It's just before 5 p.m. in New York, and as the United States decides whether to shoot down a dead satellite and Oprah decides whether to dress up your dead wardrobe, your humble blogger is back from a visit to Los Angeles, where he taped a special for E! in anticipation of Spring Break, performed a swan song at his favorite improv theatre, and placed third in a citywide race of frenetic futility.

You may have noticed that I did not mention the Oscars as part of my trip.  That's because I didn't notice it as part of my trip either.  There's been a lot of talk lately about the Oscars, well, not generating a lot of talk.  I thought that maybe I just wasn't hearing the buzz because I was in New York.  And lately, the town was too busy with its own exciting events involving the latest winners in sports, clothing, and of course, competitive breeding.  Surely when I got to Hollywood, the only thing on its lips would be the Academy Awards (and lots of collagen).

Alas, it was not the case.  Unless and until I mentioned that I was blogging about the awards (which I casually wove into every conversation), the Oscars came up not once.  People wanted to talk about silly things - mostly politics, the settling of the writers' strike, and, in general, topics that I call: Not Me.

I have some theories as to why the Oscars aren't having the impact on discussions that they usually do, and since you've gotten this far into the blog post, you are going to read them:

The major nominated movies are for grown-ups.  Yes, Juno, which I am still loathe to mention as a major nominee, is something that the teeny-boppers can relate to (Pregnancy! Cool!), but the others feature adults making adult decisions.  Something else that is a nice trend to see: the adults are smart adults making smart adult decisions. And even rarer: Some of the adults are smart adults with Southern accents making smart adult decisions.

There are no "Important" movies.  Yes, there's a dude with a rare disease, but you barely see him.  And the movie is so exquisitely made, it forgot to call attention to itself and be an "issue" movie.  Also, sadly, not that many people saw the film.  Besides that, we're not bombarded with nominated films front-loaded with self-conscious issues.  You're not going to see survivors, veterans, or the real Erin Brockovich.  This makes a difference in how a movie is marketed at Oscar time, and hence, how it's in the zeitgeist and discussed.

Brand names are on the shelf. Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio, Peter O'Toole, Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, Paul Haggis, Phillip Glass -these are the kinds of names and star power that we were dealing with in the nominees last year.  Oh and by the way, none of them won.

There actually are more important things to discuss.  Sshhh... The dirty little secret of this entire operation is that the Oscars don't really, really, matter.  Um, except, that this of course is no secret and there's nothing dirty or little about it.  I am at once amused, surprised, bewildered, and proud of the righteous comments we get on this blog from people who say that the Oscars are self-congratulatory and that we should focus on the important suffering of the world.  Well, of course they are self-congratulatory - name a peer-based award that isn't!  And yes, there are zillions of more important issues in the world.  And yet who gets mocked for drawing attention to them?  Celebrities - especially at awards shows.  So I'm glad people can have the perspective to see that it's just a night for some fun and glamour.  But I also give the human mind some credit;  mine, for instance, can hold both the thought that we need do something to end the suffering caused by poverty and that we need to do something to end the suffering caused by Beyoncé's hair.

And of course, the most obvious and crucial reason...

Not enough people are reading my blog.  Let's do something about that.  It's up to you, Yahoo! users.

Now, I have one reason why the Oscars are discussion-worthy this year, and it's a good one: the quality of the movies.  They may not be as exciting or political as in previous years, but the skill of the filmmaking has rarely -if ever-been better.  You do remember the movies, right?

Discuss.