Oscar Picks 2008

From my phone to your computer screen, mere hours before the Oscar telecast, come my picks for Academy Award winners in 2008.

Best Visual Effects
Transformers

Best Animated Feature
Ratatouille

Best Documentary
No End In Sight

Best Art Direction
Sweeney Todd

Best Sound Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum

Best Sound Mixing
Transformers

Best Cinematography
Atonement

Best Original Screenplay
Juno- Diablo Cody (Hollywood loves a stripper, especially a stripper that writes scripts)

Best Adapted Screenplay
No Country For Old Men- the Coen Bros.

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem- No Country For Old Men

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett- I'm Not There

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard- La Vie En Rose

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood

Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson- There Will Be Blood

Best Picture
No Country For Old Men

--Cbake

F**k Dook

That's all I have to say. That's it. Seriously. Finito.

Well that and this: I'd much rather lose to them at home if it means we can beat them on their home court. Victory is that much sweeter when we win in front of the Kameron Krackheads and make those Dook Blue Devils cry. Ty Lawson will be back by then.

We will have our revenge.

Go Heels,

--Cbake

In Regards to Tonight's UNC/Dook Game...

I only have one thing to say, and it shall be a quote. Its from an article titled: "Why We Hate Duke"

Here it is reprinted in full, with the best part in bold.

"I recall a strange and hazy time about four and a half years ago, fretting in the sweltering heat of Hinton James 244, sitting on my bed while the rest of the residents scurried outside.

My suitemate from Brevard was parading his spittle collection, a particularly nauseating mass of his oral waste that he kept in three 2-liter bottles above the door. My roommate spoke in a dialect from Edenton* that barely passed for anything on our side of the language tree, and the only things I had to wear in the 105-degree weather were corduroy pants from my goofball private high school. Tripping over the bricks, showing up for classes in rooms miles away from where the classes were taught and getting lost by the water tower, I might as well have had a huge placard wrapped around my neck that said "Oh so clueless" and a number to call in case anybody found me peeing in his yard.

But there was a time before that. I call it The Time When I Thought I Wanted to Go to Duke.

For some unexplainable reasons having to do with planetary alignment or a chemical imbalance, I was set on going to that university in Durham. My high school in Virginia brainwashed us all into thinking that if we didn't end up going to either Duke, UVa. or one of the Ivys we would surely end up stocking Pampers at Wal-Mart. So off I scuttled to those schools, all bushy-tailed and bated, hopin' to impress some institutes of higher learning. By the time I got to visiting Duke, however, the luster of college had begun to dull into a bleak haze.

My tour guide's name was Lorna - no lie - and she spoke in a loud, brash voice that seemed to shake the leaves from the cute little shrubberies. "And on your left is Duke Chapel, the centerpiece of our Gothic campus. Our university is considered by many to be the most beautiful campus in America."

"Umm, excuse me," I said, "Where do all the kids live?"

"The kids," she said, in a voice of utter disdain reserved only for parents whose child had been very, very naughty. "The Duke student body mostly lives in the buildings you are looking at right here, with the beautiful Gothic architecture."

"Well, how hard are the classes here? Would I be studying all the time?"

She fixed her cruel New Jersey gaze on my frightened 17-year-old soul. "Look, that's totally assuming you even get in here at all. I know tons of people that would have given their left arm to get in here. And not only that, but - Oh, hi, Thad!" Some senior named Thad wearing Vuarnets and baggy khaki shorts ambled up with an evil Gleem smile.

"Leadin' the kids around, eh Lorna?" he asked, and cackled like the frat Grinch.

"Yeah," she giggled, and the two whispered to each other while exchanging muffled laughs.

I was herded into the cafeteria and stuck in a line for pizza, while Lorna went off into the crowd with some of her friends. A scowling guy slapped a piece of rubber pepperoni pizza on my plate, and as I walked across the room to sit down, I tripped on one of those Gothic little cherub things on the floor and sent my pizza flying 20 feet onto the sweater of a girl named Annabeth, a junior English major from Bridgeport, Conn.

"Oh my God!" she squealed, and every face in the entire joint looked right at me. Thad the sunglasses man started to clap, and half of the cafeteria joined in my humiliation.

Suddenly, I was back in third grade, and all the boys and girls were pointing and laughing at the picture I'd drawn of my family. Suddenly, I was sitting alone at the side of the blacktop while everyone else got picked for the dodgeball team. Suddenly, I was lying in the Iowa snow, getting my ribs kicked by five guys who thought I'd stolen their football. I had no escape.

And that's when I decided to go to Carolina. I had never seen the place, had never heard of Chapel Hill and I picked Hinton James because it had a laundry room. After a while I grew used to the town - I didn't get lost behind the water tower; I learned what Gardner Hall was; and I began to enjoy the company of my suitemate, despite his spittle collection. I also developed a taste for basketball, and during the games I noticed that we had certain heated rivalries - whenever we played one of those teams, I got tense and dug holes in the seat.

Now I realize that school spirit is a pretty goofy thing to some people, but I'll tell you something: I hate Duke with an infernal passion undying. I hate every leaf of every tree on that sickening campus. I hate every fake cherub Gothic piece of crap that litters the buildings like hemorrhoidal testaments to imagined superiority. When I see those Dookie boneheads shoe-polishing their faces navy blue on television, squandering their parents' money with their fratty elitist bad sportsmanship antics and Saab stories, I want to puke all over Durham.

So this is my request, boys of basketball: Tonight, I not only want you to win, I want Krzyzewski calling home to his mother with tears in his eyes. I want Alaa Abdelnaby to throw up brick after brick. I want Rick Fox to take Christian Laettner to the hoop so many times that poor Christian will be dazed on the bench with an Etch-a-Sketch and a box of Crayola crayons. I want Bobby Hurley to trip on his shoelaces and fly into a fat alumnus from Wilmington. Send Thad and Lorna home with their blue tails between their legs.

God bless them Tar Heel boys!


EDITOR'S NOTE: Ian Williams, a 1990 UNC alumnus, was a columnist for The Daily Tar Heel in the spring 1990 semester. The DTH management felt that its thematic content remains relevant as a wonderful reminder of why we hate Duke. The column ran Jan. 17, 1990 - that night, the Tar Heels stomped the Blue Devils by 19. "

--Cbake

*Bonus points for mentioning Edenton

Thomas St. Tavern Makes News in USA Today Article

Hey everybody, just a quick blip about one of my favorite neighborhood bar/restaurants, Thomas St. Tavern, conveniently located down the street from where I live. Apparently, in preparation for the Super Bowl this Sunday, USA Today featured an article in their weekend edition titled "10 great places to drink in the Super Bowl action" (dunno why they lowercase article headlines).

Listing sports bars in Boston, New York, West Hollywood, Seattle, Chicago, and others, Thomas Street Tavern pops up as number 3 on their list (no note on whether it was in random order or not). They say:


"THOMAS STREET TAVERN, Charlotte

"Open 365 days a year, this popular family-owned, neighborhood tavern features an outdoor patio in front and a beer garden in back. 'Both are pet-friendly, so you can bring your pooch and still check out the game,' Steel says (Tanya Steel, editor in chief of epicurious.com, who helped compile the list). 'The menu tends toward the natural and organic, with most ingredients bought from local farmers markets and bakeries. There are 60 different bottled beers to complement the excellent cuisine.'
(704)-376-1622
thomas-street-tavern.com"

Pretty cool that my neighborhood bar made a national publication like USA Today! When I'm in Pennsylvania for work (like I am right now), its nice to see little remembrances of home in the media (better than previous stories on CNN like "Teenager shot at local high school in Charlotte" or today's "Plane crash in Mt. Airy").

I'm sure I'll find this article framed and hanging on their wall someday soon. And I realize I probably sound like a poster child for T-Street, with all this free advertising I'm giving them. So I only have one response to that: I Welcome Free Beer.

--Cbake