...And I Would Like to Thank My Intelligent Software Agent ][

By Chris Miksanek

     This year's Oscars left few surprises. Billy Crystal did his typical played-out schtick, Elke Sommer got snubbed yet another year for the Thalberg award, and Red Buttons was in the bathroom when he was supposed to be presenting.

     What *was* a surprise, at least for the pocket protector crowd, were the great numbers of technical kudos relegated to the less glamorous ceremony the night before. This year, several IT-related awards were added, as well, and as was typical, they didn't garner nearly the attention they deserved. So, in the interest of paying the appropriate respect to those in our industry, we present those here:

Best RPG Code in a Supporting Role

The Best RPG Code in a Supporting Role award went to the subroutine, "CALCIT," which was used in the production accounting program for the Dustin Hoffman sequel "Outbreak II: The Good Times Virus." Bill Radimecky, a Warner Brothers' senior programmer analyst accepted the award thanking the academy, his parents, and the guy who keeps the Mountain Dew machine stocked.

Best Algorithm in a Major Motion Picture

This one was anyone's guess. The critics liked the dark element of "Ma and Pa Kettle Log Off" while an Internet poll had the fans giving the nod to, "Honey I Shrunk Your Butt With My New Scanner and Photo Editing Software." But in the end, this award was all about computer-generated special effects and that was clear when the ballots were tallied James Cameron's "Witness II" took home the gold. Susan Helmold accepted the award for designing the CAD program used to design the structure for the rumored $150-million barn-raising scene.

Best Non-Commercial Exploitation of a Classic Film

It was tight running for all of these corporate instructional videos, each vying to keep employee attention by using a hackneyed twist on a classic film. But it was presenter Wink Martindale, venerable host of the 1980's TV classic "Tic Tac Dough," who had their attention when he opened the envelope and hollered, "a brand new car." After apologizing for the digression, he read off the winner in the category: "The Incredible Shrinking Benefits Package," a video explaining how all employees and employers must both share the burden of rising health care costs. Julie Lindeman accepted the award for the benefits department of Vandalay Industries acknowledging their tough competition this year: from Anderson Consulting, "National Lampoon's You Can't Take Your Vacation Because the Project's Behind Schedule;" and, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," a sexual harassment instructional indie film commissioned by the EEOC's HR department.

Best Commercial Exploitation of a Classic Film

Though they took out full-page ads in the trades for their "Herbie Gets OnStar," General Motor knew it was the underdog and there was little surprise when IBM won for their film-short, "AS/401 Dalmations," which spokesperson Mary Tierney claimed "would do for the AS/400 what Charlie Chaplin did for the PC Jr," a speech that got the evening's only standing ovation ... from a row of Windows NT marketeers.

Best Help Desk Support There were no nominees in this category.     Best Adaptation of a Made-for-TV or Direct-to-Video movie into a Webcast Going in with two paws up from PC Week's Spence the Katt and a showing at Sundance (albeit hacked), "Ferris Bueller's Denial of Service Attack" was expected to be the shoe-in of the night. But when the envelope was opened, the statuette went to the writers of, "Barbarians at the Gates," a humorous tale of Bill and Melinda Gates being mistaken as squatters by their own security staff while living in a double-wide trailer on the construction site of their $50 million Lake Washington estate. Ahh, Oscar can be unpredictable when he wants to be, and no one knows that better than fellow nominees Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen whose, "Mary-Kate & Ashley's Silicon Valley Adventure" was panned by the academy this year. "We're just happy being nominated," one of them said, "yea, it's a privilege being in such great company," the other said before both ran off crying to their mother.

Award hoopla aside, the highlight of the evening was the presentation of the prestigious "Bob Fazzari Lifetime Achievement Award." This years recipient was Hollywood IT consultant Paul Flerick who managed to leverage the literal meaning of his "Year-2K" on-call support for the Scream, Friday the 13th, and Halloween franchises. Flerick gets a monthly check through the year 2048 regardless of actual production.

The Lifetime Achievement Award was named for the legendary Hollywood goldbrick Bob Fazzari who worked the same three story lines into a writing career spanning more than thirty years and some forty-five "Laurel and Hardy" and "Abbott and Costello" feature films. Asked one day back in the 50's as to the secret of his prolificacy, he replied, "cut and paste, baby ... cut and paste!"