2018 Best-Ofs Are Here!

The good, the bad, and the ugly, through the lens of Hopper over the past year! I try to stay positive, but I can’t help but shine a light on the ugly truth, if only to steer you, my faithful, away from a bad experience. As those internet kids say, YMMV, and take everything with a grain of salt …

Best Fiction Book

Horus Rising by Dan Abnett

Patch picked it off the shelf of a used book store we were perusing, and I loved it. And – it’s part of a 53+ and counting series, though not all by the same author. I bought two more books in the sequence which I will start tomorrow.

Runner-Up:

Demian by Herman Hesse

Had the odor of high school about it (as in, “I think I may have read this in high school … or at least the Cliff Notes version”) but it was great nonetheless. Those opening chapters, with poor Emil’s innocent conflict with Kromer, to the surreal, goose-bump-inducing ending, I loved reading every second of it.

Best Non-fiction Book

(tie) Never Call Retreat and Short History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton

Catton was undisputedly the best writer on the Civil War. Period.

Runner-Up:

Making History: Waterloo by Andrew Roberts

The culmination of my Napoleon phase (March to May). A superlative, hour by hour recounting of the Battle of Waterloo, much in the vein of the book Pickett’s Charge which I read last year (i.e., who was doing what, when, where in a very readable style).

Best Movie

The Walk (2015)

Extreme goose-bump inducing big screen treatment of the dude who stealthily and secretly strung a wire between the two Twin Towers in early 70s New York and walked across it. The last two minutes will make the toughest man fight back tears.

Runners-Up:

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Chappaquiddick (2018)

Both very well done biopics. I’d watch them both again.

Worst Movie:

Deadpool 2 (2018)                                                                  

Ugh. Just ugh.

Best TV:

Introducing Little One and Patch to Michael Scott and crew care of The Office re-runs.

“That’s what she said!!!!”

Worst TV:

Yellowstone (June 2018).

Beautiful cinematography, hideous characters. I lasted two-and-a-half episodes.

Best Podcasts/Video Channels

Buzzfeed Unsolved, Jocko Willink, Dr. Taylor Marshall

Phases

January Jazz

Napoleon (March to May)

WW2 revisited (yearlong intervals)

Civil War revisited (yearlong intervals)

Bible books when I felt on my death bed in July

Book purge (mostly summer)

The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (March to July, unfinished business)

Patch’s soccer tournaments (June and October)

Bathroom Renovation (mid-October to mid-November)

Least fun phase

Stricken with bronchitis, March 17 – March 24 and June 22 – July 20

Runners-Up:

Jury duty, July 31, 8 am to 3:45 pm.

Reading that my old parish priest, who baptized both my children and visited me twice in the hospital to give me the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, was put on indefinite leave due to a past sexual harassment case with a seminarian.

Funnest Day

My birthday – The girls allowed me to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still in peace, and followed it up with dinner out, gifts, and ice cream.

Worst Mistake:

Shaving the beard, early May. It was just too damn hot, I resembled Zach Galifainakis, and the wife wasn’t around the trim it down to manageability!

Biggest Life Change:

The newest member of our family, Charlie, the Jack Russell mix. He’s become the son I never had!!!

Best Experience I Thought I’d Hate but Didn’t:

Disney World, January 11-14

Proudest Moment:

The trophy award ceremony after watching Patch’s soccer team dominate the local ESPN tournament in October with a record of 4-0, with 10 goals for and 1 goal against (Patch plays center defense).

In Memoriam:

My two father-in-laws, Dale (May) and Bill (November), and my good buddy Steve (August). Rest in peace, guys.

N.B.

Reading is a huge part of my life – I read for escape, for relaxation, for enlightenment, for entertainment. However, in the ever-increasing inexplicable busyness that is my life, I only put away 33 books cover-to-cover this year. Last year I read 46 and my record is 60 in 2014. 

I think it’s due to challenging myself with epic several-hundred-page tomes over the course of the year. Books over 500 pages I put away were: Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe, a textbook on Christian Science, a bio of Napoleon, nearly half of PKD’s Exegesis, Billy Graham’s autobiography, When China Rules the World, the Pearl Harbor saga At Dawn We Slept, and at least a half-dozen 350-400 page works. 

Thusly, 2019 will have a lot of slim cool sagas in paperback form to take my mind off my troubles, so next year I should put away maybe 50 or so. That’d be par.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND ENJOY THE NEW YEAR SAFELY!!!