Cost Plus World Market Gourmet Chocolate Bars

Cost Plus World Market offers a wide variety of exotic products from all over the world. They also have product lines of their own, one of which is a marvelous selection of gourmet chocolates.

With pomegranate, chipotle chilis, sea salt, and several different grades of dark chocolate as well as a milk chocolate bar, Cost Plus has put together a package sure to please any chocolate lover.

The dark chocolate bar with sea salt is one of the most pleasant surprises I've had in a while (after Mo's Bacon Bar from Vosges). Rich, dark chocolate studded with bits of sea salt, it's the perfect bar for that particular salt-and-sweet craving. Best of all, it's considerably less expensive than comparable gourmet chocolate bars. These bars are only available at World Market stores, and cannot be ordered through their website. Highly recommended.

Bath and Body Works Aromatherapy

The Bath and Body Works Aromatherapy line is a great collection of herb-infused products from shampoos to body wash and even candles and the B&BW Wallflowers.

Without the perfumey, artificial-smelling overkill of many of the "regular" body products, the Aromatherapy line offers light, natural scents that can help invigorate, relax, or focus the mind. Some of the scents include Eucalyptus Spearmint, Lemon Cardamon, Orange Ginger and Warm Milk and Honey.

My personal favorite so far is the Orange Ginger, but I haven't tried all of them yet, and many other varieties look tempting. They come in gift sets, too, which would make great Christmas presents.

Metro Mint Mint Water

Metro Mint Mint Water is seriously the best flavored water I've ever had. With just enough mint to invigorate but not overwhelm, MetroMint is a great afternoon pick-me-up or morning palate cleanser.

MetroMint comes in spearmint and peppermint flavors. I prefer the spearmint, because I've always preferred spearmint to peppermint. It has no calories, no carbs, and no sugar--just water with a fresh, clean, mint taste. Its only drawback is that it's not a great choice to drink with meals, but the unique, refreshing flavor more than makes up for that.

Look for MetroMint in healthfood stores or in your grocery's natural food aisles.

Hot Chili and Chocolate from Vosges

In addition to their phenomenal bacon bar, Vosges also makes the Red Fire Exotic Candy Bar. This bar offers a combination of dark chocolate, Ceylon cinnamon, and Mexican ancho and chipotle chilis. Sweet at first bite, then fiery, it's a perfectly balanced combination of flavors.

Vosges also makes an Aztec cocoa with combined cocoa, cinnamon, peppers and vanilla bean.

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte

The Pumpkin Spice Latte has returned to Starbucks. The seasonal drink only appears during the fall, and apparently there are people who wait on tenterhooks for it to arrive. Some of these people are celebrities who hang out on Twitter, and who tweet frantically back and forth to each other about whether the PSL has arrived, and if not, when will it, and why can't they get it early since they're all famous and everything? (This would be Mikey Way and Pete Wentz, if anyone cares.)

Unfortunately, I don't really get the Pumpkin Spice Latte Love. It's not a bad drink, with a nice balance of nutmeg and ginger, but it doesn't do much for me. It's too sweet, for starters, and for enders, it's too expensive, especially with the recent price hikes at Starbucks. If I'm going to toss out over four dollars for a Venti, I'll stick with my Venti Caramel Macchiato.

Bacon Chocolate Bars from Vosges

Vosges Haute Chocolate makes some of the most intriguing chocolate combinations out there. But one of the most intriguing is Mo's Bacon Bar. Sweet, applewood bacon, sea salt, and deep milk chocolate all combined in a single bar. (The bar also comes in dark chocolate.)

I was skeptical that bacon in a chocolate bar would be anything but, well, weird. Maybe even kind of gross. But one bite of this bar changed my mind. It's the perfect balance of salt and sweet, and the bacon and chocolate flavors are perfectly balanced. Vosges is a great place to go to try something aside from regular, humdrum chocolate, and Mo's Bacon Bar is a great place to start on your new chocolate adventure.

Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap

Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap is all natural, olive-oil based soap infused with natural oils. It's invigorating, a joy to use, and is safe for even sensitive skin. Dr. Bronner's also makes bar soaps and a variety of other skin care products as well as the liquid soaps

I've never tried anything other than the peppermint liquid soap, but this soap is a great way to wake up in the morning. It clears out the bleariness and can even help clear the sinuses if you tend to wake up a little congested. Unlike artificially scented bath gels and body washes, Dr. Bronner's provides a natural scent that won't disturb your allergies, and that will get you started off on the right foot every morning.

Neutrogena Wave

A new form of product in skin care, the Neutrogena Wave leaves your face feeling bright and clean and even a little tingly.

The Wave is a small, hand-held device that uses a disposable pad infused with a cleansing solution. When the pad is moistened, it builds up a slight foam. The vibration of the Wave then helps exfoliate and deep-cleanse your skin. It's easy to use in the shower, and you can actually see the results in the dead skin and oils left behind on the pad.

Better yet, the Wave is a reasonable price. Highly recommended.

Movie--The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I think I committed a fatal error in reading the original F. Scott Fitzgerald short story before I watched this movie. The movie, while sweeping and beautifully filmed and filled with excellent performances, bears almost no resemblance to the story, which caused me to make faces at it through most of the two-and-a-half hours of its running time.

In fact, the only element remaining of the original story is Benjamin Button's reverse aging. And even that conceit is modified. In the story, Benjamin acts like an old man when he appears to be an old man, and acts like a child when he appears to be a child. In the movie, he behaves more like a child during his older years, and like an old man suffering from dementia when he looks like a young child. More importantly, the reverse aging adds little to the story other than a gimmick and the chance for the movie makers to spend a great deal of money on make-up effects (and win Oscars for them, but that's another issue).

Overall, while I could see the movie had its merits, my enjoyment was greatly diminished by the complete departure from the source.

Haagen-Dazs Green Tea Ice Cream

Okay, so I'm on a bit of an ice cream kick, but I saw a couple of new ice cream flavors in the store the other day, so I grabbed them. One of them was Haagen-Dazs' new green tea ice cream.

The only place I've ever had green tea ice cream before was at my favorite sushi joint. This ice cream is actually a little better, I think. It's creamy and rich, with a strong green tea flavor. The green tea flavor comes from matcha green tea, which has a stronger flavor than most green tea, but also carries stronger antioxidant properties. How well those work when it's blended with cream and sugar to make this decadent ice cream is anybody's guess, but it's definitely tasty.

Single Serving Ice Cream

Haagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, and a couple other premium brands, including premium store brands, have jumped onto the bandwagon of single serving premium ice cream. In a tiny little carton with its own attached spoon, this ice cream is just as high calorie and bad for you as the large-sized versions, but without the added risk of polishing off an entire pint at one sitting.

Only a few flavors are available in this packaging right now, and the tiny spoon, while cute, is largely useless. Those are really my only complaints. While this isn't exactly a dieting option, it's an aid to portion control on those days when you really need a nice dose of high-quality ice cream.

The Dark Tower: Treachery

This comic series is a spin-off of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, featuring characters from the books during a time period not covered by the epic novel sequence. The story fills in gaps in the life of Roland Deschain, bringing readers more of his backstory and history.

Treachery follows The Long Road Home, which spun out from Gunslinger Born. Gunslinger Born was basically a retelling of pieces of the novel Wizard and Glass, and so brought no new material to the Dark Tower world. The following sequences, though, carry that story forward into new territory.

The end of Treachery does cover pieces of Roland's story from the books, but also adds to the narrative. Although readers of the Dark Tower books will know how the ending plays out, there's enough original material here to provide a good addition to the books.

A must-have for devoted Stephen King fans.

Gold's Gym Cardio Workout

Gold's Gym Cardio Workout for the Wii is a reasonably good workout game, but has several drawbacks. Intended to interface with the Wii Balance Board, Gold's Gym offers exercises for the balance board, but they don't work well and end up being more frustrating than useful.

The most entertaining and usable features of Gold's Gym are, unsurprisingly, the cardio boxing sections. With premade or customized workouts, you can produce a satisfying workout that fits your schedule, giving you a quick aerobic interval before work or whenever you have fifteen or twenty minutes to exercise.

The game takes a while longer to unlock than I'd prefer--I had to spend a few days going through the tutorials before I could actually get a good workout--but once this hurdle has been passed, the workouts proceed at a nice pace.

Recommended for increasing aerobic and cardio activity, but avoid the balance board options.

Life After People

My daughter introduced me to this show today--she's on summer vacation and spending a lot of time watching the History Channel and Animal Planet. Hey, at least it's educational.

Anyway, we saved a couple of episodes on the DVR and took a look together. While an interesting show in its way, it also doesn't make a great deal of sense. The show focuses not on how people were eliminated, but on what supposedly would happen to the planet after we're all gone. This premise seems flawed to me, because the fate of everything else on the planet is going to be dependent on how the people get wiped out. For example, if there's a nuclear holocaust, the aftermath will be distinctly different than if, for example, a meteor smacks into the planet.

Perhaps I'm missing the point of the show, though. Maybe it's really just about how much we've affected our planet, for bad and for worse. In many ways, the projected results make you think that maybe Earth would be better off without us.

100-Calorie Packets

You can find just about any kind of snack food in 100-calorie single-serving packets these days. This packaging is very handy for those of us trying to control and/or reduce our daily calorie intake.

Some of my favorite entries in the 100-calorie package wars:

• Pringles
• Milano cookies
• Keebler Fudge Stripe cookies
• Chocolate covered pretzels
• Cheez-It Snack Mix

Yes, there's a lot of chocolate on that list. Want to make something of it?

EA Sports Active Personal Trainer

After getting the Wii Fit for Christmas, it took me about three months to unlock everything in the game and get to a point where it wasn't offering me an intense enough workout. The arrival of the EA Sports Active offers new alternatives.

EA Sports Active integrates with the Wii Fit Balance Board, but also uses the nunchuck controller and a leg strap to track movement, as well as an elastic resistance band to provide surprisingly intense strength training. You can use pre-made workouts, including a 30-day challenge sequence, or make your own workout sequences. With workouts lasting from 20 minutes to as long as an hour, at three different intensity levels, EA Sports Active provides a variety of workouts that you can easily fit into even a busy day.

With its wider range of exercises and more intense workouts, EA Sports Active offers a great next step after your needs surpass the exercise provided by the Wii Fit.

G1 Apps: Hangman

After having great luck finding a good Tic Tac Toe game, I was hoping to have equal success finding a Hangman app. No such luck. I tried two different apps and wasn't particularly pleased with either.

Hangman from Vavni is a remarkably pretty application, but it's difficult to use. The touch keyboard on the screen has letters that are so small it's practically impossible to press only one letter at a time. The game also works with the keyboard, but this takes something away from the enjoyment.

HangDroid's touch screen alphabet works slightly better, but is still difficult. The graphics aren't as pretty as Vavni's entry, and the Android figure who gets "hanged" doesn't seem to have enough body parts for an enjoyable game.

I continue my quest for the ultimate Hangman app.

Movie Review--Up

A much deeper and more mature movie than it appears from the previews, Up, Pixar's latest release, transcends the conception of "family movie." Much like Wall-E before, it, Up tackles complex and intense adult issues, packaging them in an emotionally authentic story that will have most viewers going for the tissues in the first ten minutes.

The movie has plenty of laughs, as well--enough to send you looking for the tissues for an entirely different reason. There's also adventure, and some scary sequences, so be sure to take the PG rating into consideration.

The 3D presentation adds much to this movie, but subtly. Overall, even though the visual presentation is immaculate, it's driven by a story that's more touching and genuine than any number of supposedly serious, "adult" films.

Terminator Salvation

Apparently, in the future, the robots are taking over. And whether it ends up being the Cylons or Skynet, humans are pretty much screwed.

The culprit in the Terminator series is, of course, Skynet. According to the Terminator timeline, we have until 2016 before the robots become sentient and start blowing us up and enslaving us. The one hope for humanity is John Connor, who organizes the resistance against the machines and saves the human race.

In the original Terminator, the machines sent back the original Terminator robot to destroy John’s mother, Sarah Connor, before he was born. In this, the fourth installment of the movie series, John Connor (Christian Bale) must prevent the death of Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), now a young adult, who is destined to father him when he’s sent back to the past to protect Sarah. Confused yet?

It’s not really that confusing in the movie. The backstory is spelled out well enough to keep from losing a casual fan of the series, and probably enough to orient someone who hasn’t seen any of the other movies. There are several nods to the original movie, including stills of the original Sarah Connor, Linda Hamilton, and an appearance I wasn’t expecting at all.

The plot itself is fairly simple, woven around plenty of action, explosions, and loving shots of John Connor being thoughtful, angsty and/or heroic, as well as dirty, sweaty, and banged up. The entire movie has a burned-out, apocalyptic feel—appropriately enough—with a partially desaturated color palette and barren, desert landscapes. The performances are reasonably good, most notably Sam Worthington’s turn as Marcus Wright, the cyborg who thinks he’s still human (although Worthington, an Australian, suffers a bit of accent slippage here and there). Bale is as pretty as ever, though he has a disconcerting tendency to slide into his Batman voice, which is a little over the top even for Batman.

Speaking of Batman, Salvation marks Bale’s entry into a second major franchise. It also offers the same opportunity to Yelchin, who plays not only Kyle Reese in this film, but can also be seen as Pavel Chekov in the new Star Trek.

Overall, Salvation is one of the better installments in the Terminator series, though I’m still partial to the recently and unfortunately canceled Sarah Connor Chronicles. Salvation is intended to be the first in a new trilogy, and offers a promising start if this plan plays out.

X-Files--The Comics

The X-Files has been absent from TV screens since 2002, but with the arrival of The X-Files, I Want to Believe in movie theaters last year, the series has been revived in comic book form.

The X-Files comic books are published by Wildstorm Comics, with the first issue having arrived in January of this year. So far, the series consists of stand-alone stories of two issues each, echoing the formula of the earlier days of the TV series. The artwork is quite good, offering familiar faces to fans. The stories aren’t bad, but could be better. The two-issue per story format limits the strength of the individual narratives, so the plots are weaker than they could be if given a 4- or 5-issue arc.

One confusing element to the comics is that they’re dated 2009 in the slug lines, and Mulder and Scully make use of modern technology that never appeared in the original series (flash drives, for example), and the Lone Gunmen make appearances in spite of their canonical deaths in Season Nine. One has to conclude that the timeline exists independently of both the series and the recent movie, as many important events from both are ignored.

While these comics could be stronger if given longer arcs, they’re still an entertaining return to the world of The X-Files.

New Starbucks Cups

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a Starbucks fan. Recently, they've come out with two new reusable cups that I really like. (Yes, I'm that pathetic. I'm writing about the CUPS.)

The first is a reusable hot beverage cup. It's easy to use, with a twist-top instead of the flip-tops that are so hard to keep clean. It's also the first reusable cup that they've made in a Venti (as far as I know, anyway, and the barrista at my local Starbucks backed this up). I love my twice-weekly Starbucks fix, but I always feel a little guilty at the waste of the reusable cups. But I also wanted my Venti, and the cups only went to a Grande size. So this was an exciting find. Which should tell you something about the relative level of excitement in my life as a whole.

The other new cup is a reusable cup for cold beverages. With a two-layer, insulated design, this cup looks exactly like the disposable cold beverage cups. The straw is made so it won't fall out of the top of the cup, and it, too, comes in Tall, Grande and Venti sizes.

Movie Review--Star Trek

Wow. That's all I really have to say. But for the sake of actually writing, you know, a review, I'll say a little more.

I'm a Star Trek fan from way back. If I say how far back it'll totally date me, but let's just say my memories go all the way back to original series. I was excited about the first movie, even more excited when Wrath of Khan came out, followed Next Generation religiously for several years, loved Deep Space Nine, and then lost interest in Voyager. I wanted Enterprise to re-spark my interest in this long-time fannish love, but it failed in spite of the presence of Scott Bakula. When I stopped paying enough attention to even notice when Captain Archer had his shirt off, I knew it was time to let it go.

And then came this weekend's reboot.

Having gotten mired in the increasingly convoluted world of Lost, I had understandable trepidations when JJ Abrams stepped up to take over the Star Trek franchise. When the previews starting coming out, I started nourishing a cautious optimism.

My optimism was rewarded when I saw the movie this weekend.

This re-visioning of Star Trek balances respect for the original series and its characters with a need to move forward into a tone that fits better with today's cinematic expectations. The movie tears along at a crisp clip, introducing characters in such a way that an old-time Trekker like me is quickly snared by nostalgia, while those new to the series, like my son, aren't lost. The characterizations of the original crew are just new enough to work in the new milieux, and just enough like their previous incarnations that you recognize them as soon as they arrive on-screen. The plot is a bit convoluted and would probably collapse under close scrutiny, but the combination of time travel and alien involvement is classic Trek (actually, more accurately, it's classic Next Generation). One sequence struck me as a bit over the top, falling a bit too far into slapstick, but overall this was a fine, fine ride. So fine, in fact, I'll probably be going to see it again.

Starbucks Via

A few months ago, Starbucks ventured into the world of instant coffee. This would seem to fly in the face of everything Starbucks stands for. After all, the quintessential coffeehouse experience involves slow, loving coffee production, ensuring just the right amount of foam on your latte, and a relaxed drinking experience. Instant coffee? That's for people who don't really appreciate the complexity of the coffee experience.

At least it might seem that way for those of us for whom instant coffee means Sanka or Nescafe. Let's face it--that stuff really isn't worth of the name "coffee."

Starbucks Via totally is.

Via is packaged in single-serving portions, 12 to a box. For $9.95 a box, this might seem steep, but that's less than a dollar per cup for coffee that's frankly pretty damn good. The coffee inside isn't the weird, styrofoam-like pellets of many instant coffees, but is "soluble, microground" coffee. It looks like actual coffee grounds, but much finer even than espresso. It dissolves easily in hot water, not leaving lumps like flavored instant coffees (think General Foods International Coffees). Just heat up your water, pour in your coffee and stir, and you've got a cup of java just about as good as the regular drip at Starbucks.

Best G1 Android Phone Games (So Far)

As with many of the new smart phones, several game apps are available for the Google G-1. Some of my favorites so far:

WordPops: Make words as letters "fall" up from the bottom of the screen. A cross between Tetris and Boggle. Comes in a free version (WordPops Lite), but worth the $.99 purchase price for the wider array of usable letters.

Tic Tac Toe: Some of the Tic Tac Toe versions were ponderous and difficult to use, but the free app I found on a quick search of the Android store is fun and fast-moving. It's a great game to play with the kids at restaurants when you're waiting for your food and you've run out of Tic Tac Toe grids on the kids' menu.

AlphaMixr: Also available in a free version, but again worth the $.99 purchase price. Form as many words as you can out of a set of supplied letters while racing the clock.

Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers

I saw these on sale when I was out shopping for some easy lunches and dinners and decided to give a couple a try. Cafe Steamers are packaged in a special steamer basket configuration, so you can have a dinner with veggies crisper than the usual frozen dinner fare, and cooked in a healthier way than some other dinners.

I tried the Sweet Sesame Chicken and the Five-Spice Beef & Vegetables and found both quite tasty and easy to prepare. My biggest beef (no pun intended) is the amount of packaging. Yes, frozen dinners aren't environmentally friendly at the best of times, but Cafe Steamers feature two separate plastic containers, one of which doesn't have a recycling symbol on it that I could find. This seems like a waste, especially when "green" packaging options are so prevalent these days.

G1 Apps--Calorie Counter

The free Calorie Counter app is a useful tool for anyone wanting to keep track of their calorie consumption. With lists of major items from fast food chains, as well as a barcode scanner, it supplies enough data to get most people through a typical day. You can also save favorites that you eat often, and at the end of the day it gives you a grand total of your calorie consumption.

The barcode scanner is a bit tricky to use, but once you get the hang of it, it gives you a full nutritional profile for the item in question that you can then plug right into your day's menu. Whether you're watching your weight or just trying to eat healthier, the Calorie Counter can be a big help.

G1 Apps--aBook Reader

The aBook reader for the Android phone provides a surprisingly easy-to-read format for reading. In spite of the small screen, the books are quite legible. Page-turning is accomplished with a simple finger-swipe (or thumb-swipe), accompanied by page-turney noises if you so desire (the sounds can be turned off if you want your reading experience to be quieter or sneakier).

The layout is pretty, too, with a parchment-like background for the text. The only real complaint about this reader is that there aren't many books available that I was able to find.

Read: Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Short Stories of Edgar Allen Poe

Not Just a Coffee Grinder

Coffee grinders are great to have around if you're a coffee lover, but what if you upgrade to a coffee maker that grinds the beans for you? Is there any point keeping the old grinder?

Actually, there is. There are several useful things you can do with a coffee grinder that have nothing to do with coffee. Many people use them to grind spices, like whole nutmeg or allspice.

They're also great to spin up some finely ground bread crumbs. Keep your leftover bread (we use the ends of the loaves since nobody wants to eat them), tear the pieces into chunks and store them in the freezer. When you need bread crumbs, bring out the coffee grinder, toss in some frozen bread chunks and buzz away. Add Italian seasoning or Parmesan cheese or any other spice that will complement your recipe. Pre-ground and pre-seasoned bread crumbs can be pricey, so this is also a great way to save money.

Crystal Light On the Go

If you have to drink a large quantity of water during the day, or are just trying to up your hydration, the taste of plain water can get pretty old pretty fast. For those times when you just can't stand another swig, Crystal Light On the Go flavor packets can help you get through your required daily allotment of water.

These single-serving packets come in a variety of flavors, from iced tea to fruit mixes. However, be sure to look for the additives. Following the trend of adding various vitamin supplements to everything, several varieties have additions for immunity, energy, and other goals. The energy drinks, though, are caffeinated, so if you have a sensitivity to caffeine, this won't be a good choice. They also contain aspartame, so be aware of that, as well.

G1 Apps--Tag To Do

When consolidating your electronic devices onto your phone, a To Do list is essential. The Android Marketplace offers several, of which Tag To Do has become my list-maker of choice.

Tag To Do allows you to make multiple to do lists based on varying categories--work, home, grocery list, etc. Within each individual list, you can assign priorities and/or due dates. When an item reaches its due date, the application sends a message that appears in the notification area of the phone to let you know the date has arrived and you haven't checked off the item as done.

This combination of flexibility and notification makes Tag To Do a useful tool for anyone trying to keep themselves organized. Best of all, it's free.

Watchmen--The Movie

After a great deal of hype and a legal battle that threatened to derail it entirely, the movie adaptation of Alan Moore's Watchmen finally hit theaters this weekend. Although if you weren't aware of the original comic, you wouldn't know it was Alan Moore's Watchmen, because Moore refused to take any money for the adaptation, nor did he allow his name to be attached to the film.

Considering the quality of the movie, it seems a bit odd that Moore would distance himself so intently from it, but I suppose that's his prerogative. The script proves very faithful--sometimes even too faithful--to the original material, even including frame-by-frame reproductions of parts of the comic.

The weaknesses regarding the story's women are still there, though the ending, which came off as a bit ridiculous in the graphic novel, has been tweaked to fit much more smoothly into the feel of the rest of the story.

The weakest part of the movie is, conversely, the strongest part of the comic. While Dr. Manhattan's ruminations on his "all times are the same" mental processes in the comic are masterfully rendered, in the movie they're somewhat confusing and slow down an otherwise fast-paced film.

Performance-wise, Watchmen is a bit weak. The strongest showing comes from Jeffrey Dean Morgan, as the amoral Comedian, who carries those parts of the film in which he appears. A close second is Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan.

T-Mobile's G-1 Google Phone

Okay, technically it's an Android phone, with obligatory cute little green android dude for a mascot. But regardless of what you call it, once I caved in and bought one, it was love at first text message.

Having test-driven an iPhone a few months ago, I was quite consumed with lust for one of those. However, acquiring an iPhone meant I'd have to change my provider, and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. AT&T does have slightly better coverage in my area, but when I visited the T-Mobile store, they gave me a pretty good deal to renew my nearly-expired contract, so I decided to stick with them.

In retrospect, I'm glad I did. I actually like the G1 better than the iPhone. The snap-out keyboard is much easier for me to use than the touchpad on the iPhone, or the G1 touchpad, for that matter. The volume on the phone is excellent--better than the Nokia flip-phone I upgraded from--and the selection of apps is quite good.

Overall, I'm very happy with the G1, and you will pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Watchmen--Graphic Novel

The Watchmen graphic novel is largely known as a watershed moment in the development of comics. Reading it twenty years later, this impact is largely lost, since nearly every major comic on the shelves today has been influenced by the gritty, dark, amoral qualities Alan Moore brought to his complex, alternate reality world.

The strength of the storytelling, though, does hold up. And Moore's problematic treatment of women is probably emphasized by the intervening twenty years, during which time more and more folks of the female persuasion have become involved in the comics world, both as readers and creators.

Perhaps most impressive is Moore's handling of the alternating flashback storyline, and the strongest section, narratively speaking, is Dr. Manhattan's reflections while on Mars. The structure of the story wanders, going from whodunit to a much more complex approach that in the end almost ignores the idea of the murder mystery.

The most problematic part of the book, though, is the female characters. Sally Jupiter's supposed "romance" with the Comedian is offensive to many, stemming as it does from an attempted rape. And Silk Spectre has little personality, her character largely defined by her relationships with Dr. Manhattan and Nite Owl. Visually, the ending is a bit jarring, and doesn't quite mesh with the "feel" of the rest of the book.

In spite of its flaws, though, Watchmen remains deserving of its status as a classic.

Mini Review--Coraline

I'm often leery of movies based on books, especially books I like. But when it comes down to it, if it has Neil Gaiman's name on it, I'm there.

When Coraline got underway, I realized I didn't remember the book that well, so I just went along for the ride. From what I could remember, though, the basic plot honors the original pretty well. The tone of the movie definitely dovetails nicely with that of the book. Though rated PG, Coraline's a bit intense for the younger crowd, although probably not much more so than classic Disney "kiddie" flicks like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. For the most part, Coraline is more creepy than scary, though the last act does add a scare factor.

The 3-D technology used for Coraline is impressive. There's not much of things jumping out at the audience, as in My Bloody Valentine, which in my opinion was a more appropriate approach for a younger audience. The 3-D really brings you into the story, most notably in the tunnel transition between Coraline's real world and the Other world.

Overall, I found Coraline immensely entertaining and wonderfully produced. My kids enjoyed it, as well, though at 11 and 15 they're a bit older than the target audience.

Wanna Buy a Hoodie?

I'm ridiculous. And I'm aware of this. So when Clandestine Industries announced their relaunch this week, I ran right over there and spent some money. (The pictured hoodie is not, by the way, the one I bought.)

I like hoodies. And I like Pete Wentz, so I send him my money for hoodies. And these hoodies are comfortable and warm and darn it, I just like them.

So next time you're at a Fall Out Boy concert, look for the old lady in the Batheart hoodie. It just might be me....

Mini Review--My Bloody Valentine 3-D

I don't normally venture out of the house for horror movies, much less 3-D horror movies, but the lure of seeing Jensen Ackles on the big screen proved too much for me in this case.

My Bloody Valentine turned out not to be a great movie, but it wasn't bad, either. The 3-D wasn't as gimmicky as it often is, and also proved surprisingly realistic. (Also, much to my happy surprise, it didn't give me a migraine like the last 3-D movie I went to.)

While gory and definitely not for the squeamish, My Bloody Valentine features a solid performance from Jensen Ackles and a plot that, unlike many horror movies, actually makes some sense. Surprisingly, though, the only really sympathetic character in the film is the killer.

Another Quickie Review--The Incredible Hulk

I haven't watched the Ang Lee Incredible Hulk, so I can't say how the more recent version compares, but I can say that I enjoyed it quite a bit. The plot was pretty straightforward comic book movie, and therefore predictable. But what really made the movie for me was the shoutouts to the TV series. I used to be completely addicted to The Incredible Hulk, and seeing the nod to Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno in a small part, and even a snippet of the TV theme song in the soundtrack made me smile.

Quickie Movie Reviews

I've spent the holiday break catching up on some movies, and plan to watch several more before I have to get back to the day job on Monday. A couple I particularly enjoyed so far were:

Hancock. My daughter is a big Will Smith fan, and this movie is fast-paced, funny, and an enjoyable twist on the usual superhero film. I wasn't quite on board with the last third, but overall it's a fun ride.

Quantum of Solace. I very much enjoyed Daniel Craig's first foray as James Bond, and while this wasn't quite as strong a movie as Casino Royale, it was still an entertaining afternoon in the theater. Daniel Craig continues to play Bond with cool, rugged sexiness, and in Quantum, recovering from the events of Casino, Bond is even more square-jawed and taciturn. And very, very easy on the eyes.