Reviews and More

Well, no surprises at the box office this weekend. Spider-Man 3, the first big-budget release of the summer season (May is considered summer, right?) pulled in an estimated $148 million in the U.S. alone. $59.3 million of that came on its opening day, which broke the single-day record of $55.8 million set by the last Pirates of the Caribbean film. This latest Sam Raimi effort was released to other markets (including Japan — notice how I had my review up earlier in the week) on Tuesday, so if you count those receipts, Spider-Man 3 earned a total of $375 million in a little less than a week. Wow!

Disturbia dropped down to second place with $5.7 million. The crazy thing here is that Disturbia had been the No.1 movie in the country for three weeks in a row, and its total haul has only been $59.9 million — just slightly more than Spider-Man 3’s opening day take!

Anyway, here’s the complete top 10 for 5/6/07:

1. Spider-Man 3, $148 million
2. Disturbia, $5.7 million
3. Fracture, $3.4 million
4. The Invisible, $3.1 million
5. Next, $2.8 million
6. Lucky You, $2.5 million
7. Meet the Robinsons, $2.46 million
8. Blades of Glory, $2.3 million
9. Hot Fuzz, $2.1 million
10. Are We Done Yet?, $1.7 million

My husband had a couple days off last week, so we decided to go the driving range one afternoon to enjoy the beautiful weather. We hit three buckets of balls each and had a lot of fun. It had been a long time since we last picked up some golf clubs, so it was nice to be able to get out there to practice some drives again.

After we returned home, we got to talking about how nice it would be to arrange our next vacation around golfing. We’d ideally like to go to an all-inclusive resort so we wouldn’t have to pay for each round of golf, and we’d also prefer it if there were a babysitting service available so we wouldn’t have to worry about our son while on the links. A couple of my friends have taken golf holidays in the past, so I have a general idea of what to expect.

We discussed destinations a bit and agreed that we’d both love to go back to Italy someday. I checked online for Italian golf courses, thinking we probably wouldn’t have much luck in that area. So you can imagine my surprise when I found out that Italy has several world-class golf resorts that include courses designed by pros like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player. It would be fantastic to play one of those courses during the day, and then tour the romantic Italian countryside at night!

I don’t think we’re going to be able to take a golf holiday this year, but hopefully we’ll be able to make it happen next summer. I can’t wait!

My reading rate has slowed way down in the past several weeks because I’ve just been too busy to sit down with a book for longer than 20 minutes per day. But even at that pace, I’ll eventually make it to the end of a novel, so I make sure to read at least a chapter on a daily basis. In this fashion, I made it through Death on the Nile, another Hercule Poirot novel by Agatha Christie.

Christie is the kind of writer who usually doesn’t spend much time on character development, opting instead to kick things off with an early murder or crime. But in Death on the Nile, Christie takes her sweet time in allowing the reader to get acquainted with the major players in the book.

We have Linnet Ridgeway, a beautiful, young (just 21 years old), incredibly wealthy playgirl who is accustomed to getting everything she wants. We also meet Simon Doyle, the man who would later become Linnet’s wife, as well as Jacqueline de Bellefort, formerly Linnet’s best friend — and Simon’s first fiancée. We also have Tim Allerton and his mother; Marie van Schuyler, a rich American; Mrs. Otterbourne, a washed-up romance writer, and her daughter Rosalie; Andrew Pennington, Linnet’s lawyer; and several other minor characters

All of these people come together on a ship that’s making its way along the Nile to some exotic destination in Egypt. Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is also among the passengers, as is his old friend Colonel Race. This turns out to be a convenient coincidence since they’ll be on hand to investigate the murder of Linnet Ridgeway, who was gruesomely shot in the head as she slept.

We don’t actually get to the murder until almost halfway through the book because Christie uses the early pages to show us how a number of Linnet’s acquaintances all had sufficient motive to want her dead.

The second half of the book is of course devoted to Poirot’s investigation and the interrogation of witnesses. Christie included plenty of red herrings in this book, so even though I thought I knew what was going on, I was assailed with doubt every time a new clue popped up.

My Reaction: Death on the Nile is often referred to as one of Christie’s top novels, and I have to agree with that assessment. I enjoyed the whole thing, and as I just mentioned, I was kept guessing up until the very end (though it turned out I was right after all).

One of the reasons I liked this book so much is that Poirot had a colleague to talk to, which gives readers a glimpse of where his thoughts are taking him. It wasn’t Hastings this time, but Race was a decent substitute, and it was definitely much, much better than those novels where Poirot investigates on his own. When there’s a colleague involved, readers get to see how methodical Poirot’s techniques really are, which makes the whole novel so much more fun.

Overall, I give Death on the Nile 8.0 stars out of 10. If you’re not concerned about reading through Agatha Christie’s entire collection, then this should be one of the books that you definitely get to.

My grandparents are getting on in age, but they’re still very active. I talked to them last night and heard a bunch of great stories from their recent Kissimmee vacation. They’ve got friends who live in central Florida and they actually travel to that area quite often to visit, fish, and shop. There weather was wonderful during their stay and it sounds like my grandparents had a great time yet again. I swear, sometimes it seems that they get around more than I do! I hope I can be half as active when I’m their age!

I’ve been a freelance writer for more than two years now and I really love what I do. I’m making great money, don’t have to deal with a boss or co-workers, and can set my own hours. Yes, working from home is definitely all that it’s cracked up to be! Nevertheless, I still keep my resumè up to date and I still scour the classifieds and online job boards from time to time just in case my situation drastically changes.

It seems to me that these days it’s much easier to find jobs (or at least get good leads) than years ago when I last looked for employment in earnest. The Internet now makes it possible to search through thousands of job ads not only in my immediate area, but also across the country and around the world. Plus, all companies accept electronic resumè submissions, which makes it easy to respond to numerous ads within a few minutes.

From what I’ve seen, the key to finding a good job online is to use the best employment resources available. There are countless websites, job boards, and agencies that claim to have fresh leads, but after spending a bit of time watching the ads, it’s clear that the opposite is true. I recommend finding a site with a proven track record of assisting people secure the jobs of their dreams.

For example, I think fish4jobs is one such site. They currently have more than 37,000 jobs listed and also have other useful tools, like this CV template page that helps applicants perfect their CV or resumè before sending it out. Not many other job sites have these extra services available, so I’d certainly want to take advantage of the fish4jobs offer.

I’m having so much fun working from home that I hope I never have to look for a job again. But in the off chance that I do, at least I’ll know right where to go for thousands of leads!

I was browsing through Amazon.com earlier today when I noticed that the first season of Cagney & Lacey, which was one of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid, will be released on DVD May 8! I’m pretty excited about this because I haven’t seen C&L since it went off the air back in 1988. I vaguely remember the main characters, but don’t remember any of the individual episodes at all, so the DVD box set will be a great purchase. I’m putting in my order tomorrow!

I started reading customer comments about the DVD on Amazon and saw that many fans are saying the eps that are being marketed as Season 1 are actually Season 2. I guess a different actress (Meg Foster) played the role of Cagney before Sharon Gless stepped in, and those six eps just aren’t being included. Whatever… I don’t remember anyone except Gless, so this detail won’t bother me much.

Can’t wait to get this, and yes, I’ll be posting recaps as I watch!!

In the past few months, I’ve made a concerted effort to build up my savings — and I’m surprised at how successful I’ve been. I’ve got enough of a nest egg to get my family through any unforeseen emergencies that might crop up, which was one of the reasons I wanted to save money in the first place. I’m now checking into high-yield account options, and hopefully will be earning a very nice interest rate on my money soon.

One question I’ve been wrestling with is whether or not I would dip into my savings for things that aren’t wholly necessary for my family but that would nevertheless be beneficial. For example, what if we wanted to make some home improvements or take a fun vacation? It wouldn’t be prudent to use my savings, especially if I’m earning 6.5 percent or more on the funds. Instead, it would be better to take out personal loans for these situations.

These days personal loans can be had for extremely low interest rates, which makes them a very attractive option for someone in my situation. I noticed a personal loan comparison chart on the Fool.co.uk website and saw that several lenders are currently offering loans at less than 6.5 percent APR. At those rates, I would be much better off keeping my money in my savings account and using a loan to pay for home improvements or whatever. As long as I made my payments on time and didn’t get charged any extra fees, everything should work out in the end.

I’m not saying that I’ll run right out and apply for a personal loan tomorrow; I’m just trying to figure out ways to continue building my savings without sacrificing the kind of lifestyle my family is used to. As such, I’m going to keep this loan idea in mind.