What A Slacker!

Track Your Family With Live GPS Via The Web

1 comment May 18th, 2008

Live View GPS will help you locate anything anywhere. Really. This is great for corporate fleets to keep an eye on there drivers. But who cares about that. What will this GPS Tracking service do for my family and me? Plenty.

Use it to track your teenage driver. Is she really at Sally’s house like she said or is she across town at the mall instead? Know exactly where they are at all times. Works great with elderly too. If your older parent wonders off you’ll quickly be able to find them no matter where they are and return them to safety.

Live View GPS is a really affordable way to keep your peace of mind. Now all they have to do is make a really small waterproof device for pet collars and your entire family can be protected.

Kelly McGillis Acting Teacher

1 comment May 18th, 2008

Kelly McGillis is slated to teach an acting class here in Reading at the Community School of Music and the Arts. According to Phylllis McLaughlin, executive director of the school, McGillis will teach an eight-week summer acting workshop.

The workshop will begin on June 18th and will run from 6pm to 9pm every Wednesday for eight weeks. Only 20 people will be able to benefit from Kelly’s acting expertise. The cost of the acting classes is about $400 per person.

The Community School of Music and the Arts was founded more than 50 years ago by Werner von Trapp of the von Trapp Family Singers. You know them as the family from the film The Sound of Music. Pretty cool, huh?

Great Place to Start Living Greener

Add comment May 18th, 2008

Looking for a way to make your house a little greener? Check out the premiere online eco-friendly shopping site Eco Geek Life. They’ve got sustainable alternatives for everyday living. That means environmentally conscience folks like you and me can afford products to make our lives and our world better.

Why not start with something quick and easy? One of the easiest things you can do around your home to reduce your carbon footprint is to replace your old incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient LED light bulbs. They last even longer than compact fluorescent bulbs. In fact ten times longer! You’ll find replacements for your standard bulbs and even your floodlights.

LED light bulbs aren’t all they have to offer. You’ll find outdoor solar lights, cool gadgets, toys, even eco-friendly fitness gear. They’ve got it all.

Incredible Hulk or Incredible Dud

Add comment May 18th, 2008

Finally got to see the Ironman movie and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the action. Downey did a great job playing an alcoholic womanizer. Did he have practice? Seriously, he did an excellent job in the film. Before the movie we got a glimpse at a few of the summers upcoming flicks. Two in particular stood out for me Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Incredible Hulk.

I will mostly likely be waiting in line for Indy but not so much for the Hulk. Although this new trailer showed me a little more about the movie and that is might actually have a plot and not just be the big hideous CGI monster all the time. So I had hope for about 24 hours, now I am not so sure. I just read about Edward Norton’s disagreement with Marvel over the film’s substance at IGoTheBeat. According to IGTB and EW.com Marvel wanted a shorter faster paced film while Norton and the director wanted a longer film with more substance (I have to agree with Norton).

Perhaps the negative press will actually drum up viewers for the film. Most people I know weren’t planning on seeing this film simply because of how horrible Ang Lee’s Hulk was (I wouldn’t even give it a half star). So maybe with all the rumors and press people might just go to see what the hubbub is all about. I still won’t be seeing it in theaters, but someone might go. Good luck with that movie Marvel. You might be thanking your lucky stars that you did Ironman first.

TFAW Hellboy Contest

Add comment May 18th, 2008

I just got a newsletter from Things From Another World they are having a Hellboy Contest and here’s the info…Good Luck!

The world’s greatest paranormal investigator will hit the big screen in Hellboy II: The Golden Army on July 11. The movie will take you from our world into a realm inhabited by elves, trolls and demons.

In celebration of the opening, the grand prize winner of TFAW’s Ultimate Hellboy Contest will receive ten (10) movie tickets to Hellboy II: The Golden Army at their local theatre, a copy of the Hellboy Library Edition Vol. 1, Hellboy: The Companion TPB, Hellboy Lunchbox, Hellboy Movie Photo Coaster Set, and both Hellboy Animated Statues.

One second prize winner will win a copy of the Hellboy Library Edition Vol. 1 and a copy of the Hellboy 2: The Golden Army Movie Prequel Comic, which is signed by Doug Jones (Abe Sapien)!

Ten (10) third place winners will get a subscription to Crooked Man, the new Hellboy mini-series starting in July.

Review: Incubus Dreams by Laurell K. Hamilton

Add comment May 18th, 2008

I first heard of Laurell K. Hamilton and Anita Blake Vampire Hunter on a toy collector’s forum a few years ago from a fan of the series. I picked up Guilty Pleasures, the first book, and rather enjoyed. Now fast forward a few years. I just picked up the audio version of the book Incubus Dreams, which is book twelve in this series not having read the other ten books in between. So I had high expectations for this story.

I finally finished the audio version of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Incubus Dreams. Thank god I was listening to the abridged version (only 10 discs) instead of the unabridged version (24 discs). Twelve hours of this dribble was bad enough I don’t think I could have made it through thirty hours.

So what exactly did they cut out of this story for the abridged version? I thought perhaps major plot points were dropped. But according to the reviews I was reading about the book that might not be the case. So they must have cut out some of the sex or perhaps the sexual scenes had gone into much more graphic detail than what I was getting. I don’t know and I have no intentions of finding out.

I will read her earlier works (I loved Guilty Pleasures when I read that a few years ago and now in comic book form from Marvel), but I don’t think I will bother with any of the books beyond this one. Incubus Dreams is 12th in the Anita Blake series so I will have plenty to check out before I finally give up on this author.

If I wish to read (or in this case hear) pure Vampire/Werewolf erotic fantasy I will look for books like Deep Inside by Polly Frost. With Anita Blake I was hoping for a Vampire mystery with a little sex in the mix, not that the entire story would be filled with only sex. We lost the whole aspect of any mystery or case a few chapters into this storyline and never got it back again until the very end of the book. Everything in between was one sexual experience after another. We had characters come and go too easily without any story development. What happened to the Vampire servant Damian? Anita f—ks him and he has a complete vampiric break down only to drop out of the story completely without resolving the problems brought on by the encounter. That is only one of many, many flaws with this story. The story ends with what else, more sex and the mystery is left unresolved. Not that I will be picking up book 13 in the series any time soon to see if this author bothers to fill her readers in or not.

My suggestion is to stay away from this story. Go ahead and read the earlier works of this author but don’t bother with this book. Even better check out the comic book version of Anita Blake Vampire Hunter (at least she is actually hunting vampires, raising the dead and dealing with werewolves instead of just f—king them all).

As I said I was listening to this story. I did not yet mention the flaws in the audio version, which is published by Brilliance Audio and read by Cynthia Holloway. Cynthia does a good job of rendering the characters and keep our interest even if the story can’t. My biggest problem with the audio version is the production. The publishing company Brilliance Audio sees fit to add unneeded audio at the beginning and end of each disk. Most people today take their discs and turn them into MP3s, which is what I did and that is why I found the fade in/out music and notice to put in the next disk a real distraction. Combine that with the repeated two or three lines of text from the previous disc and the annoyance only compounded. So drop the unwanted extras from your audio discs and maybe they will be easier to listen, although even that would not have helped this story.