· There's good news and bad news about this weekend's marathon of Oscar parties. The good news first: Nikki Finke has a sweepingly comprehensive list of those we expect you to crash. Godspeed!

· The bad news: They may not be much fun. But again, that's where you come in. We're counting on it.

· For all the yapping about there being little to no box-office bump among this year's nominees, a look at the numbers suggests otherwise. Moreover, as indieWIRE notes, "If The Dark Knight, WALL-E and Gran Torino had been nominated instead of Milk, The Reader and Frost/Nixon, we'd all be talking about how this year's best picture lineup cracked a billion dollars instead." Seriously! Can it, Goldstein.

· Your Oscar ribbon du jour: White, in support of same-sex marriage.

· In contrast to yesterday's automatic Oscar Speech Generator for those playing at home, why not grab a friend and play the more substantial Oscar Acceptance Speech Madlibs?

· Among Esquire.com's Alternative Oscars, we'd nominate In Bruges' Best Profane Dialogue prize as our own favorite. "Cunt fucking kids" simply never gets old.

Contact information for this author is not available.