Orphaned Photos, Someone Famous, and the Oscars

I was working on my bachelors at a pretty conservative, Christian, liberal arts college in the late '90s back when the internet was becoming more status quo for the common man (and not just for the "geeks," I guess). At the time, everyone at my college checked their email via dial-up, and there was a lot of controversy about whether the college should allow free internet connections to its students. It being a conservative school, a lot of people, both administrators and even some students, thought that allowing the internet was going to open up a pandora's box of sinfulness and temptation to the student body.

I thought the whole debate was ridiculous. There will be nay-saying about any new form of technology, especially among, ahem, certain types. All that to say, the internet has provided us with some amazing things in the past decade or so.

One of these things is this: IFoundYourCamera.net. Last week on Postsecret, someone sent in a photograph from a camera he'd found. He was hoping to find the owner. So a university student got the brilliant idea of having a place where people could send lost cameras and memory cards. He's started posting these photos in the hopes of rescuing these "orphan photos." Already, three cameras have found their owners. It's a simple idea, yet a genius one.

I wish I had thought of this, but I'm a little slow on the take. I think it could have made me famous.

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Go check out who my friend Carrie got to meet yesterday by clicking here. She told her that she hopes she enjoys her new belt.
(And I'm not saying anything here about my feelings towards any presidential candidate. I actually really hate discussing politics. It's just pretty cool that she met someone so famous).

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I love the Academy Awards. I get as excited about the Oscars as most people do about the Superbowl, and I usually cry at least once during the show every year. It's for moments like this that I cry: go watch Roberto Benigni win for Life is Beautiful. It won't let me embed the clip into my blog, but you can view it by clicking here.

Last year I actually cried during the song by Jack Black, Will Ferrell, and John C. Reilly. Even as I was getting choked up, I was aware of how odd a thing it was to get emotional at such a stupid thing. So what will it be this year that makes me cry? Daniel Day Lewis's acceptance speech? The scene from Ratatouille when the food critic takes the bit of food that transports him back to his mother's kitchen? The tribute to Heath Ledger?

I have no idea what it will be. But this I can assure you: There Will be Tears.