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Bonus Rounds include books that might not be read in their entirety or shorter material that isn’t quite hefty enough to qualify as an official choice.

Twitterature by Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin

(published 2009; 224 pages)

Laura and I headed back to my hometown of Rocky Mount this past weekend to attend my little brother’s Homecoming. It’s a two hour drive each way, and thanks to a little Southern Snowstorm, we ended up with six total hours to blow. Fortunately, Laura, being the brilliant woman that she is, thought to buy a book pre-trip that would be easy to pick up and drop just as easily without worrying about remembering silly details like characters or setting or plot. The result this go round: Twitterature.

Twitterature is a humor book that takes over eighty works of literature and rewrites them in 20 “tweets” or less from the perspective of the lead character. If you’ve heard of Twitter (seriously, everybody HAS to have at least heard of it), but don’t understand how it works, imagine a crappy version of Facebook where they take away everything but status updates and limit users to 140 characters per update. The books tackled range from classics like Hamlet to modern fair such as The Da Vinci Code to books so old we don’t even know who wrote them (Beowulf).

The front of the book features a quote from The Wall Street Journal that states, “Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Shakespeare, rolling over in his grave.” The other quotes on the first page continue this streak of honesty:

“Sincerest apologies to Shakespeare, Stendhal, and Joyce: how were we to know it would come to this?” – Mashable.com

“Twitterature makes me want to punch someone, preferably the ‘authors.’ They’re in Chicago. I’m gonna take a road trip.” – @damig, Twitter

“Just f***ing shoot me now.” – Mike C., grouchyconservativepundits.com

While I see where they’re coming from, it still doesn’t stop the fact that the book had both of us laughing out loud on a regular basis. You could choose to view it is as the ultimate low in disrespect or a perfect high for geeks around the country. While the cover and introduction play the comedy angle where the purpose of the book is to simplify boringly long books for an ADD generation, we realized as we went through that it only really worked for the books we had previously read.

Really, we only read about 75% of them after this discovery – sticking solely with the ones we read in school, for fun, or were at the very least familiar with (I’ve never read nor will ever read Twilight, but you can bet your ass we read the Twitterature for it). If you want an awesome coffee table book or find yourself in need of something to make a roadtrip a little shorter, I absolutely would give this a vote. If you can’t find the humor in this idea, you need to lighten up. Funny is funny. Anyone that doesn’t already have an appreciation for the books lampooned on these pages isn’t going to get it. No one is going to use Twitterature to pretend they’re suddenly a scholar, so let’s not go numbering the signs of the apocalypse just yet.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

(published 1980; 394 pages)

Laura’s and my two-person book club is officially under way, and things are off to a rather brilliant start. A Confederacy of Dunces is a Pulitzer Prize winning comedy novel set in 1960’s New Orleans and wrapped around about three or four “main” characters that are among the worst human beings you can imagine. Not that they’re all naturally evil, they’re just all selfish, whiny, and miserable — but fortunately for the us, they’re also hysterical versions of all the above categories.

The book overall revolves around Ignatious J. Reilly, a 30-year-old, obese, mustachioed man that still lives with his widowed mother. On the one hand, he’s such a horrible human being that I absolutely despised him, but at the same time I just could not get enough. I had to see how much more ridiculous he could get. Peter Griffin, Homer Simpson, Eric Cartman, Will Ferrell… they all owe about half their schtick to Ignatius, the original.

His mother is second lead; a poor old woman who makes it difficult to feel too much sympathy for her just because she’s the one that let her son turn out the way he did, and it’s obvious she’s still supporting it by spoiling him continuously as he rounds his 30’s. Mrs. Reilly also provides a major pivot point as one of the few characters that actually grows throughout the book.

The book has what feels like 17 side stories that eventually all intersect beautifully – and I don’t mean that sarcastically at all. The easiest way I could think to describe this book is a cross between Love Actually, Step Brothers, Adult Swim, and 1960’s New Orleans. The characters are all fantastically colorful and the setting sells the story perfectly. While the characters talk in accents (with the writing to show you exact pronunciations), it can grow mildly annoying at times, but typically speaking it sells you on the characters far better than straight dialogue would have.

Above anything, John Kennedy Tool’s ability to describe these insane character’s thoughts, actions, and surrounding is entertaining on a level most classics could never attain. Where some books just paint you a satisfactory picture of what’s going on, Tool forces you into his own world and makes you drown yourself in the absurdity of it all. If Charles Dickens was the Leonardo Da Vinci of authors, then John Kennedy Toole is Picasso.

Sadly, the author killed himself before the book was ever even published, but a posthumous Pulitzer Prize insured it would survive the years. I absolutely loved it and would recommend to anyone that enjoys a good laugh. It was an awesome way to start out the book club.

Those of you who really know me, likely read that post title and said to yourselves, “Caleb has a favorite football team?” Well, my friends, less than 24 hours ago, you would’ve been completely  on point. While most men pick their favorite teams at a far younger age based either on geography or family ties, I honestly have never cared about football at all. Sure, I watch the Super Bowl every year, but what true American doesn’t? (Only the pretend Americans; that’s who) When it came to trying to follow a team, I never brought myself to keep up. But now, as of about 8:10 on January 16, 2010, I am a hardcore Baltimore Ravens fan.

(My instincts tell me that the “B” stands for “Best”)

I’m sure all three of you reading this are a little perplexed as to how I reached this decision, so let me explain (like you have a choice). Yesterday, Laura, my awesome girlfriend, and I were house-sitting in Smithfield, NC for seven hours. Aside from feeding her parents’ horses and making sure our dogs didn’t run away, we didn’t have much to do. I had taken both Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X so we could finish up the Friday the 13th series once and for all, but when it turned out that Jason Goes to Hell might be the worst movie ever made (even worse than Twilight!) I wasn’t exactly in the mood for seconds. We decided to finish up our night with a game of Scrabble while watching the NFL play-off match between the New Orleans Saints and the Arizona Cardinals.

I have a large family base in Louisiana that I’m pretty sure matches the entire population of Arizona, so we were jointly rooting for the Saints when the topic of what team could be “our” team came up.  When I was in college, one of my best friends was a die-hard Colts fan that followed the NFL like his life depended on it, and the thought of having a team that could be “mine” always intrigued me just because it seemed like football’s Sunday/Monday only schedule would make it far easier to follow than any other sports. After three minutes of talking, Laura and I decided we did, indeed, need to have a team to call “ours”.

Laura grew up in Boston and has always been super into the New England Patriots. While generally apathetic, I’ve always cared enough to at least root for whoever my friends were rooting for, and with a best friend that loved the Colts and another best friend that really liked the Giants, I had a pretty rough history of rooting against the Patriots just by default. Because I have morals, I couldn’t bring myself to suddenly root for a team I’ve been against in the past, so to Laura’s sadness the Patriots were out of consideration. As a Patriots fan, she quickly informed me that both the Colts and Giants were also out of contention, and in the name of equality we also ruled out the Saints because it wouldn’t be fair for us to follow my family’s favorite team when her family’s favorite team had already been given the boot.

A long series of elimination left us with a handful of possibilities. It had to be somewhere neutral and someone that didn’t completely suck, but wasn’t completely awesome either. A team that would be fun to root for because they stood just as good of a chance for winning as they did losing. On the way home, it was decided we would root for the Baltimore Ravens and here are our top three reasons why:

1. Location

Baltimore is six hours away from Wilmington, NC where we live. Baltimore is also six hours away from Boston should we eventually find ourselves living up north. It’s not in South, but it’s not exactly the Northeast either. It’s perfectly in the middle.

2. Edgar Allen Poe

Geekiest reason ever? Maybe so. I love writing and reading, and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” is a favorite short story of mine. During our post-decision research, we actually discovered the team was named after this short story since Poe lived and is buried in Baltimore. Awesome.

3. Neutrality

You know how many Ravens fans I know? Zero. Not that they don’t exist, but they’re hardly a legendary franchise either. They haven’t won a Super Bowl in ten years, and as of last night they got knocked out of this year’s playoffs by those damn Colts (I can say that now because I’m a Ravens fan). They aren’t a complete crap team, so it’s not like we’re pulling for the permanent underdog (the Bengals and the Browns were among the first teams eliminated), and they seem to have a decent shot of making it to the playoffs just about every year.

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And there you have it. It is official. Laura and I are die-hard Ravens fans and we’re pretty sure next year is the year we’re finally gonna go all the way. After about four hours of research getting caught up on franchise history, coaches names, current stars, and the old stars we need to know about, it’s obvious they’re long overdue for a Super Bowl and we’re going to cheer them to victory next season. February book of the month is going to be Football for Dummies, and we have until August to memorize the roster and learn which players and teams to hate based on selfish trades for more money. I really hope we get a good placing in the draft (whatever that means). It’s gonna be a good time.

Go Ravens! We’ll get those damn Colts back next year.

My cousin Kaye started a little game over at her blog where you walk to your DVD collection, close your eyes and grab five DVD’s. Since I own over 500 DVD’s across three side-by-side bookcases, I decided to grab one from each shelf (I have ten completely full shelves in the movie section of my collection; five for the TV-DVD’s).

Here are the ten movies I ended up with, since I decided to ignore the TV case. In alphabetical order:

Random DVD #1: 101 Dalmatians Platinum Edition

There are only two genres in my entire collection that singled out with their own shelves: Disney and musicals. Something about the innocence of the time of my life that first introduced me to these films makes them a very mood-based viewing choice, so I need them to be separated from the bulk of the rest. 101 Dalmatians isn’t my favorite of the sub-genre by a longshot, but it’s a great piece of animated history regardless.

Random DVD #2: The Alien Quadrilogy

This one might seem like cheating since this gigantic box would obviously feel bigger than any of the other DVD’s on the shelf, but I just grabbed the first thing my finger touched. This boxset includes 2-disc editions of all four Alien movies – a total of over 40 hours of documentaries and commentaries. I got this during college when I actually made a point of watching every single special feature on my DVD’s, so for a week or so this was literally the only thing I watched. Alien and Aliens are both among my favorite films of all time, Alien 3 is on the opposite side of that as one of my most hated movies of all time, and Alien Resurrection is a fun action movie.

Random DVD #3: Daredevil 2-Disc Special Edition

The PG-13 version of the Daredevil (the one I grabbed) is not remotely a good movie, but the special features include a two hour documentary about the history of the comic book character and THAT is why I bought this. If you’re going to watch a version of Daredevil, make it the far-superior R-rated Director’s Cut. If there ever was a movie that got completely changed because of a ratings jump, Daredevil is one of the finest examples I can think of.

Random DVD #4: Frequency

This is just an enjoyable time-bending flick. It’s nothing extraordinary, but at least it treats time travel sensibly.

Random DVD #5: Interview with a Vampire

If you’re a regular reader, I’m sure you’re well aware that I absolutely despise the abomination known as Twilight. Interview with a Vampire is among the best when it comes to the blood-sucking genre. The rules are traditional, the setting is beautiful, the rating is R, and the acting is incredible (Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Anotonio Banderas, Christian Slater, and a very young Kirsten Dunst). Basically, it’s everything Twilight isn’t.

Random DVD #6: No Country for Old Men

I’m a huge fan of the Coen brothers (The Big Lebowski, Fargo), and No Country for Old Men is the movie that finally got them an Academy Award for both Best Director(s) and Best Picture. The movie isn’t for everybody due to the non-traditional story-telling and an ending well worth arguing over, but the film has some of the most intense scenes I’ve ever watched in my life. I love it to death, but I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.

Random DVD #7: Planet of the Apes 35th Anniversary Edition

As I’ve mentioned before, Planet of the Apes is one of my favorite movies of all-time, if only for sentimental reasons. The film is the first movie I ever remember watching from beginning to end with my dad, and will always hold a special place in my heart for that reason alone. This special edition is one of the few movies post-college where I still made myself sit down and watching all 6+ hours of special features, and it was awesome.

Random DVD #8: The Shawshank Redemption 2-Disc Special Edition

The Shawshank Redemption is probably on more “Best Films of All Time” lists than just about anything, and for good reason. The movie is brilliant. It’s two hours and twenty minutes of perfection. If you haven’t seen it, change that immediately.

Random DVD #9: Stuck on You

So sue me, but I really enjoyed this movie. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear are both awesome, and the two of them working together in a Farrelly brothers comedy about conjoined twins worked for me.

Random DVD #10: You’ve Got Mail

Tom Hanks is the most likable actor on the entire planet, and Meg Ryan holds a special place in my heart by default of co-starring in When Harry Met Sally, my favorite romantic comedy of all time. Tom and Meg’s chemistry is perfect so both You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle could easily find their way into my top ten chick flicks.

It’s the New Year and everyone else is doing resolutions, so I guess it’s my turn. Hopefully I’ll succeed in completing at least two of these.

1. Read at least 12 books

When I was a kid, I full out LOVED reading. Third grade was spent as the nerd that read during recess with giant glasses and a full retainer to accentuate my status of dorkiest child imaginable. I continued reading as I got older, although mostly just one or two Michael Crichton books per year (plus the cliff notes for whatever book we were assigned at school), but as movies and video games beautifully murdered my attention span, books fell to the back burner – eventually disappearing from my to-do list entirely.

Well, it’s time for that to end. I miss reading; I genuinely do. My girlfriend Laura used to read quite a bit before we happened, and as we happily hurl ourselves into “coupliest couple ever” what better way to do that than to start a two person book club? I’m aiming low with only one book per month in hopes of actually meeting the goal for once, so we’ll see how it goes.

Right now the tentative list is pretty small. We’re kicking off with A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole – allegedly one of the funniest books of all time. We also plan to read at least one of my cousin Kaye’s romance novels, leaning towards Menu for Romance as the key target (though I might have to make Laura read Stand-In Groom to catch up). I’m also hoping to squeeze in a Michael Crichton novel, a Stephen King short story collection, and maybe the first Harry Potter.

If you have any recommendations for easy reading, throw them out there. My crippled attention span has led to me being a horrifically slow reader since I often find myself getting distracted by one small detail, allowing my mind to wander while I continue “reading”, and then realizing I haven’t been paying attention at all so that I have to backtrack to the last thing I actually remember happening. Recommendations under 300 pages are welcome.

2. Budget a little

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m addicted to buying DVD’s. Right now, from Black Friday through Christmas, I have about forty DVD’s sitting on my fireplace mantle that I haven’t even TOUCHED. I’ve recently suspended my Netflix account to force me to watch them, and after that I have a bunch of old favorites I need Laura to watch for the sake of our relationship. Fortunately she also loves movies, so this won’t be a problem and should save a considerable amount of money.

3. Write More

I know Bullshish has been dissipating since June-ish (excluding Horrorfest), and it’s not something I’m proud of. My life no longer revolves solely around watching a movie and talking about it, so it’s inevitable that the movie reviews will die down to only one per week on the latest theatrical release, but my hope is that I’ll be able to kick SuperBull into high gear as I ramble about my brilliant opinions on Taco Bell, board games, and the books we’re reading.

I also really, really, really need to get back to my script writing, though I’m fumbling through about eighteen different writing ideas, from webisodes to marketing a slasher movie game, and haven’t quite decided which idea will be my baby for a while which brings me to #4…

4. Pick a project

I need to edit Script 1 to be more taut. I need to finish Script 2 before I start the preliminary steps of Script 3 and 4 simultaneously. I need to sit down and make myself write.

Here’s to 2010!