that sings a lot. And I mean a lot. They sing about pretty much everything and they don’t care where they are when they do break into song. Which brings up a question: do people who can sing well always just randomly sing about things with other people? I mean, I randomly sing all over the place, and when I sing I sound like a deranged sheep with strep throat. So I can only imagine that people who actually sound good probably sing about groceries.

Anyway, this show has developed its own little cult following of rabid fans who call themselves Gleeks. Now, I do not fall into that category. In fact, I’ve only been watching for about the second half of the first season, and I will admit that some of the character and plot lines irritate the hell out of me. For instance, I’m pretty sure that at one point the plot revolved around a guy who has never had sex in his life thinking that he impregnated his girlfriend. I’m going to assume that he was one of those guys who got pulled out of sex-ed in fifth grade by his parents. You remember those guys? There were always a few who had to leave the class and play Connect-Four or something in a different room while the rest of us learned all the many, wonderful ways that we could contract STDs and die a horrible and painful death.

No, I watch Glee because of the singing. Most of the characters are played by Broadway or pop singers, so the singing on the show is actually very good. Sometimes they sing the songs better than the original artists. Since they can all actually sing, they don’t need a whole lot of instruments and they don’t auto-tune it so much that it sounds like they are singing into fans. Plus, Jane Lynch plays a hilarious cheerleading coach who has some of the best insults on television.

I think that I can explain my affinity for this show. I love music, and the one thing that I wish I was good at was music. As I’ve said before, I suck at singing and I don’t really know how to play any instruments. I feel like if I were good at music, I could spend all of my free time doing that, instead of wasting it writing stupid blogs to irritate people. The one thing that I always promised myself is that I would learn to play the guitar before I die.

I blame my lack of musical talent on my parents. For one thing, neither of them are very musically talented, so I don’t have much to work with genes-wise. Plus, when I was growing up, they killed my showbiz career by enrolling me in the stupidest things. For instance, they signed me up for piano when I was young, instead of a cool instrument. It’s not that pianos are lame, but you can’t really carry them around. Guitar players can carry them around to impress drunken women at parties. I have to somehow hope that for some reason the party has a piano, and even if they do have one, piano music just puts drunken women to sleep. Plus I had some draconian piano teachers. It didn’t help that I never practiced or that I had fingers so clumsy to this day I can’t work touch screens. So needless to say I quit piano by high school.

My musical acting career took a very similar arc. When I was little, my mother signed me up for the play The Wizard of Oz, and I made it through auditions. Of course, I was one of like fifty munchkins, so by “made it through auditions” I mean “I wrote my name down on the signup sheet.” I had about five minutes of stage time, during which I spun around in a circle with other wannabe Broadway stars while lip-synching that stupid yellow brick road song. God that song was irritating. After rehearsing every week, that song for me was like “It’s A Small World” on steroids. So that experience of course deterred me from ever acting again. By the way, I found out this weekend that apparently my friends Baddie and Midget were also munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. They probably don’t want that sort of information going public, but I always change their names so it’s not like anybody knows who I’m talking about.

Speaking of The Wizard of Oz, here is one of my favorite Glee songs from last night’s season finale, a remake of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which was a remake of Judy Garland’s original in the movie, to which Pink Floyd apparently wrote The Dark Side of the Moon while on copious amounts of illegal substances. I won’t spoil the finale for you though, so you can go watch the reruns this summer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to make up for this note in manliness by smashing things with a baseball bat.

CSI: Criminal Semen Investigators

Now you might hear me complain about how many things I have to do, but that is mainly because I am lazy; I actually have a very easy schedule. I mean, I’ve managed to reverse the American work week by working two days a week and getting five days off. Of course before you start saying how lucky I am, I spend those two days in Greeley, Colorado, which is a rant for another day.

Anyway, with all of that free time I could do many great things, like work out or read or volunteer in the community or figure out what the hell Snow is saying in “Informer” (try it). Of course, I do none of that. Instead, I take advantage of the wonderful invention that is TV OnDemand. This wonderful invention allows somebody like me to watch tons of TV shows without wading through stupid commercials about Sex and the City 2. It also gives me an opportunity to sit on the couch in my pink snuggie, which is another wonderful invention. Whoever makes fun of snuggies has clearly never used one. If you use a snuggie while watching TV and don’t agree with me that it’s the best thing since fizz-free roofies, I will personally show up to campus one day wearing nothing but a snuggie. I will need proof however, in the form of you sitting in a snuggie with a genuine frown on your face notarized by your local district attorney.

Anyway, back to the main point, even though I haven’t actually made a main point yet. (That’s why this site is great. If you took three paragraphs to get to your main point anywhere in work or school you would instantly fail.) One of the shows that I have begun watching again is all of the CSIs, mainly because they use songs by The Who. I remember when there was only one show. The next thing you know, they started breeding like bunnies in a box and blam, the next thing you know they are coming out with CSI: Wichita (I’m not sure what the show would be like, but I’m assuming it would revolve around Sean Penn investigating cow tippings and crop circles).

Now, I think that the shows are pretty good, especially the original. The only one I have a problem with is CSI: Miami. I have no problem with the show or the plot; I have a problem with David Caruso. Now, I have made fun of the acting skills of several people on this site, but I personally think that Caruso may be my least favorite actor of all time. For some reason, he is unable to ever make eye contact with who he is talking to or even what he is supposed to be looking at. They always show the crime scene, and there could be a headless body burning at his feet, and he would be looking with intense interest at a trash can in the opposite direction (with his sunglasses on of course, even if it is at night). Then, if somebody addresses him, he dramatically takes off his glasses, slowly raises his head, and delivers some sort of one-liner with the same tone of voice you might use to tell somebody you just found a large lump in their testicles.

Aside from Caruso’s acting, there are also a few other things that I have always found funny about CSI. For one thing, would they ever be able to solve crimes without semen? I mean, they always seem to find it everywhere, so I figure the only way you get caught doing something - like, say, robbing a bank – is if you somehow leave semen stains. In other words women will never be found guilty of a crime ever again. Also, you can’t ever leave hair anywhere, because apparently CSIs have zoom vision that enables them to see microscopic things stuck in people’s noses. I always figured that’s why I can never commit a crime; I shed hair all over the place like some sort of sheepdog with mange.

Although if you were to listen to some experts, CSI has actually made it easier to get away with committing crimes. Apparently all juries want to see today is hair and semen, as if they were some sort of Ron Jeremy fan-club. But then again, what do you expect? Do you know what kind of people get jury duty? People too stupid to weasel their way out of jury duty. Sure some people believe it is your “civic duty,” but I can’t imagine something I would hate more that doesn’t involve rusty scissors. Imagine if you were on a jury that let a guilty man go or prosecuted an innocent man? I imagine it would lead to a lifetime of regret and a feeling of personal responsibility, not unlike the feeling that everyone who saw Gigli must have.

But I feel like CSI has taught me many important life lessons. For one thing, you should never take out a life insurance policy or get in somebody’s will, because the next thing you know you are there lying on a metal table with a towel covering strategic parts of you crotch while they show exactly where in your guts the bullet went through disturbingly graphic computer images. Also, never hang around women, because they will eventually get mad at something and they are a lot more adept at swinging axes than you would have guessed. But most importantly, if you ever need to commit a crime, the best place would probably be right in front of David Caruso, because he will most likely be looking at the ground.

"That Was A Little Pitchy Dawg"

I’m not generally a fan of reality TV. But I am a fan of music, so I have to admit that my roommate and I joined millions of lonely women around the world in watching American Idol up until the season finale on Wednesday.

Now, I didn’t watch the show from the beginning of the season because unlike most people, I hate watching the auditions. If I wanted to watch retards butcher songs, I could videotape myself. I mean, these people must know that they cannot sing right? If not, somebody needs to tell them. Oh sure, you can be nice to them for a little while and say they sound great to keep their self-esteem up, but once they start auditioning for American Idol I think you need to come clean. I mean, it’s either they hear it from you or they hear it from Simon Cowell on national television and then they go into a mental breakdown and eat entire tubs of ice cream. But I’m pretty sure that a lot of these people know exactly what they are doing. Some of these bozos who flail around at auditions are more famous than the people who win the actual competition.

Thankfully, I started watching after the auditions; although I’m going to be honest the singing didn’t get much better. This was definitely not one of the better seasons talent wise. For instance, one of the people in the top five was some sixteen-year-old kid who looked (and sang) like Chicken Little and danced by just moving his hips back in forth. He looked like he was stuck in cement and was trying to get out. Plus, for some reason most of the girls this year were not that good looking, and the few that were got voted out early, including my personal favorite, Didi. Sure, she wasn’t the best singer, but so what? And before you women out there start accusing me of being incredibly sexist, I simply point to the existence of the Jonas Brothers as proof that you are hypocrites.

Anyway, there were a few singers that had some talent on the show, and thankfully the one my roommate and I were rooting for, Lee DeWyze won. He actually had a rock voice, as opposed to the wussy little tweeny bob voices that this show normally likes (yes, I’m glaring at you David Archuletta). He also sang what may be my favorite American Idol song of all time. Now to be honest, I don’t know if he should have won, because the other finalist had a pretty good night. But frankly, I never liked her, mainly because she reminds me of every other pot-smoking, tree-hugging, guitar-playing, fireside-swaying hippie chick in Boulder.

Of course, it never really matters who wins, because everybody on the show ends up making an album. And winning does not guarantee you success. For instance, I point to Fantasia, who sounds like a caged animal being stabbed with a cattle-prod. Whereas my favorite Idol alumni is Chris Daughtry, who finished fifth and who the judges actually barely let onto the show.

No, the reason you watch the finale is for the guest singers. It’s ironic that during most of the season, on a show that criticizes bad singing, they invite the worst singers that they can find. Here is a short list of the auto-tuning, lip-synching hacks they invited onto the show: Jaime Foxx, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Usher, Lady Gaga, and Ke$ha. But for some reason, at the finale they start inviting people that can actually sing, which means that they start inviting old people. Here is a list of some of the people that have appeared at finales: KISS, ZZ Top, Hall and Oates, Carlos Santana, Joe Cocker, and Lynard Skynard. I would pay to see a concert with that second list of people. The first group of people I would pay to lock in a burning building.

But this finale was a little extra special, because it was Simon Cowell’s last show. Now, he may be British and wear shirts that fit like a car shoved into a shopping bag, but he is one of the best parts of the show. He is really the only judge that knows what is going on. Randy Jackson just sits there and says “Yo,” Ellen just makes jokes all night, and Kara mumbles about emotions like a typical woman. So they had a bunch of tributes to Simon, one of which unfortunately included Paula Abdul. I am almost certain that Paula is genuinely retarded. She gave a rambling speech that made absolutely no sense. It was like they locked her in a room full of laughing gas, spun her around, put peanut butter on her tongue, and then smashed her over the head with a frying pan repeatedly before sending her on stage.

I’m a little worried about what will happen to the show. They are losing their best judge and they are clearly running out of good singers. Plus, the show is no longer the only way to get famous. Do you know how easy it is for people to become famous musicians? Check out this kid. He put this video of himself at a talent show up on YouTube and the next thing you know he gets signed to a record deal. Frankly, I’m tired of all these Biebers running around. I can’t wait until they hit puberty, and they get fat and their voice gets deep and they start getting acne and they grow hair on places other than their heads. I would know, because I was a budding teeny bop star in the making before all of that happened to me. Except I was ten.

The Eagles Have Landed

Many good things may still happen in my life, but I seriously doubt any of them will top last night. Last night, I had floor seats to the greatest band ever: the Eagles. I can now cross it off my bucket list, which actually only leaves one more thing on there (but don’t worry about me losing motivation to live because the last item on there is touch Michael Jackson’s nose).

Now there may be some of you out there saying “well, yeah, the Eagles were good. But I don’t know if they are the best of all time.” Well, you are all entitled to your opinion. I’m just here to tell you that your opinion is wrong. Every single one of their songs is great. If you are ever in a room of people when “Take It Easy” starts playing and the entire room doesn’t start singing, then I’m sorry to inform you that you are in a room full of dead people and that serial torturer is probably coming back any second now. Then again, how bad a guy can he be if he lets you listen to Eagles music before he plucks out your eyeballs? Their songs are so great my roommate Chris specifically asked that instead of “Happy Birthday,” everybody sing him “Desperado” for his birthday. I have it written in my will that “Already Gone” is to play on repeat at my funeral (although my favorite Eagles song is actually "I Can't Tell You Why”).

But if I thought they were good before, after seeing them in person I now view them as religious deities. Glenn Frye came out and joked that we were at the “Eagles Assisted Living Tour,” but these guys are far from finished. Even in their fifties they still sounded better than anybody alive today (whereas in my fifties I will probably need help peeing). Chris and I air-guitared and sang every song at the top of our lungs. Watching Joe Walsh play the guitar was probably the closest I’ve come to tears since they shot Bambi’s mom.

The only problem with going to concerts in areas with expensive seats is that you encounter pompous jerks who do not know how to have fun. For most of the night the crowd was standing up, but they sat down for some of the slower songs. During one song, Chris and I remained standing up because two girls in front of us were standing up. Then some rich old geezer behind me with a tucked in aloha shirt started yelling over and over again “Hey pretty boy, sit down.” Now as much as I love compliments about my sexy little figure, I confronted this jerk after the concert and politely informed him that if he kept insulting drunk people half his age, he was definitely not going to be around to see the Eagles next tour. Then there were people who got upset anytime somebody bumped into them or spilled something. If you people want to watch a private concert, buy the DVD your majesty. It’s cheaper. I know you didn’t pay $200 to hear me sing, but I did.

Now, there are many reasons I’m grateful that I’m born in the decade I was. I have the Internet, Megan Fox, and polio isn’t running rampant. But the music of my generation sucks. While my dad went to concerts with The Police, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Aerosmith, and Fleetwood Mac, I’m stuck with Lady Gaga dressed up like an evil space villain singing “Rama ooh lala blah blah.”

So you’ll forgive me if I prefer to listen to music from previous generations. Of course, this makes going to concerts hard. For one thing, most of the people who I would pay to see are dead. Unlike some of these people nowadays, when oldies rock stars felt like they were at the peak of their careers, they had the decency to overdose on cocaine, instead of becoming a burden to society (I’m looking at you Mr. Springsteen). And as surprising as this may sound, dead people don’t give very good live performances (although if Tupac has shown us anything, they can still make albums and charge you money for them).

And if the stars aren’t dead, most of the people at the concert with you are. I remember I went to a concert a few years ago for Roger Waters, who was the guitarist for Pink Floyd. I was sitting next to a guy named Bill, your typical aging baby boomer. He had a Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt, a beer belly, and clearly had gone through the best and worst parts of the sixties. For some reason, he was very happy to see a young person there with him, and he kept saying “So, you’re a Floyd virgin huh? I remember my first time. Oh you’re gonna love it.”

Unfortunately for Bill, the opening was some sort of weird techno act, which was some idiot spinning a disc around for what seemed like hours as if the irritating sounds he was making was music. Bored as all hell, Bill kept shouting “This sucks” in between beers. And he had a lot of beers. I’m sure back in his heyday Bill would have been unfazed, but time had clearly taken its toll, because by the time Waters came out he just fell asleep in his chair. Every once in awhile he would jerk awake and yell “F**k yeah, Pink Floyd!” before falling back asleep. And as I looked around at the crowd, most of the people were sitting in their seats, just humming to themselves in a subdued manner.

But then something magical happened. Waters began to sing “Another Brick in the Wall,” one of the greatest songs ever. And as if commanded by some unseen force, thousands of baby boomers woke up, put their hands on their knees, grunted, and summoned the strength to stand up and belt out the chorus at the top of their lungs, “hey teacher, leave those kids alone!” Even Bill was right there with them, although his version was delayed by about two seconds and contained a lot more F-words than I remember in the original (but considering the amount of alcohol that was coursing through Bill’s veins at the moment, I’m surprised he could say complete words).

You just don’t have music that unites people and moves them like that anymore. When the song ended, the crowd shuffled out, ready to go to sleep but still buzzing about a moment of their youth that they had managed to grab back from father time. It just saddens me that thirty years from now, the chorus my generation will be singing will be “Gaga ramama.” But for at least one night, I got to see the greatest band in the world and remember what real music sounds like. Or, as my friend Bill so eloquently said, “F**k yeah it’s time to rock and roll this s**t!”

I Wish I Were an Oscar Wiener

Now I told myself I wouldn’t write on last night’s Oscars, but I almost never keep my promises. Besides, I’m bored and there were actually several interesting things that happened at last night’s Oscars. Also, this is the first Academy Awards show I’ve actually ever tried to watch. Now, ABC said that this year they were going to “reboot” the Oscar format, since apparently people have begun to realize that all these things used to be was celebrities talking about their favorite subject: themselves.

And ABC did revamp the Oscars; they made them a lot longer. I’m guessing that James Cameron also directed the show, because this thing felt longer than Titanic and Avatar combined. I honestly did try to watch the whole thing through, but Saving Private Ryan was also on TV at the same time. Watching the first twenty minutes reminded me of how good that movie was, which reminded me that it somehow did not win an Oscar, which reminded me why the Academy is stupid, which reminded me why I normally don’t watch the Oscars. But I persevered and watched probably 25 percent of the Oscars (which may actually still be going on). So for those of you that missed it, here comes a factual approximation of what may or may not have happened while I may or may not have been watching.

Now there were some positive aspects to this year’s Oscars. For starters, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were actually funny as the hosts. They actually bothered to make fun of celebrities, which can be hard since many of these people have no sense of humor when it comes to themselves (also, many of them are stupid or in Penelope Cruz’s case, don’t speak even speak English). Also, they did a funny bit on Paranormal Activity, which I enjoyed because I personally thought that movie was a pile of crap (and apparently cost less to produce). I actually enjoyed Baldwin and Martin’s version, mainly because it was shorter. The other thing I liked about the Oscars is that they showed multiple shots of whoever this is. Apparently she was in Twilight. This confuses me, because if someone that looked like that was walking around during Twilight I think I would have remembered (and probably vomited a lot less). Instead, all I remember are these two retards.

Then there were the strange parts of the show. For one thing, they kept randomly cutting to footage of George Clooney, as if the camera director was a 40-year-old lonely woman. We get it; you all think that George Clooney is gorgeous, but you need to get over it because this is who he is dating, so you don’t have a chance and you need to move on. Also, there was a very Kanye-esque like moment during one of the categories that I didn’t care about, and thus did not watch. And as if the celebrities needed their egos to be pumped up even further, this year every person nominated for an acting award had another actor stand on stage for five minutes and talk about how fabulous that actor was. By the end of the night, these celebrities had so much hot air blown up their asses Meryl Streep actually floated away. And just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, they let my arch-nemesis Sean Penn on stage where he mumbled about something incoherently for five minutes.

Speaking of idiots presenting things, a lot of people were talking about Ben Stiller coming out to present an award dressed as an avatar. It seems like every year, Ben Stiller pulls some sort of joke when he presents an Oscar. This is mainly because he sucks as an actor and is never nominated for an Oscar, which means he has to try and find away to get attention, like a five-year-old kid. He somehow managed to make the moment all about him even though he was presenting an award to someone else.

Speaking of Avatar, they were this year’s New York Yankees. They spent a lot of money, were the big favorites, their boss is an arrogant a**hole and when it came to the actual awards, they sucked. Avatar only got three Oscars, and one of them was for “Best Movie Containing Seven-Foot Tall Blue People.” Now, I watched Avatar and thought it was a very entertaining movie, but it wasn’t Oscar material. I mean, it was basically The Smurfs meets Fern Gully and Pocahontas. What made it even greater is that the winner of the Best Picture was Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. Bigelow is James Cameron’s ex-wife, which I found very amusing. I mean normally when you piss off women you worry about them stabbing you or setting your house on fire, not stealing your movie awards.

Overall, I thought the awards actually went to all the right people. Sandra Bullock finally won something, and I like her because she is actually funny and humble, as her speech and this story both prove. The only thing I am surprised is that the big black girl from Precious didn’t beat Bullock. Not because I thought she was great. I actually didn’t even see the movie (I actually only saw three of the ten nominated movies actually), but Oprah liked this girl. An endorsement from Oprah pretty much guarantees you are going to win (how else can you explain Barack Obama?) and she is the most powerful force in the universe (don’t kid yourself God, you have nothing on Oprah). Normally what Oprah wants, Oprah gets, by any means necessary. Which means that Sandra Bullock better watch her blind side. Yes, I just made that pun and it was glorious and I deserve an Oscar for it and thus a fifteen minutes long rambling speech:

I would like to thank my family and friends for supporting me when nobody else thought that pun was funny because it wasn’t. I would once again like to thank this chick for showing up and as a fellow Oscar nominees you should call me. Lastly I would like to dedicate that pun to all of you who for some unknown reason have read to this point without changing the channel to watch Saving Private Ryan.

I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Or At Least Miley Cyrus

Like many Americans I, for some reason still unknown to me, spent my Sunday night watching the Grammy’s (unlike most Americans I did it wearing a pink snuggie eating spam, which might actually be illegal in Singapore). Now, the Grammy’s are just another reason for celebrities to get together and drink and get free dresses, but unlike the Oscars, I actually watch them. That is because the people at the Grammy’s are at least talented (or in the case of Jenifer Lopez, jumped the fence). Thankfully, this means that the Grammy’s really consist of about five actual awards and a whole bunch of singing. Whereas the Oscars are a bunch of boring people like Nicole Kidman talking a lot and pretending that their jobs require skill and wasn’t just reading and looking good (trust me, if acting took skill Jessica Alba would be a waitress somewhere in Texas).

The only problem sometimes with the Grammy’s is that in their effort to produce “one-of-a-kind” performances, they pair the weirdest people together, which doesn’t so much produce awe-inspiring performance as much as awkward tension. For instance, take the first duet of the night between Elton John and Lady Gaga. One was sexually confused, dressed in strange alien outfits and sings songs about dancing. The other is Lady Gaga. But the awkward pairings weren’t limited to the performers. Ke$ha and Justin Bieber were paired as presenters, but came across looking like a ten-year-old boy and his recently grounded crack-whore sister who was trying to borrow his bike so she could ride down to the abortion clinic.

Now amidst all of that there were some good performances. Coincidentally, they were all from oldies bands, which is further proof that music today sucks. Fleetwood Mac, Jeff Beck, Andrea Boccelli and Bon Jovi actually sounded good, whereas T-Pain and Jamie Foxx sort of just jumped around while a recording of their song played in the background. Then there was Eminem and Lil Wayne, who I think were rapping. It was sort of hard to tell considering CBS cut all of the sound on entire sections until they looked like some sort of retarded charades game where the answer was always “black people!” I guess I can understand, since CBS was the channel that aired the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl (for those of you who don’t know what I am referring to, surprisingly it does not involve Lady Gaga). But this is hypocritical, considering they are the same station that willingly airs David Caruso uncensored on television.

But for me the highlight of the evening was the tribute to Michael Jackson, which featured Carrie Underwood and four other not as good-looking people who we don’t really care about at this moment. The song was great, but the one thing that bothered me was that the tribute was in 3-D. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a pair of those stupid 3-D glasses just lying around, especially since I started buying generic cereal in bags. So like many of you, the video looked to me like something I would see after I drank an entire bottle of rum and had been smashed over the head with a baseball bat. I blame Avatar for this. After that movie came out, everything has to be 3-D, including C-Span. President Obama tried to get his State of the Union address to be aired in 3-D to make his finger pointing more effective, but he was warned that a 3-D image of Hilary Clinton might cause nationwide panic. Of course, Obama also wanted to show up painted in blue a riding a giant flying lizard and rally the country to fight for Ewa, but that’s a whole other story.

Of course, eventually they had to give out the actual awards. By the way, does anybody think that Stephen Colbert’s daughter was way too big a part of the show? Anyway, the whole awards thing was sort of anticlimactic, since everyone knew that Taylor Swift and Beyonce were going to win everything. In fact, in the unaired segment of the ceremony Swift was named the Pro Bowl MVP. I mean, it was so unexciting that Beyonce wasn’t even there to accept her trophy because she was backstage trying to organize her army of RoboCops (which was apparently made up of the entire unemployed population of Michigan). Of course, Taylor Swift tried to show some mock surprise when she won, but her acting made even Jessica Alba cringe. She could afford to take her time to get up on stage, since at least this time she got to make her acceptance speech with Kanye West noticeably absent (probably because she hired one of the Jonas Brothers to assassinate him).

I’m sure there were other exciting moments that happened, but I have to admit I didn’t watch the entire ceremony. Independence Day was also on TV, so I was sort of switching back and forth. Which led to me mixing up the shows a bit. I mean, at one point I could have sworn I saw Will Smith trying to kill Fergie while the aliens sang with Will.I.Am. Oh wait, never mind that’s actually right.

Ad Nausea

I’m a huge sports fan, so I love this time of year, especially knowing that somewhere in the world Tim Tebow is crying alone in complete dejection. Unfortunately, watching sports means watching commercials. As with everything, sports in today’s world are highly sponsor driven. For instance, here’s a transcript from one of this weekend’s football games:

Announcer: “And the receiver broke loose, down past the Baskin Robbins 31 yard-line, now he’s at the Century 21, avoids a tackler at the Perfect 10, and finally down at the Jack Daniel’s No. 7.”
And it’s not just the number of commercials; because television executives think men are unable to remember things that happened more than ten minutes ago normally we are stuck watching the same commercials over and over again. Of course if you are a woman and have ever tried talking to a guy during sports, I can understand why you would think we have short term memory loss. The key is that you are asking the wrong questions. For instance, instead of asking “Did you take out the trash?” or “Did you remember our anniversary?” ask things like “Who won the first Superbowl?” We have limited brain space, and frankly we don’t waste it on petty things like whether or not we might have possibly left the toilet seat up.

Anyway, back to the commercials (which is funny cause that’s what the television announcers say every other two minutes). Obviously, ad people (we call them “people” despite the fact that most of them are humorless robots) target specific demographics, and with sports that means men. The only problem is that these people forgot to ask what men think about, because anyone watching commercials during sports would assume that men get together and talk about either their erectile dysfunction, penis enlargement, or troubles peeing. I’m going to clarify things for everybody: most men do not ever talk to each other about their genitals. It’s not a subject we like to talk about with our friends, much less our doctor (especially since at the moment my doctor is lunging at my crotch with latex gloves).

Medicine commercials are the stupidest commercials of all. They start off showing really depressed people, who are crying because they are sitting on a couch by themselves because of their (fill in the blank): arthritis, depression, sleep deprivation, herpes, premature balding, acne, etc. Then the happy music starts and we are introduced to the medicine, which always sounds like some kind of alien from Star Trek, like Zoltron or Zantog. Then we see the once depressed people happy and doing fun things, like rafting, hiking, sailing, and playing the trumpet; often at the same time.

But during these happy images, the announcer in a very soft, very quick voice, begins to read off the side effects:

“Lumasil should not be taken by women who are pregnant, may become pregnant, have ever thought about being pregnant, or whose mother at one time was pregnant. Talk to your doctor if you smoke, have liver disease, or enjoy Pop-Tarts as these may lead to complications. Side effects include jock itch, diarrhea, constipation, blindness in your left eye, random sex changes, suicidal thoughts, attraction to farm animals, and slow painful death. Do not drive, operate machinery, try to walk, or expose yourself to sunlight until you know how Lumasil affects you. Remember, if you have a runny nose, take Lumasil.”

So the basic message is that this medicine will most likely kill you or make your life miserable. But do you really want to live with a runny nose? Of course if you are like most people, the only medicine commercials you actually pay attention to are the beer commercials. And if you think that beer is not a cure all, then you are an idiot. For one thing, the only side effect beer has is making the world spin way to fast in its orbit, causing you to fall down.

But the most dangerous commercials out there are the jewelry ones. It’s coming up on the holiday season, so jewelry companies around the country are putting out those corny jewelry ads hoping in vain that normal men are actually considering spending that much money on something that isn’t even edible. I mean, have you seen how much these things cost? My neighbors were showing me some jewelry online that they liked, and these things were running into the five figures. Five, as in the number after three (which is my limit frankly). I complain about five dollar Chinese food; I’m not sure how I’m supposed to cope with what amounts to a thousand dollar rock that most people couldn’t tell apart from broken glass.

These ads are dangerous because they give women the impression that there are men out there who actually buy jewelry. Then the next thing you know they want a man who opens doors for them, picks up the check, gives foot massages, and remembers their mother’s name. These men are myths; kind of like unicorns. But when women see these commercials they tend to forget that.

I actually did a study on this in high school I showed men and women a collection of magazine ads for various products and then asked them to recall as many ads as they could. The men normally just drooled on the lingerie ads and then listed off the following ads: “Big Mac, something with that hot chick, and the beer one.” The women on the other hand, proceeded to rip out the jewelry ads and start rambling on about the “Four C’s.” Apparently women judge diamonds by the Four C’s: cut, clarity, color, and carat. Notice that missing from that list is “cost,” which should always be at the top of any list regarding purchases. It’s okay, because I have my own four C’s that are guaranteed to make women happy: “cheap” “Christmas” “chocolates” from “Costco.”

Leaving A Theater Near You

So this past Thursday I went with a few of my friends to see the midnight premiere of the new movie “District 9.” Don’t ask me why; off the top of my head I can name about fifty things I would have rather done at midnight (most of which involve some form of sleeping). I’m pretty sure my friends knew this too, but they needed me to drive. Being the only reliable driver is one of the many side effects of hanging out with a lot of Asians (another is their tendency to talk about stupid Japanese cartoons and irritating music).

You see I’m not a huge movie guy, so the idea of staying up that late to see a movie perplexes me. The other thing is that when you go to the midnight premiere of a movie, the movie inevitably will always be disappointing. “District 9” was no different. For one thing, everyone in the movie had stupid British accents. The aliens spoke in weird little clicks but at least they had subtitles. I had no idea what any of the humans were saying. Also, all the action happens in five minutes and the end is disappointing (no, the movie; not your sex life).

I for one thought that “G.I Joe” was a much better movie, and no I am not ashamed to admit that I saw “G.I. Joe,” or to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure, all of my friends tried to pretend that they had class and were sophisticated and said that the movie was horrible because the acting stunk and the plot was so cliché a four-year-old could have written it while in a coma. My friend’s girlfriend stated several times that one of the actresses was horrible and her character seemed stupid and shallow. I argued that since that is how women are in real life that this actress deserved an Oscar (what I just said probably would have upset a lot of women, if women could read) and that Channing Tatum couldn’t play dead if you shot him in the face with a shotgun. But do you know what? I really don’t care, because there were awesome guns and planes and for some reason two hot women whose idea of appropriate fighting attire was made up tight leather pants, high heels and designer glasses. But my favorite part is that they spend the entire second half of the movie just blowing up France and hurting French people. So basically the entire movie was like my dreams every other night, except with Channing Tatum (and with a little less Dennis Quaid).

But of course we can’t talk about hit movies of the summer without talking about Harry Potter. Actually that was a lie, I could easily just talk about Megan Fox and Moon Bloodgood and whatever the names of the movies they were in were that escape me at the moment. Anyway, a friend decided she wanted us to go to see Harry Potter for her birthday. For one thing, I hate going to movies to hang out. My idea of fun is not sitting in a dark room and not knowing if anybody else is even awake (once again, I am not talking about your sex life).

So needless to say I wasn’t crazy about going to this movie, especially knowing I was once again going to have to listen to a bunch of people with British accents (one of whom was naked with a horse, which should definitely be illegal). What made it worse is that we were surrounded by what appeared to be an entire girl’s middle school. A preview came on for some movie called Twilight that is currently sweeping the nation (and by nation I mean everyone who shops at Old Navy and doesn’t puke upon hearing the words “Zac Effron”). Apparently it’s a movie about a boy and girl who grow up in Washington and as a result are very pale, which leads them to believe they are vampires one day while they were running around the forest smoking marijuana. When this preview came on, the entire row behind me made a shrieking sound that is making my ears bleed until this very day. This same row also critiqued the entire movie by pointing out areas where the movie strayed from the book. SPOILER ALERT: YOU SHOULD NOT READ PAST THIS POINT IF YOU DID NOT KNOW THAT DUMBLEDORE DIES IN THIS MOVIE. Wait… oh whoops. Back to my point; let’s say that Harry says “Hey look! My magic wand is infected!” the girls behind me would say “That’s wrong! In the book he said ‘Hey guys look! My magic wand is infected!” These people knew this book better than I know my alphabet.

While knowing the book can make the movie a bit anticlimactic, I don’t necessarily consider that a bad thing. I don’t like it when movies have complicated plots or sad storylines. I don’t like to be stressed or uncomfortable during movies. This is probably why I hate horror movies. I remember earlier this year we went to go see the movie “My Bloody Valentine.” Looking back on it now, considering the title of the movie and knowing I hated horror movies I should have decided to watch something a little less violent, like “Bambi.” I mean we’re not even five minutes into this movie and at least 20 people are dead. The villain killed this one girl in such a way that she resembled the Canadians in South Park, if you catch my drift (if you didn’t catch my drift, he chopped her head in half with a shovel). I spent most of the movie looking at my feet and curling into the fetal position in my chair. Frankly, I’m proud that I didn’t scream or grab onto anybody during the movie. What made it worse is that this movie was in 3-D. Making movies in 3-D has become the newest trend in the movie business, changing a truly horrible movie into a truly horrible movie that you have to watch through stupid glasses (and for those of us who already wear glasses, you have to wear these over your glasses, which makes you look like a complete retard).

Of course, not liking something has never stopped me from trying to figure out how to get easy fame and fortune from it. So I have decided to work on my own script for a summer blockbuster. Since the undead seem to be popular movie topics these days, my movie will be about a bunch of zombies who lifelessly wander around town. To spice up the movie I’ll insert a brainless bimbo to run around and scream, and to make sure the movie is diverse I’ll cast a gay guy as the lead actor. It’s perfect! I think I’ll call it “High School Musical.”

Final Answer: Just Shoot Me

Even though I am currently on summer break, my sister (who is a sophomore in high school) is still in school. Unfortunately for me, this means I have to drop her off at school in the morning, which means waking up early, something that I generally try to avoid. So now that I’m up in the morning, I’ve resumed an embarrassing habit that I have never told anyone about before: watching Live with Regis and Kelly. What, were you expecting me to say cocaine? Why would I have to wake up early in the morning to use cocaine? Why is cocaine use embarrassing?

Anyway, I love watching that show. Mainly because of Kelly Ripa, who is funny and pretty and for some reason has really muscular arms. Whereas Regis Philbin looks like a sad gerbil. I would probably still watch the show if it was called Live with a Random Hobo and Kelly, or Live with a Trained Monkey and Kelly. Regis just sits there and mumbles on about things that nobody outside of lower New York cares about while Kelly makes funny jokes and looks good. Plus, Regis has the worst taste in sports; I mean he’s a fan of the New York Yankees and Notre Dame football, which are both in my top ten list of sports teams I wouldn’t mind seeing deported to Sweden (along with the Lakers, University of Florida, and the entire National Hockey League).

I realize I may be ragging on Regis here, but I frankly think I am justified. My family used to watch Who Wants to be a Millionaire back when Regis hosted it and to me, deciding who to punch, Regis or the retarded contestant, was harder than the actual questions on the show. I mean, they would get a $1000 question that asked something like “Which of these fruits has seeds on the outside: a) strawberries b) peaches c) potatoes d) Ford F-150s.” And instead of just saying the correct answer (kiwis), the contestant will start to explain what interesting (as in boring to everybody else) event in their sad lives enlightened them to such an earth shattering realization as strawberries having seeds on the outside. It’s like therapy or those stupid ice breakers they always make you do when you go to club conventions. (Has anyone else noticed that when they ask you to name something interesting about yourself, everyone always talks about the bones they’ve broken? You don’t see me talking about my STDs to break the ice, so I don’t care that you once broke your collarbone.) Anyway, once this is done, Regis would ask “final answer?” as many times as possible, as if he were getting paid each time he said it. If one child died every time Regis said “final answer” China could stop drowning baby girls.

Anyway, getting back to my point, which was… er… oh yeah, Regis and Kelly. So anyway, I was watching an episode last week where Regis challenges a 100-year old woman named Emma Hendrickson to a bowling match. Sadly, she did not beat Regis, but she was still impressive none the less. She bowled a 64, which actually is below the average she normally posts in her bowling club. On a good day I can maybe bowl a 55. Since bowling is one of the few things to do at night in Kona, my friends and I used to go bowling a lot in high school, which most people are surprised to find out once they see how badly we suck. We would get our butts kicked in a Special Olympics bowling tournament. A friend and I once failed to break 50… with our scores combined (I had a 33, he had 10). So the fact that this 100-year old woman is still bowling these kinds of scores is inspiring. I would be happy if was peeing without any help at 50, much less still coherent at 100.

But anyway, watching Regis and Kelly along with countless elderly people around the world (the only other people in the world who wake up early) and watching this 100-year-old woman made me start thinking about getting old. I often felt that I would make a great old person. Sitting on a porch wearing adult diapers with a shotgun while farting and scowling freely sounds like something that I could get used to (actually, I already do these things). Also, nobody would tease me when I forget everything and don’t speak proper English. They would say “Aw, look at the old man.” Whereas now they just say “How the hell did you make it into college?” Speaking of college, I think dorm life is great preparation for retirement life. Think about it, we lived with other people our age, ate dinner at 5, anxiously waited for mail, and Jeopardy was a major event in our day. The only things missing were bocce ball tournaments and Viagra parties (well, at least the bocce ball…).

Anyway, I have been inspired by Ms. Hendrickson to live a long and fulfilling life. So I’ve decided that once I retire, I’m going to go on tour doing those eating challenges. You know the ones where if you eat an entire cow’s worth of steak you get it for free and they give you a cheap T-shirt? Those. I also plan to die while doing one of these when I’m 100. I’ll just fall face first into a five-pound steak in the middle of one of my greatest feats, like Houdini. Maybe Regis and Kelly will do a story on me and I will be a Jeopardy clue. And of course Regis Philbin and Alex Trebek will still be hosting these shows. Because evil never dies.

Breaking News: You Are An Idiot

This past Friday I was sitting in the San Francisco Airport eating a clam chowder sourdough bread bowl and watching CNN. Seeing as I was eating, not studying, and home was a few hours away, I was pretty happy. Then this evil sound reached my brain and my ears started to gush blood, and sure enough I looked up at the airport TV and saw: Nancy Grace.

Okay, so maybe you live a blessed existence and have no idea who Nancy Grace is. Nancy Grace is a TV personality on the days that she isn’t ruling over the depths of hell. She has a show on CNN which pretty much just consists of her yelling and mocking her guests, callers, and most of the human population in general. Do you remember hearing about those experiments where they would raise children in cages and just feed them and not give them any love or human contact and they would die? Well, it turns out they didn’t actually die; they grow up into people like Nancy Grace. Now, she says that she empathizes with victims, but I have a hard time believing that this creature is even capable of feeling empathy. I wouldn’t ever be that angry even with a live badger clamped onto my nose. It’s like her menstrual cycle got caught in PMS mode. I’m pretty sure that her pre-show ritual is biting off the head of a baby bunny rabbit. She used to be a prosecuting attorney, and if I were on a jury I would put in a guilty verdict simply out of fear that she would track me down and kick down my door holding a shotgun and a crowbar.

But Nancy Grace is not the only one out there. For whatever reason (as with everything else, I’m blaming it on American Idol and Simon Cowell), TV producers think we love getting advice from angry people. It’s like getting your news at your anger management meetings. Have you ever watched that show “Mad Money” on CNBC with that guy Jim Cramer? The show is just this guy yelling out financial advice and berating his callers with the same tone you might use to yell at your dog if it ate your newborn child. I’m sure he gives very sound advice; I just never hear it because whenever I watch his show I end up cowering in the nearest corner and trying to apologize for my investment portfolio to whoever will listen. And I don’t even know what an investment portfolio is. I would much rather get my financial advice from the E*Trade babies (not only are they calmer, they sing “Broken Wings” by Mr. Mister, one of my favorite groups).

But CNN is still the place to go if you want to listen to people who think that the rest of the population wakes up in the morning and eats lead paint chips for breakfast. Apparently, they think that people don’t watch TV shows if all they do is report the news. Although to be honest, I know I don’t. I mean, all the news reports are that society basically sucks right now, and I don’t need that from my news channel. If I want to get depressed about the state of humanity I can just change the channel to MTV. The thing about news channels is that there is only so much news to report. After awhile, you realize you are just watching the same 15-minute sequence over and over again. You know you’re running out of news when you bring in three analysts to dissect President Obama’s stand-up routine at the White House Correspondents dinner. (I would give him a B; at one point he made a joke about Dick Cheney’s memoirs being titled “How to Shoot People in the Face and Torture.” Maybe it’s just me, but the fact that Dick Cheney has done these things could be one reason you might not want to make fun of the man.)

So in their attempt to make the news interesting, news networks have hired outsized personalities to make you feel like an uneducated idiot (then again, watching almost anything on TV gives me that feeling). You could ask these people a question about the U.S’s relationship with the sovereign nation of Durkastanislav and they would rant for ten minutes about how the government is mishandling the situation and what their plan is even though 1.they know nothing about Durkastanislav because 2. I just made up that country. But still, you better agree with what they say, or else Nancy Grace will show up at your door with a shotgun. And unlike Dick Cheney, she always finishes the job.

And the Oscar Goes To...

So apparently the Academy Awards happened this past Sunday. That was sarcastic of course. I know when the Oscars are handed out; it’s just that I don’t care. I have not watched more than five minutes of the Oscars in my entire life; I would rather watch Special Olympics curling. If you ask me the Oscars are just another excuse for rich people to dress up, give each other awards, drink champagne and eat expensive sushi (not unlike those “Save the Endangered North Indonesian Spotted Cricket” banquets PETA always holds). But of course, society completely disregards what I say and watches the Oscars anyway.

The evening starts off with what is possibly the most pretentious event in the world: the red carpet. I mean, when you break it down, it’s famous people coming down from their castles in lala land and allowing normal people to look at how fabulous they are. Thank you famous people! Because I have no idea how I would live if I couldn’t see Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus walk around as if they somehow contributed to society in some way, which they don’t (at least positively). When people tell me that the U.S is the most arrogant country in the world, I start to argue but then I remember the red carpet. (Truth be told, I still say that the French are even worse than us. I mean, they’re snobby all the time, but the only things they do are sit in cafes and get invaded by armies.)

The worst part about the red carpet is the whole fashion craze. All you see on the internet for the week after the Oscars is who dressed well on the red carpet and who didn’t. This is actually pretty stupid when you think about it, because these sites always ends up saying that the hot stars dressed well and the ugly ones didn’t. For instance, Megan Fox could wear paper bags on her feet and a vomit covered wife-beater and still look good while Mickey Rourke could wear the most stylish outfit in the world and still look like a homeless bum who stole a suit from Men’s Warehouse and was then punched repeatedly in the face. There may be nothing more depressing in a time of economic difficulty than finding out that these people are wearing the entire gross domestic income of some countries. I mean, Angelina Jolie says she cares about poor children, yet wears an outfit that could probably feed all the children of Kenya lobster bisque for the rest of their lives.

Once the stars are tired of being looked at (okay, so they never really do, but the show would never start if they waited), the ceremony begins. They trot out some poor guy who has to try and coax laughs out of a crowd that knows nothing that happens outside of their mansions and has an average IQ of ten. This year the host was Hugh Jackman, who I don’t particularly mind, even though he is either Australian, British or gay (I always have trouble distinguishing between those three). His job is to keep us occupied between the presenters, who are famous people that all have one thing in common: they didn’t get nominated.

Almost everybody watches the Oscars to see the big awards, but as it turns out, there are a lot of people involved in making a movie that we don’t care about. What’s even worse is they give these people the chance to talk, which I think we should never let famous stupid people do. At least at the Grammy’s there’s singing and dancing. All the Oscars have are little five second clips of movies of the nominees. Eventually, they announce the winners of the category’s we actually care about. Of course, it’s always a little anti-climactic, since the favorites always win (just another reason sports are better than movies). All the Academy looks for are movies that normal people don’t watch; and retarded, ugly, drug-addicted, gay, and old people are always a plus. (Who is the Academy anyway? It sounds like some kind of cult. Is that their actual job, just to watch movies in their basements while their mothers make them hot pockets?)

Anyway, I didn’t have a problem with this year’s winners except for Sean Penn. I don’t know why, but I hate Sean Penn. For one thing, I don’t think he is a very good actor (even though I don’t think I’ve ever watched a movie with Sean Penn in it, but facts are irrelevant to my opinions). Also, he looks like a drunk mongoose with a dead weasel perched on his head. Plus he just trots around Hollywood protesting everything. It doesn’t even need to be a good cause, as long as it protests something he will go for it. I could start up a petition to ban speaking English in colleges and he would get behind it.

So finally the Oscars ended (I think) and the stars went on to do whatever it is they do after these things (get DUIs and flash their crotches at camera carrying perverts). This a good thing, because now the summer movies come out, and summer movies don’t care about Oscars, which means I might actually want to watch them.

Survivor: Washington D.C.

In my continuing effort to do nothing with my life, I was watching Sports Center this past week when a breaking update came on. Apparently, ex-NFL lineman Warren Sapp had just finished second on Dancing with the Stars. For those of you who may be unaware of what Dancing With the Stars is (don’t ask me who isn’t; maybe Amish people, but they shouldn’t be reading this anyway), Dancing With the Stars is a reality show in which celebrities compete in a dancing competition with trained professional dancers. Now when I say celebrities, what I actually mean are wash-ups (Lance Bass), sports stars (the aforementioned Sapp), people you have never heard of (who the hell is Cody Linley?), and dead people (Cloris Leachman). These people are on this show only because Hollywood Squares is no longer on the air and because a reality show in which washed-up celebs are fed to sharks and lions doesn’t exist yet (don’t worry, Fox is working on it and Gilbert Gottfried has already been scheduled to be eaten alive by rabid beavers).

Apparently Sapp finished second to ex-famous hot person Brooke Burke, famous for … er… wait, was she in… no… Okay so I don’t know why she is famous. But the results were not a big surprise to me. For one thing, even though past sports figures have had success on the show, have you seen Warren Sapp? I love the guy, but he is a big fat dude. Then there is Brooke Burke, and I may not know why she is famous, but she is hot. Every week Sapp comes out in a suit with enough fabric in it to house the entire country of Ghana in canvas tents while Burke’s outfit never seems to be finished, in the sense that it is missing many key parts (maybe they don’t have time to sew her outfit cause it takes too long to make Sapp’s).

Anyways, after hearing about how many people voted for the winner, and seeing as the winner was clearly the right choice, I had a thought: We should select our President in a reality show! I mean, how much more ridiculous can it be than the Electoral College? Every year it seems as if the state of Ohio single-handedly decides the president. In this past election, Obama was declared the winner before the polls in Hawaii were even closed! So we are going to decide the next President through a reality show.

And on top of deciding the President, it would be entertaining! Wouldn’t it be awesome to watch the Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney arguing and bickering their way around the world in The Amazing Race? Or to watch John McCain revert to his days in Vietnam POW camps by eating rats on Survivor? We could watch Hillary Clinton try and seduce Joe the Plumber in The Bachelorette; Bill Clinton and John Edwards fool around in Wife Swap; Barack Obama overcome his past drug habits in Celebrity Rehab; Dennis Kucinich hunt down aliens in UFO Hunters; Sarah Palin give parenting tips on Super Nanny (after all, she does have a pregnant child, a retarded child, a military child, a gay child, adopted child, a blind child, a deaf child, and a dog, so what hasn’t she seen?).

But I think that the ultimate reality show to determine our new president is none other than American Idol. Imagine the possibilities…

Ryan Seacrest: Welcome everybody to American Idol. Last night our contestants gave their final performance and tonight, we will decide your American President. It’ll be a close race, and we had some amazing performances last night. Barack Obama started off the night with a stirring rendition of David Bowie’s “Changes.” Next up were John McCain singing “War” by Edwin Starr and Hillary Clinton singing Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

Simon: I felt that all three were solid, but Obama did the best job of connecting with the crowd. He had the “it” factor. I felt McCain wasn’t able to identify with his audience, and I think Hillary was appealing to too small a crowd.

Seacrest: Not all of our contestants were able to swoon the judges. Ralph Nader’s version of Paramore’s “Here We Go Again” was uninspiring and Rudy Giuliani made Frank Sinatra turn in his grave with a horrible version of “New York, New York.” Ron Paul butchered Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Texas Flood” and John Edwards drew boos from the crowd while singing Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”

Randy: Yo dogs, was a little pitchy for me. Definitely not your best performances. That ain’t getting into my dawg pound.

Paula: You know what? You’re all winners. You all make me happy. You all will be presidents of some country some day. I love you all.

Simon: Stupid bimbo. I have heard better singing from the choir at a school for the deaf. It sounded like singing on a bus. A short yellow bus. None of you will ever be president.

Seacrest: Well, after 50 million votes and 10 million commercial breaks, we have the results. The 44^th President of the United States is… oh god.

Sanjaya: Hey everybody!