This is a sponsored post from Best Buy, all thoughts are our own. Being the dad to two boys we know a little about drones. They’re the toys we always wanted when we were a kid, but the technology just wasn’t there yet. We used to go to the park where the hobbyists were flying their airplanes. A couple of kids were out there, but mainly it was the dads or those much older kids. Drones have changed that perception to where there are competitions, apps designed just for them and social platforms where you can share ideas or locations. The DJI Global Mavic Mini is a drone that’s priced for the hobbyist, yet has the professional features that have previously only been on high end models.
Hitting DVD on November 5 is Fast & Furious Presents:
Hobbs & Shaw. This brings fan favorites from Fast & Furious, Hobbs, the
take-no-guff policeman and Deckard Shaw, the best baddie in the series, and puts
them in their own film. In Hobbs & Shaw they’re forced to team up to take
down a cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist Brixton Lorr, played by Idris Elba.
As if the cast couldn’t get any cooler, toss in Vanessa Kirby who plays Shaw’s
sister. You’ll recognize Kirby from Mission Impossible: Fallout and The Crown.
She steals scenes in everything she’s in.
Hobbs & Shaw is rated PG-13 for prolonged action
sequences, suggestive material and some strong language. If you’re looking for
a fast paced, action film that delivers on what you think it should this is it.
It’s got an 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes and an “A-“ on CinemaScore. Bonus:
this combo pack of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw has 80 minutes
of never-before-seen bonus content, an alternate ending, making-of, bloopers
and more.
We’re giving away five (5) copies of Blu-Ray DVD Combo Packs of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. This giveaway will end Saturday, November 9 at 7PM. To register to win, just leave a comment here in the post or RT this:
Graphic novels are meant to be entertaining and are incapable of being educational. Granted readers might gleam something from the art and the book’s cultural relevance, but on the whole, it’s for fun. It’s OK if you have thought that. Education and entertainment sometimes don’t mix. That’s why the best teachers, the ones that you still remember from middle school managed to entertain you while they were teaching you. They lower your defenses and then –BAM, start the soft messaging of teaching you something. Science Comics: Cats is like that and for middle school readers and up who want to learn about animals that will leave you feline fine keep on reading.
One expects excellence from a Cirque du Soleil show. It’s as
high as one can get in the world of acrobatics and performance. It’s a brand
unto itself, all you have to do is say you’re going to a Cirque show and you
have an idea of what to expect. That fact is completely put in its head in
Volta. It starts out similar to other shows, where a loosely constructed story
is laid out. However, even as you’re watching the first act, which was a team
of people jumping rope; it’s obvious that Volta has an energy that you haven’t seen
in a Cirque du Soleil show in a while. For me it was evident that the
performers were having fun. Sure they were jumping rope and doing Double Dutch,
moving as quickly as touching the ground seven times in one second. They were doing that; but the performers were
grinning from ear to ear, high-fiving one another and utterly enjoying
themselves.
In a parallel universe Joker is an indie film that was shot in the backwoods of Norway. The film is a serious approach to mental illness, gorgeously shot, with a bleak and powerful soundtrack that matches its visuals. It’s also masterfully acted and doesn’t pull any punches. The art house crowd loves every minute of the film and singing its praises. While the mainstream audience is appreciating the film, but it’s not breaking records. Joker is like that description, for the most part, except in reverse.
Joker is a drama for those 18 and up. It fully presents itself as a story in which we’re watching a mentally troubled character whose life is one step away from imploding. Arthur Fleck is bullied, beaten up, delusional and suffers from a form of Tourette Syndrome that causes him to laugh at inappropriate times. The film paints a world that we wouldn’t knowingly want to live in, yet also mirrors the one that we currently live in.
This week in all age comic books you’ll notice that the
demographic is noticeably younger. Some
weeks it just happens that way for elementary school readers and this week has
a number of things for those ages including Mr. Wolf’s Class: Lucky Stars,
Hilda and the Mountain King, Pokemon: Sun & Moon and The Baby-Sitters Club
with Boy-Crazy Stacy. For those upper elementary kids and older check out Star
Wars Jedi Academy Volume #8, Amazing Spider-Man #29, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl
#48 and more. For a complete list of this week’s all age comic books just
scroll down. The rating system is quite easy to follow and the books will be
appropriate for those ages. Whether or not they will like the individual reader
will like it is up them, but it’s something that’s age appropriate.
This is a sponsored post. All thoughts are our own. We have a family friend who just went off to college. Aside from making me feel old at dirt I was amazed at the fact that they were going to college without a car. Color me surprised to find out that many college age students (and older) don’t think twice about not having a car. Part of that reason is due to the popularity of people using scooters as a supplemental mode of transportation. Color me even more surprised to find out that scooters are priced to, pardon the pun, move. Parents, the annoying scooters at busy intersection do not need to be your student’s de facto way home. Students, you can own a scooter that’s 100% owned by you and not some other yee haw who walks the same way home. Case in point is the Hover-1 Electric Folding Scooter that you can purchase from Best Buy.
The Hover-1 Electric Scooter is a personal mode of transportation that is affordable, yours and utterly unique.
The Hover-1 Electric Folding Scooter get’s it going
The Hover-1 Electric Folding Scooter checks off every imaginable want, need or concern for people who need a ride around campus or the neighborhood; as well as, those older people who are concerned about safety.
For those taking the
Hover-1 around campus this scooter can make a round trip journey at an 8-mile
school. You don’t have to be Eminem to realize that’s a long way to travel 16
miles without needing to re-charge your wheels.
As I go back in the time
machine I think to my college campus and there were paths galore and hills
aplenty. This scooter could easily get through all of those areas and do so in
a quicker and cooler way than my bike back then. The bike I had then weighed
about 40 bulky pounds. If I had a flat or otherwise couldn’t ride it home I’d
be at the mercy of my friends with a truck.
The Hover-1 folds up within seconds and weighing in at 27 pounds can easily be transported by most people to their dorm, apartment, class or the three steps up to the first floor. This is a light, portable form of short-range transportation that you can own and your friends will be jealous of.
If you’re late for
something the Hover-1 has enough get-up-and-go to move you there poste haste. It
can move at 14 MPH and that’ll get you across campus or down the street quicker
than you can say “What do you mean I have to pay my own phone bill?”
It also brakes with ease
because it has electronic and foot brakes. Parents, this one is for you so that
you don’t worry about your distracted young adult who is looking at cute coeds.
Students, two methods of brakes mean that you are much less likely to take that
unfortunate tumble in the corner when the leaves are wet. This is a win-win
situation.
The Hover-1 Electric Folding Scooter can be purchased at Best Buy. This is a mode of transportation that’ll give parent’s piece of mind and students the ability to get around campus on their own terms.
I love chocolate. I also love my family. Grandpa Cacao by Elizabeth Zunon is the story about a grandfather who she never knew. He grew up harvesting cocoa beans in West Africa and she grew up in Albany, New York. It starts off with her dad making a chocolate cake while mom is running an errand. There are lots of things in the book for some people to love, but as a book with broad appeal Grandpa Cacao falls short, despite its obvious good intentions.
The book shows her grandfather scooping out cacao beans,
drying them out and then smashing them into the chocolaty extract that kids everywhere
love.
As an illustrated book with an emphasis on art, Grandpa Cacao succeeds wildly. The images are layered with collages, paintings and silk screening techniques. The pages have more in common with an art gallery then some children will be accustomed to. As an exercise in art appreciation that is great, however, the result as an illustrated book-which is what this is, is something different.
The mixed media pages clash together in some instance which
caused the story to become secondary. Granted, we love some children’s books
where the art or the presentation overtakes the story. But here it’s different
because it’s obvious that the story means so much to the author.
The other reason that the book felt jarring is because there is too much text. The book’s full title, Grandpa Cacao, A Tale of Chocolate, From Farm To Family gives a glimpse into the scale it’s attempting. The pages have too much text for the book to be a true “children’s book” in the sense that you read it to them. Most parents would check out halfway through the book if they’re reading it to a small child and the small children wouldn’t be too far behind.
Likewise, the vocabulary in the book is too advanced for young readers who might be drawn in by the cool visuals. The result is a well intended book that’s too artsy for older kids and too wordy for younger kids. Chocolate is great and there’s a cool children’s book out there to tell about how it’s farmed, but this isn’t it for most readers.
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