Twinkle, Twinkle, Movie Star

20 Reasons I LOVE Awards Shows (not necessarily in preferential order):



20) I love movies, even more now than when I was younger. (I was a serious kid, too serious.)

19) The attire. I admit it; I sit on my sofa like Caesar and issue a thumbs-up or down for every presenter and winner as they come on stage. It’s fun, too, to check out the internet the next day to see who agrees with me or not.

18) The opening – especially with the SAG awards. When the actors say their little intros it feels like an inside joke. Who doesn’t want to be on the inside of a movie/TV star’s inside joke? (PS – This year, Eddie Falco’s opening was hilarious.)

17) I love being right – when the nominee I think should win actually does, I get a little giddy.

16) I don’t mind being wrong – when the winner is a surprise to me, that’s okay too.

15) A hearty addition to my Netflix queue. Last year I actually watched the Oscars with pen and paper in hand; it’s necessary when some of the nominees haven’t even hit theaters yet. Crazy Heart? Congratulations, Jeff Bridges, now what was that about?

14) Invariably, somebody gets played off for talking too long – always funny.

13) The totally-scripted-but-act-natural dialogue that occurs between presenters before they actually get to announcing the nominees.

12) When cameras cut to the faces of the nominees who did not win.

11) When a winner is genuinely shocked and tongue-tied at the podium. Drew Barrymore was a bumbling mess at the Golden Globes and the SAG awards; I like her more now than ever.

10) Listening to laymen talk about their predictions; for a brief moment, everyone turns into a grad student studying film. (Like me, for instance…)

9) I get to imagine the wonderful, talent friends I have who will someday be at such glamorous events.

8) The announcer is usually a woman. (Take that, various commercials for goods and services who think that a male voice equals authority!)

7) When the host is great (I’m looking at you, Ellen DeGeneres).

6) Texting my friends during the show with such 140-character-or-less gold as “I don’t care if she DID win, I’m still not going to see it”, and “Clearly somebody called in a favor.”

5) I like cheering for the actors who I think are probably good and interesting people in real life. (Yay! Michael C. Hall!)

4) For the brief amount of time that the camera cuts to the audience, I like watching the inter-generational mingling of Hollywood past, Hollywood present, and Hollywood future.

3) The soapbox moment – there’s gotta be at least one.

2) Watching the movie awards is more productive than watching an actual movie because I can get things done during commercial breaks.

1) Helps me visualize for when I get there. You know, as a nominee, guest of a nominee, an announcer, an usher...whatever - I'm flexible!

Ring the Alarm

I know that there’s nothing funny about theft – neither car theft nor home burglary nor any other kind tickle my funny bone, but I was just wondering if we could make the alarms themselves a little more…entertaining?

Our house alarm went off at 5:30 am a few days ago (everything is fine – triggered by a frozen pipe that burst in the basement…everything is sort of fine), and it has that terrible muted, fog horn thing going on. And we all know and loathe that now ubiquitous car alarm sound – the one that’s a combination of a house alarm, a clock radio alarm, a fire truck, a school bell and sirens (as in the ones who tried to lure Odysseus and his men to crash themselves into the jagged, pointy shore).

Anyway, you’d recognize an alarm as an alarm if it’s triggered unsuspectingly in the middle of the night or stupid o’clock in the morning. So why can’t we have different sounds – or phrases? Oh, or favorite songs or movie lines?! I nominate the following for consideration to make car and house alarms more (ahem) fun:

10. “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!”

9. Riding Along in My Automobile by Chuck Berry

8. “Back up! Back up! Mind ya’ bid-ness that’s all, just mind ya’ bid-ness!”

7. “Woo-Hoo! I’m the king of the world!”

6. “That’s what she said! That’s what she said! That’s what she said!”

5. “Goooood morning, Vietnam!”

4. The famous scream from Home Alone

3. Samuel Jackson narrating any number of warning phrases

2. Christopher Walken narrating any number of warning phrases

1. “I’m really happy for you. I’m gonna let you finish, but _______ was one of the best thieves of all time.”*


* This one is customizable!
You can input the name of your favorite larceny legend from history!

Picture That

Can they do that?

In two days I read about two separate instances of the President and First Lady’s images being used for advertising – without their permission. First PETA uses Photoshop to put Mrs. Obama in an ad, and then Weatherproof finds a photo of President Obama on the Great Wall of China (that’s “President”, NYT, not “Mr.”) and they blow it up and throw it up on a billboard in Manhattan – 41st and 7th Ave.

According to the Associated Press, the coat company paid them for use of the image, but it was up to the licensing party (in this case, Weatherproof) to obtain the necessary clearances. So here we go passing the buck. Associated Press says, “we thought you were gonna do it!” Weatherproof says, “Huh? We bought it from you; we thought you were gonna do it!” Meanwhile a larger than life President Obama is endorsing this press-mongering coat company against his will. (Sure, he looks dashing, but that’s not the point.) Not to mention, for a short time Weatherproof marketed the coat on their website as “the Obama jacket.”

One thing I can say for Weatherproof, at least they used an less familiar image where Obama is actually wearing their merchandise, and not an oft-seen, official press photo. Hello, PETA? Are you listening? The photo of Sister First Lady in her sleeveless, black shift dress with a double string of pearls has been everywhere! Not to mention in the PETA ad she is the one woman standing completely face forward. Were you trying to get caught, PETA?

I know it’s been a long time since the nation has had such a young, vibrant and attractive first family, but this feels really irreverent to me. What’s next? Somebody takes photos of Sasha and Malia and puts their faces on a box of cereal? Sure, the Obamas want to be/appear accessible and of the people, but respect the office and personal privacy. Plus, they seem cool enough – you probably could’ve just asked.

Is it rude to return to one’s blog without doing the requisite New Year post, when such posts are undoubtedly all over the place and we’re already at the 6th day of January? Hope not. Moving on…

My good friend gave me a calendar in August of last year. It was one of those spiral notebook style desk calendars with only the date printed and not the year. I keep this calendar on my makeshift nightstand, and on New Year’s Day I flipped all the pages back and started anew. It was a physical epiphany.

Flipping those calendar pages symbolized for me that any new beginning only puts the past behind us; it doesn’t make it disappear. Of course, I know logically that the past does not disappear, but sometimes that’s what we’d prefer. How much better would it be if our sadness, mistakes and embarrassments had never happened at all? So, we count down the best of it and say goodbye to the rest of it. So long, 2009, you ain’t gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell out of here!

The calendar uses both sides of each page, so the reverse of each day is another day. This sparked another lesson for me, one that I’d heard many times before. My father says that wherever you are in life, at some moment in time you made an appointment to be there. As I look at both sides of each calendar page, I wonder how my days will be connected – how my determination in January will pay off in May or if my indiscretions in December will hurt me come April.

I am a huge fan of fresh starts, and whenever I wanted to make a change in my life I waited for the next beginning to, well, begin. I needed a new year or my birthday day (one’s personal new year) or the first of the month or the start of a week. I told myself it was a cleaner start; I would have more resolve. However, until that start date I indulged in whatever behavior I was preparing to alter or relinquish. The cycle usually went like this: 1) make intention to change 2) set date to implement change 3) change for a short time 4) relapse and bemoan 5) repeat [eventually].

That didn’t really work for me, so as of late whenever I’ve want to do something differently – I do it as soon as possible. This can range from immediately to tomorrow to the next opportunity to do so. So far, that’s working out much better. I don’t need a new year or a Monday or a whatever to change. We like to use the phrase “start from scratch” as if that is the very beginning – our “day 1” our new year – but it’s not. By the time we’re scratching, we’ve already been motivated to do so; something has already happened. So why not start from itch and get a head start on your fresh start?

Well,how do you like that? This turned into a New Year's post after all!

Infinite In Between

Is it rude to return to one’s blog without doing the requisite New Year post, when such posts are undoubtedly all over the place and we’re already at the 6th day of January? Hope not. Moving on…


My good friend gave me a calendar in August of last year. It was one of those spiral notebook style desk calendars with only the date printed and not the year. I keep this calendar on my makeshift nightstand, and on New Year’s Day I flipped all the pages back and started anew. It was a physical epiphany.

Flipping those calendar pages symbolized for me that any new beginning only puts the past behind us; it doesn’t make it disappear. Of course, I know logically that the past does not disappear, but sometimes that’s what we’d prefer. How much better would it be if our sadness, mistakes and embarrassments had never happened at all? So, we count down the best of it and say goodbye to the rest of it. So long, 2009, you ain’t gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell out of here!

The calendar uses both sides of each page, so the reverse of each day is another day. This sparked another lesson for me, one that I’d heard many times before. My father says that wherever you are in life, at some moment in time you made an appointment to be there. As I look at both sides of each calendar page, I wonder how my days will be connected – how my determination in January will pay off in May or if my indiscretions in December will hurt me come April.

I am a huge fan of fresh starts, and whenever I wanted to make a change in my life I waited for the next beginning to, well, begin. I needed a new year or my birthday day (one’s personal new year) or the first of the month or the start of a week. I told myself it was a cleaner start; I would have more resolve. However, until that start date I indulged in whatever behavior I was preparing to alter or relinquish. The cycle usually went like this: 1) make intention to change 2) set date to implement change 3) change for a short time 4) relapse and bemoan 5) repeat [eventually].

That didn’t really work for me, so as of late whenever I’ve want to do something differently – I do it as soon as possible. This can range from immediately to tomorrow to the next opportunity to do so. So far, that’s working out much better. I don’t need a new year or a Monday or a whatever to change. We like to use the phrase “start from scratch” as if that is the very beginning – our “day 1” our new year – but it’s not. By the time we’re scratching, we’ve already been motivated to do so; something has already happened. So why not start from itch and get a head start on your fresh start?


Well, how do you like that? This turned into a New Year's post after all.