From Rorschach to Facebook

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who care about Farmville and people who don’t give a crap about Farmville. If you don’t know what I am talking about, allow me to clarify. Farmville is a Facebook game. If you are not familiar with Facebook, well, I can’t really help you and I’m surprised you have an iPhone. I have mocked Farmville here before, partly because I don’t really get it, and partly because I am sick of seeing the strangely desperate pleas for farm supplies in my News Feed. “Clara needs 3 bricks to finish her nursery in Farmville!” “Tom sold his cow in Farmville!” “Laine’s new Farmville puppy is hungry! Please help!” I don’t know where these people get the bricks or the cows or the food, and I don’t care. I do know that Farmville is a game. I refuse to learn any more. I mean, adults with virtual puppies – hungry virtual puppies? It’s creepy, people. And stop asking me for hay bales. I don’t have any.

It’s a little funny, I admit, that I so disparage the Farmies (that's right, Farmies) given how much time I spend on Facebook. This is the second column about it. It’s that big a part of my life. I am what you might call a "frequent status updater." And I never bother to sign out. And I post photos of everything, from what I cooked for dinner tonight to the length of the security line I’m waiting in at the airport. I’m that Facebook friend. This morning, when I had the archetypal problem of trying desperately to formulate a status update when really I had nothing to say, it occurred to me that my Facebooking is a valid personality test. My posting behaviors reveal important things about me –  things that I embrace and things that I deny. And if you use Facebook (or, as they say, if you “have a Facebook”), this is probably true of you, too.  I’m not going to tell you the things it says about me; I’m horrified enough to discover how clearly I am revealed by my posting. Rather, I would like to tell you a few things I might know about you from your Facebook:

You like sappy movies. If you regularly post links to YouTube videos of animals, babies, or anyone performing an acoustic ballad, then you liked “The Notebook.” Or at least you would.

Your partner or spouse doesn’t pay enough attention to you. If you post gratuitous photos of yourself in formal clothing or take a new profile pic every week with your webcam, it might be time to see other people.

You talk too much when you’re drunk. If your relationship status is “It’s complicated,” you have a lot of stuff you’d like to talk about, but you usually wait until you are drunk to do it. And then you go home and call your ex. While you’re drunk. At 3 a.m. Hence the aforementioned complications.

You are under 25. If you have more than 10 friends whom you’ve never actually met, there are more than 500 “Photos of You,” or your status updates use too manyyyyyyy extra letterssssssss, you were not born before VH-1 was on the air.

You’re hardcore. If your profile information contains the word atheist, republican, or vegan, then you want us to know your position, you’re sticking to it, and you’d love to debate it. It’s not enough simply to be a vegan, atheist, or republican. I know plenty of indecisive, non-confrontational atheists. But they don’t identify as such in their Facebook profile information.

See? It’s no joke. I could go on and on. Now, of course, there are exceptions. I mean, all sorts of anomalies occur in nature, and therefore in Facebook. Sometimes a person likes kitten movies but not chick flicks. Absolutely. But, for the most part, you know I’m right.
 
Here’s the thing: whether or not there is any validity to my clever little list, the sad truth is that I sometimes think like this, and so do a lot of other people. It’s the new prejudice. Basically, there are two kinds of people in the world: people who treat Facebook like real human contact and people who don’t. I pick on the former group a lot, and in fact I am one of them. I don’t know about you, but I need to repersonalize my interpersonal communication. And I probably should stop drawing conclusions about people I don’t know. Except for the Farmies.
 

What Ever Happened to Coloring Books?

As far as I’m concerned, Chris Rock is the funniest person alive. I have watched his stand-up film “Bring the Pain” at least a hundred times, and I am not exaggerating. Even better (or worse, maybe), I like to speak in Rockisms; any time I hear someone tell me they have a food allergy, I launch into one of my favorite Rock rants: “We got so much food in America we're allergic to food. Allergic to food! Hungry people ain't allergic…You think anyone in Rwanda's got a f&*%ing lactose intolerance?!” Brilliant. He has hundreds of them, all brilliant, all hilarious. But after last week, I have to give it up to Rock for saying something years ago that we all should revisit. Talking about his daughter in a stand-up routine, he said, “Sometimes I am walking with my daughter, I'm talking to my daughter, I'm looking at her, I'm pushing her in the stroller. And sometimes I pick her up and I just stare at her and I realize my only job in life is to keep her off the pole.” Funny, right? Well, it used to be. I’m not so sure it’s a joke anymore.

Last week I read about Tesco, a toy company in the UK that sells a kiddie stripper pole. I’m not kidding. The pink-packaged pole had been advertised in Tesco’s toy department with the following sales pitch: “Unleash the sex kitten inside...simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go! Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars." I did not make that up. And while it would be easy to blame the manufacturers of products like this one, let’s remember that people are buying these things. To wit, in addition to the Tesco story, there were reports on many websites last week about a British company called Primark that had been selling sparkly bikinis with padded bra tops for preteen girls. Padded bra tops for 8 year-olds. After much protest, most of it from children’s advocacy groups, Primark recalled the swimsuits and announced they will be donating any profits from sales of the item to a children’s charity. Wait, wait, wait – they are donating the profits? PROFITS? Who bought these suits? Who the heck thinks, “Man, my third grader really needs to boost her cleavage. I need to get that child a rack!” I mean, what kind of caregiver buys a PUSH UP BRA FOR A CHILD???? Sorry to yell, but, really, I cannot imagine what has happened to us that this is okay. Sexualizing children is a crime, not a marketing strategy.

The day after I read about Primark and Tesco, I read about a recent trend in Australia that has parents bringing in daughters as young as nine years for…wait for it…leg waxing. First of all, does a child need to remove her leg hair at all? And even if you think the removal is okay, why would anyone subject a kid to something so painful in pursuit of smooth, “sexy” skin. What is going on? And while the examples I’ve cited are from other countries, we all know the same problem exists here. Just look around. A few weeks ago I saw a girl walking hand-in-hand with her mom on the sidewalk outside an elementary school. I’m not sure how old the little girl was, but she was carrying a Dora backpack. And on the back of her pink, velour sweatpants, right across her behind, was the bedazzled word “Juicy.” She was in elementary school. She had a Dora backpack. And she was advertising that her booty is juicy.

So what is happening? I blame Miley Cyrus. I blame Miley and her stripper pole performance for everything. Suri Cruise wears high heels at 3 years old? Gift from Miley. Little British girls are wearing padded bras? Miley’s fault. Toy stripper poles for kids? Miley’s idea. An increase in gun violence? I don’t know how, but Miley is behind it. Seriously, while I really want to blame it all on Miley, the problem is obviously bigger than one little pop tart. It’s bigger than Miley, and it’s bigger than Primark and Tesco. Somehow, in our increasing tolerance of sexuality in our culture, we forgot to tolerate it only for adults. Believe me, I’m no prude. If they made a push up bra that I could have surgically attached to my torso, I might buy it. But I am not a child. I am a grown woman, responsible for and in control of my sexuality. A nine year-old girl is none of these things. In fact, she shouldn’t even possess sexuality. And no matter how you want to spin it, padded bras, stripper poles, and juicy butts are about sex and nothing else. Paint your little girl’s fingernails, and that’s just cute. Teach her to objectify herself – not cute. If you have a little girl, know a little girl, want to help a little girl, buy her some crayons for crying out loud. It takes a village, people, and the village needs to keep her off the pole.

Tiger Strikes Again

Oh, Tiger. Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. I’ve resisted the urge to mention him in this space many times. I’ve been quiet through all the mistresses, however many of them there have been. I lost count at six. I’ve been quiet because, the truth is, while I read all the “news” about Tiger and his special friends, I’m not really interested in celebrities’ infidelities. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I’m not interested in things that have nothing to do with me. Please. I have a subscription to Us Weekly, okay? But I just don’t care if Elin is wearing her wedding ring or not, and I don’t care if they get divorced or back together. I don’t care what goes on intimately between two people unless I am one of them. And, I know I am in the minority here, but I have not been intimate with Tiger Woods. So I haven’t had anything to say about him. Then I saw his new Nike commercial.

The commercial. WOW. Really, Tiger? I mean, I am one of the few people in the country who didn’t care about his prolific, seemingly indiscriminate cheating – and this is despite having read those, um, graphic text messages. Do you think it was the athlete in him, the competitor, who thought “Hmmm. Some people don’t hate me yet. I’ll show them?” It had to be. In case you haven’t seen the commercial, it’s 33 seconds of Tiger staring directly into the camera and looking sad while the voice of his dead father says "Tiger, I am more prone to be inquisitive to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are, and did you learn anything?" Let me just back up for a minute in case you missed it: the commercial features THE VOICE OF HIS DEAD FATHER. Now, if Nike had actually managed to get Tiger’s dead father to speak in the spot, that would be impressive. Nope. While Nike is pretty powerful and Tiger pretty wealthy, their combined supremacy did not in fact bring Earl Woods back to life. Nike copped the voice clips from a 2004 three-DVD authorized biography of the golfer. Awesome, right? The words that Earl spoke in support of Tiger’s athleticism can also be applied to Tiger’s pathological philandering! How serendipitous! Every father's dream, I am sure.

Okay, so, the whole thing is gross. One might expect that Tiger’s grossness meter had maxed out by now, but no. Thank you, Nike, for going that extra mile and creepily invoking both Tiger’s best crybaby face and his dead father to make me really squirm. Well played. But before I address the grossness of it all, can we please discuss how freaking hilarious Earl’s questions are in this particular context? I mean, COME ON. There had to have been at least one guy at the advertising company with a brilliant sense of humor. I mean, “I want to find out what your thinking was???” Uh, okay, Earl, you must be dead if you have to ask. And “did you learn anything?” Yeah he did. He learned he can’t drive while doped up on Ambien. He learned Elin sure can swing a golf club. He learned that if your mistress has a headshot, she’s probably going to rat you out. And he learned that shocking the American public with the extent of your promiscuity costs a lot of money in lost endorsements.

Nike, as you may know, is the only major endorsement Tiger has not lost after his scandalicious year. So, really, this is more about Nike than Tiger. They have put a lot of money into Mr. Woods, and they are sticking by him. I get it. They want us to know that while they support him, it is only in a deeply reflective context. Right. Whatever, Nike. In the company's and Tiger’s joint desperation to salvage the money making machine that is Tiger Woods for Nike, they managed to shamelessly disrespect a dead man’s words while creating what is both the most offensive and most hilarious commercial I have seen in a while. I’d give them props for that last part if I thought it were intentional and if I weren’t otherwise so horrified. Because, all jokes aside, I’d like to think there is a limit to what we’ll tolerate from corporations and celebrities. And, personally, I can get past Tiger’s cheating – I’m not married to him. But I can’t get past the use of a dead man’s voice to try to neutralize a sex scandal for profit. Shame on you, Nike. I’d stop buying your sneakers if I actually ran or played basketball or did any of that sports stuff you people are into. And shame on you, Tiger. You’ve probably heard that a lot this year already, haven’t you? So let me also say, for lack of a better word, just...yuck.

Family Dysfunction, 2010 Style

My dad is on Facebook. Go ahead and chuckle – it’s funny, right? My mom is, too, but that’s not as weird. For one thing, I don’t really care if my mom reads my status updates, no matter how profane or incriminating they might be. Mom’s no prude. For another, um, I speak to my mom. My dad and I haven’t spoken in three years. Don’t feel bad – that’s not my point (and I have a great therapist). My point is that it’s pretty bizarre that while he and I have not spoken to or seen each other since 2006, he regularly sends me chat invitations when I am logged in to Facebook. And the chat invitations don’t say “Sorry I’m an insensitive twit! Let’s talk!” They bing at me and say, “Cute dog!” or “Love the new profile pic!” I am just waiting for the day when he asks me to buy him a cow in Farmville or whatever it is you Farmville people do. And, so help me, if he asks me to join his mob in Mafia Wars, I will pop a cap in my Macbook. A decade ago, my father would have had to put effort into making a phone call or sending a card to try to repair our relationship. Now, he can send a quick message while he looks at his neighbor’s vacation photo album or takes a quiz to find out which Twilight character he is. Um…creepy.

It’s not that bad for me. Basically, I have to run away from some annoying IMs. It’s irritating, but that’s about it. Plus, it’s only Facebook. I can block my father. I can leave Facebook. Change the players to Lindsay Lohan and her father and the venue to Twitter, and we have a much more dangerous drama. To wit: Lindsay and her father had an all-out war on Twitter this week. Here are a few of her dad’s tweets (complete with his typos):

@LindsayLohan.. was I wrong for yelling .YES, but how about all the things mom did? remember Atlantis?Remember the lies to the cops?
@LindsayLohan..who WENT TO JAIL for 2 yrs because U and mom cried 2 me 2 come to LA,while I was on Probation,knowing I'd get violated?ME!
@LindsayLohan ..I never ever said that. I have it on my text (it is date and time stamped)! what is wrong with U?OOOPS!I already l know that
@LINDSAYlOHAN.. YOU R TWISTING THINGS JUST LIKE THE MEDIA DOES. THE VERY PEOPLE U CRITICIZE
@LindsayLohan.. done with ur&the other nonesense.Time to focus on what I have to

Okay, first of all, let’s just get the obvious out of the way. Lindsay Lohan has two of the worst parents ever to be allowed to reproduce, her father should be locked up (again), and it is no wonder Lindsay is a mess. Now, let’s think about what it must be like for Lindsay to read these tweets. She is assaulted with her father’s nonsense while the rest of the world reads it, too.  And her father, who is very obviously a delusional narcissist, has a stage. What chance does the poor girl have – did she ever have? How is she supposed to get away from this? I suppose she could move to some remote place where she reads and listens to no news, but let’s be realistic. She won’t and she shouldn’t have to. So, as long as Michael Lohan has Twitter followers, he can post this nonsense. As long as magazines print it, he will post this nonsense. And as long as he follows Twitter’s rules, none of which forbid emotionally abusing your daughter, there is nothing anyone can do about it, including Lindsay. This is where we go from creepy (my dad’s Facebook) to tragic.

I have made jokes at Lindsay’s expense in the past. I am a shameless consumer of celebrity gossip, and I am never ashamed to admit it. I poke holes in myself and marinate in Us Weekly whenever I get the chance. I read radaronline.com before I brush my teeth in the morning. I know the names of every one of the Beckham kids and every one of Tiger’s mistresses and was among the first to know when the latter number surpassed the former. But watching a family destroy each other on Twitter is more than I can take. Can’t families just go back to torturing each other the old fashioned way -- screaming matches at Thanksgiving dinner, showing up drunk to Junior’s graduation, stuff like that? And, please, if you want to tell someone you are sorry, say it like you mean it – with your mouth. Families are messed up enough, even the loving ones. Adding more ways for us to torture each other is just wrong. Let’s stick to Farmville and Mafia Wars online and leave the important stuff to that face-to-face thing we used to love so much.

Buyer, Eater, and Drinker Beware, Part Two

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about Diet Coke. Specifically, I wrote about Diet Coke’s recent “Heart Truth” campaign, in which the company announced it was raising “awareness for women’s heart health programs.” I found this ad campaign particularly infuriating considering the fact that Diet Coke is basically poison (you can read the column, "Buyer, Eater and Drinker Beware," in the archives). This week I found out that the folks at Diet Coke have lent their product to another, sneaky, smile-while-we-kill-you ad – this time with my favorite health food, Bacardi Rum! I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I had just gotten over my fury at the Heart Truth lie-fest when I bumped into a Bacardi and Diet Coke ad that made me spit. No joke. I saw the ad in a liquor store (where I was buying ice, people, ice) and literally yelled “WHAT!? STOP IT!” at the top of my lungs. Have you ever yelled at the top of your lungs in a liquor store? No? Well, turns out it’s frowned upon. I was asked to leave. And I blame Bacardi.

I blame Bacardi instead of my old nemesis Diet Coke because it seems Bacardi is responsible for this campaign, so Diet Coke is only an accessory to the crime.  A lying, stinking, nasty tasting, gut rotting accessory, but an accessory nonetheless. The advertisement touts Bacardi and Diet Coke as having “0 Carbs and 0 Sugar.” This, I imagine, is supposed to make you choose it as the cocktail least perilous to your waistline. I am not going to argue with the fact that a regular sized shot of Bacardi mixed with Diet Coke has fewer calories and sugar than, say, Bacardi and Coke or a beer, but that is not the point. The point is that like many others (see Crystal Light’s new commercial in which it pretends to be water), this ad tries to trick consumers into thinking that a product is more healthful or diet conscious than it really is. And in this case, Bacardi does so with tricky language that is misleading at best and flat out dangerous at worst.

Before I launch my assault, let me assure you that I am not one of those people who thinks everything has to be good for you. I understand that bad stuff often tastes and feels good. Believe me, I get it. To wit: I smoked cigarettes for a loooong time. Don’t judge me. They made me look hip and cool, right? Okay, judge me, because they made me look like an idiot, it’s a disgusting habit, and I am embarrassed that it took me so long to quit. My point is, I don’t look down on cocktails (as long as you are old enough and not driving, of course). But I do look down on advertising that misleads people about their health. And Bacardi does exactly that.

First of all, “no carbs” does NOT make something healthful or good for weight management. We all know that by now, right? Let me make it simple: bacon fat, low carbs; apple, high carbs. Enough said. What’s worse than feeding into the no carb nonsense is the fact that calling alcohol a “no carb” beverage is absolute trickery. Here’s the deal: the distilling of hard liquor produces sugars which go straight to your liver and do not raise your blood sugar.  Therefore, yes, distilled liquor contains no carbohydrates. Fine. However, because of this straight shot (pun intended) to your liver, your body processes alcohol first, before fat, protein, or carbs. So, drinking alcohol slows the burning of fat. Not good, right? There’s more. All alcohol contains calories, and in fact a gram of alcohol has 7 calories, as opposed to a gram of carbs, with 4 (protein contains 4 calories a gram and fat has 9 per gram). In short, alcohol is more fattening than carbs, period. Bacardi knows all this, and they are counting on the fact that your don't. Now, mix your Bacardi with Diet Coke, and in addition to messing with your diet you are also ingesting a glass full of dangerous chemicals. Yummy! To say that you'd be better off with carbohydrate- and sugar-rich orange juice than with no carb, no sugar diet coke is a massive understatement. And on top of all this, with or without carbs, alcohol is just bad for you in a bunch of other ways -- none of which I will bore you with here, because, like I said, I’m not that girl. And also because I might maybe sort of be planning to have a glass of wine after I write this. Maybe. But I am over 21 and not driving anywhere. So there. My point is simply that ads like this are designed to trick people into thinking something is healthful or good for weight loss when in fact the exact opposite is true. And this is as close to lying as one can get without, well, lying.

When I was a bartender, I once overheard two women toasting each other by clinking classes and yelling, “Ain’t no party without that Bacardi!” Yup. Now, all lame toasts and poor grammar aside, I want to stress again that I am not suggesting that people give up rum. I am suggesting, however, that people should support only companies that are responsible in advertising. And in that case, come on, there ain’t no party with Diet Coke and Bacardi.

Bigelow Ruled and Clooney Drooled!

If you tuned in for the live blog, thank you! It was a blast. In case you didn't, or in case you missed the Oscars entirely, I'm going to leave my commentary here for a few days. Give it a read -- everything you need to know about Sunday's show is here.

(12:00 am ET) "The Hurt Locker!" 16-8, people! Dance time!
(11:56) YES! It only took EIGHTY-TWO years, but a woman has won Best Director. And for a war film at that! Rock it, Kathryn Bigelow! 15-8.
(11:52 pm ET) Oh man. Bullock's speech. Yeah, I'm crying. Shut up. Only two awards left. Go "Hurt Locker!"
(11:50 pm ET) Gah! Bullock! Well, I set myself up for this one. 14-8. I still blame sound and shorts. And Clooney.
(11:45 pm ET) Gabourey Sidibe's story is really amazing. No snarky comment applies. Props, Gaby.
(11:33 pm ET) Jeff Bridges. No big surprise there -- the Body of Work Award is a ringer. I'm glad he won, but more than that I am grateful we didn't have to listen to a Clooney smugfest speech. Oh, and 14-7. All dancing is suspended until 17-7. Okay, maybe 16-8, because I have to admit I am starting to sweat Best Actress.
(11:28 pm ET) Okay, these peer tributes are a bit much. Michelle Pfeiffer's tribute to Jeff Bridges was sweet, but this Clooney nonsense is giving me a rash.
(11:22 pm ET) "Avatar" is the highest-grossing film of all time. Hmm. With all that money, couldn't James Cameron buy his wife some food? Have a sandwich, Suzy. You guys can afford it. Trust.
(11:16 pm ET) I lost Foreign Language Film. 13-7. But, you know, I couldn't understand a word they were saying. So it doesn't really count.
(11:10 pm ET) 13-6. Oh yeah. Does anyone else feel like they aren't using Steve and Alec enough?
(11:05 pm ET) "The Cove!" 12-6. Let the dancing begin. First, though, I want to say that if you haven't seen this documentary, you should. It's an incredible film. All the documentaries this year were remarkable, but this one especially. Now, excuse me, but I need to return to gloating. Check THIS out, Legion of Incredible Dancers.
(10:58 pm ET) Yeah, yeah, "Avatar" won Visual Effects. I picked it, so of course I'm glad. But I feel like it wasn't really a fair fight. When you spend 300 gazillion dollars on your film's technology, you better win this award. I'm talking to you, James Cameron. 11-6.
(10:54 pm ET) Original Score! 10-6. At 12-6 I'll bring back the victory dance. You're relieved, right? I promise to have the webcam set up next year so you can share the magic.
(10:48 pm ET) I usually hate the musical numbers, but these dancers are AMAZING. I mean, it's no Oscar pick victory dance, but they're still pretty rad.
(10:36) Cinematography! Picked it! SOOO much more important than sound, anyway. 9-6. Um, what is UP with Demi Moore? Why doesn't she age? It can't be as simple as Botox. She's scaring me. Kind of creepy that they picked her to introduce the tribute to those who died this year since clearly she never will.
(10:27) Stupid old stinking sound. 8-6. I will dance again. Don't worry.
(10:25) Uh-oh. I lost Sound Editing. Bad news as I picked "Avatar" for Sound Mixing, too. And I was just about to resume my victory dance. Stupid sound. It's not like it's important to a movie.
(10:18) It's the Twilight kids. Taylor seems like a nice guy, but I can't understand what the deal is with Kristin. Why does she always look so freaking miserable? You're at the Oscars, Krissy! Stand up straight! Put a little life into it! Jeez.
(10:10 pm ET) I picked Costume Design right, too, but I will tell you that this was an easy one. It's an Oscar law: any time they put women in corsets, the costume design wins. Evidently, inflicting pain on women and cinching their waists to 18 inches is how you get respect in that field. Cool. You know, Victoria Beckham does it to herself without the corset -- where's her award? Just saying. (*cough* 8-4)
(10:07 pm ET) And Art Direction makes it 7-4. I'm glad I picked this right, but I have to say that I thought "Avatar" was lame. Yeah, you heard me. Lame. Feel free to discuss this in comments.
(10:00 pm ET) Mo'Nique! Standing O! I mean, come ON. That clip alone gave me goosebumps. She was amazing. Oh, and 6-4.
(9:56) Penelope Cruz is so beautiful it makes me want to punch her. I mean hug her.
(9:50) 5-4. GRRRRRRR. Adapted Screenplay. If i tell you that I picked "Precious" first and then changed my mind, will you believe me? Because I did. I DID.
(9:42 pm ET) 5-3. Thank you, Best Makeup. Back on track. Have I mentioned how lame short films are? L-A-M-E.
(9:39 pm ET) And, by the way, WHAT was up with the freaky purple coat lady who hijacked the Documentary Short acceptance speech? Don't they have bouncers at this thing?
(9:38 pm ET) Ben Stiller: hilarious.
(9:31 pm ET) Animated Short, Live Action Short and Documentary Short are my first losses. 4-3. Not that I care. I don't. I don't care at all. I hate you, short films.
(9:21 pm ET) Okay, so, I might have cried a little during the John Hughes tribute. Don't judge me. But then I saw that they managed to drag Judd Nelson out from the rock under which he has been hiding. Yikes. Judd, your plasma called. It wants back into your body. Have a glass of orange juice or something, my friend. Please.
(9:15 pm ET) 4-0! Go "Hurt Locker!" Whoa -- Molly Ringwald is on stage. Holy time warp, Batman!
(9:04 pm ET) Ohhhh, I see. Miley is presenting the Best Original Song award. I can't believe "Party In the USA" hasn't been scooped up by a major motion picture. I mean, that's an award-winning song if I've ever heard one. Oh, and I might have picked this winner, too. 3-0. Not that I'm keeping track.
(9:00 pm ET) "Up" wins! 2-0! Whoot! But, omg, why is George Clooney on the screen every 3 minutes??? Enough! I swear they are taunting me.
(8:50 pm ET): Yes! Christoph wins! I'm 1-0, people! I'm going to do my victory dance now. You know you want to see it.
(8:45 pm ET): Oh, so I guess Clooney is part of the schtick. My bad. (He's still a snore.)
(8:43) Alec Baldwin seems a little nervous. He must be sober. I kid, Alec, I kid. You know I love you.
(8:40) Clooney is too cool to laugh, evidently. Once again: Snore.
(8:32) I love NPH, but, um....no. Whoever wrote this number needs to be fired. STAT.
(8:30) Finally! I'm excited. I'm not going to lie. I love this stuff. I could poke holes in myself and marinate in the Oscars.
(8:23 pm ET) Write down the date and time, people. Kristin Stewart just smiled.
(8:17 pm ET) Not to be a hater -- I'm not, really -- but why is Miley Cyrus presenting an Oscar? Imagine if you received your first Academy Award and it was handed to you by Hannah Montana. Weird, right?
(8:05) Oh!! Sandra Bullock's "just enjoy the ride" rant is just a different way of saying "The nomination is the award." Obligatory lie count is at 2.
(8:02 pm ET) I love Penelope Cruz. L-O-V-E. I want to hang out with her (imagine her excitement when she reads that). And Mo'Nique is (1) awesome and (2) so going to win.
(7:56) Show time! Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are going to be amazing. (I hope.) Last chance to post your picks in the comments section to win Swakker stuff if you can beat me!
(7:54) My love for Robert Downey, Jr. knows no bounds. Really. But I miss his old face, lines and all. And that wife of his: I'm after you, Susan. I'm kidding, of course. Sort of.
(7:49) OMG! Quentin Tarantino sounded...dare I say...sane! Wow.
(7:41 pm ET) Every time the show cuts to commercial, I see an ad for a Liposuction Surgery Center here on the west coast. Dirty advertising approach, if you ask me -- and even if you don't.
(7:36 pm ET) Oh boy. Taylor Lautner just arrived. Cue screaming girls...NOW!
(7:24 pm ET) Some of you might not know that the producer of "The Hurt Locker" (my pick for Best Picture) was banned from tonight's ceremony. Yup. A few weeks ago he sent an email urging Academy members to vote for his film instead of "Avatar." Not only very poor taste, but also against the rules. I really hope his crazy lack of judgment doesn't hurt the film. It deserves to win. And the director, Kathryn Bigelow, rocks!
(7:20 pm ET) Oh, George Clooney, you're so down-to-earth. Snore.
(7:05 pm ET) Um, Randolph Duke? Holy Botox, Batman! And I have now officially started my count for how many times we hear "The nomination is really the win." Five minutes in, and the obligatory lie count is at 1.

(7:01 pm ET) Sandra Bullock looks amazing, but my money's on Mulligan.
(6:58 ET) And we're on! ABC pre-show and Swakker Café! It's Oscar time!
(6:30 pm ET) Okay, people. Here are my picks. As I mentioned in this week's column, Carey Mulligan as Best Actress is a highly controversial pick; it is nearly impossible to predict a Split the Vote award, but I'm sticking with it. If you want to submit your picks for a chance to win a Swakker Prize, just make sure you post them in the comments section before 8 pm ET. And, remember, you have to beat me to win! So, here they are:
Lead Actor: Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
Supporting Actor: Cristoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds”
Lead Actress: Carey Mulligan in “An Education”
Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique in “Precious”
Animated Feature: “Up”
Art Direction: “Avatar”
Cinematography: “Avatar”
Costume Design: “The Young Victoria”
Directing: “The Hurt Locker”
Documentary Feature: “The Cove”
Documentary Short: “China’s Unnatural Disaster: the Tears of Sichuan Province”
Film Editing: “The Hurt Locker”
Foreign Language Film: “The White Ribbon”
Makeup: “Star Trek”
Original Score: “Up”
Original Song: “The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”
Animated Short: “A Matter of Loaf and Death”
Live Action Short: “Kavi”
Sound Editing: “Avatar”
Sound Mixing: “Avatar”
Visual Effects: “Avatar”
Adapted Screenplay: “Up in the Air”
Original Screenplay: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker”

Super Bowl, Schmuper Bowl. It's Oscar Time!!!

As you probably already know, I will be posting live this Sunday during the Academy Awards broadcast. Even if you’ve never watched the Oscars before, I encourage you to tune in to Swakker Café for the broadcast if for no other reason than to witness the complete insanity that takes me over every year at this time. I have been watching the Academy Awards broadcast since I was 13. That’s a lot of Oscars. I get a little, um, passionate about them, so even if this isn’t usually your cup of tea, I think you’ll have a good time. Check it out.

With this in mind, I am going to use this week’s column to post my Oscar picks. You might not think that this is a big deal. Well, you’re wrong. I mean, I might as well be disclosing CIA secrets. Okay, maybe it is slightly less serious than that. But it’s serious. My friend, V., and I have been betting on the Oscars since we were 15 (Yes, I know. We’re geeks. Fine. But we’re geeks who know a lot about the Oscars). We have a lot of rules surrounding this lifelong competition, among them that our picks must be disclosed to each other right before the pre-show begins. Revealing my picks this early gives V. a huge advantage over me and is an insult to our sacred process, but whatever. I’ll still beat her.  However, because I want to preserve some of our competition’s venerable rules, and because it would take me 7000 iPhone screens worth of words to explain my picks for every award, this column will address only the “Big 6.” So, with no further ado, I present to you my picks for the 82nd annual Academy Awards. Cue drum roll.

BEST ACTOR IN A LEAD ROLE: Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
WHY: This is what we call “The Body of Work Award.” The BOW award is given to an actor or actress who maybe didn’t give the best performance of the year, but who has given so many good performances that the Academy figures, well, we better give him/her this one. Almost always, the BOW award winner is not the best performance in the group. I think Jeremy Renner should win this award, but my money is on Bridges. Past BOW awards in this category were Paul Newman in “The Color of Money” and Al Pacino in “Scent of a Woman.” And if you saw either of those, you know the award was not for the performance. Trust.

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds”
WHY: Primarily because everyone is saying he will win. He is the easy favorite. I am worried that this will result in the “Backlash Award,” which happens when the voting members of the Academy get mad because the media is stealing their thunder, so they purposely vote for someone other than the favorite. A recent (ish) famous Backlash victim was Kate Hudson in “Almost Famous” (she lost to Marcia Gay Harden in “Pollock”). But Kate didn’t deserve it anyway, and Christoph does, so I’m sticking with him.

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEAD ROLE: Carey Mulligan in “An Education”
WHY: Well, let me first say that this is a controversial pick. For one thing, Meryl Streep is in the category, and for another, Sandra Bullock has already won the SAG and the Golden Globe. So I am expecting Mulligan to win what we call the “The Split the Vote Award.” Splitting the vote happens when two frontrunners (in this case Streep and Bullock) command such high, nearly equal numbers of votes that they literally split the majority, leaving the highest number of votes to a third contender – in this case, Mulligan. Confused? It’s all algebra, people. Or calculus. Or trigonometry. Or something else I know nothing about. The point is, the SV award is a tough one to predict, but I think it will happen in this category. The most famous SV award of all time was Marisa Tomei’s ridiculous Best Supporting win for “My Cousin Vinnie,” when Vanessa Redgrave and Miranda Richardson split the vote. With all due respect to Marisa, whom I adore, come on. “My Cousin Vinnie???” Vanessa Redgrave? Miranda Richardson? Please. In this year’s case, though, I think Mulligan is a deserving winner. You can imagine how relieved she will be to read that.

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Mo’Nique in “Precious”
WHY: Because she has already won the SAG and the Golden Globe for this role, because her acceptance speeches have been inspiring and beautiful and real, and because she kicked acting butt in this role. Basically, because she rocks.

BEST PICTURE: The Hurt Locker
WHY: Because it should win. This is rarely the case with the winner of this category, if you ask me (or even if you didn’t). But this year, I feel strongly that the best film will win, and the best film is this one. Case closed.

BEST DIRECTOR: Kathryn Bigelow for “The Hurt Locker”
WHY: Because the film didn’t direct itself. It’s as simple as that. Plus, it’s a war film directed by a woman, and that just rocks.

So there you have it. Hard science, people. Hard science. As promised, I won’t go into the other 18 awards here. But I assure you I have an equally scientific process for choosing them. I can also assure you that I will beat V. this year. If you’d like to hear the victory unfold, or if you just want some good laughs, tune in to Swakker Café this Sunday from 4 pm (pre-show) until the last award.  Now I have to go practice my victory dance. That’s right, V. You’re going down.