With the one year boycott done, Wetwired returns to blogging the Academy Awards. Y’all know the drill by now, starting below:

Pregame: We went from a 60-year-old(!) The Dude, to Gabourey Sidobe (I think that’s her name, NEVER expected her to talk like a Valley Girl), to the wolf kid from the Twilight movies, to Meryl Streep. Hey, Kathy Ireland! (Used to have the biggest crush for her, folks. Still looks damn hot for mid-forties.)

Final notes: Hunh.

Overall an incredible night for The Hurt Locker, and James Cameron comes off as the big loser tonight. Of course, he’s crying on a bed made of hundred dollar bills tonight. So, he’s got that going for him.

Then again, maybe if he hadn’t been a ginormous prick the last time he won maybe he’d have had a better chance. So, there’s that too.

Out.

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Pylorns knows that one of my favorite all-time comedy bits is a parody song called “Title Of The Song” by Da Vinci’s Notebook. The song can be heard below:

In the spirit of this brilliant piece (and yes, I’m dead serious saying that), Cracked.com came up with the following. We’ll have the return of the live Oscar blogging this year after last year’s boycott (DARK KNIGHT!!!), and to start off the weekend right we present this tribute to Academy Award winning movies everywhere.

Presented Without Further Comment.

Out.

Yup, it wasn’t even close.

This isn’t surprising. From all accounts, Rick Perry was running strong in the last few weeks and Kay Bailey Hutchinson had stumbled and limped into the runoff. Pylorns had supported Medina, but as I told him the other day her biggest mistake was not being able to strongly answer a question off the cuff. No matter how she really feels about the 9/11 truthers, her poor showing on Glenn Beck (someone who could have made her a star had she played the game right) showed she didn’t quite have the chops to handle the bigger stage. A strong debate showing does not a candidacy make, as evidenced here.

So, it’ll be Rick Perry versus the mayor of Houston. Kinky’s not running for Governor this year, so you lose out on that option. Have fun, Texas voters.

Out.

Long ago, Py and I resolved to keep our real names and such separate from this site. The reasoning can be found on our “About” page, but I’m going to discuss something involving my real identity on the net.

See, I have a Facebook account. I’ve had it for a while now, and I’ve gotten back in touch with people I hadn’t seen in years. It’s been kinda nice, and those of us on Wetwired do keep up with each other outside of this little shindig there as well.

Except… well, except for one thing.

I’ve found that I have to maintain rules for Facebook to avoid stupid problems popping up. One of them is that I have to know who you are- meaning we have to have grown up together, have had conversations or have some sort of direct correlation to each other. It’s a fairly simple idea, and it saves me loads of hassle.

Except for one person.

See, there’s this one woman on Facebook that I accepted because everything about her says I’ve known her at some point, gone to school with her, grown up alongside her, have dozens of mutual friends and acquaintances, and in general have gone through life on at least some early parallel paths… and I have no idea who she is.

Seriously. No fuckin’ clue.

The name isn’t familiar to me. Her face is not one that comes to me clearly. I can’t place her voice. Her life is one I have no clue about, save for the fact that she clearly has some sort of tie to me- hell, she even found me on Facebook.

I ignored the initial friend request, not knowing who she was. When the second one came in, I decided to accept it- and she seems certainly nice enough. I mean, nothing odd or out of the ordinary about her save for a slightly unusual first name.

But yeah, no fuckin’ clue who she is.

I recognize that this is clearly a minor thing, given that earlier today some florist tried to friend me on there (instant ignore, by the way). It just amuses the hell out of me every time I see an update from her and clearly don’t know who the hell she is. I mean, she seems interesting and all. Certainly has her life in order, things are going well for her.

I just wish I knew who the hell she was.

Out.

Awesome, and Submitted Without Further Comment:

Out.

NOTE: This is as much of a test post as a podcast recording, folks. After the issues we had earlier in the week, we’re reposting the podcast to make sure everything’s working again. That said, enjoy.

This one is a brief podcast, brought on by the brouhaha regarding Kevin Smith’s recent deplane-ing by Southwest Airlines and Finley’s insecurities regarding his own body size. Enjoy.

Comment and let us know what you think!

Listen to this via iTunes or directly below.

Out.

 

 Standard Podcast [ 12:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Folks, we’ve had a bit of a site hiccup this evening with the site. I’ve notified Pylorns about it and we’ll get it fixed. In the meantime, the podcast will be reposted once these issue are fixed.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but we’ll get this nailed down as soon as we can.

Out.

For 61 of the last 63 years, there has been a Kennedy in Congress serving as Representative for one fo the 50 states. Since 1962, there has ALWAYS been a Kennedy in the House of Representatives.

After this year, that streak will end.

Patrick Kennedy, the son of Teddy, will not seek reelection. For a quarter of this country’s history, the Kennedy family has helped to influence the political discourse and direction of the nation. Whether you like them or not, you cannot deny their influence on the nation.

To have the Kennedy clan’s political participation end like it has the last 15 years or so has been somewhat sad. The son of the president dies in a freak plan accident, the last of the most influential generation dies of a brain tumor, and a simple announcement ends an era. I don’t agree with the Kennedy family’s politics on almost any topics, but I respect the hell out of what they managed to do. Not only that, but as a red-blooded straight Amurrrhican man I have to look up to a guy who pulled in the amount and quality of ladies that ol’ Jack got. I mean, come on- the dude nailed Marilyn Monroe.

So this one time, you get a toast from me.

Out.

Should you have to ask, just look up Rahm Emanuel’s recent controversy with Democrats.

Submitted Without Further Comment:

Fucking awesome.

Out.

Holy crap.

(Well, actually Pylorns typed “holy fuck!” when he saw the final score.)

I’ve been a Saints fan since childhood. I’ve seen the losing years, the paper bags, the “so close” years and the tragedy of four years ago. I saw the rebirth, the concerted effort and the true turnaround.

Now, I’ve seen the result of the hard work, the dedication and the renewed promise to their home city that they would put the effort in for the Crescent City.

For Bobby Hebert, Archie Manning, Rickey Jackson, Buddy DeLaberteau (Requiescat en pace, sir), Deuce McAllister and the legends of the game that have come through the city at the end of the Mighty Mississippi River, you can look upon the New Orleans Saints with pride and respect once more.

Well done, boys. Well done.

Out.

… but South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has managed to do it.

Jenny Sanford has written a book, and one of the revelations of the book was that her husband, while cheating on her, asked Jenny for relationship advice for he and his mistress.

Despite what you may think, this is not in fact an example of ginormous balls. This is, however, another sign of true arrogance on the part of a public official who thought himself more important than anything. To do this to his wife…

…

Ugh. I can’t even muster the indignance towards this piece of crap.

Out.

Believe it or not, watching Groundhog Day this morning was not brought along by an urge to be cliche’.

Actually, in this case it was because I was listening to my recommendation to you for this morning. Obviously, given it’s the rodent’s big day a lot of peeps are going to be watching the Bill Murray classic (one of my favorite movies, to boot) and will be amused once more by Needle Nose himself, Ned Ryerson. Ned is portrayed by Stephen Tobolowsky, a character actor who (it turns out) can tell a hell of a story. The movie Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party is a fascinating example of a man at ease, telling stories about his life (all true) and entertaining his friends.

It turns out that Stephen now puts out a podcast in conjunction with SlashFilm. The Tobolowsky Files is an entertaining, often amusing podcast that has come out on a regular basis. I’m getting caught up on the podcast and so far, it’s damned good. Take a listen if you can.

Oh, and watch the damned movie today. I mean,  come on.

Out.

This is not a post that the intended target will ever read. However, I need to get this out and since I have the bully pulpit here at Wetwired, this is where I’ll do it.

Durng the day on Tuesday, I received a text from my father asking to call him back. When I did, I found out that a dear friend of the family had passed away. This woman had grown up with my grandmother, had helped raise my father and his siblings and helped raise my generation as well. She was someone I’d only seen a few times in the last ten years, due to many reasons not the least of which would be me moving away from Louisiana in 2001.

Then, I found out the other part of this news. She had died last Monday- as in January 18th, 2009.

We (my family) had not been told about her death, nor of her illness for the past two months from liver cancer. We had no idea she was deathly sick, and my father and I had bandied about the idea of seeing her while I was in Louisiana but held off because of time.

My immediate reaction upon learning of her death was mild surprise. She was old, and had a horrible run of years since her daughter died in 1995. Since then she also had lost her son, lost her entire life savings in a bitter custody battle with her daughter’s ex over the grandchild that turned into a convict and drunk, lost her husband to cancer 5 years ago and was reduced to living in a trailer with the grandson, his girlfriend/babymomma and her late husband’s sister. Immediately, m thought was that her heart had finally had all it could take and she’d passed away in something sudden.

When I found out it was cancer, and that it had been diagnosed three months ago and that she’d kept the news from us deliberately, my surprise went to hurt and anger.

The worst part was that we found out from another friend of the family, who’d asked my brother what was to be done with her body. My brother called my father (the two are not on speaking terms due to matters of the past), to find out what had happened. This was how my father found out about the death of a loved one.

I got the call about 6 this evening, and after about an hour of being furious I finally figured out WHY I was so angry.

We’d been cheated. Cheated out of many things, the biggest of which was the chance to say goodbye to someone so important to our lives. We had been cheated out of the chance to tell her we loved her, even when we didn’t talk after the accident, even when she chose my dad’s side over ours, even after the pain and everything else- we loved her.

We had been cheated out of taking part in her memorializing, and the choice of being there for the ones who had lost the matriarch.

My grandmother had been cheated out of the chance to tell the woman she’d known since she was 4 days old one last good bye.

It was all hitting me at once, these thoughts. Once I realized what I was angry about, I called my father back and told him that if they truly did not want our thoughts, prayers and assistance at this point that I was not inclined to give them.

Betty will be fine, now. She is back with her son, daughter and husband after a generation of pain and suffering. She’s at rest, and deserves it.

Her grandson… to hell with him.

I know this is harsh, but it hurts that we were cut out like this. I had made my peace with her a few years ago, and I kept up through my father. To hear him so hurt today about the entire ordeal sickened me, and I had to get this out. Make of it what you will, I guess.

Out.

Okay, so in theory you’re going to announce a tablet computer on Wednesday. Many are saying that the tablet will run on the iPhone OS. All well and good, except for one thing.

Say it does run on the iPhone OS, meaning we get the iPhone Safari app with it. Will it include Flash support? Because if not, and the internet app (and the ONLY internet surfing app Apple allows on the iPhone) STILL doesn’t come with the ability to watch videos, play games, do just about ANYTHING, etc. from the internet while my 2 year old laptop does all of this just fine?

Well, that’s (likely) 600 bucks I can save right there. I mean, I have a device crippled from real internet usage in my pocket already from you and we’re all good.

Just throwing that out there for you to consider, Apple.

Out.

You’re now officially a scumbag.

You proved your honesty and integrity by having an affair during our presidential campaign. Oh yeah, you also became the baby daddy of your mistress’ little girl while your wife’s cancer was being treated, then paid a staffer to take the postnatal bullet for you. Nice to see you had someone to take care of those ginormous balls you’re carrying around to pull all of this shit and still think you were the man to lead this country.

On behalf of decent people everywhere (at least, the ones I’ve heard about as I sure ain’t one), most importantly your wife- FUCK YOU.

Out.