Reviews and More

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked through tabloids and marveled at how thin all the celebrities look. The worst part is when they show photos of some starlet who totally regains her figure a couple weeks after giving birth. What is that all about? There must be some secret celebrity weight loss products that the general public just doesn’t know about!

Well, I think I’ve discovered what those products are. I found this YouTube video showing a New York woman who was able to lose 65 pounds (and keep the weight off) in a relatively short period of time. She used Lab88 products like MetaboSpeed XXX and Hoodia 750, and they really delivered results for her. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that celebrities use products like these as well. Check out the video and see for yourself:

I got an email from a friend of mine earlier today, and she told me that she and her husband are looking at vacations homes. I knew that step was coming because they both have Masters degrees in geology and now work for a major oil corporation pulling in nice six-figure salaries.

That got me thinking of my own situation. My husband and I are lucky enough to have homes in two countries, but they’re hardly what I would call vacation homes. No, if we suddenly came into a windfall, I know we’d look for vacation homes near Disney World. That’s one of our favorite destinations anyway, so it would make sense for us to invest in property over there.

I’m sure the Orlando area is quite pricey though, so I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for this to happen!

I’ve had some inquiries as to which movies I’ll be watching this week (I really need to upload a Netflix widget or something) so I thought I’d write out a quick list right here.

First up, I have Under the Tuscan Sun starring Diane Lane and Sandra Oh (from Grey’s Anatomy). I’ve heard of this movie and know that it got some pretty good reviews when it came out in 2003, but I don’t know what it’s about. Still, I’m excited to see it because of the two actresses involved.

Next, I have Vertical Limit. Don’t ask me why. My husband wanted to rent it because he likes mindless action flicks. Definitely not expecting much out of that.

I also have The Holiday starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black. That’s an awesome cast, so I have high hopes for that one.

Finally, I have something called The Door in the Floor. I’m not sure what it’s about, but it stars Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger. Could be good.

Anyway, like I said earlier, it’s going to be tough for me to get to all of these movies this week, but I’m definitely going to try!

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Season Two of Prison Break officially came to a close with episode number 2×22, which aired on Monday, April 2. As I’ve written before, the status of the show (whether it will be renewed for another season or not) is still uncertain. The way “Sona” ended, it seems that the writers are optimistic about coming back for Season Three, so we’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, here’s how Season Two ended.

Chicago: Kellerman continues his testimony at Sara’s trial. The evidence he gives, along with supporting documents is enough to convince the prosecution to drop the charges against her. She’s free to go, and we also get an announcement that all charges against Lincoln Burrows have been dropped as well. Uh, hello? What about Michael? No word on that yet.

Kellerman is then arrested for all the things he did, and while he’s being transported, the van takes a sudden detour. Kellerman knows the end is coming (as do we, since Paul Adelstein is going to be on the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff and all) and *apparently* gets shot by masked gunmen. I say apparently because we didn’t see the body. The writers were deliberately vague, and can go either way here: The masked men were there to set Kellerman free or they were there to kill him. We’ll see, I guess. I admit that I warmed to the Kellerman character towards the end of Season Two (after he decided to help the brothers), but I still don’t care one way or the other here.

Panama City: Everyone else converges in Panama, and we’re treated to one double-cross after another. First, Mahone double-crosses the brothers by calling the police to the warehouse. He says that a well-dressed Asian man has been murdered — so he’s planning to double-cross Kim as well. Kim arrives on the scene and figured that Mahone would try to pull something like that, so he came prepared with gunmen to take out Mahone too.

Meanwhile, Michael hands over the boat to Mahone, but had a double-cross of his own set up: he loaded the boat with drugs and called the cops to inspect it. So Mahone got picked up by Panama police on suspicion of drug smuggling. Nice!

Then Michael and Linc go to another location where Michael has arranged for a different boat to be waiting. And guess who’s on the boat? Sara. How friggin’ fast do these people get around? I can understand Kim getting to Panama City quickly, seeing as how he’d probably have a private jet and all. But Sara? Flying out of O’Hare? No way!

We get about two minutes of happiness when it looks like everything has worked out for our favorite trio. But just as they’re about to go sailing off into the sunset, a gun-wielding Kim arrives. Of course. Does anyone NOT know exactly where to find anyone else on this freaking show???? Just as Kim’s about to shoot Linc, Sara pops out of the cabin and shoots Kim. Oh, and yet ANOTHER squadron of Panama police arrive at this scene just in time to take Michael and Sara into custody. Linc escapes.

So here’s how Season Three is shaping up: Michael is once again in prison (and it looks like a real hell hole, let me tell ya), but Linc and Sara are free. Michael is in the same jail that Mahone and Bellick are in (and presumably T-Bag will join them later). Sucre has passed out on some random street somewhere due to blood loss, and Sara has some shady characters following her.

Overall, I thought this was an ok episode in some parts. I have to admit that I’m very excited about the concept of Mahone and Scofield teaming up together for another prison break, but am getting a bit tired about the general direction of the show. It seems that the writers have taken a page out of the 24 handbook: throw “cliffhangers” in at every turn. I now roll my eyes and shake my head so often during Prison Break episodes that I don’t even know why I tune in anymore. It’s like, wait — a character is about to enjoy one freaking minute of peace and happiness? Must be an armed gunman right around the corner. And sure enough, the gunman, whether it be Kim, Mahone, Bellick, T-Bag, or whomever, always appears. Too. Predicatble.

I first heard about author Ian Randall Wilson’s newest collection of short stories a couple weeks ago. It’s called Hunger and Other Stories, and I was able to preview a piece called “A Wire Man”, which is supposed to be indicative of the style and tone of the rest of the book.

My very first impression of this particular story was not great, but I read other positive reviews from people I know and trust, so I decided to give Hunger and Other Stories another try. I’m glad I did, because I liked it much better the second time around!

I guess reading other people’s insights about the character-driven stories, finding out a bit more about Wilson’s background as an award-winning writer, and approaching the book from a fresh angle made a huge difference in the way I received the story. In fact, I’m now thinking about buying the book to give the rest of the stories a go!

In the meantime, I encourage you to get your own copy of Hunger and Other Stories or to at least search for other Ian Randall Wilson works that have been published online. Who knows: he could turn out to be your next favorite author!

I have two younger cousins that are big basketball fans. You’d think that being from Chicago they’d like the Bulls, but that’s not the case at all. They’re too young to have known the team during the dynasty days when Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen helped the Bulls win six championships throughout the 1990s. Instead, my cousins like Shaq, Dwayne Wade, and the rest of the Miami Heat.

I think it would be cool to surprise my cousins with Miami Heat tickets someday. Of course they’d love to see the Heat play at home, but obviously we’re not going to travel all the way to Miami for a basketball game. So the next best thing would be to buy tickets when the Heat play the Bulls in Chicago. I don’t know if there are any more matchups between these two teams this year, but I’ll definitely look into it for the 2007-08 season.

I’ve been meaning to tell all of you about one of my favorite hangouts on the Internet. It’s the message board at GeekySpeaky.com where a bunch of bloggers get together to share their experiences and insights about all the different paid-to-blog (PTB) programs out there.

The forums are run by Colleen, who, as PPP’s top money-earner of all-time, definitely knows a thing or two about blogging. There are many other successful bloggers on the site as well, and it’s fun to read about the different strategies that everyone uses to promote their blogs, increase Google PageRank, increase traffic, and make consistent money every week.

The best part about the GeekySpeaky forum is that it’s not affiliated with the PTB companies themselves. That means we can talk about both the positive and negative aspects of each program, and get some really useful information.

Everyone is welcome at GeekySpeaky, so I hope to see you over there soon!

I was making my regular rounds around the Internet this morning when the following headline caught my eye: Mini convoy breaks world record. I had no idea what that meant, so of course I had to stop and read.

Apparently, a convoy of 269 Minis (you know — those cool little cars featured in the movie The Italian Job) slowly made its way over a two-mile route through Blackpool (England) on March 28th in an effort to raise money for charity. The previous record for a Mini convoy was 195 cars, set back in 2004 in Vancouver.

First of all, I had no idea that there was even a Guiness record available for such a thing. Do they have convoy records for all types of cars, or just for Minis? I think I might have to look that up later today! Second, I was surprised to read that there were some pretty specific rules for the convoy. For example, all the cars had to go at least two miles and they could never stray more than 10 meters away from each other at any given time. I wonder how long it took the convoy to achieve this goal?

At any rate, I think it’s pretty cool that these Mini owners came together for a good cause. To read more about the record-setting Mini convoy, take a look at the article on the vcars.co.uk website.

I just realized that there’s another unfinished task I can add to my list: I haven’t found a new template for this blog yet. Scratch that. What I mean to say is that I haven’t even tried to find a new one. I didn’t get to it over the weekend like I wanted to, so now it looks like I’m going to have to look at this boring one for at least another week. Sigh.

I just read about a software product that I think would benefit businesses of all sizes. It’s an automated accounts receivable conversion program that will drastically cut down on the time and cost of traditional manual payment posting systems. The software is offered by Check Vantage and offers a whole range of benefits in an affordable package.

For more information about ARC at Check Vantage, visit CheckVantage.com or set up a demo today.

I’m the kind of person who likes to read product reviews before I purchase anything. It doesn’t matter if I’m shopping for a $10 book or a $1,000 laptop — I want to see what kinds of experiences other people have had with similar items before shelling out my own money.

If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while now, then you know that I’ve been on a diet since the beginning of the year. It was going ok for a couple of months, but I think I may have hit a plateau. It’s becoming harder and harder for me to drop the pounds now, which is why I might try a metabolism booster.

I started reading diet review websites, and found one called the Diet Awareness Institute that has reviews on different diet products. MetaboSpeed got some pretty good results, so I’m leaning towards that stuff right now. And if I end up buying it, I’ll definitely put my own review up here on my site!