Every year, I inadvertently set a goal to watch the major Oscar nominees by the time the awards come out. Every year, I fail. Somehow, I thought maybe this year would be different. I mean, there were twice as many Best Picture nominees, but there were also two extra weeks before the ceremony. Unfortunately, I spent those two weeks in awe at the awfulness of those figure skating costumes.

So when last night rolled around, I still hadn’t seen a lot of movies. The most notable haven’t seen would probably be Avatar, but that’s partly because my very aggressive friend tried to con me into seeing it so many times, I’m just going to avoid the movie to spite him.

Now, one movie I had seen was The Hurt Locker (review forthcoming), which won a bunch of stuff including Best Picture. And it was a fine movie, but not really the one I would consider the Best Picture of 2009. And when the Academy likes a movie, they really like it. They start voting for it in random categories that are really not where the film shows its merits. Really guys? Best Sound Editing and Sound Mixing?

I suppose it could have been worse. At least it didn’t win for best movie title (probably because that isn’t actually a real category). I noticed locks and a lot of people getting hurt, but I still have no idea why it’s named The Hurt Locker.

The ice dancing competition may be over, but it’s never too late to “enjoy” their costumes. This is Part Three of this year’s series on the figure skating fashion Hall of Shame. See the previous inductees here and here.

We’ve got a little bit of bubble gum pop meets punk. I, personally, am always a fan of the fuchsia bra. A classy touch. Speaking of classy, new mother Isabelle Delobel readily showed off her undergarments in their Original Dance. And of course, an honorable mention to the Hawaiian-meets-faux Suede look. I’ll try it out the next time I’m out on the town…

Next up… The Khokhlova and Novitzki comedy hour? Now, the second image almost makes sense as they were skating to Stravinsky’s Firebird, but the first one looks like an acid trip gone horribly wrong. Seriously. Doesn’t the outfit bear a striking resemblance to this Friskies cat food commercial?

(By the way, I was surprised that this ad lacked the tagline: “Friskies, it’s like LSD for cats!” or “Friskies, filled with mushroomy goodness.”)

And finally, onto to my roommate’s favorite. Tanith Belbin may have the Secret commercials and the best-smelling room in the Olympic village, but it’s Ben Agosto that wears the glitter hair-shirt. *grimace* I’ve included a close up so you can view it in all its glory.

Their original dance costume was also a head-turner. Do Moldavians really dress like this?

The only competition left is the ladies’ event, which usually has underwhelming costuming compared with their friends in the Ice Dancing event, but I’ll be on the lookout for the good, the bad, and of course… the hideously ugly.

Wow. The hideousness is really continuing in glorious fashion in the figure skating competition, and we continue our series on horrible figure skating fashion. Catch up with the unattractiveness here.

“What do you think of my new panties?” she asks excitedly.

This car mechanic get up is just confusing. Do you suppose those jeans are real?

As for the sheer black mesh… I didn’t know it was still cool for people to be wearing this now that it’s no longer 1995. Although, I have to admit, it does look breezy.

Yee-haw! The faux denim again! And yes, they almost make square-dancing cool.

And of course, probably the greatest shame of the competition… Domnina and Shabalin’s leaves and loin-clothes outfit. *shudder* Why?

It’s hard to beat that last one, but I’ve got a whole bunch of ice dancing costumes yet to be uploaded. They don’t call the Original Dance the Bad Costume Competition for nothing. (Ok, only I call it that, but you’ll see why tomorrow.)

That means… you guessed it, the figure skating costume Hall of Shame. I did it during the last Winter Games in Turin, so if you think you’ve missed out, go back in time.

As for this year in Vancouver, the ice dancing competition just got under way, so the worst is yet to come. Yay? Just remember, if the costume has been shredded into millions of pieces, it makes the skater appear to be going faster, right?

Apparently all male Russian skaters are required to have crazy flopping hair.

Having Vera Wang design your costume only guarantees medals success, not visual appeal. What’s up with the glitter and the fluff?

My roommates wanted to applaud this outfit for its daring use of pants on women, but the pleather texture just wasn’t doing it for me.

Last, but never least, it’s our favorite: Johnny Weir, Fashion Diva.

More fashion disasters tomorrow!

So Sonya was trying to upgrade her wordpress from 1.5 to 2.2 all evening (thereby interrupting my enjoyment of the figure skating costumes, but I’ll talk about that tomorrow), and I thought to myself, “I really ought to upgrade to 2.9.2.” After all, that little banner had been bothering me forever now.

Guess what… I tried, and I failed. It turns out that I need an upgraded mySQL db first.

*sigh* Woe is me.

By now, everyone knows about the gruesome death of the Georgian luger. In case you don’t know about it, you can catch up here.

I mean, everyone knows that luge is a dangerous sport, but for the IOC to just say，”There’s nothing wrong with our track. The athlete made a mistake,” is just a bit pathetic, don’t you think? Just remember, the punishment for a mistake in this sport is death…

Also, as I watched NBC show the disturbing video again and again, one of the luge commentators even went so far as to say, “I’m not concerned about the top 12 competitors. It’s numbers 13 and below that I’m worried about.” Great. Twelve athletes have a good chance of surviving on the track, apparently. Everyone else, watch out. Errors = death. Lovely.

I know, I haven’t posted in a million years but, this moment was important:

Than never.

Zhu being driven away in a Mexican police car: