Day 6 (Tuesday, January 22):

I know a lot of readers are dying to know whether I got up early again today, bringing my streak of professionalism and efficiency to six days. The answer is that I got up at 9 a.m. I grant you that some people don’t consider 9 a.m. to be “early,” but in my defense, those people can eat me.

First on my agenda, naturally, was to hop on the ol’ Interwebs to see the Oscar nominations. The Academy changed its schedule a few years ago, moving the nominations up so that now they’re always announced during Sundance. It’s a way of making entertainment journalists’ heads explode from trying to cover two major stories at once. Before the day was over, many of those heads would explode a second time.

My first screening of the day was “Towelhead,” the directorial debut of Alan Ball, who wrote “American Beauty” and created HBO’s “Six Feet Under.” I was surprised to learn that “Towelhead” was based on someone else’s novel, as the subject matter seems very Alan Ball-ish, dealing once again with suburban hypocrisy and treachery.

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