21-20 I'll miss you

I woke up totally sad. I'm moving Sunday and don't want to. The new place isn't bad but this apartment, after 8 years, feels like my home. I don't want to leave my home!

Go back to Applebee's if you don't like it

Yesterday I went to dinner at one of my favorite places, the Kabab Cafe on Steinway in Astoria. As always the food was excellent. Kabab is owned and operated by one man. He does the shopping daily and cooks fresh food based on what he finds to be good. If you give him an idea of what you want he will make you something delicious. He is a self actualized individual who clearly loves food and sharing food with others. He talks with all of his guests and is part of the entire dining experience. When I got home I was in a happy food coma and decided to try to find the "No Reservations" segment featuring the Kabab Cafe. In my search I came across some reviews.

Many reviews mirrored my opinion of the place giving it the highest personal rating. But others bombed the place criticizing it for (1) not having a menu (2) being over-priced (3) being slow (4) and being cramped. I will admit the place is tiny but I have really had trouble trying to understand how people could not love this place. The conclusion... these posters are people who don't know how to enjoy a foreign dining experience. They want a chicken cutlet with rice and nothing more or less. They want a perky 18 year old waiter with flair and a smile. Trying something new and taking time to savor life is beyond them. In general, I feel a great pity for these people. I wish they wouldn't criticize what they don't care to understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBFDvyi6p64

Great Idea, Poor Execution.

I must say I'm a sucker for any of the many "Pride and Prejudice" sequels that I can find. I've read many, although certainly not all of them. I just finished reading "The Pemberly Chronicles" by Rebecca Ann Collins. I can sum it up in the simple phrase ... great idea, poor execution.

The story picks up after the marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth and is purported to weave Ms. Austin's fictional word with the realities of England during the reigns of George IV and William IV. I am a huge fan of Ms. Austin's novels. However, I was excited to think about Ms. Austin's characters leaving the sphere of knowledge that Ms. Austin wrote; that is I was looking forward to seeing characters I enjoying the world beyond the single girl looking of a husband. However, I was greatly disappointed.

Rebecca Collins simply hints at the world beyond Ms. Austin's imagination. She talks about politics in generalities instead of details. Rather than focusing on the world outside the marrige hunt, she spends much of her energies reliving her favorite scenes for the BBC version of the Pride and Prejudice movie. For example, when Mr. Darcy is faced with the decision about whether to fence in the common land on his estate a Pemberly, the reader is not presented with arguments about why others are fencing their land or the political realities that have lead to the trend in fencing common lands. Rather the reader is told to remember how silly Elizabeth Bennett was to ever think Mr. Darcy was not a liberal man and to be joyous at the follies of Eliza and Fitzy in their courtship. If this is all I wanted to do I would simply reread P&P rather than a new book.

Furthermore, we as readers, are not treated to any plot or arc within the book itself. We are told this child is born or this young woman is married without any introduction or conflict. The characters do not grow or change or really seem to interact in any way that would make us want to learn more or keep us reading. The story can best be called dull. It seems that Rebecca Collins has wrtten more seuqules to P&P, however, I for one will not be reading them.

it's a sin to kill a mockingbird

October 9, 2009

A fine time to start a blog... after all everyone already has one and this is one big bandwagon jump isn't it. Well maybe so. But still, I think the time may be right for me to start. Sometimes I feel that my life is lived for others. But this little blog will be for me... it will be raw... at times it will be fluff... it may insult... but it will be honest. One of my favorite characters in literature is Atticus Finch. He is a man of conscious and integrity. I try to live my life as he would have... I hope this blog would not disappoint him.