April Sweeps - Day 449

I don't have much going on today to tell you about. Last night, my cousin and I went out to see THE COURIER (we had tried three times to see it and this was the one that succeeded*) *The first time, two weeks ago, it sold out while we were in line (something that hasn't happened to me in, oh, twenty-something years), and the second time, I forgot about it and he sat at the theater waiting for me, wondering if I had parked someplace else.

I knew tonight would be busy, so I took my laptop out to the car, drove to the park, and typed for a few minutes.  I got almost nothing written, but at least I didn't waste any time surfing the net like I often do at the library--the place I go to write without distractions.

Sit-ups Today: 200

Sit-ups In April: 2655

Somehow, Oscar Night has rolled around again, and even though I have seen none of the films that were nominated (has anyone?), I simply had to watch.  But Sundays are my busiest nights with eBay, and it's the last Sunday of the month (you have to use all your paid-for auctions, or else they go to waste), so I did what I could to get them all done, and "taped" the Oscars.*

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In April: 2732

This was the weirdest Academy Awards I've watched, and didn't feel like the Oscars I grew up watching.  I'm tempted to say that it was mostly because of COVID (with several locations broadcasting at once where the nominees were watching) but . . . no, there was other stuff going on.  For example, instead of in the Kodak theater, or even the little ole Shrine Auditorium, they broadcast the whole thing from the Los Angeles train station (at least I thought I heard that right).  

For further example, instead of having a live orchestra [or even having a recorded orchestra], they had Questlove DJing with all the music, and he'd do the record-scratch thing from the Eighties and then play a song so loudly that you couldn't hear what the announcer was saying.  They went through the awards seemingly at random, giving out Best Picture with almost an hour left, before Actress or Actor.**  They didn't have performances of any of the nominated songs, and practically showed no clips, just for a couple of the awards.  Also, they didn't "play people off," but just let the winners say what they wanted for as long as they wanted (though they did bleep--badly--a couple of the statements that were made).  It was a bunch of people dressed up and sitting at tables, and two or three times I saw them talking amongst themselves, and worse, looking at their phones.

Oh, and a couple of years back, they introduced this super-tedious feature where the presenter for an acting award got to address and comment on the performances of each of the nominees, which brought that (and subsequent) Oscars to a screeching halt.  And THAT element they kept.

At one point, Harrison Ford came out, but he wasn't the same Harrison Ford I know.  He wasn't even the one who played Old Man Han in two of those recent Star Wars Sequels.  People are always making fun of the fact that they're doing one more INDY movie (about to start filming now), and that it should be called "Indiana Jones and the Land of A Thousand Wrinkles," "Indiana Jones and the Rest Home of Peril," or "Indiana Jones and the Cavern of the Enlarged Prostate."  

It always bothers me to hear stuff like that, but wow, seeing him tonight made me think of my dad, being almost unrecognizable, right before he passed.  Of course, we should've had two or three Indy films in the last twenty years (there's no reason those couldn't be as good as the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE films, the last four of which have been excellent), and I guess next year's will have to be the last.

You're gonna think I'm lying, but this oldster they had play Ancient Indy on the TV series?  He was four years younger than Harrison Ford is now.

Words Today: 648
Words In April: 17,626

Every year, Big Anklevich will call me or text me and ask if I'm watching "The gay man's Super Bowl," and I anticipated it this year, having already typed in a reply for when he asked.  But this year, he didn't.  Huh.

*DVRed is what I guess you would've said a decade ago.  I don't know what you'd say today.  Recorded?  Saved?  Qnosged?

**And the final award went to Anthony Hopkins for THE FATHER, and then he wasn't there, so they just said, "Okay, guess that's it," and cut to Questlove to play a song and say a few words like we were watching some kid's televised bar mitzva.  And that was it.