Bryan Thompson :: Blogged

Book Review: The Time Traveler's Wife

2008-07-05T15:25:17+00:00

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Audrey Niffenegger writes a tender love story about a subject that, at first glance, typical chick-lit/flick-loving women like my wife would roll their eyes at. While the subject of time travel is stereotypically a "guy subject," this story introduces the concept in a way that is incredibly romantic, adventurous, and often hilarious.

Niffenegger instantly draws the reader into the story with a flawless attention to detail in a way that is still interesting. While the audio version of the story can be a little mundane after a while (the novel is written from a sort-of diary perspective from both Henry and Clare). Henry's sudden unwilling disappearances into different moments from his past and future are humorous, touching, and sometimes heartbreakingly sad, while Clare is forced to wait for him to return sometimes moments, days, or even years later. This story is also about what happens when love happens to two strangers, bringing them together against the strangest of all odds.

Although there were moments where Henry's character seems a little too good to be true based on the bizarre life he's led, this story is an instant classic, and I think the film version coming this Christmas (starring Eric Bana and Rachel MacAdams) will introduce a vast new audience to it. Four stars for this imaginative romantic novel.

View all my reviews.

Tulsa, Transmission, and a Long Night With Marilyn Monroe

2008-05-08T01:15:11+00:00

This may be the most bizarre blog I've ever written. The strangest experiences...are the true ones.

What began as an innocent trip to see grandparents turned into a doorway to the Twilight Zone. After running a couple of small errands after leaving the office yesterday, I loaded my wife and two daughters into the car and we left for Oklahoma. My wife Kristin was planning to help her grandparents lay new carpet for a couple of days, and so I chauffeured her from Springfield to Tulsa where she would meet her mother. After sticking around the old stomping grounds for a couple of hours (during which time I took in the killer-action Robert Downey Jr./Jon Favreau film, "Iron Man"), I left to return as a bachelor to my dog in Springfield.

After an hour-and-a-half of sipping a Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha and straining my vocal chords to sing over John Mayer blaring out of my iPod, I quickly discovered something was dead wrong as my car began roaring. The roar was louder than usual and yet the vehicle itself was slowing down. As I neared the Afton/Fairland/Grove exit (Exit 302 - the image of this sign is forever etched in my memory), I knew...yes, I knew...it was all over.

I pulled my vehicle to the side of the Interstate - I-44 - and set my emergency lights on as my body and vehicle vibrated to the wind of a thousand speeding semi trucks. I dialed 9-1-1 and waited. And then I waited some more. I began watching an episode of "Scrubs" on the iPod, and after it ended, I began to realize help wasn't coming. I called Geico and asked that my Roadside Assistance Plan be kicked into full gear, but, alas, the time was now midnight, and "Open 24 Hours" apparently means nothing to tow companies. I reached no one and was relieved when Trooper Brown showed up, the familiar blue lights I have grown accustomed to loathing came flashing and I soon found myself being hauled off to the nearest Norman-Bates-esque motel...which just happens to be in Afton, Oklahoma (pop. 12 + me).

Now exhausted beyond measure (and at 1:30 AM, I should be), I checked myself into the Route 66 Motel for the night...or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Upon opening my motel room door, however, I found myself wide awake once more.

There, right in front of me, was a hot-pink bed, which sat atop a shaggy hot-pink rug. On the inside of the main window where a curtain would normally be were a thousand strings of pink beads and small plastic mirrors, giving off a disco-ball effect. On every wall was a gigantic framed poster of the late great Marilyn Monroe.

Pinned to the wall was another photo of Marilyn, this one a life-sized cardboard cutout with a bonus 3-D effect given by a pink silk scarf coming out of the photo.

I found myself asking two questions, both to nobody: "Was I supposed to be paying hourly for this motel?" and then, after talking myself out of that one, "Did Marilyn Monroe STAY here once?" I could stand that thought better. Who knows? Perhaps the lovely Ms. Monroe slept in the exact bed I was sleeping in. That could be a surreal thought. Still, as lovely as Marilyn may have been, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was a little creepy sleeping in a shrine to a long-dead Hollywood starlet from the Golden Age of movies. Well, maybe not the "golden age" but, still a long time ago.

Somehow or another, I eventually drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, planning to fix whatever rock had fallen into my engine and head back to Springfield, I was perplexed to find that a rock had not, in fact, wandered into my engine, but that my transmission was totally, completely destroyed. The Ford dealer in Miami, OK (pronounced "My-Amm-Uhhhhh" lest you find yourself given over to the Oklahoma Mafia) kindly offered to rebuild the transmission for a mere $3,300. Needless to say, I was less than overwhelmed at his kindness.

I did, however, receive wonderful actual help from my wife's uncle Norman Steffenson (who, for anyone in the Northeast Oklahoma area, is an amazing plumber who is VERY reasonable! - I will design for him a website! That's how I can begin to repay him! -- Sorry for the rambling. I'm working these things out as I go along.). Uncle Norm offered to spend the entire pouring rain day with me, helping me to find the best deal on a new transmission, which we finally discovered for a now-measly $1100 (Thanks, Ron of the soon-to-be condemned Affordable Transmission). After turning my now-toast Taurus over to Ron for his last 30 days of business in Miami (My-Amm-Uhh), OK, Uncle Norm graciously agreed to loan me his daughter's VW Jetta. For the rest of the adventure home, I probably looked like a gay rainy-sweaty-dirty fashion designer driving a flashy red Jetta with wonderfully feminine red beads and tassels hanging from the rear-view mirror.

So, all in all, I turned out to be very blessed.

Still, what a weird 24 hours.

I Hate Weather

2008-04-24T00:13:31+00:00

This is my wife's favorite image. Especially the red part that shows up occasionally that indicates only one thing: There's bad weather ahead.

My wife was raised in Oklahoma, and I'm coming to learn that there are few people in the world that get their kicks from bad weather like those born and raised in Oklahoma, Kansas, or Arkansas. If you are from any other place in the world, you may hear of bad thunderstorms and be somewhat thankful for those Severe Weather Updates on the local news, but if you're from Oklahoma, Kansas, or Arkansas, this is where the ultimate thrill of the universe comes into play. You live for the bad weather updates if you're from one of these three states, and Oklahoma gets the biggest kick out of them all.

My wife tells me every time we drive to her grandparents' home in Oklahoma, "There used to be a town here. It got demolished by a tornado."

I sat through a few hurricanes in my Florida upbringing, but I will never TiVo the local news JUST TO SEE THE WEATHERMAN!

Sorry, I just won't go there.

Return of the Blog

2008-04-23T00:55:47+00:00

For the hundredth time, I've returned to the blog, and this time...I'm pretty sure...it's for real. No, really. Really, it is. I've had enough false starts and this time I think I'm going to do it. I've finished the novel and have begun a search for an agent (hence the banner at the top), and am going to do some posts regarding updates for that. Don't forget, I have a new EP out on iTunes, "Heartbreak Superstar." You can purchase it through iTunes here.

Lessons From a Dumb Dog

2007-09-03T14:18:52+00:00

So sorry I haven't blogged in so long. I am trying to get back in the swing of it. Here are some thoughts on persistence.

My dog Angel is really stupid. She's got a list of problems: she's unsocialized (though we've tried), she's stubborn, and she's stupid. She can't have much brain space, she's three years old and weighs two-and-a-half pounds. It's as big as she'll ever get.

But, Angel has one thing going for her. She's persistent. Man alive is she persistent! Every night, she does the same thing: she goes into the kitchen where her dog bowls are and she gives off this short "ARF" in a syncopated rhythm every six seconds. (She has plenty of food and water, but she's picky and only really likes the "bits" out of the Kibbles and Bits.) For a while, she's easy to ignore, but after a good ten minutes of this or longer - especially as there are conversations going on at the time - I usually get so annoyed with her that I give her exactly what she wants.

Angel, my stupid dog, has challenged me about the thought of persistence. There is never a thought in her head that tells her to give up, to stop her course. It never occurs to her to stop trying to get what she wants. It's occured to me plenty in life.

How many times have I given up on something because I thought the door wasn't opening or that it "probably wouldn't work out?" It pains me to think of how many things I've missed out on - some perhaps small and some perhaps very, very big - because I've quit when things looked rocky or even hopeless. Had I the small smarts of a Yorkie-Poo with Kibbles-and-Bits on the brain, I wonder if I might have just gotten the things I claimed to want.

Angel may not have a lot going for her in the way of intelligence, but she has persistence. That's for sure. So, note to self: heed the wise advice from a stupid dog.

Death to Daylight Savings Time

2006-11-01T12:54:05+00:00

Whoever invented the concept of Daylight Savings Time never had small kids. 5:30 this morning my daughter woke me up. 5:15 yesterday morning. 5:20 the morning before.

And trying to talk to her about it doesn't do any good. Have you ever tried to reason with an eighteen month-old? Trying to explain the concept of daylight savings time to an eighteen-month-old is like trying to explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity to a duck.

Technorati Tags: Daylight+Savings+Time, Toddlers

Moved!

2006-10-02T02:35:32+00:00

So we finally left our drugged-out neighborhood in Hole-in-the-Wall, Springfield, and have moved our belongings to a much nicer less-drugged-out neighborhood in a different Hole-in-the-Wall, Springfield. This time, however, it's on the south side of town, so yay us! In the words of The Jeffersons' theme song, "We're moving on up...to the [South] side...We finally got a piece of the pie!"

The north side and south sides of town are to small-time Springfield, MO what the east and west sides are to New York. While there are nice places on each side, there's always that little bit of animosity toward the other [more "ghetto"] side.

I have nothing against the north side of town. We have lived on the north side both times we've lived in Springfield, but we knew it was time to leave the place we were in when we had to call the fire department twice within two months. A few months ago, we had the entire cast of Animal House move in underneath our apartment, and I'm pretty sure they were cooking up something stronger than cigarette smoke in there. The fumes were enough to make me fall asleep outside, so I'm pretty sure there was something going on. Plus, when strangers were knocking on my door at 2 AM asking "Where's Tony at??" (Like Dragnet, the stories are true, but the names are changed to protect the innocent - which I don't think is Tony, by the way!), I knew it was becoming my problem.

So, long story short, we got moved in on Friday. The following morning, I had to leave for Kansas City to pick up my brother Matt. By the time we got back, my wife had unpacked every box. The woman has a crazy work ethic when it comes to decorating.

I'll post more on this later, I'm sure.

Technorati Tags :: moving, rent, apartments

This Cracked Me Up!

2006-09-22T05:38:21+00:00

Technorati Tags: Shining, YouTube

Updates

2006-09-20T04:43:26+00:00

Well, it's about time I updated the ol' blog. I'm still not sure how happy I am with it, but for the time being, this will have to do because I'm too exhausted tonight to worry about any more of it. For a while, I was debating whether or not I should up and leave the BlogSpirit community because MySpace was just so much more addictive. But then, there's something nice about the actual blog format that I've really enjoyed. Plus, I wouldn't want to lose the six readers I have on this blog by switching over to a "sellout" blog site like MySpace. Also, there's the added thing that I don't want to lose over a year's worth of blog posts (including pics and the like). So, I will find new ways to update the BlogSpirit site for a while and we'll see where the blog road takes me. Thanks for your patience.

Technorati Tags: MySpace, Blogging, Blog

Celebrity

2006-09-22T20:04:55+00:00

The United States of America is a land of people all trying to know or be celebrities. Think about how easy we've made it in this country to be a celebrity: you can run and jump out in front of a bus at 99 mph and post a video clip of it to YouTube.com and suddenly, you're famous (assuming that Andy Warhol was right - "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.").

We have people in this country famous for singing...badly! There are American Idol rejects that are famous because of how horribly they sing or how funny they look. And the bad singer or funny looker? They're fine with it. Just ask William Hung. Hung knows he's no Sinatra, but he's made a killing off of his "Inspiration" CD that sold out in record stores after his Idol "debut."

I have no problem with celebrity. Truth is, I'd love to someday be recognized for the work I do (I think most of us would). My main problem is with how celebrities are idolized more than the actual work they do is. Don't believe me? Take a trip into any supermarket in North America (or any news stand in Western Europe will do fine). Count the magazine covers that feature none other than the personal life, death, and breakup stories of our favorite Western celebs Brad, Angelina, Jen, Jessica, Nick, Katie, Tom. And I'm not talking about the traditionally-known tabloids either; I'm talking about "legitimate news sources" like People, UsWeekly, and Good Housekeeping. Okay, maybe not Good Housekeeping. But you get my point.

Now, lest you call me Hypocrite, I will acknowledge that I do in fact have Zach Braff on my MySpace Top 16 and no, I don't personally know Zach. Everyone is allowed to have one celebrity on their MySpace Top 4/8/12/16. These are my rules, okay?

See? I admit I'm a typical American. And nothing wows Americans more than the power of celebrity. Oprah knows the power of celebrity. She knows that if she believes in something, all she has to do is mention it on her show and every housewife in America will believe in it, too - which means, of course, that we men are doomed to wallow alone in our principles.

Religious people are notorious for relying on the power of celebrity as well. Not that there's anything wrong with celebrities who are religious. But, think about it: when The Passion of the Christ was released, many Christians all over America unofficially hailed Mel Gibson as their "spokesperson." Gibson was one of them and was their celeb of choice. Then, what does Gibson do? He goes and does something that's not in line with the teaching of Jesus. After receiving a DUI and mouthing off horribly offensive religious slurs, many of those Christians were devastated. Many conservative Christians have long soaked up every word from other religious "spokespersons" like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and when they made statements that were deeply offensive, those Christians felt they had been alienated from their own spokespeople.

Remember the whole Tom Cruise fiasco last year? Tom was idolized by every woman in America and when he lashed out at a woman dealing with a real issue (Brooke Shields), women (my wife included) were appalled and even heartbroken.

I also realize there are many other avenues I could go with this thing. It's done in politics all the time as well, but for the sake of not boring you, my dear 5 readers, I will close with this thought:

We all enjoy the prominence of celebrity. But we should make sure we don't put celebrities up on a pedestal that makes them "infallible." They might just do something fallible and shock us to our very core. I'm preaching to myself here, too, lest Mr. Braff should go and hold up a liquor store or something and I'm left going, "It couldn't be! He's in my Top 16! I'm all alone in my principles!"

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