It's 11:40 and the Oscars are over. That's probably the one real surprise of the night.

Not too much I can say about the winners, outside of wondering when Martin Scorcese will finally win one. I mean, given the way his mom looked, Clint Eastwood has another couple of decades to go. Why not give Marty his due?

So here's a question. The guy who won for original song was in the audience, yet we have Carlos Santana and Antonio Banderas perform the song. I like Santana, and know that Banderas can sing to some extent, but if you have the original performer in the building, shouldn't they perform their own song? Given that he won the Oscar he probably minded a little less, but I'd be a bit ticked nonetheless.

Getting back to the time thing, I'm sure everyone will credit the changes in how awards were presented for the savings, and I'd have to say they helped. But I think the limits on performances and the special awards did just as much. It wasn't all that long ago we'd get an all-dancing tribute to sound editing. Thankfully, those days seem to be over.

Hey, here's a song about a disfigured guy coping with his future solitary life. Let's get Beyonce to sing it.

Huh?

So bringing all the nominees up on stage for their Oscar category works pretty well. Going to the seats? Not so much.

Chris Rock is good, but his monologue went on too long. Though I did like the cut to Puffy when Rock mentioned that the Source Awards included shooting.

Not much else to mention, it's been pretty much the Oscars otherwise.

I'm currently at the wife's office, and as I sit here I can hear something skittering around above my head. There's a definite Alien vibe as I wait for whatever it is (mouse? rat? possum?) to drop down from the ceiling.

It's a little disconcerting, but given how close we are to train tracks and the water hardly surprising.

How is it that I now live in a world where Antoine Walker is a Celtic but Ty Law isn't a Patriot?

The Walker thing is a mystery, given how Danny Ainge let his feelings on the once (and future?) captain before shipping him out to Dallas. Perhaps Ainge felt bad that Walker was stuck in Atlanta. Not sure. From what I've read everyone involved in the deal is on the last year of their contract, so even if Antoine II doesn't work out, the Celts aren't stuck with him long-term.

Also interesting: Gary Payton, one of the players sent to Atlanta for Walker, is looking to be bought out of his contract so he can sign with a new team - possibly the Celtics.

Maybe he wants to be here after all.

The Ty Law thing is a little less surprising. Law and the team were having contract issues in training camp, he missed half the season with a broken foot, was going to cost $12.5 million against the cap for the upcoming season, and (if we learned anything this season) the Pats can put together a secondary with just about anyone.

My most enduring memory of Law will be his drafting. We were heading back to Boston from a tournament at Williams when I found out he was our first round draft choice. Sports talk radio, as you can imagine, was livid. There was a lot of talk about why we didn't trade up and try to get one of the fine RBs drafted in front of Law - guys like Ki-Jana Carter or Rashaan Salaam.

It's always nice when long-term planning shows its value. Though I'm sure there are still people out there who swear we should have gone after Joey Galloway.

Looking at it, 1995 was a pretty good draft for the Pats. They got Law, Ted Johnson, Curtis Martin, and center Dave Wohlabaugh (and Jimmy Hitchcock, who played but didn't have the same impact of any of these guys). Compare it to 1994, where after Willie McGinest, the highest impact player the Pats got was Max Lane - an offensive lineman taken in the sixth round out of Navy. Marty Moore, that year's Mr. Irrelevant, actually wound up seeing a fair amount of playing time.

I thought 1994 had a pretty weak top 10 overall, but feast your peepers on 1991. Yowza.

As Craig pointed out, yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice hockey game, wherein a bunch of American college kids beat the Soviet Union's Red Army machine 4-3. Place it in the historical context of the Cold War as you wish; there's at least one Russian man out there who cites it as one of the three causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union (and was surprised to find that Boston University, the school that created some of the Soviet giant-killers, was not some sort of hockey player factory - or at least wasn't in the way he was thinking).

I did spend part of last night watching the game again, and was reminded of one of my favorite parts of the rebroadcasts. The one reasonably famous person ABC can find in the crowd?

Jamie Farr.

Those of you over the age of 30 will remember him as Max Klinger on M*A*S*H. The rest of you probably don't know him at all.

It's pretty random, actually. At some break in the action they cut to a crowd shot, and there's Farr. He's looking pretty agitated, and is clearly into the game. It's a nice juxtaposition to what you get when a network "finds" a celebrity at an important sporting event today. Someday, I hope the shmuck that has to do the seatside interviews covers the celeb's eyes with one hand and asks "OK, hot shot, who all is playing in this game again?"

I mean, they'd get canned, but it'd be a great way to go.

(As Craig also noted, yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Bobby Knight throwing a chair across the court at Assembly Hall during a game. I'm sure Viktor Tihkinov wishes he thought of that.)

While I can't join in on the memorializing for Hunter S. Thompson (like others linked at left I never really "got" him, though I really liked Joe's excerpt), I would note the passing of Reggie Roby.

Roby had a long and highly successful career as a punter in the NFL, and even though he played many years for the hated Miami Dolphins, I always enjoyed watching Roby kick. Not only did he have tremendous leg extension - often looking like he was going to knee himself in the face - but his punts had amazing hang time. As has been often mentioned in articles about him, Roby liked to wear a watch during games so he could measure hang time.

Don Shula also noted that when the Dolphins played in domed stadiums, Roby liked to try to hit the roof with a punt, and was successful more than once.

Roby did something that none of the guys who punt today can do - make punting fun to watch. Like Reggie White, he died early - he was only 43 - which makes me think that other recent NFL retirees should get themselves to the doctor for a check up ASAP.

Some equal time for those of you who didn't find the Stock Car Challenge that interesting: an Oscars pool from Yahoo.

Go to Yahoo Movies to join my group:

Group name: Rock the Oscars (group number: 2234)
Password: award

Considering I only have three people in Stock Car Challenge (it's not too late to join! They're only one race into the season!), I'd like to think we can do better here.

So the owners and players managed to kill the 2004-05 NHL season again yesterday, as reports about an agreement to a $45 million salary cap saving it were, at best, premature. And you know what? I don't really care.

I know, this is a pretty dominant stance, and one widely mentioned in media coverage of the lockout. In my case, college hockey passed the NHL some time ago, so it's not a major revelation. As also mentioned in some circles, the lockout can only help me by keeping college players in college longer (or at least those players who decide life in the minors is preferable to going to class).

It'd be cool if the NCAA did something to promote college hockey more to fans in NHL cities who have an option, but I don't think they're doing so (though I live in a market where the college teams get pretty strong support, so perhaps any effort put forth is being done elsewhere). This would a great boon to some of the newer D1 teams like Niagara, Robert Morris, and Wayne State, who play in or near NHL cities.

But back to the NHL. I don't claim to understand the financial issues underpinning the dispute, but I do tend to agree with the ESPN.com writers that the owners seem to be trying to break the union. The players seem to have made all of the concessions, and the idea that the owners can't move $3 million on the salary cap is ridiculous. The real test, to my thinking at least, will be the decision to start the 2005-06 season with replacement players. Should that come to pass, there's a part of me that hopes the players extend the collective middle finger to the owners and go play in Europe or barnstorm or something. I can't think that the Scab Hockey League would last all that long. On the other hand, if enough people come to see enhanced minor league hockey, the NHL just might persist - for a while.

Either way, I know BU won't get locked out.

The start of a new NASCAR season is just around the corner (so to speak), and in my usual nod to a sport I only follow for fantasy purposes (now that I don't have a boss who is a NASCAR fan), here's the sign-up info for ESPN.com's Stock Car Challenge:

Group name: Vroom!
Password: vroom

Only had four people sign up last year; let's see if we can at least get one for the thumb this year!

Last night was the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, and if you missed the coverage on USA, a German shorthaired pointer named Carlee won best in show.

I mention this not only to further my own pro-dog agenda, but to recall the times when my dad would watch the show with our daschund Abby, all the while reassuring her that she was much prettier than the dogs on the TV.

To be fair, Abby was a cute dog. On the other hand, I don't know if she was all that threatened by the show dogs.

I wasn't the only one who ran across the dog show last night and watched a bit thanks in some part to my dad. My sister pretty much did the same thing. In fact, it sounded like we watched the exact same things on TV last night, which I wasn't expecting.

Unrelated to matters canine, Lent started last week. As many of you remember, I usually have some trouble coming up with something to give up, and even when I do I then sometimes have trouble actually giving it up (remember back to the Lent where I tried to give up cursing, to expected results).

This year I came up with something pretty quickly: nail biting. I've done pretty well so far, managing to not chaw on a single nail so far. They're growing out pretty quickly, which just ratchets up the temptation that much more. It may help that I stopped biting my nails a couple of weeks before I got married in deference to the soon-to-be missus. I think I wound up biting them on the wedding day itself (big surprise), but at least I didn't draw blood like some people who shall remain Rosenberg.

I just wrote a big post on last night's Beanpot final - and it got eaten by an "internal server error." So here's the skinny:

BC beat Harvard in the consolation game, the least attractive regular season college hockey matchup of the season. No one cares. Harvard played like they didn't care, as they were down 3-0 and being outshot 35-10 when we showed up at the start of the third period.

My dubious stat for this game: BC hadn't lost to Harvard in a consolation game since 1981.

BU beat NU for the title, bringing their total to 26 over the 53 years of the tournament. They didn't play all that well, despite taking a 2-0 lead on a shorthander and a power play goal. The Terriers let NU hang around in the offensive zone too much, making it not that surprising when they tied it up with 2 minutes to go.

Chris Bourque put in the winner in OT, and got the MVP award for his tally. Didn't think he'd really earned it - Bryan Miller had the shorthander and got the assist on Bourque's goal, and seemed like a better choice - but I think the media remembered his dad's goal to win the 1996 NHL All Star Game... at the Fleet Center.

The two stats of note I had here: BU's not lost an OT Beanpot game since 1963, and NU has never won a Beanpot in a year where '8' was not its third digit. Could be a long wait over on Huntington Avenue.

Spent a lovely Valentine's weekend in Salem, here's your recap:

Friday we checked into the Hawthorne Hotel, which is highly recommended if you ever decide to sightsee around here. It's right downtown and very close to most of what you'd want to see. Didn't have any plans, so we decided to get a quick bite to eat and see a movie.

That movie wound up being Sideways, which I thought was pretty good. I was afraid that my general lack of wine knowledge would be a problem, but it wasn't. We saw this at the local Hollywood Hits theater, the "cheap" theater. We paid $8 a ticket. Not sure when that became cheap, but there you go.

Saturday dawned with the main plan to go check out the newly-expanded Peabody Essex Museum. The museum grew out of Salem's maritime history, with the bulk of the collection being either maritime-related or items picked up by sea captains and the like while on voyages. If you're interested in Asian art, or various forms of pottery get you going, it's the museum for you. There's also a pretty good collection of local furniture. We also took a house tour where we got to see a house from the 17th, 18th, and 19th century.

We didn't do too much else, though we had a very nice dinner in the hotel's restaurant. After seeing the movie I was too self-conscious to order the pinot, so I went with the shiraz. No complaints there.

Sunday saw us return home and pass a pretty typical Sunday. We wound up watching the Grammys, which was OK if a bit predictable. The all-star version of "Across the Universe" was pretty gruesome, but sales do benefit tsunami relief. The NARAS president was a little less irritating on the issue of downloading music, but still unbearable. It didn't help that he was put in towards the end of the night, which meant he got to be dead weight at what should have been the height of the ceremony.

Two things I didn't know about Jamie Foxx until last night: he has a tattoo on the back of his head and he is a reasonably good musician. He'd have made a better halftime entertainer at the Pro Bowl than former American Idol finalist Jasmine Trias. Jasmine Trias! I can't believe anyone thought it was a good idea to let her sing on national TV again. Ugh.

In the interest of meme generation:

Where I've Watched the Super Bowl

XXXIX At my sister's house in New Hampshire. They just got a big screen TV (hadn't planned on having it in time for the game, but it was delivered early), so it was a better viewing experience than I'd had at home. Mostly family.

XXXVIII At home, which is how I wound up doing dishes during Nipplegate.

XXXVII At my neighbor's apartment at Babson. Wound up being a small gathering of work types, with none of us having a very strong interest in the game.

XXXVI At the house of the director of my former office. This worked out pretty well, as if there was going to be any rioting on campus after the game, all of us who'd have to respond were in the same place. There were a few non-Babsonites there, one of whom I don't think had ever seen a football game (live or televised).

I also got drink very old wine, bottled when the Pats first made the Super Bowl and saved by a co-worker who was, easily, the most ardent Pats fan I'd ever met. Still holds true.

XXXIII, XXXIV and XXXV Honestly, I have no idea. Home, probably. Though I have vague notions of seeing the final play in the St. Louis-Tennessee game on a large screen. So perhaps I went out for that one.

XXXII The then-apartment of the fabulous DeVeaus. Quite a game.

XXXI Went to a party at the American Legion hall in Manchester. Most notable here was the small card table set up in a corner and decorated in Packers colors - for my father. He always hated the Pats, mostly due to the Sullivan family.

XXX Home again, I think.

XXIX In the basement of a house belonging to the brother of someone I'd worked with. Pretty sweet set-up, a ceiling-mounted projection unit with a wall-sized screen. It was much more appreciated with a post-game viewing of Tombstone than during the game itself, given that it was over early.

XXVIII I may not have even watched this one, given how sick I was with the Cowboys. I don't recall doing anything special, at least.

XXVII For this one I spent most of the game in bed, the victim of food poisoning thanks to a Connecticut McDonald's. The blowout status of the game didn't help matters. I did manage to rouse myself at some point in the second half, but spent most of the time getting back into something resembling death warmed over rather than watch the end of the blowout.

XXVI Watched it at T's Pub, or watched as much as one could in such a crowded atmosphere. A fun time, at least.

XXV Headed for the student ghetto in Allston to watch the game at the apartment of a friend of a fellow RA. Proving that I don't learn, I also watched the BU-Norhern Michigan NCAA hockey final in this apartment. Where everyone else thinks of wide right, this Super Bowl reminds me of hitting posts in overtime.

At least Dave Emma didn't get his Hobey until sometime around 11 pm.

XXIV One of the small lounges on the second floor of Sleeper Hall used to have a ceiling-mounted projection TV. We got it going and figured it'd be a great place to watch the game. One problem: the projector would go out of focus when there was some sort of vibration (such as opening and/or closing a door). We muddled through, but part of me thinks the decline in my eyesight started this day.

I've never really cared for Denver, so I did watch all of this blow-out. That it erased the Patriots' record for biggest Super Bowl blowout was a plus as well.

XXIII Home or dorm room. Not sure.

XXII In an unusual move, I decided to take the train back from home to BU during the game. The logic, I think, was that there'd be fewer people, thus a quicker trip and less of the game missed. For the trip I had a Walkman with radio, so I could listen.

Except for that whole part of the trip from North Station to Kenmore Square when you're underground. Care to guess when Doug Williams went on his tear?

XXI Home, likely.

XX A bunch of us gathered at my friend Dean's house to watch what we thought would be a once-in-a-lifetime event. I mean, given what we'd seen of the Pats to then, who'd have expected a return trip?

The game was off by halftime. We spent the second half watching The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie. A vast improvement.

IV through XIX Home, most likely, to the extent that I could watch the game for the earlier ones. The first one I really remember watching was XIII. I do remember missing a goodly chunk of XVIII thanks to CCD, as I was very surprised to hear that the Raiders had won.

I through III I suppose I could have caught some of III in utero, not by watching of course. Not even that was possible for I and II.

Somewhat lost in the Patriots' hoopla was that yesterday was the first Monday in February. Which, to many of us in the Boston area, is better known as the first round of the Beanpot.

This year, the games had two clear "favorites," if you went by the polls. Nationally-ranked Harvard opened with under .500 Northeastern, while the nightcap pitted top-ranked BC against lower-ranked BU. If you went by the numbers, a Harvard-BC final was in the offing.

It should come as no surprise, then, that BU and Northeastern will square off for the Beanpot title, a pair of red-hued teams on Valentine's Day.

How did this happen?

Harvard-Northeastern started in front of a crowd of dozens with a 5 pm face-off. The early game is always quiet, but is even moreso when the two least-followed teams take the ice first. NU has a vocal but small fan base, but it was more than enough to best the scattering of Harvard supporters.

Even so, the Crimson put up the first goal of the game with less than a minute off the clock. They then proceeded to doze through the next 80-some-odd minutes of hockey, allowing NU to tie it up and then take the win in double OT.

It was not a thing of beauty. Much of the third period looked like it was being played at three-quarter speed. The extra frames pushed back the start of BU-BC by an hour, though it felt like much, much more.

Harvard has played pretty well this year - they've beaten BC and BU in earlier games - but they had no spark last night.

Reasonably pointless statistical note: Harvard hasn't made a Beanpot final since 1998.

Almost pointless statistical note: Harvard hasn't won a Beanpot in a year where there was no change in the US Presidency since 1974. Since then, they've won the title in 1977, 1981, 1989, and 1993. Spooky.

BU-BC had a late start, but the delay didn't diminish anyone's energy. BU came out looking like the Philadelphia Eagles - carrying play but not scoring. BC got their first goal just after they went off a power play, on a knuckling screen shot. BU managed to dampen momentum by tying the score on a goal with less than a minute to go in the period.

BU went ahead on a nice goal in the second period (both goals scored by John Laliberte), and hung on to win despite being outshot by something approaching a 2:1 margin. BC's coach noted that very few of their shots were good scoring opportunities, but I think he's trying to downplay things a little. After all, his team couldn't solve BU's backup goaltender (as our walk-on turned starter is still out with a separated shoulder).

Reasonably pointless statistical note: BC hasn't beaten BU in an opening round of the Beanpot since 1981 - a year before BU goalie Stephan Siewec was born.

Somewhat less pointless statistical note: BC hasn't won back to back Beanpots in 40 years.

So the good news, depending on how you look at it, is that the missus and I will be spending a romantic Valentine's Day at the Fleet Center. That's better than the alternative if we'd lost, which was scalping my finals tickets to buy flowers.

The idea of a New England Patriots dynasty has, like jumbo shrimp or Swiss cheese, an oxymoronic quality to it. While never quite the Gridiron of the Absurd you'd find in Arizona or (until late) Cincinnati, the checkered past of the Patriots - from abortive moves to St. Louis and Hartford to their former cesspool of a stadium to the many years where watching the game brought with it the color commentary of Beasley Reece - makes contemplation of a Foxboro dynasty a slippery thing to hold.

But I'm warming up to the task. They may not have sealed their destiny by blowing someone out (as the 49ers did to the Broncos or the Cowboys did to the Bills), but three Super Bowls in four years, in an NFL set up to defy dynasty-building, speaks volumes. What speaks even louder is that, loss of coordinators notwithstanding, there would be very few people surprised to see the Patriots play for a fourth title in five years on a February 2006 night in Detroit.

Thinking about the game more specifically, I think I would have opted for Rodney Harrison over Deion Branch for MVP, though it was a close-run thing in my mind. Fitting for the Patriots, there wasn't one clear-cut player to go with.

I'm also still trying to sort out Philly's clock management strategy late in the game, but I think there are plenty of people related in some fashion to the Eagles who are trying to do the same thing.

Now for the commercials. According to the USA Today Ad Meter thing, Bud won the night with their ad about the pilot who ditches the skydivers to go after the Bud Light that's been thrown from the plane. I thought it was a pretty good ad (better than Bud's usual parade of flatuent animals and single entendre sex humor), but the best of the night? Not so much. I'd have given that to Ameriquest's ad involving apparent felinicide. I also thought the FedEx ad with all the required Super Bowl commercial elements was better than its Ad Meter ranking. You can decide for yourself by taking a gander at the ratings.

In the run up to the Super Bowl, Freddie Mitchell of the Eagles said he had something he wanted to give Rodney Harrison. Given the result and the two players' relative performance (Mitchell had one catch for 11 yards, Harrison two picks, a sack, and at least seven tackles), what did Fred Ex have for Rodney? A congratulatory ham?

Tonight's game at least helped prove one thing: I can pick winners, but not details like the winning margin. Several years of ESPN.com games can back this up.

More on the game tomorrow.

With the Super Bowl being this Sunday, it's time for my fearless prediction: the Pats will win.

Were you expecting anything else?

Now, I don't have the cockiness that some fans do. I expect the game to be close. I hope the win won't come down to Adam Vinatieri's foot again, but it wouldn't shock me if it did, either. My thinking is that it'll be close for most of the game, with the Pats winning by a two-score margin thanks to some late points. Given the players and coaches that each team brings into the mix, though, there's very little that would surprise me.

Well, the Pats running the wishbone. That would surprise me.

I've managed to miss most of the hype these last couple of weeks by not watching televised sports news (or "news"), especially avoiding the half-hour specials our Fox affiliate has been running in place of the 7:30 Simpsons. No way I'm going to reward that sort of scheduling.

The one story I've found reasonably interesting is Jacksonville's performance as host. The gist of most of what I've heard is that the city isn't up to the challenge, which makes me worried that the game will fall into a regular Miami-New Orleans-San Diego orbit (with occasionall forays into Tampa and perhaps the Rose Bowl). I like the idea of non-traditional cities getting the game for variety's sake. After this year, though, the pressure will be on Detroit and Arizona to provide more amenities.

(That being said, I do wonder how much of what's being said is accurate and how much of it is media grumbling; Jon's posts on his work trips lead to some doubts on this topic.)

Still don't know what, if anything, I'm doing for the game. I don't even recall where I watched last year's game (I think it was at home; yup, I remember doing dishes during the "wardrobe malfunction"), so it's not like it's a huge concern.