Practicalmadness

Congratulations to “Tony,” winner of the 2006 Oscars Game with a dominating 612 points. Tony wins a 512 MB iPod shuffle and a custom Oscars Game t-shirt. Coming in second place was Andy Lund with 570 points, followed by Cheryly Syta with 540 points. Andy and Cheryly receive free stuff from the iTunes Music Store. Winners will be officially notified by e-mail Monday afternoon.

As for me, I came in at 18th place with 440 points, due in part to my abusing the new multiple pick sets feature — the winners’ superb performance was partly due to having made really good picks for the most difficult categories (documentaries and short films) and, in Tony’s case, having only one pick set so that s/he didn’t have to pay what I’m now calling the “pick set tax.” Final aggregate scores are divided by the number of pick sets you’ve created, so I managed to bleed 10-20 points on each category while Tony got to keep all the points (up to 36) for each correct pick.

I’m eager to get some feedback from users about the pick sets feature, and it certainly made the game more interesting. Part of my intention in adding multiple picks was to reward certainty: if you’re confident in your predictions then you only need one set. I was less confident, created three sets, and lost.

On the one hand I could say that I made riskier picks than I otherwise would have, and maybe if I’d had to limit myself to a single pick set I’d have been more thoughtful in my selections. On the other hand, I could consider myself lucky I got points at all for some of my selections. If I picked “Good Night, and Good Luck” for Cinematography in one set over the ASC Award winner “Memoirs of a Geisha,” I should have realized I was essentially throwing away ten points. And there were a lot of categories where I hedged and simply did not need to hedge.

As for the Oscar show itself: I say meh. The Daily Show “campaign ads” for the various categories (narrated by Stephen Colbert) were a highlight, but Jon Stewart’s performance as host was (as I said many times last evening) “Ellen-caliber,” though not nearly as bad as Letterman. The opening sequence was pretty funny, and he got a couple of good jokes in, but mostly it was all as lame and tired as, well, the Oscars. I guess we can’t have Chris Rock every year.

And the elephant in the middle of the room, “Crash” winning Best Picture? I’m shocked a little, disappointed a little and indifferent a lot. Not being in Hollywood, I can’t say whether this represents some vast right-wing conspiracy to back away from the Big Gay Cowboy Movie, a bunch of L.A. provincialism (hey look! It’s yet another movie about our town!) or what — if I got to pick I’d have picked “Capote” or “Good Night, and Good Luck,” so whatever, Hollywood.