Epinions Recent Reviews for WritingLife

Sense and Pseudoscience, or, The Darcys go Daft

Sun, 22 May 2005 01:15:57 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Ah, Elizabeth Bennet, the Janeite's favorite character. Witty, acerbic, lively... psychic? Say it ain't so! In this first installment of what appears to be (saints spare us!) a series, Carrie A. Bebris takes the pragmatic Mr. Darcy and his darling...

Mr. Bunny doesn't live here any more

Fri, 15 Feb 2002 14:26:04 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - One of the most frequent questions asked on the children's writers boards online is, "I wrote this story. Where do I send it to get it published?"

The answer isn't quite so simple as the question implies. There's no one central clearing house...

Dr. Death sprays again

Fri, 15 Feb 2002 12:58:21 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - I consider myself a reasonable person. I don't kick puppies. I don't drown kittens. I don't beat my significant other. In the garden I try to stay as organic and ecological as possible. I knock aphids off the roses with a stream of water. I brush cabbage...

Tens of thousands of cuts later...

Thu, 14 Feb 2002 20:01:20 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Cutting handles was my job. As a kid I spent hours on my knees, in the dust, under the blazing sun, cutting handles.

What's a handle? You know how when you buy a Christmas tree, there are (or should be) several inches of smooth trunk below the...

Slug soup and other organic delights

Thu, 14 Feb 2002 15:48:27 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Slugs, in my personal philosophy, must be solid evidence of evolution, because what God in His right mind would have thought up such repulsive things? They are the bane of gardeners, especially the swift European invaders which outrace and even prey on...

Love, war, and anarchy under the broccoli.

Thu, 14 Feb 2002 14:30:22 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - When companion planting first hit the gardening scene it sounded like so much crackpot pseudoscience. Some nutter mixed plant juices with copper chloride to look at the crystal patterns of individual and mixed juices, and if the patterns in the mixed...

The bugs are SUPPOSED to be there

Wed, 13 Feb 2002 18:13:35 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Bugs eat leaves, sip nectar, pollinate flowers, eat other bugs, are eaten by birds and small mammals, aerate topsoil, parasitize one another, and turn leaves into mulch.

Let me make this perfectly clear -- the bugs are supposed to be...

Death in a box -- but there are better ways.

Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:16:50 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Some of my fondest childhood memories are of being outdoors and poking around in the mud or among the flowers -- and I still play in the mud, under the pretense of gardening. One thing I recall clearly is my mother making slug traps out of old cottage...

How is watching Harry Potter like eating fruitcake?

Mon, 3 Dec 2001 14:22:43 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - A good fruitcake, it is said, is a great deal of candied fruit with just enough cake to hold the thing together. While that is a treat for someone who enjoys candied fruit, for those of us who prefer the cake part it is something of a disappointment...

Pardon me... which way to the nuclear power plant?

Sun, 20 Aug 2000 23:34:17 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - He’s back! The upright-walking, Tokyo-stomping, fire-spewing Godzilla we all know and love. From Toho films comes the latest in the Godzilla saga, this time on the big screen instead of the grainy television in the den (where your parents sent you to...

The Wolf Creek Inn -- “Comfort & Cuisine since 1883”

Mon, 14 Aug 2000 21:23:25 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Any hotel that has been open and operating continuously since 1883 must be doing something right. While it may have had some dark times in its past, the Wolf Creek Inn (a.k.a. The Wolf Creek Tavern, as it is listed in the National Register of Historic...

Dragons, Mer-folk, and Dementors -- Oh, my!

Sun, 9 Jul 2000 21:05:05 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - There’s no Quiddich tournament at Hogwarts this year. Instead, the Ministry of Magic has revived an ancient contest, the Triwizard Tournament, suspended several centuries before due to its inherent mayhem... and casualties.

The revered...

Versailles -- Glamour, intrigue, and a duck pond.

Mon, 3 Jul 2000 18:27:52 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - It began as Louis XIII’s hunting lodge, but when Nicholas Foquet unveiled his extravagant and palatial Vaux-le-Victomte, Louis in a pique of jealousy popped Foquet in jail and transformed his modest lodge into what would soon become the largest royal...

Oregon Coast Aquarium: Where Otters and Puffins Play

Sun, 2 Jul 2000 02:14:21 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Wolf eels with almost-human faces. Luminescent jellyfish. Shimmering comb jellies. An octopus in a bottle. These are the Oregonians you don’t generally meet on a drive through the state, but you can greet them face-to-face at the Oregon Coast Aquarium...

Tibet on the eve of invasion

Mon, 26 Jun 2000 13:26:59 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - “Prague, September 19, 1994 -- The Red Box is now yours. Love, Father.” Peter Sis rushes to Prague, to his father’s house, to the study, to the Red Box on his father’s desk. He opens the box that has been locked for over forty years, and is transported...

Three scoops of Wallace and Gromit, plus sprinkles

Sun, 25 Jun 2000 02:22:51 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - While one can buy the Wallace and Gromit adventures separately on video, there's a brand new DVD with all three adventures together, with the promising title of Wallace and Gromit: The First Three Adventures. This implies, of course, that there...

Poultry in Motion

Fri, 23 Jun 2000 19:59:39 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Somewhere over the barbed wire, somewhere beyond the farm and the fields, lies a land of fresh water, green grass, and freedom -- for chickens.

So dreams a young hen named Ginger as she sits on top of her coop gazing out into the distance...

Pink Flamingos and Yo-yo’s

Tue, 20 Jun 2000 18:01:36 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Almost fifty years ago, the Walt Disney studios created a milestone in cinematic history when artists created a series of animations to accompany classical scores. Not that music and animation hadn’t been combined before: Max Fleischer had used popular...

A “Whodunit” in Old Japan

Mon, 19 Jun 2000 13:25:09 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - A husband murdered, a young bride ravaged, a brutal thief accused, and a cringing woodcutter as sole witness -- and everyone with a different tale to tell. Rashomon, the earliest of Akira Kurosawa’s films to be introduced to the west, is a...

For the “changeling” in all of us.

Sat, 17 Jun 2000 20:15:10 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - For every child who has ever felt “different,” for every youth who wondered, “Are these really my parents, brothers, and sisters?”, for all those who have been teased or tormented for being fat, skinny, short, tall, dark, fair, smart, slow,...

Craters of the Moon: Unearthly Scenery

Tue, 13 Jun 2000 20:51:38 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - The Shoshone avoided the place, except to gather certain rocks. The pioneers, miners, and ranchers gave it wide berth. A stroll across, if you are so foolhardy, can leave your best hiking boots in ribbons. But don’t miss out on one of the strangest, most...

EBR-I: Like it or not, they made history here.

Tue, 13 Jun 2000 20:46:33 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - The date was December 20, 1951. Sixteen lab personnel watched, fingers crossed in all probability, for the outcome of their monumental experiment. On that date they finally succeeded. Four light bulbs glowed brilliantly, lit by the first nuclear power...

Theodore Roosevelt National Park: The “other” badlands

Tue, 13 Jun 2000 01:47:11 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Coming across North Dakota last summer, on our way home from a visit to relatives in Indiana and Michigan, one name stood out on the map: Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Since one of us is a T.R. fan, a stop was in order.

As far as national...

Wall Drug: And they still have free ice water...

Tue, 13 Jun 2000 01:41:54 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - If you take Interstate 90 across the U.S., as we did last summer, you can’t miss this unique attraction, this palace of kitsch, this Grandpappy of All Tourist Traps. Signs dot the highway like mushrooms after a rain, first appearing at least fifty miles...

The final mayhem: Samurai III

Sun, 11 Jun 2000 23:27:04 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author WritingLife - Director: Hiroshi Inagaki

Takezo/Musashi: Toshiro Mifune

Matahachi: Rentaro Mikuni

Otsu: Kaoru Yachgusa

Akemi: Mariko Okada

Kojiro: Koji Tsuruta

In the final episode of the Samurai trilogy, we see Musashi as a seasoned...