Oscar nominees are out. A few thoughts:

• Good for Will Smith and Denzel Washington! For the first time ever, two black men are nominated in the “Best Actor” category.
• Renee Zellweger? Please. (I’m so over my pro-her phase.) All she did was put on a few pounds. Her accent was actually terrible, we discovered (when we didn’t watch the screen). Whoever thought that both Renee Zellweger and Ethan Hawke would be nominated for Oscars??
• I haven’t seen the movie, but doesn’t Jennifer Connelly have, like, the leading female role in A Beautiful Mind? Did they call it a supporting role just so she wouldn’t have to go up against Sissy Spacek?
• Personally, I think the artistic categories are the really difficult ones to call this year. I mean, the costumes in Moulin Rouge and Lord of the Rings were used for completely different purposes, and both brilliantly. How do you pick one over the other??
• It’s nice to see Amelie picked up a few. It’s a shoo-in for Best Foreign Film, I think, seeing as how I’ve never heard of any of the others.
• Wow. They caved to the critics and threw David Lynch a bone. My sister hated that movie.

I expect my friend Kel’s annual “Oscar Pick ‘Em Contest” e-mail to be arriving soon. Anybody got any hot tips?

Did you ever look for the star on a Tootsie Roll Wrapper? I was always told that if you found one, you could send it in for a prize (or make a wish on it or something). Turns out it’s just another urban legend.

“The World of the Laid-Off Techie.” Oh god. Sometimes stuff like this comes along, and it just makes me so scared that we made the wrong decision in leaving our jobs in London. It wasn’t, right?

Can you help Theseus escape the Minotaur? Lord knows I can’t. This damn maze is drivin’ me crazy. Somebody please help!

Ernie at little. yellow. different. links to an interesting article that explains why many Asians turn red when they drink. Huh. I’m technically a quarter Korean, yet I’ve never had any problem with al-kee-hol. Can’t even think of anybody in my family who does, for that matter. Of course, I’ve never gotten my Grandma blitzed.

Princeton can do it; why can’t we?

Don’t have time to read whole books? Try Book-A-Minute! Actually, their reviews are pretty damn hilarious, especially the sci-fi and fantasy. My favorite, though, has to be If I Ran the Circus by Dr. Seuss:

Morris McGurk: “If I ran the circus, I would make Mr. Sneelock do lots of dangerous things, because I have repressed Freudian feelings of hatred for him as a father figure, because he made me clean up the yard.”

More vagina: a Morrissey guys writes a really excellent letter about SMC’s stance on the play.

More hard-hitting journalism from the Observer: bar owners worry that getting busted might cause them business. No duh. The most disturbing part of this article is the quote from the owner of the establishment formerly known as “Bridget Maguire’s Filling Station”:

“I went in there with a bottle of disinfectant and a putty knife. It took nine months, and voila, Molly’s came. It was like giving birth.”

*shudder*