Category — Reviews

I’ve been looking forward to seeing the new Sherlock Holmes movie for months. Robert Downey Jr. has always been one of my favorite actors. I think I fell in love with him in Heart and Souls. I use to watch it on VHS when I was home sick from school. Guy Ritchie, while not my favorite director, has made some entertaining films before. Let’s just say I had high hopes walking into the theater tonight.

It started off well. Ritchie created that dark and dreary London that we’re all familiar with from films like Sweeney Todd and The Elephant Man. Holmes displayed his unique mind by plotting out a blow-by-blow plan for a fight. We see this in slow motion while his thoughts play as a voice-over. Then he executed that plan just as he intended but the camera angles and movements during the fight were terrible. I couldn’t really tell what was happening and this held true for all the rest of the fight sequences. Further, the plot never grabbed me. There was a villain (Mark Strong), whose plan and objective were never really explained; there was a girl (Rachel McAdams), whose feelings for Holmes and intentions were unclear; there was Watson (Jude Law), who was a buddy but didn’t add anything.

I think the best part of the whole thing was seeing the trailer for Iron Man 2. Check out what my husband thought at neverblog.net.

I have added a new widget to this site. You may have noticed it on the right: Books I Am Giving Away. This is a widget from the site www.bookmooch.com. It lists five books at random from my inventory. I found this site about a year ago while aimlessly wandering the Internet. I landed on a wikiHow page about getting rid of old books. Let me state upfront: My name is Barbara and I am a bookaholic. I own hundreds of books. I add to my library monthly, at least. I buy way more than I read and I intend to keep the majority of my books. But not all of them. Sometimes I end up with multiple copies of the same title, or I read a book and know I’ll never go back to it, or I’ll start it and decide half way through that I don’t care to finish it. There is no reason for me to keep these books. But as a bookaholic, I can’t imagine just tossing them. They’re books! There is a used book store in town where I can trade my unwanted books in but they rarely have anything I want to take in return. Lots of romance novels and Left Behind books. I like classic literature and historical nonfiction. So for years I have been boxing my unwanted books up and shoving them in the attic.

Bookmooch now turns my unwanted books into, you guessed it, wanted books. The website itself is simple and ad-free. You have to join to be able to really look around which is no problem because membership is free. Here’s how the mooching works: The site is based on a point system. The points are weighted so you get to mooch more books than you give away. After joining, you list books you own that you want to give away. Each book listed earns 1/10th of a point so you get to mooch a book every time you list ten books. The sender pays the shipping. Domestic media mail costs about $2.50; I’ve paid $5-12 for international. Sending or receiving within your country earns/costs 1 point. It costs 2 point to mooch internationally. You earn 3 points if you send internationally. You can reject any mooch request so members can regulate their shipping to their financial restraints. You also earn 1/10th of a point for acknowledging receipt of a book. The point system is explained more clearly here.

You can’t find every book on this site, but popular titles are easy to get as long as they are a little older. I’ve also gotten some really cool older editions that you’d have to hunt for in used shops, like a first edition paperback of “Mommie Dearest” by Christina Crawford and a Bartlett’s published in 1974.

For me, this site is priceless. In eleven months, I’ve given away 28 books I don’t want and received 53. Let’s say a book costs $14 on average. That means I would have spent $742 on 53 books. Instead I spent $2.50 on 28 books, or $70. Wow.

A word of caution for those of you who prefer “like new” books. Not every book on the site is in good shape. Most members write condition notes if the books are worse than “slightly read” but there are no standards and no guarantees about condition. For me this is a selling point. I prefer books to look used: notes in the margins, highlighting, even a small tear or two. When I read, I like to leave my mark on the book and I find it fascinating to see how a book moved another reader. It gives me a feeling of cosmic connection; I feel like a participant in “the Great Conversation”.

My ID on the site is LadyPirate. If you join, friend me. And my many thanks to site founder, John Buckman, for all the time effort and creativity he has put into this site.

I just added my first project to ravelry.com. I learned about this website listening to the banknknit podcast. The site is amazing. You can log all your projects, including yarn and needles used, start and end date, changes made, and personal comments. You can also keep track of your stashed yarn and needles and etc. I only have put in the one project. Once I’m more involved I’ll write a more thorough review. My ravelry ID is LadyPirate82 if you want to find me there and my first project is a birthday gift for my brother. So if you see this Kevin, don’t look at my Ravelry until after your birthday.