Reasons I'm Not Watching the Oscars

1. I do not like to watch awards shows. They're so boring--sure, maybe there will be an interesting/funny moment or three, but that's out of hours of watching people clapping, suffering through stiff and mannered presenters, and listening to tedious acceptances speeches ("And I want to thank Roland, our craft services guy! I couldn't have done it without those cocktail weenies!" Sure, it's totally awesome for Roland the Craft Services Guy [and Roland the Craft Services Guy's mom] to be mentioned on national tv, but for the millions of other people? Not so interesting.)

2. Even in a cultural significance way, I just don't care that much about seeing the Oscars. I'm only very very mildly curious about who wins the major awards, and that gets on the internet as soon as they're announced.

3. The musical numbers and montages are hit-or-miss, with more misses than hits. Sure, maybe there will be one good song with fun choreography, but for that one song, there will be two terrible songs and one endless "Tribute to Key Grips Through the Ages."

4. I don't see many movies. I assume I'd be more invested if I had seen Slumdog Millionaire and/or Frost/Nixon, but no dice. (Also, I had to ask Neal to remind me of any Best Picture nominees besides Slumdog Millionaire.) I'm just not that absorbed in the whole movie-making scene. I find the Oscars more interesting than the Grammys, sure, but that isn't saying much. (I wish I liked the Emmys more but A: see point #1 and B: nominees and winners of Emmys are usually totally undeserving, and frankly it seems more and more every year that the people in charge of the Emmys don't watch TV. But that's a different rant, now isn't it?)

5. We, uh, don't have ABC anymore. This probably makes my indignation at the postponement of the digital switch seem pretty stupid, but for whatever reason our tv/antenna cannot find digital ABC. It was one of the Madison networks that switched on the 17th, so watcing the Oscars in this household is actually impossible. For reasons 1-3, I am not bothered by it in this instance, but Neal was a little disappointed. (I guess he likes movies and tributes to key grips more than I do.)