A Christmas Carol

Everybody knows the story; Scrooge, Three Spirits, Tiny Tim, from Bah, Humbug to Keeping Christmas, but I, for one, had never read the book. So a few weeks back I sampled what Audible.com had and picked an unabridged copy for about $15 and put it on my download wish list. I have been meaning to get it downloaded for weeks and yesterday was the day to get it done. However before paying for it I wanted to double check Librivox, I remembered not liking how it had sounded but wanted to check again because free is always better than $15.

The First link for A Christmas Carol at librivox is only okay, each stage is read by a different reader and the quality of the recording is a bit wanting. However, there is a second recording. It is labeled as "A Christmas Carol (version 2)" read entirely by Glen Hallstrom. I sampled it and it sounded pretty good so I downloaded it and took it to work.

Glen Hallstrom is a great reader, The recording quality is excellent, and the story is great. No movie has ever captured it. The Patrick Stewart version is a direct enactment of the story with the script being word for word dialog from the book, but there is a certain something that can not be translated onto the screen. I can see why President Monson reads it every year.

My opinion: It is free, it is short (listening time is 4 hours), it is a great story well read. Everyone should listen to or read A Christmas Carol.

here is the link to download Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol"

Meet The Robinsons

I think this was the first movie Pixar made without Disney, but I could have that backwards. I saw this with Jason and Devon back in the spring and I just saw it again last week. It is very sweet.

I think that a lot of people have missed out on this movie, but it has the same kind of heart as Cars and a sense of humor and fun. Devon and I particularly like the Dinosaure

My opinion: I really liked it. Go rent this movie and watch it with little kids or as a date.

the blackberry by rim

Blackberry was the original pda/cellphone. It was the first phone in the US to offer full key pad and support for email. However in the attempt to do two things at once it did neither well. I find it very odd to hold the very wide and somewhat short blackberry up to my ear to use as a phone and I find its vanilla email client and tiny keyboard to be a very poor tool for checking email.

Another big problem I have with it is that the OS has not been improved since it was first released 6 or 7 years ago, they have added features but not improved the odd jog wheel navigation of its folders. If email on your phone is important to you I think the iphone or any of phones that flip sideways and have the full keyboard would be better than the nextel blackberry I use for work.

My opinion: blackberry tries to be a phone with email but fails.

stranger than fiction.

I first saw this movie in the theater with Rosie. She is a big fan of Will Farrel (who stars in it) however I am not, and so I was somewhat reluctant. But, it turns out my fears were unfounded. This movie is not your average post SNL comedy, it has really depth to the story its humor is understated and mature (by that I do not mean obscene)

It is the story of an ordinary man who finds his life is being narrated. He knows he is not crazy and so begins seeking out the author who is writing about him. He does this by consulting and expert on modern fiction, who initially thinks him crazed but reconsiders when given a sample of the narration. The narrators foreshadowing leads him to carefully consider what his actual priorities are and he is challenged by the question: if you know that doing the right thing will lead to a conclusion you don't want will you do it anyway?

I loved this movie

vanilla mint listerine

Yet another new "flavor" of the original mouth wash

My opinion: This is good stuff. It really has a good flavor (for being a mouth wash, I am not saying I want a soda company to make something like it.) and the burn is greatly diminished, compared to the cool mint that I usually rinse with.

Transformers

Cars that turn into giant robots, how could you go wrong? Men my age have been waiting for this movie since we were five.

My opinion: it was LAME! Maybe the problem was high expectation but I just didn't like it. I thought the teenage drama thing was to big a part of the movie, and very poorly done. I thought the product placement was way to much, having Bumble Bee change from a "classic" Camero to a brand new Camero just but touching it trivialized something. I Thought that Autobots hiding behind buildings in robot mode rather than TRANSFORMING was silly. I was bothered that the Allspark only made Decepticons. The conversation the boy and his parents had in his room was totaly uncalled for.

Well, in short a childhood dream of every boy my age has come true only to bring us disappointment and heartache.

campbell's soup

more specifically campbell's select italian sausage with pasta and pepperoni, but that seemed a bit long for the title.

My opinion: this is really good soup.the broth has great flavor from the italian sausage the pasta gives it good body and the chunks of pepperoni are plentiful. This is WAY better than the last campbell's select soup I tried (their tortilla soup is mediocre at best) and I will definatly have it again in the future.

ebay user feedback

when you buy or sell something online you then get to say whether or not you were pleased with the product and sell (or buyer as the case may be). You have three choices for feedback positive, neutral, or negative and then room for comments (like A++ great ebayer)

My opinion: this is almost worthless. I generally feel neutral about shopping experiences (I am after all a guy). I pay what I think something is worth and, that is that, but in ebay land they seem to think you ought to have strong positive opinions about minor purchases or something is amiss. I do not understand why the seller doing exactly what they said they would should justify "positive" feedback. If I fill out a feedback card at a grocery store it is because somebody went out of their way to help me not because it turns out there staff doesn't push me down and take my wallet.

This comes up because I was looking at a feedback page from a ebay store that sells jewelry and they had received positive feedback form some one who in the comments indicated that the product was of a lower quality than described. I just don't get it.

quizno's

MMMM toasty?

My opinion: Toasty sure but not that much flavor, Ryann and I split a turkey ranch swiss yesterday for lunch and I could taste neither ranch nor swiss and there seemed to be an excessive amount of lettuce. Ryann said she only had one bite that tasted of swiss and also found the ranch lacking.

box ratchets

combination wrenches with a ratchet action around the box wrench end.

My opinion: these things are sweet. There are some places that a socket wrench just doesn't quit work but are tight enough to make a combination wrench very tedious at that moment you are very glad your father has box ratchets.

nausica and the valley of the winds

A japanese import animated children's movie. Captain Piccard even does one of the voices.

My opinion: Lame, dumb story (really who sets a children's movie in a toxic post apocalyptic future?)dialog is tedious just don't bother watching it. I have come to the conclusion that no matter what the diehard anime geeks think there is just as much (probably more) bad anime out there as bad american cartoons.

silver sake

Silver Sake is my local sushi place at the corner or walnut and marconi.

I like Silver Sake and feel they are a pretty good value at 6-12 dollars per roll. If you have not had sushi before and are reluctant to try "raw fish" you might try the marconi roll first, it has tempura shrimp and house sauce and the whole thing is fried it is very non-traditional but tasty. Today Mary Ann and I went there for lunch this was only her second time for sushi and the first was the above stated roll. I order the integra roll (spicy tuna and salmon with cukes and green onion) which she found too spicy [wimp :)] and the philadephia roll (smoked salmon and cream cheese without avocado) which I found bland until adding some chili sauce to it then it was very good.

The Hymns at LDS.org

I love the Hymns of the church, they uplift and inspire and can bring in the spirit. That said the versions that can be downloaded or listened to at lds.org are not very good. They are played and sung in a very subdued and sleepy fashion. I found I can not listen to them if driving after dark because they literally make me drowsy. I think they are there to be used as accompaniment for meeting and seminary when there is no pianist but they are both slow and flowery for that to work well. I just like the Tabernacle Choir or Enoch Train so much better because they have more emotion in the songs.

cow and boy

The Sacramento Bee doesn't run this comic, but you can check it out here

In short it is a Calvin and Hobbes ish comic strip about a 6 year old boy and his pet cow. They have conversations about surprisingly complicated issues and plan and or execute zanny capers together. Black and white daily with a full color strip sundays.

My opinion: This comic strip is great. It has a fun boys will be boys feel to it and is generally quite witty. Laugh out loud funny at least twice a week.

Vibrivox.org

If you are familiar with Project Gutenburg than you will understand better what Librivox is. Libravox is a community of people working to make public domain texts available as free audio books. Community members get the texts from project gutenburg or a library and then record themselves reading it outloud. The books are then available as mp3s to download free from the site.

My opinion: this is a great concept. I just listened to Silas Marner that I downloaded from them, and it was quite good. If I had bought a recording of audible.com it would have run $16.50. However, the quality of the readings and the recording very greatly because anyone can be a librivox reader. In short, I like the idea but sometimes you get what you pay for.

blockbuster online

Today I canceled my blockbuster online account after having it for a year, but I still think it is a pretty good service. Make a list of movies you want to see and then they come in the mail. You can mail them back or go in to blockbuster and trade it for another movie for free (This was my favorite feature and they have added restrictions to it in the recent past.) and then the next (usually) movie on your list comes in the mail 2 days later. It is pretty cool, really... But I have now had a movie to return in my backpack for a whole week. I just don't need to have a new DVD to watch everyday, especially during the school year, so I am freeing up the 15 bucks a month I was spending on Blockbuster online to spend on audio books.

boggle!

A classic word game, everyone looks at the same 16 random letters in a 4x4 grid and tries to spell as many words as possible using touching letters.

My opinion: the greatest game ever. Well that is hyperbole, but I have been playing it a lot lately while passing through institute (a round only takes 5 min) and I think it is a blast.

rice crispy treats

marshmallows melted with butter and then added to a bunch of bland breakfast cereal.

My opinion: a waste of marshmallows. Just think of all the s'mores that have not been made because the marshmallows had been melted. However, tonight I made a batch with coco crispies and some chocolate chips thrown in, and they were pretty tasty.

teryaki burger

This summer Carl's Jr introduced their teryaki burger. Hamburger patty, grilled pineapple ring, lettuce, tomato, white cheese stuff, Teryaki sauce, and mayo on a sesame seed bun, and it is still on the menu four months later.

My opinion: I like it BUT! the white onion on the regular burger is to strong and does not compliment the teryaki sauce. The six dollar burger has red onion which is pretty good but that throws off the beef to pineapple ratio. I just order the single and ask for no onion (and then remove the onion when they put it on anyway).

Dennison's chili

Tonight I tried Dennison's hot and spicy chili for the first time.

My opinion: Blah. In classical Dennison's fashion it completely failed to impress. Stagg is still the way to go when it comes to chili.

Ambrose Bierce

Today I had my first encounter with Ambrose Bierce a short story called A Jug of Syrup it was a ghost story of sorts.

My Opinion: not bad but not nearly as good as Twain.

silas marner

I love this book.

It is one of my favorite classics, though I think Hunch back is still number one.