I fell eight short of watching all of the nominated movies I intended to watch.  Too little time, lag in OnDemand availability, and disinterest all played a part.  Disinterest in watching any movie at all, aka burn-out, and disinterest in seeing a particular film.

I do poorly with violence in films, especially torturous kinds, so “Zero Dark Thirty” is on my nix list.  “Argo,” “Flight,” and “Hitchcock,” came late to the OnDemand screen, so I must save them for post-Academy viewing.  Also left unseen are “Amour,” “Chasing Ice,” and “The Master.”  “Argo,” looked like a loads of fun; next up in the viewing queue. I could pick this film as a winner, based on the trailer alone.  But, I won’t.  That seems like cheating.  Do you think the members of the  Academy saw every single picture?  Or do you think it’s more like in high school, just vote for their friends  or because they want to be in the cool crowd and that’s who the cool people are voting for?

Enough mental meandering.  Here are my picks.

Best Picture: 

OH MY.  This is a tough list.  I loved every movie I watched on this list.  I’m going with the one that made me think about it the most after viewing.

And the nominees are:

McDonalds
McDonalds (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

I’m not that big into rules.  Can’t we just all get along?  Doesn’t common sense prevail?  What about plain old common courtesy?  I guess not.

Here are some rules I saw posted above serve-yourself soda fountain at McDonald’s regarding refills:

  • Refills allowed during one visit;
  • No soda refills into specialty coffee cup;
  • No refills into cups other than McDonald’s cups;
  • No cold beverage refills into hot beverage cups;
  • No hot beverage refills into cold beverage cups;
  • No refills without purchase.

“Cider House Rules,” I say to Loved-One.

Maybe it’s because of all those Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales ads. Or Cyber-Monday e-mails for 70% off all my purchases. Maybe it’s just my long commute and plenty of time to let my mind wander. Maybe my friend Bob is right, I have a mind stuck in beta wave mode. Anyways, I’ve been pondering zero lately. Yes, zero, as in 0, nothing, zed, nil, nada, zilch. Without zero, our lives would be sooo different. No 70% discount for one thing.

Counting seems natural. We must keep track of things: children, sheep, shoes, pennies, friends, enemies… If I have none of those, well, life is simple; nothing to keep track of, nothing to count. Counting starts with 1, not 0. We take zero for granted, but it wasn’t always so, especially in the western world. Stop and think a moment about trying to calculate that 70% sale using Roman numerals. Next to impossible. Wait, not next to. Impossible.

Zero, nil, evil by ancient Greeks and Romans considered the void evil.