Review: My husband has been taking me to pay lakes for the past eight years. Every one we went to ended up the same, sitting around watching a bobber for hours upon hours. If the bobber goes down, you have a fish. Big deal. The bobber rarely ever went down. All that changed when I started going to a new pay lake with him called Fat Cats Pay Lake. I actually enjoy fishing for these big cat fish when I am at Fat Cats. Although I am still sitting around watching a bobber go down, they actually do! At this lake, they stock the fish so often that I think it would be almost impossible to NOT catch a fish! When I got my first “big” fish I was so excited. It was only 8 lbs. Not big by these big fishermens standards. But the guy working at the lake seemed just as excited as I was by my first catch! He came over and took a picture of me with my fish and congratulated me! Now some of the other lakes we have been to wouldn’t have given me the time of day! And I don’t have to worry about my kids falling in the lake because the banks are nice and flat. My whole family always has a great time and the bait shop is filled with junk food to please any child! And I surely don’t want to leave out the patience they had with me when I was learning how to cast these big cat fish poles!! Boy they would land everywhere! But the crew at the lake would always help me out and give me tips. I can now cast straight out in front of me without any fear of hooking someones head in the process. If you enjoy fishing for “Big Cats” then you should really give then a try.

Rating: 10

Review: This is a one of the fast food here in the Philippines which they only serve grilled food, what is extra ordinary in here is they serve it with unlimited rice. Yeah and for me that is great, this fast food only start here in SM Valenzuela for just a month and the popularity is really incredible, I have found out that the other competitor fast food were having problem because most of their regular customers are now going to this place, and I was one of the who turns out their no. 1 customer.

There is a lot of fast food who serves grilled chicken and meat but I can say that Mang Inasal food taste really superb, and I think one of their secret is the sauce that they use in marinating the chicken and meat. Well the location of this restaurant is accessible I think their branches are mostly located in the Mall. The restaurant atmosphere is really native; actually they put the rice in the banana leaves which really add attraction to the customers. The ambiance is ok and the crew is obedient and very courteous. The facilities were clean and they serve the food on time. And lastly the food cost is very affordable.

Rating: 7

Review: This is by far the best SUV that I have ever owned. It is a tough and rugged truck that is nice enough on the inside to be used as a family car. It comes loaded with a moon roof, power locks, power windows, all of the bells and whistles. Not to mention that when we put big knobby tires on it, it was impressive to look at rolling down the road.
It’s the safety of this SUV that impressed me the most. Last summer, two doe jumped out of the forest right in front of me on a dirt road and I had no where to go. I made the mistake of hitting the breaks and the next thing I knew, I was flying through the forest, taking out trees while rolling. I rolled that 4-runner four times, landing passenger side down a steep slope.
The first thing that I realised was that the seatbelt had held me so tightly that I could barely breathe. Then I realised that the truck was still running!
When the rescue team cut a path through the forest to retrieve me and later my truck, I was amazed that it was still in driveable condition.
The 1997 4-Runners are so well built that it was able to take out the forest while still saving my life. I will by another one in the future and I highly recommend this SUV.

Rating: 10

Review: I have to say that I do love me some Quiznos on a bland weekend that I can’t find anything suitable for lunch. It’s not that they’ve got a very impressive array of subs. The taste is definitely an overall superior one to Subway’s thanks to the unique toasting method that said competition ripped off unapologetically, but the selection and freedom of make your own sandwich isn’t entirely there. Not that it matters. Quiznos’ classic italian sub is heaven in your mouth. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, you owe it to yourself to get this sub and put it in your mouth. Take a few bites and you’ll understand what it means to feast on a sandwich. It’s really filling too - by the time you’re done you won’t be lusting for more, not until a few days later when eating more Quiznos doesn’t sound like a half bad idea. It’s a good thing, too - the sandwiches aren’t exactly healthy, but it’s a much more satisfying food rush than Subway could ever dream of offering. I bring up Subway a lot in this review… I guess you could say I was previously a huge Subway fan, until I tried Quiznos and realized that a fast food sub could actually make significant steps towards tasting like a restaurant quality sub. Let’s not joke, Quiznos isn’t restaurant quality goodness, even if the Classic Italian is a masterpiece as far as food goes. It’s darn good fast food, though…

Rating: 9

Review: It’s something like fast food, yet far from it. Yes, you get the food fast. But this is not your typical American fast food chain, and definitely not McDonald’s. Heck, it’s not even your typical American pizza chain. A & K’s is in another league entirely beating out even popular New Mexico pizzerias like Dion’s and Venezia’s, in my opinion. Absolutely sublime pizza at a low price, and somehow the founders don’t get copious amounts of traffic. It’s true that you will get faced with a decent line and time to wait if you go during the rush hour (noon on the dot), but most of the time the wait is reasonable given the ordering time. And with the price of a mere five dollars per slice, it’s tough to complain.

Wait, five dollars per slice? That’s madness, you say? Hardly. See, a full A & K’s pizza feels like it could be a yard long in diameter. If the individual slices are about as big as the average pizzeria’s “medium” whole pizza size, you know you’ve got a good deal and you’d be content with just one slice. Indeed, it’s kind of like New York style mixed with the finest of Italian that New Mexico has to offer.

The cheese is deliciously fresh and the sauces are perfectly zesty, while topping choices are near limitless and encourage interesting experimentation. The only pizzeria in Rio Rancho that can rival this intense selection is Turtle Mountain Brewing Co.’s crazy definition of pizza, but that stuff is best saved for another review. If you’re in the Rio Rancho area, you owe it to yourself to check out A & K’s. Fantastic food. Fantastic price. And you can tell the workers put all they’ve got into making sure you’ve got a great meal, seriously.

Rating: 10

Review: I received Sandisk’s Sansa e280 portable mp3 player a couple of years ago, and aside from expected wear and tear and a couple of strange blips that rectified themselves, I’ve been pretty pleased with this portable’s performance over the past few years. It holds 8 gigabytes worth of music, video, and recorded audio, and has a built in FM tuner so that users can listen to the radio on the fly (providing that they have the player on them, of course). The player was called the Lil’ Monsta at time of release, and it really was a little monster at that time. iPods were still popular, but this little guy was showing power to trump the popularity. We see now that such a thing never happened, but the fact remains that this is a great little mp3 player.

The question most will ask is, are these better than iPods? I can’t answer that question. I’ve never owned an iPod, you see. But one idea that’s always turned me off about the iPod scene is the reliance on iTunes, a ridiculously clunky and money-milking program that’s more trouble than its worth. Steve Jobbs should be paying people to use iTunes, not the other way around. That’s how effective I personally think it is. Sansa’s Lil Monsta has no such issue, however: mp3s can be dragged and dropped in a folder to folder interface that anyone on a Windows machine will be familiar with. It’s really as simple as drag n drop, and waiting for the player to copy the music data over. No long firmware updates, and most importantly, it’s speedy. I call that portability not only physically, but electronically.

Nowadays I feel like I hardly have any space on this (80GB players are becoming the norm, it seems) but this lil monsta is plenty for me and it gets the job done. No need to blow tons of cash on Apple.

Rating: 9

Review: Thomas Hardy’s poem The Man He Killed follows one soldier’s brutal murder of another, and paints a portrait of war’s irony. Interestingly, the theme of the entire poem is somehow quaint with a twist of irony thrown in. One thematic statement is found throughout the poem: a message that people are always people, regardless of the side they choose in wars.

The title, “The Man He Killed”, is very straightforward and suits the context of the story. The speaker kills a man. The title could be interpreted to be from the author’s point of view (that is, the author’s reference to the narrator of the poem as “He”).

The poet’s use of caesura in the poem contributes greatly to the meaning of the poem. In places, the poet does not utilize caesura at all. This allows the meaning to be clearly presented in the poem. For example, in the first stanza, the lines that read “We should have sat us down to wet / Right a many nipperkin!” does not have any sort of pause between the lines. By doing this, Hardy illustrates the speaker as a character that does not hesitate to head to bars and enjoy himself. Later, when the narrator of the poem seeks reasons for why the enemy soldier enlisted in the war, caesuras are littered throughout the stanza. This is a vivid reflection of the narrator’s thought processes; he brings up the various possibilities in his mind for a short moment. Almost every stanza ends a certain train of thought and brings up a new one. This is also reflected by the caesuras that present themselves at the end of every stanza.

Rating: 7

Review: Writing this review on Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, more commonly known as Michelangelo the famous Renaissance painter. His works in the Sistine Chapel’s Ceiling have immortalized his ability as an artist and he no doubt inspires numerous people who walk into that building with the sheer power, magnitude, beauty, and respect-inducing qualities of the art in that area. It’s truly a riveting experience, one that every person who enjoys art should see. No, scratch that — absolutely everyone should see the Sistine Chapel’s breathtaking decor at some point, along with all of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s masterpieces. They’re truly living works of art, if ever there was art worthy of the term. It’s easy to take what he does for granted, but it’s clear that Michelangelo had a totally amazing skill.

For example, take his marble David statue. You really have to respect that Michelangelo took a giant slab of marble, mostly rough and devoid of any shape, and crafted it into a beautifully smooth and flowing portrait of a young man, capable of reflecting a timeless innocence with a previously unseen panache. This was especially riveting for the time period when he sculpted it, an age where artistic creativity was blinded in favor of generic sameness as long as the artist pay was good. In a sense, with the other classical artists Michelangelo brought back the power of creativity in art.

And he’s definitely worth remembering for something like that. As if his beautiful paintings weren’t enough.

Rating: 9

Review: Not only is McDonald’s far from a restaurant (fast food is a much better term) but the food is far from food. While I do eat at the place occasionally, I have to admit that I’m a picky eater and I only resort to the place if there’s virtually no other alternative. Sometimes I’d probably even choose starvation over a meal at McDonald’s.

I used to totally love the place, though. During the younger years, the appeal of a Happy Meal and the entire Ronald McDonald crew was enough to keep me happy. And how can one forget the free toys in every kid’s meal? I definitely couldn’t. There was one thing that such a thing did: veil the horrible quality of the food. I really don’t see how people can even fathom the thought of eating McDonald’s on a near-daily basis. After hearing of movies like Super Size Me that sing the horrible aspects of the joint, I’m really not surprised.

I often order a meal only to have the fries go stale if not eaten within the first ten minutes of serving, chicken is sometimes uncooked, the bread is like cardboard, etc. The list goes on, and on. McDonald’s is not food, in my opinion. I’d give it a 1, but I can stomach the food, at least. It’s edible, but that doesn’t mean you should eat it often.

Rating: 3

Review: Weck’s is a great restaurant that keeps up it’s namesake: “A Full Belly Tradition Since ‘91″. And what a tradition it is. As you can probably gather, this essentially means that they won’t let you leave unless you’ve got a full belly. No, they don’t check… Although I admit that having a Weck’s waitress do a full body check on the state of being “full” would be pretty interesting.

The simple truth is, every meal is heartily prepared with love. That means perfectly fresh ingredients without preservatives or any such nonsense. It’s pure food, and it’s prepared extremely well. Every meal will give you a plate full of food, mostly a mountain full of yummy goodness. And it will surely fill you up or be to your tastes, or the house will ensure that they find something that does meet your tastes. You can also feel free to be as specific as you’d like with your meal, and the cooks will no doubt prepare the meal to ensure your precise desires. Great service, to say the least.

One downside is that you may find yourself waiting for nearly 40 minutes to get seated at Weck’s - the low prices and mouth-watering food selection make it one of the most popular lunch spots in New Mexico. But if you’re near a location, the least you could do is try it out. Chances are the food will more than meet your expectations of taste.

Rating: 10