Monday, February 28, 2005

I Hate To Say I Told You So ... (Re: Oscars)

Looking back on my post from yesterday, all of my predictions for the Oscars were, in fact, ACCURATE. Sure, I thought that Cate Blanchette COULD have been upset, but acknowledged that she was the favorite. Overall I think the right people and films mostly won and you could see the appreciation in people's eyes for the likes of Hillary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Jaime Foxx, Charlie Kaufman, Clint Eastwood, and Brad Bird as they received well-deserved and in some cases long overdue awards. I thought Chris Rock did a pretty good job. His opening monologue seemed a little disjointed, but I guess the nature of an awards show is that the jokes are canned and not as freeflowing and natural as in a typical standup comedy routine. I liked his bit with Adam Sandler and his man-on-the-street interviews about the Oscar-nominated movie. Goes to show how critical duds are still faves with the masses. I enjoyed the tributes such as the one to Johnny Carson, though I have no idea why they insist on having all the lame songs performed during the show. Luckily I watched the show on tape so I could fast forward through the boring parts. Why did I tape it? Read on ...

Well as of yesterday I thought today would be a day to shop for refrigerators and stuff like that. Turned out that last night I received a call from my friend Daniella (former Camp Shalom counseller and resident of Queens, NYC) telling me she'd be in LA today for her friend's wedding on Monday. So this afternoon, after taking care of some apt stuff, me, Daniella, and a few of her friends had some lunch, walked up and down Venice Beach (and watched some cool drum-circles) and then had dinner at a place callen Milk And Honey -- a kosher restaurant owned and operated by ... Steven Spielberg's Mom! Who knew? So we were greeted by the woman herself and treated to some fine kosher cousine, all the while dining in a place layered and lined with photos of Steven Spielberg and posters of all his movies. How cool is that?

So overall today was a fun change of pace. The only annoying thign was that, due to the Oscars, a large section of Hollywood was completely closed off to the public. So in order to drive down to meet up with Daniella and her friends, I had to make a huge detour and basically drive in a circle to bypass the closed off section and get back onto Highland Ave. I had to do the same thing coming back, and of course I got to this area just as the Oscars were emptying out, so there were endless stretches of Limos and lots of congestion, as everyone was trying to figure out how to circumvent the closed off areas. It was pretty surreal to be driving amidst caravans of limos in Hollywood on Oscar night, but luckily I somehow found my way back to Burbank, where I could sit back and enjoy the Oscars with the benefit of a fast forward button. Good times today though -- and by the way, seriously, thank God for Mapquest.

- Tommorow it's SEVEN STRAIGHT HOURS of being Ellen CB. Maybe I'll get to meet some cool guests, but that is a lot of time to be sitting alone at a booth in a hallway.

- Plus, tommorow morning I get the keys to the new apartment. I won't really be living there for another week and a half but now I can start the move-in process.

- And there goes the weekend, and onward we go.

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