Reviews

There are 143 posts filed in Reviews (this is page 7 of 15).

At The Abyss

I actually did something rare for me last week: I finished a book! The one is At The Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War by Thomas C. Reed and published in 2004. It’s a book filled with Cold War incidents, many of which brought little attention when they occurred but looking back on them seem rather frightening. One of the incidents Reed recalled was the brilliant sabotage of a Soviet gas pipeline in the early 80s that I’d read about before (see: The Farewell Dossier).

Reed helped design nuclear weapons earlier in his career and a narrative runs through his book about the dangers of nuclear weapons. The most frightening parts detail the shocking lack of security that surrounded these ominous weapons during some of mankind’s biggest crises. We are all very, very, lucky to be here now.
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Pheasant Run Resort

Pheasant Run's indoor New Orleans

I’m in St. Charles this week to conduct training for my company. This trip, I decided to roll the dice with a Hotwire hotel: the Pheasant Run Resort. I’d read mixed reviews of the hotel on the Internet, with some really hating the hotel and others really liking it. After a few days here, I have to say I really like it. The place certainly has some character!

I arrived Sunday evening (what some call Super Bowl Sunday), and was shocked to find the hotel practically deserted. Expecting to find guests in the hotel bar, watching the game, instead I found one couple – and I almost overlooked them. My coworkers pointed out that greater Chicago in February isn’t exactly a vacation destination.
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Reluctant (but successful) customer service

I had an amusing interaction yesterday with the guy in the shop of Agri Supply in Garner. Agri Supply is an amazing warehouse-style store, stacked from floor to ceiling with mechanical parts of all types. The guys from Mythbusters would have a field day in this store. I knew it was the place to go when I realized my hand truck tire needed replacing.

After quickly finding the proper replacement tire, I asked the man at the counter if there was any way I could get the store to install it. “Is there any trick to it?” I asked.

Another customer leaned over. “Oh, yeah!” he answered. “It’s a lot more trouble than it seems. You’d be much better off getting the store to install it.”
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Abraham Inc. brings the klezmer funk

C_Rays_Walz, Me, and David_Krakhauer

As I tweeted earlier, it’s almost not fair that it’s still January and tonight I saw the best show I’ll see all year. Abraham Inc. absolutely rocked NCSU’s Stewart Theatre tonight. I had high expectations for this show and damned if Abe Inc. didn’t just live up to them, they blew them out of the water.

After the show, the band stuck around and signed autographs. Impressed with the welcome the band got in Raleigh, keyboardist (and beat maestro) Socalled joked “From now on we’re just going to play in the South!”

If you haven’t heard Abraham Inc.’s crazy mix of hip-hop, klezmer, and funk you’ve got to check them out. I sure hope they play here again soon!

Amazon Video on Demand

Now that I’ve played around with the Roku for a few weeks I decided to check out the Amazon Video on Demand (or VOD) store. Amazon offers fairly new movies for “rental” or “purchase,” and through the magic of Roku these rentals get automatically billed to your Amazon account. They have content for standard-definition as well as high-definition. I checked out a few of their free offerings (an HD promo for The Office) and was impressed by the quality.
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The Miracle Worker

The kids were reading about Helen Keller in school so I decided to put The Miracle Worker on our Netflix list. The kids finished it a week ago but I just found the time to finish it. Wow, what a powerful story.

I may bitch and moan about some things not going my way, but nothing I will ever do will be as absolutely miraculous as what Helen and her teacher Anne Sullivan accomplished. And Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft exhibit great acting in the film.

Waiting for Superman

I was invited by a friend to see a prescreening of Waiting for Superman: a documentary about the failures of America’s educational system. The movie was compelling: it was hard not to root for the five families the film followed through their trials with their respective school systems. By the end of the film, though, I wondered what it all meant.

The film describes in detail some of the problems with our schooling but offers few solutions. All I seemed to have learned was that our schools are failing, its all the fault of the teachers’ unions, and the successful teachers are the ones who can teach their students to rap. I felt a bit short-changed as there was really no epiphany in the film. Going into the movie, I was led to believe that it would show what approaches worked but there was disappointingly little of this.

Education remains a very emotional issue and there are no easy answers. Waiting for Superman gives a good effort but doesn’t delve deep enough to really do this topic justice. If you have questions about how we should be teaching our children, however, you’ll likely still have questions once you’ve seen it. I’m still waiting for Superman, myself.

See Salon for another review I agreed with.

Update: The N&O’s Craig Lindsey says the movie shows how to fix our broken schools. Maybe he saw a different film than I did.

Reading the script

So, remember how I once vowed to put up or shut up when it came to doing voiceover work? Well, I finally got my chance. Thumbing through the recent Raleigh Parks’ Leisure Ledger, I found an upcoming class that taught voiceovers. With a small price tag and professional trainers in town, I knew I couldn’t let another chance slip away. I signed up for the September 28th class and counted down the days until it arrived.

In the meantime, though, the peculiar, breathless phrasing of the class description caught my eye so I plugged it into The Google. It didn’t take me long to trace the class to its trainers: a group in Vermont called Such A Voice. On their website I watched free online videos which explained the whole process. Soon I felt as if I had taken the class already.
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Think Like Chinese

I actually did something quite rare for me nowadays: I finished a book! The book in question was Think Like Chinese, by Zhang Haihua and Geoff Baker. I’d been looking for a book which went into more detail about Chinese culture and business and this fit the bill perfectly.

When I made my trip to China a few years back, I had heard that face was important to Chinese. Think Like Chinese really opened my eyes to just how important it is.

Face rules everything in Chinese life: from the smallest interactions to international relations. Now when I read about Chinese naval dustups and Google threatening to leave China I just laugh, because I know these situations could’ve been defused long before they ended badly. And now when my Chinese hosts honor me with a “spontaneous toast,” I’ll know it’s a face thing and I am expected to toast them right back.

China has a fascinating culture, especially for anyone interested in diplomacy like I am. With the right amount of kudos and back-slapping just about anything can get done and any misunderstanding smoothed out. Thanks to Think Like Chinese, all of this now makes sense to me. In fact, it seems so obvious now. The book helped me get in touch with my inner Chinese, and that”s a pretty powerful gift.

CompUSA

My inner geek was thrilled the day that TigerDirect opened a store on Capital Boulevard. It was nice having a broad range of electronics items for Internet-store prices.

However, as time went on it became a chore to shop there. There were never enough cash registers open, and the rent-a-cop they had working at the front door took his job way too seriously. More than once I had stood in line with my purchases and then gave up and put them back on the shelf. I didn’t want to spend 20 minutes at the register, waiting to pay them my money.

Fortunately, TigerDirect bought CompUSA. They’ve been slowly putting their CompUSA stamp on this store. There are now plenty of cashiers available, the rent-a-cop is gone, the store is laid out better, and the sales folks are far more willing to help you than they used to be. It’s now a joy to shop there.

I still like to head over to the local Intrex for stuff, but the CompUSA store is my preferred place to shop.