"Traffic" was better.

It should've won Best Picture. It won Best Director, that's got to mean something. And best adapted screenplay -- I mean, come on!

I saw all five films nominated for Best Picture. "Gladiator" was good, but "Traffic" was more intricate, more developed, more of a challenge to pull off. It had better actors overall; Russell Crowe shone, but the Traffic cast had a lot more depth. It's the first time in a few years I managed to get out to see all the best picture nominees. I first did it in college the year Quiz Show and Shawshank and Forest Gump were nominated. And I saw all five each year for several years after that, except for "Braveheart," which, for some reason, I still haven't seen. I have friends who hate me for it.

But I was happy with the Oscars -- the little bit I did manage to see while working last night. I taped them and will watch it sometime to see all Steve Martin's jokes and the "montage of dead people" as that guy who works with Ebert said tonight on "The Daily Show."

Saturday was the birthday of this guy at work. He lives down in Seaside Heights, a once-pleasant Shore resort with a boardwalk and bars and clubs and summer homes. My grandfather used to have a house down there and my dad would work on the beach in the summers when he was home from college.

But it turned sleazy and while the summer fun and the nightlife still thrives, it's not the same place it once was in the scattered hazy memories of my childhood.

So we went to the Bamboo Bar and I walked into the smoky, hot dance club and was immediately hit with spring break flashbacks. In the first few minutes, while I was looking for the group from work, I thought I saw about four other people I knew. But they were all people from college I thought I was seeing, and I knew it wasn't them. It was weird -- what was it about a club packed with pretty people dancing and drinking that made me think I was back in college?

There's something interesting about going out with the coworkers, seeing normally mild-mannered reporters shakin' that ass on the dance floor. It was amusing, too, how although we range in age from 22 to 40-something, everyone still basically danced in one large circled group in the beginning. I seriously felt like I was out in a club in South Bend. It just wasn't as easy to hook up.

I had this unexplainable cumpulsion to order "Girls Gone Wild" earlier. I don't know why, I don't really want it. Really. I just have this feeling, though, that if I give in, it will get off my TV.

I've never known a girl who went wild, or of a girl who went wild. Maybe I should get it to see if I recognize anyone. I certainly know a few with the potential to go wild. I bet if I went to New Orleans during Mardi Gras or to Miami Beach during spring break or to Cancun ever with a video camera, I could tell girls I would put them on a video if they went wild, and they'd do it.