This and That

Hello readers!

It's been awhile. School has been punishing, but it's the penultimate week of the quarter, and the finish line is in sight. I cannot wait for spring break, even though that's when Heidi (my roommate) is leaving me. She decided to graduate a quarter early. Lame sauce. Speaking of spring, I hope it comes here soon. Last year, Seattle had the warmest January on record and it was spring all winter. This year winter has been (relatively) brutal--as it has been across the country, and I really shouldn't bitch since I haven't had to deal with massive blizzards. But I think we're all tired of the winter and are looking forward to warmer, sunnier days.

Oscar thoughts: I thought the intro video was really funny and well done. And then it all went downhill from there. James Franco was baked and had no idea where he was--he didn't even have facial expressions! I thought Anne Hathaway was adorable--she's a huge drama nerd but so charming. If you didn't fall in love with her in The Princess Diaries, I can see that she might be off-putting. And she did have to try a bit hard, but only because her co-host gave her nothing. There were no real surprise winners and no interesting speeches. (Do you know who always gives amazing acceptance speeches--Meryl Streep.) What to make of Melissa Leo though. That ad campaign was a mistake, and that speech was all over the place. She's kind of been turning me off lately. I think she took the whole thing a bit too seriously. It was a good performance though. Jacki Weaver also had an amazing performance, and I'm thoroughly delighted by her. I love Natalie, but I really wanted The Bening to win.

I was happy that The Social Network nabbed a few prizes including score, editing, and screenplay. I can't believe Tom Hooper won director--all of the shots in The King's Speech were good, but none of them were interesting. All the other directors were more deserving not only for camerawork but in all the ways they brought the story to life. All of the songs this year were terrible. You don't get Florence Welch to do 30 seconds of I don't even know what that was. Let her run around on stilettos and belt something fun. They should have nominated Cher--it would have made everything more interesting. Finally the most interesting part of the Oscars which sadly didn't make it to TV--Josh Brolin and Javiar Bardem soft-shoe and exchange a playful kiss:

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New Subject--Congress: So, I don't want to get into it too much because it makes me so angry, but is Congress declaring a war on the poor and women? A vicious, full-out attack to cut services (thank god we extended the Bush tax cuts) and regress a good 50+ years. Thoughts, comments? Stay classy, congress.

I hope to start blogging more this month as this awful quarter finally ends, and a hopefully better quarter begins.