'Bobby' Jindal = Kenneth the Page

My wife pointed it out to me immediately last night and Jason Linkins did what they do at the Huffington Post and posted about it: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal delivered the Republican response to President Obama's address to Congress as 30 Rock's Kenneth the page.

It was a pretty bad night for Republicans, who are desperately trying to offer up Jindal as their own Obama. He failed.
Fox News' Juan Williams accurately noted "It came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was sing-songy. He was telling stories that seemed very simplistic and almost childish." For a moment, I thought he was going to try to scare us with stories of the the Hill Witch.
But worse than the forced delivery was the message. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks said "to come up at this moment in history with a stale 'government is the problem,' 'we can't trust the federal government' -- it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic right now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea ... that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this ... it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate."

For immediate release, or whenever you get around to it

As you probably already know based on the late release of this official statement, I lost last night's Oscar Smackdown, not to mention the first annual interstate e-competition with the Robinsons and a Zimmer. I know you share in my shame and will heed my call for a boycott of all present and future Kate Winslet movies. Try to keep your head up.
Here's the official press release, but feel free to just trash it along with your special edition copy of Titanic.

Academy robs rightful champion of Smackdown title, Jackman 'kind of delightful'

Simpsonville, S.C. -- Oscar Smackdown favorite and Hollywood heartthrob Greg Van De Voorde is calling for an investigation into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' voting practices after he had victory stolen from him in last night's Smackdown.

Van De Voorde and his lucky wife ended the 10th annual Oscar competition deadlocked with 18 correct picks out of 24 categories, but the title went to the lucky wife thanks to a complicated and possibly fraudulent tiebreaker system. Lucky wife correctly picked foreigner Kate Winslet to win the Oscar for Best Actress, while Van De Voorde brilliantly selected American independent actress Melissa Leo, also known as "the thinking man's pick" and "the best actress ever."

"I put my faith in the Academy to do what was right and I should have known better," said a dejected Van De Voorde. "I blame everyone except myself."

But Van De Voorde didn't stay home empty handed. He received a $1 box of Raisinets by world-renowned chocolatier Nestle and a bag of Sour Brite Crawlers, a gummi candy out of Round Lake, Minnesota.

The lucky wife won some movies, which Van De Voorde vowed to watch first.

"The Academy owes all of my fans an apology," he said. "They really let you down this year. It almost makes you forget how kind of delightful Hugh Jackman was."

Oscar picks

"Heeey, I know you."

Tonight, we hold our tenth annual Oscar Smackdown, a sometimes glamorous but always downright nasty affair where the wife and I vie for the title of Supreme Academy Award Picker. I won last year and I won the Grammy Challenge two weeks ago, so I would like nothing more than to hand my wife her third consecutive loss, which would be certain to push her into a downward spiral of self-pity that will only end with her drowning in a sea of loserdom.
But first, I need to make my winning picks.
The Smackdown title is usually won or lost on the less glamorous categories -- the short films, both animated and live action; the documentary features and shorts; and the sound editing and mixing categories. For the shorts, which I almost never see, it's a good bet to pick something related to Jewish history and culture.

Short Film, Animated: "Presto" It's the Pixar short that was shown before Wall-E.
Short Film, Live Action: "Spielzeugland" The Oscar site description says, "In 1942, a German boy thinks his Jewish neighbors are going to Toyland." It's a lock.
Documentary Short: No Holocaust related material here, so I'm going with "The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306."

Sound Editing: Wall-E
Sound Mixing: Slumdog Millionaire
Costume Design: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Without the effects, no movie.

Original Song: You would think two Slumdog songs here should produce a win for Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth," but I just can't say no to "Jai Ho."

Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire

Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire

Now for the high profile, big money awards:

Documentary Feature: Man on Wire was great, but I haven't seen Trouble the Water, which is about New Orleans. Crap! I'm picking Man on Wire.

Foreign Language Film: Waltz with Bashir, it's from Israel and it looks really cool.

Screenplay, Adapted: Slumdog Millionaire

Screenplay, Original: I liked In Bruges and Frozen River, but it's going to be Milk.

Cinematography: The Dark Knight deserves it, but it will be Slumdog Millionaire

Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Animated Feature: I was surprised to see Kung-Fu Panda won a bunch of awards at something called "The Annies," but I still think Wall-E will win.

Directing: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Supporting Actress: It's got to be Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It must be.

Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Actress: Damn, this is tricky. I think people are burned out on the Kate Winslet. I'm going with Melissa Leo in a big upset over all the big Hollywood stars because that's the cool thing to do.

Actor: You should watch Richard Jenkins in The Visitor, but Sean Penn will win for Milk.

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Well, looking back on the picks, eight Oscars seems like too many for Slumdog. It wasn't that good.

New videos

I was going to upload a video of my pantless daughter running around the kitchen and cutting the cheese (on purpose, no less), but there are too many freaks out there.
As a consolation, I'm posting these two music videos I found to be even more interesting than toddler farts.
The first is a guy named Kid Cudi, who is in partnership with Mr. Kanye West, and the second is Kanye West featuring the very same Kid Cudi. My fellow Prince geeks will enjoy the "Controversy" album cover reference in the first video. I know I did.
And, damn, if you've never looked at Kanye's blog, you should. Lots of interesting stuff.

I love you

Here's your Valentine's Day mixtape.
side A

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

side B

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

These three kings

Unbelievable.
Thanks be to my man for the link.
Forgive the bad video and bad sound in exchange for SUPERBADNESS.
And I never use caps.

Oscar preview

I'm hard at work trying to see as many Oscar-nominated films as I can before the ceremony and the 10th Annual Van De Voorde Oscar Smackdown. For the record, I won Sunday's Grammy Challenge with an astounding 16 correct picks out of 28 ("a D+, that's not a grade they like to give out, I'll tell you that").
Anyway, last night we watched our second film nominated in the documentary feature category, "Man on Wire."
It's kind of a documentary thriller about French highwire walker Philippe Petit's 1974 stunt between the towers of the World Trade Center. It includes interviews with Petit and his gang of accomplices who plotted the project as if it were a bank robbery. It was illegal, afterall.
Being French, they took great photographs and home movies of their training, which included lots of frollicking in fields while wearing yellow jumpsuits (a la Owen Wilson and the Lawn Wranglers) and red trousers. These films and photos are mixed with really nice, not "Unsolved Mysteries" style dramatizations of their work inside the towers. And for a guy who can't stand to walk over sidewalk grates, some of the pictures were hard to watch.
Seven years after the towers fell, it's strange to see the footage of the WTC being constructed, but the film never mentions they're no longer there.
I recommend it, but I'm not sure I'm ready to make it my pick.

Grammy battle

We're tied early here in the Van De Voorde family's annual Grammy contest, but I needed to get this off my chest: There's no way you will ever convince me that Jennifer Hudson's album is a better R&B album from start to finish than Al Green's or Raphael Saadiq's (both previous Can You Dig It? recommendations). I hope it makes her feel better, though.
And you won't convince me that CBS didn't know she was going to win. It's the only reason Best R&B album was the first award given out. They never give that one out on TV.
I feel better.

Salma Hayek is beautiful

I'm a little bit ashamed to admit why I clicked on this video in the first place, and I surely didn't expect to see Salma Hayek breastfeeding, but for so many reasons I'm glad I did.
Now, if you've got babies that don't use the toilet, go buy a pack of specially-marked Pampers to help stop tetanus in Sierra Leone.

For the record

For the record, my favorite Super Bowl ad was the Pepsi spot with Will.I.Am's remix of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young." I read the children's book version of that song to my daughter every night at bedtime. It's a fun book for Dylan fans with lots of hidden references in the illustrations. Plus, how many children's books are there featuring William S. Burroughs?
Here's the short animated version:

'The Big Necessity'

I should have my blogger's licensed revoked for not weighing in on my favorite Super Bowl commercials, but I've been too entrenched in this new book by Rose George, "The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters," to do any posting, much less any posting that would just be adding to the pile of excrement already written about million dollar advertisements.
That may seem a little harsh. And it is. But if you read this book, you'll understand why we can't be bothered with analyzing how Frito-Lay decided to get us to buy Doritos during this recession.
I'd love to have you over and read the book to you, but for now we'll settle for a few statistics:
* 2.6 billion people in this world don't have sanitation. As George puts it, "I don't mean that they have no toilet in their house and must use a public one with queues and fees. Or that they have an outhouse, or a rickety shack that empties into a filthy drain or pigsty. All that counts as sanitation, though not a very safe variety. The people who have those are the fortunate ones. Four in ten people have no access to a latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. Nothing."
* Poor sanitation causes one in ten of the world's illnesses.
* Diarrhea kills a child every 15 seconds. More children have died from diarrhea (90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water) in the last decade than have died in all armed conflict since World War II.
* There are 1.8 million child deaths each year related to the lack of clean water and sanitation.
* It would cost $95 billion to provide sanitation to those 2.6 billion without any by 2015, but the investment would save $660 billion in future costs.
How's that grab you?
I don't mean to be a downer or misrepresent George's book. It's more than just child death and disease statistics. At times, it's funny, and provides some interesting historical and cultural tidbits about that thing we do that we're not supposed to talk about. There's also a very interesting chapter about the development of high-tech toilets in Japan.
OK, got to go.