Every one loves a good debate, I know I do. Everyone loves top 10 lists and award ceremonies but why? Not because we enjoy reading opinions or seeing some rich snobs collect awards. The simple fact is that we love to be shocked by the amazingly bad choices, we love that moment when we hear the winner and our response is “what the fuck?”. We love to read a top 10 list and then debate for hours on how stupid people are. Well that is why I am doing a top 10 list now. Unlike other lists this is strictly my opinion and open to debate.

This list has to do with a ceremony that brings up the most horrible choices every year, yes none other than the Academy Awards. I am going to choose my 10 biggest Oscar mistakes. Now I may leave your choice off but remember I had to take into consideration a few things:

- Did the runner up really lose to someone that bad? While their performances were worthy of a win, they may have just lost to someone who was a wee bit better.

- Mainly I went by the significance of the loss, while I may think Milos Forman should have beat out Anthony Minghella for best director in 1996. I have to Take into consideration that I have only 10 choices and the Director snub in 1941 was much worse.

So here goes nothing.

1 – Winner: John Ford – Best Director (How Green Was My Valley) - 1941
Ford had won the year before in the same category for a movie that he trully deserved it for. How Green Was My Valley is an excellent motion picture, it also won best picture. It does not hold up well today though and the movie is not honestly deserving of an oscar. This is my #1 choice because of the attrocity that took place this year.

- My Choice: Orsen Welles – (Citizen Kane)
Do I even have to explain why? Kane may be a dated movie by todays standards but Welles vision is still crisp and crystal clear. His ingenuity is as evident today as it was 61 years ago. The direction set into action techniques that are still in use today. This was the biggest travesty in oscar history.

2 – Winner: Art Carney – Best Actor (Harry & Tonto) – 1974
This was a good movie, once again far from great. Carney who is one of my favorite actors gave a spirited performance. Carney had better performances that he never got nominated for i.e. “The Late Show”. It’s a fun movie to watch cause of Carney but like many older winners this was nothing more than a sympathy Oscar.

- My Choice: Al Pacino – (Godfather Part II)
In my opinion the character of ‘Michael Corleone’ is the greatest study of the deterioration of a human being ever portrayed in film. Pacino was excellent in GF Part I but in Part II he gives a tour de force performance that even tops the prior.

3 – Winner: David Niven – Best Actor (Separate Tables) – 1958
1958 was one of the weakest years in Oscar history. The Best Actor category saw two men nominated for the same film. The most noticible Movies on 1958 were Cat On A Hot Tin Roof & The Defiant Ones. Or atleast the academy saw it that way because one movie was not nominated for either best picture, director, or actor…

- My Choice: James Stewart – (Vertigo)
Not only did neither Stewart or Alfred Hitchcock win (Hitchcock never won a Director award). Neither man was even nominated in 1958. I would have picked Hitchcock but he was snubbed so many times, he could dominate the top 5 all by himself along with many others who never won, like Martin Scorsese…. Speaking of which.

4 – Winner: John G. Avildsen – Best Director (Rocky) – 1976
1976 was a great year for movies, as were most of the 70’s. Rocky is one of my most favorite movies more for the story than its direction though. Stallone was still poor and hungry and had not yet grown an ego and gave an amazing performance. The movie was great and while Avildsen did an admirable job, he beat out someone who was and is heads above him and most everyone.

- My Choice: Martin Scorsese – (Taxi Driver)
Now I could have easily chosen the fact that DeNiro didn’t win best actor this year but Deniro had already won an Oscar for Godfather Part II (he would also win 4 years later for ‘Raging Bull’). The other problem is while DeNiro got a nomination, Scorsese didn’t even get that. Taxi Driver is a visually stuning movie, ofcourse DeNiros performance should have netter him the actor award with eyes closed but it didn’t. Scorsese got snubbed and to this day he has yet to win an award.

5 – Winner: William Holden – Best Actor (Stalag 17) – 1953
I know you people are gonna say “who cares it’s from the 50’s, what about Brad Pitt getting snubbed for 12 Monkeys?” But I have to take all decades into consideration and I know many of you never heard of these movies or these actors but this for me personally is a #1 snub. Holden gave a good performance in the film but he did this on the stage for years and his performance was too monotone and like he was just following a routine, which he probably was.

- My Choice: Montgomery Clift – (From Here To Eternity)
Many of you are gonna say “who?”, that saddens me. Monty Clift was one of the greatest actors to ever grace the screen, period! Montgomery Clift was an Idol to Brando, James Dean and Paul Newman. He was the original “Rebel” his only downfall was he didn’t die young like Dean or live a long life like Brando. He died in his mid 40’s in 1966 and has almost faded away. His performance in FHTE was breath taking, he said more with his silence than he could with 3 pages of dialouge, just his facial expressions, his body movement. When he did have lines to speak he delivered them like none other. It is sad but Clift was another great actor whom never won an award.

6 – Winner: George Burns – Best Supporting Actor (The Sunshine Boys) 1975

- My Choice: Robert Shaw (Jaws)

7 – Winner: Maximilian Schell – Best Actor (Judgement At Nuremberg) 1961

- My Choice: Paul Newman (The Hustler)

8 – Winner: Daniel Day Lewis – Best Actor (My Left Foot) 1989

- My Choice: Morgan Freeman (Glory/Driving Miss Daisy)

9 – Winner: Paul Lukas – Best Actor – (Watch On The Rhine) 1943

- My Choice: Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca)

10 – Winner: Roberto Begnini (Life Is Beautiful) – 1998

- My Choice: Edward Norton (American History X)

I know there are so many more, I tried to keep some choices more current and had to ignore older choices which some of you might not have known. But The list could be endless, I am sure some of you will add a few that shoulda won.

holy crap is this awesome. if i was as rich as goatweed i'd buy myself a room like this.


Full Pic here (i shrunk it down to fit the page)

Every so often I go to Direct Connect if I have a particular need. I have my connection set to passive, since I have a cable modem with a NAT router and basically use that as my firewall.

Lately there have been a couple of drafting programs that I need (like Autocad Architectural Desktop 3.3) that I have only found on 2 or 3 people's connections, and I can never connect.

The disclaimer on passive is that it will decrease the number of connections you can have, since you can't connect to someone else who has passive connection.

Are any of you opening up a port and running in active mode?
what type of firewall are you running?

I couldn't care paticular for Warren sapp before today. Loud mouthed, Cocky, Disrespectful waste. But after seeing that hit today he put on the guy was just not even called for. I'm sure it was a legal hit, nothing illegal. But the guy was nowhere near the play or able to make a tackle, he was hardly running. And then to just blind side a guy and put him on a stretcher, is wrong. Sapp maybe a top player defensivley but as far what he did today, and then how he wants attention at the end of the game by taunting the coach and the fans makes him worthless.

Two Journey’s, One Adventure

Recently, I read two books that surprised me with how good they were. The collaboration between Stephen King and Peter Straub has produced two excellent novels, “The Talisman” and “Black House”.

I’ve read several of King’s novels. The “Dark Tower” series is one of my all time favorite books. But, we’ll come back to that later. On the other hand, I’ve found the endings of many of his novels to be a little anti-climatic, even disappointing. This fault is entirely missing in these two novels, possibly do to the talented input of Peter Straub.

“The Talisman” can best be described as a modern, darker, and mystical version of “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn”. It’s the story of a 12 year old boy named Jack Sawyer and his b-movie star mother hiding in New Hampshire and the cross-country quest Jack must undertake to save the life of his mother and much more. It’s a story that captures the magic of a child’s imagination, the cruel reality of the world we live in and the loss of innocence that comes inevitably to us all.

“Black House” is the much anticipated sequel to “The Talisman”. Enough back story is given, that a person can read it without first reading “The Talisman”, but a lot of flavor and attachment to the characters would be lost. “Black House” reunites us with Jack, now in his early 30’s and a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in small town middle America. A small town called La Riviere, on the shores of the Mississippi, is plagued by a child killer…and something even darker. It’s hard to tell you what this story is about without ruining the surprises.

Now, I promised I’d explain why I mentioned the “Dark Tower” series above. Well, it’s because the last half of “Black House” ties in directly with the “Dark Tower” series. Once again, you don’t have to read the “Dark Tower” to enjoy “Black House”, but the references and very unexpected revelations will leave fans of the series with chills. While, I’m sure these revelations will be mentioned again in the next, eagerly anticipated installments of the “Dark Tower” series, this story is a must read for fans of the series.

I can’t say much more without spoiling the stories for you, but for those who have already read them, I’d be happy to join you for a discussion.

Todays world of sports is nothing but another part of the machine and you are all cogs. Teams are nothing more than faceless corporations with uniforms representing a marketing device which you will glady plunk down your hard earned cash to own several variations of.

Lets face it, with todays free agency market the likelyhood of the same team existing from year to year is non-existant. Especially when it comes to baseball. You really are just rooting for a corporation and a piece of laundry.

Fans today are suckered into throwing ridiculous amounts of money to overpaid, ego bloated, self centered athletes who could care less about the logo on their jersey and more about their individual statistics.

I say if you are going to be a fan, the idea of rooting for a team is dead. This is the age of rooting for a player. Root for him to squeeze the owners for as much cash as possible. Root for him to break every record he can achieve. Teams today come and go, at least with a player you can follow him for the life of his career, which far exceeds todays average life expectancy of sticking around with your hometown squad.

Fans are stupid. They cry about how overpaid athletes are and how greedy they can be and then they go and plunk down the ridiculous amount of money it costs to go see these same people they claim to hate. If they wanted to change things they would put their money where their mouth is and stick it back in their pocket. Stop supporting the players you despise. They just can't do it. Like lambs being sent to slaughter they file in every year. They can't help it.

CDIH now has a new front page with many new features. The most important feature will be articles by the moderators and admins that will hopefully inspire or provoke an interest or spark a debate. These articles will be tied back to this forum where you will be able to reply to the articles.

The next thing that you will notice is that a lot of the basic information is on the front page such as who is online, what the last post was, links to the forums so you can go right in, and basic site information such as who your moderator and admins are (like you didn’t already know) and the board statistics.

Another new feature to CDIH is the addition of a chat room. And while it is not anything elegant, it is there for your use. It does take a moment to load so please be patient. The link to the chat room is up in the upper left corner by the logo.

I would also like to thank everyone who donated money to keep this site open. It is greatly appreciated more than you will probably ever know.

This stuff is pretty good :thumbs-up: :banana:

Johhny Cash

Ira Hayes,
Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Gather round me people there's a story I would tell
About a brave young Indian you should remember well
From the land of the Pima Indian
A proud and noble band
Who farmed the Phoenix valley in Arizona land

Down the ditches for a thousand years
The water grew Ira's peoples' crops
'Till the white man stole the water rights
And the sparklin' water stopped

Now Ira's folks were hungry
And their land grew crops of weeds
When war came, Ira volunteered
And forgot the white man's greed

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war


There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill,
Two hundred and fifty men
But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again

And when the fight was over
And when Old Glory raised
Among the men who held it high
Was the Indian, Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Ira returned a hero
Celebrated through the land
He was wined and speeched and honored; Everybody shook his hand

But he was just a Pima Indian
No water, no crops, no chance
At home nobody cared what Ira'd done
And when did the Indians dance

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Then Ira started drinkin' hard;
Jail was often his home
They'd let him raise the flag and lower it
like you'd throw a dog a bone!

He died drunk one mornin'
Alone in the land he fought to save
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch
Was a grave for Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Yeah, call him drunken Ira Hayes
But his land is just as dry
And his ghost is lyin' thirsty
In the ditch where Ira died

I currently have a Compaq. 850 mhz PIII 256 rom Crappie video card.... Blah blah blah
I went to CompUSA today and played Medal of Honor on a alien ware system. OMG. this thing was so smooth and the graphics were so clean..Now, the tower was $2,000. Best Buy has a similar system for about $1300. My needs are : internet surfing and games. I love games . I have all the peripheries. just need a new tower. What should I get? I would like to limit it to $1500, but I will go to $2000 if it will really make that much of a difference. HELP please.

So, what's your geek wish list? What gadgets are you hoping to get this year?

I've never tried an electric razor. Are there any good ones? Are they more convenient than a good razor? Just doesn't seam worth a $100 to find out they suck.

And Tivo. I'm seriously thinking about Tivo.