Oscar

For more details, hints, and tips on Oscars prediction contests, read the Academy Awards Prediction Contests page. For the most recent Oscars posts, be sure to check out the Oscars/Academy Awards category page. There, you should find contests, predictions, and results.

Make sure you know who's in the running for each category! Print the official Oscars printable ballot.

81st Academy Awards Prediction Contests:

• Oscars.com
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• eFilmCritic — Unique method of entry for this one, as you can vote for multiple films in each category
  Prize: 50 DVDs, Robert Osborne's 80 Years of Oscar book, 2 passes to your local IMAX theatre (Est. $1,315 ARV)
• DE Concierge
  Prize: a $100 gift certificate to Burke Williams Day Spa in CA, a $100 gift certificate, and a $100 gift certificate to the Arclight Cinema in LA ($300 ARV)
• The Golden Schmoes
  Prize: iPod Video ($250 ARV)
• the-numbers.com
  Prize: All five Best Picture Nominees on DVD. (Est. $100 ARV)
• web-goddess
  Prize: One pair of Batman and Joker sock monkeys (Est. $60 ARV)
• Scuba.com
  Prize: $50 scuba.com gift certificate ($50 ARV)
• Fort Worth Public Library
  Prize: No Country for Old Men DVD, Two AMC movie passes, 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola Classic, and a box of Orville Redenbacher's Microwave Gourmet Popping Corn (Est. $35 ARV)
• York Daily Record
  Prize: $25 gift certificate to Regal Cinemas ($25 ARV)
• The Augusta Chronicle
  Prize: An entertainment prize package ($? ARV)
• Practicalmadness
  Prize: Store credit or gift certificate ($? ARV)
• PredictTheOscars.com
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• The Daily Camera and The Video Station
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• The News Tribune
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• Box Office Mojo
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• Variety
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• Awards Daily
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• Rochester, MN Post-Bulletin
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)

Good luck to you, and have fun! (And if you win a prize, please feel free to share it with me!)

Thanks to the success of MXC and then Wipeout, we're seeing a rash of Japanese game imports coming to the U.S.

I'm not sure about the rules exactly, but it really does seem straightfoward. The contestant stands at the end of a runway in front of a pit of water. A large wall with a certain shape comes toward them, and the contestant has to contort their body into the shape of the hole so they remain in the playing area instead of being swept into the water. Some holes/shapes require laying down, jumping, and teamwork.

Fox's casting call earlier this summer requested same-sex teams of three players, which seems to have been the format for the original show as well.

Of course, reading about the show tends to be fairly boring, while watching these people play the game is much more enjoyable:

Now go ahead . . . start filling out that application. You know you want to try it yourself!

Let's talk summer Olympics, shall we?

As with most people, I enjoy when the Olympics are on, because it gives you the chance to watch all sorts of . And let's face it — this isn't the 70s, when the Olympics took up "all three" channels for the entire day. You don't have to be inundated by the Olympics in the 21st century, because there are hundreds other channels to choose from! But nonetheless, despite the positive aspects to the Olympic Games, there are always things to complain about.

• I really enjoy getting a chance to watch some of these sports that you really have little or no opportunity to watch at any other time except every four years. Watching some of these sports, I also realize that we can't really take watching them more than once every four years. For instance, I have an extremely low tolerance for watching televised weightlifting, and while professional badminton is cool to see, I usually change the channel after a few sets.
• What's with this growing trend the past 10 years or so to run 5+ minute highlights for each and every Olympic athlete that you've never heard of before, and to run 30+ minute documentaries on the athletes you have heard of? A few athletes genuinely do have a story worth being retold, and Phelp's achievements really do take 30 minutes to retell. But many of these stories are average, boring people whose only interesting feature is that they're good enough at their sport to make it to the Olympics on behalf of their country.
• Sports that involve judges are never as enjoyable as races (e.g. swimming, track, cycling) and sports with an objective scoring system (e.g. soccer, basketball, table tennis). You basically watch gymnasts do these incomprehensible flips and turns in the air, and all you can tell is that it is bad when they fall down. The scores come out and you really just have to shrug and let the announcers assure you that it's an appropriate score.
• If I have to hear one more sportscaster ramble on and on about how so-and-so's coach is her dad, I'm going to lose it. We get it, but it's really not that uncommon. Many 16 year olds competing in the Olympics are that good because their parents did the same thing and have pushed their kids to follow in their footsteps. And since these parents are living vicariously through their children's accomplishments, they become control freaks and insist on coaching.

I'll take the summer Olympics over the Winter games any time, but we can discuss that in two years when those come around.

Thoughts, agreements, complaints, or criticisms? Please feel free to comment.

And the winners are . . .

Yet again, I made my annual Oscars predictions and joined many contests.

Three years ago I correctly guessed 13 categories and two years ago I guessed 14 correctly. (Last year I got lazy.) This year, I didn't take very much time making my picks, and obviously the results show. This is my worst showing yet, as I only correctly guessed 11 of the 24 categories — my first year under 50%. That said, I'm happy with getting seven of the eight major categories correct. I simply did horrendously in the lesser categories this year.

Without further ado, here is how I fared on each of the 24 Oscars categories:

1. Best Picture
   Winner: No Country for Old Men
2. Best Actor
   Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
3. Best Actress
   Winner: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
   My Pick: Julie Christie, Away from Her
4. Best Supporting Actor
   Winner: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
5. Best Supporting Actress
   Winner: Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
6. Best Director
   Winner: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
7. Best Original Screenplay
   Winner: Juno
8. Best Adapted Screenplay
   Winner: No Country for Old Men
9. Animated Feature
   Winner: Ratatouille
10. Art Direction
    Winner: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
    My Pick: The Golden Compass
11. Cinematography
    Winner: There Will Be Blood
    My Pick: No Country for Old Men
12. Costume
    Winner: Elizabeth: The Golden Age
    My Pick: Atonement
13. Documentary Feature
    Winner: Taxi to the Dark Side
    My Pick: No End in Sight
14. Documentary Short Subject
    Winner: Freeheld
    My Pick: La Corona (The Crown)
15. Film Editing
    Winner: The Bourne Ultimatum
    My Pick: No Country for Old Men
16. Foreign Language Film
    Winner: The Counterfeiters
    My Pick: Katyn
17. Makeup
    Winner: La Vie en Rose
18. Original Score
    Winner: Atonement
19. Original Song
    Winner: "Falling Slowly," Once
20. Short Film, Animated
    Winner: Peter and the Wolf
    My Pick: Madame Tutli-Putli
21. Short Film, Live Action
    Winner: Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)
    My Pick: Tanghi Argentini
22. Sound Editing
    Winner: The Bourne Ultimatum
    My Pick: Transformers
23. Sound Mixing
    Winner: The Bourne Ultimatum
    My Pick: Transformers
24. Visual Effects
    Winner: The Golden Compass
    My Pick: Transformers

Oh well. Better luck next year.

For more details on Oscars prediction contests, read the Academy Awards Prediction Contests page. For the most recent Oscars posts, be sure to check out the Oscars/Academy Awards category page. There, you should find contests, predictions, and results.

Here are a handful of contests I have found since my previous post of contests. The Academy Awards Prediction Contests page has been updated accordingly.

• JoBlo
  Prize: Apple 80 GB iPod classic Silver ($236 ARV)
• AbsolutePunk
  Prize: Sports Night: The Complete Series DVD ($48 ARV)
• York Daily Record
  Prize: $30 gift certificate to Regal Cinemas ($30 ARV)
• Awards Daily
  Prize: Nothing ($0 ARV)

Oscar

For more details on Oscars prediction contests, read the Academy Awards Prediction Contests page. For the most recent Oscars posts, be sure to check out the Oscars/Academy Awards category page. There, you should find contests, predictions, and results.

Make sure you know who's in the running for each category! Print the official Oscars printable ballot.

The Contests:

• Oscars.com — ABC.com membership required
  Prize: One Women’s Right-hand ring from the Kwiat Star Collection, set in 18k white gold with 1.53cts or round brilliant and marquise cut diamonds.; One pair of Men’s Cufflinks from the Kwiat Men’s Solaris Collection, featuring black and white diamonds set in 18k white gold with 1.28cts or round brilliant diamonds. ($11,720 ARV)
• CNN.com
  Prize: 47" Flat Screen HDTV ($1,500 ARV)
• eFilmCritic — Unique method of entry for this one, as you can vote for multiple films in each category
  Prize: 50 DVDs (Est. $1,000 ARV)
• DE Concierge
  Prize: $100 gift certificate to Burke Williams Day Spa in CA, a $100 restaurant gift certificate, and a $100 gift certificate to the Arclight Cinema in LA ($300 ARV)
• AroundCinci
  Prize: Movie showings from Movies on Demand for an entire year — probably only redeemable by customers of Time Warner Cable in the Cincinatti region ($179.64 ARV)
• the-numbers.com
  Prize: All five Best Picture Nominees on DVD. (Est. $100 ARV)
• Kentucky.com
  Prize: $50 in movie tickets and a $50 gift certificate to a Lexington-area restaurant ($100 ARV)
• Movie City News
  Prize: Stanley Kubrick Box Set of DVDS and an MCN Know It All tee ($87 ARV)
• PredictTheOscars.com
  Prize: $50 VISA gift card ($50 ARV)
• Scuba.com
  Prize: $50 scuba.com gift certificate ($50 ARV)
• Fort Worth Public Library
  Prize: Two AMC movie passes, The Departed DVD, 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola Classic, and a box of Orville Redenbacher's Microwave Gourmet Popping Corn (Est. $35 ARV)
• web-goddess
  Prize: One Striking Writer sock monkey (Est. $30 ARV)
• The Daily Camera and The Video Station
  Prize: Dinner and a movie for two (ARV unknown)
• The Augusta Chronicle
  Prize: An entertainment prize package (ARV unknown)
• The News Tribune
  Prize: Unknown
• Practicalmadness
  Prize: Unknown
• Box Office Mojo
  Prize: Nothing?
• Variety
  Prize: Nothing ($0 ARV)
• Entertainment Weekly
  Prize: "Bragging rights" ($0 ARV)
• TheEnvelope.com (Los Angeles Times) (Coming soon???)
  Prize: $1,000

Good luck to you, and have fun! (And if you win a prize, please feel free to share it with me!)

A car salesman congratulates a man on how much he already knew about the car. The man admits that he used cars.com's consumer reviews and dealer locator to help himself instead of using Plan B.

The car salesman asks what Plan B was, and the man explains that he was going to have a witch doctor shrink the salesman's head. He points out into the waiting room, where a witch doctor is sitting next to the other customers.

At that point, another worker, Jorge, comes into the office with a shrunken head and asks to have the rest of the day off because he has a tiny head. Sure enough, the witch doctor has started early. The customer admits that he should probably get the witch doctor out of the dealership.

Watch the video:

Easter egg: The salesman's name tag reads "Jason Karley." Jason Karley is a copywriter for DDB, Chicago, the agency responsible for this commercial.