11:49 p.m.:  Original Screenplay winner Michael Arndt is as quiet and deadpan as Steve Carell's character in Little Miss Sunshine, but owing to the shiny statuette in his hand, I'm guessing not nearly as suicidal.

11:51 p.m.:  Growing up, Arndt's own family owned a Volkswagen bus. "Everything that happened to our VW bus," he says, "happened in the movie."

11:52 p.m.:  I have no idea how Arndt's family escaped charges for hauling Alan Arkin's dead body across state lines.

11:56 p.m.:  A "reporter" asks Melissa Etheridge how she thinks Ellen DeGeneres is doing as Oscar emcee because, you know, Etheridge is openly gay and all, and therefore must have an opinion on another openly gay person.

11:57 p.m.:  "I think she's doing a wonderful job," a polite and sincere Etheridge says of DeGeneres.

11:57 p.m.:  "I think the Oscars are like a gay holiday," Etheridge says, expanding on the DeGeneres theme. "So, it's really meaningful that, Ellen or myself, that there's no token gay here."

11:58 p.m.:  Etheridge isn't one to be photographed smooching in public, so yes, she did discuss kissing "wife" Tammy Lynn Michaels on camera before the ceremony. Not that the move wasn't spontaneous. "I was kissing her because that's what you do—you kiss your loved one," she says.

12:00 a.m.:  "Uh, yeah..." says Etheridge, on whether she was surprised she beat Dreamgirls—three times.

12:01 a.m.:  "This is the only naked man who'll ever be in my bedroom," Etheridge jokes of her Oscar statue.

12:02 a.m.:  Who does Etheridge think she is? Al Gore?

12:08 a.m.:  Behold the sign of the Taco Bell rats! Scorsese wins!

12:12 a.m.:  Best Actress in a Supporting Role Jennifer Hudson is a newcomer who doesn't seem fazed by much. Not by winning the Oscar. And not by Eddie Murphy, a favorite like her, not winning the Oscar. "You can never be too sure," the Dreamgirls star tells me of what went through her head after costar Murphy lost. "I mean, you never know. It can go either way."

12:14 a.m.:  Hudson, like Sherry Lansing, is from Chicago, and, thus, blessed with good, solid roots specific to the Midwest, as she and reporters from Chicago remind us all.

12:15 a.m.:  If Hudson's not careful, my untamed L.A. self is going to run up there and grab her Oscar.

12:18 a.m.:  Hudson is asked what she thinks of the Oscar's history of honoring black actors.

12:24 a.m.:  Hudson, who has been winning awards for almost three straight months, is on her talking points: She's dropping an album this fall, she thinks American Idol is a "great platform," and she doesn't think success will change her or her relationship. "He's a regular guy. And I'm a regular girl," she says of her and her boyfriend, adding (ominously?), "at least I was."

12:30 a.m.:  Forest Whitaker, his newly minted Best Actor Oscar for The Last King of Scotland in hand, still looks pumped—in his low-key Forest Whitaker way, meaning, I think I caught him catching an extra breath.

12:34 a.m.:  Whitaker had a feeling something was going to happen tonight. "I could feel the breath on my neck," he says. "I could feel a tingling on my body."

12:41 a.m.:  And now you know, Whitaker is going to store his Oscar on—wait for it...wait for it—a shelf!

12:48 a.m.:  I have to know, Alan Arkin: When you saw the Norbit billboards going up all over town, did you see your Oscar odds going up as well? "This is not about furlongs," the Best Actor in a Supporting Role winner tells me. "I don't believe in competition between artists. This is a fun kind of insanity...I don't keep score. I'm happy I have this. It's very nice. But I don't keep score."

12:49 a.m.:  For the record, Arkin has no idea how he scored the upset win? "I haven't got a clue," he says. "I have no idea."

12:52 a.m.:  Arkin says he doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about Oscar nominations, which is good, because he went almost 40 years between his two.

12:56 a.m.:  It has been a very long night. So, forgive Best Actress Oscar winner Mirren if she has to fiddle with the bottom of her gown before she fields questions.

12:57 a.m.:  I'd say the Queen star looks regal, except Queen Elizabeth is regal, and she doesn't look remotely as stylish as Mirren.

12:57 a.m.:  For the record, Mirren feels regal. "I really do feel like a queen or a princess or a fairy godmother," she says.

12:58 a.m.:  "Big posse!" Dame Helen Mirren just said "big posse!" (She was referring to the family and friends assembled around her for Oscar weekend.)

12:59 a.m.:  No offense, but Mirren carries off "Big posse!" better than Gore carries off "Whooo!"

1 a.m.:  Mirren's listening to, and answering, a question in French. Showoff.

1:03 a.m.:  "Not ever," Mirren says, on whether she's expecting a congratulatory call from the real queen.

1:05 a.m.:  Martin Scorsese looks stunned by the sights and sounds of the press room. Oh yeah...he's never been back here before.

1:06 a.m.:  Scorsese lost so many times over so many years, he devised a surefire coping mechanism: "I just get used to not winning."

1:08 a.m.:  Apparently, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola had a Forest Whitaker-like feeling that tonight was Scorsese's night. "To see them give me a little look before they opened the envelope," Scorsese says of his pre-Oscar-winning moment, "I was surprised."

1:12 a.m.:  Scorsese lost so many times over so many years, he devised a second surefire coping mechanism: He convinced himself that losing wasn't so bad. "It's a good thing I didn't get it before, because maybe it would have changed the movies I would have made," he says very convincingly. "I'm glad it took this long."

1:20 a.m.:  Does Graham King, producer of Best Picture winner The Departed, believe in signs? Specifically, does he believe in rat signs? "I actually didn't see that footage," King says of the Taco Bell invasion that foretold his big win. "I'd like to, though."

1:21 a.m.:  Hey, Taco Bell rats, call your agent. Scorsese's people may be interested.