Please join me in congratulating this year’s duo of OscarFest Champions: first-time winner Allison Hawley and second-time winner Eric Doty. In a feat that can only be described as “ridiculous”, Allison and Eric scored a ridiculous 19 correct picks out of 24. Seriously?

Visit OscarFest 2011 to see how you stacked up against all 138 participants. You’re sure to find at least a few friends who did worse than you.

Thanks to several generous contributions, $235 will be donated in the Champions’ names to 1n10, a non-profit organization dedicated to serving and assisting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth. Allison and Eric may have earned the OscarFest crown (and complimentary OscarFest Snuggie), but, in the end, we are all winners.

Thanks again for taking part in the greatest and best OscarFest the world has ever seen… EVER! (until next year)

In January, my friend Carla invited me to the gaming and music conference, MagFest 2011, to challenge attendees to a game of Super Mario Kart. As an added bonus, the conference staff agreed to give a free t-shirt to anyone who could beat me. Over four hours, I went 75-2.

None of that is depicted in this video. However, you will get to see me attempt and fail to beat my current Twin Galaxies world record on Mario Circuit 1.

It was a strange experience. Upon losing/winning, I felt the same smorgasbord of emotions that Bobby Fischer must have experienced after playing himself in chess. Yes, I am comparing the two.

Here are some picture that I think you will enjoy.

Alex selects the character that he will use while being annihilated by John.

The woman on the right beat me twice in a row, so I gave up my seat to the gentleman on the left.

MagFest featured many arcade games and people playing arcade games.

The official MagFest tweet encouraged people to be annihilated at Super Mario Kart.

I recently watched Troll 2.

No offense to Shakes the Clown, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Two Idiots in Hollywood, The Guyver, Talent for the Game, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, Glitter, Kazaam, Leonard Part 6, Street Fighter, Cop & 1/2, Mr. Nanny, Crossroads, Gone Fishin’, Bio-Dome, Batman and Robin, any of the Kevin Smith movies except Zack and Miri Make a Porno, all of the Leprechaun movies, and most Jean Claude Van Damme movies, but Troll 2 is definitely the worst movie I have ever seen.

I would recommend gathering several of your best friends and watching this movie as soon as possible.

Drew Carey, host of The Price is Right, gives an Armed with Science shout-out during CES 2010.

Last night, I was reading through the January edition of Discover Magazine, which chronicles the 100 Top Science Stories of 2009, when I made quite a discovery (pun intended): a story written by our very own Darlene Cavalier placed #69! Darlene’s piece, “Prize-Driven Research Takes Off,” focuses on the growing number of organizations offering prizes for successful science and technology innovations. The article should be released online in the next few weeks, and we’ll make sure to post it here.

Congratulations Darlene! What an honor!

This post was Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V’d from ScienceCheerleader.com.

Last week, I saw Jason Alexander in the upper west side of New York City waiting to be seated for brunch in what can only be described as the most weather-inappropriate clothing I have seen in my entire life. What an authentic New York City moment!

This Pepsi commercial starring Jimmy Fallon and Parker Posey is perhaps my favorite commercial of all time for reasons that include but are not limited to:

1. The background music, “Steamline” by Newton, comes with a mandatory 10-day period in which one cannot stop whistling the tune.

2. Jimmy Fallon’s dance moves look exactly how my dance moves would look if I were dancing through a crowded city street. Ironically, I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to emulate his elbow maneuver at the :59 mark and have yet to figure it out. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible. Seriously, try it. Impossible.

I just got home from school and had a chance to catch an episode of Saved by the Bell. Apparently, it wasn’t getting good enough ratings in the 5AM slot it used to have, so they’ve rescheduled it to 4:30PM. This is lucky for me because I tend to get home around this time and usually I like to have a snack and watch a bit of the tele. Today’s was the now-classic “Senior Ditch Day” episode where Zack and Slater make a $100 bet that Zack can’t ditch every single class during the day. The side stories have Kelly and A.C. getting romantic, while the same happens with Jesse and her fellow protester, Graham. And as usual, Lisa mocks and laughs at Screech whenever she has the chance. Some of my favorite moments from today’s episode include but are not limited to:

–When Screech gives Zack some of his imported chocolates (remember Zack later gives the “Chocolate Covered Grasshoppers” and “Caramel Caterpillars” to Mr. Belding in a sinister plot to get out of class) to Zack, and says, “Afghanistan makes the best chocolate covered grasshoppers!”. I wonder if they actually do….

–Throughout the episode, characters refer to the day as “Ditch Day” or ”Senior Ditch Day” or “Cut Day” with no consistency at all. In response to A.C.’s challenge to skip out on every class, Zack proclaims himself as “The King of Ditch Day”. Assuming Zack is a senior only once during the show, and if the day is called “Senior Ditch Day”, how could he possibly be the “King”? This would be his first time experiencing ditch day.

–The scene on the beach when A.C. Slater is rubbing lotion on Kelly because her shoulders are “burning up”. This was most uncomfortable sexual tension on screen since Jodi Foster and Richard Gere shared a kiss in Somersby

–Jesse and her fellow student council friend Graham protesting for “No Foam Plastic Cups” in an attempt to “Save the World”. What I don’t understand is why Graham plays such an important role in this show–offering such profound statements as “Two people can make a difference. It only takes a spark to start a fire!”–and then disappears from the face of the earth and is never heard from in another episode.

–Mrs. Cullpepper, their visually-challenged teacher looking in the wrong direction when Zack calls her name. From neuroanatomy class, we know that bad vision would not cause her to look the wrong way because that would fall under the audio-visual reflexes category, which is oh by the way, controlled in part by the Tectospinal tract.

–Again Mrs. Cullpepper, who begins her geography lesson by saying ” Nairobi is here”. After looking closer she realizes she’s pointing to the wrong place, and says, “Next to Las Vegas??”. What is even funnier is that she’s actually pointing at San Diego. Why would her bad vision cause her to have a poor understanding of language? Wouldn’t she still read “Las Vegas” as saying “Las Vegas”?

–Back to the Student Council meeting… How did Zack get voted in with such a bad attitude and general disinterest in academia?

–The scene in the movie theatre where Kelly hugs A.C. because “it was a really scare scene in the movie”. Does anyone else wonder why the movie theatre seats are none other than fold out patio chairs?

I need to go to the store really quick, but I promise to write more later…

* Movie Quote of the Day: “Every man dies, but not every man really lives!”