Music review: Five for Fighting - 100 Years

Artist: Five For Fighting Album: Battle For Everything Release date: 2/3/04 Video link: Via YouTube

Lyrics: I'm 15 for a moment Caught in between 10 and 20 And I'm just dreaming Counting the ways to where you are I'm 22 for a moment She feels better than ever And we're on fire Making our way back from Mars 15 there's still time for you Time to buy and time to lose 15, there's never a wish better than this When you only got 100 years to live I'm 33 for a moment Still the man, but you see I'm a they A kid on the way A family on my mind I'm 45 for a moment The sea is high And I'm heading into a crisis Chasing the years of my life 15 there's still time for you Time to buy, Time to lose yourself Within a morning star 15 I'm all right with you 15, there's never a wish better than this When you only got 100 years to live Half time goes by Suddenly you’re wise Another blink of an eye 67 is gone The sun is getting high We're moving on... I'm 99 for a moment Dying for just another moment And I'm just dreaming Counting the ways to where you are 15 there's still time for you 22 I feel her too 33 you’re on your way Every day's a new day... 15 there's still time for you Time to buy and time to choose Hey 15, there's never a wish better than this When you only got 100 years to live About the song: Such a sweet song. It's a story about a couple of kids that fall in love and spend their entire lives together. Yet that time goes back so quickly. This is one of those songs that I liked the melody but never listened to the words because it was always in the background of some commercial or TV show I was watching. That's probably a good thing since the lyrics bring a tear to my eye.

HDTVs

With Blu-ray and HD-DVD already on the market, people are scrambling to find the best HDTVs on the market. Would you like a 19" Polaroid HDTV with a DVD player or would you prefer something else? Krillion.com is a huge help. They not only offer product specifications but they will also show you what prices stores in your area have. So if I happened to be looking at a 32" LCD HDTV with a DVD player and digital tuner as a Christmas present for my husband, I can see that three stores in my area are selling it for about $600. That's a lot easier than jumping in my car and driving around town to see who carries it and how much they want for it. I love making Christmas shopping as easy as possible!

Online Casino Reviews

I can't remember if I talked about this before. I don't think I did. I know a lot of people who play online poker. Often times, they have no idea whether an online casino is any good until they actually sign up and start playing there. In my opinion, this is a big waste of time and money. Why should you pay to play at a sucky casino? Pro360.com is a website that reviews online casinos. They use factors such as game experience, trust score and bonuses to help you choose the right casino for you. The best part is that they also accept user ratings. So if you disagree with their editor's opinion, you can enter your own rating. There is also a full review for you to read. You no longer have to rely on just a 1 to 10 rating score anymore. I really think that this is the best online casino review site. They cover everything you need to know before you pay a cent.

Game review: Amazing Adventures: The Lost Tomb

Welcome to Egypt! Amazing Adventures: The Lost Tomb is a hidden object game where you are an archaeologist searching through areas of Egypt to find a lost tomb. Meanwhile, you also need to find clues to direct you where to go next! I thought this was a great game. There are a multitude of things to keep you interested. In the hidden object levels, you also need to find hidden scarabs in order to find a special treasure at the end. And in between the hidden object levels are a variety of puzzle levels including a match game, a jigsaw puzzle and a moving tiles puzzle. None of these were extremely difficult so I didn't find myself getting aggravated with any one piece of the game. While I don't think that younger players would be able to do very well due to some wordplay in the hidden object clues, this is definitely a great game that keeps adults on their toes instead of putting them to sleep.

Price Comparison

In this busy holiday season, most people are looking for two things when shopping online - reviews and price comparison. Everyone wants the best deal when buying, well, anything! Save Buckets helps by giving you a list of prices on over a million products from hundreds of stores. Personally, I was comparing prices on some MP3 players that I'm thinking about purchasing. While the prices are listed in British Pounds, I can still find a good deal before seeing if the store will ship overseas to the United States. Even with the little extra work on my side, it's a lot easier than roaming from store to store trying to find the best deal on my own. I don't have the time to waste surfing websites or driving from one store to another just to save a few dollars. That's why I find services like this extremely helpful. All I have to do is plug what sort of product I'm looking for into their search engine and all the prices are right there at my fingertips.

Nono is a Mama!

Way back in May, Tsuji Nozomi, a former member of Morning Musume, W and Mini Moni, announced her impending pregnancy. At the time, she also announced that she was getting married to actor Sugiura Taiyo. Well, Nono recently gave birth to a baby girl! Little Noa was born at 12:45AM on November 26. Though Nono is officially on hiatus, this is the first time that a current Hello!Project member has become a mother. (Previous Hello!Project members have given birth but they left the group first.)

Congratulations Nono!

America's Most Smartest Model - Episode 8

With last week's booting of Daniel, we are now left with Australian!Rachel, Pickle, Brett, Andre, VJ and Angela. This is where the competition should get pretty interesting since these people are all fairly intelligent as well as very pretty. And, well, VJ knows how to cheat a lot, which, according to Mary Alice, isn't cheating but good strategy. Oh, I'll talk about this in a bit. For the Edge Challenge this week, the models are once again put into teams of two. Our Fearsome Foursome Alliance paired up into teams of Pickle/Brett and Andre/Rachel. That left VJ with Angela. One person in the pair would have to answer as many trivia questions correctly in 60 seconds as they possibly can. The results will determine how fast the other person has to run on a treadmill. Pickle completely blanked on so many questions that Brett ended up having to run 9 miles an hour. If you couldn't tell, Brett couldn't take that and dropped out early in the competition. Angela and Rachel tied with 13 correct answers so VJ and Andre started out with 6 miles an hour. The boys stayed neck and neck even when Ben and Mary Alice raised the speed on the treadmills.

This is where VJ's cheating sets in and I have no clue why the judges let him get away with this. While Andre was running like a champ, VJ started holding onto the bars to put most of his weight on his arms. Considering this challenge was about endurance, in my opinion, this was completely and totally cheating. Andre tried to bring this to the attention of the judges but Ben Stein was too busy playing with his cell phone to take any notice. If VJ does win at the end of the series, it will be a direct result of things like this. Of course, it was VJ and Angela that won the Edge Challenge. Andre decided to try to save his strength for the Callback Challenge.

The Callback Challenge was a quick-change runway show. VJ and Angela would get to change in the dressing room closest to the runway and they had to choose one other model to join them. They picked Rachel. The rest of the boys would be farther from the runway so they would have to race back and forth to change into their different outfits. Each team had 15 minutes total with three different outfits. To make it a little more difficult, Andre, Pickle and Brett also had to run through an obstacle course for each change.

I think this is where we got to see Angela and VJ's true natures. They could see that Rachel was having some trouble with some of her outfits - her shoes were too big on the first outfit and her earrings fell out on the last - yet no one bothered to attempt to help her. Both of them were out for themselves and no one else. Meanwhile, Andre, Pickle and Brett decided to make this a team effort to make their runway show the best. They helped each other with difficult parts of their outfits and made sure that everyone made it through the obstacle course. So while Mary Alice didn't like the way these three walked down the runway, I felt that they made the better show since there were no gaps between models. There were gaps between models in the Angela/Rachel/VJ show. I'm really starting to think that Mary Alice isn't as much of an expert on this stuff as she thinks she is. However, after everyone was finished, it was Angela that won the Callback Challenge and I do agree with that result. Angela really did have the best showing of everyone there.

So this takes us to the Elimination. Angela was safe from elimination and Mary Alice decreed that Rachel was not in the bottom three either. The bottom three this week were Andre, Pickle and Brett. At this point, I was completely prepared for Brett to be kicked off. Out of these three, I really felt that he was the weakest model. To my surprise, it was Pickle that got the boot! I was just stunned. Pickle has pretty much been the sweetheart of the show. He's been in the top of almost every competition, he has the looks, he has the smarts and he's a nice guy. I really am sorry to see him go.

Oh, and at the Elimination? Mary Alice and Ben decided to totally throw the models under the bus and told VJ about the alliance between Pickle, Brett, Andre and Rachel. Now, we can see that the alliance failed this week. Why bother to tell VJ about it? There was nothing to accomplish there besides getting the models to argue with each other. I was very disappointed with Mary Alice this week. Maybe she should be thrown off the show. I'm sure that Heidi Klum or Tyra Banks could do a lot better. Hopefully Mary Alice will get her head out of her butt and pay attention to what is going on in front of her.

Game review: Agatha Christie: Peril at End House

While I was never a fan of Agatha Christie's novels, I have found myself drawn to adaptations of her novels. It was Agatha Christie no Meitantei Poirot to Marple (Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple), the 39-episode anime series, that first drew me into the world of Hercule Poirot. This time I found myself playing the Agatha Christie: Peril at End House video game. Peril at End House is the story of the attempted murder of Nick Buckley. As Poirot, you must unravel the mystery of who would try to kill the current owner of End House and why they would even bother as the estate is rapidly falling apart. Each of the main levels are basic hidden object games. However, in between each level, you are given different types of puzzles in order to find more clues to direct you to a suspect.

I really enjoyed this game. The hidden object levels are difficult enough to make you think yet still easy enough to keep you from getting frustrated. That difficult-yet-easy rating follows through to the in-between levels. Sometimes you will need to match a suspect to a clue, which means you need to pay attention to all of the clues you come upon in the main levels. Sometimes there will be a ripped newspaper clipping that you will need to put back together. Sometimes it will be trying to figure out the combination to a safe. All of these tasks have a hint of difficulty in them but they are still easy enough if you pay attention to the clues. I have to say that I can't wait for the next Agatha Christie game to come out. I hope it's just as fun as this was.

Favorite.....Friday?

Since my birthday fell on Friday and I decided I wasn't going to do any work at all, I completely missed Favorite Friday. Instead, I will give you this week's Favorite Friday video on Saturday. Barenaked Ladies is one of my very favorite bands. It's extremely difficult for me to pick just one video to post for you. This is from Ed's "Bathroom Sessions," a series of performances from his newly remastered bathroom. I chose this particular song because Ed (the one with the guitar) and Steve (the one without the guitar) have such a wonderful time singing this song. I hope you take a moment to go through the rest of the Bathroom Sessions performances.

Music review: Green Day - St. Jimmy

Artist: Green Day Members: Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass, vocals), Tre Cool (drums) Album: American Idiot Release date: 9/21/04 Video link: Via YouTube

Lyrics: St. Jimmy's comin' down across the alleyway Up on the boulevard like a zip gun on parade Light of a silhouette He's insubordinate Coming at you on the count of 1,2,1,2,3,4!

My name is Jimmy and you better not wear it out Suicide commando that your momma talked about King of the forty thieves And I'm here to represent That needle in the vein of the establishment

I'm the patron saint of the denial With an angel face and a taste for suicidal

Cigarettes and ramen and a little bag of dope I am the son of a bitch and Edgar Allen Poe Raised in the city under a halo of lights The product of war and fear that we've been victimized

I'm the patron saint of the denial With an angel face and a taste for suicidal

ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?

I'll give you something to cry about.

ST. JIMMY!

My name is St. Jimmy I'm a son of a gun I'm the one that's from the way outside I'm a teenage assassin executing some fun In the cult of the life of crime.

I really hate to say it but I told you so So shut your mouth before I shoot you down old boy Welcome to the club and give me some blood And the resident leader at the lost and found

It's comedy and tragedy It's St. Jimmy And that's my nameeeeeee...and don't wear it out! About the song: St. Jimmy is from Green Day's rock opera album American Idiot. All of the songs from the album go together to form a larger story so it's a little bit difficult to talk about some of the songs individually.

St. Jimmy is one of the characters in the rock opera. While the band will not talk about their interpretations of the lyrics, a lot of fans think St. Jimmy is an alter-ego of the Jesus of Suburbia character. The Jimmy personality is filled with violence and drugs where the JoS personality is merely a bored suburban kid.

I'd definitely recommend that everyone listens to the entire American Idiot at least once. It's an awesome album.