I Got Yer Oscar Nominations RIGHT HERE

TL;DR: I care about the Academy Awards and I care about data reporting.

This year's Oscar nominations (honoring films released in 2016) were announced on January 24th, and ever since then I've been checking Oscars.org periodically to see if they've published the "view by film" tab on the nominations list. Several news outlets reported on the numbers of nominations different films received, but usually the Academy posts a full list of nominations for each film.

Well, that tab still hasn't appeared as of this writing, but on a whim, I back-hacked the URL based on last year's site, and you know what? The data's actually there. It doesn't appear to be fully cleaned up (the original song nominees are sorted incorrectly), but it's better than nothing:

https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2017?qt-honorees=1#qt-honorees

However, I had already compiled my own list from the per-category nominations page, so I'm posting that information here for everyone else's handy reference. Please note that I'm only listing films with more than one nomination below. For everything else, please refer to the broke-ass page linked above.

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La La Land – 14 nominations
Best Picture - Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz and Marc Platt, Producers
Directing - Damien Chazelle
Actor in a Leading Role - Ryan Gosling
Actress in a Leading Role - Emma Stone
Writing (Original Screenplay) - Damien Chazelle
Cinematography - Linus Sandgren
Costume Design - Mary Zophres
Film Editing - Tom Cross
Music (Original Score) - Justin Hurwitz
Music (Original Song) - "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)"
Music (Original Song) - "City of Stars"
Production Design - David Wasco; Set Decoration: Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
Sound Editing - Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan
Sound Mixing - Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee and Steve A. Morrow

Arrival – 8 nominations
Best Picture - Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder and David Linde, Producers
Directing - Denis Villeneuve
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - Eric Heisserer
Cinematography - Bradford Young
Film Editing - Joe Walker
Production Design - Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Paul Hotte
Sound Editing - Sylvain Bellemare
Sound Mixing - Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Claude La Haye

Moonlight – 8 nominations
Best Picture - Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Producers
Directing - Barry Jenkins
Actor in a Supporting Role - Mahershala Ali
Actress in a Supporting Role - Naomie Harris
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - Barry Jenkins; Story by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Cinematography - James Laxton
Film Editing - Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon
Music (Original Score) - Nicholas Britell

Hacksaw Ridge – 6 nominations
Best Picture - Bill Mechanic and David Permut, Producers
Directing - Mel Gibson
Actor in a Leading Role - Andrew Garfield
Film Editing - John Gilbert
Sound Editing - Robert Mackenzie and Andy Wright
Sound Mixing - Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie and Peter Grace

Lion – 6 nominations
Best Picture - Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Angie Fielder, Producers
Actor in a Supporting Role - Dev Patel
Actress in a Supporting Role - Nicole Kidman
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - Luke Davies
Cinematography - Greig Fraser
Music (Original Score) - Dustin O'Halloran and Hauschka

Manchester By The Sea – 6 nominations
Best Picture - Matt Damon, Kimberly Steward, Chris Moore, Lauren Beck and Kevin J. Walsh, Producers
Directing - Kenneth Lonergan
Actor in a Leading Role - Casey Affleck
Actor in a Supporting Role - Lucas Hedges
Actress in a Supporting Role - Michelle Williams
Writing (Original Screenplay) - Kenneth Lonergan

Fences – 4 nominations
Best Picture - Scott Rudin, Denzel Washington and Todd Black, Producers
Actor in a Leading Role - Denzel Washington
Actress in a Supporting Role - Viola Davis
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - August Wilson

Hell Or High Water – 4 nominations
Best Picture - Carla Hacken and Julie Yorn, Producers
Actor in a Supporting Role - Jeff Bridges
Writing (Original Screenplay) - Taylor Sheridan
Film Editing - Jake Roberts

Hidden Figures – 3 nominations
Best Picture - Donna Gigliotti, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Pharrell Williams and Theodore Melfi, Producers
Actress in a Supporting Role - Octavia Spencer
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi

Jackie – 3 nominations
Actress in a Leading Role - Natalie Portman
Costume Design - Madeline Fontaine
Music (Original Score) - Mica Levi

Deepwater Horizon – 2 nominations
Sound Editing - Wylie Stateman and Renée Tondelli
Visual Effects - Craig Hammack, Jason Snell, Jason Billington and Burt Dalton

Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them – 2 nominations
Costume Design - Colleen Atwood
Production Design - Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock

Florence Foster Jenkins – 2 nominations
Costume Design - Consolata Boyle
Actress in a Leading Role - Meryl Streep

Kubo And The Two Strings – 2 nominations
Animated Feature Film - Travis Knight and Arianne Sutner
Visual Effects - Steve Emerson, Oliver Jones, Brian McLean and Brad Schiff

A Man Called Ove – 2 nominations
Foreign Language Film (Sweden)
Makeup and Hairstyling - Eva von Bahr and Love Larson

Moana – 2 nominations
Music (Original Song) - Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Animated Feature Film - John Musker, Ron Clements and Osnat Shurer

Passengers – 2 nominations
Music (Original Score) - Thomas Newman
Production Design - Guy Hendrix Dyas; Set Decoration: Gene Serdena

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – 2 nominations
Sound Mixing - David Parker, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson
Visual Effects - John Knoll, Mohen Leo, Hal Hickel and Neil Corbould

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If you're in the Portland, Oregon area, you're welcome to join us at our Oscar Party on February 26th. (Message me for details if you haven't already received an invite, and apologies for the oversight!)

Finally, everyone on the Internet is welcome to follow me on Twitter for #OscarTrivia that day. (Teaser: you'll find out which one of this year's nominees I worked with on a project back in 2011! Feel free to speculate in the comments.)

I Have a Voice Too

Dear Pitch Perfect movies,

I love you, but we need to talk about diversity.

Let me start by saying that I harbor more affection for both of you than a straight man in his forties probably should. Yes, I'm a weirdo: I sang choir in high school, was an a cappella groupie all through college, performed with The Richter Scales for eight years, and actually watched an entire season of The Sing-Off. It's kind of in my blood at this point.

Now, I do appreciate the presence of so many non-white faces in your cast, but I wish that at least one of them—any of them—was more than just a punchline.

I really wanted one of those persons of color to have a character arc in Pitch Perfect 2. Lilly seemed like a perfect candidate, since her personal growth was actually a plot point in the first movie; but no, she was rolled back to the old "I can't hear you" joke, which stings more than it evokes knowing laughter for some of us. And the new "ethnic" character, played by Chrissie Fit, is little more than a series of one-liners which feel exploitative even as they poke fun at #FirstWorldProblems.

It's doubly ironic that as an actress, Elizabeth Banks' commentator character hangs a lantern on every one of fellow commentator John Michael Higgins' blatantly insensitive on-air remarks, but as director, Banks seems to have a blind spot for the subtle but constant affronts suffered by all of PP2's non-white characters. I know, it's a very broad comedy (no pun intended), but still. Some of us don't get to laugh about certain things.

Here's what Wesley Morris had to say in Grantland:

The movie invites you to celebrate its diversity. The Bellas are, indeed, not all white. But none of the characters of color has been promoted to do more than act like a weirdo. The other new addition, besides Steinfeld, is a Guatemalan named Flo (Chrissie Fit), who caps every exchange with a tale of poor-migrant suffering. Hana Mae Lee returns as the mousy Japanese girl, Lilly, with no scatological boundaries. The songwriter and producer Ester Dean plays the black girl and lesbian, who, when she isn’t flirting aggressively, actually has to quip, “What kind of white shit is this?” Asking a question like that in a film about a cappella singing is like working in a barn and complaining about the hay.

There are other issues with PP2, to be sure: the whole thing is scattershot, what with having to work in characters who are no longer in school and wanting to play up romantic storylines at the expense of other, arguably deeper themes. Personally, I would have loved more of the "legacy" story between newcomer Emily and her mother, especially since (no spoilers) it figures into the musical finale. That payoff would have played even better if there had been more setup for it.

It's like Atomic Fangirl says:

Halfway through I felt like someone had slipped E into my water bottle. I knew where I was, I knew I was having a good time, but I didn’t understand a bloody thing that was going on.

On that level, it's about good storytelling, plain and simple. But at this point, at this moment in 21st-century America, consider that including token minority characters without being mindful of their place in the overall narrative can be more damaging than not including POCs at all. Are you thinking of those characters as fully realized people, or are you only using them to prop up some other part of your story?

Yeah, yeah, I know, Kobayashi Maru. No matter how sensitively you handle it, somebody's always going to complain that you did something wrong. But at least make the attempt and learn something from it.

And by the way, please own up to your mistakes when you make them. (Yes, I said when, not if. We're all human.) Don't double down on defending a weak position just so you can claim righteousness. No criticism is fatal, and growing as an artist is more important than sales "velocity" on release day or appealing to the "real fans" who worship with blinders on.

There are seven billion people on this planet. Don't you want more of them to love your work?

I'll let Geoffrey Stueven deliver some closing thoughts:

The tentative promise of that scene reaches its fulfillment a bit later, when the group gets its groove fully back, seated around a fire with each member declaring her plans for the future, then harmonizing with her comrades. Crucial moments of self-actualization follow. “I never pictured myself running a retreat,” says group alum Aubrey (Anna Camp), happy in her post-grad job, the implication being that she did picture it, eventually, and was pleased with the image. And future music producer Beca might be awaiting the validation of her boss, but her relationship with her muse, new a cappella recruit Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), is much more meaningful. Here’s the rare recent movie, mainstream or otherwise, that not only passes the Bechdel Test but also fails the opposite of the Bechdel Test: There’s no conversation between the film’s male characters that isn’t about a woman or at least seen through the prism of a woman’s aspirations.

It's true, by the way: Girls run the world. And watching these characters find themselves, realize their own unique abilities, and combine to form a winning team—that's as powerful as any superhero origin story.

I still love you, Pitch Perfect movies. But I'm not in love with you.

Let's just be friends, okay?

Hugs and kisses,
~CKL

Oscar? I Didn't Even Know 'er!

(I never get tired of that joke. Yes, I am that weird uncle you don't like to visit.)

DeeAnn and I are almost ready to host our annual Oscar Party tomorrow! In the tradition of my previous posts about this, here are links to some materials you can use for fun and games at your own shindig, if you're so inclined...

Acceptance Speech BINGO

The perennial favorite which hopefully makes the endless blathering more bearable. Complete any straight line of five squares to get a prize, then blackout the same card to get a second prize. We let people play two cards at once if they really want:

snout.org/cgi-bin/OAS_BINGO/makecard.cgi

Print a randomly generated card (reload page for new card), and check out the source code and word lists if you're interested.

#OscarTrivia Slides

As the name implies, I'll be tweeting these out one by one tomorrow afternoon starting at 11:00AM Pacific Time. I'll share the complete set on Monday at 4:00PM Pacific, after their Twitter debut.

Meanwhile, here's a proper subset of the slides we'll be running during the party, showing all the nominees (info and pics from AMPAS, MoviePosterDB, and ET Online):

picasaweb.google.com/116737692309729475506/OscarNominees2015

Follow @sparCKL and search for #OscarTrivia to learn dozens of useless facts which may only be tangentially related to these movies!

Predict The Losers

New name, same game. Whoever predicts the most winners in all categories gets the grand prize! (Not sure of your picks? See what one Vegas oddsmaker thinks.)

This year, I like the New York Times' Oscar ballot the best; it's clean and well-organized, with minimal branding. Less visual clutter also means less printer ink used:

malum-iter.com/Movies/ob2015nyt.pdf

That's all I've got for now. If you want to kill some more time, the official Oscars web site has trailers of all the nominated films, organized by category. Go for breadth! Go go go!

The Portland Food Pyramid

A cautionary tale: this is what happens when you spend too much time on social media.

On Thursday, I tweeted about my lunch at Burgerville. Technically, I guess it was a sub-sub-tweet, since I didn't mention the name of the restaurant or even the specific food items (pepper bacon cheeseburger, waffle cut fries, chocolate milkshake). Anyway. My fellow Portlandians Wink and Brian added their own remarks, and then Larry cascaded it into a very cheesy conversation.

Meanwhile, on Facebook—where my tweets get auto-cross-posted—others continued the ad hoc comedy workshopping. And because I have nothing better to do on a Friday night than answer Puzzled Pint e-mails and watch Downton Abbey, I decided to turn my hasty sketch into something more suitable for Thomas to post in his kitchen.

Here's the original:

@sparCKL/566073118629048320/photo

And now (drum roll, please) the new hotness:

snout.org/pfp

The pictured foodstuffs are (top to bottom, left to right):

• Hot Sauce: Secret Aardvark Habanero Hot Sauce
• Beer: Puzzled Pint (logo by Victor Asteinza; not actually food, but definitely a Portland institution!)
• Whiskey: Eastside Distilling Burnside Bourbon
• Butter: Tillamook Butter
• Caffeine: Stumptown Coffee Cold Brew "Stubby"
• Chocolate: Moonstruck Milk Chocolate Mayan Bar
• Fat: raw bacon (stock photo by Floortje)
• Salt: J&D's Bacon Salt (actually a Seattle company, but I'll allow it because BACON SALT)
• Starch: Kenny and Zuke's Pastrami Cheese Fries (photo by Robyn Lee for Serious Eats)
• Sugar: Voodoo Doughnut Maple Bacon Bar

I'm not sure when in the process the diagram became Portland-specific, but it just felt right. Also note that everything is covered in cheese because come on why wouldn't you do that.

If this infographic amuses you, <zoidberg>HOORAY!</zoidberg> And Happy Valentine's Day? Feel free to share the permalink: http://snout.org/pfp

So that happened.

This concludes tonight's episode of How's Curtis Wasting His Goddamn Time Now? Come back next week for more frivolity. Or just follow me on Twitter if you simply cannot wait that long.

<3 CKL

I Will Not Get Paid This Much for Any of My Novels

But it's nice to see that publishers still believe in science fiction.

Last month, this bit of news showed up in the Publishers Lunch daily newsletter:

Try not to think about the fact that Weir originally self-published his first novel, The Martian. Or the fact that he also got a six-figure publishing deal for that book. Or the fact that The Martian is now being made into a movie, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain, scheduled for release in November of 2015.

That way lies madness.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned at Viable Paradise (which is happening again this week, by the way) was this:

Do not compare your own writing career to any other writer's career.

Everyone finds a different path to publication. Everyone has a different story—literally. Keep writing. It'll happen. And meanwhile, make sure you're enjoying the ride, because it'd be a shame if you didn't have some fun during those years (and yes, it will take years).

In related news, huge congratulations to my fellow Pacific Northwest writer Jason Gurley, who just sold his novel Eleanor to a publisher! (Oddly enough, his book was also self-published originally, and it also went to Crown—just like The Martian. Coincidence?)

Jason and I, along with thirty other authors, will be attending Story Con this Saturday at the Fort Vancouver Community Library. If you're in the Portland, Oregon area, stop by and check out the panels, readings, and signings—I'll be moderating a panel on flash fiction which I promise will not be boring!

www.storyconvention.com

I Support #SportsNight2014

Something wonderful happened on Twitter last Friday night.

That something was #SportsNight2014.

If you follow my writer persona, you may have noticed me retweeting some of my favorites:

Natalie gets really into Call of Duty #SportsNight2014

— Alice has a bear hat (@aliceandstuff) October 4, 2014

Elliot won't stop talking about The Wire. Kim and Dave refuse to watch it just to spite him. #SportsNight2014

— Nicholaceration Bond (@nbond) October 4, 2014

Dan finds a copy of "50 Shades of Grey" in the break room and is determined to find out who it belongs to. #SportsNight2014

— Maggie Klaus (@Maggie_Klaus) October 4, 2014

And speaking of Fifty Shades of Grey, did you know that I, too, have dabbled in Sports Night fan fiction? It's true! Oh, it was many years ago, when I was a tender and callow fellow, but I still love my crazy pitch for the 9/11 episode of Sports Night—shown below.

(I'm only going to reprint the relevant portions of my original blog post from nearly twelve years ago, since many of my opinions have matured since then—in particular, I've become much more bullish on fanfic.)

Here's what I dreamed up on January 28, 2003:

My girlfriend [now my wife :) -CKL] gave me the Sports Night DVD box set as a Christmas present, and we watched the pilot episode last night. I noticed several things that I had forgotten about the show. The most heartbreaking was the opening shot, which had been missing from the syndicated reruns: the World Trade Center towers glittering in the night. [Note: that omission may not have actually happened, but it's what I remembered at the time. -CKL]

Sports Night is set in the studios of a fictional cable television network, CSC, presumably located in the World Trade Center in Manhattan. (I don't think this is ever actually mentioned in the show, but let's run with it for now.) And presumably, Comedy Central cut out that opening shot after September 11, 2001. I don't blame them for doing it. The show only ran for two seasons, from 1998 to 2000, and it would be pretty depressing to think, while watching the reruns, that those characters had perished later, when the towers collapsed...

So here's the Sports Night fanfic-- no, let's call it the lost episode, the one that Aaron Sorkin never wrote-- that I'd like to read. It's the September 11th episode, which I'm sure he would have done if the show had still been on the air. He did one for The West Wing, and Sports Night is set in Manhattan. In the World Trade Center.

It wouldn't be a flashback episode. That would be too easy, too simple a tearjerker: look how happy we were before! No, I think Sorkin's smarter than that. It would be a "bottle show," just like the 9/11 episode of West Wing-- set in a single room, or at least only on the standing sets for the show. No location shooting. Just talking.

I imagine it's in a coffee shop near the WTC. Maybe next to Battery Park. It's just after noon on September 11, 2001. The towers have collapsed, but there's still dust in the air. The Sports Night staff began evacuating right after the first plane hit the north tower. They think everybody got out, but they've been separated. Only a few of them made it to this coffee shop. Isaac, Casey, Jeremy, Natalie, some of the tech crew. Dan, Dana, and the rest are somewhere else. Nobody wants to say "missing."

This is Casey's story. His show, and the network which aired it, had been in danger of folding just last year. And then a stranger in a bar told Dana about coaxial cable, and CSC was bought by a holding company named Quo Vadimus. The network and the show were both saved. Jeremy and Natalie got back together. Isaac had recovered from his stroke. Things were looking up.

That was last year. That was this morning. And now, less than four hours later, the Sports Nights studio is part of a pile of rubble in lower Manhattan, and the two most important people in Casey's life-- Dan and Dana-- are missing. But nobody wants to say "missing." They say, "They're not here," or "They're somewhere else," or "I don't know."

It's all about the words, of course. That's why I love Aaron Sorkin. It's all about the dialogue.

Eventually, Casey blows up and says it: "They're missing!" That sets people off. Jeremy rants about Islam and how Arabs hate Jews, until Isaac delivers a disarming insight on race relations drawn from his rich life experience. The techies, still in shock, supply infrequent commentary on the sporadic news coverage coming from the television. The TV breaks; they try to fix it. Comic relief.

Emergency workers show up looking for water. The teenage kid behind the counter insists on charging them full price for the bottled water-- over $100. Casey watches the conversation, then finally loses it when the rescue workers can't come up with the cash. (Phones are down; credit card authorizations won't go through.) He goes ballistic on the kid and nearly punches him until he realizes how scared and confused the kid is. He doesn't know what to do. He's just a kid. All he knows is what the manager tells him.

Casey pays for the bottled water and helps the workers carry it out. The TV's back on. People are talking. Natalie confesses to Jeremy that she's scared of what's happened, and what might happen next, but she's more scared of how much he hates the Palestinians, and she can't understand any of it. Dialogue ensues. People are trying to use their cell phones, with varying degrees of success.

Natalie's phone rings. It's Dana's number, but it gets disconnected. Casey returns, grabs the phone, tries to call Dana. Nothing. He wants to go out and look for them. Others remind him that they agreed to meet here, everyone knows where this place is, what if they come back while he's gone? As if to support their argument, another one of the techies-- maybe Will-- arrives, bloodied, dusty, limping, barely coherent.

Important note here: this isn't ER or Third Watch. No spurting blood, no camera flying around as a screaming victim gets pulled out of an ambulance. The show isn't about physical injury or damage. It's not about the pain. It's about how we deal with the pain. It's about how much we want to say, and how little we are able to say.

Someone will, of course, make a joke at some point about how similar the names "Dan" and "Dana" are. It will snowball into something ridiculous, possibly involving sex-change operations or maybe just wigs, and people will laugh themselves silly.

Everyone in the coffee shop watches President Bush on TV, speaking from Barksdale AFB, explaining how security measures are being taken and trying to articulate what nobody can. The phrase "cowardly acts" sparks some discussion.

The show ends with no sign of Dan or Dana.

That's an episode I'd like to see.

Savvy readers will recognize my "ripped from the headlines" repurposing of the actual incident in which a New York City Starbucks outlet charged 9/11 rescue workers $130 for three cases of water. If I actually scripted this thing, I'd use that as the thematic linchpin. Maybe I will use it, or a modified and not legally actionable retelling, somewhere else someday. (This is where you comment and tell me someone has already done it better than I ever could have.)

I like what Sorkin did on West Wing and what he's doing on Newsroom, but I LOVE what he did with The Social Network because it's the closest he's ever come to recapturing the magic of Sports Night. I do appreciate what he attempted to do with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but it (like West Wing and Newsroom) got bogged down in dealing with the actual work being done in the workplace in question.

Sports Night and Social Network were able to soar because we (the audience) never had to care that much about actual sports or software engineering. The important thing was seeing how the characters dealt with their jobs. We needed to know that the work wasn't life-or-death every damn day, and we also needed a conceptual air-gap to buffer us from having to understand how live television production or dynamic web sites actually work. (To put it in terms of Pixar story rule #4: we care more about the "One day ___" part than the "Every day, ___" part.)

It's not about the job. It's always about the people.

This is #SportsNight2014 on CSC. Stick around!

— Amy Spalding (@theames) October 4, 2014

I Am in the One Percent

...of unsolicited stories which were accepted for publication in Cohesion Press' upcoming military horror anthology SNAFU. Just signed the contract last night! Here's the cover:

Per the official announcement: "Out of a total of just over 1100 submissions, only 11 made it into the final ToC." That means I'm in the top ~1% of unsolicited submissions, and that ain't nothing. Plus, according to the back cover copy, I may also be one of "some of the best writers working in the field today." Aw, shucks.

In related news, I've been reading Weston Ochse's SEAL Team 666, and I can understand why (1) he's an internationally best-selling author and (2) the book was immediately optioned by Metro, with The RockDwayne Johnson attached to star.

As Seen on Facebook

Presented without comment:

Ladies and gentlemen, the Pacific Northwest.

SnoutCast #197: Think, Think, Think

In which we do not tell knock-knock jokes. Not a single one. Nope. Zero.

[ Download mp3 - 23 MB ]

00:59 - "cerebral"
23:17 - The End

Linkage

• Curtis' Ignite Portland 12 talk: "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
• 2010 Stanford study: "Decoding Temporal Structure in Music and Speech Relies on Shared Brain Resources but Elicits Different Fine-Scale Spatial Patterns"
• 2009 UCLA study: "The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief"
• 2012 University of Iowa study: "A neuropsychological test of belief and doubt: damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex increases credulity for misleading advertising"
• Puzzled Pint has debuted in London and is coming to OMSI After Dark!
• It's the off-season on Puzzle Hunt Calendar

It's been four years! Should we continue podcasting? E-mail podcast@snout.org or post a comment at www.snout.org/podcast to tell us what you think!

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey" and "I Feel Fantastic" by Jonathan Coulton

[ Subscribe to SnoutCast / iTunes link ]

 

TONIGHT: I Sing the Ignite Portland Electric

Portland! 7:00PM! Hollywood Theatre!

I'm one of the speakers at tonight's Ignite Portland 12, "a fun, fast-paced, evening of presentations where speakers gather to share their knowledge and passion."

Here's a sneak preview of my first slide:

And yes, it will be something completely different from my previous talks on puzzle hunts and cat feeding robots. Tune in to the livestream at igniteportland.org to watch me blather about words and music!

Puzzle Reciprocity

TL;DR: solve this video clue and get a tiny prize!*

(Famine Game peeps: find Curtis at the Friday night event, tell him the answer, and collect a physical tchotchke. Everyone else: e-mail your answer to "ZBIVRF NG FABHG QBG BET" [rot13] and receive a more intangible reward.)

ALSO: Please tell Curtis how you first met him!


http://youtu.be/bmtOMCYd59w

This past Saturday was crazy. In a good way. My friends and my wife apparently conspired for months to plan a surprise birthday party for me--the biggest surprises were that the party (which I was expecting) happened two weeks before I thought it was scheduled, and that it was preceded by an all-day, Star Trek-themed puzzle hunt my friends had created (which I was most definitely NOT expecting). It. Was. AMAZING.

I'm still overwhelmed by all of it: the magnitude of the event they organized in secret (even as we met multiple times per week to work on other projects and for social gatherings), and the fact that people even came from out of town to join us for the big EndGame party. I'll write more about the whole experience later, and "Game Control" has also promised some wrap-up documentation. For a start, here's some of what I tweeted during the weekend.

Meanwhile, feel free to solve the modest little puzzle I put together for my party! (See the video and instructions above.) I knew there would be some puzzlers there, and I wanted to provide a structured activity people could enjoy while eating, drinking, or just being introverted. :) Twenty people picked up prizes during the party--probably over thirty percent of the guests--and that makes me very happy.

Thank you to everyone who was there on Saturday, everyone who contributed to the event from afar, and everyone who sent me well-wishes through other media. I don't actually turn forty until October first, but you've already made this the best birthday celebration I could never have imagined.

I HAVE THE BEST FRIENDS EVER. THAT IS ALL.

— Curtis Chen (@sparCKL) September 21, 2013

* Offer only valid if you didn't already get a prize from me on Saturday! Duh.

SnoutCast #164: Rhymes with "Hoary"

This podcast is like a storybook story, and it's as real as the feelings you feel.

[ Download mp3 - 37 MB ]

00:58 - "bookish"
03:12 - you, too, can send us an e-mail
04:54 - comparing XCOM strategies
05:50 - look, it takes a long time to write a novel
08:24 - the cool thing that happened recently: Query Shark!
13:54 - from query to synopsis to manuscript
22:10 - Hogwarts and the endless story conferences
27:38 - riffing on tropes, like you do
29:36 - who else loves deadlines?
38:40 - upcoming events: Portland Afoot Game (May 4th), DASH 5 (May 18th)
39:36 - The End

Tell us we're wrong on the Internet! E-mail podcast@snout.org or post a comment at www.snout.org/podcast.

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey" and "I Feel Fantastic" by Jonathan Coulton

[ Subscribe to SnoutCast / iTunes link ]

 

Oscar Party Preparations

DeeAnn and I started hosting Academy Awards viewing parties years ago in the Bay Area. We don't attract quite as big a crowd here in Portland, but it's still fun. For me, there are three big content pieces that get updated every year:

1. Oscar Acceptance Speech BINGO



Let's face it, many of the winners' speeches are dead boring. As with many things, we decided to make them interesting by turning them into a game! And because I'm a software geek, I wrote a program (actually, a series of Perl and shell scripts) to create the game.

The idea is simple: fill a BINGO card (5x5 grid) with words commonly used in actual, past Oscar acceptance speeches, then mark off a square when the word shown therein is uttered in an acceptance speech during the live telecast. Center square is free; any horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row of five wins. After that, blackout wins again. (This often leads to calls of "No, thank your dad now! YOUR DAD!")

Print your own Oscar Acceptance Speech BINGO card (reload the page for a new card)!

2. Trivia Slides



I used to actually print these out and put them up on the wall, but at some point I realized it was easier to run a repeating slide show on one of the many computers sitting around our house. The effort is here is mostly research, plus a little layout work in Powerpoint.

The hard part isn't finding trivia; it's finding interesting trivia on each of the Best Picture nominees. I usually don't research much beyond that, because it becomes increasingly difficult to dig up fun facts about films nobody has ever heard of (sorry, Best Documentary Short nominees). Some years, if I have time, I'll work up every movie that's nominated for at least two awards.

View 2013 Oscar Trivia images online (for slideshow, set delay to 20 seconds)!

3. Predict-the-Winners Ballot



This one's the easiest of the lot; usually I just select one of the many PDFs available from various web sites. Players must fill out their ballots before the first award of the evening is presented; if anybody arrives late, they're handicapped because they can't guess any of the already-announced winners.

The problem is, I don't like the formatting on many of these ballots, and my laziness is such that I prefer to scour the Internet for existing docs rather than create my own. My big concern is printing. The official ABC ballot looks fine, but wastes a lot of ink top and bottom. Moviefone's ballot is cleaner, but the over-branding all over the page bugs me. And graphic designer Jessica Jones' 2013 Oscar Ballot has a nice, old-timey look, but again, there's a lot of black in that huge logo.

In the end, I decided to go with the Yahoo! Movies ballot, which is nice and clean with minimal branding. The categories are also laid out neatly, so it'll be easy to score at the end of the night.

Of course, there's more to hosting the party: inviting people, buying prizes and food, putting up decorations, and making sure you've got enough liquid refreshment on hand. All that is left as an exercise for the reader.

(Just for me: cf. the 2009 "DIY Oscar Party Kit.")

Unable to transcribe message.

Going through our Google Voice history, I happened across this strange message from a couple of months ago. I'm pretty sure it's a wrong number. Can anybody tell me what he's saying (and in what language)? Just curious...

Yesterday...

...was the first of May.


http://soundcloud.com/jonathancoulton/first-of-may-remix

JoCo explains the remix.

Christmaaaaaas!!

Honestly, I'm surprised someone didn't do this sooner:

(Source: Kevin David Anderson)

Hope you're all enjoying your winter holiday(s), whichever one(s) you may celebrate! DeeAnn and I will be doing our traditional Christmas Day movie marathon, this year with our friends Karin and Bryan. More on that later.

Friday Flash Fiction: "Parents Just Don't Understand"

Yes, I am, in fact, writing my own goddamn fanfic. Because who the hell else is going to do it?

Also note that I would totally have used this picture for the illustration, if it had been properly CC-licensed. (I think the original image is featured here, but I don't speak Portuguese well enough to follow the trail back to its creator and ask permission. Oh well.)

Read "Parents Just Don't Understand" at 512 Words or Fewer

Friday Flash Fiction: "Up in the Air"

As you know, Bob, you can't copyright a title.

Read "Up in the Air" at 512 Words or Fewer