What hoe?

That hoe, noble readers! (indicates farming implement offstage)

Ah, an oldie but a goodie.

Anyhoo, let's get down to brass tacks.

The Oscars happened, and were the lowest rated in the show's history. Now some say this is because no "mainstream" film (One that made more than 100 million) was nominated for a major award other than Juno, but I have a different theory. It goes like this:

Jon Stewart isn't that funny.

There. Another dark secret off my dark, secretive chest. I don't find him funny anymore. He comes off as smarmy and smug and generally unlikable to the average American who doesn't watch his show with Born-Again Christian Zeal. And spare me that he only had a week or so to write the show. He was only responsible for what he said, not the nominees (they had a seperate writing staff), and he brought in his entire Daily Show writer's staff. One week to write maybe 45 minutes of material. And that's the best his team can do. I grow wearier of him every day.

In terms of what transpired at said Oscars My thoughts are thus:

- Javier Bardem and Daniel Day-Lewis are like Gods unto me. They deserved their awards.
- Thank God The Academy didn't fall into it's two traps I hate most: Fawning over British Actors and awarding people major awards for "body of work". That's BULLSHIT. Either your one performance is good enough, Julie Christie, or you wait for your lifetime achievement award. Bravo pour donnez le Oscar a Marion Cotillard, Academie.
- The Coen Brothers dominated the triad of best picture, director, and adapted screenplay, which I frankly thought would all go to There Will Be Blood. But Good for them.
- I still didn't like Diablo Cody's script enough to give her the Oscar.
- The song from Once (which I hadn't seen), blew me away.
- Sweeney Todd DID NOT deserve Best Art Direction. I stand by my thoughts on Tim Burton, who shouldn't be allowed back at the Oscars until I'm given another Ed Wood.
- Good to see The Bourne Ultimatum get some awards. I very much liked that trilogy.
- Also, did anyone see the ads for this new Horton Hears a Who Movie? Why can't they let some classics alone? I expect an apology, Messrs. Carrell and Carrey.

Literary Criticism and new Witner Recipes to follow,
RM

Hello Internet Viewers!

Today on my video blog*, I'd like to catch you up to what's been going on in my life since basically December, which was the last time I really posted with any reason or rhyme.

I left Kenyon under rather hurried circumstances, to address a family issue which had been building to a head for some months and eventually required my direct attention. On my way home, I stopped by my good friend and unofficial biographer Nathaniel J. Ewert-Krocker's stately Ohio Manse. While there, some unpleasantness arose between me and the local constabulary over the minutae of past charitable donations to the court systems, which was resolved in a matter of hours although, unfortunately, these hours were spent with some miscreants. However, they were friendly miscreants, and all was well.

On my way out of Ohio, and driving across New York, an unpleasant dialogue between my tires and the road on the subject of traction over ice while changing lanes and, Woe is your poor hero, I crashed into a tree at 40mph. Whilst I felt some great chagrin over the situation I was in, the paramedical staff were kind and attentive, and at the end of the day, though I was down a car and had a broken nose, multiple contusions, and a torn PCL, I had managed to save my decorative collection of antique tin toys. The day, in total, was a success.

After Family crises and Christmas, which all blend together into a prescription pain-killer induced phog of euphoria (I call it Euphorifog), i came home with the prospect of time on my hands for six months. This is about where you pick up new information so if you skipped the previous paragraphs because you already heard what happened, listen up:

My catering work continues, albeit not as smoothly as I would have liked for two reasons. One is that my primary financial backer has decided to buy a car for his college bound youngest born, leaving me once again with only my pittance of savings to start said company. The other is that focus groups have decided the name (see earlier entries subj: JFD) of my company sounds more like the contractors who make Frisch's Big Boy than a catering company, and have recommended I change it. Temporarily taking it under advisement, I have named the newly formed dessert wing of my culinary empire Utopiate, and continue to hope for the best.

This Valentines Day I made approximately 1,200 individually portioned desserts/tarts/cookies to sell, and have managed to sell all but ten. I am considering autographing them and putting them on eBay.

Other than that, I watch movies, drink, take long walks on the beach, go to classes at BC, rehab my knee at my old high school (I can use their equipt. free...) and generally don't post on this website because getting internet access in my house is not so much a convenience but a TASK SET FOR HERCULES HIMSELF!

Curious about a previous point? Did I fail to describe something of interest to you, Critic VonKritticheim, 17th Viscount of Crittichea? Drop me a line

MORE TO COME,
RM

*=may or may not be a video blog.

Just very busy. More to come.

What ho, long lost readers!

Yeah, so, long story short, last 18 some odd days:

After getting out of jail, totalled car crashing into tree going 40 mph on I-90.

Spent day in hospital, leaving with bruises, a busted nose, a short hair cut (they needed to trim for CAT Scan), and prescriptions for Valium and Vicodin.

The PT? Now scrap.

Returned home to MA in drug addled stupor, which remained through holidays.

Stood in line for six hours to get a Wii for my sister, eventually gaining pity for my injury and weaseling my way to the front of the line.

Got a new bathrobe for christmas.

Drank with Anton.

Got cool silver dollar.

Saw the following movies, equating them to Baseball teams:
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chicago Cubs (Didn't suck as much as I expected)
Sweeney Todd: New YorkYankees (Sure, it was good, but it still didn't feel right)
National Treasure 2: St. Louis Cardinals (It could've been worse)
I Am Legend: New York Mets (Started out great, then munched hard)
Water Horse: Boston Red Sox (Kid Friendly fun, with a huge yet lovable monster [David Ortiz])

Good. Glad we caught up.

RM

For those of you who didn't hear, I spent yesterday in the Lake County, Ohio Correctional Facility. This was over some confusion over my license and whether or not it was suspended (OH says yea, FL nay), and I was out by dinner, however, I was in Jail long enough to pass along a few kernels of wisdom along to you, so here they are:

The PMRM's Top 10 Things You DIDN'T know about Ohio County Jail:
10.) The Food is of a higher quality than your school lunches in HS. The trays were nicer as well.
9.) Once prominent Carnegie Mellon professors who got addicted to Cocaine are around every corner.
8.) The Uniforms more closely resemble scrubs than jail cosutmery.
7.) For making your bed, instead of a fitted sheet for the bottom, you are given a giant pillowcase that fits our mattress, speeding up the process of making your bed immensely.
6.) They have premium cable.
5.) Of the 13 men in my cell block with me, 9 had completed at least two years of college education.
4.) The give you free Coffee and Kool-Aid. Whenever you want it.
3.) After the initial "Why're you here?", most people keep their problems to theirselves.
2.) According to the felows in the Maximum block a few floors up, I have a very pretty mouth. One even knew that it I had a "cupid's bow" upper lip.
1.) Convicts love.....and I mean LOVE....Will and Grace. We watched five episodes start to finish.

I hope you learned as much as I did.

RM

So, not to spoil it if you guys haven't seen it yet, but GC is rough.

Really rough.

If you've been following Rottentomatoes.com, it's freshness is somewhere in the low forties, and it's criticisms are very valid.

I won't give my full opinion here, but if others were to offer their criticisms, I would certainly proffer mine own.

Exciting news in the expanding business world of RM. JFD and I have gone halfsies on a domain here in the Intraweb. The website, which we hope to have up by February, will be a synthesis of recipes, my own small witticisms, as well as shameless advertising for the company.

So, be sure to keep an eye on yourcookbookisnotfurniture.com in the coming months.

Also, since I don't endorse video piracy in any forms, I heartily suggest you all avoid filmhill.com. I certainly wouldn't encourage you to take advantage of it's impressive library of online films and tv shows, nor would I recommend those of you who watch anime to explore its sister site, OAFun.com. It's just not fair to all the gaffers and best boys out there.

Making himself a Betty Crock-ing Chair,
RM

Counting tonight's writer-strike shortened season finale, I have now watched two full seasons of Heroes. I find the show's premise charming yet unoriginal, yet the writing itself intrigues me. Mainly because of its methodology.

See, each of the ten or so writers is assigned a character, or small group of characters. Then, each week, each writer writes their own character's little scenes, then hands it to whichever of them is doing the full episode, and off to the races.

Granted, this can occasionally make for a level of plot confusion that falls somewhere between LOST and The X-Files, yet still they execute for 95% of the show.

Then there's Hayden. I don't know if I'm just growing old and bitter, but her WB reject routine of rebellion and righteous indignation just feels wrong. Not for her character, and granted I don't think I'm the demographic they're going for with that character. I'm somewhere between Zachary Quinto and Masi Oka (Both of whom I met at Ojai in 06). Still, every time I see her regenerative face in the shot, whining about something when it turns out she was dead wrong all along, I kinda want to hit her. It's that WB/CW complete sense of 'you know what is right and wrong at 17' opinion that we all felt at some point. Maybe I do identify with her. And I'm a little ashamed of it.

With the exception of her, and maybe Peter and Nathan's mother, if you want to see almost flawless 3-D character development and execution, watch a few episodes of this show. The writing for it really is something special.

RM