Epinions Recent Reviews for largemarge

A Kinder, Gentler Atwood?

Fri, 29 Dec 2000 21:34:21 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Canadian novelist and poet Margaret Atwood is probably best known for 1985's The Handmaid's Tale, a frightening portrait of an all-too-plausible dystopia, which was made (one might say corrupted) into a movie of the same name a few years...

Archived Web Services Reviews: Bush or Chimp? You Be The Judge!

Thu, 21 Dec 2000 17:17:20 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Quasi-intellectual hipster types of a certain age will join me in mourning the passing of Spy magazine, which poked delicious fun at celebrities, politicians, trends and popular culture from the late eighties to mid-nineties. My all-time favorite...

Bagel Wise, Toast Foolish

Mon, 18 Dec 2000 19:51:35 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - There comes a time in our lives when we realize we've turned into adults all of a sudden. It might be owning our first car which pushes us over the brink, or getting married, or seeing our own names on business cards, but suddenly it seems you've...

Archived Web Services Reviews: Hot? Not! ... or How to Really Depress Yourself

Sun, 17 Dec 2000 21:13:08 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Not too long ago, I read a couple-of-weeks-old issue of Entertainment Weekly at the gym (I think there's some kind of federal law about not allowing current magazines in waiting rooms or near treadmills), which mentioned amihotornot.com in...

Keflavik's Kaffi Duus: Soup's On!

Sat, 9 Dec 2000 21:08:23 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - It's safe to say that Iceland is not a place you visit for the food. I'm currently reading W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice's Letters From Iceland, published in 1937, and they include some deadly-accurate observations about Icelandic cuisine which...

Ready, SET ... Lose to a 5-Year-Old!

Sat, 9 Dec 2000 17:00:44 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - After the wassail has been drunk, the roast beast eaten and the wrapping paper strewn, it's fun to completely overanalyze the gifts we receive for the holidays. Presents speak volumes about the donee and/or their hopes for, or assumptions about, the...

Fun-Loving Criminals

Tue, 5 Dec 2000 00:05:13 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Cartoon Network, which came in both British and Danish versions for free with our cable hookup, has increased my popular culture IQ by leaps and bounds. The majority of CN's programming consists of recycled Hanna-Barbera cartoons from the sixties and...

Balms Away!

Mon, 4 Dec 2000 22:14:34 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Ever since an epic, and funny-in-retrospect, accident as a teenager involving a double-decker bus and a new pair of Cruel Shoes, I've been plagued by lower back pain. Okay, yeah, maybe plagued might be laying it on a little thick, but even with...

A Thriller Flick Waiting to Happen

Mon, 4 Dec 2000 21:07:29 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Michael Connelly's Void Moon is a fast-paced, riveting tale of suspense, revenge, high-stakes chicanery (in more ways than one), betrayal and feng shui. Despite some maddening inconsistencies and plot devices, it's the kind of book you'll stay up...

Eye-stro-Glide

Sun, 12 Nov 2000 00:08:07 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - It was my birthday weekend not too long ago, and I was having one of those dark nights of the soul which can only be relieved by mind-numbing shopping, preferably for totally useless items which one winds up leaving in the car trunk for months, or better...

Sometimes Size Isn't Everything

Thu, 2 Nov 2000 20:19:56 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Last year, we added a Presto Fry-Daddy to our stable of kitchen appliances. This trusty little greasepot quickly made its limitations known; gory details aplenty can be found in my Fry-Daddy review, entitled Gateway to Obesity. My husband did...

Vikings: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Runes

Wed, 18 Oct 2000 23:58:29 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Recently my unschooling preteen's fancy (or border-collie stare) turned to the Vikings, those misunderstood seafarers and plunderers who settled Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland, extorted stacks of money from the English, served as mercenaries and...

The Un-Barbie

Wed, 11 Oct 2000 23:43:19 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Peruvian Barbie is one of a series of collectors' Barbies in national costume which first became available last year. Although I'm still a little squeamish about the whole Barbie concept, my daughter has a few thanks to the dueling Grandmas. If you...

Stop This Train -- I Wanna Get Off!

Sun, 8 Oct 2000 22:33:44 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - The appeal of the Thomas TV series is in the simple story lines and distinct personalities of the trains, buses, helicopters and so forth; it's all at a level small children can understand, and invariably the stories stress some kind of bland moral...

Grindavik's Fall Sheep Roundup: Git Along, Maa!

Sat, 23 Sep 2000 16:54:58 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge -
Review Topic: Events & Festivals

Iceland, "the land of fire and ice", is a study in contrasts. Volcanoes and glaciers, a sophisticated capital city and rustic farming and fishing communities all coexist within a...

Arbaersafn: Reykjavik's Open-Air Museum

Fri, 15 Sep 2000 22:05:21 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge -
Review Topic: Sights & Attractions

Although Reykjavik was first settled more than a thousand years ago -- legend has it that the original settler, Ingolf, chose the city's location by heaving a pair of carved wooden pillars...

It's Good to be Ugly, After All!

Tue, 5 Sep 2000 00:23:11 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Write what you know, they say, which is why I mostly stick to aging kitchen appliances and tourist attractions I can see from my window. While I certainly know Cartoon Network's Cow & Chicken inside-out, having seen most of the...

Westward Ho's! ... and Cowhands, Gunfighters and Miners

Mon, 4 Sep 2000 08:02:46 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Did you know that ready-made cigarettes were considered unmanly and sinful until their heavy promotion in the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876? That before ground coffee became widely available in 1878, cowboys used the butt of their Winchester rifles to...

Hallgrimskirkja: A Reykjavik Landmark

Sun, 20 Aug 2000 19:35:06 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Iceland is a country renowned for its physical beauty, but decidedly lacking in memorable architecture. Few buildings in downtown Reykjavik date from before the second World War, and the majority of the homes, offices and public buildings in town are...

Powhatan, Plasma and the Protist Kingdom

Sun, 20 Aug 2000 18:01:51 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Part of the Lollapalooza lineup? Nope. These three, along with everything from Aesop, abolition and acute angles to Zeus, Zaire and Mao Zedong, are terms, personages and concepts the Cultural Literacy Foundation believes that American children should...

Puts the "Dys" in Dysfunctional

Sun, 20 Aug 2000 17:08:29 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Tawni O'Dell's depressing first novel seems to have been written specifically with Oprah's Book Club in mind. If you were to scan all of Oprah's previous selections into one of those big Hal-type room-sized computers, ask it to pull out their common...

Twistin' the Night Away ... With Anne Perry's Latest Mystery

Sun, 20 Aug 2000 16:00:16 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - It never fails. Read an Anne Perry mystery and, like quicksand, the irresistible atmosphere sucks me in until I realize it's two in the morning and I'm racing towards the end. While the language can sometimes be overly mannered, and there seems to be...

Journey to the End of the Earth: Day Trip to Kulusuk

Mon, 14 Aug 2000 14:33:14 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Icelandair's domestic branch, Air Iceland, offers six flights each week to Kulusuk, Greenland. Just two hours from the relative bustle of downtown Reykjavik (the domestic air terminal is practically in the shadow of the Hallgrimskirkja cathedral),...

Fear of a Green Mullet

Thu, 10 Aug 2000 23:29:52 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Remember when Wavy Gravy said the Nineties were going to make the Sixties look like the Fifties? When large-scale Earth Day celebrations were revived? When everything was made of recycled paper all of a sudden, and companies jumped on the...

Slinging Mud at the Mouse

Thu, 10 Aug 2000 20:10:30 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author largemarge - Like laurbrown, I picked this book up at the library, in my case something to kill time with while the kids trolled for reading material and played Dr. Seuss Kindergarten on the public-access 'puter. With the sensationalist subtitle (Greed!...