The Chronic Consumer

When I was in grade school, my two favorite books were Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic. I used to read those poems over and over again, never tiring of the whimsical rhymes and fanciful illustrations. I already have those two books for my son, and figured I’d give other Silverstein works a try. I therefore purchased The Giving Tree (without knowing the story or having read it myself) based on the mostly favorable Amazon.com reviews.

The Giving Tree is the story of a friendship between a boy and a tree. The tree provides the boy with everything he needs (apples, a place to climb and play, shade, etc.), and this continues throughout the boy’s life. As the boy gets older, his demands on the tree become more substantial; yet the tree keeps giving — without getting anything in return. The tree is happy so long as the boy is happy.

Finally, there’s nothing left of the once-glorious apple tree except a tiny little stump. And still the boy, who has now become an old man, asks something of it. The tree willingly complies, and is once again happy that he could give something to his friend.

I guess there are many different interpretations one could have of this story. For example, many readers consider it a beautiful tale of generosity and unconditional love/friendship. Others may consider it a dire display of exploitation and selfishness on the boy’s part. I took this latter view, and therefore don’t think this is a book I’ll be reading to my son after all. (Moreover, there’s quite a menacing picture of Silverstein on the back cover that I think would likely give my kid nightmares if he saw it.)

I must say that I’ve been disappointed with my last two children’s book purchases from Amazon.com (this one and Love You Forever). I bought both of those because of the glowing reviews, but ended up not liking either of them. I guess my experience just reinforces the notion that reading choices are highly personal and shouldn’t be influenced too much by what others think.

If you’re considering buying The Giving Tree for your child (while it is advertised as a children’s book, the recommended age is stated as being 10+), I suggest giving it a quick read at the store first. Then you can make a more informed decision of its suitability.

*The cover price of this book is a relatively steep $16.99 ($11.55 at Amazon.com).

With 2008 just around the corner, it’s almost time for me to start making my New Year’s Resolution. I’m not exactly sure what they’ll be this year, but I know that at least one resolution will pertain to weight loss. Like most other people, I set this goal for myself every year, and, again like most people, I usually fall a bit short.

This time around, I think I’m going to try using some diet pills to help boost my metabolism. I’ve heard some good things about a product called ThermoLean, so I might give this one a try. ThermoLean is ephedra-free, which is very important, and is affordable as well (unlike a lot of similar products).

I just want to lose 10 pounds and get in better shape, which is pretty reasonable. Hopefully ThermoLean can help!

I purchased The Golden Girls: The Complete Second Season several months ago, but kept forgetting to review the DVD set here. I finally just put a sticky note on my monitor as a reminder to write this post first thing in the morning, so here I am.

The Complete Second Season is a basic three-disc set that is more or less looks the same as The Complete First Season. In other words, there are 26 episodes on the single-sided discs, and each disc has a portrait of one of the main characters on it. In addition, specific episodes are listed right on the front of the discs to make it easier to find what you’re looking for.

There’s only one bonus feature in this set. It comes at the end of Disc One, and is called “Go For the Gold Trivia Challenge.” It’s hosted by a guy named Jerry Attrick, who shows short scenes from previous eps and then asks questions about the scenes. The answers are listed out in multiple choice format, and you use your DVD remote to make your selections.

Sometimes the questions are about what’s going on in the scene, but sometimes they’re just about what kind of objects are in the scene (“What’s Dorothy pouring?”, “What’s on the table in front of the women?”). They’re all pretty easy to answer, and there wouldn’t really be any point to playing the challenge more than once, so this bonus feature isn’t all that great. I don’t remember how many questions there were in all, but the feature ran about 10 minutes (give or take).

There’s not a whole lot to say about this DVD set. It’s definitely aimed at those on a budget, and therefore doesn’t have a bunch of bells and whistles. Get this one to enjoy the actual Golden Girls episodes rather than for any special features or behind-the-scenes footage.

I’d heard a lot of good things about the children’s book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, so I decided to buy it for my boy’s collection. I purchased it online from Amazon.com, where it currently has a 4-star average rating out of more than 700 customer reviews. I read a couple of the reviews, both positive and negative before buying, but didn’t really do too much other research.

The book tells the story of a mother’s unconditional love for her son as he goes through various stages of growth and development: troublesome toddler, sullen teenager, etc. The mother is shown to sneak into the son’s room at night and rock him back and forth as he sleeps. She continues to do this even when her son is a full-grown adult. Then, as the mother ages and gets too old to rock her son, the roles switch and the son rocks the mother.

Now this might sound like a sweet story in theory, but as executed in the book it just came off as uber-creepy. This has everything to do with the drawings by Shelia McGraw, which show the mother crawling into her son’s room on all fours to rock him even when he’s a teenager and stuff.

Look, I tried not to be weirded out by the book, and I really did want to like it. But it just seemed so odd to me that a mother — any mother — would climb a ladder to enter her adult son’s bedroom and rock him in the middle of the night.

I ended up not reading this to my son, and will give it away to the local library the next time they collect books for their annual book fair. I’ve got nothing against people who like Love You Forever; it’s just not something that works for me.

Thelma & Louise is one of my all-time favorite movies. I remember the first time I saw it as a senior in high school. I was hanging out with my best friend one day, and we decided to go rent a movie. We picked out T&L, not knowing anything about it or about all the controversy it had stirred up, even though it had been released almost a year before. We both ended up loving the film. We talked about it for weeks, imagined ourselves in the same situation, etc. etc. My friend bought the video and brought it with when we went off to college, so we watched it dozens more times after that.

However, I never owned the movie myself until just a couple of months ago when I decided to purchase the DVD as part of Fox/MGM’s “DVDs For the Cure” campaign. As I mentioned in my Legally Blonde Post, Fox and MGM special “Pink” editions of popular women-centric movies during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, with $.50 of each DVD sale going directly to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I figured that would be a perfect way to finally get T&L on DVD, so I went ahead and bought it.

The “Pink” edition is nothing more than a special cardboard o-ring that slips over the regular DVD jewel case, so it’s not like this is a collector’s item or anything. Then the DVD itself has the same bonus features as the regular version that you can buy at any other time during the year.

The special features include an audio commentary by director Ridley Scott, an audio commentary with Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, and screenwriter Callie Khouri, 30 minutes of “newly found” deleted scenes, and an alternate ending with more commentary from Ridley Scott.

In all honesty, the extras aren’t that great. The alternate ending turned out to be nothing more than an extended shot of the convertible flying into the Grand Canyon. We see the car tumble over several times, and then the shot cuts back to Harvey Keitel and the rest of the cops. After that, Scott goes for a reprise shot of the convertible driving along the open road as the credits start to roll. All told, it’s about 3 minutes longer than the ending that shows on the theatrical release.

The deleted scenes weren’t all that interesting — which is why they were deleted in the first place, I guess.

I watched the movie with the Sarandon, Davis, and Khouri commentary on, and thought it was decent, but not great. The three didn’t talk all that much, especially Sarandon. Davis seemed to be enthusiastic about providing commentary, but didn’t give any meaningful insight along the way. She mostly just talked about how funny the guy who played her husband was and things like that. Some of Khouri’s comments seemed like they were edited in after the fact, which was kind of weird.

(I haven’t watched with Ridley Scott’s commentary, so I can’t tell you about that part yet.)

Overall, Thelma & Louise is one of those DVDs that you buy for the film itself rather than the extras. If you can be satisfied with that, then go for it!

With less than two weeks until Christmas, we’re getting into full holiday party mode over here! My husband’s office party is coming up next Friday, and we’ve got several more get-togethers with friends and family planned between now and the big day. Of course, that means we’ll be partaking in lots of high-calorie goodies, such as appetizers, cookies, cake, and egg nog.

This obviously doesn’t bode well for my New Year’s weight loss goals, so I’m thinking of stocking up on a supplement like Miracle burn. I’ve read a lot of positive responses from people who have successfully incorporated Miracle Burn into their weight loss regimen with great results. They’re losing weight and getting an energy boost without any side effects — and that’s precisely what I want.

I’ve tried other stuff in the past without much luck, but I know that different products work well for different people, so I’m going to give this one a shot!

I haven’t had much success buying new Nintendo DS games for my soon-to-be 5-year-old son. He wasn’t able to handle Pac ‘N’ Roll, and gave up on DK Jungle Climber rather quickly as well. There aren’t any upcoming releases that look like they’d be suitable for him, so I decided to go retro and buy a used title instead. What I ended up with was Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, which came out way back in 2002 — for Game Boy Advance. (Remember that Nintendo DS systems have an additional slot for GBA cartridges, so there was no problem getting this title to work.)

My son already has Kirby Squeak Squad, a newer title in the series, so he was somewhat familiar with the gameplay in Nightmare in Dream Land. In this game, the player controls Kirby, who must try to recover the stolen Rod of Dreams, without which, no one in Dream Land can dream. My son didn’t quite get the back story, but it doesn’t matter. He knows that he basically has to battle various enemies as he moves through the different stages.

As with Squeak Squad, Kirby can inhale/swallow his enemies in order to copy their powers and special abilities. On his own, Kirby can only walk, float, swim, and jump, so it really helps to be able to get those extra powers.

The gameplay is fairly simple, making Nightmare in Dream Land perfect for my 5-year-old. Kirby can get hit six times by enemies before actually dying, so each turn lasts a very long time. Plus, there are always chances to score additional lives, meaning that this game is just about as easy as they come. The graphics aren’t that great because the title is relatively old, but my son doesn’t care about that.

Overall, I think Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land is an excellent option for those of you with younger children. I bought this game used from an Amazon.com reseller for about $14.99 + shipping (compared to the outrageous $59.99 price tag I’ve seen for brand-new, unopened versions). I didn’t get a box or a manual with the game, but it doesn’t matter. It works fine and my son was able to figure out how to play with no problems, so I definitely recommend this one!

My son will be learning to read soon, so I’m now trying to buy him books that he’ll want to read on his own over and over. One of the first titles that I chose for my son’s library was The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.

The Velveteen Rabbit was a favorite of mine when I was growing up. It tells the story of a stuffed rabbit that eventually becomes real after being truly loved by a little boy. At first, the little boy never played with the velveteen rabbit, preferring instead toys that wound up, moved, and made noise. But one night, the boy brings the velveteen rabbit to bed, and after that carries the rabbit around with him everywhere — until the rabbit starts looking shabby because its fur had been “loved off.”

After a bout of scarlet fever, all of the boy’s playthings had to be burned, including the velveteen rabbit. But before the gardener could get around to burning it, the Toy Fairy comes and turns the velveteen rabbit into a real bunny.

I bought a paperback edition that contains the original story and drawings (by William Nicholson). This volume is 40 pages long, and is a quick read for adults wanting to read a bedtime story to their children, but would take significantly longer for a child to read on his or her own.

This book is available for $10.94 from Amazon.com, and is well worth the price!