Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born anew.' The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.
John 3:5-8

The Fighting Illini won the Big 10 Men's basketball title for the second year in a row. I was hoping that Michigan State would win against Indiana, so the Illini could wrap it up by winning at home versus Purdue. Now I fear a let down which might mean a loss to Purdue or Ohio State on the road. It would still be a great year if they were to lose one meaningless game, but it would not have the same ring as being 30-0 for the regular season. Go Illini!

I was right about the Oscars. It turned into a real snooze fest. There's something wrong with the process when all the predictable winners win. Entertainment Weekly was able to list the winners to all six of the major categories and even gave percentages of how they thought the votes were cast. Actually watching the show is becoming pointless. Perhaps they should vote using a ratings system for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd where the voter could give all his votes to one nominee or distribute them to multiple choices. That would make it harder to poll the Academy voters and determine the winners by using 5% or less of the vote . They also need to cut about 45 minutes from the show to make it less tiresome. I would start by dropping the performance of the nominated songs. They're extremely boring. Secondly, the piece where they display pictures of everyone who has died in the past year is kind of morbid and should be dropped. It gets kind of creepy when people in the audience applaud for their favorite dead person. Lastly, the winners should be allowed to thank no more than 12 people. If they start to thank number 13, they should get a cold bucket of water dumped on them similar to the dancers in "Flashdance". That would be entertaining. I'd tune in to see Hilary Swank get drenched. If she knows she's about to get drenched, but thanks her husband anyway, that would be a story.
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Now a few good things about the Oscars. Chris Rock didn't hit it out of the park, but I think he had a decent standup double for his first time hosting. He was quick and funny at times. Not quite up to Billy Crystal level yet, but promising. Certainly better than Whoopi.
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I thought it was great that Cate Blanchett won for portraying Katharine Hepburn. Just how great an actress was Hepburn that even actresses playing her are swept up in her vortex and awarded Oscars. Kate was unbelievable (she won 4 times) and Cate is someone to watch.
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Any year when Clint Eastwood wins is a good year. I've only seen one of his movies that I didn't like. I can't say that about many actors. Perhaps James Dean, but he died young.
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A year when Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman both win is even better. Morgan is the type of actor who can raise a bad movie above its level.

The Oscars are on tonight. This is the first year in a long, long time that I have almost no desire to watch. I might watch to see if Clint Eastwood wins anything, otherwise I just don't care who wins. I would have liked to have seen "Passion of the Christ" nominated, even if it didn't win. None of the pictures seem to be truly Academy Award worthy. Perhaps it was just a bad year. In addition, I think that Chris Rock will be one the worst emcees that they've ever had on the show. Who's next, Carrot Top? Pauly Shore? Sponge Bob? Maybe they could get Yakov Smirnov out of Branson, MO.