So let’s talk about us for a few minutes. I know, you’ve been patiently waiting for some more delicious SP goodness to distract you however-briefly from the doldrums of your regular life. I hear you. It’s an important service we provide, and we’ve been dropping the ball.

Part of the reason for that is, as always, jz’s continued desire to improve his life and the animal population of the world by diligently pursuing his veterinary career. All the while ignoring the damage done to the interwebs. Selfish, I know.

While he’s being self-centered, I’ve been committing blogging bigamy. For the past few months, I’ve been putting my thoughts up on a new site: Why I Am Awesome and Not Awesome. The conceit of this site is pretty self explanatory. I would recommend any and all regular readers of this site head over there to see what I’ve been up to, thinking about, and how that’s affected my abnormally high/low self regard.

Where does that leave us? Well, there’s more to say over here. I won’t get into what exactly we want to do, because the potential plan-shifting and time-delays could lead to further accusations of being a tease. But ideas are floating around. More content will be done here. Don’t delete those links and RSS feeds just yet.

And if you’re new here, having just come over from Awesome/Not Awesome, or through some sort of random online browsing, then welcome. Peruse the archives. Enjoy yourself and stay a while.

Thank you again for your continued patience. Sincerely,
The MGMT*

(*meaning us, not the band.)

Will this be different than the “four posts in five months” hiatus that it’s been on recently? Not really. But, you know, it’ll be “official.”

Don’t delete the bookmarks, though. We’ll have something going on this site again in the future. We just have to take care of other endeavors at present. Updates on those will come as we feel comfortable publicizing them.

If you are new here, take a look through the ol’ archives…you can see what jz and myself were thinking/talking about for the past few years. Hopefully some of it comes across as mildly entertaining.

Thanks for the attention and your continued patience. We shall return.

I had no idea that anyone gave a shit about The Reader…that taking the place of The Dark Knight is the other big surprise for me. Not that I think TDK needed to be nominated…I just sort of thought it would be, despite all the backlash. I would have liked to see The Wrestler get a nod too. I’ll have to wait until I see The Reader, Frost/Nixon and Milk before I decide which ones needed to be booted for the two guys in tights.

The other immediate craziness: no nomination for Springsteen. I’m fine with that, since he won for Philadelphia. I respect the man, but don’t really care about him. Nevertheless, I figured that he would get some love. Slumdog is great, but two songs from it? Whatever, the good part in all that is hopefully this creates a clear path for my boy Peter to win a statue.

Good to see the Downey love, even though on the whole Tropic Thunder was a letdown for me.

This year’s Norbitaward: the DVDs for Wanted can now tout is an Oscar nominated picture. Huh.

My unofficial early predictions after the jump.

Supporting actress: the lady from Button (Amy Adams will offset Viola Davis for Doubt, and this will be Button’s non-technical consolation Oscar. edit: I’m already questioning this, as Davis has the most buzz, and Button will walk away with so many tech awards it might not need a consolation prize. This is why I’m glad these picks are unofficial. And that my official picks don’t mean anything anyway.)

Supporting actor: Ledger (too much momentum; he only loses if everyone pulls the, “I don’t have to vote for him because he’ll win anyway, so I’ll just vote for this guy instead” move)

Actress: I assumed Hathaway, but now I’m thinking Winslet…she’s due, and voters will have to think, “‘kin hell, I hadn’t even opened this screener…guess I should watch it.”

Actor: Rourke. And then the world might end.

Original screenplay: My heart says WALL-E, my brain says Milk.

Adapted screenplay: The Slumdog march begins here.

Director: Boyle (can we get the shot of the Trainspotting baby involved somehow? Maybe cut to it if his speech goes too long)

Picture: Slumdog (feel-good and frenetic, just what the times ordered. Although if backlash builds on it, Milk could slide in there…he said, having not seen Milk but just assuming that it might gain traction for political reasons, and because it’s the only other movie on the best picture list that I’ve heard anyone describe as their favorite movie of last year.)

So says I. We’ll find out in a month or so, I guess.

That being said, I was up early on the west coast to watch the inauguration events unfold. And I kept a little live diary of it. It’s after the fold. I will come back and edit it later, but as of this posting (9:46am PST) I’m just putting up what came out in real time. Welcome back, SP readers.

(Reuters/Brian Snyder)

8:23am PST:
Fired up the computer as I watched the first few (for me, anyway) minutes of the broadcast. The vaunted Ex-Presidents and their wives were introduced. The response was, to put it lightly…partisan. Jimmy Carter: robust applause. Bill Clinton: huge ovation. George HW Bush: …crickets. And, man, did Bush I look a little frail. It definitely says something that the CNN broadcasters just had an exchange like this:

Blitzer: “Pres. Clinton looks really good, doesn’t he?”
Cooper: “Yes, and so did Pres. Carter.”
Blitzer: “Yes, he did.”
Cooper: “…yup.”

8:26am:
Images of the Obama kids walking through the Capitol, with the announcers saying, “a roar has just gone up around us at pictures of those kids.” This is accompanied in the background by…utter silence. So maybe HW Bush did get some applause. Or boos. A proper assessment of the crowd noise by the TV broadcast might be off the table.

8:27am:
Cooper: “There are three first ladies on the stage. Aretha Franklin is the first lady of soul.” So who did Aretha displace: Rosalyn, Barbara or Hillary?

8:29am:
Laura Bush annouced, to the first sounds of audible grumbles. They are quickly overshadowed by applause from those assembled on the main stage itself. (Facade? What exactly is that area called?) We also just had an Al Gore sighting, sitting behind Bill and Hillary Clinton. No lie, he was sighing very deeply.

8:30am:
My God, there are a ton of people there. Unbelievable.

8:32am:
And here comes Michelle and…uh, Mrs. Biden. After the whole “He could have been Secretary of State!” thing yesterday, I should know her name. Jill? Jane? And why was that supposed to be such a huge blunder? I think I saw Pat Buchannan trying to convince me that it means that Biden stopped Hillary from being VP. Any chance you can get to drive a wedge, huh, guys?

8:33am:
And heeeeeeere’s W! Walking into the building, looking a little awkward. I wonder if he’s afraid of a bad crowd reaction. I’m very much looking forward to what might happen. It could be delicious. Or really uncomfortable.

8:34am:
Cooper: “Bill Bennett, you’re a student of history. How do you feel about this peaceful transition of power?” Yes, Bill…please discuss all the violent coups that you have studied in American history, and describe how this is different.

8:35am:
Cheney in a wheelchair! In other news, Americans used to have slaves, and slaves helped to build the Capitol.

8:36am:
W, Cheney and the Republican leaders are introduced. You can almost here the loud click of the crowd mics being turned off. All you heard was applause. And it sounded like four people clapping.

8:37am:
“And that’s the last time Pres. Bush will have Hail To The Chief played for him.” Mmmmmmmm…swirl it around in your mouth, America. Tastes good, doesn’t it?

8:39am:
Wolf Blitzer comes in to let us know that HW Bush had back surgery a couple of years ago and walks like that now. He is not in pain; “he is just like that.” OK, Wolf…thanks.

8:40am:
Biden time! Also our first shot of Barack. I think he already is starting to get gray in his hair. By the end of the next four years, will his hair be totally, uh, white? Is that racist to ask?

8:43am:
Those are some cold-looking buglers.

8:44am:
Here we go.

8:45am:
That was a pretty excited crowd. Two things: “Barack H. obama,” huh? Skipping the Hussein thing for now? Also, as he walked down the stairs, I wonder if he had to keep tellng himself, “Don’t go straight to the mic and start orating. Don’t go straight to the mic and start orating.”

8:46am:
I really hope that future-history doesn’t make us feel that the buzz and excitement about all of this was ridiculous or all in vain. In other news, don’t let us down too much, Barack.

8:48am:
Feinstein, please don’t mention bullets. Seriously. Although I do like that she just said that this will mark, “real and necessary change in our country.” And W is like, “Uh, dude…I’m right here.”

8:49am:
Pastor Warren comes up to a collective, “Eh?” It’s kind of like the inauguration committee wanted to make sure this reflected people’s feelings about election night.

8:50am:
Warren is the first guy to directly mention the whole first-African American-president thing. It seemed to go over well.

8:51am:
CNN just cut to a random street corner of a handful of people straining to see/hear the proceedings. I think it might have been in Silver Spring. (Disclosure: I was typing, and may have missed a graphic telling what they were showing. I still choose to think that it was the back of the crowd8:5 at the Mall.)

8:53am:
So…this might be a dumb question. But are these prayers always so aggressively and obviously Christian? I thought it would be a little more vague and inclusive. It’s especially strange to hear the Our Father, considering that Obama is a Muslim Arab.

8:56am:
Aretha spends too much time living in the upper register, sort of like an 80s hairband singer who is now set only to wail. Furthermore, are there five first ladies on the stage now, or did Aretha also take Laura and Michelle’s titles?

8:57am:
Now welcome Robert Bennett, who no one really gives a shit about.

8:58am:
Joe Biden gets sworn in…on a ridiculously huge Bible. Seriously, what page has the drawing of the Ark of the Covenant being carried and shooting out God’s glory?

8:59am:
There was one moment where it looked like Biden was about to drop his line. He recovered quickly though. I wonder how late he was up last night, pacing around his room, repeating the parts over and over to himself. “Upon the office I am about to enter. Upon the office I am about to enter. Come on, Joe…you got this.”

9:00am:
They just went all top balcony on us, going fancy with the classical music. Which is sort of cool, except now Obama and Biden have to awkwardly turn around and look behind them to watch it. I can almost see Obama’s brain thinking, “How long do I have to stay in this position? Is it rude to just sit back and close my eyes and pretend I’m listening to this instead of practicing the speech?”

9:02am:
The decision is made: no, that is not rude.

9:02am:
Wolf Blitzer chimes in to tell us that it’s past noon on the east coast, meaning Obama is already President. Which is pretty sweet. Although I, for one, would like our new president to spend more time working and less time sitting around lollygagging at fancy publicly-funded events. Where’s our stimulus package, Barack? Huh? Where?

9:03am:
Congratulations, random dude on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial: you made it onto CNN’s coverage of this event, in all the glory of HD. You are now part of history. The bad news: you were munching with open mouthed enthusiasm on a granola bar.

9:05am:
Only when the song ends did I realize that the classical players were a Jewish violinist, an Asian cellist and a black clarinet player. I see what you did there.

9:05am:
And here we go, Part II.

9:06am:
You know, I sort of think the best part of Obama is that, for all his cool and his badassness, he still gets subtly yet obviously flustered at times. Not in important ways, but in a “I’m going to start repeating the oath too soon and then forget one of my lines” kind of way.

9:07am:
“The 44th President of these United States, Mr. Barack Obama.” I mean…seriously? Wow.

9:08am:
Speech time. I’m just listening and not typing.

9:28am:
I guess you could say he’s pretty good at giving a speech.

The potential “future inaugural speech montage” pull quotes:
-the line about America getting up, dusting itself off, and facing the future.
-the part about prosperous nations reaching outside its borders to help the poor of the world…God willing, that will be seen as a “We will land a man on the moon” moment where a president got the ball really rolling on a big undertaking.
-”a man whose father 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant.”
-And another early one that I can’t currently remember…I’ll get back to you on it.

And while history might not focus on it, I think the whole, “We cannot sacrifice our principles” section will resonate a lot in the present. Hat tip to CNN for cutting to W as that was being said. Well done.

There were a couple of moments (including the change line above) where Obama paused for applause that didn’t come. He seemed to say, “Come on, guys…that line should kill. Nothing? Really?”

I also liked how there was a lot of, “You now, we are seriously messed up. Shit is getting real.” There was soaring rhetoric and all that…but also some stone-hard stuff about our challenges. And I liked that he gave a better, “Don’t fuck with us, terrorists, because we will fuck you up” line than Bush ever gave.

I furthermore liked all the, “America can lead again. We can take our place in the world again” talk. Although that time we didn’t get the cut to Bush. But, again, he was probably thinking, “I’m still right here, guys. At least wait ’til I get on the helicopter.”

And the Bill O’Reilly/Sean Hannity clip: the old black guy in the crowd who looked like he had been lulled to sleep by Obama’s speech. “He talks so much! All flourish no content! Blah blah blah!”

9:32am:
This poet is rambling about stuff, teachers and knitting and tires. Cameras cut to the mall and people are streaming away to get out of downtown DC. I’m sure the poetry students in my class are crying at that.

9:37am:
I don’t doubt that Obama is really enjoying this benediction. But with his eyes closed and his head nodding, I sort of think that he’s just singing something to himself.

9:38am:
“When black can get back, brown does not need to get down, yella can be mella, the redman can get ahead man, and white will do what is right.” Wow. This truly is a new era.

9:39am:
And, in the end, Barack caves on the whole “hand over the heart for the national anthem” thing. Look, you do that for the Pledge of Allegiance, not the Star Spangled Banner. But whatever…he’s wise to do that now and not deal with the stupid chatter of mindless insects.

9:40am:
Cooper: “Barack Obama is now the 44th President of the United States.” Amen. And we immediately go to some dude comparing the tight and packed conditions on the Mall to the hull of a slave ship. A classy way to end the proceedings, and to end this post.

I don’t know if anything else needs to be said. Congratulations, America.

But there’s no time for all that now. No, now it’s time to do the democracy thing. And, yeah, I know what you’re thinking: this election isn’t really that big a deal. I mean, our secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin isn’t even on the ballot this year. If you can’t vote for him, then why even bother showing up?

I hear you. And the answer, of course, is simple: you have to go and vote so you can make sure weed and gayness stay illegal. Isn’t that what’s important?

Now…not enough time has been spent in this space talking about this election. I can’t explain why. So much has happened, almost all of it worth commenting on. What can I say? There’s no excuse. We dropped the ball. Hopefully you’ll forgive us.

I’ve wanted to write more in the past week or two, but frankly, I’ve been nervous. I don’t like being in the position where the side I’m pulling for has a comfortable lead. Right now, I feel the same way I did during game 4 against St. Louis in ‘04: the score is 3-0 in the bottom of the ninth, two outs, the Sox have a three games to none lead in the Series, and I can think of is, “there’s a runner on base; if Renteria gets a hit, the next guy can hit a homer to tie it, and we could have this all swept out from under us.” I don’t know if I’m a pessimist with a thin shell of optimism, or the other way around. Either way, I get scared when I’m excited, and I’m excited. And scared.

Anyway, the takeaway message is this: even if you can’t vote for William Galvin, you should still get out there and vote. I already have, because I cheated and voted early via absentee ballot. I’m hoping that this will be the first time since 1996 that my Presidential vote in either a primary or general election has gone to the eventual winner. I’m also going to try to vote again tomorrow under the name Mickey Mouse…but that’s only if I can follow the complicated instructions my new ACORN friends have given me.

I’m rambling. Go vote. Vote for change. Don’t let this all get swept out from under us. Can we do this?

…I think you know the answer.

Vote For Change: find your polling location

But the point stands: these are the golden days. And here’s hoping for 11 more wins and a third title. Not because we’re greedy, or because we deserve it, or because we’re entitled to it. But because…it would be awesome. And maybe we’re a little greedy. Come on, Sox…let’s get down to it.

And, yes, I love being in school. It’s going great. But I’m really, really unsatisfied that I will be in class from 7-9:40pm PST tonight. I guess that means I could catch the final inning or two somewhere on campus. Hopefully, when I get in front of the TV, Delcarmen will be pitching with an eight run lead. That would be nice.

Go Sox! It’s on, it’s on, it’s on.

1. boston.com: Hackers break into Sarah Palin’s e-mail account

It wasn’t immediately clear how hackers broke into Palin’s Yahoo! account … A hacker also might have sent a forged e-mail to her account tricking her into revealing her own password.

I am having a love affair with the idea that Sarah Palin fell for a phishing scam, and now her personal emails are circulating the internet. “@Hello, S. Palin – you may have already won a prize!!!@”

2. This was the main story/image and sub-story on CNN.com just now:

I’m assuming no one asked, “Why are you and your staff refusing to comply with a legal court order?” Although, sadly, that might not have really stumped her, since “I’m above the law” seems to be a valid answer for her.

But now, this is just a short ad: as jz pointed out to me, Amazon.com apparently now does this thing where they offer daily specials on mp3 downloads of albums. Instead of $8-$10, it’s a couple of bucks. Maybe they aren’t just “now” doing this…they could have been doing this for two years, but I never knew about it. Since my perception is all that matters, I’ll go ahead and say that they just started doing it today, around ten minutes ago when I got jz’s email.

Anyway, today’s album is Elbow’s The Seldom Seen Kid. It just won a huge award over in England called the Mercury Prize. Which I guess is a big deal. Regardless of that, you have my seal of approval on it: this is a brilliant, brilliant album that everyone should have. So pop down the two bucks and enjoy it.

Amazon’s mp3 page

It’s up in the top left corner. I assume it’s going until midnight PST, so you have another 13.5 hours to get it done. So what are you waiting for? Go. GO!

No, seriously, go.

More to come early next week. Enjoy the holiday weekend, everybody.