You have all seen it.

My head is relatively hairless. My beard and hair are even length. I thought that this might be a new style.

Never again. On Monday, a girl in my STAT 230 class saw me and said, “No! Why did you cut your beautiful hair?”

It was like a punch to the stomach. Why the fuck did I cut my hair? And my hair was beautiful? Dear God. Of course. No one likes a bald man. Why would they like a man with a shaved head? I’ve been a fool. A horrible, handsome fool!

90 Day Tania appears to be the blog of a young woman who is going to commit suicide in - as of posting this - 71 days.

Very interesting stuff. Not because of what it is, but because of what it appears to be.

The blog of a suicidal young woman actually appears to be the mechanism for deterring people from doing it. If you look in the sidebar and click the image - Suicide Isn’t Sexy. It explains the nature of this entire blog, and how it is actually an anti-suicide-through-blogging campaign.

What strikes me as peculiar is that the blog conceals its purpose a little too well. How many people are going to actually click on ‘Suicide Isn’t Sexy’ and read what’s what? All the depressed people who are contemplating suicide and find this blog are going to think that if they stage events just right, they can have people - as it says in the header - digging them to death.

Very odd stuff. Very odd indeed.

IGN has the trailer available here.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. An excellent RPG that will hopefully come out in North America.

The 80th Academy Awards aired on February 24, 2008, and - since I was still at home - I was fortunate enough to watch the entire event in high-definition. It was amazing. I have never appreciated HD more than when I switched from regular ABC to ABC HD and was able to see every crinkle in Regis Philbin’s skin. Fantastic stuff.  In all seriousness though, it was a surprisingly good show. Due to the conclusion of the Writer’s Strike in early February, the show was able to continue unhindered. I was extremely happy that they did not have to resort to Plan B which would have involved several hours of photo montages from previous ceremonies and a complete absence of actors, writers, directors and producers accepting their awards.

The show was hosted by Jon Stewart - his second tour of duty. He also hosted the 78th Academy Awards back in 2006. Why the brought in Ellen Degeneres in the intervening years, I will never know. Jon Stewart seems perfectly tailored for hosting the Oscars. With any luck, he can become the next Bob Hope, Johnny Carson or Billy Crystal and end up hosting the show for decades. Man. That’d be sweeeet! I was concerned when I saw the lacklustre opening video that was prepared for the ceremonies. It seemed a little…um…crappy.

After that, things got better. Jon Stewart was always funny. I was genuinely surprised by many of the awards. The Acting Awards seemed to be evenly distributed amongst the various movies up for Best Picture, so I wasn’t 100% sure how that final vote was going to end up. Ultimately, No Country for Old Men won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Javier Bardem (who plays the extremely creepy Anton Chigurh) won Best Supporting Actor. During his acceptance speech, he spoke in Spanish to his mother who had accompanied him to the ceremonies. My mother translated it (Portuguese and Spanish are pretty much the same) and it turned out Javier dished out a truckload of praise to his mother. He seems like a good guy, regardless of how utterly creepy his character was.

On that note, if you haven’t seen No Country for Old Men, I would recommend it. It is so good. Inexpressibly good.

Joel and Ethan Coen (Fargo, The Big Lebowski) added three new Oscars to their collection for No Country for Old Men (winning in the three aforementionned categories that are not Best Supporting Actor). After their 1996 win for Original Screenplay for Fargo, they must have grown apathetic about the whole Oscars thing. Their acceptance speechs were lacklustre, and Ethan Coen said virtually nothing but ‘Thank You’ before walking off stage. They’re an odd pair. But they are so extremely talented. And you can get away with that sort of stuff when you’re that good.

No Country for Old Men won 4 Oscars. And who won the most Oscars after them? The Bourne Ultimatum…with 3 Oscars. How does that happen?

Other winners of the evening included Diablo Cody - exotic dancer turned screenwriter - who won Best Original Screenplay for Juno. Her dress was very “un-Oscar-like”. Funky see-through Cheetah print.

Poor girl cried during her acceptance speech and had to leave the stage before truly finishing.

Another thing I liked about the show was the performances for Best Original Song. Amy Adams - star of Disney’s Enchanted - performed a song from that movie known as the “Happy Working Song”. Enchanted also had two other Best Original Song nominations including “So Close” (which is really good) and “That’s How You Know”, the latter of which was performed by Kristin Chenoweth of Wicked fame. “Raise It Up” was nominated from August Rush. Not really my cup of tea. “Falling Slowly” was nominated from the independent film Once, and was the winner in that category.

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová - writers of the song and stars of the film - accepted the award. Hansard made his acceptance speech, but Irglová was cut off by the orchestra playing the cue to leave the stage. This has always been a grievance of mine at the Oscars. In categories where multiple people get the Oscar, it always seems that someone gets screwed and does not get their acceptance. This was a prime example of that. Fortunately, Jon Stewart - in an unprecedented move - brought Irglová back on stage after the commercial break and she was allowed to make her acceptance speech (which must have been both thrilling and terrifying due to the downtime between accepting her award and the speech). If you watch that YouTube video, I suggest watching the whole thing. That way, you see how they cut her off and then you see Jon bring her back out at 1:38.

Anyway, that’s all. Just wanted to make some sport of post. I’ve got a Calculus III midterm later today which I am 60% prepared for, but I wanted to post something. I’ll return later with other posts about all sorts of stuff, including something math related. Math can be fun for all, if you know where to look.

So, Bill Gates came back to UW. Talked to the Dean of Math on stage.

Watch the video here.

I was watching the video, and it dawned on me. I have talked with the Dean of Math. The Dean of Math has talked with Bill Gates. Bill Gates has talked to Jon Stewart, Steven Spielberg, George Clooney, Al Gore, Hilary Clinton, and Barack Obama. So, by the transitive property, I have talked with all of them as well.

I can now say that I have achieved my life goals. Jon Stewart is especially awesome.

Oh, and did it occur to anyone that Tom Coleman (Dean of Math) is a little awkward looking? His hair is always…aschew.  I also liked how Bill Gates eventually stopped letting Tom Coleman re-read the question (which I think was a good choice) because they had a microphone and it could be heard clearly enough. He was just wasting time.