Sarah Santucci

Ok, I don’t care what your politics are. This killed me. Baconaisse! (Not to mention the Mr. Rogers bit.)

I will be updating every commercial break, scroll down from top:

8:00: We’re off! OMG. First “Squeeeee!” of the night for me. Tim Gunn and Kate Winslet sharing the same stage. I had no idea he was co-hosting the Red Carpet. That’s amazing. Kate looks magnificent, of course, but I liked her Globes dress better.

8:02: I can’t watch Josh Brolin and Diane Lane being interviewed without hoping the interviewer will be ballsy and ask them to comment on the Chris Brown/Rihanna thing (They were involved in their own domestic violence incident some time back). Obviously won’t happen. Her dress is blah.

8:03 Tim rushes through an interview with Amy Adams, who looks flawless, but I despise her choker. Nina would say it “doesn’t look expensive.”

8:04: I freaking love Taraji P. Henson. Her personality pwns.

8:06: Tim Gunn accosts Angelina and Brad, who run from him like they are on fire even has he screeches that they are “glorious.” I am sick and tired of their bullcrap–you’re both nominated for Oscars, you’re an A-list couple, and you are the most famous people in America. You’re going to get reporters asking you stuff. Stop for 30 seconds and answer a couple of effing questions, it is not going to kill you. Plus, it’s Tim Gunn! Come on!!!!!

8:10: Gunn inteviews Valentino, whose tan should fight George Hamilton’s tan in a cage match to determine the World’ Greatest Old Man Tan.

8:16: The cuteness of Tim Gunn asking Anne Hathaway about her underwear (accidentally) is threatening to take over the cuteness of the Slumdog Millionaire moppets.

8:19: Montage! Something about accountants and how much they suck, or something. Ah, the guys who counted the ballts get to walk the Red Carpet, awkwardly and cutely while Tim Gunn narrates their outfits. Have I mentioned yet that I love Tim Gunn?

8:22: I am noticing that, as predicted, the dresses and jewels are a bit understated this year as a nod to the crap economy. As if we are somehow unaware that these celebs can all buy and sell us, our families and our pets like 100 times over just because they went with the $50,000 studs rather than the $500,000 chandelier earrings. For goodness’ sake, is a little escapism too much to ask for?

8:28: The pre-show finishes with a mind-numbing sequence about the stage that lasts for five minutes almost. They had time for that but not for talking to Kate WInslet for longer than 30 seconds? Nice.

Time to start the show, see it after the jump! Continue reading ‘Oscars Live Blog: @*#% it! We’ll do it LIVE!’ »

I am likely going to try and keep either a running diary (Sports Guy-style) for publishing later, but figured I should post my pics. Well, the best I can do anyway, having not seen a number of the nominated performances (Best Actor is especially hazy for me…).

Best Picture
My pick: Frost/Nixon
Probable Winner: Slumdog Millionaire

I liked Slumdog a lot, but Frost/Nixon was absolutely the best movie of the year. Minority opinion, to be sure, but I found it absolutely riveting. Slumdog will probably win though. Freida Pinto should win a special award, though, for “Best Use of a Kick-Ass if Unnecessary Scarf.” I mean, (SPOILER ALERT!) at the end of that movie she is basically fleeing for her life after being held as some sort of wife/sex slave or something by some Indian gangster type. But she makes sure to stop to grab her fabulous yellow scarf. Really? Not that it isn’t gorgeous. I want!

Best Director
My Pick: Danny Boyle
Probable Winner: Danny Boyle

Frost/Nixon was the best movie I have seen last year, but I think Danny Boyle’s direction on Slumdog was pretty amazing, particularly the sequence with the trains.

Best Actress
My Pick: Kate Winslet
Probable Winner: Meryl Streep

Here’s my upset pick. Meryl Streep received mixed reviews for Doubt (I loved her performance, myself); but Winslet has gotten a ton of bad press since she started racking up the awards. It’s befuddling to me (I luff her), but I think it could hurt her chances. Anne Hathaway could also sneak in here–she was good, but Rachel Getting Married pretty much made me want to melt off my own face with the hot butter machine, it was THAT horrendous. So I can’t pick her for the upset. So, Meryl.

Best Actor
My Pick: Frank Langella
Probable Winner: Mickey Rourke

This one was tough, I hadn’t seen The Wrestler or Milk–but Frank Langella was incredible in Frost/Nixon. Word is Mickey Rourke will run away with this, with a possible Sean Penn upset. But I already picked my upset, so I’ll stick with Rourke.

Best Supporting Actress
My Pick: Amy Adams
Probable Winner: Taraji Henson

I don’t think Amy got enough credit for her performance in Doubt. She was perfect in this role, and her scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman was utterly exquisite. Speaking of…

Best Supporting Actor
My Pick: tie between Robert Downey Jr. and Philip Seymour Hoffman
Probable Winner: Heath Ledger

There is literally no way that Heath Ledger will lose. And there is absolutely no way he’d win if it were not for his death. Obnoxious thing to say, but also an obnoxious situation for the other deserving nominees. PSH and RDJ were both so great in their roles, I feel bad for them that there’s zero chance they’ll win.

Best Screenplay (Adapted)
My Pick: Frost/Nixon
Probable Winner: Slumdog Millionaire

I don’t have a pick for Original Screenplay, becuase I actually haven’t seen any of the nominated films! But in this one, I like F/N for the same reasons I chose it as Best Picture. Slumdog wouldn’t make me cry though, it was excellent, if a bit muddled at times. There were parts where I was totally confused as to what was going on, and I feel like that could have been helped by a tighter script. Or maybe I’m just dumb.

See you at 830!

My latest column is up on Media Bullseye–Check it out!

This month, I attack needless Twitter apps, Facebook TOS Hysteria syndrome, and my favorite target for marketing mishaps: PETA. (This one somehow involves puppies and the KKK–PETA never fails to entertain.)

Enjoy!

I am a big fan of the book “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.”

Okay, that’s not true. I don’t even own it. I do see it sitting atop my friends’ toilet every time I am at their house, and always think to myself, “Wow, what a great idea.” Which is practically the same thing, right?

Regardless, I was delighted to find this list (via the always excellent Brand Flakes for Breakfast), of 100 Things on the Internet you should have seen already (unless you’re like, my grandmother). I am not sure if I should admit this, but I have actually seen most of the list before, and it brought back some fine memories of my friends and I talking in the Charlie the Unicorn voice nonstop for about a month after first seeing that little gem.

My only objection is that the Dancing Matt video should have been way further up the list. Surely he bests the Grape Stomp lady. In comedy? No. Nothing will ever be funnier than the Grape Stomp lady taking a head-first digger. But in terms of pure awesomeness, Matt is my favorite. How can you watch this and not feel…something?

Check out the list. As a procrastination tool, I could see it really taking off.

And, in closing, Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!

One of the best things about living near Washington is getting to do the fun touristy things when friends come to town. I could do the fun touristy things any time, of course, but then I would have to be around other actual tourists without supervision. And I can’t take responsibility for what would happen. There may be an unfortunate incident involving a fanny pack used as a deadly weapon.

This weekend, my friends Jenny and Jen were in town to take in the sights. We got slow starts both days due to staying up until all hours Friday and Saturday night watching massive amounts of “Sex and the City” and eating massive amounts of foodstuff purchased at 7-11 (to say nothing of the sweet tea vodka), but we still managed to squeeze a lot into the few hours we had each day in the city:

1) We saw all the monuments except the Jefferson and FDR, because we are apparently elderly and were so exhausted after walking around all afternoon to the other ones that we couldn’t bear the thought of walking another, oh, quarter mile to the Tidal Basin. This is shameful, but an excuse for them to come back.

We walked past both sides of the White House, where Jen dared to ask the question, “what does wearing angel wings made of flowers and playing REM on a boom box have to do with vegetarianism?” To which I responded, “I am a lot more concerned about the guy with the teddy bear holding sign with the cut out in the middle and the arrow pointing to his ’stimulous package.’” (Ah, whacky White House protestors!)

2) We were forced to dodge large groups of nattering school children everywhere we went, and became convinced that a good percentage of the girls were simply not wearing pants. Anyone on the Mall this weekend would have been likely to hear the following, repeatedly: “Where are her PANTS?” “Seriously, there’s another one.” “Were YOU allowed to go pantsless to high school?” “Ok, seriously, those can’t even remotely pass for leggings–you can see her skin through them!” “You can see more than that.” “I’m really serious…where are her PANTS???” “Those cheerleaders on a scavenger hunt are annoying the crap out of me.” “Yes, they are a pain…but at least they are wearing PANTS!”

(My greatest victory in life is being born in 1979–when I was 15, the height of fashion was to roll out of bed looking like something the cat barfed up, with baggy jeans, flannel button downs, my awesome Doc Martens, Birkenstocks, and wild unkempt hair. I would, quite simply, not survive high school if I had it to do over again in this day and age. 90s fashion, FTW!)

3) Took the obligatory picture sitting on the Einstein statue’s lap, and freaked out my friends with the echo-spot at the center of the universe near his feet. (And told stories of the various abuses heaped upon poor Al during my freshman year at GW that are best not shared here…)

4) Went to Old Ebbitt Grill for martinis and couple bashing (it was V-Day, after all), making particular fun of all the couples who were already there and eating their Valentine’s dinner…at 430 in the afternoon. Someone forget to make a reservation?

5) Managed to get separated at the Museum of Natural History. In the sense that I chose to drop them off and find a place to park rather than expose them to any more of my road rage. It took me about three minutes to find a parking spot, and about 30 seconds to realize I did not have my phone. This incident ended up costing me 30 dollars in card charges using the pay phone to try and track them down. I should have known to just look near the Hope Diamond.

6) Consumed the following: unknown number of beers, Jack & Diets, Captain & Diets, sweet tea vodkas, martinis, Stoli raz and Sprites, Marlboro Lights, Cheetos, Fritos, Doritos, Wavy Lays, Milky Ways, Snickerdoodles (in both cookie and dough forms), frozen pizza, pasta, turkey meatballs, Trader Joe’s chocolate cloud cake, pumpkin spice whoopie pies, egg rolls, taquitos, fried rice, pancakes from a can, thick-sliced bacon, Chipotle burritos, Bread & Chocolate brunch, street vendor hot dogs, cookie ice cream sandwhiches, gummi orange slices and gummi worms. Oh, and Sun Chips. And dip. Ahem.

(Going to gym every day this week, why do you ask?)

(I think I’m going to have to insist on involving some vegetables the next time they come to visit…)

All in all, a great weekend. Although my apartment does currently boast quite the aroma right now. An intoxicating mixture of liquor, soda, cookies and bacon. I should probably get to cleaning…

I’m fine with Valentine’s Day generally. If by “generally” you mean “when I am not single.” Heh. Hypocritical? Sure. But it’s like, I don’t know. Picture you get laid off, and then your friends invite you out to drinks to make you feel better and spend the whole time talking about their jobs. Like, thanks, guys. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to see a man about some vodka. But this should cheer any one of you out there out tonight “celebrating” this fake bullcrap holiday.

(All I need is a guy who appreciates this movie–in the meantime, I will have to settle happily for girlfriends who come over with said vodka and watching “Sex and the City” dvds with me.)

In November of 2007, I posted a scathing “review” of book readers in general and the Amazon Kindle in particular, over on the CustomScoop blog. My analysis was basically that you can pry my books from my cold, dead fingers. I went a little overboard, I admit…but man. I hate the Kindle. I hate everything about it, right down to its “paper like” screen and ridiculous ads with a lady reading one on the beach.

Yes, because the beach is certainly where I’d bring a $360 computerized reading tablet–what could go wrong? Let’s all bring our Macbooks down there too! Sure, sand manages to work its way into bathing suits, beach bags, hair, wallets, and orifices during the average beach visit, but I’m sure my delicate piece of technology will be just fine.

Yes. I hate the Kindle. I just can’t help it, I love books way too much. My inner book-geek is in a death-match battle with my inner gadget-geek, and the book-geek is basically pulling a ground and pound right about now.

So, I thought it best to revisit my original CustomScoop blog post from ‘07, in my futile quest to bring others over to my side of things.

Enjoy:

Amazon launched the Kindle this week, a nifty little device that is heralded as “the iPod for books,” in that you can purchase entire books from Amazon.com and download them to the Kindle for reading on the go.

My initial reaction to all devices like this (the Sony Reader being the previous incarnation) is nothing short of pure horror. I may have a zest for technology, but I’m also a bibliophile.

Nothing could ever replace the experience of books for me–the way they look, the way they smell, the soft rustle of turning pages, hushed libraries, arty bookmarks, the fluttery feeling of excitement as you wind down towards the last page, the “ah” sigh of satisfaction as you close the book upon finishing…the reading experience is so much more important to me than the relative convenience of a portable device. And I don’t think I’m alone.

That being said, I’m more than willing to give the Kindle a fair initial analysis based on the product reviews I’ve read.

I’ll start with what’s bad:

1) The price. $399? I’d rather spend it on an iPhone. Or a new Coach bag big enough to carry my books in (oops, I said I’d be fair, didn’t I…)

2) Most of us, particularly tech nerds and bloggers, already spend a great portion of our days doing immeasurable damage to our peepers squinting at a computer screen. While Jeff Bezos claims in interviews that reading on a Kindle is highly comparable to reading on paper, with little “eye strain,” I can’t help but find this claim rather dubious. It’s not paper.

3) Half the fun of books is sharing them with others–with the Kindle, unless you hand over the device itself (and your account password, and who is going to trust anyone with either?), there is no sharing of books among friends.

What’s Good Interesting (can’t bring myself to call anything good, I’m really doing a bad job with the objectivity here):

1) I get the appeal of the portability, as someone who packed four books to take on a recent cruise (I drastically overestimated the amount of time I’d spend reading, and only got through one), books are heavy and take up space.

2) At $9.99 per book, Kindle books are cheap. Even cheap paperback beach reads can run you $12.99 at times, and with first-run hardcovers clocking in at $29.99 and up, $9.99 is a bargain (unless you factor in that you’ve paid $399 for the device itself..but there I go being all negative again).

3) Now this part I really do like: You can subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs for a monthly fee. As someone who (on top of those four books) also frequently boards planes with several cumbersome magazines (what? I like to read!), I can see where storing all the latest from the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek on a small, portable device would come in great handy. (Although since the screen is text only, you would be hard pressed to view any of the accompanying photos…darn, there I go again!)

Final call: I’d hold off on the Kindle for now. I’m just waiting for the price to go down by a couple hundred dollars right after the holidays, causing an uproar among the forty or so people who will actually buy this thing (Ed. Note: Yeah I was obviously wrong about both the interest in the device and the price–Kindle 2 is not that much less $ than the first one was…). While the device holds some promise, and I particularly am interested in having access to blogs and newspapers on the go, right now I am unmoved.

In college, I was a tad bit obsessed with “General Hospital.” Obsessed. My friend Rachel and I would plan our class schedules around it, and kvell and swoon at every declaration of love between Lucky and Elizabeth (version 1.0 of course, from what I understand now that I haven’t seen the show in a good 7 years, Lucky is now a beefcakey douche and Elizabeth has been married like six times or whatever. Way to ruin it, show!).

So to that extent I can kind of relate to how some people could watch the video I am about to post and get genuinely excited to watch “All My Children.” I saw this today and was totally awestruck. My favorite moment is the lesbian runaway bride on the motorcycle (which she naturally drives straight off a cliff), and my favorite line is, “I wanted to give you the perfect daughter…then I found out my SISTER already did!!!”

Also, if you suspect that I just also spent 30 minutes voraciously poring over old school Lucky and Elizabeth clips from 1998, well…you’d be right. God bless YouTube.

Well, Valentine’s day is a week away, I went to see “He’s Just Not That Into You” with my girlfriends last night (my review: not that terrible, but still pretty bad–kind of like dating!), and it seems like the right time to address dating.

My favorite dating stories are almost always the ones where someone goes on a blind date or a Match.com date that is so god-awful you have to laugh. My own favorite Match.com story involves the guy who emailed me telling me how “refreshing” he found it that I wasn’t afraid to use pictures where I didn’t look that attractive (well, I never), and then repeatedly messaged me wanting to know why I hadn’t written him back.

I am not currently on the dating scene and have not thought about doing Match lately, but that doesn’t mean I can’t mine my friends’ lives for similar horrors. This one comes from a friend of mine (yes, an actual friend of mine, I would totally claim this one for my own if I could, it’s that wonderfully bad). I can just picture how long this guy worked on this email. He probably went through several drafts before arriving on this masterpiece. Enjoy:

im the guy of ur dreams…. im the ticket u didnt buy…the guy u didnt reply…its cool… some lucky lady will get this… all of this… im sooo kidding… i just like to say whatever… what do stale gummy bears taste like? i like shopping and mail… i like to pick up my guitar and sing made up songs like ,,,,”why am i still single” i do stand up…and was a dj in waikiki hawaii…for a few years im here…working in a hospital still inspiring to be a comedian… well u seem cool… too cool…in fact when they made u they were holding a drink and ice fell in and they said “dang, i made her too cool” anyways… im new here…faithful, i do things different… i went snowboarding and was surfing rather than snowbording… in pensylvania…but i fell on my beep! ya, it dont feel like water at all… i love life..waiting to find a woman ready to be happy finally and make her freinds jealous… ive been single way too long…i love my job and didnt go out…when i do i go to clubs… CLUBS!!! are u serious? how in the world is anyone gona find a wife there….kids will be like…daddy how’d u meet mommy…”ya she was doing body shots and threw up, and dancing on the table..love at first site.” well… take care u…

So brilliant. I sort of picture him like a cross between Buffalo Bill and Steve Buscemi’s “Billy Madison” character.

I can only hope she stays online long enough to gather some more material, or I might have to join myself just so I have funny things to post here. In the meantime, however, I think I can sum up my thoughts on dating using through the genius words of Vince Vaughn, Billy Crystal, and Adam Sandler. (Does anyone know why YouTube adds these weird titles on embedded videos now? It looks so silly.)

Why Dating is Terrible:

Why Even Friendship is Difficult:

And, ultimately, the truth: