Epinions Recent Reviews for TFarmer

A Magical Few Small Rocks in the Middle of Nowhere

Fri, 5 May 2000 13:36:37 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - Getting to the Orkneys is no quick jump on the Metroliner. Just look at a map. From London you've got to get up to Glasgow or Edinburgh. Then to Inverness, Scotland's northernmost principal city. But keep going north: from there it's a long, winding...

The Agent Makes All The Difference

Fri, 28 Apr 2000 16:26:14 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - I've been with State Farm Auto since 1980... though I've bounced from agent to agent as I've moved from New Hampshire, to Vermont, to Maryland, to Virginia, to Washington state. The rates aren't the lowest, to be sure; almost every month I get a...

Low Bidder, High Anxiety

Fri, 31 Mar 2000 21:57:20 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - When we moved our (then) small household across country from Virginia to Washington State, we got bids from Mayflower, Allied and Bekins. At $5,300, Bekins was by far the lowest bidder -- the others were at $7,500 and up. Plus, the Bekins agent offered...

Crude and Maybe Dangerous

Fri, 31 Mar 2000 18:24:31 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - Okay, so the Dirt Devil corded hand vacuum is powerful -- it has a serious motor that outstrips Dustbuster-style models, for example. But for my money it's not worth having around. Assembly is lick-and-a-promise crude; the quality of the Dirt Devil...

iMac: Makes Us Look Like Nuts

Tue, 14 Mar 2000 21:28:07 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - This is awful.

First, the metaphor of just shooting products you don't like is totally antithetical to the Epinion review guidelines. We are charged with writing reasoned opinions that state accurate facts and are based in personal...

A Lifelong Kinship

Tue, 15 Feb 2000 03:53:04 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - I graduated from Dartmouth nearly two decades ago and still think about it almost daily. And not in a pathetic, gee-did-I-peak-early kind of way. More like: Dartmouth equipped me for the real, human world in ways I am still coming to appreciate.
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Great Service & Benefits -- Wish It Was Welcomed Everywhere!

Thu, 10 Feb 2000 22:54:52 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - Stack Diners Club up against American Express and Diners wins every round but one. Diners is THE BEST CHARGE CARD -- as distinct from credit cards -- that you can get. I jumped ship from Amex to DC last year... and I can recommend the move.

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BA: One of the Last Airlines Worth Tying a Necktie For

Wed, 26 Jan 2000 22:51:41 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - I still get a goofy thrill passing through Terminal 4 at Heathrow or stepping onto a BA longhaul jet. Though Economy ("World Traveller") Class has paled and gotten tatty in recent years, flying BA still feels special.

The free booze...

An American Product To Love

Wed, 26 Jan 2000 05:15:53 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - This is the last mixer you will ever buy, the Cadillac of mixers... the coolest thing in your kitchen... a serious appliance that you fall in love with just by looking at it -- before you even turn it on.

The KitchenAid KSM90 looks like it was...

Thehungersite.com: Costs You Nothing -- And That's The Problem

Wed, 26 Jan 2000 04:42:57 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - Look, I have a problem with thehungersite.com. Before I tell you what it is, though, go there. Click the thing. Feed hungry people. There. Welcome back. Feel better? Like you accomplished something?

That's my problem. The site creates the...

Better Name: The MessMaker 2000

Wed, 26 Jan 2000 04:15:38 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - We got one of these things as a Christmas gift. After wrestling with it for a month, our household concludes that it's more fun to TALK about having a juicer than actually USE one.

Three fast points:

1. It takes a LOT of fruits or...

Believe Me: You Don't Need This

Fri, 21 Jan 2000 21:39:44 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - I remember the summer day in 1981 when I, a new college grad with my whole life ahead of me, received my fresh new American Express card. I finally felt like an adult. Well, two decades later American Express must depend pretty hard on their cardholders'...

1991 Honda Civic 2 Door: I'm Driving For Free!

Fri, 14 Jan 2000 22:05:38 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - My wife's unlamented Mazda GLC finally died around Thanksgiving 1990 -- four months before our wedding! All our money was going for invitations and reception food! As a replacement we had to go for the humblest, most basic, unadorned set of wheels we...

Archived Computer Hardware Reviews: The Most Maddening Object in Our House!

Fri, 14 Jan 2000 19:20:37 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - It feels as if HP PCs suffer from wildly erratic quality control. Some people on these boards seem to swear by their Pavilions, and more power to 'em, but the HP 6360 we bought one year ago has been a morass of glitches, crashes, freezes and errors and...

Skymall.com: Skymall Doesn't Control The Fulfillment Process

Fri, 14 Jan 2000 18:51:41 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - Skymall may seem ubiquitous -- in every airline seat pocket and all over the Web -- but they don't seem to know much about how they deliver the stuff they sell.

The principal problem is that Skymall is a marketer/"front end" for a...

Gentle, Thoughtful, Nobody Gets Shot At

Tue, 21 Dec 1999 19:32:08 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - We are very careful about the children's videos we allow into the house, but Little Bear makes the cut. Our five-year-old has been watching Little Bear stories for two years and they have had a major, positive effect on his ability to articulate, reason,...

No Mere Electric Toothbrush

Thu, 16 Dec 1999 16:06:19 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - I always thought electric toothbrushes were dopey -- I mean, they mechanized a process that I could handle perfectly well myself. Kind of like an electric necktie-tyer.

But the Sonicare -- suggested by our dentist, adopted by my wife, who...

Thomas Cars, Engines & Trains: Ideal For The 18mos - 6yrs Crowd

Thu, 16 Dec 1999 15:01:24 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - The wooden Thomas the Tank Engine toys from Learning Curve Toys are beautifully made, extremely durable and -- assuming your child stays interested in trains -- well worth the holy-moly prices.

If your child was seemingly born with an...

AT&T WorldNet: Not Coping With Success

Wed, 15 Dec 1999 22:14:16 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - I see the four- and five-star ratings for AT&T Worldnet in this queue and think, goodness, are we talking about the same ISP? In my view Worldnet service has been on a long, slow slide for more than a year, and grown markedly worse since Labor Day...

Many More Good Days Than Bad

Wed, 15 Dec 1999 16:15:31 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - Any airline can have a bad day. I've been stuck at Newark for two or three hours waiting for deicing. I've seen slapdash service or belligerent flight attendants. I even had an inexperienced flight attendant feed six or eight drinks to a trio of burly,...

Unhappiest Plane in the Air

Wed, 15 Dec 1999 15:34:03 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - I used to be NW WorldPerks Preferred. Had the special silver luggage tags and all. Not any more.

Airlines all pretty much fly the same planes to the same places at the same time; in my view employee attitude defines the difference. And...

The Nimblest Bank Vault You Can Drive

Tue, 14 Dec 1999 16:53:50 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author TFarmer - When my wife and I set out to replace our five-year-old Taurus, we wanted more room. But she didn't want an SUV and I'd hitchhike before signing on for a minivan. So we decided to check out station wagons, and it wasn't long before we got hooked on the...