From the Mouth of a Four Year Old

"Sparty is in heaven so now God and Jesus have a kitty."

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

I never would have thought that reading about a train circus set in the depression era could be so interesting to read.

Make no mistake; this novel is a work of fiction. However, in the author’s notes a lot of the anecdotes in the story were based upon real events.

Sara Gruen does an excellent job of bring not only the people to life, but also the key animals of the story.

I actually read this back in December, but this is easily my favorite book for all of 2008. Noting was as engrossing and overall enjoyable as this book. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Are Wii Fit?

In a word, no. I’ve been playing Wii Fit on and off for roughly three months and that’s the main problem. The game is supposed to be played daily, or very close to that, and yet that’s the problem. For whatever reason I can’t be drawn in to get my exercise on any regular basis with Wii Fit.

A large part of the reason, in my mind, is that there’s too much lost time in between the different activities. For me anything that gets in the way of just working out kills my excitement. What Wii Fit really needs is a way for the user to string together a group of exercises. I don’t want to spend half of my work out time looking at the ranking screen, selecting Retry or Quit, seeing how many coins I received for the given exercise, and the time it takes just to move from one activity to the other.

Then there’s the graphics. In general, I’m getting real tired of Wii games with bland graphics. For Wii Fit that is not too much of a problem as long as you’re not doing any of the jogging exercises. Then you’ll get so tired of seeing bland courses you’ll want to tear your eyes out. The Wii can do amazing things, just look at Mario Galaxy or Metroid Prime. Why couldn’t Nintendo do something to make that portion a better experience?

I actually wanted to do a test to see if I could set a goal to loose a given amount of weight for a couple of months time, but Wii Fit is not doing anything to motivate me to do so.

I guess I’ll wait and see what Wii Fit 2 will bring, for now it's back to my soda, and bag of potato chips.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

I have wanted to read this book after seeing the movie through Netflix for over a year now and thanks to my local Costco I picked up a copy.

It’s beautifully written and the author does an excellent job of creating life on a small island town.

The story is a mix of courtroom drama, murder mystery, and romance.

I also watched the movie again after reading the book. Obviously the book is better, but if you are only mildly interested in this book I do recommend the movie.

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

This book is the best biography I have ever read.

It all started when I asked a friend I work with if there was a good biography on Lincoln that covered his whole life. I was looking for a complete picture not just a specific time in his life.

This book is what he came up with and I am very glad he did. This book covers his life from start to finish and really gives you a lot of insight into all things Lincoln. Reading this book I found that a lot of who I thought Lincoln was, why he made the choices he did, and his overall character where a lot different than I had naively assumed. It's amazing how much I took for granted.

Some examples would be the fact that he was a very unpopular president, he didn't like the sight of blood (just like me), and emancipation wasn't his chief motivation for the civil war.

This book is very well written. I found it to be engrossing unlike any other biography I've ever read. There was never a dull moment. I don't remember the word count, but it's not a small book by any means, however, I can't recommend reading it enough.