As my seventh annual foray into this personal fun ritual, presented below anyway is the timeline of events as I witnessed them during tonight’s ABC telecast of the 85th Academy Awards. All quotes are approximate as best as possible without benefit of rewatching, cribbing from national news outlets, or much proofreading. Our household does not own a DVR; all recollections are a combination of short-term memory and notes hastily handwritten on a legal pad, not a copy/paste reassembly of a distracted live-tweet flood. When I’m seated in front of a TV, I’d much rather watch than type.

8:30 — Our host Seth MacFarlane takes the stage with minimal intro and his first joke: “The quest to make Tommy Lee Jones laugh begins.” Naturally he jokes that he was only offered the gig after the producers were turned down by everyone else “from Whoopi on down to Ron Jeremy.” MacFarlane seems at ease and on his game most of the night, albeit with occasional edginess, such as a Rihanna/Chris Brown joke that seems more dated than offensive.

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