Epinions Recent Reviews for optionexplicit

Full of surprises, most of them pleasant

Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:44:08 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot details: This review reveals minor plot details that occur early in the book. I don't know if other people do what I do when they're loading up their reading queue. For that matter, I don't know if other people have a reading queue. I do...

Sex and the Single Monster

Sun, 15 Feb 2004 17:26:24 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot details: This review does not reveal any major plot points. If you haven't read the first three books, it does make reference to events in those books. In particular, if you haven't read Circus of the Damned, it reveals a major plot...

Everything you loathe about romantic comedies

Sat, 14 Feb 2004 02:29:22 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot Details: This review reveals significant plot details. But, if you're worried about plot, this probably isn't the film for you anyway. As a reviewer, I have never been one to hide my biases. Just because I love or hate a product doesn't...

A flawed masterpiece of rage and range

Fri, 6 Feb 2004 17:49:57 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - In Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card wrote at some length about the nature of chauvinism. In common usage, this word is almost always paired with "male," but in the broader sense, it means, "preference for what one is familiar with." The...

Ubiquitous resistance

Fri, 6 Feb 2004 12:48:15 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Note: After writing this review, I discovered that Cap Barbell is not the only manufacturer of these dumbbells. Several companies make hex dumbbells that all look more or less identical. While this review is of the Cap Barbell model, it pretty...

Hey! Who's the monster here?

Wed, 4 Feb 2004 18:05:59 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot Details: This review touches on significant plot details, but does not ruin any surprises in Circus of the Damned. However, it does touch on events in earlier books. If you haven't read them and plan to, you may want to skip this...

Rambling Travelog #1: Ouro Preto

Tue, 3 Feb 2004 21:23:06 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - There was no epinions.com back in 1988 when I made my trip to Ouro Preto. It was more than fifteen years ago, but the memory is still vivid. Where the memory has gotten hazy, I've filled in the details with research. However, all of the places I...

Shakespeare, not for the squeamish.

Tue, 3 Feb 2004 19:54:14 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot Details: Because plenty of people have never even heard of Titus Andronicus, I'm going to treat it like a new work and avoid spoilers wherever possible. This review reveals no plot points from the film, but covers the thematic content...

Securewebs: Honest, efficient, effective Windows hosting. It can be done!

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:37:40 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - When my job and my hobbies were both more web-oriented than they are today, I went through a lot of hosting companies. For a while, I was happy with Interland (review)
until they raised prices...

Dan Appleman is a unique and beautiful snowflake.

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 20:04:59 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - (Extra credit for getting the reference and not just assuming I'm not right in the head.) Visual Basic development is, in many ways, akin to a physical science. Like chemistry, it primarily involves taking pre-existing elements and combining...

An occasional villain grows up.

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:05:25 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot Details: This review touches on some major plot points, but sparingly. It also hints at events of the previous book. As anyone who's read m
y
review of Sir Apropos of Nothing knows, Peter David's...

There's a lot to hate here.

Wed, 28 Jan 2004 14:24:38 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - When programmers get together to talk shop and share secrets, more often than not, we eventually get around to grousing about the ubiquitous slings and arrows of the industry--clueless management, impossible deadlines, and horrible tools. When it...

I didn't read this book.

Tue, 27 Jan 2004 00:27:58 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - I consumed it. Sir Apropos of Nothing is the first product that I've bought based on the strength of its reviews since returning as an active writer on Epinions. After reading excellent reviews by lo
rendiac
...

Three Cheers for the Scary Chick with the Violin

Wed, 21 Jan 2004 19:59:14 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - In my admittedly limited understanding of music history, I can think of no instrument that presents as dichotomous a nature as the violin. On the one hand, it is the most elegant of the orchestral strings, highlighted and showcased by composers...

Run! It's Frankenzine!

Tue, 20 Jan 2004 18:05:44 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Let me tell you a little story, already starting to feel like a fairy tale. It may sound a bit familiar if you've already read m
y
review of Microsoft Systems Journal, but it bears repeating. Approximate two...

Finally, a keeper

Tue, 20 Jan 2004 14:43:31 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - The Panasonic SL-SX420 is the fifth or sixth portable CD player I've bought myself for use at work in the past four years. After a string of disappointments, I was starting to think of portable CD players in general as commoditized and disposable...

Nasty, Brutish, and Long

Sun, 18 Jan 2004 23:53:37 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot Details: I reveal limited plot details in this review, not really worth of spoilers. I am becoming wary of series, particularly unfinished series. Too many series have disappointed me. Card's Homecoming ended one book too late...

From "Oooh" to "Ick" and Back Again

Sun, 18 Jan 2004 21:29:45 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - The Laughing Corpse is the second book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. If you're not familiar with the series, it's okay to start with this book. While clearly a sequel, The Laughing Corpse does a good job of standing on its own...

Like As I Lay Dying, but without the laughs

Thu, 15 Jan 2004 21:01:02 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot details: I tell all in the hopes that will be one more reason you don't need to see it. I have a dirty little secret to share. For all the joy that it gives me to heap praise on a deserving product, artist, or author, to hear people...

Lusty vampires, heroic necromancers. This is a damned good book.

Thu, 15 Jan 2004 17:53:42 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot details: This review reveals no major plot points. Nearly all modern vampire stories fall into one of three mythological taxonomies. Anne Rice and her vampiric ubermenschen clearly leads the pack, inspiring a hundred would-be clones who...

The best, but not as good as it once was

Mon, 12 Jan 2004 19:03:12 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Somehow, without meaning to, I have become an old programmer. I'm not an old man, barely 33. But, I've been programming a long time. It's been 25 years since I typed out "Hello, World!" for the first time on the membrane keyboard of my Timex Sinclair...

A First-Class Genre Twist

Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:15:31 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot details: This review reveals few to no plot details. I doubt that it's possible for a Harry Turtledove fan to read Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son and not draw comparisons between the two authors. Card is the undisputed master of exploring...

Big Wheel, Keep on Turning (and Turning and Turning and Turning and...)

Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:57:51 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - Plot Details: In this review, I dissect the plot in some detail. Don't read this if you want to avoid spoilers. The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become stories. Stories become novels. Novels become ten-book...

Nearly adequate, two meals out of three

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 17:49:32 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - In order for this review to be complete and detailed, I'm going to start off by talking about what Sbarro's does right. Most chain restaurant red sauces taste to me like somebody took a pot of Ragu and mixed in a cup of sugar as if that would kill the...

Fry everything. Hold the healthy.

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 16:40:00 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author optionexplicit - One of the things I will always love about New York is the easy access to exotic food. I know this may sound like an odd way to start a review of Popeye's Fried Chicken, but exotic is in the eye of the beholder. A friend of mine, raised on authentic...