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30/09/2005

Hooked

God, I am so hooked on a TV series, it’s an addiction that I can’t beat. You know what, I don’t really need another addiction to add to my already long list of addictions! No drugs, thankfully, but I have been renting and watching some TVB series and it hasn’t been good for me, really. I slept at 5.30 in the morning because I spent most of the time turning around in my seat (I was trying desperately to concentrate on my work) to catch a bit of the action.

 

To top it all off, my husband bought the entire season of ‘Seinfeld’ and has been watching it religiously in the room…like it’s his bible to life! OK, so I like it too but it disrupts my work. And I can’t tell him to cut it out cause I won’t get to watch it either, so….erm…well, fine! I am pretty much to blame too. I know I know!

 

And we’ve also got the first season of ‘LOST’ and so far, I am currently hooked on three TV shows that I can wrangle out of….it’s like fleas in my hair. You keep shaking and shaking until your teeth is loose...and they’re still there, you know what I mean.

 

It’s not cheap being addicted to this stuff as well. For one, they cost an arm and a leg to watch and with those rented TVB series, I don’t even get to keep it and rewatch the series again later on! Dumb, right? But I don’t want to go out and buy every single little series there is on the planet without knowing whether the series is good or not, so, I guess that’s the price I would have to pay for that reluctance.

12:57 Posted in Blog , Film , Leisure | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this

26/09/2005

Personality Plus for Parents

 

I tell you what, if you want a book written about personalities in good humor and great fun, Personality Plus for Parents just about says it all! Not only is Personality Plus for Parents informative and enlightening but it’s extremely humorous as well. If Florence Littaeur decides to quit whatever she is doing right now, she should consider writing a fiction novel. I don’t know about you, but I would DEFINITELY get one.

 

Back to the topic in hand…deciphering the personalities of our children. To be honest, I know exactly what kind of children I am raising. I know precisely what makes them tick because I am quite sure I didn’t choose to stay home to raise them for nothing. I want to know them inside out, and that’s exactly the situation right now. I know my kids very well. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that I KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM.  Both my kids have opposing personalities, as different as Pluto and Sun can be. Their personalities clash like crazy and who would live on if they were to share a room. Jared is lazy and fun-loving beyond words. He’s keen to learn and excited about almost everything. He’s the kind of kid who gets excited about learning how to say ‘detergent’. Joshua, in the meantime, lives in his own world. He would rather brood about something and then dawdle on his Doodle Board. But this is not about my kids but my point is that before reading this Personality Plus for Parents by Florence Littauer, I wasn’t so sure what to do with their behavioral differences.

 

But now, every time a kid, my kid (funny calling them ‘a’ kid) misbehaves, her advice rings in my head. So, if you ask me if the book is good and useful or not, I’d say ‘Boy, is it ever!’

 

Like ‘Rich dad, Poor dad’ and ‘Chicken Soup’ series, there are many different versions made for different people. There’s chicken soup for parents, there’s chicken soup for gays, there’s chicken soup for the Chinese mother, there’s chicken soup….for say….clowns! Before I picked up this book, I read Personality Plus which was written for normal people, with or without kids. This book discusses the personalities of children, how to discover their personalities from very early on and how to deal with them so that we can help them realize their full potential.

 

I like it that there are loads of examples in the book, scenarios that you can instantly apply to what happens right in front of your own TV set. You read and then go, ‘Yeah, that like so happened just 5 minutes ago!’. And let me tell you, the scenarios and examples really helped me apply the methods she introduced to the book.

 

One thing is missing, though. A very strategic method of applying all her theories and advice on our children, individually. In Personality Plus, she merely explained how our children behave and how to deal with them, in general. But there’s no definitive plan on how to curb future potential behavioral problems.

 

But apart from that, this book is not only a valuable friend and filled to the brim with information but it’s wildly funny and entertaining as well.

 

So, for parents, whatever it’s worth, go get it and read it in the bath tub and enjoy it.

19:54 Posted in Books | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

Seven Up (book review)

 

I’ve got to say that I have always rooted for the bad-boy Morelli instead of the tough-as-a-truck Ranger in Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels. Sure, Joe Morelli the good guy cop with a bad-boy rep has some explaining to do in terms of their past, the things he had done to her when they were teens, but he had the kind of charm I think I will find irresistible in a man.

 

However, in an effort to make things a little bit more exciting in her books, Evanovich has decided to play up the sex appeal in Ranger. Ranger is the expert bounty hunter who gives Stephanie assistance when she calls, rescues her from cuff-links in the bathroom butt-naked, and also teaches her how to actually shoot a gun instead of only shaking it at people. I don’t like it that Stephanie is attracted to Ranger…at all…cause I’m not. and she should be loyal since she is SORT OF living with Joe Morelli and that they were thinking about marriage and all. In a way, Evanovich is making Plum a LOOSE woman who is not keen on tying it with Morelli.

 

Nah, it doesn’t sit well with me.

 

And I know I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. I think someone should lock Grandma Mazur up in the attic and never release her out into public places ever again! That old lady is so surreal! I can’t imagine my grandmother hiking it up with another man apart from my grandfather. Urgh!

 

I liked Stephanie’s PERFECT sister, though, Valerie. Her perfect self with perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect shoes shows sign of destruction as she comes back to the Plum home revealing to the family that her perfect husband has run off with another perfect woman and she’s now come home to stay with her imperfect family with her imperfect kids. This is all, making Stephanie, the imperfect sister, all too satisfied. Especially when her perfect sister turns out to be a lousier bounty hunter than she is and her fashion sense is proven out of date.

 

Eddie DeCooch (how do you pronounce a name like that without making it sound like you’re calling a puppy pooch?) is the main culprit here, so, Stephanie is riding around town wrecking cars and blowing up garbage cans again after an old man who should be in a retirement home and it’s funny that he keeps evading her. It’s one thing to be ousted by a young, muscular man who knows his way around town, but to be ousted by an old hag with bad eye, bad hearing but good sense of direction is quite another thing. I don’t know how DeCooch does his running around but for the sake of entertainment and continuity of the story, he manages to give Stephanie the slip every single time.

 

Sadly, I like Mooner and Dougie in this book too. Mooner and Dougie are basically two young losers who are stealing and selling stuff, helping people run drugs, and sneaking counterfeit cigarettes, toasters, CD players, books, hairdryers, etc into the place. For all the bad things that they do, they are innocent as piglets. Smelly but damn, they are adorable.  

 

The storyline is OK, I guess…maybe it’s a Plum-overdose. But I was kind of pissed that Plum fancies Ranger and at the end of the book, Evanovich suggestively implies that Plum and Ranger had it going….ew!! What about Morelli you dumb woman? You sleep with Ranger and I will never read about you again, Stephanie Plum!

05:01 Posted in Books | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this