Reviews and More

The last time my family went on vacation, we kind of put everything together at the last minute and didn’t have a chance to shop around for the best deals possible. We made our hotel reservations about one week before we left, and ended up paying $250 per night for a standard room in downtown St. Louis! Not exactly the kind of price we were looking for, obviously.

I wish I had remembered to check HotelReservations.com before booking our room. HotelReservations.com is an easy-to-use website that gives users access to an extensive database of hotels, motels, resorts, and vacation rentals around the world. Finding suitable lodging through HotelReservations.com is fast and easy: you can search or browse by destination city, and then sort through the results based on user-specified criteria such as price, location, or hotel quality.

Plus, HotelReservations.com offers discount pricing — up to 70% in some cases — on all lodging options booked through their website. I’ve used many online travel sites in the past, and I can tell you from personal experience that the rates offered by HotelReservations.com are some of the lowest around!

As a frequent traveler, I can’t help but notice how much hotel prices have increased in the past few years. Paying too much for lodging can really eat into my family’s vacation budget, so I’ve come to appreciate the kind of hotel discounts that can be found on HotelReservations.com. I made the mistake of not booking our last hotel through this site and ended up paying probably three times what I should have.

At any rate, you can bet that won’t happen again! The HotelReservations.com website is so easy to use that there’s really no reason not to search for and book lodging from them. The next time you need a hotel, you should give that site a try. I think you’ll agree that their prices can’t be beat!

I’d never heard of the movie Match Point before, but I happened to see the DVD cover when I was at the video store last week. I recognized Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson on the cover, and just figured the movie was a romantic comedy along the lines of the Kirsten Dunst film Wimbledon. So I grabbed it and settled in for what I thought would be a lighthearted flick.

Boy was I wrong! This turned out to be a Woody Allen movie (of all things). I’ve never really liked Woody Allen and don’t go out of my way to see his stuff, but as long as I had paid for this rental, I decided to give it a try. If I didn’t like Match Point after 20 minutes, I’d give up on it.

Well, that wasn’t a problem at all! Match Point was engrossing from start to finish, and I viewed the entire thing in one sitting — which is something I rarely do these days.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars as Chris Wilton, a young man from humble roots who made something of a name for himself on the pro tour. He couldn’t quite cut it, however, and ends up taking a job as the one of the pro trainers at an exclusive club in London. One of his first clients is Tom Hewett (played by Matthew Goode), an extremely wealthy man of about the same age as Chris. The two have drinks after their lesson, and Tom takes an immediate liking to the tennis pro.

The two soon become friends, and Chris finds himself running in upper-class society. He meets Tom’s girlfriend Nola (Johansson), an American actress who really wants to marry a rich husband more than land a starring role in anything, and Chloe, Tom’s sister. For Chloe, it’s lust at first sight, and Chris sees her as a way to break into the lifestyle that he’s always dreamed about.

So Chris and Chloe start dating even though Chris really wants Nola. He finds her incredibly sexy and intriguing, and there’s simply no comparison between her and the rather plain Chloe. But, Chloe has the money and the connections, so Chris stays with her. Chloe soon gets her father to offer Chris a job at one of his companies, and before you know it, the two are married.

Meanwhile, Tom and Nola have broken up, which prompts Chris to track her down. They begin an affair, and that of course leads to all the complications you’d expect. The rest of the film then deals with the precarious situation Chris finds himself in and the surprising way in which he tries to extricate himself.

My Reaction: I thought Match Point was a fantastic movie! I was genuinely surprised at how much I liked it and how thoroughly involved I was for the entire thing. There were some truly tense scenes in the film that literally had my heart pounding. I haven’t been that interested in a movie in a long time, so it was a nice change of pace. There wasn’t a single boring stretch along the way — it was a good film from beginning to end.

Also, I liked how my feelings about Chris changed as the movie progressed. At the beginning I liked him, but then when he started his affair with Nola, I thought he was a pig. And yet, when Nola started pressuring him, I sympathized with him again and was completely rooting for him by the end of the film.

Overall, I give Match Point 9.0 stars out of 10. This is a movie you won’t want to miss, even if you’re not a big Woody Allen fan!

My husband Jerry works for a pretty big company that is a direct supplier to Toyota. As a result, Jerry’s company ends up building new plants whenever and wherever Toyota does, which means that there’s a lot of personnel movement. Recently, there’s been some talk at work of sending Jerry to a place called Burnaston in the UK for a couple of years. I wouldn’t be opposed to the move (we relocate quite frequently anyway) as long as I could still have access to a reliable broadband provider.

I’m self-employed as a freelance writer, and I earn the majority of my income from online endeavors. In fact, my earning power is directly related to my ability to stay connected to the Internet all day, every day. The faster the connection, the better — which is why these days I will only consider broadband Internet. I can’t imagine trying to do my work on a dial-up connection, and even cable isn’t fast enough for what I want.

Anyway, just in case my husband does get a transfer order, I’m already looking for cheap broadband providers in the UK. There’s a site called BroadbandSuppliers.co.uk that offers detailed comparisons of the top broadband ISPs in the country, and I’ve found their information to be quite helpful so far. I’m going to bookmark the site so I’ll be able to refer to it again if Jerry gets sent overseas.

I want to be prepared for this potential move, and the first thing on my list is making sure I have broadband as soon as we arrive. Thanks to BroadbandSuppliers.co.uk, I’ll be able to make my decision quickly if that time ever does come.