Eileen is watching the Oscars, and since it would drive her crazy if I spent all night yelling at the tv (who am I kidding, I'll be doing that anyway), I'm going to keep a running diary of the absurdity.

7:08 PM: The first awful anthropomorphism of the award statue as a cad named Oscar. "Are you going home with Oscar tonight?"

7:15 PM: During an interview with Renee Zzellwweggerr, they mention how last year she looked fat because she was filming Bridget Joneses's Diary 2: Sitting On Your Couch and Eating Ice Cream Out of the Carton. Then they proceeded to pan down as if to prove that yes, she is skinny this year.

7:34 PM: Chris Rock is hosting, and he's already making fun of stuff. That could be the only saving grace of the next 3 hours of my life.

7:42 PM: Do they have to give out awards? Can this just be 3 hours of Chris Rock ripping other actors, because this is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

7:52 PM: I love how Halle Berry just smiled away her slam from Chris Rock about Catwoman. How could she complain that she didn't get a big enough role in X-Men, then star in that piece of crap? And how do they choose who's going to present the awards? They just announced that Robin Williams is coming up, is he presenting the award for "Lifetime Achievement in playing the same role over and over again"?

8:04 PM: If you're going to sing something in another language, please oh please let it be 99 Luftballons.

8:14 PM: Now they're showing highlights of the Scientific and Technical Awards, which aren't good enough to present tonight because the people actually do something complicated and useful. Rather than "wear fancy clothes and act like divas".

8:21 PM: I've seen like 10 clips from the movie Sideways so far, and I still have absolutely no clue what, if anything, the movie was about.

8:23 PM: It certainly seems like The Aviator is going to win all the awards tonight, so it's good that that's the one nominated movie I bothered to see this year.

8:31 PM: Whew, that was close. I thought for a minute there a movie about Tupac was going to win something, which would have guaranteed 6 more years of Tupac albums even though he's already released more albums in death than in life.

8:47 PM: Whether staged or not, that intro with Adam Sandler was horribly awkward. It's amusing to note that, while I've seen only one of the best picture nominees, I've seen *all* of the Best Visual Effects nominees.

8:53 PM: I almost forgot that Counting Crows performance, which finally answered that age-old question "is it possible to be both balding and have dreadlocks at the same time?"

8:58 PM: Oh god, someone just said "I started fantasizing about Oscar". It's a statue, people, not a person. That just sounds so wrong.

9:05 PM: And Andrew Lloyd Webber makes an appearance, taking a break from writing Cats 2: I Dance Dance Dance and I Dance Dance Dance. Beyonce is wearing enough costume jewelry to reenact the movie Titanic all by herself.

9:31 PM: The question needs to be asked, what's the deal with Carlos Santana? Whenever he's performing, he's always with somebody else. Why doesn't he ever sing for himself? Is he like the Sirens, where if we ever heard his voice we would impale ourselves on rocks? I think if I hung around outside his house for awhile, even I could sing on one of his albums.

9:36 PM: This new gimmick where the nominees all stand on stage and try not to look too angry when they lose really puts a spotlight on how all the men dress exactly alike. While the women spend months trying to get some foofy designer to make an ugly dress for them, every man wears the same tuxedo (although if you're Peter Jackson, your tuxedo is 8 sizes too small). Just once I'd like to see a guy up there in a leisure suit, or a t-shirt and jeans.

9:58 PM: And it's official: Beyonce is overexposed. By tomorrow she'll be dancing with vacuum cleaners and singing about the Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

10:00 PM: Prince is even creepier than the skit about him on SNL implies.

10:03 PM: Sean Penn is not only weird, but there's still a few squirrels on his head. He should see about getting them removed.

10:06 PM: "Hilary Swank is the first woman to be nominated for best actress for playing a boxer". What the hell? In that case, couldn't they have nominated Spider-man 2 for something? First use of a man with 4 mechanical arms?

10:09 PM: Did Hilary Swank really just thank her lawyers? "I'd like to thank my yard guy, and the plumber who unclogged the toilet yesterday, and the lady down the street with all the cats, thank you for always believing in me."

10:15 PM: Since that hilarious beginning, they haven't let Chris Rock say much except when he was interviewing people who, like me, never saw the pretentious nominated movies.

10:18 PM: Are they ever going to get to the awards that people care about?

10:31 PM: ...15 minutes later, Jamie Foxx is finally done talking.

10:41 PM: Best. n. Superior to the average. Was Million Dollar Baby really the best movie of the year? It's only made $55 million over 3 months despite being hyped up for the Oscars. You'd have to pay me about $55 million to get me to sit through it, and I'd have voted for any of the nominees for Best Animated Feature instead of it. It's good to have awards for artistic merit rather than popularity (Grammy's, take note), but it would be nice if just once they'd give the award to a movie that wasn't clearly made for the sole purpose of garnering Academy Awards. My Best Picture: Spider-Man 2. With best short film going to Kitty Cat Dance and best Animated Feature going to the epic tale of tragedy and heartbreak...Badger Badger Badger: An Ode to the Fragility of Life in the Great Plains.