Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Razor Review: Quattro Titanium Trimmer & a Lionel Richie Pillow Fight


When the good folks over at Schick wanted to send me something called The Quattro Titanium Trimmer I thought they were referring something like a nuclear powered chainsaw with lasers.
The names for razors these days are almost comical; but nevertheless effective in getting guys like me interested.

This thing is huge, nearly the size of a small child that hasn’t eaten in days. It has your standard disposable 4 razors (because 1 is never enough) with coated Titanium (to protect you from rampant mutant radiation and skin irritation.) And it has a little trimmer that does all kinds of neat tricks like shaves the sideburns, pesky ear hair (no I don’t have any….yet) and maybe a nearby cat that won’t leave you alone.
While using this fancy thing the past few days I found that it makes for a good microphone when the wife or daughter come walking by. I sing a pretty mean Andy Gibb.

As for performance - no complaints here. The thing works pretty well. It a razor -- I’m not sure what more it can do than give a good shave. It didn’t make me bleed, or scare airplanes.
I could say that if you use it, it’ll make you better looking. But it doesn’t. Give it a few more years though and I’m sure it will, including the power of flight.

Do you want one for FREE?

Go over to trimflixx.com to make a video and they’ll send you one FOR FREE! The video is one of those personalized picture upload ones where you can see yourself pillow fight with either uncomfortably young college girls, weird looking circus clowns, or ...guys with their shirts off??
Because I’m old and don’t want to fight any of these, I uploaded a picture of Lionel Richie in my place.

Here’s a screenshot:

(imagine Commodores music playing)

And here's the real thing:


Thursday, June 19, 2008

Book Review: Alena and the Favorite Thing


Alena and the Favorite Thing (by Eric B. Anderson) is one of those rarities available in the children’s book world today - a charming story about a dad and his daughter.

Little Alena has become bored and downright depressed, so she and her dad go romping through their house looking for something her dad has lost and along the way find items from her past – stuffed animals, ballerina statue, old costumes, roller-skates, etc. He reminisces with her about them until he’s finds what he’s looking for (Hint: It’s not a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, that would be in my children’s book.)

The story is truly unique, is unlike anything I’ve read before, and it’s spotted with bits of humor that I found really entertaining. But what I found even more fascinating was the stunning illustrations of Polish artist Jakub Kuzma. His sophisticated eastern European illustrations are something not usually seen with small publishers; which more often than not resort to having the neighbors kid in High School draw the pictures.

Monday, May 19, 2008

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW! Toy Story Mania at Disney's California Adventure


I had the opportunity over the weekend to preview the new Toy Story Mania ride during their “playtesting” phase before it opens next month. The ride is still being “tweaked” and still has a few kinks in it, but it didn’t keep me from having a whole lot of fun.

The ride is essentially a giant blown out video game, disguised as a traditional ride. Which was fine by me, as I like those video games. But it’s easy and compelling enough for those adults that don’t even know how to turn on a TV.
If you can pull a string, wear sunglasses, and chew gum at the same time, you’re in the club.

After I put on the 3D glasses and boarded some extremely shiny new tandem vehicles fitted with pull-string cannons, I was literally whipped around corners stopping at several oversized shooting screens.
I stopped for about 60 seconds at each, or in some cases sometimes longer as they were working out the bugs, and pulled that string like John Rambo shooting at Soviets in Afghanistan -- rapid-fire maniac yelling out things like “I’m your worst nightmare....fake plastic virtual plates…!!”

The shooting effect of oversized cartoon-like darts, green blubber, and plastic rings at things like plates, targets, balloons, etc. was very cool.
As I hit certain targets things shot out in “3D”, some broke, and some revealed even more targets; and when I hit balloons, blowers puffed air into my face giving some pretty cool popping effects and my hair some badly needed styling.

When all was said and done, my score was 134,000. At first, I thought that was pretty good, maybe enough to one-up Stallone. But then the “high-score” leader board was revealed showing scores of 400,000+.
Obviously, it was there to tell me I shoot like Rambo’s grandma, on crack.

Overall, completely worth a trip if you’re visiting Disneyland, and have an extra day, and have an extra $70, $80, $1200 or whatever it costs to get in there now.
It really is great to see a new ride added to the very sparse, ghost town of a park, Disney’s California Adventure. Hopefully they keep adding some more rides like this to spruce up the place.

I recommend a Rambo III ride.