The Gift

Posted on ficly.com

As usual we are running late for, well any kind of occasion, but tonight for my birthday dinner. I’ve been dressed in my tux for a half an hour or more while you’ve been in the bathroom doing whatever it is female’s do.

This scene replays so often that I don’t even glance at my watch or give a shit anymore. I just put the TV on ESPN.

The door opens and you stand there looking at me…

A vision of angels greets me. After all these years, little moments crystallize in my mind of how fucking beautiful you are.

I swoon with pride, lust, and love.

I reach for that special spot on your hip, that place where my body melts into you.

“Baby,” you say, “we’re already late…”

“It’s my fucking birthday.”

We fall into the bed together, breathing each other.

We make love looking into each other’s eyes, slowly, I relish the feeling.

I love this woman.

She orgasms with me, we are in sync.

She looks me in the eyes, “Happy 90th baby.”

True Love

I am absolutely head over heels in love with my wife.

She's a force, a power, a pure element raw and unbalanced. She is like a tide, sweeping away sadness and flooding my high ground with happiness...and kelp.

Today is our 2nd anniversary. So Hurrah to us, I suppose.

I feel like we are cheating. Not on each other but rather cheating the world.

Marriage is supposed to be some sort of Gordian's Knot. Overbearing puzzles that are complicated and dense, confused and snarled. After decades you finally pull out a single string and feel rewarded.

Our marriage is like jumping rope. One string that revolves us. Any problem is one short jump and we move on.

I have friends ask me all the time, "Is it hard?" "What is it like giving up stuff?"

Everyday has been such an utter wonder to me. A blissful exercise of love that I haven't noticed that I have given anything up.

Sure some of my Bachelor things have fallen by the wayside: Dirty laundry, empty fridges, Top Ramen every night for 10 years. No more tapeworms.

To sum up. I have been blessed with many things in life. A loving family, great friends, an education at a major university that was pretty much paid for through my god given talent at absolute bullshit. I have two to five wonderful pets, a flat screen tv, musical instruments all over the place, an Xbox, etc.

Everything means nothing.

I have the love of the most substantial and meaningful person I've ever met. I enjoy the smile of the most charming and intelligent person I've ever met. I live for the kisses of the most beautiful woman in the world.

The most amazing thing about her? She makes me feel as I deserve it all.

I love you baby, happy anniversary.

Updates, Get your updates here

The wife and I had a great weekend. Little anticlimactic at the end but through no faults of our own. Something that has been building for over seven years, gasp, came and went like a fart in the wind.

I guess I'm mostly disappointed in my own apathy. I feel like I'm that asshole that sees creation being made from me. The Lord Almighty plucking the threads out of chaos and weaving together a masterwork of breath, flesh, and heart.

I'd be that guy in the back going, "pfftt, crappy cgi."

I've been estranged from particular family members for most of my twenties. I finally ate crow and went to dinner went them all...at one time.

My comments leaving, "meh..."

That's it.

I don't feel as if this burden has left my shoulders. I'm Atlas, bent backed without a globe.

So, good weekend over all, except it turns out I'm an emotionless robot.

In other news, got my ass a new book:One of the most addicting books I've picked up in a long time. A truly fun read, that actually works as pretty deep political commentary.

Laterdayswilliemays,
B







In Pittsburgh, Sam has another dream. One of flying through the ages.

Movie Review://Watchmen

Ahh yes...

Watchmen. One of the best and most controversial properties around. "The Citizen Kane of Graphic Novels" state by most, "And completely unfilmable" by others.

Short Review://As fine as a adaptation possible.

Long Review://It is filmable, but damn near inaccessible.

Some things are passed down through history. Beowulf survived near a thousand years to bore high school freshman and become a marginal cartoon. Homer's works weren't written down for years and yet here we are perverting his work so Brad Pitt could look good in a toga.

I have to believe that the recipent of these works through the years before mass consumerism felt special, like part of a clique or a club.

In my years as an English Major, James Joyce was sort of this elitist secret handshake. If you got his work you were considered a higher sophisticate than the other lowly students.

My secret club was Watchmen.

I struck up a casual conversation with an acquaintance. I professed my spotty memories of comics books as a kid/teen. I didn't know much. The only comic book I got with any regularity was GI Joe. All that led to was playground beatings.

The guy I with whom I was speaking just slowly nodded his head and left. He came back with a beat to hell copy of Watchmen. Frayed and discolored.

He said, "This is all you need to know about comics."

I thanked him and went back to my dorm room. By page 10 I had left to buy my own copy. By the next morning I had finished the novel for the second time.

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is one of the great catalysts of my life. As a work of narrative fiction it thought me the great skill of concise expansion. Of speculative realism. Of perfect catastrophe.

In short, I loved it.

Over the years I've been able to be the great wizard of knowledge and pass my copy on to a few people, all without fail return it to me the next day having already bought copies for themselves.

I have one friend that had an amazing collection of comics who after reading Watchmen told me that he could never read another book. A little dramatic but speaks to the dividing line this book creates.

So they made a movie of it.

Actually this is the third major attempt at making this movie. Terry Gilliam declared Watchmen, "unfilmable" and ran to the hills to fail at making Man of La Mancha for 20 years.

I never understood Christianity's opposition to Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ. But the prospect of some dude destroying Watchmen and perverting, made me sympathetic at least.

I was terrified and excited about this movie for so long that the fact that I've seen it twice already barely registers.

But I did see it. And it was Watchmen. Every single frame of the movie was Dave Gibbons. Rorshach was Rorshach, Nite Owl was Nite Owl, and Dr. Manhattan was in the blue flesh, swinging genatalia and all.

Jackie Earle Haley knocked it out of the park. I haven't been that impressed with a character since Ledger's Joker.

I've written 500 words about how much I love the book before I talked about the movie, just to show that I have a great love for the work. My wife however, never read it.

Correction, she started to read it and I took it back from her. Sort of mean, I know.

So she sat next to me and watched it twice.

She enjoyed the film. She got it. However, I kept feeling the need to explain, to fill in the holes.

One thing we both agreed on was the new ending may have worked better than the original.

So to sum up. The movie did not dissapoint. I loved it. But the movie did not seem to give the impression of a great work. The permanence of the piece, the lasting effect, the legend wasn't there.

I don't see in fifty years in a college dorm somewhere, some kid that smells faintly of hashish passing on the DVD to some other bright eye kid. The book will still remain the legacy.

Check out this comic, man. Oh yeah, they didn't fuck up the movie either.

Brandon Tries Acupuncture

My back is an asshole.

He is deliberately trying to kill me.

For weeks now I've been losing sleep and good will karma due to this villain knotting me.

It is bad.

Like Teen Wolf Too bad.

Like Karate Kid III bad.

So finally, my wife demands that I go to urgent care because she can't stand my kvetching any longer.

I go in and the doctor lifts up my shirt and barely even looks at me.

"Yeah your back sucks."

"Tell me about it Quackers, what are you going to do about it?"

"I do acupuncture, lay down."

Bam, bam, bam, bam

30 seconds later, I'm dancing around like Gene F'ing Kelly.

Seriously, it might be the greatest thing I've ever done to my buddy. Excluding that time I won five bucks for drinking an entire bottle of Listerine.

I, Defeated

A quick note, more to follow.

My wife beat me down 15 to 12 last night at the Oscars.

Stupid Best Sound Mixing Award gets me every time.

The penalty is still not set but watch your local news, I'm sure me arrested for public nudity is at the top of her list.

I, Valentine

Valentine's day is upon us...

My wife and I don't really make a big deal out of it. First, it's a fake holiday created by Hallmark, but mainly since Hannukah/Christmas is in December and we have our anniversary, my birthday, and her birthday all within 3 to 4 weeks after each other; it gets a little much.

However, that does not mean that I don't take the opportunity to state my love for this amazing holiday.

I love my wife.

Those four words are as simplistic as it gets. Nothing over a syllable and takes all of a second to say. In a Literary sense, they don't represent some grand ideal or weight. The books that have that sentence the most are considered pulpy romance at best.

Yet, they are the center of my entire existence.

They are my lodestone.

My true North.

The simple fact that when those four words leave my mouth that they cease to be a declarative substance thrills me still.

They are my foundation.

My atmosphere.

I can not have a single thought without it going through this filter...I Love My Wife. Those words breath, they are alive. They have weight.

They are my machine.

They are my soul.

They are the algebra of my brain. I LOVE MY WIFE! A sweet snack with no calories or guilt.

Why do I love her so?

Because she loves me so completely and more importantly makes me feel worthy of her love.

As much as I can say about her and my love for her, she loves me more.

I've never been happier.

Weekend Wrapup://Better Late...

Great great weekend, phenomenal , and sensational. No worries.

1.30.2009://Work, Groceries, and Ghostbusters. That's the perfect end to a work day. My wife has never seen Ghost Busters and after I recovered from the shock induced coronary we watched that bad boy. Funny thing is I've not seen the original in about a decade. I kept repeating, "don't worry the second one is better." Not to say the first one is bad but introducing it to someone for the first time in 2009 it seems corny.

1.31.2009://Went to Hemet to visit my wife's 92 year old grandma who is recovering from hip replacement surgery. Drove an hour down there to look in on a cripple feeble woman who is a week away from surgery. She kicked us out in 15 mins so she could go get her hair did. Amazing chick.

Drove an hour home and went straight to the movies for a double feature of Taken with Liam Neeson and Frost/Nixon with Kevin Bacon. Both were great. I'm slowly but surely getting all those Oscar movies taken care of.

Ended the night playing with the puppies.

2.1.2009://Cleaned and prepped for the Super....Well the Big Game. (I hear you get sued if you say Super...). I am nominally a Raiders fan but since they haven't played a game since Reagan's adminstration I tend to lend my heart to the Steelers. Living outside of Pittsburgh for the better part of a decade will do that.

Great game. Invited my father in law to watch the game and surprisingly my wife stayed awake the entire time.

Bummer://Nothing really. It was a fantastic weekend

A sad Anniversary

Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the Challenger Disaster.



My wife and I grew up close yet far from each other. We had some overlap but never went to the same school and after 13 I lived in West Virginia.

Yet it's very strange when talking about things that we have the same exact memory of 1.28.1986

Sitting in school watching with our class and our teacher balling their eyes out.

I was in Kindergarten and I remember thinking that maybe some of the astronauts were riding the two rockets on the side that were still going.

This is one of the saddest days of my childhood.

Weekend Wrapup://Birth and Taxes; The Circle of Life

Another fantastic weekend. I tell you 2009 has set a truly exceptional high water mark. I keep expect the shoes to drop and...Well I don't know, make me walk barefoot over thumbtacks. Weird.

I finally got over the death of InfoTron 3000. He touched my heart truly and deeply. But he would've had wanted me to be sad, rather he'd have wanted me to move on. Begin writing with another partner. Someone I could create with...someone to download porn. Sniff, oh the memories.


1.23.2009://Got home after work and just sat around and talked to the wife. She is a constant surprise to me. How did I get so lucky. Her charm and intelligence disarm me everyday. Also, her lack of experience is shocking. How did she get this many years into life without watching Back to the Future? I remedied the situation. Review from my wife: I loved it!

1.24.2009://Tax time. Boo. I screwed up my taxes for the year by accidently changing my W-9 to not withhold any taxes. For the entire year I only had like $1800 paid into the Feds. So I was sweating at the H+R Block place ready to get hit with this giant bill. Turns out, much ado about nothing. My wife's extra with holding got us a pretty hefty return. Enough as it turns out to add to the family.

Lappy 5000 is here and boy is he awesome. Sniff, InfoTron would be so proud.

Did laundry with the hellspawn of the lower rings. I miss the 1950's where it was perfectly alright to backhand someone else's kids even if you were a stranger.

Since we watched Back to the Future we might as well go for the rest. My wife has movie narcolepsy and falls asleep 30 mins before the movie is over. So we started the day by watching the last 30 of BttF I and immediately followed by watching BttF II. Now as a kid BttF II was released a few years after the first one so I don't think I've ever watched them back to back. Boy was it weird. The recasting and refilming was so cheap it took me out of the movie.

Finished the night with about 8 fingers of Jameson and a few beers.

1.25.2009://Went to my 10 year old cousin's B-day at John's Incredible Pizza. I need to slap the owner around the head with a dictionary because Incredible it was not. More like John's Incredible Disappointment.

Ended the night watching Big Love and United States of Tara.

Bummer://No real bad stuff this weekend. Didn't have time to watch BttF III though. Probably tonight

Oscars://The Nominees

My wife and I are obsessed with movies so we always look forward to the awards, as old fashioned and out of touch as they are.

Here are the nominees:

The nominees for the 81st Academy Awards were announced by Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Gannis and Academy member Forest Whitaker who won the Leading Actor Oscar for his role in 2006's "The Last King of Scotland."

The nominees are:

Best Motion Picture of the Year://
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"Slumdog Millionaire"
"Milk"
"Frost Nixon"
"The Reader"

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role://
Frank Langella, "Frost/Nixon"
Sean Penn, "Milk"
Brad Pitt, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler"
Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role://
Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"
Angelina Jolie, "Changeling"
Meryl Streep, "Doubt"
Kate Winslet, "The Reader"
Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role://
Josh Brolin, "Milk"
Robert Downey, Jr., "Tropic Thunder"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Doubt"
Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Michael Shannon, "Revolutionary Road"

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role://
Amy Adams, "Doubt"
Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Christina Barcelona"
Viola Davis, "Doubt"
Taraji P. Henson, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Marisa Tomei, "The Wrestler"

Achievement in Directing://
Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
David Fincher, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Stephen Daldry, "The Reader"
Gus Van Sant, "Milk"
Ron Howard, "Frost/Nixon"

Best Animated Film://
"Bolt"
"Kung Fu Panda"
"WALL-E"

Best Original Screenplay://
Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Martin McDonough, In Bruges
Andrew Stanton, Wall-E

Best Adapted Screenplay://
Eric Roth, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
John Patrick Shanley, "Doubt"
Peter Morgan, "Frost/Nixon"
David Hare, "The Reader"
Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"

Best Foreign Language Film://
"The Baader Meinhof Complex," Germany
"The Class," France
"Departures," Japan
"Revanche," Austria
"Waltz With Bashir,"Israel

Best Documentary://
"The Betrayal" (Nerakhoon)
"Encounters at the End of the World"
"The Garden"
"Man on Wire"
"Trouble the Water"

Best Original Song://
“Down To Earth," "WALL-E"
“Jai Ho," "Slumdog Millionaire"
“O Saya," Slumdog Millionaire"

Best Original Score://
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Alexandre Desplat
"Defiance," James Newton Howard
"Milk," Danny Elfman
"Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman
"WALL-E," Thomas Newman

Best Film Editing://
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
“The Dark Knight,” Lee Smith
“Frost/Nixon,” Mike Hill, Dan Hanley
“Milk,” Elliot Graham
“Slumdog Millionaire,” Chris Dickens

Best Cinematography://
“Changeling,” Tom Stern
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Claudio Miranda
“The Dark Night,” Wally Pfister
“The Reader,” Chris Menges, Roger Deakins
“Slumdog Millionaire,” Anthony Dod Mantle

Best Art Direction://
“Changeling,” James J. Murakami, Gary Fettis
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo
“The Dark Night,” Nathan Crowley, Peter Lando
“The Duchess,” Michael Carlin, Rebecca Alleway
“Revolutionary Road,” Kristi Zea, Debra Schutt

Best Costume Design://
“Australia,” Catherine Martin
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Jacqueline West
“The Duchess,” Michael O’Connor
“Milk,” Danny Glicker
“Revolutionary Road,” Albert Wolsky

Best Visual Effects://
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron
“The Dark Knight,” Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber, Paul Franklin
“Iron Man,” John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick, Shane Mahan

Best Sound Editing://
“The Dark Knight,” Richard King
“Iron Man,” Frank Eulner, Christopher Boyes
“Slumdog Millionaire,” Tom Sayers
“WALL-E,” Ben Burtt, Matthew Wood
“Wanted,” Wylie Stateman

Best Sound Mixing://
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, Mark Weingarten
“The Dark Knight,” Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick
“Slumdog Millionaire,” Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty
“WALL-E,” Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, Ben Burtt
“Wanted,” Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño, Petr Forejt

Best Makeup://
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Greg Cannom
“The Dark Knight, John Caglione, Jr., Conor O’Sullivan
Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Mike Elizalde, Thom Floutz

Best Documentary Short Subject://
“The Conscience of Nhem En,” Steven Okazaki
“The Final Inch,” Irene Taylor Brodsky, Tom Grant
“Smile Pinki,” Megan Mylan
“The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306,” Adam Petofsky, Margaret Hyde

Best Animated Short Film://
“La Maison de Petits Cubes,” Kunio Kato
“Lavatory - Lovestory,” Konstantin Bronzit
“Oktapodi,” Emud Mokhberi, Thierry Marchand
“Presto,” Doug Sweetland
“This Way Up,” Alan Smith, Adam Foulkes

Best Live Action Short Film://
“Auf der Strecke” (On the Line),” Reto Caffi
“Manon on the Asphalt,” Elizabeth Marre, Olivier Pont
“New Boy,” Steph Green, Tamara Anghie
“The Pig,” Tivi Magnusson, Dorte Høgh
“Spielzeugland” (Toyland), Jochen Alexander Freydan

This year's show will be hosted by Hugh Jackman and telecast on Sunday, Feb. 22 at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST on ABC.

Weekend Wrapup://Sitting Shiva

Good weekend overall, except for one thing that all my writer friends know as the absolute maw of the beast; yet all my non writing compadres, including my wife don't really understand the gravity.

InfoTron 3000, beloved friend and family member, left this world for the next early Saturday morning. InfoTron 3000 passed following a long illness. InfoTron or "Tronny" is survived by his brother's Sterophonic 3200, MP3izzle, XBOX 360, and Flat Screen McQueen.

He will be missed.




1.16.2009://After work the wife and I scooted our asses to the Temple for Shabbat services. I'm all for the reaffirmation of faith, but my wife's exuberance towards her conversion is leading me down the path of a numbed ass. It's good to see her so happy though.

1.17.2009://Slept in on Saturday a little. Did some work around the house as the wife was working overtime at her job. Made dinner for the father-in-law and took it over to him. Went to Ikea and bought a light. I love that place. Finished the night off by going rollerskating for th first time since the Reagan adminstration. Did not fall.

1.18.2009://Slept the sleep of the dead thanks to a fistful of darvoset to cure my back. Roller skating and a poor center of balance do not mix. Watch Obama's speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial. Cried. Woke my wife up from a nap and made her watch the speech with me again. Cried. Went to two movies. Gran Torino is a great movie but a little jumpy. Cried. Slumdog Millionaire may be the best movie of the year and one of the best I've ever seen. Cried.

A pretty great weekend if you ask me

Bummer:// No computer means no weekend writing.

I, Uninspired

Nothing really of note to mention today.

I've felt very lethargic lately, especially as it relates to writing. I needs to get out of my funk.

For those of you visiting from CC, my first draft of "Going Through the Motions" is up for review. Please feel free to rip it apart. Everytime I start to review it, I don't know where to cut or add. It seems to me it needs a blind rewrite but that just becomes another first draft.

I watched Stardust again with my wife last night. I would review it but there's not much to say about it that it doesn't say for itself. Simply saying I love it doesn't really mean anything. Here's my pull quote: Stardust makes you smile.

I'm itching to start the outline for Masada. The visions of the pieces are starting to distract me from real actual work. However, I also feel I haven't created enough backstory. And as I learned the hard way on The Last Happiness not having enough planning leads to an unexpected hiccup that crashes the whole thing. I'm slowly falling in love with the ideas of the piece and I don't want to shortchange them like I did Billy and Seth.

Sarah's 92 year old grandmother broke her hip for the third time last night. She's getting it replaced today. Sarah is being brave but I can tell she is concerned, probably more for her mother than g-ma.

Sarah and I have a meeting with the Rabbi tonight. I'm sure we are going to speak about "The Problem," something I haven't written about but will soon. As a self aggrandized Fiction Writer, some things happen in life that you just can't make up.

Anyshits,

Laterdayswilliemays
Brandon

Movie Review://The Wrestler

I wrote here about the circumstances of how I was to view the movie. It in fact happened and now I can discuss just what in the hell I saw.

Perfection in every sense of the word.

Darren Aronofsky has come to be one of my favorite directors for his vision. Every single frame of his movies Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain are beautiful and very very precise. His vision is one of controlled abstraction. The Wrestler is made by someone else completely. Not only is the look grainy and hand held, for the most part it is claustrophobic. A continuing theme is to film the actors walking into their performances with the camera directly behind their head. It is stifling and fitting.

Mickey Rourke not only put in the performance you've been reading about, he put anything you heard to shame. This guy was supposed to be the next De Niro and drugs and attitude nearly made him the next Danny Bonaduce. The final act of this film is such a testament to the character and Rourke's career. I had goosebumps on the drive home.

Marissa Tomei appeared to give a small little cameo until later in the movie when the focus shifted a little. She was brazen, gutsy and channeling Rourke's need to legitimize herself as an aging actress looking for respected. She plays an aging stripper looking for respect.

The parallels between the two characters in their respective twilight is haunting.

The film is not happy and raises more questions than it answers. You are in an entirely different place at the end of the film than you were at the beginning but maybe not for the better, emotionally.

As a former columnist about wrestling I can say that for the most part it was very real as it showed the "sport." It did not pander.

This is one of my favorite movies of the Oscar season and I hope Rourke can follow up his Golden Globe with a little gold man. It is his to lose.

Grade:// 10 Ram Jam's out of 10

PS://The QA with Marissa Tomei was an absolute abortion. Whoever was the moderator was more impressed with himself than he was the actress. Marissa looked like she forgot she was supposed to be there and was on her way somewhere else.

PSS://Note to the marketing people for a movie entitled "The Wrestler" and in which your lead actress is naked 85% of the time: Wrestling fans are goons, don't give them a venue to talk to an actress that they just saw play a stripper. It got uncomfortable quick.

Weekend Wrap Up://The Good, The Better, and the Unfortunate

I don't normally blog on the weekends because I love my wife to a point of near paralyzing distraction. And by that I mean, I am simple stupefied when I'm more than three feet away from her.

So here's what I've been up to since we last spoke

1.09.2009://Drove to LA to see the movie The Wrestler and a QA with Marissa Tomei. I'm a pessimist at heart so I tend not to think things are actually going to happen until five minutes after they start. In short, it was a perfect night. I'll write more about it later.

1.10.2009://My wife and I decided to host a dinner party for an ex bandmate of mine and his wife. So we spent the whole day cleaning the house top to bottom. I cooked baked ziti with hot peppers. Then we went to a bar and my friend picked up the check for of $100 worth of booze, but because they opened the tab on my card, guess what's pending in my bank account.

Did not watch football, but I'm reeling from Arizona being in the NFC Championship

1.11.2009://Hangover, though art loosed. Spent most of the day in bed as a vegatable. Watch football nearly all day including when my father in law came over to patch the drywall from where the dogs chewed through.

Cards vs Eagles, really?

The end of the day became sad as I took my male dog to my father in law's so he can get neutered today. Poor guy.

All in all one of my favorite weekends and a good way to start the year

Bummer://No reading or writing completed at all

The Wrap-Up:// 2008 the best of's in the life of Brandon

I notice around this time there are a lot of best of lists for every web page. Makes sense, the party's over and time to take stock of everything the last year had. So why not I?

The following is the way I see it, regardless of critical reviews.

So here's my listing of the Top (Whatever) of 2008:

Top Movie of 2008:

The Nominees:
The Dark Knight
The Hammer
The Bank Job

The envelope please: The Dark Knight (shocker!)

Best TV Show of 2008:

The Nominees:
Sons of Anarchy (FX)
Dexter (Showtime)
True Blood (HBO)

The envelope please: True Blood

Best Book I read in 2008*

The Nominees:
Dexter in the Dark
No Country for Old Men
Schindler's List

The envelope please: No Country for Old Men

*Nominees were selected based on 2008 was the first time I read these books


Best New CD in 2008:

The Nominees:
Metallica Death Magnetic
Guns N Roses Chinese Democracy
Portishead Third

The envelope please: GNFR baby!


Best Videogame in 2008:

The Nominees:
Fable II
GTA IV
Fallout 3

The envelope please: Fallout 3


Best Sports Moment in 2008:

The Nominees:
Giants defeating 18-0 Patriots in Superbowl
WVU upsetting Oklahoma in Fiesta Bowl
Pat White's last game as a senior throwing for 300+ yards

The envelope please: Super Superbowl


Favorite Live Music Moment of 2008

The Nominees:
Glassjaw Reunion
Me playing the Knitting Factory
My bassline on Tricky

The envelope please: Glassjaw Reunion (I'd assumed I'd win this category)


Greatest Writing Achievement in 2008

Learning how to write and completing my first screenplay


Greatest Life Moment of 2008:

The Nominees:
New puppies Rocktobertron and Charley Charley BBQ
Moving to a new apartment
First full calender year of being married to the most wonderful woman in the world
Said beautiful woman buying me a 42" Plasma Screen

The envelope please: A tie! My wife wins everything.

Movie Review Prequel:// The Wrestler

This will be a place holder as I've not seen the movie yet, although if you scroll down my columns you can see this is a movie I'm dying to see.

I will be seeing it tonight. With my wife and the star of the movie Marissa Tomei.

One of the benefits of living thirty minutes outside of LA is that from time to time opportunities to go to special release as a civilian is always around the corner. So a simple click and our special passes are at the Will Call.

I used to write for a wrestling website, so I was obviously way into the sports-entertainment field. I stopped all of that that though about 10 years ago because, really I should've stop way before then. But this movie isn't really about wrestling, or so I've been told. It's about a man who's better days are long gone getting his second second chance.

And that man is Mickey Rourke, an actor dying for his second second chance. What he could of been sends chills up my spine.

The buzz he is getting for this movie is that the Oscar is his for the taking.

I will post the review tonight or tomorrow but here are some other opinons:

Rotten Tomatoes.com: 98% Fresh Pick