Before you read this review on The Invasion, read my review on Invasion by Dr. Robin Cook. Note the number of stars that Dr. Cook’s book received. Then come back here and take a guess what this movie will receive.

“But!” you may argue, “this is a movie with Nicole Kidman! And totally different.” Poppycock, I say.

This, like Invasion, was a bad adaptation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which in its time was an outstanding shock sci-fi film. Trying to make it more modern, whether you use modern medicine or Nicole Kidman, is an exercise in futility.

The movie also gets the “yuck” factor going, with the preferred method of passing the alien lifeform from host to host being vomit. Yes, vomit. In drinks, in many cases.

There were some interesting points, such as the scene with the person falling from the roof. Those who cried out were seen as normal humans. Those who showed no emotions were obviously part of the hive of vomit spewing infected.

But, just like Invasion by Dr. Robin Cook, the movie ends so abruptly it’s silly. Suddenly a cure is found, it’s spread all over by the world, and everyone smiles and forgets about the dead in the streets, the vomit they drank, etc.

Fin.

Oh my goodness. Do you know what I got when I got my new Betz White book? Warm Fuzzies; both metaphorically, because this book is the best, and literally. Warm Fuzzies is one of the coolest new books I have seen (other than Crafter Culture of course). First of all, Betz White is a really cool chick. You should surely check out her blog, of which I regularly stalk along with my early morning coffee and blog-reading ritual. She is witty, up-beat, and eternally carefree as she moves along in her busy life of kids, business, and artfulness. To prove how artful this book is, I have even thought about our other wonderful critics, and thought I might offer some of you some inspiration to find peace and get crafty through the world of feltyness:

• Granola girl - You will be happy to know that these projects are encouraged to come from recycled materials, such as old wool sweaters. What better way to help the cause of clean food than to reduce waste?
• Womanyst - The basic instructions on felt constructions could surely be applied to a nice felted set of ovaries or other female-specific genitalia
• Mr. Kriticle - I think you would be pleased by the organized implementation of each project.
• Tech nerd - You would just love the possibilities of many tech gadget cozies made of felt. LOL, LMAO, TTYL.
• Mad Critic - Hmmm…there is something very sinisterly pleasing about my mental pictures of you meticulously hand-sewing a bed for your beloved Westminster acclaimed canine, while subsequently cussing at your thread in Latin.
• Pornstar - Every great girl needs a great bag, you should try one of the adorable totes. Take a little time out for yourself and sew.

I plan on making one of the super-easy pins first to get used to the felt technique, and you just know I’ll have to make a cute bag for my little girl next. In fact, instead of using a sewing machine, most of the projects are diverse enough that you could hand sew instead of using the machine and let the kiddies get in there to make their very own hat, gloves, or purse. This F+W publisher isn’t too bad either. After doing some digging on publishing a craft book (wouldn’t this be the ultimate for an artist? A girl can dream…), I found some of their other books. Here are a few that caught my eye:

• The Art of Personal Imagery: Expressing Your Life Through Collage - After all, the whole point of art is to have time to look within and be uninhibited in expression
• Nuno Nouveau: Fashionable Felt for Accessories and Home Decor – Though I haven’t gotten my hands on it yet, I hear Nuno felt is the cool new fiber art. I first heard about it on one of the first blogs that I stalked, Heal My Life. The author of this blog used these techniques to make awesome bags, but I have seen beautiful scarves and such too!
• Kaleidoscope: Ideas And Projects to Spark Your Creativity – Another one I have seen on several crafty-art blogs! Great price, and another way to delve into the artful person who resides inside of you.

What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers is is a book by Amy Sutherland that has been getting much attention in reading circles full of witty, cute-as-a-button womyn (who are afraid of smart people like me) lately. It teaches you to train your husband to do things around the house by using techniques common in animal training. This paragraph was to show Mr. Kriticle that I can be somewhat kind. The rest is for the other readers:

OK. OK. OK. I’m trying to tell myself What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage is at least better than books on good house-keeping. All psych students know the old trick where you can get a professor to move by having everyone look at the place you want them to go, which is all well and fun, but do you really need this kind of effort to get your spouse to move? If you have to stare at the kitchen for hours in your already droning life to get your husband wash a few ceramics, you need to call a lawyer. While I agree men are comparable to rats and canines, please tell me why womyn need to spend their lives finding out how to get them to do tricks. Despite the satisfaction some pop-tart soccer mommy might have when her husband actually talks to her like a human being instead of one of the children, you are still deciding to surround your life around his brainlessness.

What’s saddest about What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage is that it only adds to the asinine concept that women have to spend money, bow down all day, and get off all night to get men to do what they are better off doing themselves (and that includes all three tasks dears). Here’s an example that is so generously offered by a review in Newsweek: “If your mate picks up just one dirty sock without being asked, give lots of praise.” Do I really need to comment on this? For those of you desperate procreators who think this is insightful, read it again. Read it slowly this time. Now read it one more time. Now you have two options:

1. Realize that you should never feel compelled to praise someone for something they should do out of respect, responsibility, or cleanliness
2. Stab your self in the eye because you think you should have to reward a male for doing something you do all day.

The article cites BF Skinner and other classic conditioning psychological researchers for this, guess what I call it? Growing up. Now, lets all agree that showing tits and kissing ass is not a broad’s only natural talents, and encourage womyn to instead get a backbone and kick ass until they get what they deserve because we’re not only entitled, but also superior. Want more? “Don’t take it personally: Laundry is just laundry, not a symbol for how much your spouse loves you or values your marriage.” Then it shouldn’t be a problem for your beer guzzling, idiotic husband to get off his ass and do it himself.

Conclusions: Sutherland is a conspirator with a penis and a wife who defied him by cutting her hair without permission. I’ll give it 2 and a half stars only because it compares men to animals.

So if you are now a one-eyed subordinate, empower yourself with The Daring Book for Girls and trick yourself, once again, into thinking you are free. Or, for those of you who are smart enough to know that confining yourself to pleasing a male for the rest of your life, get The Daring Book for Girls and The Dangerous Book for Boys and learn how to be self-sufficient. Either way, after you’ve read these, take your DIY to a new level and try Getting Off: A Woman’s Guide to Masturbation to fully realize a girl can be perfectly happy without an X chromosome in their life.

Putting It All Together: The New Orthomolecular Nutrition by Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph. D & Morton Walker, D.P.M. is an excellent book that brings the reader’s attention to how damaging the effects of a poor diet can not only be to the body, but also to the brain and psyche of a person. Most people are ignorant to what food allergies are and how they can adversely affect a person. This book details greatly the effect on junk food and allergens (mainly sugar) on the brain of an individual. Depression, neurosis, schizophrenia, etc.. are all addressed in the book and how orthomolecular practitioners are using nutrition and vitamin/mineral therapy to solve the imbalances of patients. This book is a must for anyone who is interested in how to heal yourself and others of dis-ease!

I do want to make a note though about being careful with some of the advice about vitamins you may read. This book mentions that vitamins are pretty safe at doses way higher than the RDA. This is true for the most part. However, it would be very wise to be in the hands of a trained professional if you wanted to try extreme mega-dosing of different vitamins. Though rare, vitamin toxicity has occurred and can adversely affect the liver. Also, vitamins and minerals work in groups. A megadose of one type of vitamin, can imbalance another vitamin/mineral in the body. Lastly, you also have to take care to get the right vitamins; the ones sold at your neighborhood Food Lion probably have as many chemicals and toxins as a processed TV dinner. That being said, vitamin therapy is much safer than jumping on the newest pharmaceutical drug, because that is guaranteed to cause liver toxicity and side effects!

If you enjoy this sort of book and learning more about how the human body really works, you may also be interested in The Ultimate Healing System: The Illustrated Guide to Muscle Testing & Nutrition.

Readers rejoice, you finally get to put this series to a close. The Sword of Truth series has stretched over a collection of 11 books, some short, some long, some biblical. Throughout the entire series, Terry Goodkind has been more than happy to regale the reader with all his views on life, politics, religion, and anything else about which he feels strongly. As another reviewer mentions, Terry Goodkind has become very preachy. He has designed his main character, Richard Rahl, to be a moral and political powerhouse as well as a powerful and confident fighter. I imagine Richard Rahl to look something like Terry Goodkind, who you can see on the back of his books: a stony-faced strongman who could probably roundhouse Chuck Norris at least once or twice.

In Confessor, the series comes together, culminating in the not-so-epic final battle between Emporer Jagang, Richard Rahl, the Sisters of the Light, Sisters of the Dark, and the Mord Sith (women in red leather that love to cause pain). But we will get to the ending in a bit.

Most of the book is a play by play of Richard Rahl doing one of two things: trying to make eye contact with his wife Kahlan, and trying to win at Ja’La (a game like football but bloodier and more complex). His supporters run all over trying to find him, keep the People’s Palace safe, and unravel a Chainfire spell that has taken everyone’s memory of Richard’s wife away, including her own. As usual there are pages and pages of pseudo-scientific reasoning behind very plot-friendly spells and people saying “Dear spirits” as they solve a problem that no reader ever could have figured out on their own. Back in the early days of this series, the “Dear spirits” would usually come from the main character as he solved the book’s problem, making the world a great place once again until the next issue was released; however, all the tangled plot lines of the previous books now have to be cleaned up in a single book with Richard busy playing games, and therefore the other characters must be part of the problem solving team.

I will say that the imagery behind the Ja’la games was well done. I found myself cheering for Richard’s team kind of like I cheer for a historical movie: I know who’s going to win, and I know how they’ll win, but it’s exciting all the same.

Finally, the book ends. Everyone gets into the same room and Richard once again tricks the bad guy, just like in the first book. His ploy makes him something of a God, where he creates a world of Christians to carry on with their horrible and intolerant ways while he makes his world a magical paradise. Not terribly original, and somewhat quick in coming after an entire book that in no way leads up to this scenario, but still interesting in that “what if we all came from another world that is a magical paradise” sort of way.