Most people don’t have a vesting interest in watching the Oscars, or don’t care beyond the opening intro, and haven’t seen any of the nominated films (I’ll give a tip ‘o the hat to anyone who has actually seen ERNEST AND CELESTINE). What better way to enliven the party, create your own, or forget the exhausting festivities than an OSCARS DRINKING GAME?

So put on your finest pajamas, pick up the cheapest bottle (or five) of champagne at the store (while supplies last), and let’s drink to the fact that we’re not as pretty, rich, successful and clever as 99% of the people on the Oscars telecast.

RED CARPET EDITION: One Rule Only.

1. Drink every time Ryan Seacrest asks, “Who are you wearing?” It’s the only time that question doesn’t imply that you’re Norman Bates wearing your mother’s skin as a face.

But if you want more…

2. If a star brings her Mother or Father along as their date…Awww. DRINK.

3. Any time you realize that you’re actually watching a slew of “fashionistas”/C-level celebrities talk about celebrities hair, makeup, jewelry and clothes and doing so un-ironically on E!, you probably deserve a drink.

THE OSCARS DRINKING GAME RULES:

1. Drink every time Ellen dances.

2. Drink every time one of these rules make you groan.

3. Drink every time the cut-off music is offensive and flusters a speaker.

4. Drink every time a winner cries during their speech.

5. Drink every time there’s an annoying new hashtag on the screen.

6. Drink every time someone swears and it gets past the censors.

7. Finish the bottle (collectively) if Jennifer Lawrence trips over her dress. Sorry.

8. Have a sip if someone cracks a joke about George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio’s playboy ways. Har har.

9. Don’t drink for any Shia LeBeouf or Justin Bieber jokes.

10. Drink for every musical number. Sing along if you can, or especially if you can’t.

11. Sip whenever an old Hollywood luminary says something only a famous old guy/gal could get away with saying.

12. Drink for these lies: “I didn’t have a speech prepared” or “I am so shocked” or any variations thereof.

13. Any wigs, hairs or boob jokes about AMERICAN HUSTLE are made. Drink double if it’s in reference to Christian Bale’s rack.

14. If anyone makes a Steve McQueen joke, pout until the next time you can drink.

15. Drink any time a speaker uses the word “transformation” to describe someone’s performance, or a joke about weight loss, weight gain or Jared Leto is made.

TO SOBER UP: Waterfall water during the technical awards.

AFTER THE SHOW: Don’t drive, call a Lyft/Uber, or pass out on your friend’s couch.

Thanks to a few Hollywood screeners, a lot of gift cards and unemploymentmy independent nature, I’ve never watched more Oscar nominated films than this year (and I’ll pretend that matters). In this age of scrutiny, controversy and Twitter, every movie has been hated on, drug through the mud or found wanting (some more deservedly than others). In fact, each movie’s director, producers, stars, and DP’s all likely feel (DP’d) a lot like Rufus Sewell’s character at the end of (best movie of all-time contender) A KNIGHT’S TALE right now:

But for a few minutes, can we check our attitudes at the door, pump the brakes on our eternal desire to make callous judgments without knowing what the fuck we’re talking about, and just talk about the movies themselves? Can we be a mindless drone in THE LEGO MOVIE (here’s one prediction: Best Animated Film winner, 2015) and accept that everything is indeed, awesome, and relish in the fact that this was one of the best years for films in recent memory (says someone every year), and dig that people get so heated up about movies? Sit back, pop open the Andre, and I promise, I won’t say awesome again for the entirety of this post.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

5. Julia Roberts, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY: I almost feel bad for Julia (and her painfully obvious crowns in that awesome photo), and every other incredible actor (Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Ewan MacGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sam Shepard, Margo Martindale, Abigail Breslin and whatever Juliette Lewis is) that somehow got roped into the hate-filled, manipulative, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? wannabe that is AUGUST: somewhere in Oklahoma. But then I remember how unfortunate a movie-going experience the film was, and I can’t help but be mad at them. Julia Roberts was probably the best of the bunch in a role that potentially foreshadows the next act of her career in movies (should she choose to accept it) as a real, approachable, tortured (but no less pretty) woman, finding herself back where she started (after the OCEANS movies, preggers and EAT PRAY YUCK), as the every-woman.

4. Sally Hawkins, BLUE JASMINE: The next four are fairly interchangeable (because they’re all terrific), but I’ll snub Sally Hawkins just like Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine continually snubs Hawkins’ Ginger. BLUE JASMINE is an unholy cocktail of a bunch of awful people (kinda like AUGUST and nigh every other movie that came out this year), and while Ginger screws up just as often as any of them, and you’re constantly wondering why she puts up with the mess that is Jasmine, overbearing bf Chili (Bobby Canavale, future Oscar winner in 2018) and how she keeps kids, boyfriends and a working class job together, but you never doubt how real this character is. It could’ve been a caricature, but instead, she’s heartbreaking. When Louis C.K. even treats you like shit, it’s time for a good cry.

3. June Squibb, NEBRASKA: I love June Squibb to death in Alexander Payne’s underrated NEBRASKA. Squibb is hilarious as the cranky, tough-as-hell firecracker of an 80 year old housewife, and the idea that the scene where she flashes her knickers at former would-be flames at the cemetery could be HER Oscar clip is proof that the world rules in some respect. But, the thing is, any 84 year old woman supplied with her lines would get buzz because of how startling and refreshing an image it is to see on screen. But June’s charisma and scene stealing presence is all her own.

2. Lupita Nyong’o, 12 YEARS A SLAVE: And now I regret doing rankings entirely, because things like this will happen, where I automatically become an asshole. Probably one of the cooler stories that is impossible to get tired of is Lupita Nyong’o’s casting and how she got discovered for Patsey. She was absolutely fearless and mined new depths of sorrow, and like the movie as a whole, makes you want to kill yourself. For art.

1. Jennifer Lawrence, AMERICAN HUSTLE: You either loved or hated or didn’t get AMERICAN HUSTLE, but anyone who saw it HAD to be in awe of whatever the fuck J-Law was doing on screen. In my textual fellatio/review for PopInsomniacs, this is what I said about her performance as the lunatic Rosalyn:

“Jennifer Lawrence breaks acting. She summons new depths of sheer insanity…she’s manipulative, sexy, unpredictable, dangerously naive and stupid. I found myself giggling with glee at each of her scenes, or the opposite: just speechless and giddy with her surely Oscar nominated performance. The only thing scarier than her character is how talented this woman is, and she’s still just 23 years old. Watch her song-and-dance routine to Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” and try to keep your head from exploding.”

Without question, watching her performance was the most fun I had a movie theater in 2013, and sometimes, I like enjoying myself at the movies.

NEXT: Best Supporting Actor, ranked in order of attractiveness.

Oftentimes, I’m on my own, and that’s fine by me. If I waited for my friends to do something, or only did activities that appealed to them, I’d likely never get out of the house. Ever since I crumpled my acceptance form to the University of Washington, merely 15 minutes away from home, and took on the sojourn to an unknown, tiny town in upstate New York for college, many of my best times have come from my willingness to do exactly this. To just go, and see what my whims or instincts, or Yelp’s, Guy Fieri’s or Rick Steves’ instincts, will carry me into.

This random Saturday (Feb. 8th) in Los Angeles was one such day. I had a meeting for work (that I’m not at liberty to discuss at this time), and found myself in Hollywood on a sunny, glorious afternoon with nothing to do. The kind of conundrum people in Boston and NY wish they had right now.

I could bus back home (I’m one of the only LA residents who actually uses the infrequent, plodding and frustrating Metro system), or I could walk.

A lot.

Because I didn’t really bother zooming in on the Google Map of my phone, and because I had all the time in the world (a wonderful feeling), I decided it was time to make a Joss Whedon-tinged pilgrimage, and see what happens. That led to a roughly 4.3 mile jaunt down Vine (then Rossmore), then east on Wilshire, arriving at 4121 Wilshire Blvd, hoping this location still existed.

En route, I basically stumbled through one of the richest parts of LA, including past the infamous El Royale Apartments (above), erected in 1927 by William Douglas Lee, and keeping people erect until today. Check out the view and the inside:

Here are some other neat, massive apartment buildings likely filled with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s illegitimate children. Is it me or does the first one kind of look like an insane asylum, or a corporate building owned by Max Schreck or something? The day time maybe doesn’t sell that thought.

I sped past the Wilshire Country Club, keenly aware that I was the only one walking around (and not in a luxury vehicle). I also realized that I probably shouldn’t be snapping pictures at private homes, especially since many of them have legitimate security guards watching the house 24/7. I did anyway. Here are a few places I’d settle to live in:

For whatever reason, my recurring daydream involved bumping into Seth Rogen and smoking a blunt with him. I don’t even smoke. Not sure why it didn’t include a hot older woman who was antsy at home, like a Michelle Pfeiffer type. But I’m weird.

I also imagined actually living in a house like these, and while I liked some of the architecture, even if I could ever afford it, I just don’t think LA is where I’d want to live. Of course, if I ever find myself in that position, I’d likely sell out faster than I’d last during a sexual experience with Jennifer Garner (circa ALIAS days).

If this photo wasn’t taken from an iPhone, maybe it’d look more impressive. This is the view from Wilshire. Can it get any more Hollywood than this picture? Well, add droves of tourists, an empty tour bus, a hot dog stand and a dude dressed up as a Transformer, and you’d pretty much have it.

But enough of this shit. Finally, after a long ass walk, I reached the Hyperion Hotel, the sweet exterior location of Angel, Cordy, Gunn, Fred and Wesley’s base for seasons 2-4 of ANGEL.

BEHOLD!

The base was described by production designer Stuart Blatt as “an old hotel, something [the writers] could use to evoke the past of Los Angeles and some of Angel’s history, something kind of creepy and spooky but not too dark because they didn’t want something depressing…” It certainly fit the bill, and became the most iconic location on the show, aside from Cordelia’s chest. Clearly it stuck with David Boreanaz, as the hotel was even mentioned in a season 2 episode of BONES. It also got talked up in another Whedon classic, DOLLHOUSE.

In 1999, the apartment building, the Los Altos Apartments, was listed on the National Register of Historical Places. It was built in 1925 and was used as a luxury apartment and hotel for Clara Bow, Bette Davis, Mae West, Douglas Fairbanks and a little guy named William Randolph Hearst. I mean, they’re no Angel or Fred, but impressive nonetheless. AND YOU CAN STILL LIVE IN IT. RIGHT NOW.

While I was there, soaking all this in, a guard popped out and asked if I lived there. The guy’s either an idiot (I was a sweaty dude wearing a backpack taking pictures), or more likely, was using this question to get me off the property. I left pretty soon after, instead of staking the bastard, or claiming that I used to live in the house….fifty years ago. Either way, the nerd inside me was tingly all over during this experience.

If you want to live in such esteemed company, it’s only $1,850/month for a studio. A 2 bedroom apartment could be had for up to $3,600/month. What a steal.

I thought about turning around and going back the way I came back up to Hollywood, but thankfully I wasn’t a moron, and wandered toward Koreatown (or K-Town, if you think that’s cool to say).

In the heart of it, it appeared to be only hair salons and restaurants. My afternoon’s success called for one thing: BEER.

And that’s when I stumbled upon one of the best places to get beer and fatty foods in LA: Beer Belly.

Beer Belly is one of those “nice” places that serve craft beer and “classy” ways to ingest macaroni and cheese, pulled pork and french fries. I love these places, even if they’re overpriced.

I had the Duck Fat Fries, served with Raspberry Mustard (awesome), their “Frankenstein” ketchup (maybe even better) and a couple great beers. The fries were far too salty, but still fantastic, though I couldn’t help but want more duck than the duck skin cracklins and the duck fat oil the fries were drenched in. That probably means I’m getting Death by Duck next time, which is the duck fat fries with duck confit on top. Holy hell.

Their beer menu changes daily (the bathroom had a chalkboard advertising a keg opening on a Sunday, with deals occurring until the keg ran out), and after sampling a watery Irish Red from TAPS (of Brea, CA), I settled on the Holiday Spruce Ale from Craftsman Brewing Company based in Pasadena. As one might expect, it was like sipping on a Christmas tree, and that somehow translated into me calling it a smooth, easy drinking beer in my notes. I need help.

I followed that up with Modern Times’ Lost Horizon, a double IPA from the holy land that is San Diego. The beer itself was on the verge of being one of those IPA’s that’s just hoppy as hell because it’s supposed to impress you, without much in the way of flavor, but it skated by that potential catastrophe, thanks in large part to smelling like happiness. For more of my thoughts on beer, check out Untappd.

Beer Belly would’ve demanded future visits if only for the beer….but the food. I must try their Grilled Cheese, which has 4 kinds of cheese (Asiago, Gruyere, Cheddar, Goat Cheese), topped with bacon and a heaping portion of maple syrup. I could smell it all over the place, which made me hard and disgusted at the same time.

Bree, my delightful server, also recommended the Buttermilk Fried Chicken and the beer & chipotle braised short rib. I almost came on the spot, and somehow managed to resist ordering EVERYTHING on the menu. They have deep fried pop tarts, people. Bree also bought my second beer for me, so I was in love/tricked into tipping more to make up for the “savings.” One of my other notes about the place: “I want to be inside all the waitresses.” Real classy Andy. Beer Belly rules.

Before I had settled upon Beer Belly, I discovered another place for future reference. While I said earlier I’m fine going almost everywhere alone…this demanded company. This demanded a whole night dedicated to its revelry. This demanded Leonardo DiCaprio. Check out…

CAFE JACK. I don’t know where to begin with this place. It’s been themed after the TITANIC since 2007, merely TEN years after the movie came out. But that’s better than never to put a kitschy boat in a sketchy parking lot, where one buys coffee and sushi (they have a “Jack and Rose” sushi roll). It’s gotta be a stop on a Bachelorette party, or an ironic date with a game partner, or a place to get plastered at. It need to be on everyone’s itinerary.

The reviews are mixed, as one might expect, but that hasn’t deterred me from telling everyone I know about this place, in hopes that it can kick off a bizarre bar crawl.

With a spring in my step, I walked past Biergarten, then turned around and stared at the bar for a moment. I wavered on whether or not to grab another beer, or continuing on back up to Hollywood (I had an improv show to go to)…but it was that kind of day, and I sauntered in after a few moments hesitation. Plus I past this guy, who made the decision for me:

No idea.

Within moments, I realized that while trekking up Western, I had stepped in pungent dog shit, and I mistakenly brought it in with me to Biergarten. I quickly ordered a beer, and then stomped my entire body on the parking lot outside, rubbing my soles against the grass, to no avail. From there, I went to the bathroom and wiped the poop off of my shoes with paper towels, while the server was confused if I was staying or leaving. I still haven’t been able to get all of the poop off those shoes.

Needless to say, it was a fantastic entrance to a bar, let alone a Korean/German hybrid sports bar with one of the better beer menus I’d seen in LA. They have German fried rice, drunken chicken, and peanut butter sliders, apparently, but this was a beer-as-dinner sort of day.

I went with the Hop Tanker, a 9% double IPA, and it felt like heaven. If heaven gives you a hangover, an empty wallet and was from El Segundo. It had some great citrus and fruit on the tongue, while still remaining a kick in the pants.

Because I’m an idiot (and brilliant), I tried The Dudes’ Brewing Company’s Juicebox Series: Blood Orange, based out of LA (seen above). It was strong, overly sweet and thick, like the Big Lebowski fanbase, but it also kind of tasted like sweat. I was not a fan, but there wasn’t anything that I disliked about the concept.

Then I was off, to make it up to Hollywood. I got there in plenty of time to spare for the Doctor Who themed improv show that awaited me at iOwest (alumni from the entire iO program include Pete from 30 ROCK, Stephen Colbert, Andy Dick, Chris Farley, Tina Fey, Dave Foley, Neil Flynn, Jon Favreau, Dave Koechner, Lutz, Jack McBrayer, Seth Meyers, Tim Meadows, Amy Poehler, Mike Meyers, Danny Pudi, Key & Peele, Vince Vaughn, Jason Sudekis, Adam McKay, Eric Stonestreet, Glenn from THE WALKING DEAD and many more).

You know what that meant: more beer. Next up was the Blue Palms Brewhouse, another pub with a great beer list, including two of their own (brewed by Firestone Walker).

I started off with the aptly named Blitzen (from Faction Brewing of Alameda, CA), which was what made the Doctor Who Live! so much better than it really was. My quote for the beer: “Hell yes this is dangerous and hell yes I want all of it inside me.”

I followed it up with one of their own beers, the Blue Palms IPA, which was as bland and lame as any IPA you’ve ever had. Firestone apparently doesn’t care when there name isn’t on it. It was impressive that I could even distinguish anything at this point, but the bucket of salty pretzel balls surely helped (a bucket of salty pretzel balls ALWAYS helps, even if they burn your hand off). I was told to order the Truffle Burger next time I was there.

(Note: the next day I would randomly find myself back at the Blue Palms Brewhouse, and sampled their esteemed Truffle Burger, which was as rich and over-the-top as you might’ve expected. Not sure how much I truly loved it, but it was great.)

I found this hilarious at the time, and still do.

I finally arrived at iOwest, where I believe I had another beer while waiting for the show to start (because it was late), and talked football (GO HAWKS) at the bar with a couple folks, including a Minnesota Vikings fan and (gasp) a woman (no idea what team she was into).

I’d be lying if I said I internalized most of the show, but I still had a blast, and enjoyed the festivities, likely more because of the concept than many of the jokes. Crafting a new doctor, new companions and getting a different time period or locale every show highlights how the real show has lasted 50 years, and how an improv show based on it can last just as long.

Perfect photo for a caption contest.

Afterwards, it was time for another beer. Kidding: I took the bus and went sweet sleepy time. But before I did, I took a picture of the most important star on Hollywood Blvd: