The 79th annual Academy Awards aired last night - in case you are living in a cave and are not aware. Those of you who know me know that this is a big night for me. Jeff suffers through it -- this is our 3rd Oscars together -- but I gently remind him that "Awards Show Season" only lasts a short time compared to, say Football Season (which seemingly lasts all year) or Golf Season (which literally lasts all year). He humors me, and last night he even humored my paying such close attention to even the most boring awards and marking up my ballot to keep track of my expertise.

My system of keeping track didn't seem so complicated when I started, but I realized by the end of the show that it appears to be in secret code. To translate: The blue Xs are my original picks. The pink highlighted names are the winners in each category. And the big pink Xs are ones I got wrong. Clearly, I was prematurely confident that there would be fewer "wrongs" than "rights", when I started indicating those...

Anyway - I won the pool! 15 out of 24 right! Yah me! I was 0 for 3 with Best Picture, Foreign Film, and Animated Feature -- but I suspect everyone was...

Feel free to leave your congratulations in a comment.

The show itself was good. Ellen did a great job hosting, and the Cirque de Soleil-esque performers were a nice touch. At several points in the show, it kinda felt like "The Al Gore Show", which was unexpected and weird -- but, hell, he's promoting a good cause - and Llaura would be proud. Ellen also announced at the beginning of the show that it was the most "international" Oscars ever - which is interesting. And Diet Coke ran several ads that were amazing.

Anyway - if nothing else - I am reminded that I need to go out and buy the Dreamgirls soundtrack!

The circumstances amid which you live determine your reputation; the truth you believe determines your character.

Reputation is what you are supposed to be; character is what you are.

Reputation is the photograph; character is the face.

Reputation comes over one from without; character grows up from within.

Reputation is what you have when you come to a new community; character is what you have when you go away.

Your reputation is learned in an hour; your character does not come to light for a year.

Reputation is made in a moment; character is built in a lifetime.

Reputation grows like a mushroom; character grows like the oak.

A single newspaper report gives you your reputation; a life of toil gives you your character.

Reputation makes you rich or makes you poor; character makes you happy or makes you miserable.

Reputation is what men say about you on your tombstone;

character is what angels say about you before the throne of God.

- William Hersey Davis, "(source unknown)"

Personal growth does not make the previous stages of your life wrong; it makes them the previous stages.

This is the kind of day I had...

This was outside to greet me after my last meeting of the day at P&G this afternoon. Yes, that's my car. No, there's no driver in that truck.

And as I got closer.

Damn birds.

Longest 4-day week ever.

Click Here for game. Warning: Very addictive.

Use the 4 arrow keys to move the car, and space bar as a brake.

I posted a few Mardi Gras pics in the Friends album.

You can spend your whole life building something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway
You can chase a dream that seems so out of reach and you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

God is great, but sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray it doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway

This world's gone crazy and it's hard to believe that tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway
You can love someone with all your heart, for all the right reasons, and in a moment they can choose to walk away
Love 'em anyway

God is great, but sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray it doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway 

You can pour your soul out singing a song you believe in that tomorrow they'll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway, sing it anyway

I sing, I dream, I love, anyway

Anyway. Martina McBride.

I am aware of modern technological conveniences like online billpay. 90% or better of my bills are automatically drafted from my account each month -- no thinking or human interaction involved.

However, this particular bill does not offer online billpay of any kind. To me, specifically. Apparently, that is something you have to specify when you open the account and I failed to do so. So, 5 years ago - I didn't feel like messing with online billpay, regrettably, and I have "paid" for it each month since then. Thank you, anyway, for your kind suggestions. I appreciated the sympathy for my customer disservice issue.

NWA residents: For those of you who missed "Moses vs. Abel - A Debate of Biblical Proportions" last night on UATV -- I think it was a Campus Crossfire -- you missed a real treat. I'm sure it will be on YouTube in no time. Here's a link to the article in the Traveler yesterday. It was less of a "theological showdown" and more of an embarassing spectacle. It was aired live, with no delay, which I thought was brave -- and if you watched, you know that it proved to be a bad idea as Abel almost lost his cool at one point. The goof of a mediator on the show mentioned repeatedly that the set was being monitored by police, and they were sure to get a shot of the poor sap who drew the short straw and had to babysit the event.  Jeff and I agreed that, of the two, we found ourselves siding with Moses. It was that bad.

I don't really remember what exactly convinced me to cancel my plans to go to Jazzercise last night to meet the boys on Dickson for Mardi Gras nonsense instead... but I promise to post pictures later today.

So yesterday, I realized that it was already the end of February and I thought to myself, "my credit card bill is probably due soon, I should get it out of my purse and mail it". So I got it out and, sure enough, it was due 20 February (yesterday).  So, I call the 1800 number on the bill and I get an automated system, of course, that requires me to audibly choose from a menu of options. Have you experienced this? The voice gives you options like "if you want to hear your payment options, say List Payment Options". Crazy. But fine, if you don't have a crappy phone like mine that makes random buzzing/crackling noises, that apparently sound like a human voice. The system kept thinking I was making choices because my phone is noisy. Finally! the voice said "I can't seem to understand you, please wait while I transfer you to an operator." Yah! But it turns out this was only the beginning of my problems...

All I want to do is give them money, right? I don't have excuses, complaints, issues - nothing. I simply want to give them my routing number so they can have my money and I'll be on my way. This did not happen.

I give the lady my name, account number, birthdate, last 4 digits, and first born child. Then the fun started. I tell her I want to make a payment. The conversation goes something like this:

Lady: We are not set up to take payments over phone.

Me: You can't take my credit card number and run it over the phone?

Lady: No, I'm sorry. We can't take payments over phone unless the payment is late.

Me: But my payment is due today. By the time I mail it, it'll be late.

Lady: Yes.

Me: So if I call you tomorrow, you can take my payment over the phone. Because then it's late.

Lady: We are not set up to take payments over phone.

Me: So you can't help me.

Lady: I can help you by giving you your payment options.

Me: So, my option is to mail my payment?

Lady: Yes.

Me: But then it'll be late.

Lady: Yes.

Me: And you can take late payments over the phone.

Lady: Yes.

Seriously.

After my seemingly week-long hiatus, I am back to the normal routine this morning-- which is a welcome change!

I ran into an old friend on campus this morning -- made my day. One of those people I'll go 6 months without seeing and then randomly run into -- and I'm pretty sure I could go 6 years without seeing him and he'd still run up and give me a bear hug and a familiar smile. There are so few from my class still in Fayetteville (me, Andrew, and Patrick Wilson, Jason Fechter...) - it's fun to catch up.

So, question of the day. Is it appropriate to tip the carhops at Sonic?  Please leave comments with your opinions. My opinion is as follows: I do not generally tip at Sonic for the following reasons:

• I typically order only a drink, or a drink and one food item - so the carhop doesn't have to wrangle a lot of food on a tray.
• I try to park in the absolute closest spot to the door - I don't make them dodge traffic.
• Most Sonics now have the outside card-reader, like at gas pumps. They charge the exact amount and don't give you the option to leave a tip. (I bet the carhops hate those things.) But this does eliminate the counting of change and the two trips to the car to bring me my credit card slip to sign -- MUCH less work for them.

EXCEPTION to these rules: I tip if it's raining or if it's really cold. For example, Friday morning after I dropped Jeff at work, I drove through Sonic to get a breakfast burrito and the poor girl came out in a parka with fur on it -- it was literally freezing. And that particular Sonic doesn't have the card-reader so she ran my card manually -- I rounded my bill up to $10 because I felt bad for the girl. If I had gone this morning, no tip.

My friends Allison and Shorty think they've found a carhop-tipping loophole. They use the drivethru. They think you should absolutely always tip the carhop so they avoid it altogether by only using the drivethru. I think that's cheating.

Thoughts?