Mike’s Reviews

I was so excited to watch it the first time I saw the Bee Movie in movie trailers but I have to admit that after watching it, I am quite disappointed.  The graphics and animation was nicely presented but the storyline is not that good.

The storyline is more or less about a perfect society - in this case, the society inside a beehive.  Everything is just as they should be.  No traffic jams, everything is timed to the last second, everybody loves to work, and the entire hive is happy.  One bee however wishes to go out of the norm and so he did.  The movie was interesting enough to keep me awake but not enough to really impress me.   One thing I noticed though is that movie could be geared towards anti-racism.  Not sure though but the thought came to me when the main character referred angrily to the “white men”.

Perhaps my disappointment arose due to the fact that I enter the movie theater with my “child brain” - you see, the story is not really for kids but for adults but you can take the kids with you nonetheless.   One nice part was Bee Larry King and to that I did laugh.

I’ll give the movie a 3 out of 5 but I still recommend it for watching as it’s not really bad.  And oh, it’ll come out on DVD this March 2008.

When I watched the first National Treasure movie starred by Nicolas Cage, all I could say was that’s a lot of treasure. The first movie was focused on “building” a name for the Gates family but the second movie - National Treasure: The Book of Secrets - is geared towards saving that name. I won’t go into much detail as I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Ben Gates starred by Nicolas Cage gave a rather good performance and his sidekick Justin Bartha as Riley Poole was a perfect fit to the funny atmosphere that caught my attention and hooked me throughout the movie. Then there was Abigail Chase starred by Diane Kruger who added the ‘lovelife’ twist to the movie. This time, Ben’s father and mother are more involved in the treasure hunt as they do their best to save their family’s name.

The story line I believe is better than the first movie probably because it’s not just a mere treasure hunt and more of a family concern.

I give this movie a rating of 5 out of 5. Watch it. Bring the kids - it’s clean for them to watch.

Just watched “The Golden Compass” today and I find the movie pretty much interesting especially with the “chain letter preludes” that I got warning against watching it. The story is primarily a fantasy set in a parallel world very much like to our own. The main character - Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) is a child entrusted by her uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) to Jordan College.

I won’t give out much of the story as it may spoil the surprise and I’d rather just tell you my thoughts about the film.

The Golden Compass Merchandise

Controversies… an email has been circulating well before the movie was shown warning us that this movie is Atheism for kids. While it does look like it’s quite a bit anti-religion with the Magisterium quite reminiscent of the church, there is no mention of God or religion though similarities can be seen. Read more about the controversies here and here.

The characters did act quite well and the special effects were great though I would love to have seen Daniel Craig (Lord Asriel) and Nicole Kidman (Marisa Coulter) act more. Well of course I can’t blame them for focusing more on Lyra since the story revolves around her and her daemon.

Another thing of interest in the film is the Alethiometer, also known as The Golden Compass. Unlike other compasses, the Alethiometer doesn’t point to true north but seeks Truth itself. The idea of such a device is pretty much captivated me as I am somehow seeking for truth. I’d definitely love to have such a thing.

Lessons taught… the movie kind of teaches the viewers not to just “obey” the authorities but also learn to question them. The main characters in the movie are often those who want to do things their way while the “bad guys” are doing everything in their power to force the people to obey. While obedience is not a bad thing, I think “blind obedience” can be fatal - especially when we teach our children to just “obey without questioning”.

Then there also what they call daemons in the movie. A daemon is - according to the official website - a cross between a bestfriend and a soul. Every person in in the movie has a daemon but the Magisterium doesn’t want that so they do some nasty stuff - things unimaginable in Lyra’s world. I checked their website for info and found out that I can “know my daemon” by answering a series of questions and here she is…

A daemon basically reflects the true personality of its partner and losing one is like losing one’s soul.

So how did the movie go? All in all it was great and deserves to be watched. Take the entire family with you and watch. I’ll give it a 4 out of 5 for a good story, nice acting and amazing effects. Why 4 instead of 5? Well I was actually hoping it to be as brave as how Philip Pullman wrote it.

Hi folks.  After some time thinking of what I should write I decided to write reviews of people’s blogs.  This would effectively be my first non-paid website review so expect it to be as honest as possible.

Today’s blog - Benj’s Busy Blog by Benj Arriola

Site design: This blog uses Wordpress and it’s template is reminiscent of Wordpress default theme which is based on the famous Kubrick theme.  One thing that I like about Benj’s custom theme is the changing header graphic image.  Try refreshing the page and you get a different header graphic image - all of which are shot by Benj himself.

Blog content: Since this is primarily a personal blog, I expect it to be well, about Benj’s personal experiences.  The content is more or less consistent with his blog’s theme and while it is not updated often (typical of a personal blog), it does contain interesting stuff.

One more thing I like about how he writes is that he makes it a point to include photos in his blog posts as much as possible to get rid of what he calls the “great wall of text” blog posts wherein all you see are paragraphs and more paragraphs.  The photos he includes in his blog posts kinds of breaks the wall.

Ad placement: Ad placements on Benj’s Busy Blog are quite well.  He puts a banner above the posts and a skyscraper on the sidebar - 2 skyscrapers in the homepage and 1 in internal (actual blog post) pages.  When you click a blog post, you will also see another 468×60 ad at the end of the post which I think is good.  However I think it would be better if he placed a medium rectangle adsense ad their instead of the 468×60.  That way, the ads will look more like “other links” and thus possibly increase clickthrough rates.

All in all, the blog looks great and is worth reading and I give it a score of 4 out of 5.

It’s been years since I first watched Schindler’s List and now, having the opportunity to watch it again, I gave it another go and one can never make a mistake in saying that this film is great and life-changing.  I was only 16 when I originally saw this movie and I have to say that it changed my perception of what a good movie is.

Schindler’s List is a film about heroism with an unlikely hero at its center - Catholic war profiteer Oskar Schindler starred by Liam Neeson, who risked his life and went bankrupt to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps back in World War II Germany.  Mr. Schindler or “Head Direktor” as his Jewish employees call him started out with very little money and a great idea in mind.  He wanted to make money but ended up making more than what he first envisioned.  He wasn’t a model person but ended up being declared as a righteous man by the Jews.  He thought of only himself at start but eventually learned to think about others - hundreds of them.

More than the good film and the perfect story, I would say that the best part in Schindler’s List is that it touched my life.  It may made start thinking more than just myself.  It shows a world where “others” exist and gave me a sense of responsibility in every action that I do.

Schindler’s List is the perfect drama I’ve watched so far.  If you don’t have a copy of this film, I would strongly recommend that you get one.

It’s very seldom that I find good websites that talk about credits, loans, and mortgages. Either I come across a spammy looking website that’s filled with all these endless sales pitches or I walk into a website that’s full with nothing but ads and referral links going to websites offering credit-related services.

However today, everything changed. ReviewMe asked me to review (paid) a website called “Credit Demystified” and at first glance I thought - nah, I don’t want to review this - but I took a look at the website anyway. Visiting the website changed my mood. This website is not just trying to sell. It’s actually trying to help more than to sell so I went on and wrote a review for it and here is it.

Site Design: Awesome and professional. The colors match perfectly and the entire look of the site tells me that they’re serious and they know their stuff very well. It’s definitely not a cheap design. Navigation is easy, in fact it’s so easy that I found the information I wanted almost immediately.

Better than the design, let’s talk about Credit Demystified’s content.

Site Content: This is actually what blowed my mind. Their website is just full of very helpful and very relevant content. They have articles on Improving Your Credit, a section called Credit Learning Center, a Credit Quotient Quiz, and even an online Library of very helpful information. While I know that this website is made to make money, all these information quickly tells me that these guys are interested in not just making sales but also in and actually more on building a good relationship with their website’s visitors.

It’s a website that I would recommend to bookmark and refer since it is a place that I would come back to when I need to demystify something about credits. If all the information on their website is still not enough to answer your question, then you can always all them via a 1-800 number prominently and smartly placed on their webite.

Finally, I decided to take a look at their About Us section and what it says there verified my feelings. Let me quote one paragraph from their website:

CreditDemystified is proudly presented by Countrywide Home Loans. The goal of CreditDemystified is to educate and inform anyone interested in credit or credit-related topics.

Emphasis Mine

There you go! It’s there goal to educate and inform and that’s what I got. Also, since it mentioned that the website is a project of Countrywide Home Loans, I decided to check www.countrywide.com too and guess what? Even the website of Countrywide Home Loans gave me the feeling of professionalism and trust but that’s a different story for a different time.

To summarize, all I can say is that this website rocks and I’ve never seen a credit-related website rock more than this - no fuss about that. It’s definitely a 5 over 5 for me.

This is a sponsored post:

Everybody wants discounts. My mom, my wife, my grandma, and yes even myself - we all want discounts. In this fast moving online world that we call the internet a.k.a. the worldwide web, one of the best ways to get a discount is via coupons.  I see coupons being given away almost in every corner of the web but one of the places to find it is at 100 Big Coupons.

So is this website a good place to get coupons? Well, here’s what I can say…

Site Design

The site is simple - no eyecandy. Is that bad or good? Well, for a site that gives away information, it is often good to give visitors the information they want in an easily accessible manner. 100 Big Coupons have a nicely placed left sidebar listing Top Stores in alphabetical order. The right sidebar on the other hand lists coupon sources by category making it easy to find information either by store name or by category.

The Service

As a website that gives away coupons, 100 Big Coupons does it well. Clicking a store either from the left sidebar or by browsing through the categories will take to a webpage with a listing of all available coupons for give away.  Selecting a coupon will show you the coupon code and open the merchants website on a separate window (merchant window popup works well for Internet Explorer but the popup is being blocked by Firefox - I’m sure they’ll get this fixed soon).

One nice part about 100 Big Coupons is what they themselves said:

We offer coupons for all the major online stores to help people save money while still getting what they want. The service is free to use for anyone who wishes and requires no registration or personal information.

To that I agree, I’ve tried it and it’s for real - the coupons are free and no registration is required by 100 Big Coupons. Cool and neat. Other coupon websites would require you for personal information before they give you the coupons but with 100 Big Coupons, it’s straight to the coupon code.

So, if you’re looking for a site that gives away free coupons so you can save then 100 Big Coupons is one of the best places I’ve found thus far. They simply give what people are looking for in a fast, and convenient manner.

I give this site a 4 out of 5 for their nice service and easy to use website.

Coupon Codes Mall Forget About 100 BIG Coupons and Get Quality & Working Coupons For Your Favorite Online Store. Coupon Codes Mall is an A Coupon Service.

Note: This is a paid review.

I’m no hardcore gambler but I do play games of chance once in a while. Sometimes offline, sometimes online. Anyway, this time, I was asked to review a website that talks about Craps Gambling. For those who don’t know what craps is, it’s basically a casino dice game and believe it or not, dice games have been around for thousands of years already - way before the days of the cards.

Enter The Craps Gambling Guide…

Craps Hero (www.crapshere.com) is a website that talks about the hows of craps gambling and as I see it, they’re pretty good at telling people how to play craps. The website itself is simple to navigate and amazingly clean for a gambling related website. When I say clean, I’m simply referring to the fact that you don’t see advertisements all over the page. The ads they have are nicely arranged on the sidebar and the footer - well away from the article that you’re reading but still noticeable.

The guides they offer are easy to read and simple to follow - it’s no rocket science - and they do appear to know exactly what they’re talking about. As a matter of fact, a quick scan of their guide made me think that I already know the game though I never had any experience playing it before. The guide itself is sliced into manageable sections (pages) which a typical human being can easily find on the sidebar.

The bad side… Well, every good review has to have something negative to say about the website and this Craps Hero is not exempted at all. Though their content is good and their website is free, it does appear dull to the eye. The colors are plain and the website appears to have been created by some automated software or written by a newbie. Perhaps a little styling would help to make the website look more professional.

All in all, the website - looks and content - still falls fairly above that BS filter in my head.

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Ever since I started blogging, I’ve always thought of means and ways of monetizing my blog - at least to pay for itself. In my quest to find different monetization schemes, I came across many different methods including PPC, Affiliate Marketing, Paid blogging and a few more. I do believe that more ways to make money out of blogs will come and guess what, I was not wrong.

In one of the many mailing lists that I subscribe to, someone started posting about ReviewMe. They’re pretty different from the others that I’ve tried in that it pays for each review made. It may look like paid blogging but it is not since publishers are required to write a review and not just blog about something. Best of all, the pay is good - publishers like me get 50% of what they earn.

ReviewMe, like most other monetization schemes is a double-edged sword in that it provides quality service to both advertisers and publishers. Advertisers specify the rules and if a publishers takes the opportunity, the advertiser would surely get a good review of their product plus a highly contextual link to their website. End result is that advertisers get 3 benefits - a review for their product, a contextual inbound link, and of course exposure.

On the other hand, publishers are cared for as much as the advertisers. Publishers have the option to choose what to review but of course, the best part is the payout. After all, publishers do their thing for one main reason - to earn. In fact I’m already making money out of this post since this is a paid review. Not bad ei?
So, what do I think about ReviewMe? It may be relatively new but it has force strong enough to gather the attention of both advertisers and publishers. I’m personally glad that I found out about them.