The Thompson Family

I liked this years Oscars... but lots of the "critics" didn't. Oh well. My favorite part was when Will Ferrell, Jack Black, and John C. Reilly sang a song about "a comedian at the Oscars is the saddest, bitterest allllllllll-coooooooo-hoooooooo-lic clown."

You USED TO be able to watch the video courtesy of CollegeHumor.com, but the Oscar people got pissy and pulled all their content from non-Oscar websites. And I can't find the same video anywhere on Oscar.com -- so now I am pissy. Thanks Oscar, for making me not like your brand.

Read this interesting post from Mark Cuban's Blog Maverick:

Comscore released data saying that 139k people visited Oscar.com on Oscar Sunday. Seperately, Mashable reported that the Oscars asked Youtube to remove videos from the show that had been uploaded. In the same report, Mashable had a screen capture that showed that an Oscar Comedy Musical video had been viewed more than 200k times. Lets say that those 200k views translate into about 100k actual people viewing the video.

The question is: Do the Oscars benefit or are they harmed by their video being seen on Youtube.com rather than Oscars.com?

I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! is an absolutely amazing, fun, musical, magical book. Nora got it in her weekly "Raising A Reader" red book bag from her preschool, Children's Village. We read it last night... four times. Yes, it's that good (from the adult's perspective as well as the child's).

A little snippet of a review: "Karen Beaumont's zippy text and David Catrow's zany illustrations turn an infamous childhood activity into raucous storytime fun, giving a silly twist to the fine art of self-expression."

What is the "Raising A Reader" program, you ask? The Raising A Reader mission is to foster healthy brain development, parent-child bonding and early literacy skills critical for school success by engaging parents in a routine of daily “book cuddling” with their children from birth to age five. This mission addresses a national need for effective early literacy programs. One in three children entering kindergarten lacks basic pre-reading skills, which are proven to be a key factor in determining high-school graduation and lifelong success.

Happy Mardi Gras from Nora & her best bud Maya... Let the good times roll!

Nora & Dell had a "Daddy + Daughter Day" this morning. They went to the movies, rode on the Zeum Carousel, and played in the Yerba Buena playground.

Though commonly seen written as Presidents' Day or President's Day, Presidents Day is technically the correct form of the holiday's name.

"Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company."

"Whatever you are, be a good one."

"In a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing."

"And so, my fellow Americans... ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."