And the winner is… Jonathan Wells!
Thanks to everybody (392 of you!) who entered this year’s Oscar Contest. The final score tally is here. We ended up with a 14-way tie for first place, all of whom got 12 out of 13 answers correct. It then went to the tiebreaker, which was 34 dead people in the tribute reel. Jonathan Wells guessed 33, and Tom Cassutt guessed 35. So to break the tie between them, I had to go to order of entry. Sorry Tim, Jonathan put in his entry about twenty hours before you did… so Jonathan is the big winner! Congratulations to him, and condolences to all of you who missed out.

The Snook thinks I should offer a “wooden spoon” prize to last place. “Send them a warewolf merkin so they can pet it when they feel sad about their lack of prescience.” Hm. I bet I could sell those on Etsy.

Edited to add: I’ve just checked the history and this was the fifth time Jonathan has entered the contest. (Actually, it may be more than that; I only saved the entries going back to 2006.) So well done to a long-time reader!

Oscar Contest 2010… Only 90 minutes to go!
You’ve got til the show starts to get your predictions in for the big contest. We’re closing in on 400 entries! Throughout the day, I’ll be updating the winners and you’ll be able to see your scores update on this page.

As usual, if any of you will be watching the show with a DVR, can you please count the number of dead people in the obituary tribute for me? I have a feeling that we could end up with quite a big tie for first place this year (unless there’s a surprise upset).

And just a note: I had a couple people put more than one entry into the contest, and the extras have been deleted. I’m serious; you only get one shot. Your first entry is the one that I saved, so if you changed your mind later, too bad!

Update: And the contest is closed! Here we go…

Update later: Have gotten three independent counts of the dead people montage and all said 34. So that’s what we’re going with! (Thanks to Jenny, Miftik, and Kel.)

The fifth cake is a Moomin cake! Sweet.

Q&A session with some of the craftsmen involved in that Rube Goldbert video for OK Go. I’m totally in awe.

Boudicca: Back from the dead!
As you may recall – or not – my iMac G5 “Boudicca” died just over a year ago. She was one of the very first unibody iMacs, and she was nothing but trouble from the start. (The one I’m talking about was actually a replacement for the original one that self-destructed within six months of purchase.) When she died the last time, we were given a ridiculous quote from the Apple Store to have her fixed. The logic board was riddled with blown and leaking capacitors. She was out of warranty, out of AppleCare, and out of luck. I found out that there had been a Repair Extension Program for this specific issue – and my serial number was even covered! – but alas, it had expired in December 2008 (about two months before mine died). I bought a new laptop and set her aside, hoping that maybe she’d be worth some money on eBay. One of my resolutions for the New Year was to deal with the issue, so I started calling Apple repair shops to see if they were interested in her for parts. Nobody was interested. In desperation, I tweeted that she was for sale if anybody wanted her. A friend-of-a-friend (who happens to work in Apple tech support) wrote back, suggesting that I call Apple Support again. He said that he still regularly saw machines come in with my issue, and that several of them had been granted “exceptions” to the Repair Program and fixed free-of-charge. It seemed too good to be true. I called up the number and spent half an hour talking to a nice guy, who eventually transferred me up to the manager. They put me on hold for a bit… then the magic words: “You’re approved!” He put it into the system and I took the machine to NextByte the next day. They told me there’d probably be some wait before they could get to it, but I didn’t care. Hey, at this point it’s a free computer, right? Six weeks later, I finally called Nextbyte to see what the heck was happening… and was told that my machine had been fixed for weeks. They just had never called me! (Idiots.) This morning we picked her up. I deliberately didn’t plug her in before heading to the Guild AGM, knowing that if she was still broken I’d just stress about it all day. So when I finally got home tonight, I plugged her in and hit the power button. BONGGGGGG! Success. I was up and running on the network within minutes. It’s so nice to have a desktop machine again! And now DeskCam will actually be from my actual desk again! So huge, huge thank yous to Stu for advising me how to fix it up. I owe him one!

St. Brigid is blocking
The Show is rapidly approaching! Time to get this sucker finished. I started by dunking the front and the back in cold water and making sure they were totally saturated. Then I gently squeezed out a bit of the water before rolling each piece in a towel. Carefully I stepped all over it til the towel was soaked, removing a lot of the water. The pieces were then pinned out to the pattern’s measurements. I freaked out a little bit at first because the squares look so big! But when I compared them to Na Craga, they’re only slightly bigger. (Which is good, as I have boobs and the Snook doesn’t.) So I think that will be okay. It was hard to get a decent shot with the crapping lighting in my office, but I don’t think I’ve lost any stitch definition. As soon as these are dry, I’ll do the sleeves. (I ran out of pins!) Then it’s time to start sewing up!

Incidentally, I am LOVING that I had the forethought to use spit-splicing on this thing. I have like five ends to weave in there. That’s brilliant.

Procrastinators vs. incubators. Yes! I am an incubator! It describes me perfectly. I’ve never been very good at motivating myself unless I have a concrete deadline staring me in the face. I don’t operate well with open-ended projects that just meander along. And when I pull the inevitable all-nighter to get stuff done, it’s always really good. Phew. I’m not the only one. (Link found via this related and fascinating discussion about I.T. industry productivity.)

Star Wars Amigurumi. Neat! I need to learn to crochet better.

OK Go Irish
Okay, everybody in the world has linked to the “Rube Goldberg Machine” version of OK Go’s new video “This Too Shall Pass.” And you should watch it, because it’s awesome. But what I didn’t realise is that there’s also a marching band version featuring the Notre Dame Marching Band! The band play along with them in a field with camouflaged musicians popping up and kids running around with ribbons. It’s very cool. (I wonder what the ND association is. The ND band famously played “Here It Goes Again” at a halftime show a couple years ago. Maybe that was the genesis?)

Edited to add: Okay, I just found another version of Notre Dame’s “Here It Goes Again” routine and the YouTube description clearly states that this led to the collaboration on “This Too Shall Pass.” Man, could I love the ND Band more? I could not.