Post-Oscar musings from a mediocre poker player…

· Great job of hosting by Jon Stewart. Skewered both sides of the political spectrum and that’s how it should be. Skewered Hollywood activism and self-importance and that’s how it should be. No really overt political rantings by winners or presenters, but no really overt entertainment value outside of Jon Stewart either.

· And what’s with a rap getting “Best Original Song”? And it wasn’t even a good one. Times like this make me wish for Disney films.

· I didn’t know Lauren Bacall was still alive.

· And what’s with cutting off the “Crash” producers?! They let Reese Witherspoon and the foreign film guy ramble incessantly and they cut off the Best Freakin’ Picture winners?! Hey, we know it’s the last award of the night… If we don’t want to hear them, we’ll change the channel. Let them talk, it’s their night.

· More movies that I’ll never see win all the awards. I haven’t even seen “March of the Penguins”. IDEA FOR HOLLYWOOD – Why not have special acting awards for the top ten box office movies of the year? Y’know, like “Best Actor in a movie that made $300M at the box office”. The movie going public would actually KNOW some of these movies rather than the artsy-fartsy, Sundance-loving, overly pretentious films they’re trying to pass off as “Art”. Wouldn’t that be great? “The nominees for Best Actor are… Daniel Radcliffe for Harry Potter, Ewan McGregor for Revenge of the Sith, Hayden Christensen for Revenge of the Sith, Tom Cruise for War of the Worlds, and Owen Wilson for Wedding Crashers!” Now THAT would be exciting!

· My ten-year old daughter heard my wife and I talking about “Brokeback Mountain” and said “Didn’t they have a gay cowboy film on South Park?” I thought back to the Mr. Hanky episode with Chef’s Salty Chocolate Balls… and YES, they did have a gay cowboy movie! Maybe Trey Parker and Matt Stone should sue.

· Dumped a bunch of NL SnGs over the weekend. Horrible, horrible play. And I mean me. One thing that I’ve proven over the years is that I can’t lay a strong hand down, even if I’m pretty sure the other guy has a monster. Bubbled out of two 18-seaters by running my JJ into AA… both times. Er, even monkeys learn.

· I managed to bubble out of a Horse SnG too. This time I actually played it right, but the other guy hit his 6-outer on the river. Of course, he had pot odds by that time, even though he didn’t when he called the first couple of streets.

· Oh, I tried my first 180-seater, came in 12th for a whopping $20 profit for my 3-4 hour investment. Might as well work at Baskin-Robbins for those hourly wages. Speaking of that… B-R was my first job ever, I made $3.25/hour in 1978. I told my son to consider it for his first job. After all, working at an ice-cream counter has a lot of advantages.

· 1. You build up your forearms, well, at least your right forearm. Try scooping some vanilla ice cream right after you pull it from the back freezer and you’ll know what I mean.

· 2. It’s kept pretty cold in there, which means that when girls come in during the summer in their halters and bikini tops, the headlights come on.

· 3. It’s a great way to get in good with certain people. Football star comes in, give him extra ice cream. Head cheerleader comes in, give her a sundae for the single-scoop price. Oh sure, it smacks of bootlicking, but you might as well get used to sucking up to the powerful. Oh, and if you hate someone, there are some pretty foul ways to get even too.

· 4. Free ice cream. Yeah, I know, you’d think you’d get sick of it, but you really never get sick of ice cream. Thirty years ago. B-R had a policy that you got two free scoops for each day of work. Of course, if you’re scooping yourself, those scoops could be pretty substantial. I used to make the greatest milkshakes out of French Vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, butterscotch syrup, and milk. If you had friends at local fast food joints, you could parlay your free scoops into a free lunch.