Live blogging the Oscars!

I dunno how long I'm going to last, but here goes...

I love how Hugh Jackman is like this manly man with hair on his back, but he's also big into musical theater.

The guy who plays Nixon looks older than dirt, him and Peter Gabriel look about the same age.

That was actually a great opening number. Jackman's really funny, I'm glad it's not, like Whoopi this year.

Haha Mickey Rourke looking fly! I have a feeling tonight's all about Rourke.

Tilda's dress is not so good.

I have this irrational antipathy for Penelope Cruz, mainly based on her goddamn accent.

Amy Smart is a way hotter Pam from the office.

Argh she won! The accent is like nails on a blackboard for me. I would totally do her though.

The only guys with huge sculpted physiques like Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhall that you see in real life are either gay guys or roidhead personal trainers (or both). Totally not believable in 'everyday guy' romcom roles.

Tina Fey sporting the asymmetrical halfway up do. She's hotter with glasses. Steve Martin is the man, everyone should recognize the genius of Bowfinger and the Pink Panther.

The best screenplay winner gave a really touching speech.

Aniston looking older, but still way hotter than Jolie.

Love the girl from Mama Mia, hate hate hate the guy from Twlight.

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist was insufferable.

Ben Stiller as Joaquin - awesome. Portman looking HOT.

Seth Rogan will finally lose the weight, and all the girls who say that he'd be cute if he lost weight will admit he looked better as a chub. Kind of like Ben Gibbard. And me.

I'm actually enjoying these musical numbers. Jackman is multi faceted. Beyonce's all about huge thighs.

N's idol Vanessa Hudgens is on with Zaquisha.

Fucking Rourke. That guy would be shirtless if they'd let him.

Whoa Walken. That's a crazy looking guy.

Fuck this documentary guy with the magic tricks and the scarf.

I just realized that Indiana Jones is totally getting shut out, deservedly so.

Hoping M.I.A. wins this, she's not here anyways. Well, she lost.

Reese looks really ordinary. Compared to Portman and Biel, she looks like any girl you'd see in the grocery store. I'd still do her.

Marion Cotillard bringing sexy back as usual.

Good god Sophia Loren looks like a leather handbag. I'd still do her.

I'm glad Kate Winslet won an Oscar, I like her. She looks old, a lot older than I expected. Still hot, hotter than Angelina. Why is she out of breath?

Noone will top Marion Cotillard's acceptance speech from last year. 'You rocked my life!'

Michael Douglas looks pretty good for an old as hell guy.

Man I'm really hoping Rourke wins this. Look at that huge pinky ring and the hand tattoo. And the gold tooth. And the sunglasses inside.

Wtf does that mean 'elect and elegant man president'?

Going to bed. I don't even care what wins Best Picture.

Book a week 2009 - 8/52

I found this random book, Dances With Marmots - A Pacific Crest Trail Adventure on a random google search. It just seemed like a good light read, I've also been interested in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail at some point. It seems like a really awesome adventure, perhaps when N's a bit older I can contemplate doing something like this.

Smashing Pumpkins - 99 Floors

From an audio rip of the If All Goes Wrong documentary. A Dylan-guesting-on-Zeppelin-III acoustic jam (also sounds like 'Whir') from their Fillmore residency that hardly anyone who isn't a closet Pumpkins fanatic would seek out or appreciate. I remember when I used to get into big arguments about Janes Addiction vs. Pumpkins in college - now Dave Navarro is hosting game shows and the Pumpkins, although not popular anymore after an admittedly spotty comeback album - still occasion come out with a gem of a b-side such as this.



Smashing Pumpkins - 99 Floors

Book a week 2009 - 7/52

Last year I tried to read a terribly detailed technical book about the linux kernel. It made some sense, but I felt frustrated that I couldn't understand the code snippets written in C. So I've decided to learn C using - what else - the iconic The C Programming Language (2nd Edition) by Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie. Actually, looking at my to-read list on goodreads - it looks like my aim for the next year is primarily to increase my technical knowledge in 4 areas -

1. Unix and Unix programming in C to the point where I can at least understand code snippets given in the kernel book and possibly start contributing some kernel code to the linux community.

2. Increasing my Java knowledge to the point where I can pass a high level technical certification.

3. Learning Ruby and Ruby on rails in order to use them more fluently at my current job.

4. Mac OSX programming in Objective C and Cocoa to the point where I'm writing some desktop or iPhone apps.

Sounds like a very ambitious range of projects, learning 4 languages. But it's not really - since I already know them all to varying degrees, and most object oriented languages seem very similar to me at this point. So that leaves C, which from most accounts I've read, is relatively to pick up. We'll see.

Book a week 2009 - 6/52

Phew, last week's book was *long* and boring because I already knew a lot of the material. This week's material is relatively short, but judging from the first two pages it's really powerful and enlightening stuff - Emerson's Self-Reliance and Other Essays. Still have to go back and do the exercises in Head Start Java, though.

Laughing as the lemming crest the cliff with eyes to the backs of their skulls.

We received some really good news yesterday - my dad had his had his CT scan last wee k, and the results came back yesterday from his oncologist - looks like his body is now free of cancer. The doctors told him that he will probably have to go t hrough chemotherapy for six months, but it's mainly a preventative measure, sinc e sometime the cancer comes back if you don't treat it. So we're all really hap py. He still has to go through chemo, and we have to watch his white blood cell count, which will be rough, but at least the cancer is gone. My parents are no w planning to go on their trip to Asia in March, too. I think N's grandma is co ming in from Michigan to help us take care of her, yesterday I heard her uncle L. was also coming down to help out.

Not a lot of time to write today. Aside from the very good news, I've been mass ively stressed out by everything lately. Thank God my wife is so understanding, as she knows about all the work and financial pressures, but I still wind up sn apping at her a lot. I have to find a way to watch that, she doesn't deserve it . Working out at the gym helps a little, but not much. Have been reading a lot , I read 3 books in the past two weeks. Been getting better at cooking, at leas t according to K. I am. Life is actually very busy but all in all I can't compl ain, I have so many blessing, I just put so much pressure on myself. Had a real ly good day yesterday taking care of N. We practiced crawling on the floor, an d I lay on the floor while she played with her blocks and we watched music docum entaries on youtube - we watched documentaries about Joy Division, Radiohead, The Smiths, and New Order. N. is going to be one cool baby.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

We have a twofer today from a band I read about today, downloaded their album, and have been listening to for the past six hours. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, sort of like a really melodic take on early MBV/The Pastels/Jesus and Mary Chain/Ride - basically *all* the really good shoegazer britpop bands from the late 80s. I always love a good pop song, especially when it's done this well.



The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Young Adult Friction


The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Stay Alive

Those hungry freaks

7 degrees below zero currently, commute was brutal - felt bad for wife and baby, so I went out and warmed up their car for them. Wife came down with my wool hat and a coffee in the new mugs we ordered. Kissed her and N. goodbye, then off to work - took an hour to get to work with everyone driving 5 mph on Lake Shore. Wish I could be home on the couch with my wife, under a blanket of some type, watching one of her documentaries. We have a three day weekend coming up which I'm really looking forward to. I don't plan to leave the house for any reason other than J's party on Sunday and working out/fetching groceries.

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Work went ok yesterday, pretty slow day at the office. Spent a lot of time trading mp3s with J., setting up my server at home, bullsh*tting with the guys. Boss bought deep dish pizza for everybody for lunch, he let me order a salad instead as I can't eat pizza right now with my race training. Spoke with T. about some projects I'm working on, they're going fairly slow but I'll be in a position to finish them next week. Of course I spent all of yesterday playing with N. when I should have been working from home. Feel good that yesterday was a good wholesome day of family time, there will be time to get work done later.

After work, I went to Trader Joe's and bought enough groceries to last us the weekend, so we don't have to go out into this f*cking cold. After I come home, unload the groceries, kiss the wife and baby, then I change into thermal running clothes, go back out to the car, drive to the gym and run 4 miles on the treadmill, do some yoga. Then I cooked dinner for K., chili lime chicken, baked potatoes, steamed vegetables, a bad pinot noir. Chocolate sorbet for dessert. Watched the season premier of Battlestar Galactica which was brilliant.

After dinner, laid in bed and tried to get my wife to watch this Joy Division documentary online, she refused and instead snuggled up to me while reading a book. Fell asleep with my laptop on my chest.

Woke up this morning, fed and changed the baby and put her back into bed with her mom. Made coffee, played guitar for an hour or so, watched the Daily Show. Thought about the day ahead - I have therapy with J. at 3, I still have to go to the gym, K. wants to go get sushi later on. God this Joy Division documentary is good. K. of course, doesn't appreciate them. I feel like playing Unknown Pleasures until she realizes their greatness.

Book a week 2009 - 5/52

The other day I combed Amazon's listmania for new books - my 'to-read shelf' on goodreads.com currently has about 42 books in it. That should about cover me for most of the year if I keep pace with a book a week. I can't believe I read all of Pragmatic Ruby in a week, that book was sort of dense. But there weren't any exercises and I already know the language pretty well. This week I'm Head First Java, 2nd Edition by Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates , which is like Java for Dummies. Later on, I may have to alternate a fiction book with a tech book as I delve into some of these more hardcore tech books, so I have time to do the exercises and absorb the material more.

New Order - Dream Attack

Best song on the best album, by the best group of all time? Possibly. Technique has long been a Top 10 album for me that I just haven't thought about it for so long. Something I read on a music message board led me to the below review from the NME circa the 80s, which got me listening to this album from my college years for the first time in a long, long time. This song is about the end of a love affair, why do I associate it so much with this time in my life, this sort of spiritual awakening that I'm going through right now that I don't really talk about on this blog I guess, and my love for my wife and baby? K. is the greatest woman in the world, I find myself thinking that all the time, it's not even really about N. so much right now, as N. is just this bright bundle of cuteness and responsibility. It's just K. and what she means to me. Oh yeah here's the NME review from Kick to the Ego:

New Order, Technique (Melody Maker, 1989)

It begins. It thumps with glee, it swirls with lackadaisical intensity. "You're much too young to be a part of me, you're much too young to get a hold on me." And never have veterans sounded so brilliantly arrogant, masters so eager. Jesus. "Technique" is so effortlessly GREAT, so languidly heroic, so vibrant and thrilling despite itself, that one wishes one could weep. As the Austrian philosopher Rose Royce once commented: "I'm in love (and I love the feeling)." That's what this is like. I first hear it on a train from Waterloo and as the power stations and football pitches fly past, I want to get out and race the train to the sound of this perfect, perfect music. New Order know that the times throw a malfunctioning grey electric blanket over our emotion, but also that the slightest wriggle could be the one to turn it on again. They do this wriggle repeatedly, on every jauntily fatigued song, like they've done it many times before. Only on "Technique", they do it more skilfully and confidently than ever. This leads not to plushness or sumptuousness, but to a tumbling pumping river of their strengths, their weaknesses, their glib grandeur. Never have New Order sounded so little like people from Manchester, so much like gods.

It's clear by now that, though they seem able to clean up in any medium, there are two bas(s)ic New Order modes of transportation - the pop one which is like The Cure ripping off New Order, and the disco one which is like Shannon ripping off New Order. Both are severally represented here without any falling between two stools. Their feel is whisker-fine, their surges are princely like a high quality fake ID. Albrecht's fragmented and victimised, but resilient, paper-mache poetry hauls itself up for what stings like one final summation of the shameful agonies of being male, of being prey to love and lust with equal sincerity/severity. Of acknowledging a bewildering sense of futility but still for some reason writing things down. When I say "male" I don't mean to imply that a "female" couldn't have written these simple yearnings and elegies, but that she wouldn't have started from the same angle. Undoubtedly "Technique" is inspired by a vulnerable, peculiarly boyish, somewhat petulant romanticism. from start to finish, from (heart on) sleeve (a cherub) to beaty monster inside.

"I can't find you, I can't find my peace of mind without you." As ever New Order temper Barney's pseudo-metaphysical couplets with a deceptive flippancy. (this is what always made them better and deeper than Joy Division.) "Fine Time " bubbles in, fascistically and facetiously making you dance. "Sophisticated lady, you got style and you got class, but most of all..." We strain to hear the punchline. We want to hear the punchline. We need to hear the punchline. "...Love technique." Ah, that'll be the title then. I am fully prepared to believe the lamb bleating at the end of this track is Christ applauding.

From then on it's irresistible, New Order marching through eight effervescing asphalt plains. There isn't a sub-GREAT moment to be found. When the majestic swooning "Run" "takes it down" you know that if the modernist ensemble come rushing back in with all swooshes blazing before the song fades, you'll start giggling at how marvellous all this is getting. They do. You do. you're sold. you're buying. You're coming out for spring. "All The Way" is gently awesome, precision guitars and rhythms levitating Albrecht's camp grandiloquence: "It takes years to find the nerve to be apart from what you've done, to find the truth inside yourself and not depend on anyone." There are many confessionals regarding strain, age, doubt, determination. "Love Less" and the probable next single "Round And Round" (a shimmering white funk whirlwind, if whirlwinds can shimmer, which I'm sure they can) build an apposite bridge between sentiment and dynamism. The latter is again evocative of travel, of flirting with life's hugeness. New Order are all about those minutes when you feel like a winning underdog and you knew all along you could do it. Of course, there's some miserablism. The beautiful (no other word) "Vanishing Point" and "Dream Attack" allow the lights up at the end of the party and, well, things are really quite manageable. They don't get morose. They get serene. Authentically. Before this there's a snarling "Guilty Partner", a bloodrush rather self-effacingly called "Mr Disco", and the aforementioned and utterly regal "Run", possibly their most poised and potent sculpure since "Thieves like Us". Play it loud and obsessive. Ultimately New Order are a subjective experience. A hundred lines here provoke productive self-examination and the hygiene of the sound encourages more anima projections than "La Boheme". I'm not being indulgent here (not by my standards) but you should be when you listen to it. And it swings, did I say it swings? "My life ain't no holiday, I've ben through the point of no return. I've seen what the man can do, I've seen all the hate of a woman too." Yes Bernard, we're all growing up. England's finest reluctant pop poet. I mean it. When he hits menopause there'll be a hell of a novel in this man. Meanwhile, the propulsion of the grooves is crisper than ice, more active than anarchy, swaggering on crutches. When New Order are this GREAT, this effortlessly with their musical poetry, the rest might as well go home and watch TV or something. "Technique" is the state of the embers of the Eighties, mystique and mistakes merging, kissed by the ruby lips of God. "Technique" is a rare and ravishing triumph.




New Order - Dream Attack