It's good out here for a pimp...

Oscar nominations came out today, and for the most part I'm pleased. I already knew that my favorite movie of the year, Good Night And Good Luck would get a good deal of the main nods, but I was elated to find that Terrence Howard got a nod for Hustle & Flow. There was a chance his slot would go to Russell Crowe for Cinderella Man since he got a Golden Globe nomination as well, and there were already so many locks for the Best Actor category (Phoenix, Hoffman, Ledger), but the trend of African-American actors being nominated for Best Actor continues. Of course Howard won't win since the award is really a three-man race between the aforementioned front-runners, but his honest and endearing portrayal of a conflicted pimp looking for one last shot at redemption is still noteworthy. The movie is worth seeing just for him.

If you want to look at all the other nominees, go to www.oscar.com

Pandora owns you

For those not in the know, www.pandora.com is one of the hottest websites around. It's a website that creates an online station based on an artist or song of your choosing. What it does is takes the characteristics of said artist or song and find other similar artist or songs and plays them in that station. So for instance, the first thing I put in was Puffy AmiYumi and it created a station that played some of the most ass-kicking, sugar-coated guitar pop that I've heard in a while. A few of my favorite stations are: Scott Walker, Nancy Sinatra, David Banner, and a station based on The Supremes' song, "You Can't Hurry Love." If anyone finds a better internet station than this (besides www.uicradio.ws of course), let me know so I can die with a smile on my face.