The alexwayne.com Oscars review

Despite my best intentions, I found myself watching the Oscars Sunday. It's amazing what one will do to please a pretty girl.

Anyway, here's what I remember:

• The worst movie of the year won almost everything it was nominated for. Surprise, surprise: the Academy screws up again.
• Despite my best efforts at telepathy and telekinesis, Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek did not make out on stage. I don't mind telling you: I was speechless during this segment. I have no idea what award they were presenting or what they were saying. All I know is, it was hot. All of it.
• There was some chick in the balcony during the presentation of that lifetime achievement award to that director dude who had a gi-normous rack, and who knew it. God bless her.
• The Chris Rock-filling-in-for-Catherine-Zeta-Jones with Adam Sandler bit was pretty funny.
• I had a choice, several weeks ago, between seeing "Hotel Rwanda" and the worst movie of the year. I chose poorly.

Not as hot as it sounds

A play in one act, based on actual events. Scene: a not uncrowded Metro platform on a Saturday afternoon much like this one. In fact, this one.

Loud dumb ugly girl: "So he's like, it's not 4:00 yet, and that's when we usually get started."
Dumb girl's friend: "Uhhuh?"
LDUG: "And so I'm like, well, I guess I'll just have to take care of myself."
DGF:
Alex : What the fuck?
LDUG: "And he's like, well, I guess I'll have to take care of myself, too!"
DGF:
LDUG: "And so he goes in the bathroom, and I'm like still in bed, and I kick off my panties..."
Alex : What the hell is wrong with people?
DGF: oooh!
LDUG: "... And he comes out of the bathroom, and I'm like, 'did you take care of yourself?' And he's like, 'sure I did,' and so I throw back the covers and I'm like 'too bad!'..."

Train arrives. Girls board last car. Alex goes out of his way to board second-to-last car. Close doors.

Things I've learned this week about transportation

I've had occasion to travel extensively -- for me at least -- for work this week. Herewith, I impart the wisdom I've gathered:

• Trains rock. Washington to Philly, via Baltimore and Wilmington, Del.: two hours, on the spot. No take-off, no landing, no grumpy stewardesses, no unexplained delays, no seats-so-skinny-the-fat-guy-next-to-you-is-in-your-lap, no security screening (this is only good until some asshole bombs a train, I suppose) and no traffic. Also, Amtrak's "quiet car" idea is worthy of a patent. Please please, FAA: never allow cell-phone use in airplanes.
  
• United sucks. I get up at 6 a.m. for a 9 a.m. flight out of Dulles (which also sucks, by the way -- in fact, it's worthy of a separate entry; see below). I fight traffic to the airport and lo and behold: my flight has been delayed by three hours. I make my way to the concourse. Hello, non-friendly United employee! Might you shed some light on why I got up ridiculously early for a noon flight? Crew delay, non-friendly United employee says. What's that, I say -- they slept late? I don't know, non-friendly United employee says; all I know is I'm here. Yes, so am I, I say. And the plane, when it gets there, is a turboprop. Is there any more frightening way to fly?
  
• Dulles blows. I always try to fly out of REAGAN National Airport (emphasis GOP's), and for good reason. Dulles is in the middle of nowhere. Metro doesn't reach it. A cab ride from D.C. costs $50. And the main highway leading to it is "high-occupancy vehicle only" during rush hour, meaning that if you're driving to the airport during afternoon rush or from it during morning rush, you can't use the most direct route unless you pick up a hitchhiker. It has five concourses, which are connected only by a series of shuttle buses, whose drivers like to take five-minute breaks between trips to flirt with coworkers. You've got a connecting flight in 20 minutes that's a concourse and 30 gates away? Hey, gimme a break, man -- I've got some tail on the line here! Finally, the concourse for United's "Express" (read: small planes and especially unfriendly staff) service is basically a metal shack. One bathroom with broken urinals serving 25 gates, poorly heated, and not even a Starbucks.
  
• Charleston, West Virginia is a nice town. Good steak house. Pretty mountains. Friendly people. Didn't encounter a single mountain-top coal mine or homosexual inbred rapist. Kind of scary airport, but with free wireless Internet. I could live there (the town, not the airport). Philly, maybe not so much.
  
  
  

So awesome words fail me, almost

I'd like to think that if I were about to die and happened to have a camera in my hand, I'd be able to do at least as well as John or Jackie Knill. But probably not, unless I were pretty drunk. Which, judging from the first picture, maybe they were.

What I learned from snowboarding

One can wipeout in spectacular ways, at high speeds, over and over again and yet suffer no permanent damage. It's even fun for a while.

Also: there is nothing better than a hot tub and a cold beer after a mountain kicks your ass.

If Eastwood's crap can win an Oscar, so can mine

I'm going skiing for the first time this weekend. Snowboarding, if you want to get technical about it. I am not the most coordinated of men. So best-case scenario, I figure, is that I don't break anything. Worst-case, I break my neck. In which case I want Jude Law to be cast as Alex Wayne in "Zero Dollar Gimp." An excerpt:

Paralyzed Alex: Don't let 'em take my leg, boss!
Stereotypically grizzled ski instructor (to be played by Ed
Harris): Hell, you don't need it anymore. Hey, that bedsore looks like Abraham Lincoln!

Olaf, berserker!

A super-cyclone named Olaf. Man is that cool. And he and girl cyclone Nancy might merge into a single "massively destructive storm." Oh, man. I need a little Alex time over here.

Old dumbness: Creationism

New hotness: "Intelligent Design."

Kansas, which distinguished itself a few years ago by erasing evolution from its textbooks, is back at it.

My favorite line from the story:

Harris says that in trying to understand how life began, science errs in refusing to look beyond natural explanations, to other explanations -- which, he acknowledged, some call "supernatural."

Some call it supernatural. As a reporter, if I hear that phrase in an interview, that's the point where I check my watch to see how close I am to deadline. Fun as they are, there's only so much time you can waste with nutjobs.

From the category of "Duh"

All of these people deserved to be fired, for being stupid if nothing else. Except for maybe the airline stewardess who posted photos of herself slutting it up in her stewardess outfit. That, I'm big enough to forgive.

You'll never have to scale, cut or gut again!

I've never bought anything I ever saw in an infomercial, but after watching some Aussie make salsa with this thing, man do I want it. Any job! In 10 seconds or LESS! And I'll bet it makes a mean bass, too!

Also, I'm told by a credible source that it shares its name with an appliance not at all intended for kitchen use. Except by you ladies who are into that sort of thing.

I don't get it

"Million Dollar Baby": Predictable, stereotypical, melodramatic, un-entertaining, seven Oscar nominations.

"Garden State": Unpredictable, refreshing, dramatic, funny, zero Oscar nominations. (But it did win the Florida Film Critics "Breakout" award. Alas, they also honored Hilary Swank for her work in MDB.)

"Shaun of the Dead": Best movie I saw all year, zero Oscar nominations. (And nothing from the Florida Film Critics, either.)

"77th Annual Academy Awards": What I won't be watching come Feb. 27.

"Jeff Gannon" needs a job

Except that his name's uh, not Jeff Gannon. And he has some kind of connection with some, hmm, oddly named Web sites.

My favorite passage from Howie Kurtz's story:

Several White House correspondents say they saw Gannon wearing what appeared to be a permanent White House pass with his picture and pseudonym -- legal names are generally required because of the Secret Service background check -- and that McClellan sometimes called on Gannon when he wanted a softer question. McClellan disputed this, saying he calls on reporters "row by row."

He also said Gannon did not have a permanent pass and was admitted on a day-to-day basis like many other journalists, adding that he does not meddle with the process on political grounds.

Now there are all sorts of fascinating and no doubt important ethical questions raised by this whole situation. But for me, this is the most important: I didn't know reporters could work under pseudonyms. So henceforth, I wish my byline to read: "Karl Hungus."

We even teach them football now

Oh, what the world has come to. Back in the day, reports a University of Florida researcher -- a researcher who happens to work for my mom, who happens to own her own archaeology firm, for God's sake -- the Spanish kept girls in their proper place:

“The main goal of childhood was to get children ready for their adult lives,” said Jamie Waters, who did the research for her thesis in anthropology at UF. “Parents and other adult family members were trying to socialize children in the skills they would need as adults, which for boys included reading and writing, and for girls was domestic crafts, such as pottery making, sewing, cooking and taking care of younger siblings.”

Maybe that's why the Spaniards conquered the New World, but we can't even manage two countries, huh? Huh?



Disclaimer: The above post is meant as entertainment only and does not reflect the editorial policy of alexwayne.com. Post should not be interpreted by certain parties as justification for the withholding of certain activities. All rights reserved. Actual researcher may not match photo. And yeah, the researcher is hot, in case you couldn't tell because of the magnifying glass.

Return of The Bulge

One of the more humorous election "scandals" we in the media covered last year, sort of, was the "controversy" over the mysterious bulge in President Bush's jacket during the first debate.

Let's set aside that there were all kinds of true scandals we in the media might have pursued during the election but did not, instead choosing to spend our limited resources vetting the candidates' records on a 30-year-old war.

Anyway, this won't make my left-wing friends happy: apparently the New York Times was set to publish an "October surprise"-type story on the bulge but killed it because editors decided it was incomplete and/or unfair.

Lex says that if true, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller ought to be fired. But I'm kind of on Keller's side on this one.

Seems that the killed story was based on the following sources: a NASA scientist with unclear political motives who had enhanced a photo and claimed the bulge was some kind of electronic device; a manufacturer of such devices who agreed with the scientist; and a third photo analyst who also said the bulge was a device.

That's a story, but I don't think it's the kind of bulletproof knock-out punch you run five days before the election. The missing information: administration or campaign sources or documents acknowledging that Bush was wired. Tough to get, maybe even impossible? Sure. But in my book, that's the bar that's got to be met for an October surprise.

For disaster addicts like me

Know when the next tsunami is on its way!

Safely not on my beat

I'm going to be frank: If you don't "believe" in evolution, you are a moron. And if you are a teacher in a school with evolution in the curriculum, yet you don't teach it, you are either a moron or a chickenshit.

Here's the quick alexwayne.com evolution-versus-Creationism primer:

Yes, evolution is a theory. So is gravity. Do you "believe" in gravity? Because "believe" it or not, no one has proved why gravity is what it is.

Creationism, on the other hand, is not a theory. It's a hypothesis. Key difference: It can't be tested. It's based on faith. Which is fine, for theology. For science, not so much.

Ah, the Creationist screams: Evolution can't be observed, and thus can't be tested! Wrong-o on both counts, dumbass. (Having read it in print, I assure you that the NatGeo article is worth finding or buying -- and that it concludes, without doubt, that the answer to its own headline is "no, you moron.")

So, to the scaredy-pants teachers: If your principal or superintendent frowns on teaching evolution, grow some goddamn sack and teach the hell out of it anyway. If they fire you, sue. The ACLU and countless other organizations, I am sure, will happily leap to your defense.

And to the teachers who don't "believe" in evolution: Might I suggest the clergy as a career?

I can't write a damn word...

... about this guy without violating a bunch of my rules for this blog and maybe getting myself fired.

Here's some totally factual context, though: To get a Congressional press credential, you have to file a two-page application with something called the Standing Committee of Correspondents, which is made up of journalists. In other words, journalists decide which journalists cover Congress. Rather than, say, the majority party.