The following is an actual (read: completely made up) transcript of a conversation between writer/producers of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards from Sunday night:

Producer: The show is only 3 hours long. How do we make people want to go to bed before the Best Picture is announced and shortchange the winner-to-be’s acceptance speech due to time constraints?

Writer: Another musical number with Neil Patrick Harris?

Producer: Nah, people enjoy him. Might give them a second wind. We want people to go to SLEEP.

Writer: What if we unnecessarily put five actors on stage before both the Best Actor & Best Actress nominees are unveiled…Yeah, Five actors who….who….Who have previous relationships with the nominees and….and….

Producer: Yes….yes…GO on….you’re getting there…

Writer: …who have previous relationships with the nominees and who each ramble for 5 minutes about what great people the nominees are and include a bunch of inside jokes? That’ll make the show AT LEAST 30 minutes longer than necessary, right?!

Producer: Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Say you remember the first time you and I were working on the Academy Awards five years ago? It was your first time doing it and you said to me….

(Five Minutes later)

Producer (cont’d): …and I’ll never forget the fact that you pimp slapped an intern. That really stuck with me. Congratulations on your success, Writer.

Editor’s Note: I’ll give you one guess as to what my only gripe was with Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony. Of course if they really wanted to trim down speeches and time, maybe they should have heightened security…

Tuesday night, I went to my first Trey Anastasio concert at Terminal 5 in NYC (conveniently located on 11th Ave near all the bad nudie bars. Woohoo!). For those of you who do not know who Trey is, he is the lead singer of Phish. For those of you who do know who he is, below is the set list:

Trey Anastasio & Classic TAB
February 16, 2010
Terminal 5
New York, NY

Set One: Shine, Cayman Review, Push On ‘Til the Day, Alaska, Mozambique, Gotta Jibboo, All That Almost Was, Drifting, Liquid Time, The Birdwatcher, Night Speaks to a Woman, Tuesday, Brian and Robert*, Strange Design*, Sample in a Jar*, Chalkdust Torture*, Wilson*

Set Two: Sand, Alive Again, Last Tube> Show of Life, Sultans of Swing, Ether Sunday, Black Dog

Encore: Magilla, First Tube

* – Trey Solo Acoustic

Now, I am not a huge Trey fan. I like some of his music, he’s a phenomenal guitar player, and it was an excuse to drink beer and hang with my buddies on a Tuesday night (I sincerely hope I have not offended any Phish Heads reading this by saying that). Here is what I learned:

1) I will get the sophomoric, frat-boy comments out of the way first: We saw one woman we deemed attractive. Moving on…

2) Several of the songs Trey and Classic TAB played? They originally wrote ‘em and they were later adopted by Phish, prompting one buddy to say “HA! Phish is like a glorified cover band!” (again, Phish Heads, he is a big Trey fan. He was kidding. Please no hippie voodoo on us).

3) The concert started at 8:30 and lasted (minus a short break in the middle) until midnight. Set two was 70 minutes alone. However, the energy was high the entire time and it’s hard not to get excited when there’s a second-set ending cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog”:

Get the Led Out…

4) Trey ended the show with “First Tube,” the first song he wrote with Classic TAB. Enjoy this jam-tastic bit from 10/25/08:

Trey with Classic Tab – \”First Tube\”

5) Finally, the concert was a blast (if you get a chance to check the band out, after one concert I suggest you do so) but there was a TINY part of me that was hoping we’d get a surprise guest…like this one:

Phish featuring The Boss

If your head did not explode from reading the title of this post, I suspect you are probably laughing or are confused as to what the hell the Beanpot is.  In the grand scheme of sporting events, yes, comparing the two is bombastic.  It’d be like comparing, ladies and gentlemen, sex with a model to that first awkward drunken make-out/groping session you had freshman year of college.

While the Super Bowl is the grandaddy of all American sporting events (so grandaddy-licious this year that it’s the most watched broadcast event in history), the Beanpot is a tournament involving Boston’s 4 big schools: Harvard, Northeastern, Boston College, and my alma mater, Boston University.  Each year, the 4 schools are paired off for a 2 week tournament for the coveted Beanpot trophy.  More importantly, these four schools play for pride and bragging rights…and yes, ads do not cost $3 million for 30 seconds.

If you watched BC’s 4-3 Beanpot victory on Monday night at a local sports bar, it made for an unbelievably satisfying sports dessert to The Big Game’s main course.  As a BU alum, it was disappointing to lose, especially to our hated rival (Thank god for $1 dollar draft Mondays at Third & Long) and I was not exactly thrilled wake up and watch ESPN’s Top 10 yesterday morning.  What was the #1 play you ask?  Chris Kreider, BC’s 18 year old freshman, deking out BU freshman Max Nicastro and finishing with a fluid backhander past BU goalie Kieran Millan to put BC up 3-1 during the Beanpot.

Now, I can drunkenly berate the other 3 BC goals (and believe me, I did) but none of us could argue this was a helluva play.  Oddly enough, I quickly changed my tune since, if you watched the game, you’d know BU’s David Warsofsky had an equally amazing top-shelf backhander later on.  Surprisingly, I was happy.  I was happy that college hockey, a sport that doesn’t get nearly enough recognition and is the pride of the BU faithful, was getting it’s due on Sportscenter.  Hopefully next year, we’ll reclaim the trophy for a tournament that’s continually ours (29 titles and running).  Until then…

What? You didn’t think I’d really end this on a sad note and praising the enemy, did you? GO B.U.

This past weekend at the Houston Arena Theater, Legacy Fighting Championships held their “Lonestar Beatdown” event featuring Jonathon “the Mack Truck” Mack vs. Jason David Frank (a.k.a. The Green Ranger from the early 90′s TV show “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers).

Even if you’re not a fan of the Power Rangers, you won’t believe how Frank won.  After rocking JDF with a left hook, Mack suddenly grew to be the size of a large building due to the evil Rita throwing her magic wand into the cage and uttering the words “Let my fighter GROW!”  Panicked, JDF called upon his mighty Dragonzord, which emerged out of the (relatively) nearby waters of the Willowisp Country Club.  Mack = successfully got the takedown on the Dragonzord.  However, JDF commanded the Zord to whip his tail at Mack and backed him up enough to fire multiple missiles from his robotic fingers to seal the victory.

Winner: Jason David Frank, Round 1 via Dragonzord destruction

Ok, that’s not actually what happened.  Mack did soften Frank up with a left hook early on (time: 0:44), but after securing the take down, Frank pulled guard and was able to lock in an omoplata (shoulder lock) for the submission victory (time: 1:12).  Video below. Enjoy…and may the power protect you:

Green Ranger victorious in MMA debut