Oscar time!

I am going to weigh in on the Oscars, because, well, what is a blog for but to give the interwebs one's unsolicited opinion?

I'm glad Inception won some, it was visually quite stunning. I am also very happy that Natalie Portman and Colin Firth won, I think they both deserved their wins for their roles and I admire their careers in general. They also seem like nice people, compared to some other Hollywood types, though that's pretty hard to tell. I think Melissa Leo deserved her Oscar but she seems like a weirdo. And Christian Bale also deserved his. It was strange to hear his normal speaking voice, not sure that I've ever heard it before.

I think that Inception should have won over The Social Network for score. Sorry, but I do. In general I think that The Social Network was well-made and an interesting movie, but I just didn't like it that much. Winter's Bone, Black Swan, and True Grit were all good, but I do think The King's Speech deserved its Best Picture win. Still haven't seen 127 Hours.

I wish I had more opportunity to see some of those short films! And I need to get on top of the foreign ones. I hadn't seen any. Anne Hathaway and James Franco were cute as hosts, but I would love Billy Crystal to come back. And James seemed a little stoned . . .

Best song, whatever, nothing seemed all the great to me. Jai Ho was much more fun. Toy Story 3 was good, but it wasn't an Up or a WALL-E.

For the dresses, my favorites included Natalie, Amy Adams, Hailee Steinfeld (who looked adorable in her dress--it was nice to see a young star wearing sometime age-appropriate, instead of going Lindsey Lohan/Miley Cyrus), and two of Anne Hathaway's: the opening white dress and the burgundy one.

the Decemberists - the wanting comes in wavesrepaid - (8 of 17)

Also really been enjoying the Decemberists The Hazards of Love in the car!

Fabrizio de Andre - Volta la carta

I was listening to this in the car today. I used to dance to LOVE to dance to it when I was about 4.

I've seen this posted on facebook a few times and felt a need to share. Because it's awesome.

hiatus over

Well, I haven't blogged in a while. So here are few unrelated things that I've been thinking about.

My friend from Northwestern, Stephanie, has a new blog about frugal living that I enjoy reading.

I am a now a big fan of Gabrielle Giffords, not just because she shares my first name, but I admit that might have something to do with it. I wish her a speedy recovery.

I played some pretty cool concerts last weekend. One of them was Peter & the Wolf with Jack Black as narrator. His son decided that the story's ending was too sad, and that the duck should have laser eyes. So, now I have laser eyes--pretty sweet!!

The other was Prokofiev's Classical Symphony with Symbiosis, a new group organized by my cellist friend Joo Lee. It was without a conductor and it was FUN!

WildUp had a concert that I unfortunately missed.

I've been teaching more, and enjoying it, but also with more teaching come more issues to solve, and sometimes I've been struggling with them. But not necessarily in a bad way. More in a, this is interesting, how do I fix it, kind of way.

OK, that's all for now. Hopefully I will be a little better about keeping this blog updated in the near future.