Archive for May, 2013

Pest Cures (natural pest solutions book) – A Marketing Review

There’s a trail of ants in the kitchen.

Mosquitoes keep flying into your home through the tears in your window screens.

Cockroaches are crawling up your drains, making themselves at home in your kitchen and bathroom.

The neighbors’ kids keep running through your yard, screaming, yelling, and generally acting as if they own the place.

When it comes to common pests found inside and around the home, what are some safer and more natural ways of eliminating them?  Chemicals can be too expensive, controversial, and somewhat dangerous around pets.  Hiring an exterminator usually gets the job done, but again you’re dealing with high costs and the usage of chemicals.  I can flatten a mouse with a brick or thick textbook, but that just takes care of one mouse and not its mousy companions.  The family’s dog can keep making “deposits” in the common paths of the neighbors’ kids, but again you need to keep feeding said pet so that the “deposits” remain both fresh and numerous.

Are there effective and cheap ways to eliminate ants, roaches, spiders, flies, mosquitoes, and other common household bugs, all without using potentially harmful chemicals or methods?

What’s this?  A book about doing just that, eliminating the bugs by using common stuff around the house?  Really?

Pest Cures website — www.PestCures.com

Dr. Myles Bader’s Natural Solutions to Things That Bug You! is a BOOK that claims to reduce, prevent or eliminate common household bugs, all with using common ingredients found around your home.

Let’s take a closer look at the Pest Cures TV commercial (found at the product’s website — www.PestCures.com) and see how it’s being advertised to us, the general public.

Pest Cures TV commercial – They’re coming to get you, Barbra!

The Pest Cures TV commercial begins with some scary shots of spiders, roaches and a couple of mice.  The spider and roaches that we see aren’t the small and generally harmless ones normally found around the house.  No, the ones in this advertisement are even scarier.  The spider looks really creepy and those roaches look like they’re ready for battle.

While these are very photogenic and probably do a great job with scaring squeamish people, shots of normal bugs could have worked just as well.  I imagine that the same squeamish people who see an enlarged picture of an ordinary cockroach or house spider would be just as likely to pay attention to a commercial that has an exaggerated version of it. Read more…

Exercise Plan & May 2013 Totals

After months of procrastinating and finding excuses to avoid the hard work, I’ve finally begun my workouts with the aim of forming a stronger, healthier body.

This isn’t something seasonal so that I’ll look better when removing my shirt and visiting the beaches or pools.  This is a permanent change.

My plan is to use a combination of both cardio and strength training workouts, ideally alternating the workout every other day.  The catch for the cardio is that I have a mild heart condition, so for now fast paces and running is out of the question.  My cardiologist said that I should be fine for exercising as long as I don’t rush into anything.

My two pieces of exercise equipment are a ProForm treadmill and a Total Bodyworks exercise machine.

The ProForm treadmill was given to my girlfriend and I by one of her friends.  It’s not in the best of conditions but it still worked for what I wanted to do.  The display panel showed information such as the total time, distance walked, speed, and an estimated number of calories burned.  The machine is rather bulky and pretty loud, so I have to really crank the volume on my television set when I’m using the treadmill.

Unfortunately, the machine froze one day when I was finishing a fairly aerobic walkout.  I’m guessing that it overheated as it was operational again after cooling for a few hours.  But that really doesn’t matter any more.  I’m donating the still-operational treadmill to a local thrift store and I have an exercise bike on order. Read more…

Movie Review – Swiss Family Robinson (1960)

When it comes to classic tales of adventure, one of the finest family-friendly films is none other than 1960′s Swiss Family Robinson.

Swiss Family Robinson is a story about a family of colonists heading from Europe to a new home in faraway and exotic German colony of New Guinea.  Their ship is nearly sunk in a tremendous storm, and the Robinson family finds itself alone and shipwrecked off the coast of a tropical island.

The Robinsons salvage what they can from the wrecked ship, construct a massive treehouse to keep them safe from both the environment and dangerous wildlife, and they explore the local area.  The family is under constant threat of pirate attacks, and the welcoming of a girl into their home complicates matters for the family’s elder sons.

Directed by Ken Annakin, Swiss Family Robinson stars John Mills and Dorothy McGuire as Father and Mother, and James MacArthur, Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran play the roles of the boys Fritz, Ernst and Francis.  Janet Munro plays the role of Roberta, a girl who later joins the Robinson family while stranded on the island, and Fritz and Ernst constantly compete for her attention.

Swiss Family Robinson (1960) – (c) Buena Vista Distribution

Swiss Family Robinson begins with the ship Swallow being swept through a powerful ocean storm.  The crew has already abandoned ship, and apart from the five members of the Robinson family along with a variety of animals, the ship itself has been deserted.  The Swallow finally crashes on some rocks and her journey is finished.  Down on the next deck, the Robinson family finally breaks free and escapes to the upper deck.

The next morning the storm is finished and the massive wind, rain and waves have finally calmed.  Led by Father (John Mills), sons Fritz (James MacArthur) and Ernst (Tommy Kirk) help Mother (Dorothy McGuire) and young Francis (Kevin Corcoran) to the upper deck.  There they see the extent of the damage to the ship.  More importantly, the family quickly discovers that their ship is just off the coast of a tropical island. Read more…

Book Review – David Cordingly’s “Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates”

There’s no doubt that the infamous Caribbean pirates from the 1600s and 1700s continue to fascinate people today.  From toys to books to movies to theme park rides to even a Las Vegas casino, the pirate theme is still big business today.

My fascination with the seafaring villains began when I was a child and growing up watching classic films such as Treasure Island (1950), Peter Pan (1953), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), and later such films as The Goonies (1985), Hook (1991), and of course, the modern Pirates of the Caribbean films.  This pirate fascination of mine continued with riding the “Pirates of the Caribbean” boat ride in the Magic Kingdom about a thousand times, and then when playing with the pirate-themed sets from LEGO.  Pirates were just cool!  They made terrific villains.   Since the legendary pirates have been long dead for hundreds of years, you don’t mind cheering for them in the movies.

Apart from Hollywood and the theme parks, how much do people actually know about the classic pirates from yesteryear?  We all know about the classic stereotypes such as the skull and crossbones flag, the quest for buried treasure, and a bloodthirsty and treacherous captain who walked with a peg leg and a parrot on his shoulder.  But where do you draw the line between fiction and reality?  What were the pirates really like back in the 1600s and 1700s?

That’s where David Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates comes into play.

Under the Black Flag is an informative and fairly well-written introduction to the world of pirates and privateers.  Cordingly takes us through several pirate-themed movies (this book was published back in 1996, so don’t expect to read about Captain Jack Sparrow or the Black Pearl ship) to establish the popular myths, and then he takes a look at a few pirates and what life was really like back in those times.  The book’s final chapters involve the rapid decline in piracy in the 1720s along with some of the trials and executions of pirates.

After reading about the pirates of fiction in books, plays and movies, Under the Black Flag gets into the history of some real life pirates including Sir Henry Morgan, John Rackham (a.k.a. Calico Jack), Edward Teach (a.k.a. Blackbeard), and William Kidd (a.k.a. Captain Kidd).  The book briefly goes into the world of female pirates as well, and we read about women such as Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and the most powerful of all female pirates, Cheng I Sao (a.k.a. Mrs. Cheng).

After reading about some pirates we learn about life and general operations involving members of the crew.  This includes recruiting new crew members after seizing ships at sea, the required signing of the articles (set of rules), the pay scale and “insurance” payments for those injured in battle, the different flags flown on the ship, and of course, attacking merchants and sacking port towns.  This is the meat of the book, and for the most part it’s a fascinating read.  The only downside is that most of this material is brief and you’ll still be craving more information in the end.

In addition to reading about everyday life for the pirate crew members, and how most of them were highly experienced sailors with years of experience (not the generally stupid stereotypes that we see in the movies), we also learn a little bit about the exotic ports of call such as Tortuga, Port Royal (before it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1962), and even the island of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa.  Again, most of this information is quite fascinating although fairly brief in this book. Read more…

Bell + Howell Solar Charger (emergency cell phone charger) – A Marketing Review

You’re out of the house, doing whatever it is that you do, and all of a sudden your cell phone’s battery is almost dead.

This could be a catastrophe if it’s not recharged ASAP.  I mean, how are you going to check those countless number of Facebook and Twitter updates along with continuing your mindless chatting on the phone if the battery stops working?

If you’re in your car you may be able to recharge your phone with an adapter or USB slot (yes, cars actually have USB connections these days).  If you’re in a restaurant or shopping mall you may try to find a power outlet to do some quick recharging.  If you’re somewhere else in the world and away from a power source, well, you’re screwed.  Those people will actually have to power down their device and somehow live without it for a matter of minutes or even a few hours.  How those people survive without a working cell phone, I certainly don’t know.

Swap the cell phone situation to anything involving devices of similar size.  It could be a tablet, an MP3 player, or even a hand-held video game system.  The point it that you’re out of the house and nearly out of battery power for your device.  What do you do to give it a quick recharge?

Bell + Howell Solar Charger website — www.GetCharger.com

What’s this?  The Bell + Howell Solar Charger?

According to the website and advertisement, supposedly there is a way for you to quickly recharge your cell phones and other small electronic devices without needing a power outlet or USB connection.  And get this, it’s SOLAR POWERED, too!  That means using that free solar energy that pours onto this planet Earth each and every day, and no more needing to pay to recharge your devices.

Let’s take a look at the Bell + Howell Solar Charger (what in the hell product name is that?!?) advertisement and see how it’s being sold to us, the general public.  You may need to visit the product’s website at www.GetCharger.com to view the full advertisement.

Bell + Howell Solar Charger TV commercial – Hello?  Can you hear me?  I think my phone’s battery is dead!  Hello?  Is anybody there?  Answer me, dammit!

The Bell + Howell Solar Charger (again, that product name really stinks) TV commercial begins by showing us the common problem of cell phones and other devices running low on battery power.  Most of us have our daily routines and we roughly know how much battery power we use.  Granted, there are situations or circumstances, such as getting drunk at bars and telling the world about it on Facebook, and sometimes the cell phone seems to run out of power too soon. Read more…

Moore, Oklahoma EF-4 / EF-5 Tornado Videos (May 20, 2013)

There’s no doubt that yesterday’s tornado that struck the town of Moore, Oklahoma was a devastating event.

The tornado’s damage path is around seventeen miles long and about a mile wide.  Entire neighborhoods have been erased from the map.  Two schools were heavily damaged from the storm.  Hundreds of cars were tossed aside like toys.  Around 20,000 families have been displaced because of the tornado’s incredible path of destruction.

Sadly, 237 people were injured from the storm, and as of the last official statement, 24 people were killed.  Last night the death toll was 51 people, but that number was lowered this morning by the office of the medical examiner.  The excuse for having an incorrect death count was that apparently many of the victims were counted twice.

The National Weather Service is still examining the wreckage and making a decision about the true power of the storm.  We know that the tornado was at least a strong EF-4 tornado, but latest reports claim that destruction has been found that equals the incredible power of an EF-5, the strongest class of tornadoes.  Word has it the tornado had a peak wind speed of a whopping 210 mph.

In reality, the ultimate strength of the May 20, 2013 tornado that struck Moore, OK is meaningless.  It’s just a statistic for the record books.  The reality is that this was a monster storm that nearly wiped out an entire town.  The incredible amount of damage stretches for miles and miles in that section of the greater Oklahoma City metro area.

For the residents of Moore, OK, tornadoes are just a part of life.  The town is located in the heart of Tornado Alley, and it’s been struck by deadly tornadoes at least five times since 1998.  Until yesterday, the most destructive tornado to hit the city was an F5 tornado on May 3, 1999.  That storm had the strongest tornado winds ever recorded and was responsible for the deaths of thirty-six people.

VIDEOS OF THE MAY 20, 2013 MOORE, OKLAHOMA TORNADO:

time-lapse video of the tornado recorded from a news helicopter

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tornado footage recorded from outside of town

Read more…

Saying Goodbye to Grandma & Being An Outcast From the Family

A day after I wrote the article about my “Uncle Billy” and his encounter with the Detroit Medical System, my grandmother died (the same woman referenced in the previous article).

This grandmother was my mom’s mom.  She was also the last of my grandparents as both of my grandfathers had passed away years ago, and my grandmother on my dad’s side has been deceased for almost ten years.

My parents and I headed up to Detroit to spend a few days with the extended family and attend to the viewing and funeral for my grandmother.  It was those few days visiting with my cousins (unofficially I’m the oldest of the bunch, but several of them are within five years of me) that I realized just how little I had in common with those people despite the closeness of my mother and her sisters.  My mom is the oldest of her five siblings, and except for “Uncle Billy,” they still have a tight bond with one another.

But when it comes to my cousins and myself it’s a different story.

One of my aunts had an idea of creating posters and filling them with pictures of people in my grandmother’s life, and putting those on display during the viewing and funeral.  That itself was a great idea and everybody at the funeral loved seeing the photographs.  For a grandmother such as mine and the extended family, there were a LOT of photos spread across many poster boards.

Anyway, it was helping my cousins with the posters that I realized just how little I had in common with those people.  While they were going through the photos and going, “Oh, remember this . . . ” or “Remember that . . .” or whatnot, and for me the most common answer was “No.”  I had no bond or connection with my grandmother while almost all of my cousins did.  A big problem was that my grandmother played favorites with her own children and her grandchildren, and my brother and I were at the bottom of the list.  We’re we bad to her?  Certainly not.  We were just not on her favorites listing, and when my family relocated to Georgia back in 1987, that wedge between my grandmother and I just grew deeper.

From 1987 through 2013, my grandmother came down to Georgia to visit us ONE time, and that visit was within the first year of us living down here.  That’s it.  She had the means to come down and visit more times, but she lacked the willpower or desire to do so. Read more…

Movie Review – Treasure Island (1950)

Back in 1950, Disney released its first full-length live action film with the adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Treasure Island is a classic seafaring adventure tale involving ruthless pirates, an exotic island, buried treasure, and of course, plenty of action along the way.  The film begins in England in the 1760s as we’re introduced to young Jim Hawkins, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and Long John Silver.  Once a map leading to pirate treasure is discovered, the race is on to acquire a sailing ship, hire a crew, and chart a course to claim the lost stash of gold.  But as we see, treachery is afoot and Long John Silver has plans of his own.

Treasure Island was directed by Byron Haskin and stars Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins, and Robert Newton in a memorable role as the mighty pirate Long John Silver.  Supporting them are Basil Sydney as Captain Smollett, Walter Fitzgerald as Squire Trelawney, Denis O’Dea as Dr. Livesey, and Geoffrey Wilkinson as Ben Gunn.

Don’t let the age of this pirate film fool you.  Treasure Island can hold its own against the popular pirate-themed movies from today’s generation of viewers.

Prepare yourself for adventure!

Treasure Island (1950) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures

Treasure Island begins in 1765 in western England.  A mysterious man named Black Dog (Francis de Wolff) enters an inn named Admiral Benbow and orders a drink of rum.  A young boy named Jim Hawkins (Bobby Driscoll) serves the man his drink.  Black Dog asks Hawkins if he’s heard of a maned named Billy Bones, but Hawkins tells him no.  Black Dog spies an old chest with the initials W.B. carved into it, and then he suddenly leaves the inn.

After Black Dog leaves the inn, Captain Billy Bones (Finlay Currie) descends the stairs and asks Hawkins who it was that visited the inn.  He’s concerned about it being a man with one leg, but when Hawkins describes the visitor, Billy reveals that it was Black Dog.  Billy’s health is nearly gone as he asks Jim Hawkins to give him a glass of rum, which he does so reluctantly.  Hawkins tells Billy not to drink as the doctor told him that the rum could kill him, but Billy Bones is set on drinking away his worries. Read more…

Politics in the Detroit Medical System

Today we’re telling the tale of a relative of mine.

Let’s call him “Uncle Billy.”

Yes, Uncle Billy is really an uncle of mine.  The guy is in his fifties, he’s single, in his youth he participated in very objectionable behavior throughout downtown Detroit and the suburbs, he has AIDs, he’s never had a real job or actually worked for a living, and as you can probably guess, he’s lived off of welfare and probably a dozen other government benefits.  Uncle Billy is a pimple on society’s ass.  The guy is a social deadbeat whose purpose in life is to keep making his daily visits to the three gambling casinos in downtown Detroit and continue spending his welfare checks.

This isn’t an anti-gambling thing.  If Detroit didn’t have its casinos, then the guy would keep crossing the border into Canada and gambling in Windsor, Ontario.  If those casinos didn’t exist, then he’d be spending his welfare money on other garbage.

The guy is an embarrassment to the family and a complete waste of space.  He’ll use his memory skills and memorize your credit card and driver’s license information, using that knowledge against you.  I’m surprised he isn’t sitting in jail right now.  If it weren’t for the fact that he’s still living at home with his mother (my grandmother), then the guy would either be A) dead, or B) in jail.

I kid you not.

Last week, Uncle Billy was visiting his mother while she was there for probably her tenth hospital stay in the past year alone.  It seems like she’s being admitted to the hospital once every few weeks for a variety of reasons ranging from breathing issues to circulatory problems.  Grandma is rather overweight and has been a lifelong smoker and drinker, and a person’s body can only handle so much of that crap.  Sadly, her condition is only going to continue deteriorating as she chooses to do little to make the necessary changes in her lifestyle.

Uncle Billy was there in the hospital when he apparently began suffering from a heart attack.  From what I understand, he was admitted and underwent some testing to determine the extent of his problem.  As far as I know, no surgery took place when he was admitted.  I live in Atlanta, so my information is being relayed from relatives.  What I do know is that the following day we learned that Uncle Billy was going to need a quadruple bypass procedure to help fix all the clogged arteries around his heart.  Uncle Billy weighs about 300 pounds, he’s been a smoker for the longest of time, his dietary program is mostly unhealthy, and the guy’s exercise program involves walking from the car into and around the casinos. Read more…