Well, for the first time in memory, I watched the Acedemy Awards ceremony last night without having first seen any of the Best Picture nominees. In fact, the only nominated films in any category that I saw were Brave and The Avengers.

Actually, I didn’t even watch the whole program. We turned it on late, thereby missing the opening monologue, which is generally the most entertaining part. I also went to bed early, and didn’t know who or what won for actor, actress, director, and picture until this morning.

The bottom line is that I really have nothing to say about Argo winning for Best Picture. I hear it was a slight upset, as Lincoln was favored and Life of Pi, by virtue of its numerous nominations, was second-favored. Ask me in a few months, after all these flicks have been made available on DVD, and I’ll be happy to offer an opinion. In fact, I’ll probably offer my opinion here, on this blog, even if you don’t ask.

But in keeping with the spirit of the Oscars, I present this list. Below you will find a list of all the Best Picture winners since 1990. In the third column, I offer my (very brief) opinion. The one-word opinions breakdown thusly:

Bravo!: The Academy nailed it, as far as I can see. In other words, I’m in complete agreement with that year’s win.

Fine: There were better options, which I list in column four, but the film that won was a good choice, and I can’t really gripe about it.

Meh: This film wasn’t my thing. There were better options, which I list in column four, but I can still see why they picked this one. I can respect their choice, even if I disagree.

Yuck: I am baffled that this crap was even nominated, and utterly shocked that it won. What were they thinking? Is it too late to do this year over again? I list two superior choices in column four, though I could easily list another five or six preferable films from that year.

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I was going to submit an essay to this online magazine, but after perusing the articles, I nixed the idea. Of note was this doozy, in which the author notes that Father’s Day is less important than Mother’s Day. He says his article is controversial. I’m not sure why. He’s basically saying, hey, kids, give Dad the same due you would give Mom. Sounds good to me; not sure why anyone would feel that’s controversial.

Instead of being controversial, I found the article stupid. He starts off by noting that Mother’s Day is a bigger deal than Father’s Day. Apart from citing Wikipedia, though, he doesn’t have any solid way to back up his claim. And his Wikipedia citation is merely to note that Father’s Day evolved many years after Mother’s Day. Which proves…well, nothing. The Super Bowl came into existence after the World Series, so, to use Eber’s logic, that makes the World Series a bigger deal, right? And since Valentine’s Day came into being before Thanksgiving, I suppose that makes Valentine’s Day a bigger deal, too, right?

Then he notes how difficult it can be as a father (which I agree with) by offering this lame anecdote that has nothing to do with fatherhood:

As a partner in a law firm for many years, I observed my male colleagues put in their 80-hour workweeks while trying to meet their wives’ expectations that they be home in time for dinner every night and turn down most, if not all, business trips.

Oh, man, that’s so true. I can’t tell you how tough it is to work all day, only to have my spouse expect me to spend some time with her. Man, at the end of the day, if there’s one thing I hate doing, it’s leaving work and going home for dinner. Sometimes life can be so impossible for fathers.

But wait, it gets worse:

It’s now understood that if son Jake is on the soccer team, dad is the team coach. When little Susie takes to the stage as the lead elf in the school play, dad must be in the audience. Is this work life balance? [sic]

Yeah, you really nailed it that time, Eber. It’s so unbalanced to work 80 hours a week and be expected to participate in your kids’ lives. I know when I went to my son’s school last week to have lunch with him and play games with his class, I kept thinking, “Damn, this is so unfair. I’m only gonna be at work 45 hours this week as it is, and now my lousy son goes and interferes with that time.” And what is “work life balance,” anyway?

 The article ends on a low note, straight out of Leave it to Beaver, in which he asserts that “dads are easy to please” and all they really want for Father’s Day is to not have to be home with their kids. That’s right, Eber claims that, on Father’s Day, men want to be excused from their nagging wives – who are constantly insisting they get projects done around the house – and go play golf with their friends.

In our house, I am probably more driven to get stuff done around the house than my wife, and I look forward to the weekends to be with my kids and work on our house and yard. The idea that there’s a “honey-do” list implies that it’s only my wife who wants to, for example, finish our daughter’s room, and that I only begrudgingly participate. Unlike Eber, I won’t speak for all dads, but I know I’m not alone.

Also – far from feeling cheated when I have to go to work early or late (or not at all) because my kids have activities going on – I would feel like a complete asshole if I wasn’t with them during special occassions. Having to work late is understandable, but golf? Come on.

Today, Feburary 11th, is National African American Parent Involvement Day (NAAPID). So, since my ancestors are from Africa (well, if you go back far enough), I figured I’d better get involved in my son’s school day.

Actually, despite the event’s name, the day is open to parents of all ethnic persuasions and identifications, and there were plenty of other parents at Owen’s school today from different continents-of-origin.

First, I brought Owen to school and went in and had breakfast with him. We grabbed breakfast from the cafeteria, then headed over to his locker. His locker has four coat hooks in it, but Owen doesn’t use any of them; he just shoves his jacket, snowpants, and backpack in there. He also shoved my jacket in there and then complained that, for some reason, he couldn’t get his locker door to shut properly. We then went into his classroom where I sat and ate with him. I was a tad mortified to see I was the only parent, but Owen didn’t seem to care. Once the day began, the teacher and the students sang a “Good Morning” song (Owen didn’t sing – but he said that’s because he was busy eating), and then I took off for a couple of hours until lunch time.

At lunch, I again met up with Owen and again went to the cafeteria. I had a chick drumstick for the first time in about three years. Owen promptly called me out on it, but I explained that there were no other options. Actually, there were these wraps, but they had cold cuts in them, so that looked very unappatizing. I guess I could’ve nixed the chicken and just overloaded on the salad bar, but at the time the lunch lady dropped a drummy on my tray, I didn’t know there was a salad bar option. Speaking of salad bar, Owen’s salad consisted of the following three ingredients (and only the following three ingredients):

-Cherry tomatoes

-Diced tomatoes

-Ranch dressing

While eating, I asked Owen if he always sits at this same table with these same students. He shrugged like that was the dumbest question he’d heard all day. “No,” he answered, “I jsut sit whereever.” I’m glad to see he and his peers spice it up a bit – back in my day, all the kids sat at the same table every day – first grade through twelfth. I was also happy to see that there was a “sharing tray,” which is a place where you can set unopened food and drink to share with kids who forgot their money or lunch. I was more than happy to set my chocolate milk on that tray and I offered up a silent curse to my former elementary schools as I did so. Long story.

Anyway, after lunch, I went back to Owen’s classroom. Most of the kids’ parents were there, too, and we all played math games. First Owen and I played a game with fake money along with one of his classmates (whose mom hadn’t arrived yet). Then we played a second money game with the kid and his mom. He and his mom were very kind, and his mom explained that she had to run over to the Kindergarten class after this to go be with her other child, and that she also had two younger children at home. Wow. I was impressed with her ability to find time to come to her oldest’s class.

Then Owen and I played a number-guessing game by ourselves. And then it was time for the normal day to resume, so the other parents and I took off.

All in all, a good parent involvement day. Totally kicked ass over going to work today.

After over six weeks of no school, I returned to class for the spring semester just as January was ending (i.e., 2:30 on the 31st). Immediately after leaving class, I walked across campus to the school book store and allowed my wallet to be mugged (i.e., I left with the six books required for the class). Here’s a picture of what I’ll be reading between now and May 19th:

Perhaps, in a few months, I’ll have something to say about these books – in fact, I will have something to say, since participation is 20% of the grade and I aim to spout my thoughts on these books like an OCD over-achiever – but, in the meantime, I thought I’d offer brief reviews on the books I read while on college hiatus…

The 2013 St. Paul Almanac (compilation)

My primary reason for reading this is, as I’ve said before, my writings are in it. So, naturally, this book is awesome. No, really: it was a lot of fun to read. I learned a lot about my hometown, enjoyed the references to landmarks in my neighborhood I have heretofore been ignorant of, and loved the variety of writing styles. Some of the poems were great, and nearly every short story held my attention. The weird thing though, was the end of the book (the “December” section). It ends with half a dozen essays; I didn’t like any of them. I couldn’t follow some of them, and others weren’t written very well. I thought it was odd that so many mediocre essays were piled next to each other, and all right at the end. Oh well.

An Artist View (Arthur Videen)

After reading a portion of one of my essays to a UU congregation back in October, a churchgoer handed me a copy of a book – his book. He asked me to read it and tell him what I thought about it. I finally got to it during the Xmas/New Year’s break. I emailed Arthur, but he never responded. While it’s always interesting to discover why people rejected the religion of their upbringing, this book was very difficult to read. I couldn’t always follow the story, and I couldn’t find a unifying theme. Arthur is a sculpturist, and the best part of the book was the images of his sculptures; many pieces of his work grace the Twin Cities’ landscape, including a piece at the intersection of Grand and Summit in St. Paul, a place I’ve driven through dozens of times.

As a Man Thinketh (James Allen)

If you click on the link I provided for this book, you’ll see a silly, melodramatic cover image. In fact, if you search for cover images of the book, you’ll see that this book has no shortages of reprints. But the copy I read looks like none of these. That’s because, during the Great Hallway Haul of 2011, I made off with an old printing of the book. The book, originally printed in 1902, is short and contains tidbits for how a man can live his life without being an asshole. Good advice, if a bit pedestrian for today’s crowd. It took me about 50 minutes to read this slender work.

 A Brief Guide to Understanding Islam (I. A. Ibrahim)

I got this cheaply-made snoozefest for free at a bookfair I attended last fall. Like so much Witness literature I read, it’s replete with with apologetics, partial facts, and lazy leaps of logic that most humanity should find laughable, but that the devout probably find faith-stengthening. It also has a comic book, cartoonish look to it. Here’s a sample page:

I plan to write more about this book sometime later – a full review might be nice – so I’ll just leave you with this brief paragraph for now.

Damned Good Company (Luis Granados)

The publisher sent me a free copy of this book with the understanding I write a review. So I did.

Inventory (compilation)

I thought this would be a book I wouldn’t be able to put down: Written by the Onion, and featuring lists about movies, TV shows, and music. Wow! This should have been something I would voraciously read until I had devoured it entirely.

Yeah…that didn’t happen. The lists are often too trite, overwrought, and – unless you know every TV show, song, and movie from the past 75 years – unintelligible. Sorry, Onion, I normally love your stuff, but I couldn’t even make it to page 50 this time.

The Leaders We Deserved (And a Few We Didn’t) (Alvin Felzenberg)

I didn’t finish this book, either. Alvin purports to “rethink the Presidential Ratings Game.” And, to some extent, he does. He divides the Presidents up by catergory: foreign policy, vision, competence,  likeability, and so on. The book has five or six really long chapters, each detailing one catergory of his rating system and then discussing five or six presidents who best and worst exemplified this aspect. The problem is, once we get to his final scorecard, we don’t know why he rated each president the way he did. Oh sure, we know why he rated some of the presidents as he did, but not enough. In fact, since he gives Lincoln a perfect score in every category, we get to know Lincoln quite well, and others not at all. Despite claiming to rethink things, Alvin still lumps a President’s entire time in office all together (I, for one, think it’s very unfair to compare, say, FDR’s 12+ years in office with JFK’s two-and-a-half years) and concludes with no surprises (Washington, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts are awesome; Nixon and Buchanan suck). But my main reason for tossing this one aside before completion was the stupid mistakes.

Alvin: why don’t you let me fact-check your book for you before you publish the next edition?

Maphead (Ken Jennings)

Fun, but kind of lame. I wrote about this book when I was about halfway done with it AT THIS BLOG POST. So just read about it there.

Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe)

Here’s a book I’ve meaning to read for years. I check out an audio-book version from the library a couple weeks ago. I listened to about 10% of it, then shut it off. After having just finished Treasure Island (see below), I just couldn’t handle all this high-falutin’ gobbledygook.

Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Unlike Defoe’s novel, I did listen to this book all the way through.

Normally I love 19th century fiction. I’ve read lots of it. I’ve even read Stevenson’s other famous novel (the one with Jekyll and Hyde) and liked that one. But this was not to my liking. I couldn’t follow most of the story lines. The ones I could follow, I didn’t care about. Characters kept popping in and out of the story and I just had no interest in them. By about the 30% mark, I was contemplating cutting my losses, but I decided to give it a little more of a chance. By 50%, I figured I didn’t like the book, but I was too far in to quit. By 90%, I was just praying for it to be done, and was elated to discover most of the final disk was taken up by the reading of a critical essay. Needless to say, I didn’t bother listening to that.

Voice-of-the-Customer Marketing (Ernan Roman)

What can I say? I read this book for work. It provided some good insights for what I do for my employer. I even photocopied one page and hung it up in my cube. But it’s too boring to talk about here.

…I also read four books to my kids during this winter break (including the latest Captain Underpants novel), but I think this is enough for now. I gotta get to reading my schoolbooks…