I bought this Sony Bravia TV on a Tuesday, it was delivered by Friday and I have to say I am so happy with it (Amazon UK link on the right, Amazon US link is at the bottom of the page).
It is an absolutely brilliant TV, futureproofed (full HD, accepts 24p, and 1080p input through any of its 4 HDMI inputs). Will show pictures from a USB stick, or watch other movie files when running as your laptop’s 2nd monitor. I also have it hooked up to the network (the TV has an ethernet port) so we can stream family pictures over the network to show our extended family pictures of the little ones – the quality on this TV is MUCH better than a standard TFT computer monitor.
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This week I found our old kettle (from Australia) developed a bit of a post-modern unreliability – a Generation X kettle if you will. It would heat water (slowly I might add) to about 60 degrees celcius and then switch the internal heater off but NOT flick the manual switch off. So I would either get a tepid drink instead of a hot one (especially once cold milk, cold cup & cold spoon have come into contact with the water) or if you forgot that you’d put the kettle on it would heat the water up to 60 degrees, cool down a bit then switch itself back on and reheat the water in a continuous cycle until you remembered. My need for a piping hot cup of tea is one that I should really see to with some form of counselling but I don’t have time for that so I decided to buy a new kettle.
Having looked around the place I did like the look of the glass ones with blue lights so you could see the boiling but they all retail at around £40 and I really only wanted to spend around £20. Also, we have a young child and another one on the way so really glass kettles of boiling water were probably going to play on my mind – especially with the horror stories going around of glass kettles exploding.
Eventually I settled on the Philips HD4656/22 Energy Efficient Kettle. It is energy efficient not because of some new fangled technology, but because you can clearly see how much water you’re putting in the kettle, especially for small amounts such as a single cup of tea or instant coffee (around 250ml). Most kettles have a marker to show you how much you’ve put in so I’m not sure why this one is any better, but for some reason I have been putting the precise amount of water in for my medium/large cups of tea, and the marker for a single cup is about right in my opinion.
The kettle itself boils quickly and is quiet compared to our last one. At the 1-cup marker it boils in 52.4 seconds – way faster than any other kettle I’ve ever owned. In general the kettle feels solid and well built and there is the obligatory blue LED in the manual switch. Blue LEDs continue to be way cooler than Red or Green LEDs, though I would like to see some Lilac ones soon. Ho hum.
Finally the price is excellent considering its a fast-boiling, child-safe-ish, energy efficient, well-built kettle and would heartily recommend it to anyone needing a cheapish replacement. -m@
I picked up this book in haste from the library, not realising who Nicholas Sparks was. Of course, for all you romantics out there, you know he’s the author of books such as “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember” and other such love stories that I usually avoid! Not realising I was about to dive head-first into a love story, I was soon too engrossed to mind!
The story follows the life of John Tyree, an angry, messed up drop-out of a kid who comes to the conclusion that the only way to get his life back on track is to join the army. He does well in the army, and gets his act together significantly. Then he meets Savannah, a straight-laced country girl who he instantly falls for. She feels the same, and they begin a full-on old-fashioned romance.
When the time comes for John to leave the army and be with Savannah forever, the events of 9/11 cause him to re-enlist in the army, thus jeopardising his relationship with Savannah. Savannah has struggled to be apart from him, and finds she cannot wait for him any longer. I won’t ruin the story and tell you if they make it or not, but I will say that the ending isn’t what most people would want it to be….
For me, no matter how great the romance, if a story is just about two people, it gets a bit tedious. There were some predictable parts, but what made it interesting was the added dimension of John’s changing relationship with his father. There’s a great thread of father-son redemption woven into the story which I found as moving as his love for Savannah. John’s experience of life in the army is also worthwhile and adds depth to a potentially one-dimensional love-story.
Ultimately, this is a tear-jerker. Be prepared to cry. Somewhat disappointingly, it was all over very quickly – it doesn’t take long to read this book as it’s pretty light reading – though it’s enjoyable, and emotive in parts, it’s not particularly challenging. A nice read.
My husband bought this book for me after reading the buzz about it on the internet. I hadn’t heard anything about it, so all I had to go on was the quote on the front cover by Eugene Peterson, “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ did for his. It’s that good!” High praise indeed.
The Shack tells the story of a man called Mackenzie Allen Philips whose youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later Mack receives a note, from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Reluctantly he does so and walks back into his darkest nightmare but what he finds there changes Mack’s world forever. The book says ‘In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant “The Shack” wrestles with the timeless question, “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?”‘
To be honest, I struggled to get through the first couple of chapters, but once the story gets going, it’s gripping. Soon the book becomes a well-choreographed dance between a compelling story and some challenging theology. Tears are never far away from the reader’s eyes as Young isn’t shy of expressing the raw emotion of the main character’s grief and anger from a tragic loss.
As the story sped along, I found it to be a very enjoyable and thought-provoking read. I would like to go back and read the story again, as the first time I read it I skimmed over a lot of passages just to find out what happened next! There was a lot of interesting stuff in the book about God that I need to go over again to get my head around. The book challenges our Western preconceived ideas of God and His interaction with people to such an extent that in some places some people may find it offensive.
The book contains fresh, creative and intelligent ways to communicate God’s heart and to cause the reader to open up their heart to God in return. I’m sure every reader will find something stimulating within the book, whether it’s on an intellectual or emotional level, the clever thing about the story is that it reaches both the heart and the mind together.
