W.L. Swarts Reviews The Universe

An Average Dog Food Myah Treats As Exceptional: Purina Beneful Playful Life!

2013-05-18T21:32:00.002-04:00

The Good: Very nutritious, Myah enjoys it, Not as expensive as premium dog foods
The Bad: Not the most impressive ingredients or nutritional benefits
The Basics: Purina Beneful Playful Life adult dog food made is one of the standard dog foods that Myah really seems to go for!

In reviewing many, many dog foods, I am rapidly discovering that what separates the premium brands and the major storebought brands of dog food are the ingredients. Dog foods that charge an arm and a leg tens to have ingredients that are much closer to human food than the mass produced dog foods. The mass produced dog foods are very similar and many of them have somewhat unimpressive ingredients, even if Myah loves them. So, for example, the Purina Beneful Playful Life dog food is one Myah loves and I can afford, but objectively, it is pretty unexceptional. In fact, there is nothing superlative about it, except that Myah keeps returning to it happily.

Basics

A single serving of Purina Beneful Playful Life dog food is two and a half cups to three and a quarter cups for a big dog like Myah and she is supposed to get one such serving per day, so a full bag does not last terribly long with a big dog. The Playful Life has six different shapes mixed together about evenly. One shape is very dark brown, about ½” wide and tall, and looks like a little hearts. There is another brown piece, double the size, which is just a large cylinder. The Purina Beneful Playful Life dog food also has a light brown spheroid, like a Cocoa Puff that is approximately 3/4" in diameter. There is also a light red triangle-shaped piece that is 1/2" on each side and 1/8” – 3/16” thick. There is a 3/4” long light brown bone-shaped piece and a similar sized green clover-shaped piece. All of the pieces have a mealy, textured appearance and are very hard. Myah often eats these several pellets at a time.

Ease Of Preparation

As a dry dog food, preparation of Purina Beneful Playful Life dog food is as easy as opening a bag and measuring out the pellets inside. There is no further prep needed.

Myah’s Reaction

The Playful Life smells exceptionally mealy. There is nothing meaty or chemical to the aroma of this dog food; it smells like grainy grains and chicken fat . . . like the archetypal dog food. It is not a terribly appealing scent to humans, but Myah goes right for this food whenever I open the bag! Myah enthusiastically eats this food until she is full. More than most dog foods, she seems willing to leave this food in her bowl, though she is in no way disappointed by it. She seems very capable of self-regulating her intake based on her hunger – unlike the foods she loves (which she gorges herself on) or the foods she loathes (which she completely avoids.

Nutrition

Purina Beneful Playful Life dog food smells grainy, so it is unsurprising what the ingredients in it are. Made primarily of Ground Yellow Corn, chicken by-product meal, and corn gluten meal, the ingredient list degenerates into chemicals and vitamins after dried spinach. According to the guaranteed analysis, Purina Beneful Playful Life dog food has at least 27.5% crude protein and 11% crude fat, but no more than 4% crude fiber and 14% moisture. As a dry dog food, it is highly recommended that you have adequate water available for your dog when serving your pet Purina Beneful Playful Life dog food.

Overall

Purina Beneful Playful Life dog food is a simple, good, dog food that Myah enjoys and lightly recommends, though it is an affordable, easy-to-find dog food that is a decent staple food.

For other Purina dog product reviews, please be sure to check out:
Busy HeartyHide Basted Chicken Flavor
Purina Dog Chow Active Life 25/18
Beneful Quacks Baked Delights dog treats

6.5/10

For other pet product reviews, please check out my Pet Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One Cool Moment Does Not A Worthwhile Documentary Make: Trek Nation Disappoints.

2013-05-17T00:24:00.002-04:00

The Good: Moments of exceptionally rare footage
The Bad: Mislabeled actor/role notations, Poor interviews, No real purpose.
The Basics: Trek Nation is a surprisingly lame documentary that has Eugene Roddenberry Jr. listlessly learning very little about his father about Star Trek.

Lately, I’ve seen quite a few documentaries and many of them have been about Star Trek. I’ve actually enjoyed some of them quite a bit, most notably The Captains (reviewed here!). So, when my wife wanted to sit down to watch Trek Nation, I was actually excited about it. Unfortunately, the execution of this particular documentary was particularly lackluster.

Trek Nation has a loose point; it is Eugene Roddenberry Jr.’s attempt to learn about his father, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek and the whole Star Trek phenomenon. Eugene Roddenberry Jr. was a teenager when Star Trek: The Next Generation was on the air and he was off doing his own thing. So, decades after Gene Roddenberry’s death, Roddenberry Jr. has gotten around to learning about the phenomenon his father created. Trek Nation is the result of that search.

And it is surprisingly bad.

The set-up is, unfortunately, almost the entire movie. Eugene Roddenberry Jr. reiterates many times that he had no prior knowledge of what the Star Trek phenomenon was all about and that he was off doing his own thing around the time Gene Roddenberry died. So, the movie has Eugene Roddenberry Junior wandering around asking writers, producers, obscure Star Trek guest stars (remarkably few major castmembers from the Star Trek franchise participate in Trek Nation) about their Star Trek memories before concluding that maybe Star Trek is all right.

Trek Nation has a wealth of footage that is more confusing and pointless than it is enlightening. So, for example, the film includes reaction shots where Roddenberry Jr. clearly upsets Majel Barrett-Roddenberry with is questions . . . but the movie includes only the reaction shots, not the questions he was asking and the answers she gave. Interestingly, there are outtakes of Gene Roddenberry getting frazzled during his famous 1991 interview for the 25th Anniversary documentary.

Eugene Roddenberry Jr., director Scott Colthrope, and writer Jessica Brunetto repeat a great deal of information that those who are likely to watch this documentary – namely, Trekkers – already know. In fact, outside Trekkers and those who already “get” Star Trek, it is hard to guess who Trek Nation was actually made for. The fans are likely to be bored with it because there is so little that is actually new – in fact, outside Roddenberry Jr. visiting J.J. Abrams to present him with a video that seems to endorse the concept of the 2009 Star Trek, there is little fans will not have already seen or know -, those who are not part of the culture are not likely to be intrigued given that no one makes a fully compelling argument as to why Star Trek was so incredible and remains relevant today (though Nichelle Nichols comes close with her story about her and Martin Luther King Jr.) and those who like great documentaries are likely to be irked by the lack of real resolution to this piece.

While Eugene Roddenberry Jr. gets interviews with D.C. Fontana, Michael Dorn, and Jonathan Frakes, most of the major Star Trek players are notably absent from the documentary, leaving guest stars like Victor Brandt and Patrick Kilpatrick to make statements on the franchise. Ultimately, Trek Nation is not a particularly thorough exploration of the life of Gene Roddenberry, the genesis of Star Trek or the phenomenon of Trek fandom.

For other documentaries, please check out my reviews of:
Great White Odyssey
After Porn Ends
Nantucket Film Festival’s Comedy Roundtable

2/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ugh! Talk About Your Incomplete Story . . . Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks Flops!

2013-05-16T19:45:00.003-04:00

The Good: Moments of character, Moments of plot development and artwork
The Bad: Radically incomplete story, No character resonation or development, Huge plot gaps, Terrifically inconsistent artwork.
The Basics: Unfortunately lacking in a number of key moments to tell a solid story or make the characters interesting, Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks is just a mess!

When I review a book, I take it as it is. I read the book for what is on the page in front of me and I evaluate it on those terms. It is important for me to mention that up front in my review of Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks because there might be fans of The Hulk and the entire Fall Of The Hulks storyline that are offended by my assertions in this review. The truth, however, is that no matter how good or how interesting Fall Of The Hulks is as a saga, the volume Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks is just an irredeemable mess.

I picked up Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks as part of my She-Hulk Year. This seemed to me to be a major crossover that Jennifer Walters was a part of and one of the next sensible volumes in my reading order. Unfortunately, the book was anything but engaging and the story might be an important tangent in the Fall Of The Hulks Saga, but on its own, Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks is a sliver of a tangent and a fraction of a story. It is, unfortunately, dramatically incomplete in the character and plot events it presents and inconsistently rendered in its artwork. The end result is a book that is entirely unsatisfying and more annoying to try to stick with than it is rewarding.

Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks opens with the story of Lyra. Lyra is a green She-Hulk with flaming red hair who is from the future (of, possibly, an alternate dimension, that’s not entirely clear) of a world where mechanical life evolved before organic life did and it enslaved humanity. The genetically-engineered daughter of Bruce Banner, Lyra is a She-Hulk freedom fighter before (inexplicably in this volume) she ends up in our time, on our Earth, where she works for the Alternate Reality Monitoring And Operational Response Agency (A.R.M.O.R.). Despite the book presenting her origin story, it leaps immediately to her as a part of A.R.M.O.R. and a time after she has met Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk), befriended her, and is now searching for the missing She-Hulk.

Lyra then runs afoul of Norman Osborn’s genetically-created gamma-ray irradiated villains, Axon (who absorbs Gamma radiation), Aberration (who was genetically-altered using Abomination’s DNA and is basically just a She-Hulk), and Morass (a mud-based gamma ray creature). After working to defeat the trio, and save a small town in the process, Lyra gets into a confusing battle with her own mother, Thundra, who appears to be hiding out in the past just to avoid her own daughter.

The story finally gets going when the Intelligencia – a group of super-smart super-villains – is introduced and they, M.O.D.O.K., Leader, and Wizard, make Lyra and offer to join their evil group. After an encounter with the Red She-Hulk and being forced to destroy her A.I. watch, Lyra is inducted into the Frightful Four and assists in capturing Reed Richards for them. She is then taken to the Intelligencia lair – a former S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier – where she almost immediately finds Jennifer Walters, is attacked by Red She-Hulk and ends up in the middle of a battle where an army of Red Hulks and hulked-out versions of recognizable superheroes (The Thing, Silver Surfer, and several others) are in the process of destroying Washington, D.C.

If that last part makes no real sense, welcome to the crux of my problem with Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks. The story does not so much take an abrupt left turn as it falls from one storyline to another in what appears to be a larger saga without any information for the reader to indicate what that story is, who is involved or why the stories overlap. The result is that the book unravels in a truly unfortunate way.

After a point, Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks is just confusing and nonsensical. On one page, Lyra is getting inducted into the Frightful Four, the next she is wearing a red Frightful Four uniform that we’ve never seen on the other three members of the villain group and the other three members are pretty much gone from the narrative. Red She-Hulk comes in and out of the story at random (it was only looking up this storyline and the story that followed it that I learned that the reader is not supposed to know who she is yet, so that bit of withholding – which was just annoying for me – makes some sense, I suppose) and the complicated relationship between Lyra and Thundra seems put in as more of an afterthought than a sense of genuine character development.

Moreover, Lyra’s nature is not made clear. Her opening backstory implies that she is from an alternate reality, not just a time-traveler. Yet, the rest of Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks - especially in her subplot with her mother – seems to assert the exact opposite.

As for the artwork, it is inconsistent at best. While the book opens looking like a nice sword and sorcery level of artwork, it degenerates into pretty standard comic book art and by the time Lyra meet Bentley (the Wizard) some of the panels look like comic strips or Cartoon Network level of animation, which is disappointing.

Ultimately, the artwork is not a serious detraction: the way Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks fails to tell a story is the serious drawback of this book and it is enough to make one not want to invest in Lyra or her story.

For other She-Hulk books, please visit my reviews of:
The Sensational She-Hulk
Single Green Female
The Avengers: The Search For She-Hulk
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk

2/10

For other graphic novel reviews, please visit my Graphic Novel Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Everybody Mates The Same Way In Star Trek With “Two Days And Two Nights.”

2013-05-16T19:08:00.005-04:00

The Good: The acting is all right, The Phlox subplot is funny and well-executed
The Bad: Riddled with nitpick errors, No real character development, Seems largely inconsequential all the way around.
The Basics: “Two Days And Two Nights” has the Enterprise visiting Risa for a somewhat pointless series of complications that do not truly advance any of the characters involved.

Following the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Chase” (reviewed here!), Trekkers lost much of their ability to complain about how most of the aliens in the Star Trek universe looked so similar. “The Chase” let it be known that the fundamental aliens in the Star Trek universe – at least in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants – were seeded there by an ancient race that used their own DNA as a template for the younger races. I get that, so my complaints about Enterprise seldom deal with the look of aliens (though in “Two Days And Two Nights” the alien make-up for the main female is a lazy re-imagining of the Trill), but this early in the journey of humans out into the universe, I find myself having a different complaint.

Everyone in the Star Trek universe both mates the same way and assumes that everyone else mates in a similar fashion. It’s actually a legitimate gripe. In “Two Days And Two Nights,” women that approach Trip and Reed admit they have never met humans before, yet they continue to pursue them in a way that indicates that they are confident that they men will continue to find them attractive and they lure them using a very human sense of sex appeal. Reed and Trip go in with the ridiculous notion that the women they meet on Risa might have all the same parts underneath their swimsuits and the aliens they meet there seem to have the same ridiculous prejudice. It’s unimaginative and given how this episode vastly predates “The Chase” the alien races have no reasonable way to make that assumption.

That said, “Two Days And Two Nights” is an episode riddled with problems on almost all fronts, except internal continuity. The main character problem I had was the above one, though the fact that Archer is not suspicious of the woman he ends up with and Hoshi’s character is severely weakened by her intimate rendezvous (I am not at all a prude, but Hoshi has been characterized as a bit of one and her love of learning languages would put her in very close contact with multiple teachers over the course of her career, which should demystify the pseudo-attraction someone like her has with a teacher. In other words, Hoshi’s character is much more interesting and consistent if she has a low libido that is satisfied through educational exploration, as opposed to basic physical sexual chemistry.). As it stands, “Two Days And Two Nights” does nothing to fundamentally alter or grow any of the characters.

After two attempts to get to Risa, the Enterprise finally arrives there. Archer, Sato, Trip, Mayweather, and Reed all draw lots that put them in the first rotation of visitors to go down to the pleasure planet. Aboard Enterprise, Phlox goes into a hibernation trance and leaves Ensign Cutler to look after the crew’s medical needs. With T’Pol in command, Sato goes to Risa to learn new languages, Mayweather goes to do some spelunking, Archer goes to relax (with a book of Surak’s philosophies sent as a gift by T’Pol) and Trip and Mayweather go to cruise for women. In his villa, Archer finds time to relax, though Porthos is bothered by a dog at a neighboring villa and its owner, Keyla, quickly strikes up a conversation with Archer.

Soon, though, complications abound. Sato’s quest to learn new languages puts her in touch (very literally) with a man with a fascinatingly complex language that challenges and stimulates her and Mayweather has a climbing accident that causes him to break his leg. In getting treated for the broken leg, Mayweather is given an injection that he has a reaction to. When Mayweather is returned to Enterprise, Cutler and T’Pol must decide whether or not to awaken Phlox, while on the surface Reed and Tucker get into trouble when pursuing two alien women who are not all they appear to be. And Archer, begins to suspect that Keyla is not all she appears as she tells the story of how her family was killed by the Suliban and begins interrogating Archer about what he knows about the enemy!

“Two Days And Two Nights” is riddled with continuity problems and some of the stupidest writing errors to come out of the series yet. While the idea of Phlox going into hibernation during a shore leave is not an inherently bad one, the writers seem to neglect the idea that space travel at this point in time is much slower than viewers are used to. As a result, it seems like there would be other times between planetary systems when the ship is going through a routine phase when it would be more ideal for Phlox to take his annual hibernation. In other words, this subplot with Phlox is just tempting fate in the worst possible way.

The show has a very Victorian sense of nudity as well. When Trip and Reed are robbed at gunpoint, the aliens take their clothes . . . but leave them in their underwear. Television standards and practices aside, this makes little sense. What makes even less sense is that they get a catcall as they walk through the resort in their underwear afterwards. Of any planet in the Star Trek universe for people not to notice or care about people walking around in their underwear or naked, Risa is at the top of the list. At least as important, the guys keep complaining about the alcohol smell on them after their escape . . . when they’re at a beachfront resort. Instead of ambling through the resort, why they didn’t just go for a quick swim makes both Reed and Trip seem like utter imbiciles.

That said, “Two Days And Two Nights” has decent internal continuity. Reed and Tucker reference “Shuttlepod One” (reviewed here!) and Archer finds himself dealing with unexpected consequences from “Detained” (reviewed here!) in the episode. The scenes with Phlox are entertaining at the very least and the acting is all right. Jolene Blalock gets through her minimal part as T’Pol with fewer smirks and emotive inflections than usual, making for what is to be considered a fair performance for her.

Guest Star Dey Young returns to the franchise, which is a nice addition. Here she plays Keyla, an age appropriate partner for Bakula’s Archer. Previously, Young played Arissa in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “A Simple Investigation” (reviewed here!) and the two roles are remarkably similar, giving Young little to show off in the way of range. She and Bakula, though, have decent on-screen chemistry.

It’s not enough to make “Two Days And Two Nights” enduringly worthwhile, though. This is a “watch once” episode that hardly thrills and does little to advance the plot or characters of Enterprise.

The three biggest gaffes in “Two Days And Two Nights:”
3. Hoshi references Klingon as a difficult language to learn for the conjugations. Klingon actually has fewer conjugations than most romance languages and Japanese.
2. Okay, it’s not a Star Trek gaffe, but I can’t let this go. When Mayweather returns to the Enterprise, he is carried awkwardly out of the shuttlepod by Cutler and another ensign. Seriously?! In the future of the Star Trek universe, we have phase pistols, photon torpedoes, artificial gravity and (eventually) food replicators . . . but we’ve lost the basic technology of crutches. What kind of medical training has Cutler gotten where she has a guy walking on his broken leg as opposed to giving him crutches or a wheelchair?!
1. Once again, I renew my gripe about the use of Risa. In “Captain’s Holiday” (reviewed here!), where Risa is first mentioned, Picard has never heard of the planet and the Enterprise (1701-D) was out exploring new territory. In “Two Days And Two Nights,” Risa is 90 light years from Earth and thus relatively close. Picard, great explorer that he is, apparently doesn’t know the core worlds of the Federation, which is an utterly ridiculous idea. The writers should have used Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet for this episode.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the premiere season here!
Thanks!]

3.5/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Just As The Sequel Is Underwhelming, So Too Is The Graphic Novel Prequel: Countdown To Darkness

2013-05-16T16:18:00.000-04:00

The Good: Moments of character, Plot concept
The Bad: Light on character work, Artwork, In-jokes do not pop.
The Basics: The graphic novel prequel to Star Trek Into Darkness, Countdown To Darkness details the Mudd Incident alluded to in the film and sets up the tone of the new film well, but stands on its own poorly.

As audiences flock to Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!) this weekend and before a bunch of irate people demand their money back, devotees of the Trek have another chance to be financially exploited in relation to the film! Just as Star Trek (reviewed here!) was given a loose prequel in graphic novel form, with Star Trek: Countdown (reviewed here!), Star Trek Into Darkness has been granted its own graphic novel prequel. That book is Countdown To Darkness and while it actually has some admirable qualities, it is not worth shelling out $17.99 for (as I did yesterday!).

On the plus side, Countdown To Darkness does establish several of the thematic beats that dominate the motivation of the real villain in Star Trek Into Darkness. Countdown To Darkness tries to bridge the year between Star Trek and the comic book (and trade paperback anthology) stories that lead up to Star Trek Into Darkness and it does that fairly, though this book does not lead into the film as directly as Star Trek Countdown did. Instead, this is another adventure of the U.S.S. Enterprise and while the film focuses very tightly on Captain Kirk, Countdown To Darkness gives Spock the spotlight for the bulk of the volume.

When the Enterprise approaches Phaedus for a scouting mission, Spock is plagued by nightmares of Vulcan’s destruction and Kirk is feeling restless as well. Given that the Prime Directive applies to the life forms on Phaedus, Spock is predictably cautious about Kirk’s desire to actually go planetside on the primitive planet. Despite it not being ready for first contact, there is an energy spike from Phaedus that draws the crew’s attention and Spock, Sulu, Kirk, and a red shirt take a shuttle down to the planet. Unfortunately, the ship is shot down using weapons the primitive people should not possess and the when Kirk and Spock go in search of the source of the advanced weaponry, they make a shocking discovery.

Living on Phaedus is Robert April, former Captain of the former Enterprise, logged as dead over a decade before. April brings Kirk and Spock to his people, who are at war with the Shadows (black Phaedans who have advanced weaponry and have captured Sulu and the security officer). In rescuing the officers, April explains that the Prime Directive does not apply because the Shadows have been given advanced technology from an outside source, so his involvement is only balancing the equation. April’s supplier, a young woman named Mudd, arrives and Uhura takes her ship into custody. After Spock rescues Sulu from the Shadows, April returns to the Enterprise where he uses an embedded code to take control of the computer and Kirk and Spock must work together to regain control of the Enterprise and stave off a Klingon attack at the same time.

Outside the remarkably clever allusion to Section 31, which sets up the film nicely, Countdown To Darkness does not have any in-jokes or allusions that really pop. Instead, the references to other Trek works fall remarkably flat. The fact that Mudd is, apparently, Harry Mudd’s daughter and half-Bajoran is hardly clever. The inclusion of Kor as the Klingon who is dealing with Robert April lacks resonance because the character is virtually a non-entity in this book.

Add to that, Countdown To Darkness has thoroughly underwhelming artwork. Most of the characters are recognizable, but they have an underdeveloped quality that looks more like a comic strip than a graphic novel. The coloring for the book is slightly faded and not nearly as distinctive as most comic books.

Even so, writers Mike Johnson and Roberto Orci (though given how he is credited, one suspects Johnson bears the lion’s share of the praise for this) do a decent job of getting Kirk’s voice right. The writing pops in an auditory way so that Kirk sounds like Chris Pine’s Kirk. As well, the book is not entirely devoid of character. Spock and Uhura are wrestling with issues in their relationship which, unfortunately for the same in Star Trek Into Darkness, are nominally resolved by the end of this book. The idea that Spock is wrestling with heavy, complex emotions is a good one and well-executed in Countdown To Darkness. That his feelings over the loss of Vulcan creates a rift between him and Uhura is very real and well-executed.

For other Star Trek graphic novels, please visit my reviews of:
Debt Of Honor
The Best Of Peter David
Death Before Dishonor
The Trial Of James T. Kirk

4.5/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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With Two Great And More Mediocre Tracks, I'm Not Alone In Finding Solitude Standing Average

2013-05-15T06:43:00.001-04:00

The Good: "Tom's Diner" and "Luka" are amazing, Good lyrics
The Bad: Musically limited, Overall album does not leave as much of an impression on the listener
The Basics: Despite two (or three) amazing tracks, Solitude Standing is a remarkably average breakout album for Suzanne Vega.

I have a thing for ambitious debut albums. There are artists who come out of the gate with an impressive and daunting level of quality to their musical work that makes the listener immediately sit up and say "wow!" In fact, Fiona Apple's debut Tidal (reviewed here!) and the Jubilant Dog's album Abby are the only two debuts that come right to mind as impressive debuts where the artist had to work real hard to top with their second album. Far more common is the trend where an artist releases a stiflingly average debut and their sophomore album picks up and the artist grows over several albums. Solitude Standing is not Suzanne Vega's debut album, but it's her breakout album in the United States.

With eleven tracks, clocking in at a little over forty-four minutes, Solitude Standing is the Suzanne Vega album that introduced her to mainstream U.S. markets with her songs "Luka" and "Tom's Diner" (though, the remix by DNA that followed three years later had greater commercial success) and it remains her most successful album in her repertoire. I'm no expert on Vega; this is only the second album I've heard of hers. And despite my lukewarm review of Nine Objects of Desire (reviewed here!), I definitely enjoyed that album more than Solitude Standing.

Solitude Standing is definitely sold on its strengths. "Luka" and "Tom's Diner" are definitely the best tracks on the album and they appear as tracks two and one, respectively. In fact, "Tom's Diner" is presented at the climax of the album as an all musical reprise. So, there is an a cappella version of the song that opens the album and an all instrumental version that closes it. It's not until the DNA remix (not on this album!) when the two are put together.

For those unfamiliar with the works of Suzanne Vega, she hit it big in 1987 with "Luka," a simple singsong rock and roll song about child abuse. It's a well written, clever song that list a number of the symptoms of abuse and makes it into an anthem for those who suffer child abuse. Moreover, the song is accompanies by a wonderful sense of sound, the rock drums that accent the lines "Just don't ask me what it was. . ." ("Luka") create a distinctive punch to the song. Sadly, when it's been a long time since I've heard the song, I always find myself smirking to Vega's line "Yes I think I'm okay / I walked into the door again . . ." ("Luka"). Part of it is Vega's melodic voice as she presents the line, harmonizing perfectly with her acoustic guitar.

It's easy to see why "Luka" was a hit, being so different from anything else on the radio in 1987. Similarly, it's easy to see why "Tom's Diner" did not climb higher when it was released; it's so different as to boggle the pop-culture framework. That framework is that different is good, as long as it's a different the listener knows and recognizes. "Luka" has guitars, drums and sounds like a pop-rock song, regardless of the lyrics. "Tom's Diner" is a simple story poem about a woman sitting and having a cup of coffee on a rainy day in New York without any accompaniment. And while Vega's alto voice is an instrument of its own, the song is so strange and different that it falls outside the box.

Similarly, it's easy to see why there was no successful third single from Solitude Standing. I mean, it does not matter how much like a typical pop-rock sound your song is when you're singing about buying chicken ("Ironbound/Fancy Poultry"), Greek mythology ("Calypso") or the nature of reality ("Language"). This is not to say the songs are bad, only that they are so far outside the mainstream as to be hard to capture the popular culture's imagination.

That said, the superlative aspects of Solitude Standing are the lyrics and Vega's voice. One of the problems with the album is how the two interact. Suzanne Vega has a lovely alto voice that ventures into soprano territory on some of the songs, like "Calypso." She has a haunting affect that is carried on her voice like a bird on the wind. She is brilliantly sensual with her voice . . . most of the time.

The problem with the album (and track) Solitude Standing is there is a tendency for Vega's lilting voice to mix with lyrics that are rather predictably rhymed to make the affect unbelievably light. So, for example, on the song Solitude Standing, Vega sings "Solitude stands by the window / She turns her head as I walk in the room / I can see by her eyes she's been waiting/Standing in the slant of the late afternoon," with a tune and music that accompanies the lines that leaps up and down the registers in a way that is best described as a singsong style. This minimizes the lyrics. In this example, "room" and "afternoon" are not the most overdone rhymes, so the music and vocals create a simplicity that is not indicated by the actual lyrics.

Moreover, Vega's vocals are wonderful, when they can be heard. On songs like "Wooden Horse (Caspar Hauser's Song)," her singing is so quiet that the drums, keyboards and guitars overbear much of the early lines. Moreover, so much of the album is slow and sad that the overall effect of the work is somewhat like musical sleepwalking. There's a narcoleptic effect that occurs when one listens to this album repeatedly. The music, the obscured lyrics, the voice, is all good, but the net result is more tiring than inspiring. After the second song, there is nothing that truly rocks on this album, meaning the album sinks some into a sleepy, foggy place that becomes more tiring and sleepy in its pop-rock sound.

Backed by synthesizers, guitars, and drums on most of the songs, Solitude Standing lacks anything as distinctive as the first two (popular) tracks, making it a very repetitive sound for the bulk of the album. In keeping with the standards I set down in my review of Melissa Etheridge's album Yes I Am (reviewed here!), it becomes difficult to recommend this otherwise average album as the best tracks do appear on Vega's Retrospective album.

The best tracks are "Luka" and "Tom's Diner," the low of the slow middle is "Night Vision."

For other independent female artists, please check out my reviews of:
A Few Small Repairs - Shawn Colvin
Hotel Paper - Michelle Branch
The Dresden Dolls - The Dresden Dolls

5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Delightful Clone Of Chipotle, Pancheros Delivers!

2013-05-14T23:13:00.005-04:00

The Good: Good tasting food, Relatively nutritious, Inexpensive, Food is served hot!
The Bad: Light on side dishes/choices, Mediocre drink options
The Basics: Pancheros might not be the most original Mexican grill to hit the marketplace, but they do an impressive job at actually cooking the food they serve!

It seems lately whenever I am on the road for an event, I end up going to a Mexican grill. Ever since I first went to Chipotle Grill (reviewed here!), I seem to find new (to me) Mexican grills everywhere. When I went to a Janis Ian concert downstate (check out my review of that here!), I discovered yet another new-to-me Mexican Grill: Pancheros.

And I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike every other Mexican grill I have gone to, even the ones I have enjoyed, to date, Pancheros is the only one to actually serve the food actually at a temperature I could thoroughly enjoy it at.

Location

Pancheros is a fast-growing restaurant chain. In Michigan, where I now live, there are already six and there are more popping up all over the Midwest of the United States. They seem to be direct competition with Chipotle in both style and substance.

Pancheros seems to be a reasonably fast food establishment that is catering to the conscientious carnivores of the United States. The dining rooms tend to have a very trendy, modern look and minimal southwestern décor. The colorscheme of Pancheros is yellow, blue and red inside. They feature booths and tables that were moderately comfortable.

Waitstaff

Pancheros do not have waiters and waitresses. Patrons line up at a cafeteria-style assembly station and place their order with a “cook” who assembles the meal for them. These stations are very sleek, clean stainless steel hotpads where all of the fillings for the possible dishes are kept warm.

When one reaches the front of the line, one tells the assembler what one wants and they prepare the shell (burrito or taco or salad bowl) that is appropriate. That assembler walks down the line putting in ingredients as they reach them, confirming when necessary with the customer. They usually hand off the meal at some point to someone who puts on the toppings and folds it up and they pass the meal off to the cashier who checks the customer out.

At the location I went to, the servers were friendly, clean and easily executed all of my wishes. They all seemed to be enjoying their jobs.

Food

Pancheros is essentially a Mexican food establishment. The dishes include burritos, fajitas, rice bowls, quesadillas, tacos and salads. The selection for these items is differentiated by the meat or vegetable one chooses to add to the dish and it is the price of the meat that determines the price of the dish. As a result, a steak burrito runs more expensive than a chicken one.

The meal I tried was a steak burrito with black beans, rice and cheese. At Pancheros, the chefs actually mixed up those ingredients before rolling it into the large flour tortilla. What that meant was that I did not have bites of segregated food. Instead of one bite with beans and another with rice, I actually had every bite with beans, rice, steak and cheese. Unlike every other Mexican grill I have been to, Pancheros is the only one where the result was the cheese melted into the burrito and that was a delightful change of pace for me.

As important, every bite of the burrito had steak in it. The steak was soft and flavorful. In addition to being well-spiced with minimal salt and a spicy rub, the steak flavor came out in every bite, which was a wonderful thing. Not a single bite was overcooked or dried out, so it tasted exactly like what it was supposed to; meat! The cheese finishes the flavor well, while the rice and beans were more generically salty than incredible.

The drinks, at least at the Pancheros I visited, were fountain sodas. In addition to bottled water and a drink or two by the bottle, the main options were Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Mellow Yellow, Fanta, and Hi-C.

Overall

Despite being a virtual clone of Chipotle, getting a meal that is consistently hot goes a long way with me and getting a meal with a drink for around $10, makes Pancheros easy to recommend and one of the restaurants I look forward to going back to!

For other restaurants, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Wendy’s
La Senorita
Red Lobster

8/10

For other restaurant reviews, please be sure to visit my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Why I Was Not Grabbed By Game Of Thrones Season 1. . .

2013-05-14T17:32:00.005-04:00

The Good: Interesting setting, Good direction, Moments of performance
The Bad: Very plot-centered, Light on character development, Most of the performances fail to be superlative.
The Basics: A mythical realm finds its major political figures vying for dominance as their competing machinations collide.

There are any number of popular cable television shows that I have absolutely no interest in. I have, for example, no compelling drive to watch The Sopranos. For all its popularity at the time, The Sopranos did not inspire me to run out and get cable television. Until my wife started reading the book series, I had no compulsion to sit down to Game Of Thrones. It was not that I had an antipathy toward the show, I simply knew nothing about it other than that it was popular, had a fantasy look to it, and was making Peter Dinklage a household name.

Having now done a marathon viewing of the first season of Game Of Thrones (which my wife claims stuck very closely to the first book), I find myself in the position of not siding with popular opinion on the season. The first season of Game Of Thrones was not bad, but it was not truly superlative in any way. In fact, I found myself bored with the first season of Game Of Thrones much quicker than many of my peers for the same reason I was not simply blown away by House Of Cards (reviewed here!). While one of the characters in Game Of Thrones asserts that everyone wants to rule the world, that is not true and it hardly works for characters who are compelling to watch episode after episode. In other words, characters have to have sufficient motivation to be compelling and the reactive nature of most of the characters in the first season of Game Of Thrones is hardly enough to sustain my interest. In fact, the way most of the characters are simply reacting to their immediate circumstances or are motivated by revenge for the wrongs against their family becomes droll fast.

Despite what some have argued to me, virtually all of the characters are motivated by a sense of honor that puts the character on a trajectory to avenge the assassination or betrayal of a family member in the past. In Westeros, a kingdom ruled by the capital of King’s Landing and consisting of seven major territories, the recent history involves many of the middle aged characters having been involved in the usurping of the last – the Mad – King before King Robert was installed to the throne. The King’s Hand (the executive officer of the King’s will), John Aaron dies rather abruptly which sets off a chain of events in the kingdom of Westeros and puts into play the machinations of each of the major houses.

The death of John Aaron causes King Robert to turn to his oldest friend, Ned Stark, to become the new Hand. Ned very reluctantly takes the job and relocates himself and his two daughters to King’s Landing from Winterfell. There, he quickly becomes mired in Court intrigue and even as he prepares for his oldest daughter, Sansa, to marry Robert’s cruel son, Joffrey, he begins to doubt that his friend’s wife has been entirely faithful to him. Ned’s problems are multiplied by the wife he left back in Winterfell. Ned’s posting to King’s Landing came after his young son, Bran, fell off the tower while Robert was visiting. Catelyn has deduced – with some help from an old friend who is still infatuated with her – that Bran was pushed. She soon learns that Robert’s wife, Cersei, was likely involved. This causes tension between Ned and Robert and soon puts the whole Stark family in danger.

As the Starks and Lannisters come to blows, Viserys Targaryen essentially sells his sister to the nomadic horselords, the Dothraki, on the promise that Khal Drogo will commit his forces to help Viserys usurp King Robert. As his sister Daenerys falls more in love with Khal Drogo, and gets pregnant by him, she begins to assert herself more. Not content to let the Dothraki rape and pillage their way around the plains, Daenerys stands up for the people and puts Viserys’s agenda at risk.

Subplots include Ned’s bastard son, Jon Snow, taking a position at the remote Wall, which is all that stands between the good people of Westeros and the nightmarish creatures that live on the other side of the Wall. Another has the dwarf Tyrion Lannister getting caught by various people who want him dead until he uses his wits and his wealth to escape what would otherwise be certain death.

The first season of Game Of Thrones is not bad, but it seems incredibly familiar. In fact, it might well be analogized to HBO’s Rome (reviewed here!) meets The Lord Of The Rings (reviewed here!) – and not just because Sean Bean is the top-billed actor for season one. The plot-heavy stories and heavy political intrigue take the place of most of the potentially compelling character moments. So, for example, Ned is actually a pretty boring guy; he wants nothing more than to stay home in the safety of Winterfell and raise his younger children and not be bothered, despite having a past as a warrior. Yet, he is roped into the palace intrigue which menaces all he claims to care about and he blithely goes along with it and even digs deeper into the murder of John Aaron.

The two most interesting characters who actually have development in the first season are Daenerys and Jon Snow. Snow wants to impress his father and by being forced to live separately from the rest of the family in the barrens of the Wall, he comes to find a sense of honor and stands on his own in a way that allows him validation away from Ned. In fact, while he is initially likable in a generic good guy way, in the course of the first season of Game Of Thrones, he develops into an individual who is genuinely good, honorable and more emotionally well-rounded than dependent.

Daenerys also has an actual arc, though it is a harder one to initially care about and she gets lost for many of the later episodes as well. But, Daenerys starts off as the abused sister of the man who would be king, sold into marital slavery and grows to love Khal Drogo. So empowered, she begins to assert her own wishes and agendas, which puts her at odds with much of the tribe, but gives her a distinction that she did not initially have.

The acting, costumes, and direction are all good, but because so much time is spent on explaining the plot relations and past events, the characters do not pop as much as they ought to. Because it is an HBO-produced show, there is plenty of nudity and a strong amount of gore (Game Of Thrones Season 1 is not for those squeamish about seeing throats slit on screen!), though to its credit, none of the characters in the first season use cocaine, so it’s not virtually every other HBO show ever (off screen, some of the characters are given what sounds a lot like morphine . . .). After the first season, the political game for Westeros is in full swing, but who might win the Game Of Thrones is both anybody’s guess and hard to actually give a damn about.

For other works that are or were on HBO, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Girls - Season 1
Carnivale
True Blood - Season Five
Extras
Six Feet Under
Sex & The City - Season Three
Da Ali G Show
Jim Henson's The Storyteller

5/10

For other television season reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Eliminating My Neighbor’s Stank In My Apartment, Citrus Magic Fresh Citrus Solid Air Freshener Works!

2013-05-12T23:04:00.000-04:00

The Good: Good smell, Comparatively inexpensive, Easy to use
The Bad: Does not look all that great, Does not actually clean or eliminate the sources of odors.
The Basics: The Fresh Citrus Citrus Magic is strong enough to eliminate odors, especially when one cannot get to the source of the odor!

With things heating up, my wife and I have discovered all new problems with our annoying neighbors. Since they moved in next door, we’ll occasionally smell cigarette smoke in our downstairs stairwell. But as it has warmed up, we’ve smelled more and more cigarette smoke and it has even been coming up into our apartment. As it turns out, our thoughtful neighbor has taken to standing outside our door to smoke her cigarettes. She doesn’t stand in front of our door, she stands right in front of ours smoking and that has been the source of our stinky downstairs. So, I had to get a new air freshener for our downstairs and fortunately, my new job got in the Citrus Magic Fresh Citrus Solid Air Freshener.

Solid Air Fresheners are best analogized as scented candles without the wick. These are waxy discs that come in a plastic disc package that are actually solidified essential oils that emit a scent. The principle behind them is simple; air passes through the plastic container – with vents - they slowly effervesce throughout a room and for several weeks at least, the living environment smells like the scent the Citrus Magic claims to have, in this case, Fresh Citrus. The principle is a generally good one; Citrus Magic Solid Air Fresheners eliminate the potential danger of burning down one's house by having an inflammable odor-releaser and offer long-lasting odor coverage.

The Fresh Citrus Citrus Magic solid air freshener has lasted more than a month (and it is still going strong!). Citrus Magic have an instant, generic, citrus scent and it dissipates well for at least thirty days. Given that the point of this little device is supposed to be making odor control effortless - as opposed to having to light a candle every day or two and remember to blow it out - the Fresh Citrus Citrus Magic succeeds exceptionally well. Since deploying the solid air freshener we have not smelled the cigarette smoke from our neighbor.

The Citrus Magic are five-inch in diameter and an inch thick plastic discs that have vents on the top. The base is a white plastic disc that has a yellow wax of the Fresh Citrus solid air freshener inside. Use is ridiculously simple; remove the sticker from the front vents and set in a place where one wants fresher air. The disc has two little flat feet which allow one to stand up the solid air freshener.

The Fresh Citrus Citrus Magic smells exactly like oranges and lemons, making it smell like what it is supposed to. It is an aromatic, if heavy, scent that is reminiscent of lemon cleaners. The scent is very strong, and it covers the smell of cigarettes, cats and dogs quite well for weeks.

The Citrus Magic is a good theory with a great execution, at least with the Fresh Citrus scent. Opening the air freshener gave us a reprieve for three and a half weeks from any cigarette-related scents.

The Citrus Magic are easy enough to use; at this point, it looks like there will be two months worth of good use out of this solid air freshener before the waxy portion dries out completely. At that time, the plastic disc may simply be thrown away. This is very easy to use and when placed in high places, it is very safe for use around children and animals.

For other scented product, check out my reviews of:
Method Pink Grapefruit Cleaning Wipes
United Pet Skunk And Tough Odor Remover
Arm & Hammer Pet Fresh Odor & Stain Remover

7/10

For other home and garden product reviews, please check out my Home And Garden Product Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Desperately Average Super Hero Films Work Up To An Impressive Film With Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled

2013-05-11T23:12:00.000-04:00

The Good: The Avengers, Some decent performances, Blu-Ray bonus features
The Bad: Exceptionally repetitive plots, Character arcs are often repetitive as well
The Basics: The six-film Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled boxed set eliminates some of the fat from the first few serialized Marvel universe movies nevertheless presents in one place the films building up to and including The Avengers.

As Iron Man 3 (reviewed here!) continues its powerhouse run at the box office, it is fun to look back at how the film came to be. The films that led up to Iron Man 3 - and much more importantly, its cinematic predecessor The Avengers - have been collected on Blu-Ray in a new boxed set called the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled. The Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled is six of the first seven Marvel Universe films that were loosely connected by background threads pertaining to the Avengers Initiative. In other words, it is the Marvel Universe without the X-Men franchise, The Fantastic Four or Spider-Man (or, for that matter, the vigilante Daredevil or the supernatural-based Marvel characters like Ghost Rider).

The boxed set of Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled does not include the film Hulk, which is somewhat ironic because it does include its sequel. The ten disc set, which is chock full of bonus features and an entire exclusive bonus disc that looks at the assembled films as a film franchise. The films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled boxed set includes:
Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Avengers

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled has five movies that are only loosely tied to one another and then is paid off with a film that unites the protagonists from the prior four films. For those who have not seen them, the basic ideas behind the films are:

Iron Man has billionaire Tony Stark getting attacked and held hostage overseas. While being held hostage, he puts together a small device that keeps shrapnel from piercing his heart and he uses it to power a primitive suit of armor that facilitates his escape. Stark’s return to the United States and the industry of weapons engineering is met with mixed results. His loyal assistant, Pepper Potts, is thrilled he is alive, but his former mentor is actually dismayed in that Stark is still alive given that he has taken control over Stark Industries in Tony’s absence. Stark’s new pacifism and obsession with refining his armor to act as something of a one-man world peace force, upsets Stone and causes Tony’s former mentor to create a suit of his own to take on his protégé!

The Incredible Hulk finds Dr. Bruce Banner hiding out, having tried to keep his alter-ego, the Hulk, under control for years. He is hunted by a military-industrial complex that is determined to bring him in. In that pursuit, a villainous leader gives a seasoned officer a serum that creates another Hulk-like creature (the Abomination), who begins to lay waste, which requires the Hulk to intervene to save lives.

Iron Man 2 continues Tony Stark’s story after his revelation that he is Iron Man. With Congress looking to assimilate Stark’s technology while he resists, Stark fights two battles: one against the corporate leader of Hammer weapons and the other, in his suit, against the Russian villain Whiplash, who rises up to get revenge on Stark for stealing the technology his father developed.

In Thor the Norse God of Thunder coming to Earth as an outcast after his brother, Loki, discredits him on the astral planes. With Thor’s father in a coma, Thor ends up on Earth where he works to redeem himself and comes to care about the humans.

There is a trip to the past with Captain America: The First Avenger. During World War II, Steve Rogers is a weak young man who nevertheless wants to join the war effort to go to fight the Nazis. Instead, he is inducted into the super soldier program and given incredible strength, endurance and tactical ability. After a stint as a publicity tool for the U.S. military, Rogers as Captain America goes to free American prisoners of war and stop the evil HYDRA scientists who are threatening to unlock the massive power of a device from the astral planes, the tesseract.

The Tesseract pops back up as the object of concern in The Avengers. Loki has been tasked by a powerful alien being with recovering the Tesseract from Earth and he is ready to use it to wipe out humanity. To respond to the menace of Loki and the army he is ready to bring through a wormhole to lay waste to Earth (starting in New York City), Nick Fury – after an attack on a S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratory – works to bring together Earth’s greatest heroes to respond to the threat Loki represents.

All six films follow a similar basic format with the origin story of the super hero and the villain and the hero rising to stop them. These are all, in the end, “kill the villain” type films. Iron Man 2 has no time needed to establish Iron Man, but uses the time that these type movies to establish the heroes to remind the viewers who Iron Man and Tony Stark are and the villains are more developed in the movie. But, like the plots, the characters all have pretty obvious and repetitive journeys where, in each film, to defeat their custom villain, they must learn a Very Important Lesson about themselves.

While the films might lack a great resonance of character issues and development, the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled managed to get some pretty wonderful actors. The principle actors in this saga – Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Edward Norton (Bruce Banner – for The Incredible Hulk), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner – for The Avengers), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Chris Evans (Captain America), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), and Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) are wonderful and add and emotional resonance and realism to the movies that makes them feel grand and sophisticated beyond the simple plots and characters they portray. The supporting actors – Sir Anthony Hopkins, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, William Hurt, and Liv Tyler – lend a professionalism to a movie series that could seem campy or utterly unrealistic without their gravitas.

Ultimately, the movies in Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled are entertaining popcorn movies, but seeing them together in this set begins to reiterate the idea that some of the super heroes in the Marvel Universe are hardly all that special. These stories shake up the super powers and specific plots, but are in many ways the same essential story told six ways.

For similar boxed sets, please visit my reviews of:
The Star Trek Cinematic Boxed Set
The Lord Of The Rings
The Star Wars Trilogy

5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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It Might As Well Be Pistachio Milk, Bolthouse Farms 100% Matcha Green Tea Soy Latte

2013-05-11T14:40:00.002-04:00

The Good: Tastes good, Nutritious, Great for virtually any style of diet.
The Bad: Not the most flavorful blend, Not the most nutritious in the Bolthouse line-up, Expensive!
The Basics: Bolthouse Farms 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte is another wonderful beverage from Bolthouse Farms, though it is hardly a thirst-quencher!

As I have gotten back into the habit of eating well, I am finding healthier things to review once again. Today, that takes the form of Bolthouse Farms 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte drink. This was a beverage I picked up on a lark because I like the brand, not because I had any particular love of green tea. I do, however, like chai lattes and being able to try a new flavor of Bolthouse Farms drinks appeals to me. So, I was pleasantly surprised when the Green Tea Soy Latte was good, but unsurprised when it was not great and enough to make me truly consider it one of the more memorable outings in the Bolthouse Farms drink line.

With the Green Tea Soy Latte, Bolthouse Farms continues its tradition of making healthy comparatively expensive. Despite how good the Green Tea Soy Latte soy drink is, the $3.29 (locally) for a 15.2 fluid ounce bottle, makes me ration the drink to the actual serving size!

Basics

Bolthouse Farms Green Tea Soy Latte is a soy health drink, which is like an energy drink except that is designed for more of a full-health solution (as opposed to being a liquid vitamin supplement) and they tend to taste better. This is a soy beverage that is minimally enhanced with nutrients. Bolthouse Farms 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte comes in a 15.2 fl. oz. plastic bottle that is smooth and very portable. The #1 recyclable bottle is filled with the opaque green liquid, that looks just like pistachio pudding before it sets. Bolthouse Farms is one of the leading manufacturers of healthy prepared beverages and their dairy-oriented line is increasing in popularity and availability.

The 15.2 fl. oz. bottle is intended to give consumers just under two servings, which is annoying for a prepared food. If Bolthouse Farms has a bulk bottle of Green Tea Soy Latte, I have not been able to find it locally.

Ease Of Preparation

Bolthouse Farms 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte is a liquid in the 15.2 fl. oz. bottle and is a ready-to-drink beverage. So, preparation is as easy as opening a plastic bottle. The Green Tea Soy Latte bottle has a plastic cap that easily twists off and can be put back on in order to reseal it. It is important to note that this is supposed to be refrigerated, so quality of the beverage may degrade if it is left out at room temperature before or after the bottle is open. This has a pretty standard security seal ring around the lower half of the cap and informs the consumer as to whether the product has been opened by cracking off when the top is twisted.

Taste

The Green Tea Soy Latte smells nicely like pistachio pudding. It is actually surreal and very inviting for those who like the creamy, salty flavor of such pudding!

On the tongue, however, this is a creamy beverage that has the distinctive taste of green tea. The green tea flavor kicks in after the initial milky flavor. This has a dry and nutty aftertaste after the initial milky, creamy texture and flavor fades. Otherwise, this is essentially green tea flavored milk.

The dry aftertaste lingers for about three minutes, but it is not an unpleasant aftertaste. It is nutty, though, and that makes it far from being a thirst quencher.

Nutrition

As a healthy tea and soy beverage, Bolthouse Farms 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte is designed to fill in some of the nutritional gaps one might have in their diet, while tasting good! Nutritionally, Bolthouse Farms 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte is a decent, but not exceptional, option for those who are dieting or are trying to improve their health. 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte is primarily composed of soy milk from concentrate, matcha green tea, and cane sugar. It contains nothing bad and does not have additional vitamins pumped into it. It is gluten free and because it is soy milk instead of milk from an animal, it appears to be Vegan complaint! As well, there are no preservatives, artificial flavors or colors or genetically modified ingredients!

This drink is also exceptionally healthy for you. One serving of 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte has 3 g fat and 150 calories, 25 of which come from the fat. While there are 25 grams of sugars, the beverage has no cholesterol and a whopping 7 grams of protein! Surprisingly, there are 80 mg (3% RDA) of sodium in each serving. A single serving is a sufficient source of Calcium (30% RDA!) and more than your daily needs for Vitamin C so this truly is a healthy beverage (ironically, more healthy than many fruit juices I have reviewed!).

Storage/Clean-up

Bolthouse Farms 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte comes in a plastic bottle and it keeps for only a few months. The bottle my wife and I bought last month had an expiration date of June 25, 2013. This beverage must be refrigerated, though because it does not contain any actual dairy products, I am not exactly sure why.

This drink is a soy product and light because that is just how soymilk is. If this gets on clothes, it ought not stain them, unless they are white (this drink is green). Consult a care guide for your clothes, though I suspect the drink shouldn’t be allowed to soak into your clothes and stay there. Still, the drink wipes off surfaces easily with a cloth, assuming they are impermeable.

Overall

I enjoyed the Bolthouse Farms 100% Matcha Green Tea Green Tea Soy Latte, but it was not a superlative Bolthouse Farms beverage. It tastes all right, but it is not the most flavorful or distinct flavor in the line, nor is it the healthiest. That makes it easy to recommend, but not one to run out to stock up on.

For other Bolthouse beverages, please check out my reviews of:
Mango Coconut Splash Coconut Water + Juice
50/50 Tropical
Protein Plus Strawberries + Yogurt + Granola All Natural Protein Shake

6.5/10

For other food reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Manly Men Get Another Episode Of Enterprise With “Desert Crossing”

2013-05-10T17:49:00.000-04:00

The Good: Decent acting, Moments of concept
The Bad: No character development, Dull plot
The Basics: Archer and Trip flee through a desert to avoid taking sides in an alien war in an episode that hints at a philosophical development, but gives about as much airtime to sports and survivalist theory.

A few years ago, the Star Trek Facebook page made what I thought was an absurd survey post on their Facebook page. On Superbowl Sunday, they asked which character from the Star Trek franchise would make the best quarterback. My admittedly pithy response was to post that this was an utterly ridiculous question to pose to this particular fan base. After all, I noted, I had never once been at a convention and heard a Star Trek fan say they couldn’t stick around to get autographs because they had to get home for the football game. It was a preposterous question and a ridiculous way to engage the fan base.

It was not until I started watching Star Trek: Enterprise that I began to see why the Star Trek page would even bother to pose such a question. In mortgaging the existing fan base of Star Trek, Enterprise sought to pick up a new fan base and, based on episodes like “Rogue Planet” (reviewed here!) – with hunters and blondes – and “Desert Crossing” (SPORTS!), it seems that the strategy the producers and UPN went with was to try to get manly young men – the frat boy audience – to tune in. They failed . . . and pissed off the loyal Trekkers in the process.

“Desert Crossing” is an episode that – for the fans – seems to have the purpose mostly to illustrate that the NX-01 Enterprise is flying around without directives like the Prime Directive. In this pre-Federation law time of exploration, the Enterprise gets into trouble, like getting associated with one warring faction on a planet based solely upon who they encounter first in space, in ways that many of the subsequent series’ in the franchise. But, “Desert Crossing” is a whole lot less cerebral than that; it’s an episode that has sporting events, survivalist struggles against a harsh environment and fairly pointless explosions for good measure.

The Enterprise comes to the aid of a small ship commanded by Zobral, an alien who seems very grateful for the help. In assisting him, the crew is invited to return with him to his planet to partake in his hospitality, a feast in the Captain and Trip’s honor. The ship makes the diversion and, after a meaty meal, and during a lacrosse-like game with Zobral and his people, Trip and Archer find themselves on the run. T’Pol has been hailed by the planet’s ruling class and informed that Zobral is a terrorist.

Inspired by Archer’s rumored leadership in liberating Suliban nationals (in “Detained,” reviewed here!), Zobral appeals to Archer for help as his strategy as a freedom fighter is beginning to fail. Explaining that his caste has always been second class citizens – legally before and de facto now that the planet’s caste system has been abolished – he is fighting for the dignity of his people. Unwilling to get involved in his little war with the government, Archer and Trip flee into the desert (with minimal water) and struggle to survive long enough for T’Pol and Zobral to rescue them.

In addition to being a particularly manly adventure that hinges on more brawn than brains (fleeing into the desert is not the smartest thing and while they are running away, Zobral is running out with what appears to be a rocket launcher), “Desert Crossing” is particularly low on character. Trip and Archer reroute the Enterprise for a feast in their honor, but none of the rest of the crew (who is inconvenienced yet again on their way to Risa) are invited, which seems odd considering Zobral’s very generous nature (and his desire to have Archer and Trip compete in the native sporting event . . . for which there is no audience.

But the character who suffers the most in “Desert Crossing” is Trip. More than any other character in the Star Trek universe, Trip is characterized as something of a dumb redneck. In “Desert Crossing,” Trip starts whiny and long before he becomes weakened by the elements, he is portrayed as astonishingly stupid. He does not pick up on Archer’s hints that they need to leave after the Captain is hailed by T’Pol and his comments before he is exhausted in the desert make him seem less trained or professional than one might expect for a ship’s Chief Engineer.

It is guest star Clancy Brown who saves “Desert Crossing” from earning the lowest possible ratings. Brown is a favorite of mine from his previous work in things like Carnivale (reviewed here!) and for most of the episode, he proves his worth as an actor by no other means than he appears smiling (which is something so few of his characters seem to do). Brown makes Zobral seem good-natured and generous in all of the right ways and until the moment he exposes his cache of light munitions, he seems viable as a kind nomad (when his weapons are exposed he becomes something of an ugly stereotype of a Middle Easterner, but fortunately, Brown plays the role to diminish what could be – in the writing – a pretty racist character).

But even the oscillations between Clancy Brown’s good-natured exhortations and his bellowing about the injustices his people have faced is not enough to save “Desert Crossing” and make it worth watching. Instead, it is an unfortunately droll concept for an episode with an execution that does less than it ought to for a serious viewer.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the premiere season here!
Thanks!]

3/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Video Game Sisko Makes For A Poor Exclusive

2013-05-10T12:31:00.001-04:00

The Good: Good sculpt, Good coloring, Balance
The Bad: No accessories, Nothing remarkable as far as an exclusive goes, Very bland facial expression.
The Basics: A particularly lazy exclusive action figure, it's hard to get excited about the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Commander Benjamin Sisko In StarFleet Duty Uniform figure.

When it comes to Star Trek exclusive action figures, Playmates Toys had a decidedly mixed record. When they tried to do an exceptionally limited action figure at the height of the popularity of Star Trek figures – the “Tapestry” Picard (reviewed here!), they received a pretty righteous backlash and the frustrated fans did everything they could to sink the company’s plans (the two subsequent figures that were planned for releases of 1701 pieces were upped to 3000 and then a multipack with unnumbered versions of the figures was later released!). Before that comparatively imaginative recycled figure (all of the pieces to the “Tapestry” Picard were cribbed from other, prior, Playmates Star Trek figure releases, Playmates made some even lazier exclusives. One was the Commander Benjamin Sisko in StarFleet Duty Uniform action figure.

The Commander Benjamin Sisko in StarFleet Duty Uniform action figure was an exclusive from the Nintendo and Sega game Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Crossroads Of Time. The game had a mail-away coupon and Playmates produced 4000 of the figure as an exclusive.

Commander Benjamin Sisko in StarFleet Duty Uniform is Commander Sisko as he appeared in the teaser only to the pilot episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Emissary” (reviewed here!).

Basics

Commander Benjamin Sisko is a human officer, seen originally fighting the Borg during the famed Battle Of Wolf 359, and in addition to being the first black commanding officer whose story is fully developed in a Star Trek series, he was father to Jake Sisko. Sisko appears in his exclusive action figure as a bored looking officer who is attired in the red StarFleet Command branch uniform. Because he was the leader, Playmates thought the figure might be popular. Unfortunately, because it was a lazy reuse of a pretty standard Star Trek The Next Generation figure’s body with a Sisko head popped on, collectors and fans largely rejected the figure.

The Commander Benjamin Sisko figure is the human StarFleet officer as he appeared in the first five minutes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, with the red uniform and with a head of closely shaved hair. Commander Benjamin Sisko is attired in his red StarFleet uniform (for Command division) that is entirely indistinct from other, similar, figures. The outfit is colored appropriately, including the three gold rank pips on the collar.

Standing four and seven-eighths inches tall, this is a decent likeness of Commander Benjamin Sisko immortalized in plastic. His legs have a very neutral stance, so this figure stands up and looks like he is ready to be displayed, as opposed to an action pose which made some of the earlier Star Trek figures more problematic for posing in displays. Even so, Commander Benjamin Sisko has good balance on which is important because this figure did not come with a stand. There is a decent level of uniform detailing, including the communicator pin on the chest being both molded into the figure and then painted on. The sculpting details lessen, though at the hands, where Sisko has less detailing, including a lack of defined knuckles or fingernails.

Commander Benjamin Sisko's face is molded in a bland, neutral expression that actually characterizes well Sisko's initial emotional resonance. He was a low-key Commander and the lack of defined expression suits the character remarkably well. The hair is little more than a raised portion on the head which has then been colored black; there is little texture to it. Interestingly, while the skin and uniform are cast in a glossy plastic, Sisko's hair is painted with a black matte finish.

The paint job is fair at best, especially for the face. The skin tones are monotonal brown with no shading or subtlety. The figure's lips are painted an unnaturally bright pink which looks somewhat ridiculous. As well, Sisko's eyes are brown with white pupils, which is disturbing.

Accessories

Commander Benjamin Sisko In StarFleet Duty Uniform comes with no accessories. This is especially disappointing for an exclusive figure.

Playability

Commander Benjamin Sisko continued a generally high level quality from Playmates and he was quite good at the time, pleasing collectors and fans alike. Commander Benjamin Sisko is appropriately stiff, but has decent poseability. Commander Benjamin Sisko is endowed with twelve points of articulation: knees, groin socket, biceps, elbows, shoulders, neck, and waist. All of the joints, save the elbows and knees, are simple swivel joints. As a result, the neck turns left to right, but the head cannot nod. Similarly, the shoulders are not ball and socket joints and only rotate. Still, Playmates dealt with this limitation by having a swivel joint in the bicep, which allows everything below to turn and offers real decent poseability!

Moreover, for use with actual play, Commander Benjamin Sisko may bend or extend at the elbows, which offers a greater amount of movement potential making him one of the more realistic Star Trek action figures to play with (for those who actually play with these toys!). On his base, Commander Benjamin Sisko is exceptionally stable, even in the most ridiculous poses. He actually looks very dignified and stern in a neutral display pose.

Collectibility

Playmates overestimated the interest in Commander Benjamin Sisko and after the initial spike, the value of the exclusive figure plummeted. At this point, it is one of the least expensive collectible figures from Star Trek on the market. The fact that is was uninspired and recycled without any new pieces or a hook also helped turn collectors off to it.

Overview

The Commander Benjamin Sisko figure is a poor, bland figure and even fans will have a tough time justifying the expense or effort in tracking down one of these toys.

For other Benjamin Sisko action figures, please check out my reviews of:
1993 Commander Benjamin Sisko (first release) figure
Sisko from “Crossover”
Captain Benjamin Sisko
Sisko As A Klingon
6” Warp Factor Series Captain Benjamin Sisko
Art Asylum Captain Sisko from “Trials And Tribble-ations”
Diamond Select Captain Benjamin Sisko

2.5/10

For other toy reviews, please be sure to visit my Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Tales From A Groovy Place That Still Does Not Sell Us: Come On Now Social

2013-05-07T21:46:00.004-04:00

The Good: Good musical variety, Decent lyrics, Good themes
The Bad: Vocals are generally unspectacular, Somewhat musically unbalanced
The Basics: With impressive lyrics and more enjoyable rock and roll music, Come On Now Social still falls short in the vocals and instrumentals, though I'm seeing some growth in Indigo Girls.

When I had my first experience with the Indigo Girls a few days ago with their album Shaming Of The Sun (reviewed here!) I felt so strangely disappointed and disappointed for not liking the album that I assumed the problem must be me and I set out to find another Indigo Girls album to listen to and review as soon as possible. I picked up Come On Now Social, if for no other reason than I liked the title.

I remain underwhelmed by the Indigo Girls tracks I have heard thus far.

With thirteen tracks (there is a hidden track after a few seconds of silence following "Faye Tucker," Come On Now Social clocks in at over fifty-seven minutes and unlike Shaming Of The Sun, this album is more consistently pop-rock and roll with more of a folk feel than country undertones. Come On Now Social presents the Indigo Girls as folk-rock rockers with an emphasis on rock and roll in their instrumentals. For example, "Faye Tucker" has a strong rock presence with electric guitars and articulate drumming.

In fact, the entire album has more of a rock and roll edge to it. Opening with "Go," this album is heavy in up-front guitars and loud drums that don't quit. In addition to the abovementioned tracks, "Gone Again," "Trouble," "Ozilline" and "Cold Beer And Remote Control" take on more straightforward rock and roll sounds, making the album less bluegrass than some previous endeavors.

This album includes backing vocals from Sheryl Crow and Joan Osborne, as well as Me'Shell Ndegocello on bass for a track. The truth is, their presences would have gone unnoticed were it not for the credits in the liner notes. They add nothing so distinctive or noticeable as to call attention to themselves.

The vocals are nothing to get excited about. For example, on "Soon Be To Nothing," as the vocalists (there are five) repeat the line "I'll soon be to nothing but I don't know when . . ." the result is less a harmonization and more a droning. The net effect is a tired repetition that does not emphasize the line or the emotions behind it but rather robs it - and the song - of its impact. Instead, there are many tracks that repeat creating a feeling that the songs are being stretched out. I could not find a single vocal performance on this album that impressed me.

The lyrics are another matter. What Indigo Girls lack in vocal presentation on Come On Now Social, they make up with lyrics that are genuinely wonderful and well written. Emily Saliers wrote a real classic set of verses in "Trouble" when she ironically wrote ". . . send God's sweet children floating down a poison stream / Secret society of conference rooms / I pledge my allegiance to the dollar / And when the clergy take a vote all the gays will pay again . . ." Saliers is socially active and angry as ever (one of the aspects of the group I respect).

Saliers does not quit with one track, either. On "Peace Tonight," Saliers writes one of the most promising refrains in pop-rock music's recent memory with "Let's make peace tonight / The moon is bare and shining bright / Let's make peace tonight in a good time." It's simple, but articulate and that spirit of calm reconciliation is rare in today's music. Saliers presents it well with "Peace Tonight."

This is not to say that co-Indigo Girl Amy Ray does not pull her weight on Come On Now Social. Ray's best lyrical outing comes at the beginning of the album by opening the work with "Go." "Go" may not have impressed me vocally, but it rocks and the lyrics have a high level of diction with such storytelling lines as "Grandma was a suffragette / Blacklisted for her publication / Blacklisted for my generation." It's good an, like the bulk of Saliers' songs on the album, "Go" has a strong social message that I find admirable.

But it's still not enough to recommend. Fine, the Indigo Girls rock on this album through a use of stronger guitars and more forthright vocals. The exchange of genres does not necessarily breed success and while the sound is different for the Indigo Girls, it was not the most unique sound. The folk moments are reminiscent of Joan Baez and Dar Williams, the rock music moments have a flavor fans of Sheryl Crow might enjoy, though I didn't.

Indigo Girls remain on my list because of their strong socially progressive message and I honestly liked the lyrics - I got more out of Come On Now Social by reading the lyrics in the liner notes than listening to the women sing them - but I'm still not impressed by Indigo Girls enough to recommend this album.

The best track is "Peace Tonight," the weak link is "Ozilline."

For other music reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Any Day Now - Joan Baez
Live Acoustic - Sarah McLachlan
MTV Unplugged - 10,000 Maniacs

5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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My First Experience With Graeter’s Is A Good, But Costly, One With Their Coconut Chocolate Chip Ice Cream!

2013-05-07T07:19:00.003-04:00

The Good: Tastes great, Great ingredients
The Bad: More expensive than other Ice creams, Very fatty!
The Basics: Graeter’s Coconut Chocolate Chip Ice cream is a flavorful ice cream that is harder to recommend due to its expense and health detriments than the way it tastes.

I used to make my own ice cream (I still have the ice cream maker and now that my wife and I are eating healthy again, I just might pick that up again!) and so, I completely respect the idea of making small batches of wonderful flavors of ice cream. Small batches and intriguing flavors seems to be the mantra of Graeter’s, an ice cream company I had never even heard of until I picked up their pint container of Graeter’s Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream I found at the local grocery store!

Graeter’s Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream is good, but Graeter’s makes you pay for it; the pint container was more expensive than Haagen-Dazs I found near it and quite a bit more expensive than the Ben & Jerry’s. As well, because I am once again looking at such things, the Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream is one of the fattiest and highest calorie ice creams I have reviewed of late, making it an impossible sell for anyone who is health conscious.

Basics

Graeter’s ice cream comes in a pint container. The Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream is a smooth Ice cream with chunks of dark chocolate chips. Coconut Chocolate Chip is mostly smooth with chunks in almost every bite. This ice cream is one of the most diversely-flavored ice creams and its flavor changes as it moves over the tongue.

At (locally) $5.99 a pint, the Graeter’s ice cream is an expensive dessert. That I found it on clearance for $2.99 was the primary reason I bought the pint of Ice cream!

Ease Of Preparation

The Coconut Chocolate Chip Ice cream is a simple Ice cream with only one additive. As an ice cream, preparation is ridiculously simple: one need only open the top of the container, remove the safety seal from the top, scoop out a half cup and consume! There is no trick to preparing or eating the Coconut Chocolate Chip Ice cream!

Taste

Graeter’s Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream has a strong coconut aroma to it. In fact, opening up the container even while it is still completely frozen, releases a scent of coconut with a hint of chocolate that is instantly reminiscent to anyone who loves such things of a Mounds bar. This has a delightful and inviting scent for anyone who finds coconut enjoyable.

On the tongue, the Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream is creamy and has the characteristic dryness of coconut. The dry, but distinct fruit flavor quickly overcomes the milkiness and a slightly watery taste to the mid-flavor. There is a flavor burst with this ice cream that then transforms into a water crystal flavor before the chocolate flavor rushes up and overwhelms the palate. The chocolate in the Coconut Chocolate Chip is an initially waxy flavor before it kicks with a pleasant dark chocolate taste! As the flavor finishes, it blends together the strong chocolate and the subtle coconut on the tongue in a way that is intriguing and thoroughly enjoyable. The resurgence of the coconut flavor for the ultimate flavor is delightful and a nice finish for those who love coconut.

This Ice cream has a slightly bitter aftertaste (if one has a chocolate chunk in their final bite) or a watery aftertaste (for the bites of ice cream that lack chocolate chunks), neither aftertaste lasts more than two minutes after the last bite is consumed.

Nutrition

The Graeter’s Coconut Chocolate Chip Ice cream is a comparatively thick ice cream with a firm, obvious additive. The pint container represents four half-cup servings. In the half-cup serving, there are 310 calories, 180 of which are from fat. The twenty grams of fat represent 33% of the RDA of fat, with 60% of one’s RDA of saturated fat coming in the 12 grams of saturated fat in this ice cream. One serving has 50 mg of cholesterol (that’s 17% of the RDA!) and 70 mg of Sodium (3% RDA). The only other real nutrients are three grams of protein and 10% of the RDAs of Vitamin A and Calcium in the Coconut Chocolate Chip Ice cream.

Graeter’s has decent ingredients, though. Made primarily of Cream, milk and cane sugar, Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream is all natural! There is nothing unpronounceable in the ingredients list. The Coconut Chocolate Chip Graeter’s is Kosher, but not marked as gluten free. There is an allergy warning on the package noting that it was produced on equipment that processes nuts and peanut flavors. It does, as well, contain milk and egg ingredients, so it is very much not Vegan compliant.

Storage/Clean-Up

Graeter’s Ice cream is both a frozen and a dairy product, so it is pretty obvious that it must be kept frozen in order to remain viable. Kept frozen it remains fresh for months (my pint had an expiration date of October 31, 2013, which made it incomprehensible why it would be clearanced now).

The Coconut Chocolate Chip Ice cream is a white ice cream with chocolate pieces and will stain if they come closer to room temperature. As well, when the Ice cream melts and gets onto fabrics, it will require one to wash it right out. On nonporous surfaces, the Ice cream wipes off exceptionally easily.

Overall

Despite how fatty Graeter’s Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream is and how expensive it is, it is a quality ice cream with one of the most original and tasty flavors I have had in a while. That makes it a good “splurge when you can” dessert, or an ice cream that finishes a fancy meal exceptionally well, but a poor everyday ice cream.

For other ice creams, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Haagen-Dazs Limited Edition Blueberry Crumble
Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk
Starbucks Coffee Signature Hot Chocolate Ice Cream

5/10

For other food reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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As Disappointing As I Anticipated, Tommy Boy Is Largely Laughless

2013-05-06T23:53:00.001-04:00

The Good: Decent direction and editing
The Bad: Most of the jokes garner (at best) a smile, not an actual laugh, Nothing superlative on the acting front, Very obvious plot/character progression.
The Basics: Tommy Boy is unfortunately repetitive and lowbrow, making for an unsatisfying (though fairly well-directed) film.

Nothing pounds home the differences between my wife and I than when she recommends a film to me that I have pointedly avoided my entire life. When I was in high school and watching cerebral films, many of my peers were raving about Tommy Boy and I just rolled my eyes. So, when my wife tonight said she was in the mood for it, I somewhat begrudgingly sat down to Tommy Boy. I’ll admit, I was thrilled when Rob Lowe showed up on screen. I should have remembered he would be in the movie, though it was a while ago that I read Stories I Only Tell My Friends (reviewed here!).

Tommy Boy might be the only full-length film with Chris Farley that I have actually seen and more than selling me on the supposed comic genius of Farley, the film actually made me respect Andy Richter just a little less. Much of Farley’s on-screen persona – when he is not presenting over-the-top physical comedy – is the exact timbre and beat pattern that Richter uses frequently in his comedy.

After getting the D+ he needs to graduate from college after seven years, Tom (Tommy) Callahan returns to his father’s company. Callahan Brake Pads is one of the last surviving businesses in Sandusky, Ohio, and Tom Callahan (Tommy’s father) is launching a new product line when Tommy returns. Tom is seduced by Beverly and Tommy is thrilled to meet his new soon-to-be step-brother, Paul. But, at the wedding of Tom and Beverly, Tom dies abruptly, throwing the family and the business into chaos. With the business and the town’s economy hanging in the balance, Tommy puts his inheritance on the line and he and Richard, Tom’s right hand man, try to save the company by going on the road to meet with any potential buyers for Callahan Brakes.

Back in Sandusky, Michelle – Tommy’s romantic interest – witnesses Paul and Beverly acting overly close and she begins to realize that they are not mother and son. As she begins to put together the scam the to are running to get cash out of Callahan Brakes, Tommy and Richard try to sell the half million units they need to in order to save the company.

On the plot front, Tommy Boy is a very typical road trip comedy. Richard and Tommy are an odd couple type pairing and they predictably grow over the course of the movie to tolerate and then even like one another. Richard’s car does not fare nearly as well, neither does the film’s ability to even get smiles from the viewer. Tommy Boy starts manic and steadily degrades into a listless attempt at a joke to another flatlining punchline. In fact, the script is so weak that the film frequently reuses the same jokes – a deer in the car and a dog in another car are essentially the same joke, regardless of how long it is allowed to play out and the protagonists singing to slow songs barely worked once. When the humor isn’t thinly-written, repetitive sarcasm, the movie has quite a bit of slapstick humor that didn’t grab me.

It is Julie Warner who has the superlative acting moment in Tommy Boy. While almost all of the performers fall well within their well-established niches, Julie Warner, who usually plays meek, smart characters, has a moment as Michelle where she explodes while yelling at some children and the scene is hilarious and carried solely by her acting ability. While her character emerges as the film’s hero, Warner is given far too little screentime, but she uses the time she has well.

David Spade is his usual sarcastic and smarmy persona as Richard. Richard is smart and the brains behind Callahan. Chris Farley is not playing a character significantly different to any number of frat boy type characters he played on Saturday Night Live. Rob Lowe makes for a decent villain as Paul in the movie, but none of the performances make the movie worth watching.

For other works with David Spade, please visit my reviews of:
Hotel Transylvania
Jack And Jill
I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry
The Benchwarmers

2/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Easy To Use, The Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set Is A Wonderful Way To Make Portion Control Easy!

2013-05-06T23:34:00.000-04:00

The Good: Easy to use, Easy to clean, Comparatively inexpensive
The Bad: I’m not wild about it being battery powered . . .
The Basics: For those who need a precise, easy-to-use kitchen scale, the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set comes through!

As my wife and I work to meet our new health goals – I’ve become pretty self-conscious about the little tummy I put on over the winter and she is looking to improve her heart health – we have quickly realized that one of the biggest challenges to eating better and meeting our goals is portion control. For the bulk of our lives before now, we have simply made up meals and eaten portions based upon our level of hunger. With things like breakfast cereals, especially, this has meant that we have been dramatically overeating for the intended serving size. A bowlful is seldom the 2/3 – 1 cup (depending on the type of cereal) serving that the creators of the cereal intended. Because many foods have much more complicated serving sizes and go by weight instead of volume, we decided we needed a kitchen scale.

So, as a surprise to my wife, I picked up the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set. The two pieces of the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set are a very stylish stainless steel scale and the clear plastic “bowl.” What irked me off the bat for the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set was that it said nothing on the outside of the box about what its power source is. As it turns out, it is powered by batteries – two flat watch style batteries – that seem to have a decent lifespan, especially if one turns the scale off after each use like one is supposed to.

The batteries are housed in the bottom of the scale section of the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set. The scale itself is an 8” long by 7” wide by 1 3/8” tall stainless steel and black plastic box. On the front of the top of the scale is an LCD screen – 2” wide by 3/4" tall – and there are two buttons. The button on the left turns the power off, the button on the right turns the scale on and zeroes out the tare. The clear plastic bowl is a flat-bottomed container whose bottom measures almost the exact dimensions of the scale, less the screen, so it may be placed on the scale and not obscure the screen where one gets the readings. The clear plastic bowl – which is rectilinear, which might be why I take issue with calling it a bowl – holds up to seven and a half cups of anything.

Using the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set is ridiculously simple. Simply press the right button, clearly labeled “On” and “Zero” and the screen will come to life. The large block number/letters activate with the message of “HI” when the screen is on. It will then change on its own to the current weight. When it is first turned on, it calibrates to zero. To calibrate it so it does not count the weight of the bowl, simply place the bowl on the scale and hit the “Zero” button again. The few ounces that the bowl weighs will disappear and from the new zero point, you will be able to weigh whatever you want in the bowl.

It is that easy. The bowl makes it easy to measure liquid or solid ingredients by ounces, pounds or grams. Changing between scales for the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set to measure with his easy. In fact, all of the controls operate using the “On/Zero” button and pressing it repeatedly changes between the unit of measure. This scale can accommodate 7 1/2 cups or up to 11 pounds of food. When you’re done, simply touch the “Off” button and the unit turns off.

Cleaning the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set is simple as well. The bowl is perfectly dishwasher safe and the scale itself may easily be cleaned with any stainless steel cleanser. For easy storing, the bowl may be placed upside down over the scale to protect the unit and use less space.

We found that the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set remained accurate and it made measuring out ingredients and finished portions of meals exceptionally easy. That, truly, is all one can really ask for from a digital scale and, so long as that level of quality endures for years of use, I will be thrilled with the minor expense of the Oneida 2 Piece Digital Scale Set in exchange for the payoff it brings to my body!

For other small kitchen appliances, please visit my reviews of:
Waechtersbach Fun Factory II 28-ounce Black Teapot
Wear-Ever Popcorn Pumper
GE GSD2100NOOWW Dishwasher

8.5/10

For other kitchen product reviews, please visit my Appliance Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ellen Hits Its Stride With Ellen - The Complete Third Season!

2013-05-06T19:53:00.006-04:00

The Good: Funny, Good character development, Some decent performances
The Bad: Still a lot of pretty standard plots, Crappy DVD bonus features!
The Basics: While not the best season of Ellen, the third season continues to show improvement and makes a worthwhile addition to any comedy DVD library.

Ellen - The Complete Third Season illustrates growth with the programming, but nothing at all remarkable as far as its use of the medium. Like the second season (reviewed here!) of the show, the third season of Ellen adds a new character and continues to distance itself from the first season (reviewed here!). The result is a funny show that finally lives up to much of what it can be as an ensemble comedy, though like the previous boxed sets before it, this season has dismal DVD extras. The result is a mix of decent programming that does not make good use out of the DVD medium.

Following on the heels of the 1995 San Francisco earthquakes, Ellen's shop, Buy The Book, is damaged and her cousin Spence comes to stay in the city. Spence is running away from his training to be a doctor and he finds himself hanging out with Ellen and her friends and employees, Paige, Joe, Audrey and Adam. Ellen finds herself happy to have Spence around when, shortly after his arrival, Adam is offered a photography job overseas and leaves Ellen behind.

This season, Ellen and her gang recover from the earthquakes, have a baby shower after Ellen tapes over the video of Paige's sister giving birth, deals with Paige becoming more successful at the movie studio and shooting a film at Buy The Book, and Ellen aiding the police in catching a burglar who robbed the store. Ellen - The Complete Third Season relies somewhat heavier on quest stars than past seasons, with appearances by Martha Stewart, Carrie Fisher, Mary Tyler Moore and Janeane Garofalo, among others. They come by the appearances pretty organically - like Stewart appearing to help Ellen out with a dinner party - but still the show appears to be somewhat desperate by using the celebrity factor.

That said, the show is also consistently funnier than previous seasons. The addition of Spence and the jettisoning of Adam makes the mix finally work with Paige and Spence holding their own opposite Ellen. Because of the time spent with Paige and Spence and their love-hate relationship that often involves the two quipping at one another, more time is taken away from Ellen and her constant monologues. The result is a show that does not seem like it is simply a vehicle for Ellen DeGeneres and her comedy. Instead, the characters begin to stand on their own and actually dominate the show. The show, finally, becomes about the actions and feelings of the characters as opposed to a bunch of people on film delivering lines and telling jokes. And with that, Ellen begins to truly work!

To appreciate this boxed set more, it might help to understand who the characters are this season. They include:

Ellen Morgan - The scatterbrained and likable owner of Buy The Book, she takes Spence in when he arrives and Adam leaves. She maintains her friendship with Paige, who gets her into cool parties, tolerates Audrey who is employed by her, and Joe who works the coffee counter at Buy The Book. This season, she becomes thrilled when her mother gets into therapy, becomes jealous of Adam and Paige when they are successful at their work, and makes a friend while waiting for a mammogram! She illustrates compassion when money problems make it difficult to keep Audrey and young people mob the store to mock a lounge singing act that is performing there,

Paige - Her career takes off and she finds herself involved with a number of projects with big celebrities, like John Travolta. He takes an instant dislike to Spence and becomes engaged to Matt, which guides the latter part of the season. She uses her influence and newfound celebrity to try to help her friends, when she feels like it,

Joe - Shows up and makes coffee and snide remarks,

Audrey - Perky as ever, she comes alive at Buy The Book and thrills to working there, much to the annoyance of the more even-tempered Ellen and Paige. She buys a new car, with Ellen's help,

Spence - Feeling dejected and judging himself harshly for dropping out of his medical training, Spence arrives and is instantly antagonistic to Paige. While he begins to explore a career in law, Ellen tries to help him reconcile with his estranged father,

and Adam - After garnering some career success in the States, Adam is offered a job in Europe and on his way out the door makes a revelation to Ellen.

Spence is played by Jeremy Piven and his appearance on Ellen was so good that it opened me up to later endeavors of his, like Smokin' Aces (*shudder* - reviewed here!). Piven is funny and has a true sense of comic timing that is perfect for the role of Ellen's cousin. Piven rivals DeGeneres with his ability to play witty and quick with the lines and his addition to the cast only strengthens it!

The rest of the cast, which includes Clea Lewis (Audrey), David Anthony Higgins (Joe), and Joley Fisher (Paige), is good but the addition of Piven and using him opposite Fisher makes the series take off. The writing is sharper and funnier and the plots seem both less contrived and more original. The whole cast comes together as an ensemble quite well during scenes at Buy The Book and it's enough to make the viewer wish there were better bonuses. I find myself wondering if the actors were having as much fun on the set as they appear to be having on the screen.

Ellen DeGeneres continues to rightly dominate the show, though and in this season there is a greater sense that she is establishing a character rather than recycling old standup routines. There is less physical comedy and DeGeneres is forced to play her reactions to other people's (most notably Fisher and Piven's) lines and performances. The show hits its stride with these episodes as DeGeneres plays off her fellow castmembers more, instead of simply leading the comedy. This opens the show up to a more organic feel that allows the humor to come from all of the characters and the situations, as opposed to Ellen's rambling monologues.

And there is a sense throughout this season that it is building to something, especially once Paige becomes engaged (the two-part season finale is her wedding) and the more serialized nature makes it very easy to enjoy on DVD with the "Play All" function. I tend to be biased toward serialization, so when the show begins to trend that way, I found I enjoyed it even more and it holds up better on DVD.

The only bonus feature on this three-disc set is a blooper reel and that's disappointing. The prior two seasons had at least one commentary track on an episode each and the DVD bonus features getting worse is just sloppy.

But fortunately, the programming is worthwhile and the situations Ellen gets into become classic, even though some of them - like Ellen getting Paige's engagement ring stuck on her finger - are canned. The dialogue is above par for almost anything else that was on television at the time and it easily holds up on DVD.

For other good third seasons of shows, please visit my reviews of:
Modern Family - Season 3
Friends - Season 3
The West Wing - Season 3

7/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One Of The More Jarring, But Enjoyable, Films Blending Humor And Violence: True Grit Delivers!

2013-05-06T19:44:00.005-04:00

The Good: Great acting, Wonderful writing
The Bad: Very simple plot and characters
The Basics: The Coen remake of True Grit is funny, violent and all-around enjoyable as a fourteen year-old girl goes searching for frontier justice in the American West.

Right up front, it is worth noting that I have never seen the original True Grit, so this is intended as a very pure review of the 2010 version of True Grit as re-imagined and recreated by the Coen Brothers. I am, it should also be noted, not a fan of Westerns in general. The only real draw for me to True Grit was that I recently rewatched The Big Lebowski (reviewed here!) and absolutely loved it. I like the weirdness of most of the Coen Brothers’ movies, so I thought I would give True Grit a chance.

And it was well worth the time and attention I gave it.

As a Coen Brothers film, True Grit is loaded with quips and witty dialogue and a wonderful sense of cinematography and good acting to boot. Within moments, I found myself enjoying True Grit more than the similarly hyped Lincoln (reviewed here!) and the blend of humor and character kept me engaged the whole film.

Mattie Ross spends almost no time mourning the death of her father when he is killed by Tom Chaney. Instead, she decides that when the law opts not to pursue Chaney, who fled the small city, she will hire a bounty hunter to track down Chaney and bring him to justice. She wants to employ the most ruthless U.S. Marshall she can find and that is Rooster Cogburn. Mattie watches Cogburn take the stand in another case where he killed two of the three suspects and she tries to hire him then. The quick-tongued Mattie wakes up the Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf, at the foot of her bed and learns that he has been hunting Chaney (under a number of aliases) across the South and West. LaBoeuf brings his knowledge of Chaney and Cogburn brings his ruthless determination (once Maddie prods him into it and gets him sober enough) to the hunt.

When the two men head out without her, Mattie pursues, which annoys LaBoeuf. Mattie works to keep Cogburn focused on finding Chaney in the wilds, frequently threatening everyone with legal actions. When they part ways with LaBoeuf, they hunt for Chaney through the wilds, following vague leads (like recovering the gold piece that Mattie’s father was carrying) and dead bodies (and strange living people) in their pursuit of justice. The pair and LaBoeuf hunt for Ned Pepper to find Chaney and bring their judgment upon him.

True Grit is all fun and amusement until it takes the predictably Coen-esque turn for the abruptly violent and shocking. True Grit is unfortunately gruesome when it is not being chuckle-out-loud funny. But the humor is quickly mixed with scenes where characters have bitten through their tongues and have other body parts chopped off. The most cerebral form of humor in the film comes from Mattie. Mattie is the smartest person in the film – explaining Latin legal terms to Rooster and outmaneuvering Stonehill to get the money to bankroll her quest for vengeance – and her naïveté plays off Cogburn’s drunken worldliness with great comedic effect. Indeed, her trying to get Cogburn to live up to his promise to bury one of the scoundrels is met with his observation that the man shouldn’t have died in such a cold climate where the ground was frozen over works because of Mattie’s wide-eyed optimism before and after.

When the Marshall and Ranger beg off, the mission changes as Mattie is captured by Pepper and Chaney. Even so, True Grit keeps a fast enough pace to be consistently engaging and funnier more than it is horrifying. The characters, who could come across as simply goofy are presented as quirky instead and that works for a story that is rooted in a dark quest for revenge.

Jeff Bridges deserves a lot of kudos for his role as Rooster Cogburn. He is hilarious as he slurs through the role, creating a character who is almost as funny as The Dude in the exact opposite way as his iconic Coen Brothers character. Jeff Bridges plays Cogburn as a drunkard and with a lack of focus that fades to a strong moral core that keeps him determined and willing to sacrifice everything for Mattie. Matt Damon is like no other role he has played as LaBoeuf and he manages to get through the entire film without his trademark smirk, illustrating that he can act.

True Grit is held together by Hailee Steinfeld. Steinfeld is the fourteen year-old Mattie and she is articulate enough to make the character completely viable. She has a presence on film on that is uncommon in young people. In fact, not since Dakota Fanning in i am sam (reviewed here!) has a girl so driven a film and stolen the spotlight. It is virtually impossible not to watch True Grit and predict that she will have (barring a Lohan-like collapse) a long and fruitful career.

True Grit becomes a little muddied in that Cogburn becomes obsessed with finding Ned, as opposed to keeping on Mattie’s focused quest for Chaney alone, but it might be the best film yet that blends humor and violence into an overall satisfying film.

For other films with Barry Pepper, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Seven Pounds
25th Hour
Battlefield Earth

7/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the reviews I have written!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Political Intrigue And Somewhat Emotional Vulcans Make For An Intriguing “Fallen Hero.”

2013-05-05T23:26:00.001-04:00

The Good: Decent plot, Good character development
The Bad: Erratic acting from the main cast overshadowed by a wonderful guest star (who performs wonderf.
The Basics: “Fallen Hero” continues the idea that Vulcans are involved with sophisticated political intrigue with an interesting Ambassador who is hardly Vulcan!

It is easy to see why so many fans of the Star Trek franchise are split on Enterprise. After all, Enterprise has a number of inconsistencies – not minutiae, but entirely different characterizations of major Star Trek races, not the least of which were the Vulcans. Vulcans in Enterprise are a whole lot more emotional than in other incarnations of Star Trek and that is troubling to the die-hard Trekkers. In fact, the stories that focus most on political intrigue – at least up until the episode “Fallen Hero” – have the Vulcans as political schemers who cannot be trusted. In fact, there are a number of similarities between the Enterprise Vulcans and the Minbari from Babylon 5 (reviewed here!). On Babylon 5, the consistent refrain about the Minbari is that they never tell you the whole truth. Despite how illogical that approach often is, that is how the Vulcans on Enterprise act.

“Fallen Hero” almost makes that re-characterization of Vulcans worthwhile. The straightforward mission, which finds the Enterprise ferrying a disgraced Vulcan ambassador out of enemy space, is well-plotted and has a dramatic tension that almost excuses how emotional some of the Vulcans in the episode are. While guest actress Fionnula Flanagan is a surprisingly good Vulcan, presenting a façade of emotionlessness, series regular Jolene Blalock once again falls down on presenting T’Pol in an emotionless and truly Vulcan way.

Shortly after T’Pol recommends that Enterprise divert course to the nearby planet, Risa, for much-needed shore leave (given that there has been a 3% loss of efficiency in the crew’s performance), Admiral Forrest hails Archer and requests the Enterprise head to Mazar. The Mazarite government is expelling the Vulcan ambassador, V’Lar, and picking her up is a top priority. While Tucker prepares to head off to Risa, the Enterprise diverts to Mazar where they pick up the ambassador (who has already left the planet). Archer quickly learns that V’Lar is not the typical Vulcan and he is shocked when T’Pol insinuates that the charges which have forced her to flee Mazar are charges the older Vulcan is guilty of!

When Enterprise is attacked by a Mazarite ship, V’Lar’s position seems especially precarious. When V’Lar refuses to tell Archer why she was forced off Mazar, Archer decides not to risk the ship and turns Enterprise around to return the ambassador to Mazar. Though T’Pol feels she has been betrayed by her hero, V’Lar, she talks with the ambassador and becomes convinced that V’Lar’s desire not to be returned to Mazar is legitimate and important. After she convinces Archer to not return V’Lar, the Enterprise is besieged by Mazarite ships.

Once again, Enterprise introduces a new Star Trek race and it seems like one of the big purposes of “Fallen Hero” is to expose the crew to an alien race that has traditional shields, like the ones seen in future incarnations of the franchise. Outside the energy shields the Mazarites utilize, there is little lasting consequence (in the franchise) for “Fallen Hero.”

On the character front, “Fallen Hero” again puts the Enterprise in a position where they have good reason not to trust the Vulcans. T’Pol, however, for the first time makes an impassioned plea for Archer to trust her and that shows development that would be significant had Jolene Blalock not been smirking her way through much of her performance of the Vulcan science officer throughout Enterprise thus far. Poor John Rubinstein, who seems to be typecast frequently as a villain, is stuck in “Fallen Hero” as yet another adversary, this time as the Mazarite Captain pursuing Enterprise. He is fine in the role, but it is not a particularly distinctive role for the performer, who usually is able to add more subtlety and menace to his brief parts.

The whole idea that T’Pol has a form of hero worship for V’Lar is drastically underdeveloped in the episode, though T’Pol works hard to convince V’Lar to help the crew. Her attachment to V’Lar is very understated and completely neglected in the episode’s resolution.

“Fallen Hero” begins well with the discussion of the importance of sex for humans and the musings that Enterprise’s ten months in space means the crew is either violating regulations or really needs to get laid. Beyond that, the episode is largely significant for the first reference to Risa and the new recurring quest in subsequent episodes to get there. And while the performances by Scott Bakula (who plays Archer as slowly developing a trust with T’Pol) and Fionnula Flanagan are good, they are not enough to make the episode into more than a pretty simple chase episode, which is what “Fallen Hero” ultimately is.

The three biggest gaffes in “Fallen Hero:”
3. Archer and Trip seem shocked to learn that V’Lar is old and T’Pol is much older than she appears. After 100 years of knowing Vulcans, no human has figured out they have significantly longer lifespans?! Where is the logic in the Vulcans withholding that information?
2. T’Pol casually mentions the terms of pon farr in the episode. Dr. McCoy had no idea about pon farr in “Amok Time” (reviewed here!) and the EMH on Star Trek: Voyager was similarly ignorant of pon farr. How that was kept secret for a hundred years makes no real sense if T’Pol casually talks about it in Enterprise.
1. Risa is a fairly new planet to the Federation in “Captain’s Holiday” (reviewed here!). Risa is close enough to Deep Space Nine, such that it does not take significant time to travel there and when fundamentalists take over the planet, they reference it as a far less important world than the core worlds of the Federation, like Earth, Vulcan, etc. Those things insinuate that Risa is actually a significant distance from Earth and early Federation space. That the Vulcans have been to Risa and it is close enough for the Enterprise to visit makes no real sense. It should be far, far, beyond the realm of the NX-01 Enterprise. In the first aired episode of Star Trek, Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet is referenced; why wasn’t that used?!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the premiere season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Fionnula Flanagan, please check out my reviews of:
Lost
A Christmas Carol
The Invention Of Lying
Yes Man
Four Brothers
“Inheritance” - Star Trek: The Next Generation
“Dax” – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
The Ewok Adventure

5.5/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One Of The Worst Blendings Of Cloth And Plastic Elements Undermines The Vintage Collection Barriss Offee Figure!

2013-05-05T22:38:00.002-04:00

The Good: Wonderful sculpted detail, Good accessories, Wonderful articulation
The Bad: Cloak/skirt in no way match
The Basics: The Vintage Collection Barriss Offee figure is unfortunately encumbered by a cloak and non-matching skirts, but is otherwise pretty cool.

I am an outspoken member of the camp of Star Wars toy collectors who is not a fan of the cloth elements for many of the new action figures. For sure, the technology exists to make the cloth and plastic elements match and look awesome, but far more often, they do not and the result is a sloppy looking action figure. Perhaps one of the best examples of that is the Star Wars Vintage Collection Barriss Offee action figure.

For those unfamiliar with Barriss Offee, she was one of two green-skinned Jedi (actually, she is the Padawan to the Jedi Luminara Unduli) seen in the Geonosis Arena in Attack Of The Clones (reviewed here!) and killed on a speeder bike in Revenge Of The Sith (reviewed here!). Her robes obscure much of her form and she is, for many fans, a background Jedi who is virtually interchangeable with her Mistress Jedi.

The 4" Barriss Offee was completely recast from the Attack Of The Clones Barriss Offee figure for the 2011 Vintage Collection and it appears to be making a resurgence in stores now.

Basics

The Barriss Offee figure stands 3 3/4" tall to the top of her head. She is an alien who is wearing a dress and cloak, half of which is made out of plastic. The outermost robe is plastic; however, her skirt is a maroon cloth which grants Barriss Offee a full range of movement. The molded on hood and plastic cloak match one another, but not the lower half (the cloth portions) of her outfit!

This toy is a pretty wonderful sculpt, which is pretty easy given how Barriss Offee has her hood up and most of her body is obscured in cloaks. Barriss Offee's belt is fashioned with a soft plastic, which allows them to easily bind the cloth and plastic elements to one another. She is molded as a pretty generic female form, though her outfit is appropriately textured to look like the one in her pictures.

Barriss Offee is colored with pretty amazing attention to detail, save her costume in the cloth vs. the plastic elements. Her costume is detailed more in the molded texture than in coloring. Barriss Offee is an olive green alien and she has coloring details that are appropriate like her belt buckle and the tattoos around her eyes. While she has tattoos on the back of her hands, she has neither molded fingernails, nor colored on ones.

Accessories

Barriss Offee is a Jedi Padawan, so all she comes with as far as accessories is her lightsaber(s). This Twi’lek Jedi features a blue bladed lightsaber which is less bright than many others. Instead, the portion of the 2 7/8" blade that is blue is an icy blue plastic. Apparently realizing how breakable the removable lightsaber blades from the Attack Of The Clones line were, the Vintage Collection Barriss Offee has a lightsaber without a detachable blade and a separate lightsaber hilt. The lightsaber hilt is a simple, 3/4" silver-gray cylinder with appropriate contouring to be a believable lightsaber hilt. It has a tiny peg which attaches to an almost imperceptible hole in Offee's belt, allowing the backup lightsaber to dangle there!

Playability

The four inch toy line was designed for play and Barriss Offee is generally good in that regard. First, the figure has amazing balance. Flatfooted, Barriss Offee is pretty solid, and because of the lower half articulation of the figure, she has decent posing options. Because of her solid cloak, she does not fall over for many non-flatfooted poses! As well, the holes in the bottom of her feet allow her to stand tall on any number of playsets in outlandish poses or stand in an action pose ready to defend other Jedi on Geonosis.

Barriss Offee holds up exceptionally well in the articulation department. She has hinged ball and socket joints at the ankles, knees, groin socket, elbows and shoulders, as well as a ball and socket joint which should allow for a great range of motion for the head (save that the molded on hood inhibits head motion. The wrists and waist have simple swivel joints to give her additional flexibility.

Collectibility

Barriss Offee is part of the Vintage Collection line that was released in 2011 and is making a slight resurgence at the moment in the primary marketplace. Barriss Offee is Vintage Collection figure VC51 and it easily replaces the Attack Of The Clones Barriss Offee, despite the lack of a base. Right now, this looks to be a fair investment figure, despite the mismatched cloth skirt and plastic robe.

Overview

Barriss Offee may be a background Padawan, but the Vintage Collection version of her is generally all right, despite the coloring problem.

For other Vintage Collection figures from Attack Of The Clones, please check out my reviews of:
VC15 Clone Trooper
VC29 Kit Fisto
VC30 Zam Wesell
VC33 Padme Amidala (Peasant Disguise)
VC37 Super Battle Droid
VC38 Clone Trooper (212th Battalion)
VC49 Fi-Ek Sirch
VC54 ARC Trooper Commander
VC58 Aayla Secura

7/10

For other Star Wars toy reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer Is Not Quite Money Well Spent.

2013-05-05T20:41:00.000-04:00

The Good: Funny songs, Decent interjections between songs
The Bad: Nothing unique to this album, Available in a better form.
The Basics: An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer might well be better for those who do not own anything else by Lehrer or those looking to get into him, as opposed to fans.

As I soar through the library, albeit a small one, of Tom Lehrer's albums, I find myself impressed in general how enduring most of his albums are. After all, I first learned of his existence from his very political album That Was The Year That Was, which makes a number of dated political references. His earlier works, though, are much more universal humor and they are funny songs.

Unfortunately, on An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer, Tom Lehrer gives a decent performance, but one that does not hold up all that well on its own, especially when compared to other Lehrer albums. In truth, An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer is simply a live recreation of his album More of Tom Lehrer (reviewed here!). There are no additional tracks, no bonus features, nothing outside what a Tom Lehrer fan would already have if they owned that album.

With eleven tracks, clocking in at 41:21, An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer is very much an exploration of Tom Lehrer's warped and brilliant intellect. He wrote all of the songs and performs them solo with a piano. As well, he plays the piano on all of the tracks and takes a production credit on this album. As worthwhile, he provides "notes" on each song as he introduces each track comedically to an audience that eats it right up. He is funny, charming and a true American original.

And all of these songs would be spectacular if we didn't already have them in a different form. Sure, he is funny when he comments before several of the songs, but it's not enough to sell the album.

Lyrically, An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer is a collection of general comedy ranging from a satirical Christmas carol ("A Christmas Carol"), educational humor ("Oedipus Rex," "The Elements"), and political commentary ("It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier"). He even throws in his brand of love songs, like "She's My Girl" and "The Masochism Tango." Every song garners a laugh (there is an audience clapping and laughing to prove it!) and after years of listening to it, there are still many smiles and chuckles to be had from Tom Lehrer on this album.

His outrage over commercialism is well expressed in "A Christmas Carol," when he sings, "On Christmas Day you can't get sore, / Your fellow man you must adore, / There's time to rob him all the more / the other three hundred and sixty-four. / Relations, sparing no expense, 'll / Send some useless old utensil . . . It doesn't matter how sincere it / Is or how heartfelt the spirit, / Sentiment will not endear it, / What's important is the price." He was well ahead of the curve with this dissatisfaction when he originally wrote the song, but the truth of that resonates to this day. Lehrer manages to be universal with humor, which is a very difficult feat.

He is also ahead of the antiwar movement and his politics are quite clear; he is an antinuclear pacifist. As a liberal in these trying days, it is refreshing to have comedy that appeals to my sensibilities. When Lehrer sings, "Our captain has a handicap to cope with, sad to tell. / He's from Georgia, and he doesn't speak the language very well. / He used to be, so rumor has, / The dean of men at Alcatraz, / It makes a fellow proud to be . . . a soldier" ("It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier") it still makes me laugh. Lehrer's live presentation of it is accented with his unique, ironic intonations.

Perhaps the only truly unique aspect of An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer is his introduction to "In Old Mexico." Lehrer tells the story of the doctor who studied the gall bladder as a winding way into the song and it is cute.

This is definitely an adult album, though the language is very tame. Then again, Lehrer uses proper grammar throughout the entire recording, so perhaps the humor would go over young people's heads. Still, anyone over thirteen is likely to understand the references, like, "Let our love be a flame, not an ember, / Say it's me that you want to dismember. / Blacken my eye, / Set fire to my tie, / As we dance to the Masochism Tango . . . Bash in my brain, / And make me scream with pain, / Then kick me once again, / And say we'll never part" ("The Masochism Tango").

Lehrer's humor is well-presented with him on his piano, though there are moments his voice slips a little. Vocally, he manages through the most complex song ("Clementine") and he is articulate and clear throughout.

Instrumentally, the music is very simple musical comedy of a man and his piano. It is fine and the tunes are catchy, but it is not terribly sophisticated. And, again, it is nothing a fan has not heard before. Moreover, I loathe live albums where the laughter or crowd noises are prominent and this album has both . . . frequently.

As a fan of Tom Lehrer's works, I would be remiss in simply recommending this disc when there is the definitive boxed set of Lehrer's works. That is The Remains Of Tom Lehrer (reviewed here!) and it includes this album and the rest of his works in one place, making it an even better deal! Indeed, I recommend that instead of buying this as a separate album. It is a better use of the medium and somehow it seems less obvious alongside his other live album.

For other comedy albums, please visit my reviews of:
Family Guy Live From Las Vegas
Songs In The Key Of Springfield
Monty Python Sings

5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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All Sorts Of Nutrition, With An Intriguing Flavor, Bolthouse Farms Acai + 10 Superblend Is Worth Picking Up!

2013-05-05T17:05:00.001-04:00

The Good: Good taste, Very nutritious
The Bad: Expensive, I hoped for more on the nutrition front
The Basics: Bolthouse Farms Acai + 10 Superblend 100% Fruit Juice + Boosts is a good addition to the Bolthouse drink line worth picking up for anyone who likes berry-flavored beverages!

Summer is here, which means many of my drink reviews will focus on fruity or cold beverages once again. That means, I am turning my attentions back to one of my new favorite brands, Bolthouse Farms. Yesterday, as part of my wife and I eating (and drinking) healthier, I spent a couple bucks on some new (to me) Bolthouse Farms beverages and while the local selection is somewhat dismal, I found the 15.2 fluid ounce bottle of Acai + 10 Superblend 100% Fruit Juice + Boosts. Despite thinking Acai is another fruit trend like pomegranate, which I loathe, I picked up a bottle of the Acai + 10 Superblend anyway.

And it was all right!

Acai + 10 Superblend 100% Fruit Juice + Boosts is good, but for the money, I hoped for a little more in the way of vitamin and mineral content from the beverage.

Basics

Bolthouse Farms is a health drink brand, which is like an energy drink except that is designed for more of a full-health solution (as opposed to being a liquid vitamin supplement) and they tend to taste better. This is a fruit beverage that is enhanced with nutrients. Bolthouse Farms Acai + 10 Superblend comes in a 15.2 fl. oz. plastic bottle that is smooth and very portable. The #1 recyclable bottle is filled with the opaque purple liquid, which looks much like a bunch of fruit was just blended together, that is Acai + 10 Superblend. Bolthouse Farms juice products is one of the leading manufacturer of healthy prepared beverages, both of fruit juices and dairy beverages.

The 15.2 fl. oz. bottle is intended to give consumers just under two servings, which seems pretty ridiculous to me. For some strange reason, Bolthouse Farms cheaps out on a full 16 fl. oz. bottle, which would be two servings.

Ease Of Preparation

Bolthouse Farms Acai + 10 Superblend is a liquid in the 15.2 fl. oz. bottle and is a ready-to-drink beverage. So, preparation is as easy as opening a plastic bottle. Acai + 10 Superblend has a plastic cap that easily twists off and can be put back on in order to reseal it. It is important to note that this is supposed to be refrigerated, so quality of the beverage may degrade if it is left out at room temperature before or after the bottle is open. This has a pretty standard security seal ring around the lower half of the cap and informs the consumer as to whether the product has been opened by cracking off when the top is twisted.

Taste

Bolthouse Farms Acai + 10 Superblend smells sour and disturbingly uninviting. The scent is like a mix of carrots, fermenting grapes and curdled milk. Alas, this is not a drink that screams “Consume me!” from its aroma.

On the taste front, though, 100% Fruit Juice + Boosts Acai + 10 Superblend is all around wonderful, though some sips of it have a sour kick. The Acai + 10 Superblend is distinctly berry-flavored in its taste after that and for every subsequent sip of the drink. The flavor changes with almost every sip from though it always has a berry with a hint of grape and/or apple flavor to it. The raspberry and blueberry flavors are the most prominent, though there is a sour kick from what I assume is the acai (which is probably where I am getting a grape flavor, because the acai berry juice is well above the grape juice that is in this beverage).

The aftertaste from the Acai + 10 Superblend 100% Fruit Juice + Boosts is slightly sour and oddly (because there is no dairy of any kind in it), milky. The sour and milky aftertastes endure in the mouth for about five minutes, but they are not unpleasant.

Nutrition

As a healthy fruit beverage, Bolthouse Farms Acai + 10 Superblend 100% Fruit Juice + Boosts is designed to fill in some of the nutritional gaps one might have in their diet, while tasting pretty awesome to boot! Nutritionally, Bolthouse Farms Acai + 10 Superblend is a great option for those who are dieting or are trying to improve their health. Acai + 10 Superblend is primarily composed of apple juice from concentrate, organic acai juice and black currant juice from concentrate. It contains nothing bad and does not have any additional vitamins pumped into it. It is gluten free and does not appear to contain any meat or dairy products in it, so it IS Vegan compliant! As well, there are no preservatives, artificial flavors or colors or genetically modified ingredients!

This drink is also exceptionally healthy for you. One serving of Acai + 10 Superblend has 120 calories and no fat. While there are 31 grams of sugars, the beverage has no cholesterol nor protein! Rather nicely, there are only 15 mg (1% RDA) of sodium in each serving. A single serving is a sufficient source of Vitamin C, Vitamin K, and Manganese, which is more than most fruit juices on the market!

Storage/Clean-up

Bolthouse Farms Acai + 10 Superblend comes in a plastic bottle and it keeps for only a few months. The bottle I bought yesterday had an expiration date of June 8, 2013. This beverage must be refrigerated!

This drink is a fruit product and dark purple. If this gets on clothes, it will certainly stain them. Consult a care guide for your clothes, though I suspect light clothes would need bleach to get this out. Still, the drink wipes off surfaces easily with a cloth, assuming they are impermeable.

Overall

Bolthouse Farms Acai + 10 Superblend tastes good, but is what it is. This drink is a pretty indistinct mix of several berries that tastes like a bunch of fruit blended up together. It is okay, but not extraordinary in any way.

For other Bolthouse beverages, please check out my reviews of:
Mango Coconut Splash
50/50 Tropical
Protein Plus Strawberries + Yogurt + Granola All Natural Protein Shake

7/10

For other beverage reviews, please visit Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Underwhelming Vision Of The Future, Blade Runner (The Definitive Edition) Is More Blah Than Bang.

2013-05-05T14:55:00.001-04:00

The Good: Vision, Concept, Moments of character
The Bad: Pacing, Mostly flat characters, Performances that are hardly noteworthy, Choppy editing, Somewhat pointless overall story
The Basics: The final cut of Blade Runner, now on Blu-Ray, presents a science fiction “classic” that is far less compelling than its die-hard fans would have the general populace believe.

Back when I was in college, there was a lot of hype about Blade Runner. It was probably because it was right around the fifteenth anniversary of the film and Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut was being cinematically released to the joy and ire of the fans. I vaguely recall watching the film on VHS and the experience was so anti-memorable that I could not even tell you which version of the film I saw at the time. After a new friend recommended Blade Runner to me, I decided to give it another chance. For that, I decided to use the latest Definitive Edition from the multi-disc Blu-Ray pack that Ridley Scott is currently assuring fans will be the last version of the film.

The newest version of Blade Runner has the film as a stark, straightforward narrative, without any voiceovers and without much in the way of real charm or thematic meaning outside its own narrative. In other words, unlike the best in science fiction, Blade Runner says little about who we are or who we might become and instead creates a dystopian future that is much harder to get into than the Ridley Scott sycophants would have the rest of us believe.

In 2019 Los Angeles, the world is dark and the skyscrapers are tall and so large that people get around in flying cars. In this world, where Earth has colonies off-world, a mega corporation (Tyrell) has built androids so realistic that they cannot be told apart from humans. To prevent humanity from being replaced or menaced by the Replicants, the androids are given a four-year lifespan, after which they automatically deactivate. Unfortunately, rebellious Replicants are fighting for their survival and four violent Replicants make it back to Earth (Los Angeles) where they begin to infiltrate the Tyrell Corporation and neighborhoods where they create a (largely unseen) menace.

As a result of the imminent threat represented by the four surviving escaped Replicants, the retired Blade Runner (those sent out to manually deactivate – kill – the Replicants) Deckard is called back into service. Deckard begins to hunt the leads needed to find the four Replicants as they close in on the head of the Tyrell Corporation. In trying to understand the Replicants, Deckard visits Dr. Eldon Tyrell and discovers the doctor has built a Replicant so perfect she was not aware of her true nature. This begins to blur the lines for Deckard as he pursues the renegades and is forced to put them down.

Blade Runner is a mess. There are a number of classic science fiction works I enjoy, but Blade Runner is not one of them. First, the story is an incredibly basic one. After a pretty awesome bang of a beginning (which involves one of the escapees being interrogating and then snapping, shooting his interrogator out of the blue), the movie descends into one of the laziest investigation films of all time. Indeed, Blade Runner takes its time having Deckard get on track with his investigation that it makes Chinatown look like a focused roller coaster of a film by comparison. Because it takes so long for Deckard to get focused and commit to actually hunting down the Replicants, the film relies a great deal upon mood and setting instead of character, substance, or even plot to engage the viewer. Sadly, this fails for Ridley Scott because the film is slow and does not make an effort to immediately build to anything (even a consistent sense of mood).

In other words, once you’ve flown by the giant Coke ad in the flying car in the smoke-filled metropolis once, it’s not doing much to fly by it another three times. That’s not great cinema and it is not interesting storytelling.

On the character front, Blade Runner is filled with characters, not a single one of whom “pops.” The main antagonist, Ray Batty, is a villain who ostensibly wants nothing more than to be able to survive beyond his expiration date, which frustrates him because he has no idea when that expiration date might be (Replicants are programmed with a full range of memories, so they often have no idea where their remembered lives end and their actual lives in the real world began). Batty is a militant leader who is focused upon getting the answers he needs to survive or, barring that, revenge upon his creator. That said, he doesn’t have much that he really wants to live for. Life for the sake of living isn’t a terribly compelling characterization. Ray Batty does not seem to have any particular dreams or aspirations outside living and given how filthy and smoky the world of Blade Runner is, it is hard to take his (or his associates’) drive to survive all that seriously.

At the other end of the spectrum, Deckard is an equally unlikable protagonist, played by Harrison Ford. Ford plays Deckard with such ambivalence and stiffness that fans have wondered for the past 25 years, as one of the Replicants in the movie questions, if he is even human. Deckard has no zest, no spark of life, nothing interesting in his life and his fling with Rachael is little more than sex . . . and not even particularly interesting sex.

The result is a film that is thematically murky as the sets are smoke-obscured and a “classic” that is far less satisfying than many other engaging science fiction works from before, the same time, or since.

For other works that Ridley Scott has been involved in, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Prometheus
The A-Team
Cyrus
Gladiator
Matchstick Men
Alien

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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I’m So Glad Myah Liked The NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select (Because Otherwise, The House Might Stink!)!

2013-05-05T09:37:00.000-04:00

The Good: Very nutritious, Myah enjoys it quite a bit, Not as expensive as many other premium dog foods, Aroma indicates it is real fish!
The Bad: Somewhat expensive, Makes Myah’s breath smell a little bit.
The Basics: When fed the NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food, Myah became an enthusiastic fan, which was good given how aromatic this food is!

Even though Myah has no specific dietary need for grain free dog foods, but occasionally, in the course of giving her new foods (which I do because she liked variety and it gives me that much more to review!), she does get a grain free dog food from time to time. When I started feeding her the NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food, I was actually quite happy that she seemed to enjoy it immediately; after all, it is a pretty aromatic dog food and given how she goes right for it, her enjoyment of the food kept the house from smelling fishy! This is one of the NutriSource dog foods that Myah more enthusiastically recommends!

Myah enthusiastically ate the NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food and, given that it is made up of quality ingredients, the only real detraction is the food’s expense (though it is not at all as expensive as it could be!).

Basics

A single serving of NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food is two and a half cups for a big dog like Myah and she is supposed to get one such serving per day, so a thirty pound bag lasts about a month, given how eagerly she consumes it (and how much of a sucker I am for those big blue Siberian Husky eyes!). Getting a month out of the $50 bag is a bit too expensive for me, even for a food Myah loves eating. Each piece of NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food is a dark brown disc that is very mealy in its texture and they are hard. They are 1/2" in diameter and 3/16” thick.

Ease Of Preparation

As a dry dog food, preparation of NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food is as easy as opening a bag and measuring out the pellets inside. There is no further prep needed.

Myah’s Reaction

The NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select actually smells quite a bit like actual fish, albeit a generic fish smell. This is a very aromatic dog food, though the aroma is not unpleasant. Myah ran to her bowl each and every time this food was set out for her. She enthusiastically consumed it at every meal and she even waited by the bag a few times in eager anticipation. The only drawback was that this food actually did leave a slightly fishy smell on Myah’s breath (and, because she was so happy with the food, she would come to me, smiling, and share that breathy fishy smell with me each day she ate this!). Still, it was worth it to make her happy and to give her such good nutrition.

Nutrition

NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food is made primarily of salmon, menhaden fishmeal, and peas. The ingredients are all natural, though there are added minerals for canine health and this particular dog food is rich in Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids and Pro- and Pre-biotics. According to the guaranteed analysis, NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food has at least 25% crude protein, 15% crude fat, but no more than 6.5% crude fiber and 10% moisture. As a dry dog food, it is highly recommended that you have adequate water available for your dog when serving it NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food.

Overall

NutriSource Grain Free Seafood Select dog food is one of Myah’s absolute favorite new (to us) dog foods and, were it not for her love of variety and my bank account not being able to sustain it, I would feed her this food every day for the rest of her life!

For other NutriSource dog food reviews, please be sure to check out:
Grain Free Heartland Select Formula
Large Breed Grain Free Lamb Meal Formula
Adult Chicken & Rice Formula dog food
NutriSource PureVita Salmon & Potato Formula Dog Food

8/10

For other dog product reviews, please check out my Dog Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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