A MOMENT OF APOLOGY, regular readers and fellow Academy Awards sensation-seekers. No doubt you hit this link and then, expecting that you'd have to wait for many megabytes of text and graphics to load in, you reached for a tin of salve or a spool of dental floss or a jigsaw pizzle that you've been meaning to get to. But to your considerable shock and disappointment the page loaded and rendered in seconds. Alas, whereas normally I present a 15-20,000 word multi-hyphenated extravaganza, this year I only had enough time to slam down the bare facts of the matter.

This is the seventh year I've been publishing my Oscar package on the Web. I usually start planning this thing weeks in advance. I make notes on relevant awards races. I make sure I've seen all the nominees, and I go out and see some of 'em again. I reflect on what's unusual about this year's Oscars and I map out a few other articles I'd like to write to accompany the Picks. I check with my lawyers to see if I can indeed claim that MPAA mouthpiece Jack Valenti is actually a parasitic undeveloped twin poking out of the neckhole of a specially-tailored suit worn by his actually quite sane and rational twin brother, Stewie. I mean, I have the receipt from the rural Bavarian sideshow that Jack and Stewie wound up in after their parents sold them, but do I need further corroboration? I'm a man who likes to cross his I's and dot his T's.

Then there are the wardrobe fittings. Yes, I'll watch the Oscars on my sofa, but my wardrobe is deceptively simple. A week before the Oscarcast, major corporations in the hardware, software, and IT infrastructure sectors will be in and out of my house with racks upon racks of tee shirts. Apple impressed me with a vintage OpenDoc mock-turtleneck, but Pixar's NetRenderman tee goes better with my jeans and who could say no to ILM's Star Wars Episode I Visual Effects Crew shirt? And which one got the nod? "People" Magazine's Oscar issue hits newsstands on Thursday; I suggest you pick it up.

But regardless of all that advance preparation, the whole enterprise comes down to two days during the week before the Oscars. That's the time I set aside to sit down and write everything. Last week I reached the designated hour of the designated day. I sat down, I felt the hopes and dreams of dozens of nominees nestled in the palm of my right hand, so fragile, so easily crushed...and then the phone rang. There was a production problem with a book I'm writing, and it needed to be addressed right away.

So I had to spend that time putting out a fire instead of using it to light a match to the aforementioned hopes and dreams. And now here it is, the morning of the Oscars, and this is the best I can give y'all.

But I ask you: don't be sad and disappointed. Let your heart fill with rage and let that rage stoke the fires of revenge until they're as high as an elephant standing on the shoulders of another elephant. Who's wearing those big demon shoes that Gene Simmons wears during stadium shows with KISS.

And once you're quite simply vibrating with fury, I point you at the dried, barely cognizant head of Mr. Jack Valenti. Yes, he tried to make VCRs illegal, promising that they absolutely, definitely spelled doom for the movie industry. And he refuses to allow films to deal with adult situations in a mature way, because Our Nation's Children (defined as: anyone younger than Jack, which is anyone whose souls weren't transposed into trees and rocks by vengeful Norse gods in 1400) will be irreversably damaged by the appearance of genitalia in a feature film, unless of course they're shown floating past the camera in slow-motion after the truck crashes into the oil refinery.

I also have it on good authority that this whole business of showing commercials before the movie was his idea entirely. But the new reason for focusing your anger at him is that the Oscars were moved up a whole month. Used to be at the end of March. This year, it's the end of February. If I had four whole weeks more, boy! Would I have given you an Oscar package big enough to choke a hippo in mid-yodel! But apparently, Jack decided that by shortening the Oscar season he could smudge out yet another bit of filmgoers' happiness.

I insist that Mr. Valenti come to no physical harm. If one of you should work at a dry cleaners' and is in a position to ruin one of his favorite suits by using the wrong acetone formulation on it, well, I suppose I can't be everywhere at once. But I'm appalled by thuggery of any form, no matter who the target is.

Besides: even if we don't give a whit for Jack's wellbeing, think of poor Stewie. Having to hunch down under the collar of his jacket, so that the public never discovers the awful truth about Jack. Even if you were to do something as seemingly harmless as to heave a cream pie right into Jack's face, custard would inevitably drip down into Stewie's neck. It's bad enough having the head of a parasitic partially-formed evil twin sticking out of your back without having to contend with sticky dairy products as well.

So let's not get our (quite sensible) dislike of Jack Valenti overshadow our understanding that if I go 5-for-24 with my predictions and if this entire page reads like rushed, first-draft nonsense...it's entirely not my fault. At any rate: here's this year's Oscar picks. Onward and upward. And remember: tune into my blog during the Oscarcast for live commentary.

THE FINAL TALLY: Well, I went 19 for 24 this year, certainly a nice outing. My Waterloo was the short films. Normally I actually do pretty well there; by doing a little legwork you can get a sense of where the buzz is going and pick up another couple of ticks in the Win column.

In truth, though, "Best Adapted Screenplay" is the only pick which I felt I really blew. I sensed a desire to acknowledge "Mystic River" with a major award and thought that "Rings"' scale and spectacle would overshadow the strength of its screenplay. Had I taken a little more time, I think I would have bet on a "Rings" sweep. Again, I blame Jack Valenti.

Finally, my live blogcast is permalinked here. And, the telecast being the telecast, the event slopped over slightly into the next morning...so check March's blog archive, too.