Category: Reviews

I was out trying to clear the snow from our sidewalks this evening when I noticed the handle on our snow-blower felt a little loose. Then there was a sound like the snow-blower had run over something metal. I looked down and noticed one of the knobs that should have been holding the handle onto the snow-blower was sitting in the snow. I made a quick jaunt down to our local Home Depot.

I walked into the store, found an employee and explained what happened. He told me they don’t carry snow-blower specific parts but they’d probably have something that would work. He took me over to their nuts & bolts, dug in a bin for 30 seconds and handed me the perfect part to fix my snow-blower. I was back on my way home in three minutes; now that’s service! 🙂

Children of God | Amazon.comThe Sparrow | Amazon.com
In a twist, I actually feel the need to write something here rather than just post my photos. A couple of friends had been discussing The Sparrow & Children of God in of me. While the stories sounded dark & disturbing; they also were described as being very well done. Having now read the books, I would describe the experience as having eaten a meal by my favorite chef who does an exquisite job of preparing the food, only to find out after I’d eaten the meal that every dish I’d eaten contained an ingredient that my digestive system cannot tolerate. Maybe it was good experience, once, but it’s definitely not something I’d be eager to repeat.

Deadline by Mira Grant | Amazon.comI’m not much of a horror fan[ref]Particularly not of modern horror which mostly seems to be slasher flicks[/ref], as generally most horror involves the world being completely fubared with no hope of ever fixing it. And I prefer my entertainment to contain some glimmer of hope. Occasionally though I run across something so good and so dark that it just knocks my socks off.

Feed was one of those and from friends of mine, I’d heard that Deadline was just as good too. When it first started I wasn’t sure if it was going to live up to it’s hype. But it has, it really has in many ways. I really like the …. coping mechanism Shaun has. But the big thing that really got me? The thing that’s got me feeling a need to talk about the book here when I’ve not even gotten halfway through yet? That’s a massive spoiler that I’ll only mention after the cut. Before the cut, I’ll just say it’s the end of chapter 9 where we find out where the reservoir conditions really mean.

Right so if you’ve already read the book or don’t mind spoilers, feel free to continue past this point. Otherwise stop now, you’ve been warned. (more…)

The Hunger Games | Amazon.comJust under a year ago, a friend introduced my wife and I to the Hunger Games. I started reading the books and in just 4 days had read all 3 books. I loved them, interesting characters (good and bad), intense situations and plenty of sentimentality[ref]What can I say? I’m a sappy kind of guy.[/ref] So when I heard a movie was being made of the first book, I was a bit excited but mostly concerned that Hollywood was going to screw it up[ref]Lord knows they’ve screwed up plenty of other adaptions.[/ref] When some early promo pictures were released, I was even more doubtful regarding the movie’s chances as the actors just didn’t fit the images I had in my head for the characters. When we finally got a trailer and my hopes were raised slightly. While in still images the actors didn’t match what I had envisioned; they seemed to be working well on screen. (more…)

RF3 ENVi Natural Wood Stereo Earbud Cell Phone Headset | Amazon.comA while back I wrote about this headset I’d won in a contest over at iLounge and sponsored by Mobile Line Communications. For the first couple of weeks, I was pretty happy with the headset. Then it developed a short or something that caused the left ear-piece to only work randomly. Annoying. Very annoying.

So I looked up the manufacturer’s website which to all intents & purposes is a fancy coming soon page. They did include an email address inside an image on the site[ref]support@mackarl.com[/ref], so I sent them a note asking about my problem with the left ear-piece. I got no response, not even a simple automated note saying they got my message. Annoying. Very annoying.

Then I tried Mobile Line to see if they could help me, but their site wants you to register to do almost anything there and seems to be geared towards getting you signed up as a peddler of their crap. After a bit of poking around, I found an email address on the site and thought I’d writing them[ref]salesorders@mobileline.com[/ref]. Sure the email address was for their sales department, but I figured at the very least I’d get a response saying they would forward the request off to their support department. But I figured wrong.

Now over a month later, neither the manufacturer or Mobile Line has bothered to respond to my emails and now to add insult to injury the right ear-piece started flaking out (while the left now only rarely & randomly works). So I’m forced to change my rating on this headset from “yeah, cool!” to “junky crap” and recommend that nobody ever buy them.