And the Oscar goes to.....

Here are my thoughts and predictions on the major categories on tonight's big show!

"Winner" is my prediction on who will receive Oscar gold.

"My Pick" is my personal choice if I had a vote. And I should.


Best Animated Feature Film

Nominees:
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
The Tale of Princess Kaguya

The stunning omission of The Lego Movie here leaves the field wide open. But I'm going to go with the logical choice, a well received Disney film.

Winner: Big Hero 6

My Pick: No clue, haven't seen any of these yet

Achievement in Cinematography

Nominees:
Birdman
the Grand Budapest Hotel
Ida
Mr. Turner
Unbroken

Winner: Birdman

My Pick: Birdman

Achievement in Costume Design

Nominees:

the Grand Budapest Hotel
Inherent Vice
Into the Woods
Maleficent
Mr. Turner

Winner: Into the Woods

My Pick: Into the Woods

Achievement in Directing

Alejandro G. Inarritu - Birdman
Richard Linklater - Boyhood
Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson - the Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum - the Imitation Game

Months ago it seemed a slam dunk that Boyhood was going to sweep the Best Picture and Best Director category, but there has been a lot of late momentum for Birdman, including a win by Inarritu at the Director's Guild Awards. So while I am not totally convinced of this, I'm going to stick by my original thought here.

Winner: Richard Linklater

My Pick: Linklater. Duh. It took 12 years to film. TWELVE YEARS. And it was brilliant.

Achievement in Sound Editing

Nominees:

American Sniper
Birdman
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Unbroken

Winner: Interstellar

My Pick: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Achievement in Visual Effects

Nominees:

Captain America: the Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Winner: Interstellar

My Pick: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Seriously, those monkeys looked incredibly real.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Nominees:
American Sniper
The Imitation Game
Inherent Vice
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Winner: American Sniper

My Pick: Whiplash

Achievement in Film Editing

Nominees:

American Sniper
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Whiplash

Winner: Boyhood

My Pick: Boyhood. Duh again. TWELVE YEARS of film to edit.

Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

Nominees:

Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel (BARF)

My Pick: Guardians of the Galaxy

Original Score

The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
The Theory of Everything
Mr. Turner

Winner: Interstellar

My pick: The Imitation Game

Original Song

Nominees:

Everything is Awesome - the Lego Movie
Glory - Selma
Grateful - Beyond the Lights
I'm Not Gonna Miss You - Glen Campbell....I'll be Me
Lost Stars - Begin Again

Winner: Glory

My Pick: I'm Not Gonna Miss You. This would be a wonderful tribute to a legendary country artist, a heartbreaking song about his battle with Alzheimer's.

Achievement in Production Design

Nominees:

The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Into the Woods
Mr. Turner

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel (double BARF)

My Pick: Into the Woods

Original Screenplay

Nominees:

Birdman
Boyhood
Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Nightcrawler

Winner: Birdman

My Pick: Birdman

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Nominees:

Patricia Arquette - Boyhood
Laura Dern - Wild
Keira Knightly - the Imitation Game
Emma Stone - Birdman
Meryl Streep - Into the Woods

Winner: Arquette

My Pick: Emma Stone. Arquette is worthy and is a slam dunk, but I'm picking Stone by a hair.

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Marian Cotillard - Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones - the Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore - Still Alice
Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon - Wild

Winner: Moore

My Pick: I've only seen two of these (Jones and Pike), but I'll stick with Moore who is always good and has won everything under the sun, so I'm sure she is a worthy winner

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Robert Duvall - The Judge
Ethan Hawke - Boyhood
Edward Norton - Birdman
Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher
JK Simmons - Whiplash

Winner: Simmons

My Pick: Simmons. This is my "BEST BET" of the night, and it's a worthy one; this always-reliable character actor turned in the performance of a lifetime here.

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Steve Carell - Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper - American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton - Birdman
Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything

Winner: Redmayne

My Pick: Redmayne. Without his mesmerizing performance, this movie would have been completely unwatchable. Keaton is a very, very, very close second. Carell was also quite amazing.

Best Picture

Nominees:

American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Winner: Boyhood. Despite the late momentum for Birdman, I just cannot believe the Academy could overlook this special film and the achievement that was making it.

My Pick: Boyhood. No question. A hearty tip of my cap to Birdman which probably wins this prize in many years, but not this time.


Dean's LOCK OF THE NIGHT: I already mentioned it, J.K. Simmons for Best Supporting Actor.

Dean's UPSET SPECIAL of the night: I didn't pick any, but if I were forced to choose a possible MAJOR upset, I'll pick American Sniper as Best Picture, in case the Academy picks with their patriotic heart, rather than their movie-loving heads.


Thanks for reading and enjoy the show!!!

John Fogerty

Most of you will know Mr. Fogerty as the lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival, once of those iconic groups that ruled the 60's and early 70's.

Before the show, a video production was played detailing the year 1969 and all the craziness that happened that year; from Vietnam protests to Woodstock. What a bizarre time it was. I'm sure people living during that time didn't realize it at the time; but it's not likely we'll ever see another period of time quite like that one.

The show started about a half hour late, but Fogerty came out with verve and energy that belies his 69 years. The man can play guitar; of course, he's been doing it for 50 years so I guess he should be good at it by now!

 

 

This is the first time I've ever seen him in concert. In fact, I honestly wouldn't have recognized him if he came up to me on the street and punched me in the face. I like CCR and know all of their big hits, but I wouldn't say I was passionate about them. I'm a little moreso after this great concert. Two and a half hours later, when he finally wrapped up the show with Proud Mary, I'm not sure who was more exhausted; him or me. Actually I'm pretty sure it was me!!

 

 

2014-15 NHL Season

Save your time and money, no need to watch, just read this blog post and you will know everything you need to know about this upcoming season.

Oh, just in the interest of full disclosure, I watched exactly zero seconds of pre-season hockey and, being in California for most of training camp and pre-season, heard very little.

And my pre-season pick to win the SuperBowl was New Orleans, who at this point look like they can't beat anyone. So there's that.

Playoff teams:






Atlantic Division:

1. Boston
2. Tampa Bay
3. Montreal

Metropolitan Division:

1. Pittsburgh
2. New Jersey
3. Philadelphia

Wild-Card

1. Detroit
2. Washington

3. NY Rangers
4. Columbus
5. NY Islanders
6. Florida
7. Toronto
8. Ottawa
9. Buffalo
10. Carolina



Central Division

1. Chicago
2. Dallas
3. Minnesota

Pacific Division

1. Los Angeles
2. Anaheim
3. San Jose

Wild Card

1. St. Louis
2. Arizona

3. Colorado
4. Calgary
5. Nashville
6. Vancouver
7. Edmonton
8. Winnipeg

Stanley Cup:

Los Angeles over Boston


Hart Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, Ted Lindsay Award: Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh

Norris Trophy: Drew Doughty, Los Angeles

Vezina Trophy: Cory Schneider, New Jersey

Lady Byng Trophy: Tyler Seguin, Dallas

Selke Trophy: Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles

Calder Trophy: John Gibson, Anaheim

Jack Adams Trophy: Mike Babcock, Detroit

GM of the Year: Stan Bowman, Chicago

It's all over but the credit card bills.....day 20

7:00 AM - Oh not a great night of sleep, but we made it through a night at Super 8 without being murdered in our sleep so that's a win. The free breakfast doesn't look or smell appealing so we head to Denny's for breakfast.

Yes, you read that right, Denny's was the higher quality option.

After breakfast consisting of the usual Denny's options (lots of half decent food, more than most humans could eat), we're back in the car and headed home.

The drive home is fairly uneventful. Tracey is crazy tired so I take over for her for the lousy part of the trip; through Tacoma and Seattle. They really need to do something about the traffic. I mean, I get it is bad at rush hour, but it's 3 PM on a Saturday for chrissake.

Five lanes of traffic, and I can't get by them. I haven't seen a line like that since the Washington Redskins 'Hogs' of the 1980's. 

After we get through there, nothing of note until we get to Bellingham. We stop at Fred Meyer, not far from the Bellingham airport, to pick up a few things that we can't get at home..... and holy crap, they have really upgraded that store! Their wine section (yes I know, like we need MORE wine) has gone from average to INCREDIBLE. They have Opus One! Opus One in Fred Meyer!!!

Hey, it's $6 cheaper here than it was at the winery?!?!? Hmm I wonder if I should get another bottle?

Tracey shoots that idea down pretty quickly. We do pick up a couple bottles of her favorite Chardonnay though and head back to the car to finish our trip. Really not sure exactly what to expect at the border, I've heard some horror stories about trying to bring wine across the border at Sumas.

6:30 PM - We arrive at the border and declare our wine. The guard couldn't be any friendlier, but he informs us we do have to go in and pay a bit of duty and tax on our wine. He says it might be "quite a bit". Hmm that doesn't sound good.

We get inside and organize our receipts so that we know which four bottles we are claiming as exempt and which 11 bottles we will have to pay duty on. We get helped out by another very friendly gentleman who calculates our amount owing at only $75! That's about 1/3 of what I expected, so we head over to the cashier and happily pay them what we owe. The cashier is ANOTHER very friendly guy. Best experience I've ever had at any border, ever. What a difference good, friendly service makes, even at the border. I get that they have a tough job, and it's nice when they can still be pleasant to deal with.

7:00 PM - Home and sooooo tired, but satisfied after a terrific vacation.

Thus ends The Amazing Vacation Blog (TM), 2014 edition. Thanks for reading, and I hope you had a chuckle or two (maybe even three!).

The Amazing Vacation Blog (TM), Day 18 and 19

That's right, true believers, two blog entries for the price of one! And if the price you paid for this blog entry was anything other than zero, you might be crazy.

Thursday, September 25th - Our 10th wedding Anniversary

9:30 AM - Heading out the door, leaving our resort on our way back to Disneyland, which is the only place on Earth we should be celebrating our 10th Anniversary.

This resort had some good points and some bad points. I've already mentioned some of these, but here are a couple more. The good:

The view from our patio. A lovely view of the mountains (what passes for mountains here, anyway) and a golf course. A lovely place to sit and enjoy some wine and relax. Except for this....the bad:

So that chair in the foreground is mine. The other two are our neighbors'. Yes, behind that flimsy excuse for a wall, is our neighbors' patio. Those of you reading this know me pretty well, do I seem like the kind of guy who wants a couple of blue-haired neighbors sitting 2 feet away from me, hearing and seeing everything they say and do? No, didn't think so.

Oh, if you ARE the type of person who would enjoy that, let me know what time the kumbaya sing-along is, I'll be sure to book a colonoscopy for that day....or something more painful.


11:00 AM - Back at Disneyland and checked into the Disneyland Hotel, but of course our room isn't ready so we drop off the luggage and hit the park. It's a freaking zoo in the park today, so we only hit one ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, and do some shopping and say goodbye to the Happiest Place on Earth. It's truly special to us, and there is nowhere I would rather be.

Since we probably still have a few hours until we get our room, we hit the pool. This is actually our first time in this particular pool; the last time we stayed in this hotel it was winter and not really appropriate poolin' weather. It's another hot one today, though, so some pool time is just what the doctor ordered.

4:00 PM - Up to our room. Wow, it's gorgeous. There is no doubt that the Grand Californian Hotel is 10X nicer than the Disneyland Hotel, but the room itself here is more "Disney" than the rooms at the GCH. Our headboard has fireworks that light up :-)

We head down to the ESPN zone for a quick snack to get us through to our 9PM dinner reservations. We consider staying there to watch the first half of the Giants/Redskins game but decide against it. We can watch the game comfortably in our room while we get ready for dinner.

By midway through the third quarter the game is a blowout, so we finish getting ready and head down to Steakhouse 55 for dinner. We get there a bit early but they are able to seat us immediately. It's pretty crowded, given the day and time, but not full.

The food is amazing, the service impeccable, and we have a great dinner on a very special night. Pretty much a perfect ending to a perfect trip.

Except it's not QUITE the end of the Disney trip, just yet.....

Friday, September 26th

8:30 AM - We are up and off to Storyteller's Cafe for their breakfast buffet. Our favorite breakfast buffet, probably ever.... the food is so good and the characters (not the big characters, but all the critters....chipmunks, monkeys, raccoons, bears, etc) always add a little something with their antics.

The food MUST be good, as we keep coming back here despite the obvious varmint infestation.

Off to the World of Disney store to finish up our shopping for the trip, and then we're done. We get our luggage and car (which, incredibly, still fits everything we acquired this trip) and we're off. Leaving here is always the saddest part of any vacation.

And then there is the drive. Holy crap. This is always the worst part of this trip..... driving driving driving driving and not getting anywhere. Well of course we get SOMEWHERE, but we don't get HOME. Still lots more driving left tomorrow, but at least at the end of that day, we are home.

Clearly the weather Gods are trying to welcome us home....we drive through a rainstorm in Stockton, and lightning in Redding. Rain and lightning in California. I am going to call someone and complain.

10:00 PM - We decide to finish the trip like it began, by spending the night at the La Quinta in Grants Pass. Seemed like a good idea at the time....but they are full. FULL. The La Quinta in Grants Pass, Oregon, is full.

You can't make this shit up.

So it's across the street to the Super 8. EW. EWWWWWW.

Best part about it? Cheap as Hell.

Worst part? Cheap as Hell.

Oh well, it is what it is....the room is clean and seems comfortable enough for one night. All we need is a pillow to put our head on for 7-8 hours, since Tracey refused to drive all through the night to get us home.

So THIS is how the next decade of marriage begins.....with her outlandish selfishness.

Oh and before anyone points out that she does ALL the driving, that is not true. I drove like an hour and a half today. So there.

The Amazing Vacation Blog (TM), Day Seventeen!

9:04 AM - Up and Tracey is beginning The Process as we head to the San Diego Zoo. We had planned to leave around 8:20 to get to the gates by 9. Seems as if we missed our wake up call (in other words, Tracey didn't set her alarm). No big deal, we have all day in the park if we want it, but the animals tend to be more active in the morning before it gets hot.

2:00 PM - Back after a couple hours of the Zoo. It's a great zoo, but it never quite measures up to the Safari Park. We did get some great pictures, but ironically the extra care that they give the animals by ensuring their enclosures are as natural as can be can get in the way of seeing the animals or getting great pictures.

They have a lot of the same animals from the Safari Park of course, but the stars of this Zoo are some of the more unusual animals. When did you last see an African Serval?

Mugging for the camera. What a ham.

Or how about this Amur Leopard? Sadly they estimate there are less than 45 of these gorgeous cats left.

Even seen one of these? Me neither. It's a Borneon Binturong. Sorry it's not a great pic but he was in full on "lazy" mode and didn't move an inch.

Lots of other good stuff I'll post once I've gone through all the pics.

2:30 PM- Off to the pool for the last time here. Tracey puts in a couple hours as usual; I can only handle about an hour, as it's really busy today. The pool is packed with people, especially kids.

4:15 PM - Down to the market to replenish a couple supplies we need for our trip home (ie Diet Coke) and then start to organize our clothes to pack up. With tomorrow being a one-day stop at the Disneyland Hotel, we are going to try to get everything we need into a duffle bag so we can leave our big luggage in the car overnight.

OMG, I found Fanta Pineapple and Fanta Strawberry pop! You don't understand the level of excitement I am experiencing right now. I can't remember how many trips across the border we used to make to pick up Strawberry and Pineapple Crush! They stopped making it a million years ago, so although it's a different brand name, I bought one of each and I hope they live up to my expectations! Giddy with anticipation.....

5:00 PM - No time for pop, however, as it's 5PM which means it's Chardonnay time! Of course, given how much wine we have to try to bring across the border we should probably drink until we pass out tonight, but given that we have a big day tomorrow (which happens to be our 10th wedding Anniversary), perhaps a drunken stupor isn't the best plan.

After the first bottle of wine, a simply SPECTACULAR Chardonnay, I break into the Pineapple Fanta...and it's pretty good. Not as good as the Pineapple Crush used to be, but still a nice trip down memory lane if nothing else.

7:00 PM  - Tracey has finished making dinner, basically the rest of the food we had bought, so we crack open the 2003 Tempranillo that we bought the other day. Quite nice for the bargain basement price of $15. It was normally $30 but it was on their "half price" rack.....perhaps because Tempranillo doesn't always age as well as other red wines, so maybe 11 years old is getting close to the end. This bottle was fabulous though, I'd say it had peaked but if it was on it's way down, it was going down very slowly. For $15, an absolute steal.

8:00 PM - On Twitter participating in BC Wine Chat (a weekly wine discussion) while I'm in California enjoying a BC wine! Kidding, of course, if I were enjoying a BC wine down here it would have to have been something I brought down myself. They have zero BC wine here. They've heard of us..heard good things....but we ship none here. They do have a few different Inniskillin Ice wines from Ontario (which are probably quite good) but that's it.

Thankfully, it seems logical to me to participate in BC wine chat while drinking a United States version of a grape from Spain. Sure. Whatever.

If you enjoy wine, check out the #bcwinechat every Wednesday at 8PM. Always a different topic, always informative.

Packing continues as we watch TV and prepare to head out in the morning. Still some things we want to accomplish in Disneyland before our special Anniversary dinner so we have to get moving!!

If you only skip one blog entry, this might be the one...

....because we did nothing today.

Tracey has a bit of a sore foot, so we decided to push our San Diego Zoo day to tomorrow and just relax today. There was some pooling, some napping, some relaxing, and a couple really great bottles of wine. Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks!!!

Hoping and expecting that Tracey's foot will feel good enough in the morning to hit the Zoo and tomorrow's blog entry will be more entertaining.

Let's face it, could it possibly be worse??

Oh, but if you don't follow my wine blog, you might have missed the entry I wrote today about our most amazing tasting of our Napa trip, here:

http://deanswineblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/two-words-opus-one.html