Candy's Raves (and Rants)

When I read the description for this book, I immediately thought of the movie “Memento”. It has that same sort of vibe and it sounded like it would be a fun ride. Amnesia, nefarious doings afoot and a strong lead character made me want to read it right away. I’m SO glad that I did.

The premise, while it has been done with varying success with other books and movies, this one was so well executed that you were pulled hurdling down the journey that the author laid out for you. It has a few wild twists and turns and a few that you can see coming, but feel powerless to help.

The writing, the editing, the pacing… all exquisite. Not a single word was wasted, not a single scene was overly detailed. It was just completely spot-on. I cannot say enough about Jacob’s ability as an author. It screams professional and you’ll be left double-checking that this is a self-published book. She IS what self-publishing in the Young Adult genre should be.

I was telling my kids (boy 12 and girl 10) about it and they both were interested. Both loved the book and want to read more by this author, hopefully with the same main character groups. I think they really got attached to the characters, which I totally did too.

Highly recommended for adults and young adults alike. A great read for you and your pre-teens to enjoy together.

Rating:

Book count for 2013: 19

I’m very lucky in the friendship department. I have a group of 12 core friends – we call ourselves “The Mom Posse” because we met through a mom’s group about 12 years ago. As our kids have grown older, our relationships have changed – it’s no longer about play dates and more about getting away from the pre-teens to spend time together over a few drinks.

I say that “I’m lucky” but I think the reality is that it’s more than luck. I’ve worked hard to have the friendships that I do and we have to make an effort to get together on a regular basis. We have a book club night each month, we try to have dinner with each other regularly, etc. We’re there for each other, through the very good times and the very bad times.

While I completely agree with most of what this book had to say, there were parts that kind of bugged me a bit. I totally agree that friendships don’t just happen and it’s like any other relationship in that you have to show up, nurture it and be consistent. I also completely agreed that relationships can change and ebb and flow and all that great stuff.

What I had the hardest time was the act of putting my friends into buckets, it felt too much like pigeon-holing our relationship. I think friendships are much more fluid than that.

Having said that, this book did really make me look at my friendships and analyze them a little as far as who I was friends with, why and what that friendship meant to me. I think you can over analyze it though. Sometimes, you’re simply friends and sometimes… that’s all that matters.

I did choose this book for a book club selection and I’m interested to see what they thought of it.

Recommended for those that do want to delve a little deeper into their friendships and figure out why things work sometimes – and why they don’t.

Rating:

Book count for 2013: 18

My husband and son have gone through a lot of headphones. Either they are not comfortable, they don’t have good sound, or they microphone does not work well. Right now, they are fighting over who gets to keep these!

Quality of sound: You can really tell when someone is behind you or what side of you they are on. While it doesn’t sound like you are in a concert hall, it does sound like you are in a realistic environment with things going on all around you.

Quality of construction: Very sturdy even if they do look a bit plastic-y. My son has a habit of dropping his headphones onto his computer when he is done. This is about a 2 foot drop onto hard metal. So far, no problems and he has done this several times a day for the last 2 weeks. They still look and sound like new.

Comfort: I think this is the real sticking point with my boys. They both wear glasses and over the ear headphones tend to squish the ear pieces into their heads. Father and son say that the soft pad is just soft enough to let them play for hours but hard enough keep the headphones in place.

Price: Looking at the price of headphones, you can spend pretty much as little or as much as you want. My husband has several that cost more than this that are now sitting in a drawer for one reason or another.

Rating:

I am an adult and I like video games! There, I said it. I feel better. But, in truth this is not really a video game. Art Academy for the Nintendo DS is more of a learning title.

But then, I’ve always wanted to learn to draw and paint. Art Academy teaches you a lot of the basics, and even some of the not so basics of creating your own art. You unlock new “abilities” by finishing each lesson. So, in a way, you progress much like an art student. Other graphics programs throw all the tools at you at once, Art Academy doesn’t give them to you until you need them and are ready for them.

Why do I play video games? To relax and to get away from the worries of life. I have heard that some of the great artists used painting to do the exact same thing. Nintendo DS Art Academy puts both together and makes it easy to escape for a while and create.

Rating:

We’ve been using a “cold fuse” type of laminator for a few years. It was ok, but you had to be really careful that you placed the document to be laminated on it just right or both the document and the laminating sheet would be ruined. For those unfamiliar with “cold fuse”, it is basically a big piece of clear tape that you put on both sides of the document.

We got tired of that last week after spending an hour just trying to laminate a few signs for the garbage and recycling cans. Luckily, we got the chance to try out the Fusion 1000L!

We had gone the cold fuse route in the past because laminators my husband and I had experience with took too long to warm-up. Also, we’d both burned ourselves more than once.

The Swingline GBC Fusion 1000L states that it has a 5 minute warm-up time. We timed it and it was just 3 minutes on the dot and it was ready to go! While the unit felt warm to the touch (nice on a winters day!) no external part was hot enough to cause even mild discomfort. It will definitely not burn you if you are using it correctly!

Did I mention how long it takes to line things up right with some laminators? It was really easy with the 1000L: put your document into the pouch. Make sure it is up against the closed end and not hanging out either side. Easy, simple, and ready to go!

The slowest part of the whole process was feeding the document into the laminator. The unit says it will do 10 sheets per minute. It took right at 5 seconds for the signs to feed in and out the other side.

Ok, actually, the hardest part was getting the extra laminating pouch I accidently got out back into the box, but I think that is more of a 4 stars for me than a dig on the 1000L.

Overall: great product that I will use over and over!

Rating:

I’m giving away a copy of The Wrath of Angels: A Charlie Parker Thriller by John Connolly.

To enter the contest, post a comment below that you’d like to win. The drawing will be held Monday, May 13.

Words With Friends took Scrabble off the board and onto the phone. I have been a huge fan of Words With Friends since it first came out, and a huge fan of Scrabble for over 20 years. I wasn’t sure I was ready to go back to the board after being freed from it for so long. I’m really glad I did!

First, if you’ve played Scrabble, then you can play Words With Friends Luxe. Same basic idea: random letters, build words, get points. However there are a few differences. Mostly in the scoring and tile placement. Those are easy to get used to, however.

Things I like better about Words With Friends Luxe:

The app that lets you check words! Amazing!

The way the board holds the tiles! This should have been done years ago.

Things I like better about Scrabble:

Better quality box for storage.
Scoring is simpler. Pencil and paper for the win!

Things that have me wondering:

Don’t most people have their phone in some sort of case? The phone holder aspect is useless to my entire family!

Overall, I rate this a 4. This was a ton of fun with my family. But if you have a Scrabble game in your game closet, you might want to pass this up. It is update, but it is still more of the same.

Rating:

I have a lot of trouble finding ear buds that don’t hurt after even just a few minutes. I have even tried other V-MODA ear buds before, with no luck. Luckily, I decided to give these a try because I have finally found a good fit!

My first impression of these was when I was taking them out of the box. They just looked right. The shiny black “gun metal” really makes for an eye catching set of ear buds. They were a little bit of a pain to get out of the packaging, and the extra ear cushions went flying once I did get it open. Luckily the cushions already on the ear buds was the one for me!

You also get a little velvet bag to keep the ear buds in when you aren’t using them. I will probably never use it for that, but it is great to keep change from jangling in my purse.

The sound quality on these is much better than other ear buds I’ve used in this price range. I really like how the bass comes out! This is great for when I am exercising or just want to relax.

Using this with my Android phone I really did not notice the “thin highs” that other reviewers mentioned. Of course, I am by no means an audiophile and just need a comfortable set of ear buds to let me listen to my music in peace!

Overall: Very nice, 4 stars.

Rating:

I know a lot of people are comparing this to another, higher end product. But I am going to try and compare it to what most people have: a trust George Foreman Grill. My family has been using the Foreman for 10 years and I never thought I would get rid of it. Guess what went in the trash last week?

I love the Big Boss grill more than I ever loved my Foreman and here is why:

The plates: These easily go into my dish washer, no problem. And they come clean! On the Foreman it was always a struggle to find room and you basically had to scrub them clean before washing them.

Folding open: The Foreman was great for steaks and chicken. This is great for a whole lot more! Anything you could make on the Foreman, you can make on the Big Boss. You can also throw out your dedicated griddle: just fold open the Big Boss and pancakes are just a couple of flips away.

Cleaning: The Foreman was a mess. You could not get to the nooks and crannies just due to the way it was put together. The Big Boss folds open easily to get at those spots you were scared to look at on the Foreman.

So why 4 stars and not 5? No instruction manual, and no waffle plate. The box said it could make waffles…how you can do that with no waffle plate is beyond me.

Overall: a great product that I plan to use for several years!

Rating:

I own a bookkeeping firm and we primarily use QuickBooks with our clients. I’ve not evaluated Peachtree in several years, but when the opportunity came up to review it, I thought “why not?” and decided to give it a look-see because while I like Quickbooks, there are several issues that we have with it.

Lesson learned: The grass is not always greener on the other side.

When installing it, I ran into problems. Twice it stopped after nearly being done and told me there wasn’t enough room on my hard drive. Um, yes. There was. I called my tech guy over and he looked at it. It gave him the same error, but he confirmed I had plenty of space. The 4th time we tried to install it, it worked fine. *shrug*

Once we got it installed, it’s actually very clean looking. I like the overall interface. Honestly? My biggest hurdle is the pricing. It’s more expensive than Quickbooks – especially if you want to run payroll. I also really don’t like that everything opens in a new window on your task bar. I just find it distracting and too much. I couldn’t find a way to make it open in your current window.

It HAS changed a lot and it’s much more user-friendly than their older version. I don’t feel like you would HAVE to be an accounting professional to use it and understand it.

I dunno. I will likely mess around with it some more, but I doubt we’ll be offering it to clients just yet.

I’m not sure I’d recommend this quite yet. It is more pricey than other options out there, for sure. I’d recommend an upgrade for folks that do use Peachtree/Sage already though!

Rating: