my-imzadi's profile

An excellent read for pre-teens or teenagers

"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is written in the format of a collection of letters, or like a personal diary or journal. The writer is a boy named Charlie, a highschool freshman in Pittsburgh. He writes these anonymous letter to "a friend" (which becomes you, the reader) in which he discusses the things that touch his life. Some parts are funny, some parts are sad, some parts are confusing (or they would be, if they were happening to you) but it all comes through as being very honest. I think part of this is because of the use of first-person narrative. Experiences from everyday teenage life appear in this book...such as being attracted to someone who doesn't seem to be attracted to you, the pain of being shy and awkward around others, and the joys of making new friends. Many adolescent concerns are a part of Charlie's life, such as drug use, teenage sexuality and abuse. It is not written in a way that makes these sensitive issues frightening or coarse...it just seems 'real'. Many books, films and songs are referenced in this novel, and many of them the reader may be familiar with as well, which makes the book seem more like life...like the letters that you are reading are being written by an actual person, and sometimes you forget that you are just reading a book. This book reminded me quite a bit of the classic high-school book by J.D. Salinger "The Catcher in the Rye", but in a way, I think this one was better. Although Charlie has his problems, he seems less neurotic and more like someone-you-might-know than Holden (from "Catcher") I would not be surprised if this book (like "Catcher") were to be added to many high school reading lists, because I think it will become a modern-day classic.

Excellent DVD set for Simpsons Fans - lots of EXTRAS!

I have been a Simpsons fan since the first episode aired - Yikes - almost 20 years ago! But I won't go on and on about the series, the characters or even the episodes from this season, cuz...if you're reading this...the chances are that you're already a Simpsons fan and you already know all about it. What I WILL tell you here is about THE SIMPSONS, SEASON NINE ON DVD. For one thing, I was impressed with the cover art and the design of the DVDs themselves. They were so...cool; put me in mind of 60's California posters and jazz holes (every DVD has a differently designed artwork on it) What I also liked was that they printed the names of the episodes that were included in each DVD ON the DVD itself. Wow! That made it a lot easier for me to know what episode I was looking for and what disk it was on. I really liked that. Another thing I really liked was that each DVD had a funny animated episode guide menu. Something a bit amusing to look at while you decided which episode to watch first. The episode menu screen was easy to use, and gave you a choice of either just watching the episode as-is, OR going into the "extras" section, which may include an audio commentary, delated scenes or other goodies appreciated by die-hard fans. In my opinion, Season 9 was one of the last overall "good" seasons of the Simpsons...and it was also one of the best designed DVD sets of the Simpsons so far. Excellent entertainment value for any fan...whether casual or hard-core. The makers of these DVDs really took the fans into consideration when making this set. Did you find this review interesting / useful? If so, please vote YES (it was useful). Thanks!

It's just too "generic"...no product name so can't look up user instructions

Absolutely cannot figure out how the timer works without instructions. Easy to set the time and record a message...but the timer part? Sort of the most important aspect of this item. I ended up googling around and found the one I purchased was a Chinese knock-off of an Andrew James 1 - 6 day feeder. There is a youtube video that tells you how to set the clock (12 or 24 hour) and how to set the hour for the up to 6 feedings. Oh ok...well that would have been good info to know when I was trying to set this up. Ebay won't let me share the link to the video (which tells you exactly how to set the machine) but you can look it up