WHO WANTS TO BE MARISA TOMEI? To open our week of Oscar coverage, I offer the following game--pick an upset. As I've said before, this year's awards are looking like they'll be eminently predictable, especially in the top categories (though the supporting categories have favorites--Clooney and Weisz--they're not locked up by any means). So, taking the complete nominee list, pick some upsets and justify your answer. Mine?

• Good Night and Good Luck over Brokeback Mountain for Best Cinematography. The black and white photography is a huge part of making the movie what it is.
• George Clooney over Ang Lee for Best Director. This is the only really tenable "big category" win for Good Night and Good Luck, and gives a great chance to recognize Hollywood's poster boy for the year.
• Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room over March of the Penguins for Best Documentary Feature. Anything beating the Penguins would be a shocker, but I think that Enron, with its timely subject matter and not-overbearing political message, would have the best shot.

CHICKS WITH FLICKS: Ladies, I hope you didn't waste your time at the show in 2005 seeing guy-movie drivel like Capote, Good Night and Good Luck*, and Munich, when you should have been attending important women's films like the ones on this list.

*Everyone's allowed an Alessandra Stanley moment, aren't they?

STOP ME BEFORE I SUBREFERENCE MYSELF AGAIN: It always kind of sucks to read and love a book by a first-time author. You finish the book and think shit, now I need to wait for this person to write his or her next book, whenever the heck that might be. And, of course, you could hit the big bummer jackpot and have that author be Donna Tartt, in which case you read the brilliant A Secret History in 1992 when it is first published, adore it, buy it for everyone you know, inscribe a special message in it for the guy who will one day become your husband, and wait eagerly for ten years for the author to get around to publishing another book -- then have that second book be The Little Friend, which you find to be unreadable.

The better approach, in my opinion, is to discover an author later on, when he or she has already written a bunch of books. This obviously works particularly well with the classics -- falling in love with Jane Austen is easy and suspenseless. Ditto Naguib Mahfouz. (Start with the Cairo Trilogy, if you're interested.) Even David Eddings makes his way onto this list -- I happened upon Pawn of Prophecy during the summer of 1992 and was thrilled to discover that I had the entire Belgariad and Malloreon waiting for me in paperback, not to mention the Elenium. The Tamuli was the only one requiring hardback purchases. (Read any Eddings book outside the scope of these four series at your own risk.)

This post was actually not intended to be about books. It was originally going to have a completely different first paragraph , but then I decided that the discovering-a-new-author analogy was a good one and went off on a tangent. I like the tangent, and so I'm keeping it. But the the original first paragraph of this post was going to be: "The reason why none of you have heard from me all weekend is that I have spent nine of its hours watching all nine episodes of the Grey's Anatomy Season 1 DVDs. And I now find myself wishing that I had waited even longer to start watching the show, so that I could sit down and watch 31 episodes in a single glorious weekend instead of just nine."

I guess that's a topic for a different post.

SLOW DOWN, YOU CRAZY CHILD: I usually stay away from the music stuff because, frankly, it is nowhere near my area of expertise. But here's a question inspired by reading some of your personal top ten lists: is there a particular artist or album that sums up either your high school or college experience?

For me, high school is all about Billy Joel. College is U2's Achtung Baby. (Which is funny, because I am so not a U2 person other than that one album.)

IN MY LIFE: This article moved me.

NOTE: Probably not suitable for work. Likely to make parents and others who are fond of children more than a little emotional.

ARRIVEDERCI! Alright, folks, the last medals have been claimed, so this thread now exists to review the highlights and lowlights of these games as well as liveblog the Closing Ceremonies.

If 2002 was the year of That Wacky Pairs Judging, I think 2006 will mostly be remembered for the fact that Jacobellis Screwed Up, if only because so much of the major events were underwhelming (hockey, Bode) or went mostly according to plan (figure skating). You will longer remember that Slutskaya and Cohen didn't win ladies' figure skating than you'll remember who did -- and 2006 Worlds are in Calgary in a month.

I'm always a fan of Olympic closing ceremonies because of the segment in which the next host city (in this case Vancouver 2010) gets to introduce itself to the world and start making with the symbolism and all. If you were planning on behalf of Canada, what would you be emphasizing? (My call: Leonard Cohen, Atom Egoyan, Nelly Furtado, and as many Mounties as you can fit into the building.)

I BELIEVE THIS MAY GIVE BILL SIMMONS A BONER: Deadspin reports that Peter Vecsey is reporting that Isiah Thomas may want the Indiana University coaching job. Writes Deadspin:

I don’t even know what to say. The thought of Isiah Thomas taking over one of college basketball’s most storied programs… it kinda makes me go numb. My brain just can’t connect the two. It’s just hard to figure how his skills would translate to the college game. Does he start offering scholarships to all the transfers who were cancers to other programs? If he offers a recruit $60 million over 4 years, will the NCAA let him off the hook if he says, “Sorry, old habits die hard”? Does he try to trade his promising freshmen to other teams for seniors with torn ACLs?

I hope this happens. I’m praying that this happens. And, I would imagine, so is every fan of every team in the Big 10 that is not Indiana.