Oscar Picks (not predictions as previously reported)

The following are my picks for this year's Oscars. I have left out any categories where I didn't see any of the films. The only major nominee I didn't see was Milk. I meant to see it, but when I got around to seeing it, it was no longer at the local theaters.

Best Movie: Slumdog Millionaire
You may notice based on the picks below that I really liked this movie. Doesn't hurt that I love all his other films.

Best Director: Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actress: Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler
I didn't see Sean Penn in Milk

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams - Doubt
I didn't see Penelope Cruz in Vicky Christina Barcelona

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

Best Original Screenplay: In Bruges
The only other one I saw was WALL-E and I didn't like that.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire

Music (Score): Slumdog Millionaire

Music (Song): O' Saya - Slumdog Millionaire

Best Animated Film: Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E will win, but I didn't like it.

Art Direction: The Dark Knight

Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire

Costume Design: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I didn't see The Duchess and that looks like the kind of movie to win.

Documentary: Man on Wire
It's the only one I saw, but it was excellent

Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire

Foreign Language Film: didn't see any but I heard The Class and Waltz with Bashir are great

Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Sound Editing: Iron Man

Sound Mixing: Wanted

Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Here are some predictions not specifically related to the nominations themselves.

Wolverine as a host? Not great.

Best dressed: Anne Hathaway

Worst Dressed: Marisa Tomei

Most Entertaining Presenter: Ellen Page

Most Entertaining Acceptance Speech: Philippe Petit - Man on Wire (best doc)

Most Boring Acceptance Speech: winner for Costume Design

Worst Most-Boring Segment: Lifetime achievement award

Most Bizarre Appearance: Mickey Rourke

Here are some movies that I really enjoylast year that aren't likely to get any Oscar love.

• Tropic Thunder

• Pineapple Express

• Hellboy II

• Frost/Nixon

• The Dark Knight

• RocknRolla

• Zack and Miri Make a Porno

• Revolutionary Road

Click a Word - Any Word

I just discovered something very cool on the New York Times website. They have enabled a reference or dictionary search for any word in any article.

The following note appears at the bottom of articles. "To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry."

Unlike many other sites that have visible hyperlinks for keywords that you can click on, this applies to the whole article. The words are shown in a normal format (not underlined or blue). Ordinarily, I like links to be obvious from a useability standpoint, but in this instance, it is not necessary, nor desirable to make every word look like a link.

This feature may have been around for a while, but this is the first time I've seen it, and I felt compelled to comment. I think it is a really effective use of technology to make the text of an article more relevant that it otherwise might be. Kudos NYT!

Chinese Ladies for Marriage

I saw this ad while playing Scrabulous. Kind of a bizarre subject for an ad (maybe there's more to Scrablulous players that I want to know about). What made me laugh though was the fact that 4 of the 6 women are tagged as "New". The other two are last year's models? Demos maybe?

In Defense of Medium!

What happened to medium?

We all used to watch TV on medium size screens, now we watch either on big-screen TVs or hand-held devices like iPods. I like my big TV and my video iPod, don't get me wrong. I'm just wondering when medium went out of style.

When you order a small drink at a movie, you are told that they no longer have small. You can have Medium, Large or Extra-Large (even trash-can size). So, there's no small. Or is there??? Doesn't this just mean the Medium is Small. Sucks to be demoted, especially in such a public way. (Clothes are the same way, medium is really small - or maybe that's relative - never mind)

On the roads one often finds oneself between a Suburban and a Mini. Whatever happened to the mid-size cars? Even at the car-rental place you reserve a medium size car. When you get there, they don't have any mid-size. How 'bout an upgrade to a full-size. I wonder if they ever had the mid-size there in the first place. Hmm.

Of course there is the show Medium, but this post is about things that are 'medium', not 'mediocre'.

Goodbye Analog!

I have been on a mission recently to digitize everything analog in my life. Where once this was impractical due to expensive technology and disk space, this has now become unimpractical (eat that spell-checker!) and pretty inexpensive.

So, what do I mean by digitize everything analog? One word - pictures, videos and music (eat that grammar-checker!).

So, why do I want to digitize everything?

A. Digital content doesn't degrade, nor does it get destroyed in a fire or flood (provided that you practice safe backups).
2. Analog content cannot easily be shared.
iii. Digital content doesn't take up very much space (this is important when you have kind of a small house)

I had a few vhs tapes that I wanted to copy to DVD. I had done this a short while ago through a guy who did it for only $6.00 per tape. He closed up his business so I went looking elsewhere. The other local place was charging $30.00 for the first tape, and $15 for each tape after that. Aside from the fact that I don't understand that pricing model I felt that $75 for 4 tapes seemed a little high. So, I thought there has to be a better way. Turns out that there was...

I found a video capture device selling for $80 ($160 minus $80 rebate) that will accept any analog AV input (e.g. component, s-video, coax) and convert to digital, including the software to create dvds with menus, chapters etc. The rebate is still available, follow the link above. So, to recap, I can do as many tapes as I want for $5 more than it would take to do 4. As a bonus, this device is also a tv tuner and DVR so that I could watch and record TV on the computer.

(I know some people who already know about this are saying "Duh! Where have you been? This stuff's been around for a while." I'm not sure it has been so damn cheap though.)

Another thought occurred to me which makes this device that much more valuable than I thought it was. I can hook up my turntable to this and capture all of the music that I have on vinyl. (For those of you younger than 30, let me explain turntable and vinyl... Actually never mind, you don't need to know.) There is music that I haven't even been able to find in digital form, and would have gladly (sort-of) paid for it had I found it. So, as I write this, I am listening to, and ripping, music that I might not have ever listened to again otherwise.

With respect to pictures, I noticed on a recent flight to San Francisco that the Sky Mall (great mall, but I don't like the food court) was offering a slide/negative scanner for $99. Seems impossibly cheap.

My father has lots of old slides that I'd love to see again, especially since I probably slept through the first time I saw them. I told him about this scanner and he decided to give it a go. I've had a chance to try it for scanning about 4 rolls of negatives and, for the price it works pretty well. It's not professional quality, but with a little digital cleanup work you can get a decent scan. Even if you were just using it as a means to store a digital backup that is not as easily destroyed as physical media it's worth the money. I plan to either get my own, or borrow it once and a while. I'd love a professional quality scanner, but $99 seems like my kind of price.

A while back I bought a 500Gb hard drive for about $130 for backups (one of the necessary realities of going all digital). I've also backed up everything I have so far to DVD (23 of them) and put those in the safe. Next time I see a good deal on hard drives I think I will get another so that it can be stored in the safe which would just be easier and safer than what I've got now.

Gotta pause for a minute here. The LP is finished. Back in a sec while I switch albums...

Okay, I'm back. Just replaced Streetnicks by the Shuffle Demons with True Stories by Talking Heads. Where was I? Oh yeah.

Now that I have my content in digital form, it's now time to share it. I am using my account on Flickr for sharing photographs, and My Photos on Facebook for sharing snapshots. I've set up a channel on YouTube and I recently posted a lot of videos (mostly old 8mm videos that my Dad recorded onto VHS which I have now tranferred to digital).

The applications I am using are: WinDVD Creator for video capture and editing (it came with the device and works pretty well), Spin It Again for capturing music from LPs, and I don't recall the app that came with the scanner but it worked pretty well (though not very intuitive - what do you expect for $99 all-in).

From Your Neighourhood Wordologist

I happen to be something of a wordologist, and I thought I would share some of my nowledge with y'all. Enjoy!

redouble: (v) To quadruple. As in "I redoubled my efforts in this game which by my calculation is 3.6 times better than the other guy that gave only 110%"

respectator: 1. (n) To be a polite spectator. 2. (v) To go to a sporting event again. 3 (v) To eat your potatoes.

alligators: (n-pl) Not just some of them. All of them!

godfearing: (adj) Suffering from both dyslexia and a canine phobia.

disregard: (v) To not gard again.

uncledisestablishmentarianism: (n) The longest word (by one letter) in the english language

Unitarian: (adj) Not from Itaria.

disarmament: (n) Something that mean kids do to ants and other bugs sometimes (see also 'diswingament').

unrepentant: (adj) Not willing to be pentant again (see pentant).

habilitation: (?) The first time you go somewhere to get help getting off drugs.

anticrastinate: (v) Preferring to do things now rather than leave for later.

design: (v) Take your name off a list.

resign: (v) Put your name back on a list.

bossanova: (n) The new person at work that you report to.

superior: (n) The very best kind of 'ior'.

jest: (u) More than 'jer', and a lot more than 'j'.

assuage: (n) Income from gay prostitution.

minimum: (n) Dwarf mother.

pentant: (adv) Something you can choose to not do again. (see 'unrepentant')

earwig: (n) Artificial ear hair for those that wish to look more aged.

deride: (v) To exit an amusement part ride, as in "When the seatbelt broke the youngster was derided almost immediately".

protein: (adj) In support of young adults.

contain: (adj) Not! in support of young adults.

prosperous: (n) A sperous who chose to play for money.

expensive: (adj) No longer lost in thought.

debated: (v) Attempted to catch with with a hook only.

notary: (adj) Avoiding delay.

avoid: (n) Not invalid.

reflexology: (n) The learning of flex, again.

undeserved: (adj) served

underserved: (adj) this definition

yellow: (v) What you do when someone steps on your toe.

A ROM Without a View

Now, let me begin by saying that I like modern architecture as much as the next guy (which isn't much unless the next guy is a modern architect - sorry Dad!).

During the holidays we took our first trip down to the re-opened Royal Ontario Museum. They closed it for a while to attach the fortress of solitude to the classic old museum building. Well, it's a modified fortress of solitude at least. It's like that but without all the shiny parts.



As I understand it. This structure was meant to be all glass, then they either ran out of money or realized that it snows in Toronto, and they changed the design so that it is mostly what appears to be cheap aluminum siding with the occasional long thin window.

Kind of makes it a little less crystal-like. Plus, if they had more windows you could see the displays from the street and maybe want to visit. Instead you might want to rush past this museum that is posing as a futuristic jail or mental institution.


So, the outside looks terrible (see webcam image from above, above).

Perhaps the inside looks better. Perhaps not. It's very dark inside. Maybe they saved on lights because they thought it would be all glass and they wouldn't need many. The impression we had (that has been echoed by others who have visited) is that it seems as though they ran out of money before they got a chance to finish the walls. A little paint over that drywall would have gone a long way. In their defense, I think they put a single coat of primer.

There was one part of the renovation that I did like. It was the interior wall that used to be the exterior wall of the original building. I took a picture of it, but it was too dark. Dang!

Here are some pictures from the original building. The image on the right is the ceiling of the grand entrance (rotunda?).


And here's the front. Classic architecture, grand entrance. Did I mention the grand entrance?



I have another beef. They didn't seem to put any bathrooms in the extension. James and I had to travel deep into the old building to find the bathroom that we were told was "behind the crocodile".

Watching TV recently I saw the dinosaur display at the Natural History Museum in London, England. Ancient bones set against classic architecture. Maybe it's too much to aspire to (see image below), but at least they could have aspired at least a little.

Natural History Museum (sadly not the ROM)

And for this, they removed the dinosaur bones from the ROM for a couple of years, and spent eleventy trillion dollars. I'm speechless!

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