by Alexander McCall Smith

Tears of the Giraffe is the second book in Alexander McCall Smith’s, No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series. I wrote a review for the first book a few months back, and was pretty positive about the book with the one caveat that even though it was billed as a mystery, it was actually pretty skimpy with the mystery aspects of the book. I speculated that this was a result of it being the first book in the series and that in future books this would probably be less of a problem.

I have to report that I was wrong. The depth of the mystery in this book is only slightly greater then that of the original book. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Tears of the Giraffe is an absolutely wonderful book; far better then the first, and what it lacks in mystery, it makes up in color and character.

The story centers about Precious Ramotswe, owner of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency and her life in Botswana. As in the first book, she is hired to solve a number of cases. One case is brought to her by a mother searching for her long lost son and a second by a man who is wondering about some strange behavior involving his wife. Both stories are left unresolved for pretty much the full duration of …

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by Alexander McCall Smith

I kept hearing all sorts of great things about “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”, and since my wife already had a copy I thought I would give it a try.
“The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” is about a middle aged African woman, Precious Ramotswe, who decides to go into business for herself as a private detective. She funds the operation by selling off the cattle left to her by her late father. Her fathers’ plan was to have her start her own business upon his death but he had hoped that she would enter into an area a little more proven; like opening a store or a butcher shop. Precious has no experience as a private detective, but she figures that with a little common sense and a good book to guide her she should have no problem with her new business.

The business starts out slow which leads her to worry that becoming a private detective may have been a mistake, but soon things pick up and she’s dealing with all sorts of different clients and cases.

This is an interesting yet totally different type of book. The cases handled by Precious are pretty basic; there is no great intrigue or complicated plot going on here, yet it was a really fun book to read. Most of the entertainment …

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Gracie Hart : Sandra Bullock
Sam Fuller : Regina King
Jeff Foreman : Enrique Murciano
Stan Fields : William Shatner
McDonald : Ernie Hudson
Cheryl : Heather Burns
Joel : Diedrich Bader

Why do they make bad sequels?

More important why does an actress the quality of Sandra Bullock get involved in a bad sequel?

I suppose it could be for the money, but I doubt it. She’s had a successful enough career for me to believe that money in not an issue.

I suspect the real reason goes something like this;

Hollywood Executive (Imagine Jon Lovitz at his sleaziest) - Have we got a great idea for a movie!

Sandra - Tell me about it.

Hollywood Executive - You know that movie you were involved in a couple of years ago.. What was it? Oh ya, Miss Congeniality.

Sandra - Ya.

Hollywood Executive - It was a big hit. Made the studio lots of money. Well, we’ve decided to make a sequel.

Sandra - A sequel. OK. Can I see the script?

Hollywood Executive - Ah, ummm… Well we don’t really have a script yet.

Sandra - No script?

Hollywood Executive - Ah… No. But we have some of the greatest writers in Hollywood working on it.

Sandra - Well, OK. What’s the premise of the story.

Hollywood Executive - Ah, ummm… …

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I’m Just Here For The Food: Food + Heat = Cooking

Written by : Alton Brown

If you really want to learn to cook, then this is the book for you. Most cookbooks consist of a list of ingredient, instructions for combining the ingredients, and temperatures and times for cooking your concoction. That’s all you need if all you want to do is prepare that one recipe, but what if you want more then that? What if you’re missing an ingredient and want to substitute something else or what
if you just want to be really bold and create your own recipe from scratch?

That’s where Alton Browns book, I’m Just Here For The Food - Food + Heat = Cooking, comes in.

I’m Just Here For The Food goes way beyond the normal cookbook. It not only teaches you how to cook something, but also why you are doing what you are doing when you cook something.

The book is divided into sections based on the various methods of cooking, such as searing, frying, braising and roasting and in each section Brown describes the physical and chemical processes that take place when your cooking food using the method. He tells you why you would select one method over another when cooking a specific dish and at the end of each chapter includes a number of …

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Some time ago, I purchased a 40GB Apple IPod. My original plan was to take it to work with me during the day so that I could listen to music and then use it at night to play audio books during my hour workout on the threadmill.

This never really worked out.

The IPod was heavy and a bit bulky for carrying around during the day and the built in battery would be pretty much discharged by the time that I arrived home, requiring me to recharge the unit before using it during my workout. I also worried that the jostling that occurred during day-to-day use might damage the hard drive. Given these factors I decided that the IPod would be retired from daytime use and only be used at night during my time on the treadmill. I lived with this arrangement for over a year, but recently decided it would be nice to have a second MP3 player to use during the day.

The first step was to decide which features were important to me. Here’s what I came up with :

1. Must be able to play MP3 and WMA files. Audio book format would be a plus but would not be a requirement because the primary use for this device was going to be music.

2. Light weight and small. I wanted something that I could carry with me at …

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