Rainy Day

It's pouring here at Casa ParkHopper. It's a tough day to get motivated to leave the house, especially when I know that leaving the house is going to require a stop at the gas station. Did I mention it's windy too? I have a half hour to go, so I'm hoping it clears up a little bit between now and then.

I did get some pictures of the one solitary bird at the pond this morning. He eventually gave up and headed some place less exposed. I can't really blame him! I couldn't pick just one picture, so here's two:

This is, to the best of my bird-spotting ability, a plain old egret. Though according to All About Birds, it's a great egret. You can find them all over the world...especially here in Florida where they live year-round.

In other news, it's Oscar nomination day today. Meh. I love the Oscars. In years past, I have taken the day off from work to watch the Oscars. This year I'm just not feeling it. The only movie I saw that was nominated for anything was Up. I'm against Avatar in principle. Really, I get that it was technologically amazing and that it sucks you in, but I just can't help feeling that its Golden Globe win and its Oscar Best Picture nomination were the equivalent of the voters taking a collective gasp and saying, "ooh shiny!"

According to Twitter (because that's the only news source I've looked at today so far) today is Groundhog Day. But I didn't hear whether good ol' Phil saw his shadow or not. Today there are no shadows in Central Florida...just puddles.

And that, my friends, is how you go full-circle. Many words, not much substance. That's why I gave you the bird pictures.

Poo

Tonight is Oscar night. As most of you know, this is my big TV event of the year (especially since I'm not watching Idol this season). Sadly, I figured the Oscars would be on my birthday weekend like last year, but they aren't. I'll be off next Sunday, watching something else on the TV. So I didn't take today off.

No problem! I figured I'd just tape the show and watch it tomorrow morning before my 1:00 dentist appointment. I can control my media intake - I'll just watch the whole thing before even checking my e-mail.

Scratch that.

When I called the dentist last week to find out if they had any sooner openings (had half a root canal done, was supposed to come back 1 week later, but they were totally booked until THREE weeks later), I found out that the 1:00 appointment on my card had been given to someone else because the **** woman who checked me out never bothered to put the appointment in the computer. Luckily, there was still an appointment available - at 8 am.

So now I'm torn - tape the Oscars, watch them when I get home (11 pm to 2 am if the show doesn't run long), and then catch a few hours of sleep before the appointment and doze on the couch the rest of the day... or I could keep up with the results from work on oscar.com and still tape the show to watch after the dentist appointment.

Well, at any rate, I should probably set up the VCR now before I forget.

What do Jon Stewart and the Oscars have in common?

Jon Stewart hosts my favorite daily non-fiction TV show. The Oscars is my favorite annual TV show. And this year they are combined! Jon Stewart is set to host the Oscars this year!!!

"As a performer, I'm truly honored to be hosting the show," Stewart said, then joked: "Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can't help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal."

Really, there are barely words to express how excited I am about this. As soon as I saw the AOL News headline "Snarky Comedian to Host Oscars," I knew it had to be him. And just think: it has been noted that Stewart and some of The Daily Show's writing staff will be writing his material, so maybe next year, he'll win another two Emmys for TDS, and one for the Oscars!

This year's Oscar telecast will be on March 5. Since my birthday is on the 3rd, we're going to try to make a long celebratory weekend out of it.