I normally don't even bother watching all of the Oscars, but I chatted with a buddy online last year as I watched, and we had fun with it. So here is my Sports Guy-esque running diary of the 82nd Academy Awards.


8:30 – And we’re off. Well, that started very quickly. Helen Mirren somehow is hotter now than she was thirty years ago. How does that work? And where the hell did Jeremy Renner come from? The only other movie I’ve ever seen him in is SWAT. Yes, he was the other guy in SWAT.


8:32 – I think NPH’s suit might give someone a seizure. Wow, that’s glittery.


8:34 – What, no safety harness for Alec Baldwin?


8:36 – Good Lord, Christopher Plummer is still in the game? Ah, Vera Farmiga, or as I once described her, a less ugly Sarah Jessica Parker. And Helen Mirren, jeez, did she get work done? What is it?


8:38 – The Hitler memorabilia joke made me laugh out loud. What can I say, I like a good Hitler joke.


8:39 – I’m still wrapping my brain around the fact that Mo’Nique has an Oscar nomination. In other words, she has one more than Jim Carrey.


8:41 – Laughed out loud at the Christoph Waltz joke. Again, what can I say, I like a good Hitler joke.


8:44 – I typically like ladies with foreign accents, but Penelope Cruz’s just doesn’t work for me. I don’t know why.


8:48 – Ralph Feinnes’ Nazi doesn’t get the award, but Christoph Waltz does? But will he be pigeonholed into playing evil Nazis from now on?


8:55 – Cameron Diaz, still throwing strikes after all these years. And like Roger Clemens, I’m certain it’s not natural either.


8:58 - It has to be Up for Best Animated, right?


8:59 – Yup, it’s Up. Big surprise.


9:00 – Take heart Steve, I know who Miley Cyrus is, but I have no idea who the other girl is.


9:01 – Not nominated for best song this year, eight songs from Slumdog Millionaire.


9:04 – Someone should tell this guy that Jack Nicholson is the only white guy allowed to wear sunglasses indoors. And even Jack looks like an ass. (I’m going to feel really silly if this guy turns out to be blind though.)


9:05 – Does anyone else think Chris Pine has a big head? Or maybe it’s just me.


9:12 – Ditto Robert Downey Jr and his stupid sunglasses.


9:14 – Of all the Quentin Tarantino movies, will Inglourious Basterds be the only to finally win him an Oscar? Because that would be a shame. Like Al Pacino not winning for Godfather Part II but for Scent of a Woman.


9:15 – And he doesn’t. It’s Hurt Locker.


9:17 – Oh. My. God. Is that really Molly Ringwald? Who’s running the PTA meeting?


9:22 – Ally Sheedy! Man, I hate recycling jokes but… And did she have to bring up the “when you grow up your heart dies” line about a guy who died of a heart attack? In front of the guy’s family, no less?


9:28 – Hey, best short films! And America just took a bathroom break.


9:38 – That’s a pretty decent makeup job on Ben Stiller. The eyes are really creepy.


9:39 – Okay, let’s not overdo it…


9:41 – Star Trek? Really? Hasn’t the technology for Spock ears been around, oh, over forty years now?


9:50 – I don’t think I’ve seen a single one of these film nominated for best adapted screenplay.


9:54 – Is it really an honor to be honored with Roger Corman? Sure the man gave a lot of young filmmakers their break, but they broke in making horrible movies. And that’s not counting the horrible movies he made without those young filmmakers.


9:57 – The Departed was just three or four years ago, right? Then why does it seem like Vera Farmiga seem like she’s aged ten years since.


10:00 – I can’t believe I live in a world where Mo’nique is an Oscar winner. I hope in a few years she won’t replace Cuba Gooding Jr as the consensus choice of who they’d revoke an Oscar from if it were possible.


10:05 – Yay, art direction… whatever the hell that means…


10:07 – If art direction is really about sets and stuff, should Avatar be allowed to win? How many real sets were there at all?


10:09 – It’s appropriate that Sarah Jessica Parker is presenting Best Costume. It has to be a pain to stuff a horse like Sarah in a dress.


10:11 – Yay, the fancy English costume drama won for Best Costume… shocking.


10:13 – As amazing as the fact that Mo’Nique won an Oscar, who’d ever think a film nominated for Best Picture would have Mo’Nique AND MARIAH CAREY in it?


10:17 – Isn’t that the same conductor they use in "Dancing with the Stars?"


10:21 – Wouldn’t it have been easier just to have Morgan Freeman present the award instead of that awkward narration?


10:27 – I don’t care how good the sound was, Transformers 2 shouldn’t even be mentioned tonight at all. Luckily for us, it didn’t win. Worst movie of the year.


10:29 – Am I seeing that right? Dork award winners don’t even get a statuette?


10:35 – Sandra Bullock is starting to get a serious case of old lady neck.


10:38 – And it won’t be the Oscars without… the Death Montage!


10:41 - What, no love for Farrah Fawcett, or Ed McMahon? I always feel bad for being screwed out of the Death Montage. What makes Britney Murphy more notable than Farrah or Ed McMahon?


10:45 – So are Sam Worthington’s glasses real or just some douchy Hollywood accessory?


10:46 – I always hate it when they have dancers do the Best Score nominees. Savion Glover tap dancing to Schindler’s List a few years ago brought awkwardness and inappropriateness to new levels.


10:54 – Gerard Butler and Bradley Cooper are badly under-utilized as presenters. They couldn’t take some funny dialogue from Ben Stiller and give these two some witty banter? Really?


11:02 – Best Documentary. Time for another bathroom break.


11:04 – It figures that Hollywood would love Daniel Ellsburg. Patriotism is mocked, yet borderline treason is applauded.


11:05 – But one of the only things that Hollywood likes even better than traitors is dolphins. Because they’re adorable. And they can perform tricks. And allow me be the one to remind everyone that we only know Fisher Stevens because he played a horrific ethnic stereotype in the Short Circuit movies.


11:06 – Would it have killed Tyler Perry do present this award in drag?


11:07 – Come on, we know Tyler Perry wasn’t in The Blindside. He’s in "24" this season, right?


11:16 – Is Pedro Almodovar only presenting because he can pronounce the foreign film titles correctly?


11:18 – Wow, James Cameron didn’t look happy after that dig at Avatar. Especially since Avatar hasn't come close to bringing in the haul that everyone said it would so far.


11:25 – I haven’t seen Michelle Pfeiffer in a while. Now, I’m kinda glad I haven’t.


11:28 – And yet Julianne Moore still seems to have it together.


11:30 – And remember what I said about Jeremy Renner and SWAT? The Academy couldn’t think of any other movie Jeremy Renner was in either.


11:32 – What would the baseball equivalent of Kate Winslet? Not HOF material, but consistently good and still bringing it fifteen years later. Andy Pettitte? Is Kate Winslet the Andy Pettitte of hot chicks?


11:42 – Michael Sheen has a thing for Helen Mirren too. So it’s not just me.


11:48 - Sean Penn, you miserable cuss. Button that top button, you’re at the freakin’ Oscars! He looks like he just finished a pub crawl.


11:49 – Sandra better show up at the Razzies now.


11:52 – Speaking of miserable cusses, it’s Babs!


11:55 – Katherine Bigelow deserves it. I haven’t seen Hurt Locker yet, but Point Break (despite Keanu) was really good, and so was Strange Days. (K-19, meh… but I think that was more of a casting issue.)


11:58 – Was Tom Hanks supposed to just read the winner without at least reading a list of the nominees? Anyway, now I have to add Hurt Locker to my Netflix queue.


And I can’t believe I just spent almost four hours doing that. And somehow, with some careful wrangling, I was able to catch it all despite FIOS’s bad scheduling. Till the next event, later.