Well, dear readers, the Oscars are over, and we can go back to our normal lives of eating churros and smash burgers and avocado toast. I did not watch the show because there was only one streaming service that had a free trial and I didn’t want to do that again, especially as I had no interest in that streaming services’ programming. We had a fun Oscar Bash here at haineshisway.com with fifteen pages of postings. I didn’t really care who won this year. But I enjoyed the commentary, and I did see a couple of things on the Tube of You after the fact. The In Memoriam section was, as has been the case for years now, a complete embarrassment. The blame is easy to assign – inept producers, inept director. There is no place else to look. Why this is so deeply difficult for these supposed professionals is anyone’s guess. Let me tell you what you do: You have the orchestra play some nice music and you SHOW THE PEOPLE who passed away – you show ALL of them, you don’t hold back people like Norman Lear for the website. You NEVER EVER cut away from showing them. You show them full screen, period, the end. That is IT. I has spoken. My favorite outfit of the evening was Ariana Grande, who apparently went out and bought some pink bedsheets and a comforter and wore them. Al Pacino came directly from crazy town. He is beyond a caricature of himself. Someone on the Facebook said he was fine because he’s eighty-three and holding it together. I know people in their nineties who are more lucid and holding it together, including the late Bill Hayes at ninety-eight, who was still appearing on Days of Our Lives. And even though my wonderful Richard Sherman has short term memory loss, he is as sharp as a tack. But enough about Oscar because I must get these here notes finished and posted because I just this minute received what I hope will be the final design galley and I’ll go through it to make certain all the fixes got done properly and that the pages fall where they should. Not much to say about yesterday, really. I didn’t get to bed until four-thirty, which was now five-thirty, thanks to Daylight Saving Time. I was about to go to bed at three-thirty when the computer decided to do its ubiquitous every two week crash – although I think we actually made it past the two week point. I had to shut it off, wait for a bit, then reboot it up and it just takes a long time to get everything back and working properly. I slept until three in the afternoon, so about nine hours of sleep with some truly surrealistic dreams.
Once up, I answered e-mails, got dressed and moseyed on over to Gelson’s for ingredients for yesterday and today’s meals. Then I came home and made faux chicken stroganoff and ate it all up – very good, and that is the ONLY food I had all day, so right around 1000 calories. Then it was the Oscars, after which I sat on my couch like so much fish and tried to watch an English movie from England entitled Hell Drivers, directed by a very good director, Cy Endfield. I didn’t make it very far due to nodding off for an hour. But get a load of this cast for this 1957 film: Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins (so great in Gun Crazy), Patrick McGoohan, William Hartnell (the first actor to play Doctor Who), Sid James (all the Carry On films), Jill Ireland, David McCallum, Sean Connery, and Marjorie Rhodes (so great in The Family Way as John Mills’ wife). Very early performances for most of these folks. It’s free on the Tube of You. After that, I watched some preparing food videos and here we are.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven and if the design galley is fine, then I can send in all the files – that’s the hope. I’ll know that shortly. Then I’ll do whatever needs doing, after which I’ll finally get back to writing. I’ll check with the mail place to see if anything is there, then I’ll eat, and at some point I can watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same, some meetings and meals, and going and doing and doing and going and praying for a modern major miracle or two.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, hopefuly send in the files to the publisher, do whatever needs doing, write, check with the mail place, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What were your Oscar highlights and lowlights? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a fun Oscar Bash.