For those who want to know the math: 400 discs with approximately two hours of entertainment (a serious average, not including the extra features) that’s 48000 minutes of footage. That’s somewhere around 67 twelve hour days of constant DVD viewing. Whew! Over two months of couch-potatoism. I’m not saying we couldn’t do it (ha!) but truly how? If we watched three hours every night it would take us 267 nights, nearly two-thirds of a year. Wow. (By the way I hope, since I’m posting this to the world, that I did the math right!)

When people find out how long our queue is they ask how I hear about all the movies. JD often asks the same thing after we watch yet another Indie flick that wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. I find titles a few ways.

1. I watch the Oscars every year and keep a running list of what looks interesting, wins awards and/or has Hollywood buzzing.
2. I read entertainment news online and notice titles of films from Cannes (or other festivals) that garner much praise.
3. I pay attention online or in person when a friend or aquaintance mentions a good film.
4. I troll the Netflix site for “because you liked _______ you might like ______” type recommendations.
5. I see TV shows that look good but are either on channels we don’t get (HBO, Showtime) or the show has already been on for years and we are slow to come around to it (24 is a perfect example of that).

For us that’s pretty much how it works. It has ended up for some reason that I mostly post to the queue. JD has been encouraged many a time and does select some. He has also learned to bump up what he wants to see because the end of the list never seems to get to the top, because it keeps growing…

• Encounter at the end of the World
• The Garden
• The Betrayal
• Man on Wire
• Trouble the Water
• Pineapple Express
• The Reader
• Tropic Thunder
• Doubt
• Milk
• Seven Minutes
• Frost/Nixon
• Secret Life of Bees (I have to read the book first)
• Revolutionary Road
• Frozen River
• The Visitor
• Australia
• Ironman
• Defiance
• The Class
• Revanche

I’m not a huge Hugh Jackman fan so I wasn’t looking forward to his participation in the ceremony.  In fact when Will Smith joked during his presentations (all four of them) that Hugh Jackman was napping I thought to myself that I think I’d prefer Will Smith as a host.  That said, there wasn’t anything wrong with Jackman’s performance.  The opening was alright, but the shortcomings were not his fault.  I missed seeing Jack Nicholson in the front row with his sunglasses on.  Mickey Rourke was no Jack.  The top hat musical number with Beyonce (does she need to be listed as Beyonce Knowles? Don’t we all know who Beyonce is?!) was fabulous.  I absolutely LOVED it.  It was flashy, classy and pure Hollywood.  A funny side note to that is the drums.  During the show there was only one row of drums on the very top step.  The sound was HUGE (yes, I married a drummer, I’m a girl who loves rhythm I admit it) and as they cut to commercial 30 more drummers poured out from under and behind the stairs.  So funny!  I read in a USA today article (the best article, in my opinion) that stated there was a total of 50 USC drumline musicians. 

Dresses, dresses, dresses.  If I see another neutral off the shoulder gown I just might throw up.  Does anyone have imagination?  I’m not asking for goose feathers or anything, just something that isn’t exactly like what everyone else is wearing.  Gold was the safe color.  Kate Winslett and Virginia Madsen always get my compliments for their healthy curves. LOVE IT!  I really want to know how in the world Sarah Jessica Parker gets volumptuous breasts when she’s a size zero.  Truly.  How does that work?  My favorite gown was worn by Melissa Leo, nominated for Frozen River.  It was a bronze color with two shoulders, imagine that!  Other gals who looked great were Penelope Cruz, Beyonce, Natalie Portman, Evan Rachel Wood, Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey and Jennifer Aniston.  I thought Taraji Henson’s dress looked like a mummy.  And while I liked Sarah Jessica Parker’s dress for the most part, I could really do without the belt.  Marissa Tomei’s dress looked like a bunch of fighting fans and I do beleive I saw Jessica Biel wearing black shoes with a champagne colored dress, really!  Natalie Portman gets kudos for wearing a great shade of fushia, not red, not black, not gold, a real actual honest to goodness color.  Melissa George (Grey’s Anatomy) looked like she had on her slip and forgot her gown in the car.  Lingerie inspired is one thing, underwear is completely another.  Whoopi gets a shout just for wearing a dress and JD thought Goldie needed to be told that her dress needed to be a bigger size, oopsie.  My last two fashion comments are about make-up.  Who let Jildi Swentin out of the house without any-again?  And why don’t documentary makers know about hair and make-up?

I don’t follow Hollywood nearly as closely as I once did and frankly all the Brangelina hoopla makes me want to puke.  After seeing the two of them together last night I couldn’t help but notice that they don’t show any affection AT ALL.  Her hand didn’t touch his knee, they weren’t holding hands, they don’t look at each other, it’s creepy.  Something weird is going on there.  Not that we didn’t already know that, I’m just going on record as having noticed.

The intimacy created during the announcement of the acting categories was lovely.  I know the words were written by professional writers for the event specifically for the reason of drawing me in and I know they were reading from a teleprompter, but it was lovely.  It worked and I cried during each one.  If I were Sean Penn I’d have thosse words put on a poster and hung next to my Oscar. 

Of course I also cried when Heath Ledger’s parent’s accepted his Oscar, and I cried during the music nominations.  That’s one of the reasons I watch, not to cry, but to feel something from the art of film.  It can be educational, it can be entertaining and it can also be moving.  Film (media/art) is powerful… and I’ve got over 300 to watch so I’d best get a move on!

Beyonce channels Sasha Fierce when she’s onstage. Sasha does and says things that Beyonce may be uncomfortable doing in her everyday, offstage, life. She talked about this a bit on Oprah. It came to my mind the other day when I was at the gym and I realized how much of an escape it can be for me to be there.

In spin class I can be behind Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France going as fast as my legs can fly. In cardio funk/salsa I can be on a cruise or in Cancun shakin’ my hips to the music. I’m not anyone’s mother, I’m not in charge of what’s for dinner, I don’t have to be anywhere else. I can push my body and enjoy what my body can do. It has become, for me, a bit of an escape.

Over the last seven months when JD was unemployed my goal at the gym would often be to forget the stress. My goal was to be exhausted physically, to ask so much of my body that I would literally forget the stress. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, sometimes I hurt myself. It still felt good to try to get out of my head and to focus on one thing for one hour. One of the instructors actually jokes before class that her goal is to make us forget everything else that we have to do that day. Yes! I’m all for that.

The unemployment stress is dissolving. The constant nagging fear is dissipating. But I think I learned a helpful thing along the way. I learned how to focus and how to push myself (I didn’t hurt myself badly, a few days of VERY sore muscles). I don’t think I’m ADD or anything, but I sometimes have a tough time focusing on one thing to completion. If adopting a persona helps me get there I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

Now, if I could just channel Peter Walsh to get my house in order I’d be golden!

Let me explain… there is sand and wind on the beach. Need I say more? My comment was meant to disspell the myth of the Hollywood sexy beach scene. By now, as reasonably well-educated adults, we should realize that EVERY Hollywood scene is well-lit, designed and rehearsed over and over. When the non-professionals attempt to recreate such a scene we forget about things like sand and wind. So, my comment was in no way related to the quality of the actual encounter, but rather the surroundings that left much, much to be desired.

There. The conversation last night moved much too fast for me to defend my comment. But here it is now for all the web to see.

So, unfortunately, thanks to the writer’s strike, I’ve been without my fav show for months. I know they’ve made the re-runs available, but seriously, I haven’t missed an episode since the show started. Catching up is not exactly what I needed. I needed to know what my kids were up to at Seattle Grace.  I needed to know how Meredith and McDreamy were doing. I needed to know if George and Izzy were still each other’s best friend. I needed to know how Christina was coping. I needed to know if Bailey’s marriage is going to survive. A re-run was going to solve nothing.

A few weeks ago I read an article that stated post strike only a few hit shows would be returning to finish out the season. After being concerned that some of the shows I’d already grown attached to (think Dirty Sexy Money, Private Practice and Big Shots) were possibly in danger of being canceled I realized something slightly unspoken yet completely implied in the article. I realized that with the few shows finishing out the season that’s all they plan on doing… finish out the season.

WHAT?! They owe me.  Shonda Rhimes and her staff owe me a FULL season of shows.  What is that usually?  23/26 shows? I think they maybe got 10-12 episodes in before the strike.  THEY OWE ME!!! I’ll be here all summer, I’m ready, bring it on. 12 new shows would easily pull me through the hot, humid, BORING TV, summer. I know they were plotting, scheming and writing during the strike. You know, not officially, but just enough so that they are completely and totally caught up. Taking the summer off is not an option. 90210 did it years ago, it was a beautiful thing appreciated by fans the world over. Are new shows throughout the summer such a bad thing? I think not. Besides, they owe me!

To give you a bit of history the Oscars are to me what the Super Bowl is to most others.  In the years before TiVo and when it aired on a weeknight I was known to tape it and swear those around me to secrecy until I had viewed the tapes.  One year I had to put it off for a week because it was one of those crazy weeks where I just didn’t have the three plus hours to sit and watch it all.  We returned from Mexico one year on the very night that the Oscars were airing.  I hadn’t seen our daughter in a week, my mother and grandmother were visiting and all I was concerned about was that someone had remembered to TiVo the Oscars! 

This year was probably the year that I knew the least about any of the nominees.  Usually I at least fill out the "my picks" form available online just to see how my guesses line up with the actual awards.  In past years I’ve seen at least one or two of the nominated films and have read all about the nominations.  This year?  Zilch, nada.  Quite frankly Juno is the only nominated movie that even piqued my interest.  I agreed with Jon Stewart , "If you look at these films it appears as though Hollywood needs a hug."

So, my observations of the evening:

• What’s up with actors/actresses (Katherine Heigl) stating that they aren’t good at this?!  You read lines for a living.  Is presenting really that difficult?  I don’t understand. 
• It was great to see Owen Wilson doing what one does as a young, healthy actor in Hollywood. 
• Tilda Swinton who won Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her part in Michael Clayton wins the award for "most surprised".  She could not have hidden it if she tried.
• Worst hair goes to Marketa Irglova (the sweetest recipient who won for Best Song) and Cameron Diaz.  I’m sorry girls, but if you are going to the Oscars you spend some money and have your hair done!  If CD paid someone then they need to be fired.  A ponytail with long bangs does not a red carpet hairdo make.

I’m no CoJo, Regis or Joan Rivers, I’m just a girl who loves the Oscars.