Reviews and More

I love dogs, so it was only a matter of time before I would read the nonfiction phenomenon Marley & Me by John Grogan. You’ve undoubtedly seen this book at least once in the past year: it’s the one with the adorable yellow Lab puppy on the cover. The book has spent the last 64 weeks on the NY Times bestsellers list, and has been at No.1 for most of those weeks.

Marley & Me tells the story of how the author and his wife Jenny made the life-changing decision to adopt a puppy when they were newlyweds. That puppy, of course, was Marely, the yellow Lab featured on the book’s cover.

Marley was one of those dogs that couldn’t be controlled, and he got into one mishap after another. While these incidents mostly exasperated the Grogans and cost them a lot of money, they couldn’t really do anything about the situation. That’s because Marley had insinuated himself into their lives and had become a part of the family. There were rough patches, to be sure, and the author candidly admits that there were at least a couple of occasions when he and his wife seriously considered giving Marley up. But in the end, they stuck by him, and Marley rewarded them with a lifetime of friendship, laughter, and love.

Marley & Me is a wonderful book that is truly a must-read for any dog lover out there. But be warned: you won’t make it through without a few tears, so keep the tissues handy!

Before we moved into our home with its attached garage, my husband and I lived in a small, one-bedroom apartment. There was no space to put half of the furniture and other items we had, including my husband’s motocross bikes, so we had to rent a self storage locker. We just went to the one that was closest to our apartment, signed up for two years (the shortest contract they had for a decent price), and left it at that.

Little did we know that we would get our home before that two-year contract was up. We ended up paying for six months of storage that we didn’t even use! So my advice to you is to consider the length of the contract in addition to the monthly rental fees. If we had just paid the higher price for the shorter contract to begin with, we would have fared a lot better!

I just finished listening to the Librivox recording of The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. The audiobook consists of 24 separate files (one for each chapter) and has a running time of just under 5 hours. Here’s what I thought of this particular recording.

First, I liked the fact that there were several different readers for this book. I don’t mind when different people read the same book, and actually prefer it because it’s better than getting stuck with a voice that you can’t stand. Second, the story itself is nicely suited to the audio format because the plot is relatively easy to follow. For some books, I have to constantly leaf back and forth to re-check names or details, but not with The Red Badge of Courage. So this is a good one to start with if you’re just now easing into audiobooks.

Now, here’s what I didn’t like. Some of the readers were… pretty bad. I know you’re going to get a mixed bag with Librivox, but from what I understand, they have editors who actually have to approve this stuff. One reader apparently felt that he was in a race against the clock because all he did was read everything as fast as he could. I mean, I could literally hear him sucking in air mid-sentence in order to keep going. Another guy fidgeted in his squeaky chair quite a bit. This is the kind of thing the editors should be picking up on, right?

Overall though, I have to say I liked this recording. There were a couple of painful chapters, but on the whole it’s worth listening too. Give it a try!

The last company that I worked for was a truly global enterprise. The main office was located in Japan, but there were subsidiary branches in countries all over the world, including China, Czech Republic, England, Canada, and the U.S. That made video conferencing a cost-effective way to communicate with managers and executives from the various locations.

Unfortunately, my company opted to go with the cheapest products instead of using high-quality solutions like the equipment from LifeSize. As a result, there were frequent dropped connections and the sound quality was often lacking. Videoconferences took twice as long as they should have because the people involved had to keep repeating themselves or had to wait for colleagues to get back online. I think most of those problems could have been avoided if we had used high-definition video communications systems, and that would have benefited everyone involved.

Don’t let your organization suffer from the same lack of productivity. Check out the video conferencing solutions that LifeSize has to offer!

When I was a kid, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl was one of my favorite books. I loved the world and the characters Dahl created, and I revisited that particular work many times in my youth.

So after I heard that Tim Burton was planning to do another film version of the story, I had my reservations. And after I heard that Johnny Depp was going to play Willy Wonka, I pretty much made up my mind to avoid the movie. You see, I haven’t liked a single Tim Burton film and Johnny Depp is not one of my favorite actors. Then, when all the mixed reviews came out, I put the movie out of my mind for good — or so I thought.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine insisted that I give Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a try. I reluctantly gave in, fully prepared to hate it. But the surprising thing was, I didn’t hate it.

The biggest reason for this was the performance of Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket. I loved Highmore in Finding Neverland, but didn’t know he was in this movie too. Highmore was just perfect as Charlie. He exuded kindness and innocence without pushing his virtues down viewers’ throats. Highmore has got to be one of the best teen actors out there (I was surprised to see that he’ll be 15 next month; he looks much younger).

Anyway, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was pretty good. I don’t remember all the details of the book anymore, but it seems like Burton followed the basic plot pretty closely. Depp was SO WEIRD as Charlie — his performance totally didn’t work for me, but fortunately it wasn’t enough to derail the whole film.

I’m glad I finally gave this movie a chance. It earns 7 stars out of 10 from me. Check it out!