The Secret of the Villa Mimosa by Elizabeth Adler

I was at the library, and it was going to close in 5 minutes. I didn't have much time to pick out a book. I was in the mood for a Matlock like mystery. I ran looking for the mystery section, like what the other library had, but I didn't see a section marked mystery. I just grabbed this book off the shelf without thinking. I was in a rush.

I did a good job appeasing my Matlock mystery mood because this book was a bit like Matlock. Okay, Matlock is not the best show, and I am embarrassed to admit to liking it. What I like about Matlock however, is the humanity in it. The main characters have a personality, and when a murder takes place you get to know a lot about the victim and all the people he knew from their life. I get glimpses of people's lives and humanity. The modern shows on TV have no humanity or personality.

On the show CSI, they call the person murdered "vic." You don't even get to find out victim's name. They are "vic."You find out nothing about the person, and his life, or the people in his life. The main characters have the personality of a robot. You could replace the cast of some shows with data from Star Trek and no one would notice. I like Matlock because I miss humanity. So sue me.

What is bad about Matlock is that it can be predictable, rehearsed, and the plot is always contrived for everything to work out. The person Matlock defends is always innocent, and they always prove him so, just in the nick of time, by some silly unlikely clue.

This book was just like Matlock. It had a lot of humanity in it, and I was really into the main characters. I was really disappointed with the book, though. It was extremely predictable. I knew what was going to happen early on. It was also really unrealistic to the point of being annoying. It had too many contrived plot points. It worked out like a silly fairy tale. I am not five years old. It insulted my intelligence. The book had too many coincidences, that was off the wall ridiculous.

This book is written by a very cultured person. She has lived in England, Ireland, France, Brazil, etc. The main characters in the book were rich and beautiful, and ate fancy food at fancy places. Because the book was so insulting to my intelligence, it somehow felt cheap. But, there was so much culture in the book. In the end, reading this book feels like going to a very fancy restaurant and eating a hot dog.

Despite a part of me believing this book was not worth my time, I did enjoy the characters in this book and their personal stories. It satisfied my urge for he human filled mystery that I was searching for. It was just like Matlock.

If there was a moral to garner from reading this book, it was this: Don't fall for someone because they are hot, or good looking, or rich. They could be a sick evil bastard. Don't be taken in by their charm. Be on the lookout.

The Phantom of The Opera by Gaston Leroux

I watched two versions of the movie Phantom of The Opera. The endings of the two versions were so different, I was wondering which one was based on the book.

One version of the movie was from the 50s or around then, and the ending was actually supposed to be funny and people were laughing. That is so not the Phantom of the Opera. The ending of the book is really sad.

I read the book and it turns out the book and the modern movie made by Joel Schumacher and Andrew Lloyd Webber was extremely similar. It's amazing that they can fit a whole book, and all it's details in an 141 minute film. That's some sort of an amazing feat.

In some ways, I think that the minor changes the movie made that deviated from the book were good. Sometimes the book was over the top, and unbelievable. The movie took it down a notch, and actually improved upon the plot. Even so, the movie and the book are almost exactly alike.

Two things I didn't like about the book was that the author didn't "show scenes." If that makes any sense. If something happened in the book, Gaston would often explain it through dialogue between two characters. He would use a character to retell the story. It sounded lazy to me. It's easier to just use dialogue to explain drama than to actually take the time to use imagery to actually explain what happened.

What made that method worse is that the dialogue in this book is not too good. It sounded fake, like bad actors talking back and forth at times. The book having so much dialogue to explain the plot did not help it. The author did a bad job putting mental pictures in my mind. I had to rely on the movie sometimes to know what people and places looked like. Not that the author didn't describe things sometimes. But, it just wasn't enough for me.

Overall, the story of the Phantom of the Opera is very sad, and weird. You end up feeling sad for the evil villan. The book wasn't bad at all despite my critisisms. I liked an other book that Gaston Leroux wrote too. The Yellow Room. I read that book awhile ago, so I don't remember it much, other than that I really liked it.

Thinking in pictures by Temple Grandin

I met an autistic person a few weeks ago, and it occurred to me that I don't know too much about the disorder, other than what I learned from an episode of Law and Order.

I was curious about it, so when I saw a magazine article in Mental Floss about this book, I decided to find the book and read it. This book was written by an autistic person, who explained what it's like to be autistic.

I am getting old...26. Okay. Not so old, but I don't hear much that is new to me. I feel like I have heard it all sometimes. When I get into a conversation, I can sometimes swear I have had that same conversation 12 times before with 12 other people. Sometimes I feel like yawning and rolling my eyes at some conversations I hear.

That's why I appreciate this book. I really enjoyed learning a lot of new things that I never thought of before. Some things were truly new to me. Not just about autism, but just a lot of other things too. I learned about different ways of thinking and viewing the world. I really liked this book, and I recommend reading it.

Scrubs on ABC?

I remember watching Scrubs with my roommate from when I was in college living in Riverside. She was laughing a lot, almost every ten seconds it seemed, and I don't think I even laughed once. I talked to my other roommate about it. (I had two roommates at the time.) She told me, I don't think that show is funny either, she does have a strange sense of humor.

Scrubs was cancelled from NBC, and I was really surprised to find it back on the air on ABC. I got roped into watching a few episodes because of someone I live with-- who thinks it oh so funny. (I wouldn't watch a lot of things if it wasn't for other people wanting to see it.)

Surprisingly, in a good way, Scrubs on ABC is very funny. Scrubs on NBC, wa. But the new Scrubs is delightful. I don't like the word delightful, and I am using it. Scrubs is now that good. Maybe, I have changed, or my humor has changed, but I really think its Scrubs that has changed. I think the show will end up lasting on ABC for awhile.

It's humor is so creative, and the characters are so goofy, and I can really believe them as goofy friends that hang out with each other. The characters come together to portray a story, and a plot, and it seems to harmonize and mix really well with a lot of the humor thrown into it. I am now excited to get stuck watching Scrubs now, instead of the old emotion it would get out of me....akin to watching a documentary on toothpaste or something.

Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood

I think that Clint Eastwood was really hot when he was younger. I watched the Good, Bad and the Ugly a bunch of times mainly for this reason, oh and I liked the movie too.

I didn't like Million Dollar Baby, even though it received really rave reviews by the critics and won a lot of awards. I had a lot to say about the movie that was negative. Needless to say, a part of me was weary of seeing this movie.

I read the description of it on yahoo movies, and the critics made is seem like a really serious, soul sucking, 4 hour drama that will weigh you down, full of controversy and subjects for debate to even further weary the mind.

What the critics on yahoo movies failed to portray about Gran Torino, was that it was hilarious!!!! I laughed the whole time. No soul sucking involved. I know, it does not seem like a comedy, and it's really not, but the movie was very funny and very serious at the same time. Few movies can pull that stunt off. In a way, the movie was just like real life. Real life has a lot of drama, but people stop to joke and make fun with each other too, and just live their life.

This movie was done really well. It was realistic, and every scene was like a fine crafted piece of art work. This movie is not a movie I will forget. Most movies, I forget the characters, what happened, where it happened. But, I will remember every scene and and character of Gran Torino. It was so cool. I replayed a lot of the movie in my head, something about it just sticks in my mind. There is some violence, and some bad language, that didn't bother me too much though. I was mainly replaying the conversations that took place.

I read a lot of reviews before seeing the movie to make sure it would be okay for me to watch. I thought it was on the level, but others may not think so. It portrays racism, but not in a serious way. I was not offended, maybe I should have been. The movie has a lot of bad language too.

Clint Eastwood was really good in this movie. He did an excellent job acting, and directing. I loved the ending to this movie too. I think the movie was almost perfect. The only thing about the movie that troubled me is believing that Tao's cousin would be that mean over nothing. It was a little far fetched for me. But, I hear stuff on the news that says someone got murdered for a scooter, so you never really know with some people. I thought that Clint's immediate family also seemed a bit stereotypical, as if they are not real people. But, his family was only in a few scenes of the movie, and I think they were supposed to not seem real, because he was not close to his family. I think that this is a great movie, that entertained me a lot.

Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope

I am currently reading Pearl S. Buck's the book of Christmas. The first story in that book is Christmas at Thompson Hall. When I started reading it, I thought I would not like the story at all. It was written around a hundred years ago by a stuffy sounding brit. But, as I read on, I found the short story to be full of zest and humor. It was really well written with expert care and thoroughness. The plot was a little silly, but it made a lot of sense and was plausible. I think that it is a good short story to read. I would like to read more stuff by Anthony Trollope in the future, just because I like his writing style. When he was talking about the thought process and feelings, of the main character, it was with so much care, that it was as detailed as my own thought process from real life, but done in such way that presented a lot of humor as to not be boring. Overall, I give it an A+. It is interesting to me, but the plot was really relevant to things that are going on in my life now, so I could relate. Reading it made me feel better about my situation.

Clay Walls by Kim Ronyoung

My sister took an Asian Literature class. She wanted to get rid of some books to make some space in her apartment. That is how I got one of her books, Clay Walls. I was drawn to read it somehow because the cover was just so plain. It said Clay Walls in red, and Kim Ronyoung in Black. The cover other than that was just plain white, with a Korean symbol.

The book is about a Korean family that immigrated to California in the early part of the 20th century. I liked reading this book because I got to learn about Korean history, culture, and see life through people who are immigrants in a new country. I got to understand a lot of their difficulties and trials that they go through. I did not know that Korea used to be occupied by Japan. According to this book, the occupation was brutal, with the Japanese torturing and treating the Koreans very unfairly. That is why a lot of the Koreans came to America, to run away from Japanese oppression.

It was also very interesting to learn about the discrimination and other obstacles an immigrant family goes through.

As for how the book is written, It was separated into three parts. Part one was from the perspective of The mom. Then the second part was written from the perspective of the father. Finally, the third part was written from the perspective of the daughter. I liked the book a lot better from the perspective from the mom. Parts two and three I had trouble relating to and getting into the narrative.

In the beginning, things in the family seem bad, but eventually they become prosperous. Then the family takes a few unfortunate turns, and everything goes sharply down hill. It is truly depressing to read about. Especially when you get used to reading about a prosperous family in the first part of the book. I liked Part I because as I mentioned it was from the mom's perspective, but also because the family was happier, and what I did not mention before, was that there was just more detail in the story. Not boring detail, but just cool details that made the story come alive. Later on in the book it seemed that there was less little details and it was more of a summary of what took place. Overall, I think that the book was a good read. I don't recommend it for children though, because there are some love scenes in the book. They are not too detailed, but still, I would rate it pg-13 or R because of that. The book showed that there was little love between the husband and wife, whose marriage were arranged. The man was a farmer, and the wife from the upper-class of Korea. She did not find him attractive, and saw him as inferior. Also, the husband never really opened up to the wife and expressed himself, which caused a lack of closeness between them. That aspect of the book was interesting to take note of.