The Narrow Interest Portal
AL East: Yankees
AL Central: Guardians
AL West: Astros
Wild Card: Blue Jays, Mariners, Angels
NL East: Braves
NL Central: Cardinals
NL West: Padres
Wild Card: Mets, Dodgers, Phillies
AL Champ: Blue Jays
NL Champ: Phillies
World Series Winner: Phillies
Picks in Bold, actual Winners in Italics.
Results: 12/23 – urgh, one of my worst showings in years.
Best Picture
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Avatar: The Way of Water”
“The Banshees of Inisherin”
“Elvis”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
“The Fabelmans”
“Tár”
“Top Gun: Maverick”
“Triangle of Sadness”
“Women Talking”
Best Director
Martin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Steven Spielberg, “The Fabelmans”
Todd Field, “Tár”
Ruben Ostlund, “Triangle of Sadness”
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, “Tár”
Ana de Armas, “Blonde”
Andrea Riseborough, “To Leslie”
Michelle Williams, “The Fabelmans”
Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Best Actor
Austin Butler, “Elvis”
Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”
Paul Mescal, “Aftersun”
Bill Nighy, “Living”
Best Supporting Actress
Angela Bassett, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
Hong Chau, “The Whale”
Kerry Condon, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Stephanie Hsu, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Best Supporting Actor
Brendan Gleeson, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Brian Tyree Henry, “Causeway”
Judd Hirsch, “The Fabelmans”
Barry Keoghan, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Original Screenplay
“The Banshees of Inisherin”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
“The Fabelmans”
“Tár”
“Triangle of Sadness”
Adapted Screenplay
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”
“Living”
“Top Gun: Maverick”
“Women Talking”
Cinematography
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”
“Elvis”
“Empire of Light”
“Tár”
Editing
“The Banshees of Inisherin”
“Elvis”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
“Tár”
“Top Gun: Maverick”
Production Design
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Avatar: The Way of Water”
“Babylon”
“Elvis”
“The Fabelmans”
International Feature
“All Quiet on the Western Front,” Germany
“Argentina, 1985,” Argentina
“Close,” Belgium
“EO,” Poland
“The Quiet Girl,” Ireland
Animated Feature
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”
“The Sea Beast”
“Turning Red”
Documentary Feature
“All That Breathes”
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”
“Fire of Love”
“A House Made of Splinters”
“Navalny”
Visual Effects
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Avatar: The Way of Water”
“The Batman”
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
“Top Gun: Maverick”
Original Song
“Applause” (“Tell It Like a Woman”)
“Hold My Hand” (“Top Gun: Maverick”)
“Lift Me Up” (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”)
“Naatu Naatu” (“RRR”)
“This Is a Life” (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”)
Original Score
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Babylon”
“The Banshees of Inisherin”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
“The Fabelmans”
Sound
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Avatar: The Way of Water”
“The Batman”
“Elvis”
“Top Gun: Maverick”
Makeup and Hairstyling
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“The Batman”
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
“Elvis”
“The Whale”
Costume Design
“Babylon”
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
“Elvis”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris”
Documentary Short
“The Elephant Whisperers”
“Haulout”
“How Do You Measure a Year?”
“The Martha Mitchell Effect”
“Stranger at the Gate”
Live-Action Short
“An Irish Goodbye”
“Ivalu”
“Le Pupille”
“Night Ride”
“The Red Suitcase”
Animated Short
“The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse”
“The Flying Sailor”
“Ice Merchants”
“My Year of Dicks”
“An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It”
Best Picture
“CODA,” Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi and Patrick Wachsberger, producers
Best Director
Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”)
Best Lead Actor
Will Smith (“King Richard”)
Best Lead Actress
Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”)
Best Supporting Actor
Troy Kotsur (“CODA”)
Best Supporting Actress
Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”)
Best Adapted Screenplay
“CODA,” screenplay by Siân Heder
Best Original Screenplay
“Don’t Look Up,” screenplay by Adam McKay; story by Adam McKay and David Sirota
Best Cinematography
“The Power of the Dog,” Ari Wegner
Best Animated Feature Film
“Encanto,” Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino and Clark Spencer
Best Animated Short Film
“Robin Robin,” Dan Ojari and Mikey Please
Best Costume Design
“Cruella,” Jenny Beavan
Best Original Score
“Dune,” Hans Zimmer
Best Sound
“Dune,” Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett
Best Original Song
“Dos Oruguitas” from “Encanto,” music and lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Best Documentary Feature
“Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein
Best Documentary Short Subject
“The Queen of Basketball,” Ben Proudfoot
Best Film Editing
“Dune,” Joe Walker
Best International Feature Film
“Drive My Car” (Japan)
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
“The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh
Best Production Design
“Dune,” production design: Patrice Vermette; set decoration: Zsuzsanna Sipos
Best Visual Effects
“Dune,” Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer
Best Live Action Short Film
“The Long Goodbye,” Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed
Final tally 18/23
A work related blog post about the new Yammer experience coming to Office 365. This post went live shortly after the announcements on Monday, November 4 at the Microsoft Ignite conference.
Read the Post: “Yammer is Dead” is… Dead
I joined Tiki with Ray for another episode, this time talking about tiki in Honolulu and Waikiki.
Guest Tiki Bar Review: Zombie Village – San Francisco, CA
Bay Area Suburban Tiki is a Mixed Bag
Guest Tiki Bar Review: Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lounge – Minneapolis MN
Sacramento Ohana Tiki Crawl 2019
Aloha friends! Am so very pleased to be the latest guest on the Tiki with Ray show on YouTube. Check it out.
The video started off with a gaffe but otherwise Ray and I had a great conversation about my history with Mai Tais, the original Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai website from 1998, why tikiphiles shouldn’t look down on Island Mai Tais, and more.
Ray is really a great interviewer and it was my pleasure and honor to talk Mai Tais with him. Nice of Ray to hold this one for Mai Tai Week too.
Note that this was filmed in early July and so does not account for my recent downgrade of the Smuggler’s Cove Mai Tai. I actually bumped into Jeff “Beachbum” Berry at Mai Tai Fest last week and he said it made his day when I told him that Latitude 29 was now my number one Mai Tai.
I’ll be happy if I get to 18 this year.
Winners shown below. I got 17. Shouldn’t have gone out of a limb in the Editing and Makeup categories.
Best Picture
“Green Book”
Best Director
Alfonso Cuarón, “Roma”
Best Actor
Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Best Actress
Glenn Close, “The Wife”
Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, “Green Book”
Best Supporting Actress
Regina King, “If Beale Street Could Talk”
Best Adapted Screenplay
“BlacKkKlansman”
Best Original Screenplay
“Green Book”
Best Film Editing
“BlacKkKlansman”
Best Costume Design
“The Favourite”
Best Production Design
“The Favourite”
Best Original Score
“Black Panther”
Best Animated Feature
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”
Best Cinematography
“Roma”
Best Foreign Language Film
“Roma”
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
“Mary Queen of Scots”
Best Original Song
“Shallow” from “A Star Is Born”
Best Sound Editing
“A Quiet Place”
Best Sound Mixing
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
Best Visual Effects
“First Man”
Best Documentary Feature
“Free Solo”
Best Animated Short
“Bao”
Best Live-Action Short
“Marguerite”
Best Documentary Short
“Period. End of Sentence”
I visited 34 tiki bars in 2018, up from 25 in 2017. It’s helpful that 14 of these are in pretty easy driving distance, and very much a blessing that there are so many great tiki bars in the greater Bay Area (there are even a few good ones, like the Tonga Room, that I didn’t visit in 2018).
The most-visited tiki bar was The Kon-Tiki in Oakland, the bar that’s most convenient to travel to (thank you 12th Street BART Station). I am not sure I’ll be able to get to 34 again in 2019 but I still enjoy visiting new tiki bars and “crossing them off the list”.
Tiki Bars 2018
Jan 19 Damon’s (1)
Feb 13 The Kon-Tiki (2)
Feb 18 Forbidden Island (3)
Feb 18 Trader Vic’s Emeryville (4)
Feb 19 Tiki Tom’s (5)
Mar 3 Devil’s Reef (6)
Mar 3 Tacoma Cabana (7)
Mar 19 Pagan Idol (8)
April 1 Tambu Lounge (9)
April 1 Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto (10)
April 4 Tiki Room Restaurant and Bar (11)
April 4 Tiki Tolteca (12)
April 5 Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29 (13)
April 21 Billy’s at the Beach (14)
April 21 Purple Orchid Tiki Lounge (15)
April 22 High Roller Tiki Lounge (16)
May 20 Hula’s Island Grill and Tiki Bar (Santa Cruz) (17)
May 20 The Reef Bar / Pono’s Hawaiian Grill (18)
May 26 Jungle Bird (19)
June 30 Smuggler’s Cove (20)
July 15 The Alibi (21)
July 15 Hale Pele (22)
July 17 Navy Strength (23)
July 22 Luau Lounge (24)
July 25 Last Rites (25)
July 28 Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar (26)
August 4 Hula Hoops (27)
August 25 Tiki Pete’s (28)
November 10 Hukilau (29)
November 17 Hula’s Island Grill and Tiki Room (Monterey) (30)
December 17 The Zombie Village (31)
December 29 Tiki-Ko (32)
December 31 Jan & Dean’s Tiki Lounge (33)
December 31 The Royal Hawaiian (34)