Sidebar Update: Oscars Edition

Don't forget to tune in this evening for my Academy Awards liveblogging! I'm all ready to go: I've got five cases of Southern Comfort, three keys of high-grade cocaine, seven underage Guatemalan hookers and a spider monkey. Am I forgetting anything? (If you said "a chainsaw," I like the way you think -- but I'm way ahead of you.)

I've got a little time before the festivities start; the show is at 5PM Pacific, but I'll start with the pre-show, as per usual. In fact, I'm starting with the pre-pre-show, which starts at 3PM; Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper are doing extra coverage for the local L.A. station. Yippee! (By which I mean, better crack that first bottle of SoCo right now.)

So with that time to kill, I've decided to do a sidebar update. A special, Oscar-themed update, in which almost nothing has anything to do with the Oscars. Whoot!

The Object of My Affection is Scarlett Johansson. I hope she's at the ceremony tonight; at these awards shows, she's always decked out in a gorgeous tribute to classic Hollywood glamour. Also, she's not above showing her naked butt on magazine covers with other hot naked actresses and creepy weird old guys who like to sniff ears.

Still reading Jonathan Strange, but I got sick of seeing it over on the sidebar, so I put up the next book in line instead: Terry Pratchett's Thud! At the rate I'm reading Jonathan Strange, I should get to it sometime in May.

Watching the season 3 DVDs of NewsRadio, one of the best sitcoms ever. They kind of snuck this release out under the radar; I didn't hear anything about it until after it was already in the stores. But hell, I'm just grateful they released it at all.

I'm never sure if I talk too much or too little about The Refreshments, one of my favorite music groups. Most likely, all you've ever heard from them is the theme song to King of the Hill, but I bet you'd like their other stuff if you listened to it. They're not quite Southern rock; I tend to think of them as Southwestern rock, or maybe "Tex-Mex". They only released two albums, but both were excellent; The Bottle & Fresh Horses is the second.

In honor of Oscar night, I'm hating past undeserving Oscar winners, especially those for Best Picture. Not all undeserving winners were terrible (though certainly some were); many just won against far, far more deserving competitors. I mean, I like Dances With Wolves just fine, but dude, it beat Goodfellas.

Lyric of the Week is some nihilistic rage from "Zero" by Smashing Pumpkins. And Barney, well, he always speaks for himself.

See you back here for the Oscars!