Back in the day, I ran a little Academy Award prediction contest in the newspaper in which I predicted the results of every Oscar category and challenged brave readers to see if they could top me.

On a typical Oscar year, I might log 17 or so correct predictions — good enough to be in the running in most pools — but occasionally, a reader would best me. In the last few years of the contest, I’d collect all the entries that had performed better than me and randomly pick one of them to win a $25 gift certificate to the mid-valley movie theater of their choice.

Last year, for reasons that you probably can figure out, I took a year off from the contest. This year, as part of the marketing hoopla to launch my website (mikemcinally.com), and also because we all deserve a little bit of a fun distraction, I’m resurrecting the contest. But this year, it’s personal: It’s my own money, not the company’s, at stake.

Here’s the drill: The button below will take you a Google form that you can use to post your own predictions. I’ll compile everyone’s entries, log the ones that best my record, and randomly pick one of those to win the $25. If no one beats me, I’ll keep the money. Ties will be decided in my favor because, well, it’s my money. In other words, to be eligible to win the gift certificate, you have to do better than me.

The deadline to get your predictions back to me is noon Pacific on Sunday, April 25, the day of the Oscar ceremony. I’ll post my final Oscar predictions on the blog no later than Friday, so you’ll have the advantage of seeing my predictions before your noon Sunday deadline. If you need to refresh your memory, here’s a useful list of all the nominations (and feel free to enter The New York Times’ Oscar contest as well, although I see that the Times isn’t offering prizes).

In previous years, as you might remember, the ceremony featured 24 competitive awards; the number now has shrunk to 23, because the two sound categories have been combined into one.

Questions? Comments? Trash talk? Post a comment below or email me at [email protected].