AMPS 2022 Best Picture Nominee Vote

It's Christmas. Merry Christmas and all, but it's also a time for me to take a look back at the past year and decide which of the fictional movies that I had come up with over the past year would be granted the honor of taking part of my fictional film awards. You see, I have been coming up with these fake films for the past 25 years and then handing out fake awards in one of three sets of awards. The earliest of these is the Awards for Motion Picture Services (AMPS), and since 2008 I have been letting the people around me play a part in deciding the list of films nominated for Best Picture for AMPS. Of the dozen or so movies that I had made up over the past year, I set aside four films that would be guaranteed nominations, and from the rest of the list I pick out three finalists that everybody else can vote on, and the winner gets the final spot in the AMPS Best Picture lineup that year. And this is where I will present the three films for this year and provide the SurveyMonkey link where you can vote on your winner. Now these are all fake movies, so I'll let you decide what factor would you focus on in casting your vote, but there will be a section where you can write your comments on these movies.

YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THESE MOVIES
THESE ARE MOVIES THAT I'VE MADE UP
NOBODY HAS SEEN THEM BEFORE BECAUSE THEY DON'T EXIST
EXCEPT IN MY OWN IMAGINATION
DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU FROM VOTING FOR ONE OF THEM

And in case my explanation is confusing, here are all of the previous finalist votes for your edification: 2008 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

RIP Gaylord Perry (1938-2022)

If you're a fan of the 300-Win Club, then you might remember that the exclusive pitching club suffered a major blow in the six months between August 2020 and January 2021 as it lost three of its illustrious members in Tom Seaver, Phil Niekro, and Don Sutton. It was a difficult time, but things seemed to have settled down, or so we thought. Then the news came out today that yet another member of the 300-Win Club had passed away early in the morning of December 1, 2022: Gaylord Jackson Perry, apparently from complications of a coronavirus infection. He was 84 years old.

Randy Johnson's 300th Win Day - 2022

It's June 4, 2022! Which means that it's the 13th anniversary of Randy Johnson's 300th Win, the signature baseball moment of my lifetime. Which also means that it's time for my favorite holiday of the year, the one that I made and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person to celebrate.

Happy Randy Johnson's 300th Win Day!

It hasn't exactly been the best day for me. I woke up after only three hours of sleep from a throbbing pain in my ear. I knew I had developed an ear infection, but in order to get any antibiotics I had to go to a 24-hour emergency room. Then I found out that my Nintendo Switch no longer reads any of my cartridges, so I am probably going to have to send it in to Nintendo for them to repair. It hasn't been all bad. I did get to go to my first baseball game in person on June 4 since the historic double-header in 2009. And it was a Rangers 3-2 victory that took 2 hours 30 minutes, which happened to be the running time for Randy Johnson's 300th win 13 years ago today!

Happy Randy Johnson's 300th Win Day!

I've written way too much about the milestone game itself over the years that I don't think I'm going to do so again. (But you darn well know I'm going to watch it again). But I do feel it could be a good time to update about a variety of subjects, including the progress of hopefuls for the next 300-game-winner.

Visiting Every MLB Stadium

So I Sunday, April 10, 2022, I watched the Texas Rangers play the Toronto Blue Jays in the Rogers Centre. That in itself isn't a very special event. There have been literally millions of people that havev seen a baseball game in the ballpark that opened as the SkyDome back in 1989. Heck, the Blue Jays led the American League in attendance every year from 1989 through 1994 with numbers that regularly broke 3 million. 

However, it was a very important milestone in my own personal life. After all, the Rogers Centre is the 34th stadium where I've seen a Major League Game. However, four of those ballparks are no longer in use, which means that it took until now when I completed the journey that I'm sure many baseball fans desire: I have seen a game in every active Major League Baseball stadium. 

I'm not sure exactly how many people have completed this journey. I used to think it was a lot, but then I realized that teams are constantly changing their ballparks, most recently my hometown Texas Rangers. They opened up their brand new Globe Life Field in 2020, but thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic there were no fans in the stands until 2021. Sure, they led the league with 2,110,258 fans in 2021, but surely not every one of those 2,110,258 were missing only that one ballpark to complete their set. 

Anyways, I should be proud of my own accomplishment, even though the only reason that I was able to make this trek was because my parents' middle-class upbringing allowed me to go into school and enter a reasonably well-paying profession, which gave me the means with which to travel to all these cities. And now to rub it in I am going to be sharing my story about my visits to each of these stadiums.

Watching Every NHL Team

 

So earlier in the day (I guess it would be yesterday by now), I watched the Dallas Stars beat the Los Angeles Kings in a stunning come-from-behind win by a score of 4-3. It was significant for the Stars in their playoff push as it helped them get into a Wild Card spot. However, more significantly on a personal level, it was the first time that I watched the Kings in person. Which means that in my almost-six years of watching hockey games on the NHL level, I have finally seen all of the teams in person at least once. It took me only 67 games to reach this milestone, 35 games less than it took me to watch all of the MLB teams in person!

Back in 2018 I had written about every MLB team I had seen in order. I will now do the same for the NHL teams.

AMPS 2021: Best Picture Nominees

So back on Christmas I had posted the annual vote for the final Best Picture nominee in the first of my three fake movies awards: the Awards for Motion Picture Services (AMPS). Thanks to all seven of you that decided to humor me in placing your vote, but one film has surfaced as the winner and has been elevated to the fifth and final Best Picture nominee. The full list shall be presented now after the break.

Last year I had done something unprecedented and had y'all vote on the winner. That was a fun little experiment, but there won't be a repeat this year. Feel free to post what you feel should be the winner in the comments below.

Meanwhile, here are the previous years where I posted nominees.
2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020