A friendly wager

I bet $5 in an office pool that Brokeback Mountain is going to sweep pretty much every category at the Academy Awards. I've never seen it, in fact I've never seen any of the movies that were nominated in any category. But something tells me it's going to win. And that something is a Web site I used to "help" me in my Oscar pool predictions - it was basically a list of Oscar predictions from a panel of movie experts. I've got a good feeling about it ... I think I'm going to go all the way.

And, since I have so much money riding on Brokeback Mountain, I decided that I should go see it for myself. Unfortunately, as many of you may be aware, South Dakota is one truly whacked out, conservative state. We've been making headlines a lot lately due to our newly passed ban on all forms of abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. But I digress.

My point is that only about two people in this state would ever in a million years even consider going to a movie like Brokeback Mountain. I'm one of them, and I've yet to meet the other one, but he/she has to be out there. In any case, I'll be attending the movie by myself, so hopefully I don't get arrested by the South Dakota Thought Police (incidentally, they also tried to pass a measure that would overview what the state universities are teaching and penalize liberal professors in effort to make sure that they're presenting "balanced" political worldviews.)

On a side note, I saw another Oscar contender, "Walk the Line," last night, and it was good. I really liked it, and I never really liked country music or had a particular affection for Johnny Cash before. But of course when I got home, I rushed to iTunes to download a bunch of his songs. So if you haven't seen it, you should.