Archive for September, 2010
Eoin Colfer has earned my undying admiration: He writes a truly entertaining and unique youth novel. Artemis Fowl is complex, it’s unpredictable, it’s imaginative, it has some gruesome descriptions, and it is really, really good.
Colfer’s focal point is the wanna-be evil boy genius. He’s all genius, but he can’t quite bring himself to be truly evil, and the conflict in character is fascinating to read. Colfer latches on to a real problem that so many youth identify with, sadly–the absentee parents for reasons that even they can’t always help. Although Colfer acknowledges this issue, he doesn’t preach, he just lets it be, and allows Artemis to make his own mess and dig his way out.
Colfer’s imaginative LEP unit and Foaly are great fun to read. I can’t wait to get into the second novel, and I would not hesitate to recommend this series to any upper elementary/middle school aged reader, either in years or at heart. 
Order the series without reserve and enjoy!
A Gift of Grace
product shipped fast and no issues with seller. The cable i received was defective. Since it was only a few bucks I didn’t attempt to contact the seller for a replacement.
Neoair PLUS all in
I use this cable to connect a laptop to a small HDTV, to stream Netflix. No issues, works beautifully. Quality of construction is surprisingly good. Cannot go wrong for the price. This is a basic 1080p HDMI cable, so be sure you do not need a special type of cable for your particular application (category 2, high speed, etc.).
Space Party Decoration Necktie
I love playing this and it is good exercise. I golf better on it then in real life and also bowl better. I bought the Tiger Woods golf game because I wanted more courses to play on. I would recomend it for anybody that would like something fun to do inside when the weather outside is bad.
TAPPI Paper Summit at
As the title hints, this is a book filled with guarded optimism that humanity can wake-up to the devastation it’s causing on Earth and that wake-up will cause a “bounce” in it’s perception of reality moving towards a “paradigm shift” from the old paradigm of environmental parasitism and destruction, to a new sustainable , loving relationship with Earth and all it’s myriad life forms and life-support cycles.
This is a close parallel to E. O. Wilson’s thoughts outlined in his engaging book, “The Future of Life”, where humanity is passing through the “bottleneck” of converging circumstances- a long history of environmental destruction, out-of-control population numbers which are depleting the Earth’s resources faster than can be regenerated. In both books, education and adherence to vastly more sustainable lifestyles will be the determining factor as to whether we make it past the 21st century and into the future or we will not heed the call to reform and end up going the way of the dinosaurs.
“We have met the enemy and he is us”- Pogo. Now that we know, will we change our destructive ways?
We have arrived at what Elgin calls “Hitting the Evolutionary Wall” (beginning of chapter 2, p.15) and “Are We Are On A Collision Course With Nature?”, so it was fitting that this chapter begins with two good quotes:
“What is difficult is to imagine how to get out of the situation we’re in right now in a time frame that is in line with the rate of deterioration that we’re seeing.”- Paul Hawken ["Natural Capitalism"]. And:
“If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.” Indeed!
Ancient Chinese Proverb.
Chapter 3 begins with the mechanisms for change needed for our survival and that is: “A New Perceptual Paradigm: We Live In A Living Universe”, we are interconnected to all life and need to realize that we do not live in a human-only world. Our life-styles immediately effect all other life and we need to adopt a much smaller “footprint” to insur
Promise Ahead A Vision
These are fantastic for chemical free baby food storage/freezing. I wish they weren’t quite so expensive, but it is worth it. I also don’t trust them to travel, they do suction closed pretty good, but I’m not convinced they would survive a trip in the diaper bag so they stay in the freezer/fridge 
Kinderville Little Bites Storage
Very pleased with the scale and the prompt delivery. The reading is very easy to view and it is very difficult to get it to tell that you weigh less than you do! Despite multiple step on’s, the scale always come up with the same figure as the first time you stand on it.
Gear Head Om3700up Wired
Let me start by stating that Twilight is the second supernatural novel I had ever read at the time. I read Twilight almost 2 years ago. I will be honest; when I first read Twilight I `liked’ it. I thought it was a good book. After about a year I had read more supernatural books. That’s when I started to think about Twilight and that’s also when I realized that it was a little overrated. I have my reasons as to why I didn’t enjoy the book as much.
Number One: The Characters. Isabella Swan, who likes to be called Bella, is the main character. Bella arrives to Forts, Washington with a kind of gloomy mood. She seems dry and unconcerned at first. I thought this would soon go away. I later find out that I was wrong. Bella’s mood was a major turn off. Edward was exactly the same. He was boring and was hard to read about. Usually I like my characters to be quirky and witty. The only characters that I liked were Alice, Emmett, and Jacob.
Number Two: The Plot. The plot or should I say the `lack of plot’ through me off completely, from reading the back of the book I knew that it was about a girl falling in love with a vampire. But, I didn’t realize that it would have no other action. The only action I found remotely exciting was the fight scene at the very end of the book, and it still left me a little dry.
Number Three: The Couple. Because Bella and Edward are both boring, they bored me to near death as a couple. I would have rather read about Alice and Jasper or Emmett and Rosalie. I grew tired of Bella and Edward.
All in All, I gave this book three stars because even though it lacked to components to a good story it was still and okay read and I don’t regret reading it.
The hidden romance of
The furminator is the best grooming tool in our repertoire for one big reason: the cat loves it. Whenever it comes out of the drawer, the cat comes running to get ‘furminated.’ We also have a ChowChow that tolerates it when his fur is cut for the summer, but when he’s fully fluffed, he actively enjoys a good brushing as well. 5 stars for sturdy construction, ease of use, and kitty friendliness.
Tocqueville and the Nature
I have started wit eBook-Readers quite a couple of years ago with Sony. After quite a long time of suffering with the stupidity of Sony’s engineers I changed to a Nook. Unfortunately, not a wise decision as I live in Switzerland and don’t have access to the shops on the nook – actually not even through the internet on my computer.
Now I have the new Kindle 3 – and I can tell, this is by far the best I of them. Not only it’s compact size but also the fast response of the screen and of course the shop that is constantly available whereever I am (Europe or Overseas).
Guys, don’t repeat what I did and go straight to the Kindle – it’s an absolute pleasure to use it.
La Grand Jatte 250