Straight up, y'all, I was really disappointed by this book.  It was lying on a cart at the library at the end of an aisle, as if it was calling to me!  One glance at the title and I was hooked.  Who wouldn't want to… um… do it yourself psychic power?

Nonsensical title aside, the cover promises "practical tools and techniques for awakening your natural gifts."  From this I expected, you know.  Practical tools and techniques.

Instead, O'Sullivan spends fully half of the book explaining preparations you should take.  Meditation, opening chakras - basically, an awful lot of "sitting quietly and thinking about things."  I imagine that if you really did follow all of the rituals and proscribed meditations, you could easily spend every day fully booked with that kind of thing.


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Once again, I'm hampered by reading the second book when the first book is "the real one."  Yeager's first book was entitled The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches, and it apparently has all the meat and potatoes.  This, his follow up book, is mostly just illustrating, expanding upon, and exploring some of the fall-out from his first book.

Which, you know.  Kind of a bummer if you haven't read the first book.

The problem is that The Cheapskate Next Door doesn't really stand on its own as an advice sort of book.  However, it does a great job of helping to encourage the frugal lifestyle.  I love reading all about other frugal people and their wacky frugal ways.  It makes me feel more normal about my own cheapskate-ery!  And it inspires me to do better - because really, we can all do better.


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Packaging Designer Andrew Kim created a unique design for coke bottles- square coke bottles. I don’t know about you, but I think they look amazing. Not sure if Coca-Cola will adopt them, but I think they should. Andrew Kim's Coke Bottle Designs

Eat, Pray, LoveI haven’t read “Eat, Pray, Love”  by Elizabeth Gilbert and I am on the fence about whether or not to see the movie starring Julia Roberts. Enough people have told me about the book that I feel like I know it already- a woman seeks out salvation and finds herself in an Ashram in India.



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If I believed in biblical things, I would say that this is the time of Job in my life, but on a much-smaller scale. Maybe I am operating under the principle of Murphy’s Law, which states that, “Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.” I’ve decided to take a cautiously optimistic approach to life and my spell of minor troubles and believe that if the universe is indeed dishing me a few too many sides of bad luck, I’m going to take it as a semi-positive sign and believe that at least I am somewhat important- being totally ignored by the Fates would be worse, wouldn’t it?


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Sub-titled "And Never Feel Powerless Again," this book takes a "command and conquer" approach to life.  The more I read, the more I realized that… I don't really have a need to learn how to get anyone to do anything.  I'm not a sales person, and I no longer work in a corporate environment where winning arguments and driving the conversation is important.  Lucky me!

I checked this book out for a laff, expecting to find a lot of cheesy salesman style Jedi mind trick advice.  My biggest surprise was that most of the book was actually fairly reasonable.  


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Naomi Campbell

As the Guardian points out HERE, sometimes murder and mutilation are too little to garner international interest and attention; the testimony of a fashion model is the missing answer for the War Times Tribunal to focus attention on the trial against former Liberian President Charles Taylor. If you note that the irony in this is tinged with bitterness, that is the intent.

Charles Taylor is being tried on 11 different war crimes including murder, rape, and sexual slavery. His trade of “blood diamonds” was used to fund the rebels from Sierra Leone.


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 David Icke is a fascinating figure.  He began his career as a sports commentator for the BBC, and a Green Party spokesman.  Then after a fateful encounter with a psychic, Icke had a spiritual awakening.

In an interview that was ostensibly to be about something sports-related, Icke announced to the world that "he was the son of God, and predicted that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes.  From this rapid turnabout, David Icke became one of the most prolific and disturbing futurists in the movement which he dubbed "New Age conspiracism."


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Gregg Reference Manual

 

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Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always looked to the sky and was intrigued when a plane flew by.  I’d gaze up and wonder where they were headed, who was on the plane, and when I’d get a chance to get on one.  I was fascinated with the fact that a person could travel so many miles in such a short time.  A person could wake up in Colorado, and fall asleep in Panama.

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