This past year has been interesting. I’m not sure it was a great year or just a good one, but I can tell you this, 2009 is shaping up to be fantastic. Here are some random thoughts for the end of the year.

1. The Beautiful Metaphor – can do wonders when describing something, but they are actually at their most wonderful when they are used to insult something. Like when Pulitzer Prize winning writer Roger Ebert describes a movie’s characterization thusly: To call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material. This came from a review of the movie The Spirit, which apparently is so bad that even the high levels of eye-candy cannot overcome the amateurish writing, directing, and acting. Maybe this will stem the tide of shitty graphic novel adaptations. Well, probably not, but we can hope.

2. Band of Brothers – The power of art is in its ability to move and inspire. So few motion pictures or television shows actually aspire to the levels of art that when you come across one it should be savored like a fine meal. The miniseries Band of Brothers is something like that. Even though I know what happens in this series, I watched it yesterday (yes, all day, I have no life), the episode titled “Why We Fight” still got me from an emotional sense. The actors beautifully portrayed the horror those soldiers must have felt when they came across those camps. Great stuff, which I will be watching on Blu-Ray in January.

3. Crazy Mexican – Beauty queens. A Miss Shit from Shinola or something or other in Guadalajara was arrested last week for drug and weapon possession or something like that. A fun story, as apparently drug lords in Latin American countries take beauty pagents very seriously. I know that we should here, as the prettier someone is, the more important they are. Which is why I am proclaiming myself Emperor of Arizona.

4. New Ads – I am not waiting for the Super Bowl to identify the greatest commercials of the season. There are two contenders, the Sonic Hearing quasi-bluetooth device that allows people to eavesdrop on conversations and the slim clip thing that is some sort of revolutionary money clip. Wait, you mean that you could put any money clip in a blender? Oh, well then the Sonic hearing thing is the winner, and not to mention bad-ass. The only thing that would be better is one of those parabolic microphones. I’m shocked that the CIA doesn’t issue these little things to all of their new recruits.

5. Sweatpants and Handguns – What is it with East Coast playas packing heat in their sweats? First Plexico goes strip clubbing with sweats and a glock, then this guy goes to the movies packing in his sweats. Really? This is the new thing? I mean I know that we’ve all fantasized about shooting the loud bastard in the movie theater, but who actually does it? If you are going to be carrying a concealed weapon, at least wear some damned pants.