Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance--Book Review

This is a considerably older book than what I usually post about. But it is far more important now than it ever was before.  The life lessons and points of view are many and are very down right confusing but important. They are not important not only in the learning but in applying them in our lives as well.  This book is basically two fold. Every few pages a few paragraphs or two tell about the actual story and plot line.  Everything else is more like a technical manual. The first chapter is pretty heavy stuff, talking about ghosts, existentialism, budhhism, leaky faucets and more.

The actual story line is not half bad.  The narrator of the story and his 11 year old son go on a motorcycle with friends across the country. The narrator has a really big secret.  He had another personality named Phaedrus.  He took technology and philosophy too far and destroyed his personality. He was given a new personality. The new Phaedrus now as a narrator, tells the story.

Something interesting that the book covered was a discussion on the social concept called "national consciousness" and how it flowed in directions we might not necessarily like.He thought that technology was sometimes a bad thing.  Sometimes I agree with that, like in the creation of the atom bomb. We as a nation should have listened to Dr. Oppenheimer and his dire warnings 35 yrs earlier so that the Cold War would not have started.This was a negative direction for our national conciousness.

On the other hand, technology can be a good thing, like the medicines and treatments that we use for the good of all. I think that some people choose to embrace technology while others don't.  I think that is because sometimes there are parts of technology that people simply don't care about. An example of this would be my Ooma.  (my mom)  She has said that she doesn't like TV nearly as much as she likes computers. So she has a mental blockage about figuring out all the TV remotes, but she can do almost anything with a computer. (even though she is not a programmer or anything like that).

Our attitudes about technology come from how we are raised.  Maybe the whole nature/nurture debate can be applied directly here. There are many complicated issues that the book raises.  I like how it talks about Buddhism and exitentialism and more.  I invite readers to explore this amazing book and see what insights you find about technology and philosophy.

Mr. Poppers Penguins

Mr. Poppers Penguins is absolutely the most hilarious film of Jim Carey's career.  Nimrod the penguin steals the show by being sillier than Jim Carey usually is!  Jim 's character gets to learn about his family's life by learning to have a compassionate heart.  He learns this "compassionate thing" throughout the movie.  He gets the penguins as a weird gift from his Dad.  He ends up taking care of an egg from one of the penguins for a good part of the film.  This was a really heart warming part of the movie.  Jim's character battles repeatedly with an obnoxious zoo person who is so smarmt that you just want to see him get a smack in the face.  This zoo keeper is kind of like Jim's character in the beginnin gof the movie--utterly heartless.  The zoo keeper was condescending as well.  In the end, Jim learns to have a big and open heart.  Absolutely a big 10!

The Brothers Bloom

The Brothers Bloom is a somewhat funny romantic comedy.  It is about two con brothers. One is reckless and always getting hurt, but seems to always avoid getting himself killed.  The other guy is depressed and does not live his life to the fullest.  The depressed brother falls in love with their target--a rich girl who quickly catches on to their scheme.  Then things got very confusing with a plot line involving lots of money and the girl tryiing to help them con someone else.  The reckless brother dies at the end of the film.  I give this only an 8.5 as it is hard to keep up with where the plot line is going throughout the film.

A Town Called Valentine BOOK REVIEW

A Town Called Valentine by Emma Cane is a rich romance with social problems.  It is about learning to balance the possible future with the painful past.  It talked about the way you can take healthy and good risks in life so you can find your dreams, even if they were crushed or destroyed before. This book exemplies this and uses small town life as a means to teach you to take the good with the bad and to make you not afraid of spontinaity.  Dreams really can come true if you bother to put forth the effort.  This is the theme of this book.  Get it today to learn more about the plot and characters.

My Sisters Keeper (Movie Review)

My Sisters Keeper was a sad but inspiring and heartbreaking kind of film where you just want to cry.  It was very socially realistic because the plot line was based on something that could actually happen.  It was sad to see Anna tear her family apart over  her sister's illness.  Anna was angry all the time because her mother was unwilling to let her sister just die from her illness.   It was a really good drama but sad when Katie died anyway at the end. 

I think that if I was in Anna's position, I would have been more practical.  I would have been less angry and hurtful but I think I still would have sued my parents.   I give this a 9.9

Pitch Black (Movie Review)

This is a movie from 2000.  Carolyn Fry was a heroine who gave her life to give hope and peace to a serial murderer.  She inspired him and gave him back his sense of humanity.  She took charge and led the others in the movie to safety in the dead of night.  This was a gory horror movie but it was inspiring because I liked that Carolyn went out of her way to be as human as possible and help a bad person regain his own sense of humanity.  I give this a 9.9

The Box (Movie Review)

I thought this was a rather disappointing and down right creepy movie.  It was more about aliens than a box.  There is a horribly disfigured man who is making people make horrible moral choices because he like his employer, is possessed by aliens.  For instance people were made to choose between money and people's lives. The man was heartless the whole time.  I thought that the movie title was kind of false pretenses because it did not mention anything about aliens in the title.  When something is called "The Box" I thought it would be more about the actual box.  I was disappointed and give this a 5.6