The box arrived and I removed the two items.  The action figure was Stel, a robot type figure from the movie that I don’t remember seeing in the comic.  Unfortunately he proved unpopular and has languished unloved.

The big hit was the Colossal Cannon, and for all the reasons kids love to play with toy guns.  You insert your hand into the unit and take hold of the handle/trigger.  When you pull the trigger a bevy of activity occurs: a light flashes on the front, the cylindrical body rotates, space zapping sounds play and it fires a disc about twenty feet.

The unit is made from light plastic so John and Chloe were able to heft it without issue.  The shooting discs were a big hit but I can definitely see them being lost within a short time: when they were taking turns I made them locate their discs before getting another chance to play with it.  Because of that I really appreciate the flashing lights, spinning body and shooting sounds: lots of exciting play without the discs.  All in all a resounding success with everyone.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Dad Central Consulting on behalf of Mattel and received Green Lantern toys to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

I had the bacon going and the eggs on the counter ready to crack.  She asks me “Daddy, are those farm fresh eggs?  Did you get them at a farm?  Calliou’s friend gets his eggs from a farm”.

Say what?  As it happens these were double yolk eggs I get from a local farm.  I know Caillou is a Canadian cartoon character that has a good message, but I didn’t realize he was a locavore helping to promote sustainability in our food chain.

While chatting Jimmy Page mentions he was a studio musician when Shirley Bassey recorded Goldfinger.   It was done in a huge sound room with hundreds of musicians: she did the song in one take and then collapsed.  Wow.

Have a listen to the song and give this nugget some thought.

If Danny Cartwright had proposed to Beth Wilson the day before, or the day after, he would not have been arrested and charged with the murder of his best friend. And when the four prosecution witnesses are a barrister, a popular actor, an aristocrat and the youngest partner in an established firm’s history, who is going to believe his side of the story?

Danny is sentenced to 22 years and sent to Belmarsh prison, the highest security jail in the land, from where no inmate has ever escaped. But Spencer Craig, Lawrence Davenport, Gerald Payne and Toby Mortimer all underestimate Danny’s determination to seek revenge and Beth’s relentless quest to win justice, which forces all four protagonists to fight for their lives.

I’ve left this review for three months with the feeling I couldn’t do the story justice.  At it’s simplest a story of overcoming and redemption, getting dealt a completely unfair hand and then grasping threads to weave together something far greater than it’s parts.

We follow Danny as he unjustly goes to prison, makes his way out and seeks revenge on his accusers.  There’s nothing new in this plot line but how it’s accomplished keeps you reading.  There weren’t a lot of surprises as Archer plays to the common denominator but it was how Danny dealt with each twist and turn that kept me engaged along the way.  Each time he overcame you cheered for him: that’s great storytelling and character development.  It wasn’t just Danny that you became familiar with: the line is drawn very heavy between the good and the bad.

It all sounds vague but I don’t want to give too much away: if you enjoy a great tale of overcoming ridiculous odds then give this a read.

Sherlock Holmes is a new film starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson.  It’s set in London of the late 19th century and focuses on Sherlock Holmes, a brilliant detective and his friend Dr. John Watson.  This is an action film that features Holmes and Watson as thinking men action heroes, lean and skillful.  Two fight scenes in particular bring us into the mind of Holmes as he methodically plans his blows for maximum effect: it’s very catchy.  We’re engaged in the methods Holmes uses and are shown how he works.

Guy Ritchie presents this in the manner of his other films: quirky humour, rapacious dialogue and lots of violence.  It’s a winning formula for today’s audiences.  The main characters are developed through the story, even to the point of irrelevance to the current plot: looks like it’s setting up for sequels.  Watson apparently has a gambling problem and it’s mentioned repeatedly but doesn’t go anywhere.  Moriarty is introduced but kept in shadows, possibly to be revealed next time…

The story revolves around a disgraced member of parliament who through black magic accomplishes his dastardly goals, with Holmes and Watson on his trail.  Lots of mystery and a good chase with Holmes of course triumphant in the end, dispelling magic with logic.

It’s a great ride and an action movie off the beaten path.

The Book Of Eli is the story of a traveler, Eli played by Denzel Washington, who is crossing the United States from East to West on foot.  It’s been thirty years since the “pulse” that seems to have destroyed everything and caused the sun to become so intense that everyone must wear sunglasses and the environment is mostly desert.  Technology, water and food are scarce and is seems travelers are set upon and robbed, then eaten.  Cannibalism in this future gives people the shakes so when Eli encounters pockets of civilization he has to show his hands are steady.

We see Eli reading a bible daily and learn he had a vision thirty years earlier that lead him to a bible and told him to go west, so he started walking and is almost there.  All bibles were burnt after the war because they believed it was religion that caused the whole mess.  I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take thirty years for someone to walk across the North American continent but I could be wrong.  He gets into a town and barters for water since there doesn’t seem to be any currency. While there we meet Gary Oldman’s character Carnegie; he wants a bible because then he’ll have the right words to control people.  Action ensues and we have some very tightly choreographed fight scenes with melee weapons.  We also have firefights and explosions but it’s the fast paced machete action from Eli that gets the blood pumping.

Eli picks up a companion along the way because every action hero has to have a weakness and even though he tries to not get involved this is a post apocalyptic western so the good guy falls trying to keep the damsel safe.  There are a few twists at the end that I won’t reveal but it makes for some unexpected endings.

The thread of the film is faith and it’s purpose and effect.  Eli believes that he was tasked by God to bring this bible west and he will not be harmed, therefore he operates with that belief and appears to be invincible.  Carnegie wants the bible for it’s control of people; if religion is the opiate of the masses then he wants to be the one in charge.  With life so bleak the people will clamor for something better in the hereafter.  There’s a scene where Eli prays before eating and Solara, the damsel in distress played by Mila Kunis, is so wowed by this she does the same at her next meal.  Take from the film what you will.

The main players all performed well, especially Gary Oldman and Jennifer Beals, a blind woman who is controlled by Oldman.  I can’t say the story allows for any real character development: the very ending is pretty ridiculous but I’ll leave it at that.  This is an action movie and on that level The Book Of Eli exceeds.

Books

• Does the story make sense and how does it develop
• Does the plot develop and unfold well
• Do the characters develop
• Does the dialog make sense
• Am I engaged  by the work

Graphic Novels

• Does the story make sense and how does it develop
• Does the plot develop and unfold well
• Do the characters develop
• Does the dialog make sense
• Does the art engage you
• Does the art style match the story type

The tale unfolds in New York, where Anna Petrescu is missing, presumed dead, after 9/11. She uses her new status to escape from America, only to be pursued across the world from Toronto to London, to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bucharest as she tries to find answers to the following questions:

Why was an aristocratic old lady brutally murdered in her English country home the night before 9/11?

Why was a successful New York banker not surprised to receive a woman’s left ear in the morning post?

Why did a top Manhattan lawyer only work for one client, but never charge a fee?

Why was an Olympic gymnast paid a million dollars an assignment, when she didn’t have a bank account?

Why was an Honours graduate working as a temporary secretary after inheriting a fortune?

Why was an English Countess ready to kill the banker, the lawyer, and the gymnast, even if it meant spending the rest of her life in jail?

Why was a Japanese steel magnate happy to hand over $50,000,000 to a woman he had only met once?

Why was a senior FBI agent trying to work out what the connection was between these eight apparently innocent individuals?

It will take all the resources of the FBI and Interpol to work out the connection between this seemingly disparate cast of characters. The one thing they all have in common is Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with a Bandaged Ear. Full of twists and turns and heart-stopping intrigue, False Impression is guaranteed to pull you into its cleverly constructed web and not let you go until the final page.

Basically an art professional is drawn into a web of theft, finance and murder.  She learns as she goes and

It’s an interesting tale and a mixture of mystery, drama and action.  Pace and storyline were well executed: I found myself having issue putting it down.  Characters and environments were well defined, or enough to keep things moving along.

Assegai is the story of Leon Courtney, a young man who finds his place in life by way of the military, hunting, action, adventure and a war.  This is Smith’s usual mix for his historical fiction and to be honest it works so why try and change it.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

It is 1913 and ex-soldier turned professional big game hunter, Leon Courtney, is in British East Africa guiding rich and powerful men from America and Europe on safaris in the Masai tribe territories. One of his clients, German industrialist Count Otto Von Meerbach, has a company which builds aircraft and vehicles for the Kaisers burgeoning army. But Leon had not bargained for falling passionately in love with Eva, the Counts beautiful and enigmatic mistress. Just prior to the outbreak of World War I, Leon is recruited by his uncle, Penrod Ballantyne, Commander of the British Forces in East Africa, to gather information from Von Meerbach. He stumbles on a plot against the British involving the disenchanted survivors of the Boer War, but it is only when Eva and Von Meerbach return to Africa that Leon finds out who and what is really behind the conspiracy.

The setting is British East Africa just before World War One and Smith has given us a few surnames we’re familiar with from previous works, Courtney and Ballantyne.  We follow the exploits of young Leon Courtney as he labours in the military, joins a big game hunting company, works with the indigenous people and pits himself against a villain all the while falling in love and in the end working to save the fair maiden and thwart the villain.

What carries this off with a fervent desire to turn the next page is Smith’s ability to keep the action flowing, whether it be in a firefight, against big game or our central villain.  You want to see what happens next, right until the very end.  Not to sound prurient but he likes to throw in a variety of sex scenes which could be cut out or downplayed without missing a beat: without these Assegai would be a thrilling tale for younger readers.

All in all another outstanding Wilbur Smith work.

For a while I had wanted to get speaker connectors for my speaker wire ( or at least every time I had to connect them to the receiver ). You know the hassle: twist the wire so it stays together, try and slip it in on an impossible angle into the speaker connection on the back of the receiver while you’re laying behind the stereo cabinet. Two or three attempts per connection and it makes the whole thing crazy. Plus the oxidisation of the copper and potential loss of signal quality. I knew speaker connectors were now a necessity.

My receiver and speakers all had round speaker terminators that either unwound to let you insert the bare speaker wire or accepted banana plugs in their center. This
seemed to be the best choice: so called banana plugs or connectors are a push connection that is thicker in the center to create a good connection. There are also spade and pin connectors, but that depends on your receiver and speakers.

Over the next few weeks I looked for bargains in stores and online and eventually ended up with banana plugs from three manufacturers: Monster, Acoustic Research and Belkin, in descending order based on price. All the retail packaging I’ve seen have connectors in two pair packaging, allowing you to connect one speaker. Every plug I looked at had gold connectors, which seems to have taken the audio world by storm. From the get go I wanted Monster connectors but they were $40 CDN, so I ended up with Belkin for $10 CDN. I caught a deal on Monster plugs and then realized I needed another four pair and grabbed the Acoustic Research for $15 CDN. Unfortunately this made my system a ragtag collection of three types of banana plugs, but the end result ( audio quality ) seems to be the same for all. Let’s look at the three products in detail.

The Monster Quicklock Gold Banana Connector was very straightforward and easy to install. The gold top half unscrews from the body. Bare a portion of your speaker wire and slide it through the bottom of the black rubber half and they splay the wire onto a circular jagged coupler. Screw the top half back on and your connection is solid. This connector accepts pretty well any thickness or speaker wire and keeps a solid connection. The easiest of the bunch to work with. The best ( cheapest ) way to order them is in bulk online.

The Acoustic Research Performance Series Banana Plug was easy to install as well but couldn’t accommodate the thinner speaker wire I used for my rear surrounds. The top half unscrews from the bottom. Cut your speaker wire off and don’t bare any, as you push the wire onto a spike in the top half of the connector, which first passes through the bottom connector and a plastic clamp/ring. Screw everything together and it’s a good fit. Medium and large plastic clamps are included, but I really needed a small for my rear speakers. The top banana portion is made of two folded bands which easily compress with handling, but they can be opened again with a small flat screwdriver before insertion into your equipment. This is a sold product for a good price. Follow the link but don’t expect much; probably the worst retail product web site I’ve seen in a long time.

The Belkin PureAV Gold Banana Plugs are budget connectors. The plastic cover slides off the top revealing a cylinder. Bare your speaker wire, jam it into the end, twist the connector tfor it’s threading to catch, slide the plastic cover on and hope it holds. I tried a few methods and it sort of worked on thicker speaker cable. Compared to the first two connectors that are screwed together for a tight fit the Belkin’s plastic sleeve screams “cheap construction”. Of course they were the cheapest and in the end you get what you pay for.

The best overall were the Monster plugs, which work great for all speaker wire gauges. Best product to buy, no question: just keep in mind the signifcant savings of buying online or in bulk.

Acoustic Research was a solid value and a good choice for most speaker wire; definitely best bang for the buck if you’re buying at retail.

Don’t buy the Belkin plugs unless…no, just don’t buy them. To be fair the other brands offer speaker connectors in the same low price range, plastic shrouds and threaded design. Belkin’s high end banana plug is designed to only work with their own speaker wire, so they don’t have a mid-high range product.