Oscar [the Grouch]

Random Oscar™ness...

• I'm a Hugh Jackman fan, so would like to see him kick some Billy Crystal ass...not sure it's working out that way. Sounds like I missed his better moments.

• Steve Martin hasn't aged in thirty years...He's the new Gene Hackman. Tina Fey has chunks of Sarah Palin in her stool.

• Ben Stiller? To me, you're rarely "the funny guy." And tonight you are nowhere close. The people in the audience who appear to be eating this crap up? They're actors.

• Jack Black? Now THAT guy's funny, and seems like a cool guy to know. Stiller? Seems like he'd be a dick.

• Did they show anyone in the crowd besides Brad and Angelina when Jennifer Aniston was onstage?

• Advice to Sarah Jessica Parker: Avoid any kind of dress reminiscent of Glenda the Good Witch. Yeah, she was the good witch, but you should be avoiding anything witch-like, at all.

• "Domo Arigato, Mr Roboto," totally saved what could have been the most awkward Oscar speech ever.

• What was Jessica Biel thinking?

• I eagerly awaited "Pineapple Express" based on its hilarious trailer, but the reviews were not good. After watching that segment, I refuse to believe the film isn't totally hysterical—Franco and Rogan have too much chemistry.

• Based on the clips I've seen, (Seymour) Philip Seymour Hoffman is nominated in the wrong category. Or is everyone else relegated to Supporting status in a Meryl Streep movie?

• Obligatory Heath Ledger Section: I'm happy to say I was pimping his Oscar early. I am sorry to say I still haven't seen the movie—Mrs F is too creeped out by Ledger's Joker, and I feel like I need to set up the surround sound and be the only one home before I can rent it...

A good Joker clip is something I've been craving all night, and this stupid presentation format is screwing that up. You want to bring out former winners to introduce the nominees and go down on them, fine. But have them introduce a fucking clip already. Those clips are all I ever see of most of these movies and it's critical to me forming my snap judgments!

Good. After that intro by Kevin Kline, if Ledger didn't win the Earth would have tumbled off its axis...

Please put a non-Joker shot of Ledger onstage while his family walks up to accept his award? Please?

• "Benjamin Button" seems to be winning WAY too many awards. Frankly, so does "Slumdog Millionaire." Also, some guy associated with "Slumdog" looks like the bastard child of Rudy Guiliani and Martin Scorsese...

• In my mind, Gus Van Sant looks like James LeGros, not Oliver Stone.

• I am totally on the Mickey Rourke Comeback Bandwagon...

• This non-clip, former-winner ass-kiss format is getting even worse...What's more painful? Watching the Best Actress presenters gush over the nominees? Or watching the nominees awkwardly mouth "thank you", "love you..."

• Melissa Leo just got fucking robbed. Not because she should have won—that I can't say—but she's a comparative nobody who was nominated for FUCKING BEST ACTRESS alongside Meryl Fucking Streep, etc. She'll never be back there again, and that's her Oscar moment?

Any other year, there'd be some powerful scene shown, and everyone'd be all "Wow. That's pretty fucking intense/good/whatever."

This year? She gets Halle Berry reminiscing about how she was once in a little film. A total disservice to someone like Leo, who could use the exposure, and to the audience, who should get to see her actually, I don't know... act?

• Mickey Rourke knows how to play the awkward tribute off...a wave of the pinky ring mixed with a little Joe Biden finger-gun. That guy rocks. Kinda hoping he wins...I like the redemption angle here.

• I can't help thinking Hollywood is a little too in love with it's own liberalness with all this "Milk"-love. I'm sure Penn is great and all, Brolin, too. But this smacks of Prop 8 payback, and Penn's speech (and the writer's, earlier), while admirable, cinches it.

• After reading Rourke's wiki-bio, and how he slept in a closet with his dog—his only friend in the world at the time—and how he gave that dog mouth-to-mouth for 45 minutes when he died, kinda makes me wish he'd completed the comeback with the gold.

• I also think Hollywood is going overboard with this reward the alternative foreign film schtick with "Slumdog". I'd like to see it, but I suspect it can't live up to THIS hype.

A Lifetime of Music—Year By Year

Not a blog meme, but something sent to me via email, but it's tailor-made for blogging and passing along...

Start at the wikipedia page of the year of your birth, and pick the best (or your favorite) album from each year you've been alive.

1968—Beggars Banquet - The Rolling Stones
1969—Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
1970—Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel
1971—Sticky Fingers - The Rolling Stones
1972—Exile on Main St. - The Rolling Stones
1973—Countdown to Ecstasy - Steely Dan
1974—Feats Don't Fail Me Now - Little Feat
1975—Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan
1976—2112 - Rush
1977—Seconds Out (live) - Genesis
1978—Van Halen - Van Halen (debut)
1979—London Calling - The Clash
1980—Peter Gabriel(Melting) - Peter Gabriel
1981—Moving Pictures - Rush
1982—Three Sides Live – Genesis
1983—Texas Flood - Stevie Ray Vaughan
1984—Couldn't Stand the Weather - Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
1985—The Firm - The Firm
1986—Graceland - Paul Simon
1987—The Joshua Tree - U2
1988—It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy
1989—Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz
1990—Shake Your Money Maker - The Black Crowes (debut)

Man, some of those were really tough—1969, 1976 and 1978 were standout years. My selections were based heavily on longevity and my current opinion over my feelings at the time—in some cases I was uninitiated to (Feat, SRV) or even disliked (Kravitz) the album I now select as a favorite.

It's late and stopping right before the upheaval of my taste in the 90s seems like a good place to call it a night... to be continued...

UPDATE: Back at it...

1991—Nevermind - Nirvana
I have avoided ties thusfar, and to keep that streak alive, I will give Nevermind the edge over Pearl Jam's Ten by a scruffy beard hair.

Quite possibly the greatest year in the history of music, 1991 was a watershed moment for me. During my years in college, and immediately after, I became addicted to hi-fi, bought CDs by the dozens hundreds, and essentially re-lived the previous decades of rock anew via expensive stereo. I suddenly have a real job and money, I turn around and there is just fantastic album after fantastic album coming out from countless new or breaking artists in genres of music unknown to me or previously non-existent. Not to mention comebacks from established acts...Here's just a taste of what 1991 had to offer:

Gish - The Smashing Pumpkins
Badmotorfinger - Soundgarden
Girlfriend - Matthew Sweet
Achtung Baby - U2
Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Out of Time - R.E.M.

Are you fucking kidding me? Most of those would have won in any other year.

1992—Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos
That's a total upset! But, looking at the list, it's the one that stands apart. Most of the also-rans had other great years and albums besides their 1992 releases, but this was absolutely the peak for Amos, and a big album for me. (Truth be told, dada's Puzzle would win if it made wikipedia's list.)

While perhaps not as revolutionary as the previous year, 1992 was every bit as strong. Check it out...
The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion - The Black Crowes
Copper Blue - Sugar
Core - Stone Temple Pilots
Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine
Dirt - Alice in Chains

1993—Siamese Dream - The Smashing Pumpkins
Moved back to NY, and was in full WDRE-mode. This was really the year of the chick rock for me...Liz Phair, Breeders, Belly, etc.

The early '90s is really when I was in my musical "nirvana." I was making even more money and living in NY, going to concerts all the time, and the radio was just kicking ass. That said, I'm going to try and rein it in and bring these entries back down to one.

1994—Throwing Copper - Live
1995—The Bends - Radiohead
This should probably be Emmylou Harris' Wrecking Ball, but I can't find it on the list...
1996—Odelay - Beck
1997—The Colour and the Shape - Foo Fighters
1998—Gentleman's Blues - Cracker

NOTE: The stuff I like is still good, but much of it is falling shy of wikipedia's lists—there is a lot of crap in there now. Many of the early nineties greats have fallen apart by now...

1999—The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner - Ben Folds Five
2000—All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2
After the tough choices faced in the nineties, 2000 was shockingly weak. I went up and own the list repeatedly looking for an album that even approached the stature of the previous years. It wasn't there. Ultimately, it was between mediocre Elliott Smith and mediocre U2...

2001—Comfort Eagle - Cake
Even weaker than 2000.

2002—One by One - Foo Fighters
The fact that their label tried to spike Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot should tell why these are the years I stopped listening to anything but NPR...

2003—Elephant - The White Stripes
Awesome album, but I didn't find it until years later...still in my music sabbatical it would seem. This wiki list is shit.

2004—Fucking garbage. There are only a handful on this list I would even play never mind call "favorite or best." I'll give it to U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, I guess. I am really disgruntled right now.

2005—Get Behind Me Satan - The White Stripes
Ah, redemption. This album single-handedly yanked me from my music coma. Props to Mrs F for making me check it out. Otherwise I might still be wandering in the desert. It's why I worship at the alter of Jack White. I owe him. Big time.

2006—Broken Boy Soldiers - The Raconteurs (see above)

2007—Because of the Times - Kings of Leon

And as if there was any doubt...

2008—Consolers of the Lonely—The Raconteurs
Asserting itself as an all-time great album. I can't get enough of it. Don;t think I've gone more than a day or two without playing some of it.

Phew. Not sure if that was fun or torture, but there it is.

(Mike, Toast, Smitty, Fridge, Angelos, Rickey and the rest of you should take this opportunity to get crackin'. Rob, I expect yours in the comments.)

The Furious Rules — No. 296

Stores or places of business that have double glass doors must unlock BOTH doors.

Nothing pisses me off more than walking up to an entrance and having only a 50/50 shot of grabbing the right handle. Okay, fine, there are myriad things that piss me off more, but this practice is bullshit and needs to stop. If for some stupid reason they have to leave one locked, they better make it damn clear which door is in use.

The Furious Rules — No. 436:

The "Word of the Year" needs to actually be a fucking word.

Merriam-Webster, this is bullshit.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - Expect cheers among hardcore online game enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, expect them to "w00t."

"W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness, topped all other terms in the Springfield dictionary publisher's online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.

Merriam-Webster's president, John Morse, said "w00t" was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.

I say it's crap because it blends number and letters with incalculable dorkiness. "Hardcore online game enthusiasts" should expect kidney-punches if they "w00t" around Mr. Furious.