Reviews and More

The deadline has passed for my Burn Notice giveaway, which means that it’s time to announce the winner. I used the randomizer at Random.org to select a number, which turned out to be 10. The 10th entry I received was from Ken C., so he’s our winner. Congratulations, Ken!

Ken has 48 hours to respond to the email I sent him notifying him of the win. If he doesn’t reply with his address within that time frame, I will select another winner.

I hope you enjoy your prizes!

Edit: Ken C. of Chandler, AZ has responded to the notification email, so this giveaway is officially over! Thank you to everyone who entered!

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Regular readers of this blog know that Burn Notice is one of my favorite programs on television. I am very excited for the third season to resume, and that will be happening this Thursday, Jan. 21 at 10/9C. I’m expecting big things from the latest round of episodes — especially with all the amazing guest stars lined up, including Tyne Daly (a Cagney & Lacey reunion!), Carlos Bernard (Tony Almeida to many folks), Tim Matheson, Seth Peterson (one of my faves), and more.

To celebrate the occasion, I’m hosting a giveaway for a VERY COOL Burn Notice prize pack. Please read the description below and enter by sending an email to contest[at]reviewsandmore[dot]net with “Burn Notice Giveaway” in the subject line between now and 5pm central on Thursday January 28, 2010. After the deadline, I will use an online randomizer to select a winner from all eligible entries, and the prize pack will be sent directly to the winner from the giveaway sponsor.

The winner will have 48 hours after the announcement to get back to me with an address. If I do not hear back from the first winner within this time frame, an alternate winner will be drawn.

Sorry, but this giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and you must be at least 18 yrs of age to enter.

Get ready to get BURNED! The #1 show on cable returns with all new episodes. Don’t miss Tyne Daly & Clayne Crawford guest-starring in the Burn Notice winter premiere – “A Dark Road” – airing Thursday, January 21 at 10/9C. Become a Fan on Facebook, Follow on Twitter, and visit the Official Site to play Covert Ops: Vegas Heist (beginning 1/21) for a chance to win an all-new Hyundai Genesis Coupe!

Enter to win a Burn Notice tote filled with:

• Season 1 & Season 2 DVDs
• Burn Notice Branded Flashlight
• Burn Notice Book: The End Game
• Burn Notice T-Shirt

I wish I could keep this for myself, but it’s definitely going out to one lucky reader! Get your entries in now and good luck!

I know I haven’t been posting as many movie reviews as I usually do. That’s because I’ve been very busy with grad school and a couple of part-time jobs that I have to work at in order to pay for everything. I don’t even get the end-of -semester bonus of being able to sell my textbooks back. Traditional students can all sell textbooks, but being an online students means it’s a hassle for me to box up my books and ship them back. Oh, well.

At any rate, I have the next month off for Winter Break, and have a whole list of DVDs that I want to get through. The fact that most of my favorite TV shows are on hiatus right now also gives me more time to watch films. I can’t wait to start pumping out more reviews!

I just want to take a moment to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you get to celebrate the way you want to, with the people you love and care about most.

At my household, this means celebrating with family. We’ve fired up A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for the kids, while the adults are watching football in the basement. We’ll all convene in about two hours for turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie, and then will probably break off into groups again to finish the night. There will be ice cream and hot chocolate for the young ones, and some wine, champagne, and even Avo cigars for the adults.

So far everyone has been getting along and there haven’t been any embarrassing arguments or scenes that will cause me not to want to see these people again for another 364 days. Let’s hope the smooth ride continues!

I am just testing out my brand-new iPhone here. The WordPress app is actually very easy to use, and typing on the touch screen isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Mobile blogging, here I come!!! (Finally!)

I’ve finally decided which television shows I’m going to watch (and maybe recap) over the summer. Some of these shows will be on DVD, while others are currently on my TiVo because I didn’t have time to watch them when they were originally broadcast.

Actually, I wish I could transfer my TiVo shows to my brand new netbook and watch the programs out on my deck during this beautiful weather, but I’m not sure if my netbook has enough RAM to handle those videos. And since I’m not exactly in a financial position to buy memory just to be able to watch TV, I’ll let that idea pass for now.

Anyway, here’s what I plan to watch during the primetime hiatus:

• Boston Legal, Season 4 on DVD. I actually started this several months ago and am about four episodes in already.
• Burn Notice, Season 2 on TiVo. This show used to be one of my regular series when it was on during the summer, but as soon as it moved to Thursday nights, I had to stop because I already watch three other programs on that day. I’ll be picking up in the middle of season 2, from episode 12 or thereabouts.
• In Plain Sight, Season 1 on DVD. Watched a few eps, didn’t really like it, but have been convinced that the series gets exponentially better as it goes along, so I’m willing to give it another shot.
• Damages, Season 1 on DVD. I’ve heard some fantastic things about this show, but honestly, I’m 5 eps in and haven’t been blown away yet.
• Private Practice, Season 2 on TiVo. I watched the first 18 episodes of Season 2, and then gave up the show out of utter frustration. Other viewers, however, said that the season ends much, much better than it began, so I might give the remaining eps a whirl before I delete everything.
• Veronica Mars, Season 1 on DVD. This is a show I’ve been wanting to get to forever, but keep putting off for some reason. I’m determined to get going on the first season this summer!

This might seem like a heck of a lot of television viewing — and it is. But I need tons of content for this blog, especially since I don’t do my book reviews over here anymore now that I have the Fervent Reader site. I can’t very well go to the cinema every day, so I have to watch these TV shows instead!

I have been slacking on my reviews a little bit, and as a result, I have a bunch of catching up to do. I usually try to write my reviews as soon as I finish a book or movie, but recently, I’ve just been moving right along to the next project. Now I’ve got about 10 posts that I still have to write; I just hope I haven’t forgotten the major elements of each!

Not only that, but I’ve been slacking off on watching all the DVDs I rent from the video store. I usually rent 3-4 DVDs per week in order to have enough content for this site, but the last two times I’ve rented films, I’ve had to return one or two unwatched because I didn’t get to it. Even now, I have three movies that I have to finish by tomorrow night — which makes me wish I had some home theater seating so I could just settle in with a huge bowl of buttered popcorn and watch in complete comfort!

At any rate, I hope to get back on track soon. It’s just that I’ve had a lot of things going on in “real life” and haven’t had much time to devote to my blogs recently. Things ought to settle down within the next couple of weeks, so please bear with me until then!

This post is more for me than for you, as I’ve fallen way, way behind on writing my reviews and want to keep track of the titles I need to write about. I currently have five movie/book reviews that I have to type out, plus several more queued up waiting to be published.

In addition, I’ve seriously been thinking about doing more product and website reviews on this blog. It was never really meant to be movies/books/tv shows only, but that’s kind of what it has morphed into over the years. I don’t mind the current format, and my readers seem to enjoy it well enough. But at the same time, there’s a great deal of pressure on me to constantly consume all this media in order to publish my reviews. It would be far easier for me to simply write 200-word video game or diet pill reviews instead of the 750-1000 words that comprise my movie reviews.

At any rate, back to my list of stuff that I need to write about soon:

• 88 Minutes
• In the Land of Women
• The Narrows by Michael Connelly
• Play Dirty by Sandra Brown
• Saturday by Ian McEwan

I was searching through my archives this morning when I realized that yesterday was the two-year anniversary of this website. I published my first post on September 15, 2006, and have been going strong ever since.

Now, two years later, I’ve posted more than 1,600 movie, book, product, service, and website reviews, as well as a slew of TV show recaps. I don’t know about you, but that seems like a staggering number to me. After all, it’s not as though I’ve got a full stable of writers working for me. I watch all these movies and TV shows, read all these books, and write all these reviews entirely on my own!

Anyway, I’m looking forward to another great year here at Reviews and More. I’m still having fun with this blog, and thank you all for reading it!

Even though I only publish one review per day on this blog, I actually write more than that. As a result, I always have 20-25 reviews queued up in “draft” mode, ready and rarin’ to go. I’ve noticed that there are an inordinate number of book reviews in my queue, so I’m going to try to publish them soon to get them out there. But don’t worry, this isn’t turning into a book review blog. I’ll still be focusing on movies and TV shows for the most part; I just have to get rid of these book reviews first.

Here’s a quick peek at some reviews that you can expect to be published in the next week or so:

• Made in America by Bill Bryson (about the origins of words and phrases that are “distinctly American”)
• In the Woods by Tana French (psychological thriller/police procedural about a brutal murder in Ireland)
• Deal Breaker by Harlan Coben (a Myron Bolitar novel; sports agent turns detective to ensure his client gets a high-paying pro contract)
• Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (I wanted to read more classics, and Dickens always does it for me!)
• Blueberry Muffin Murder by Joanne Fluke (anytime Hannah Swenson gets involved in something, it’s a recipe for murder)

I have even more book reviews than these five ready to publish, but these are the oldest ones, so I want to get them out there first. Please bear with me as I go through this spate of book reviews!