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Reviews Written By: A2RBMWT2ZB95JY

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	The Sun: A Biography
	"Rather Dull"	2008-09-23
I disliked this book very much. It rehashes a lot of 'sun based' cultural history that a 6th grader should know. I find his over usage of 'flowery' phrases to be trite. Most ideas that could be stated in one or two sentences seems to take multiple paragraphs to convey. One gets the impression is he leading up to something yet often times it falls flat. I would have given this book one star but to be fair I stopped reading after Chapter 16 while having skipped many parts along the way.
	The Sun: A Biography
	"Rather Dull"	2008-09-23
I disliked this book very much. It rehashes a lot of 'sun based' cultural history that a 6th grader should know. I find his over usage of 'flowery' phrases to be trite. Most ideas that could be stated in one or two sentences seems to take multiple paragraphs to convey. One gets the impression is he leading up to something yet often times it falls flat. I would have given this book one star but to be fair I stopped reading after Chapter 16 while having skipped many parts along the way.
	Nikon Coolpix P5000 10MP Digital Camera with 3.5x Optical Vibration Reduction Zoom
	"So far so good."	2007-08-07
I bought this camera right before going on vacation. I owned an old Nikon Coolpix 5000 and I was already familiar with most of the features. It worked well on the trip and the battery lasted quite a long time. I had three batteries with me (they are very inexpensive) and I normally lasted a couple of days just on one battery. I won't go into great detail on the features but I will talk about one I used most often on my trip. It was the Panorama feature. It allows you to align your camera in such a way that taking panoramic pictures is relatively easy... even without a tripod or a bubble level. The way it works is you set the camera to panoramic mode then take the first picture. The LCD screen will display the edge of the last image so that you can align it up for the next shot. This works very good if you are stitching together 3-4 images but beyond that you may end up needing a tripod and/or a bubble level. Creating a full 360 degree panorama is child's play after that. Not only can the panorama feature work horizontal but can create vertical panoramas as well. You can tell the camera what direction you want to move next and it will show you the proper alignment. So if you wanted to create one "big" image from 9 images using a 3x3 alignment it is very easy to do. The camera comes with Arcsoft Panorama maker version 3 which will stitch the images together for you. It works well and I decided to upgrade to the 4.0 version but I liked 3 better though because it seems to do a better job of making interactive panoramas in Apple Quicktime (another very cool feature). Photoshop can do the same thing but I found that Arcsoft ran faster and it did not eat up as much memory. I posted three panoramic images I took on vacation. See the Product images associated with this product to see them. They are MUCH smaller than the real output. The camera works with the new SDHC cards. I bought a Kingston 8GB card and will probably never need another card again. Saving images in the highest resolution is very fast. Somewhere between 1-2 seconds. The biggest downside I personally found is the inability to save in a RAW format. RAW format is an unprocessed/uncompressed image that are very useful with using in Photoshop. It gives the most detail and information for Photoshop to work with. My older Coolpix 5000 did not originally have it but Nikon put out a software upgrade for the camera that gave it RAW format capability. I am hoping they will do the same for the p5000 but so far no dice. Overall I really like this camera and am glad I purchased it. I was going to go for a DSLR but I decided that I did not want to learn something new while on vacation.
	Yann Tiersen - Amelie: Original Soundtrack Recording
	"Very good"	2007-03-15
My son who plays piano liked this music so much he bought some of the sheet music. I rarely purchase movie soundtrack music but I felt the music in the movie made it worth it.
	iSi Soda Siphon, Brushed Aluminum
	"Carbonation is rather good..."	2006-08-17
I read some other reviews here and on other sites and it seemed that the biggest problem this product has is that the water is not as carbonated as store bought water. The first time I tried this product it seemed the other reviews were correct. The water was just barely carbonated and I was rather disappointed with it. However, I found that once you pressurize the bottle; letting it sit in the refridgerator for a while will really carbonate it up. To me it now "seems" just as good as store bought carbonated water or at least very close. Probably the only complaint I now have about it is that I empty the bottle too quickly and I have to wait a while for another bottle to be ready. Besides that it works very well and I am happy with it.
	Vialta VistaFrame Digital Picture Frame
	"Works so far..."	2004-05-09
Mine must have had the fix already in place for disabling the power saving feature. I bought this for my wife for mother's day and so far... it works... I like the fact you can rotate the image if it was in landscape mode. It does sort of "zoom out" and thus the only real way to do it so it looks good is to use some photo editing software. One thing I have noticed is that the pics of sometimes have a "flicker" depending on if their are lines in the image (like power lines in the backgrond). Also some colors flicker like crazy like the green leaves in images of Yosemite. This is really minor.
	Syberia 2
	"Pretty good but not as good as the first..."	2004-04-23
As far as adventure games go this is a pretty good game. I gave it 4 stars only because it was 'not' quite as good as the first one. Not saying it was a bad game at all but the first one was really, really good. If you have not played Syberia I I recommend you give that a try first and then play Syberia II with the caveat that it is not as good as the first.
	Father Ted - The Complete Series 2
	"I am picky about comedy so...."	2003-12-27
So I started watching Father Ted on insomniac Saturday nights here in New Jersey. I decided after the third time I caught it that I wanted to get the complete DVD set. Have not been disappointed so far(except one episode that started great with 8 priests in a lingerie section of a department store). Overall I really enjoy this show and I am sad that Dermot Morgan died after the third season. This was a very funny show and Father Jack Hackett of course... is who I want to be when I grow up...
	Father Ted - A Christmassy Ted
	"Starts out brilliant but...."	2003-12-27
I love Father Ted and have the complete DVD set. However...this particular episode has a split personality... The first half of the show makes you believe that this is the best Father Ted ever... It is brilliant and just the first half alone is probably worth watching.... but the last half was incredibly poor. It just becomes dull... which I have never seen any other Father Ted episode do.
	The Planet Venus (Yale Planetary Exploration Series)
	"Very Good"	2003-06-12
This book has the reputation for being too technical for the layman... and it is... but in many ways that is what made this a cool book. It is certainly a much harder book to read than David Grinspoon's "Venus Revealed" (A very good book for the layman). However I found some of the technical parts of this book very facinating and it made me look up where some of the equations came from (the part on the study of the clouds, Nephelometry, was very interesting). There were other parts though were I did not even bother with the math and 'took their word for it'. I would recommend if you have not read "Venus Revealed" try that first. If Grinspoon captures your imagination then buy this one and give it a try.
	Deep Sky Companions : The Messier Objects (Deep-Sky Companions)
	"Pretty good book."	2003-06-12
I have both this book and "The Caldwell Objects". These are both good books to have if you are an amateur astronomer (armchair included). I found both books an interesting read and pretty enjoyable. Probably the ONLY thing I hate about both books is that Mr. O'Meara is looking at these object from atop Kilauea on the Big Island whilst I fight the skyglow of New Jersey. I had been atop Haleakala and Kilauea but sans telescope. Ugh... I am so envious... Besides that fun books to read all the same.
	The Planet Observer's Handbook
	"The Intro may have skewed my opinion...."	2003-06-11
Unlike the other reviews, I thought the book was not that technical at all. The book at first seemed to dedicate too many pages to the same topics you find in every beginner astro book, telescope types, eyepiece types, etc... The information on the planets were not as detailed as I had hoped (sans Saturn). Most of this information and much more can be found on the Web. I did think the chapter on the minor planets was worth the read. I must admit, my opinion of this book may have been heavily skewed because I "accidentally" read the introduction. In there, Fred Price compares planetary astronomers to real "observers" and anyone who observes deep-sky objects to "sightseers". Hmmm... the AAVSO might differ with that opinion, as would a number of organizations who do deep sky research. Maybe I was just too sensitive, but the introduction did rub me the wrong way. It is true, I do often "sight see" deep sky objects for the challenge of seeing something I had not seen and to improve my "observing eye" (ability to see detail with your eyes). I do not care what Dr. Price thinks of me in doing so. However, I know many people who think the opposite way, that observing the planets is a dull and boring task that already much is known about. I think both sides are wrong to be so damned elitist about it. Besides that, it is a good book :-)