Archive for June, 2010
I think that because this was required reading for me in High School when I read it I didn’t really absorb it because I felt forced to read something I wasn’t really interested in. Maybe because at that point in my life I was into bucking authority so some extent and, ironically much like the main character Holden Caulfield didn’t much like school. Now much later in life I decided to read it again to see why this book is still so popular nearly 60 years after it’s release.
Salinger was in his late twenties and early thirties when he wrote this book however it’s written like a teenager at the time might talk in terms of phrases, sentence structure, though processes etc,. and it’s very well written in that respect. It captures the angst and anger of youth, being somewhere between a boy and a man, wanting to be an adult but still having to rely on adults to a certain extent who are making decisions for you that you don’t necessarily agree with. This is the life of the books main character Holden Caulfield. Having re read the book I get it now. The story and emotions seemed familiar probably because I could reconcile it to my teenage years. I found Holden Caulfield to be fairly unlikable at times, he thought everything and almost everyone was dumb and then I wondered to myself was that peoples perception of me at times in my youth? At times inn my youth I was like Holden Caulfield in some ways. The last chapter of the book is Holden Caulfield reflecting on his youth . It really brought the book full circle and gives the reader a sense of Holden Caulfield the man being reflective on his youth.
The writing style in interesting because it’s written like someone is sitting with you telling a story keeping you involved in the conversation by using phrases like “I told you about that earlier” It’s writing in a one way conversational style.
Some of the phrases used in the book are a little Leave it to Beaverish by today’s standards. To off set that the God D… words app
Dynalite RH1050 Non Blower
Mississippi native Stockett’s remarkable debut novel tells the story of Mississippi’s white housewives and their African-American maids during the early 1960s. Stockett’s alter ego Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a still single, recent college graduate who embarks on a project to record, write and publish the maids’ stories, filled with both humiliation and love, as a book entitled, not coincidentally, “The Help”. The irony of a community of white women who worried about maids stealing the sterling silver (and sitting on the family toilet) while entrusting them to raise their children from newborn to age eighteen is striking.
Stockett bravely and effectively writes much of the book in the voices of two maids, Aibileen, who soldiers on in silence and Minny, who loses many jobs for her willingness to talk back while struggling to keep things together with an abusive husband at her own home. Five stars for all readers, especially those with an interest in the civil rights era.
Armory Cup 2006 Korea
Here are my problems with this book:
1) Remove the sex and animal cruelty scenes, and it reads like a script from a bad Disney movie.
2) The main character is shallow and throughout the book I had no idea what made him do the things he did. Why did he join the circus in the first place? Not once did he mention missing his dead parents, his home, school etc. Didn’t he have any memories from his childhood, no worries about the future, no relatives, no friends? You never knew what he was about to do next, because his motives, thoughts and emotions were never dealt with, and that’s probably because the writer had absolutely no idea how to do that properly.
3) I get the feeling that some people liked this book simply because it was so easy to read even Bobo the monkey would get it, since it lacked any depth or complication in the script or the characters. Readers who rate this kind of books with 5 stars have obviously no idea what real literature is.
4) The dialogue was poor, and so blatantly contemporary that it made me angry at the writer’s lazyness of doing her research properly.
5) It was so obvious that the writer was a woman that you could not get it out of your mind even for a minute.
6) I’m no prude, but I’m sure images of the masturbating dwarf will be haunting me for a long time.
7) Trust a good old disaster/great accident to get rid of the bad guys for you. That way you don’t get to kill them yourself and become (gasp!) a bad guy yourself. I would be curious to see how the main character would get out of all that mess if the stampede had not happened. 
If you owned a circus and half a brain, would you hire a 90 year old cripple whith serious health problems who ran away from a nursing home and whom you have just met? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
9) I can’t really recall the sex scenes, which means they we probably not as graphic as some readers suggest, and as for the animal cruelty parts of the novel, yes, they were (theoretically) gruesome but failed t
KitchenAid 56 Ounce Blender
I am very disappointed with this drive. I am a computer programmer (C#/C++) by profession, and a computer geek for fun. I build my own computers from parts, and run a nice little network @ home and at my office. I’ve been doing these things for several years now. I know my way around computer/network equipment.
As a part of my job, I build “gold disks” for my company’s product. We use Western Digital drives exclusively. And, I’ve been using NOTHING but WD drives in my own builds for well over 15 years. I am a huge WD fan, because I know I can trust the company and its products.
My opinion of Western Digital just sank very deeply tonight (2010-02-15).
On Thursday (2010-02-11), I received my new My Book, World Edition (1 TB) from Amazon. I plugged it in, and turned it on, expecting to see the drive in a few minutes — but that didn’t happen. It took nearly an hour of fussing around until the WD Discovery tool would even see the drive. Admittedly, some of that was due to my network, but not all. Part of the problem was that I use MAC address filtering, and I had to get the MAC off of the WD drive. The label on which it is printed is EXTREMELY small, with the tiniest of fonts! The serial number for this drive is on the same label. The label is is printed so small that it is nearly illegible.
Once I got access to the drive, I went through the initial configuration process. During that process, one is offered the chance to do such things as set a name for the device, and provide a new administrative password. I chose to set a new name for the device, as well as provide a new administrative user/password — great! I like that these options are available. However, when I got to the point of submitting this information, the web page served up by this unit froze (no response after a long time). For several minutes, the web interface wouldn’t respond, so I had to reboot the unit. Then, when I was able to connect again, although the unit had been renamed
Western Digital My Book
Great ingredients, very popular with doggies 
, although I haven’t noticed any improvement in breath!
Dogswell Breathies for Dogs
This Kohler K-10411-g faucet was a good choice. It looks good in the kitchen better than the Price-Fister I replaced it with.. My wife notice the more fuller water flow from this faucet. Plus you can’t beat the longer warranty from Kohler.
KOHLER K 10411 CP
Mixed reviews held me back from reading this book for quite some time, despite my recent foray into juvenile literature. I have to say I have mixed feelings as well, though not for a lot of the reasons I’ve read (okay, people who say a 12-year-old criminal mastermind is just ‘too farfetched’ of an idea… did you notice the fairies and dwarves and trolls and the centaur? Oh, a 12-year old genius is too much to handle, but all of the fantasy creatures… no problem? Fiction, people… it’s fiction. If I wanted ‘real world’ stuff I’d just leave the house!). Mostly I had a very hard time picturing a lot of the creatures (specifically the dirt-eating unhinged-jawed dwarf) and didn’t have a great handle on the setting/technology/magic being described. But the action was good, and I did like a lot of the characters. So it gets a pretty middle-of-the road review, though I will read more in the series.
Wallpaper Patton Wallcovering Wallies
The story telling was a Wow, with sharp insights into discrimination of the times. I recall an experience in the 1960’s similar to Skeeter’s when I encountered a book that compiled laws against blacks. It was a light bulb moment for me, and the book accomplished that on many levels for readers. The book needs more multi-dimensional characters, rather than good-maid, bad-white-woman, good-white-woman. Am looking to forward more from this author, perhaps with her writing advancing in literary quality.
Mel Bay Presents Guitar
Who wouldn’t love a modern Romeo and Juliet story? This book turns my heart inside out each time I reread it. I’m a lover of great books, and I think this book will be around for decades to come—it is magical!
Black Orpheus Criterion Collection
These fork and spoon sets are great. My son is just starting to feed himself with a spoon and fork and this is the only fork that he can actually pick food up with and get to his mouth. The spoon is great too. Its not deep enough to be difficult to eat from but enough so that it will scoop food well. Plus the handles are fun and colorful too!
NUK Gerber BPA Free