A quick update on multiple goings-on in my world, some recent, some… not so much

A quick update on multiple goings-on in the world, some recent, some… not so much:

• Another sad year for the Oscars. I speak not of the presentation itself, which was interestingly muted and low-key relative to years past, and featured some interesting performance art-ish attempts at classing things up, but rather of the award distribution. While I liked The Departed, I have deep philosophical issues with any film that borrows so much from another winning top honors. I speak of course of Infernal Affairs; while on multiple levels Scorsese & co. did a bang-up job repurposing the Hong Kong classic for American audiences and migrating it to Boston, there are still scenes that were lifted almost verbatim. I’m all for repurposing and reinterpretation - these are the underlying principles of OverClocked ReMix itself, after all - but I’d still rather see Best Picture go to something that involved more synthesis from scratch. Alan Arkin for Best Supporting Actor felt like a major “lifetime achievement in the guise of a specific performance” award to me, and I’m still bummed that Pan’s didn’t win Best Foreign Language Film, though admittedly I have not seen Lives. An underwhelming year, and the first in a long while in which I didn’t have strong feelings about most of the candidates. Better luck next year…
• I have switched over to gmail for my primary email account and have created a facebook account as well. Good stuff, even if the latter makes me feel a little icky… after all, this is the guy that not only skipped every high school function including his own graduation, but also remained rather ephemeral through college as well.
• My main PCs are now running Vista. Definitely some hiccups and snags, but it’s pretty and stable and certain processes have definitely been improved.
• I now own and wear an NYY cap; I can now officially be “that asshole wearing the Yankees cap” when identified in crowds.
• Relationship?!…
• 300 was not Sin City. Perhaps Grindhouse will come closer.
• Convertible weather is finally here, for the most part, and this is a good thing.