Reviews and Ranking Lists!

Here are some great reviews of some things which were reviewed by me! I thought I'd offer these reviews for the betterment of all humanity, but then I realized that their beneficial nature might be somewhat in question. At any rate, If you are looking for a review of something, check here, and see if I've reviewed it! Here you will also find some nifty ranking lists, listing ranked things, almost always in order, too! (Note the really bad chiasmus attempt in the previous sentence). These go far beyond the cliche "top ten" style of list, and straightaway to substantive arbitrary ratings!

Soda Pop Ranking List

Sunkist Sparkling Lemonade
Mr. Pibb (put it in your head!)
Mountain Dew
Ginger Ale (any brand)
Squirt
Citra
Dr. Pepper
Coca-Cola Classic
Sprite
Royal Crown Cola
7-up
Barques
A&W Rootbeer
A&W Cream Soda
Fresca
Pepsi
Slice
Dr. Slice
Orange Soda (all brands)
Strawberry Soda (all brands)
Grape Soda (all brands)
Storm
Surge
Any flavored soda not mentioned above (ie. pineapple)

CD Review - Overtures, The Greatest Hits

Overtures, The Greatest Hits, produced by Intersound's Reference Gold series, gives you two CD's chock full o' all the overtures you could possibly want!

Track List

Disc One
#	Composer	Overture	Duration
1	Suppe'	Light Cavalry	6:41
2	Rossini	The Barber of Seville	7:41
3	Smetana	The Bartered Bride	6:21
4	Wagner	The Flying Duchman	10:32
5	Beethoven	Egmont	8:18
6	Mozart	The Marriage of Figaro	4:15
7	Suppe'	Poet and Peasant	9:35
8	Tchaikovsky	1812	14:35

Disc Two
#	Composer	Overture	Duration
1	Wagner	The Mastersingers of Nuremberg	9:50
2	Rossini	William Tell	12:50
3	Rossini	The Italian Woman in Algiers	7:54
4	Glinka	Russlan and Ludmilla	5:32
5	Nicolai	The Merry Wives of Windsor	8:48
6	Mendelssohn	The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave)	9:40
7	Strauss Jr.	Die Fledermaus	8:10
8	Offenbach	Orpheus in the Underworld	10:12

Despite finding this in a bargain bin for $4, the sound and performance quality on this CD set is quite good, although at times there are quiet spots which are practically impossible to hear without adjusting the volume. As an added bonus, all of the tracks are recorded in all-digital Surround Sound, allowing you the opportunity to put your expensive stereo equipment to work and immerse yourself in over 140 minutes of overtures.

As you can see by the track list, this CD set contains all of the great overtures you always thought you might want to have around, but at a reasonable price. You could literally buy a dozen classical albums and not get all of the great overtures in this one collection. With this CD set you can now re-create all of your favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon scenes, as well as flail your arms around in a mad attempt to "conduct" your own orchestra!

All in all, I have to say that "Overtures, The Greatest Hits" is the best collection of standard overtures I have ever seen. Definately worth spending the rest of your life scowering the bargain bins and second-hand stores for (but only if you're a compulsive neurotic). On a scale from 1 to 10, I'd give it an odd number.

All-time greatest food ingredients

Glycerol Ester of Wood Rosin (squirt, sunkist lemonade)
Brominated Vegetable Oil (mountain dew)
Guar Gum (assorted)
Yellow #5 (assorted)
Red 40 (assorted)
Flavoring (assorted)
Vodka (Vodka)

Best Directions

That-a-way!
South
Southwest
West
East
Northwest
Up
East
Northeast
Southeast
North
Down

Game review - Dune 2000

Let me first state that I am a big fan of the game Dune II, which the new Westwood Studios Dune 2000 is based on. Dune 2 is one of two games I got hooked on in college such that I ended up scrounging around and buying used copies of the Amiga version so I could play them on my own machine (and hence all the time). The other game, which still can captivate me for hours on end, is the original Civilization. For those of you not familiar with Dune 2, it is a real-time action/strategy game based on the Dune books and movies (more or less) where you choose to be a member of one of 3 houses and must harvest the spice melange as well as beat up the other houses from time to time.

With that said, there is really not a lot new to Dune 2000. Sure, the graphics have been spruced up a little (sometimes this is not an improvement, as it is not as easy to tell if you have enough concrete down to fit a new structure on as it was in the old version). There is also cd-audio, and a liberal scattering of full-screen video between missions. It seems that you have to put videos in your games nowadays or it isn't "modern." At any rate, the videos are of the mentat speaking about your next mission, which you can then read all about after you get sick of the video and skip it.

Game-play is exactly the same as in Dune 2: you build windtraps and spice refineries, harvest spice, and try to defend your position from the other houses. In some instances I've found the Dune 2000 interface to be less intuitive, or at least, less functional than its predicessor. It seems that I have a hard time selecting a unit to move, and often end up moving the same unit back and forth when I'm trying to move en masse.

Now, you may be wondering why you should pay $35 or more for Dune 2000 when you can get the original Dune 2 for $10 on the bargain rack anymore. Good question. If you're a casual gamer, save your $20 for a good bottle of vodka and get Dune 2. For the "serious" gamer, Dune 2000 supposedly adds some new scenarios, and some new units, but I have not progressed that far. The main, big new feature to Dune 2000 is multiplayer mode. I have yet to try this out, but I can't imagine it is any different than other similar games. Dune 2000 supports modem/null modem, Internet on their own custom servers (I guess) and IPX LAN. I take off a mark for not including TCP/IP LAN, or some mention of how to serve an Internet game, because I'll have to add IPX protocol on my LAN at home in order to multi-play. Multiplayer mode adds the only new unit I can see in the manual, and that is the "thumper" whose sole purpose is to make noise and attract sand worms.

I'll try to update this when I get a chance to play the multi-player modes, but until then, unless you are a real fan of Dune and want the multiplayer ability, I'd save your money. There is a long list of other games you'd be better off buying before Dune 2000, especially since you can find the original Dune 2 in the bargain bin.
(Note: I have never seen or played the original Dune game that Dune 2 was the sequel to, but I've heard it wasn't very good)

Review: Finlandia Vodka

Finlandia Vodka is a grain vodka made in, of all places, Finland. It's one of those not bargain cheap but not all that expensive medium-grade sort of vodkas. It comes in a pretty chiseld clear glass bottle reminicent of ice from Finland! When you first start drinking it, it seems to have a somewhat sharp taste to it. As you work your way down the bottle past the neck you grow rather fond of that taste and realize that you probably wouldn't want to ruin this fine taste by mixing Finlandia vodka with anything like sour mix or tonic or something lame like that. Once you've had half a bottle of fabulous Finlandia finnish vodka you realize that it really makes your writing skills flourish and your reading comprehension level starts going up in Word because you start writing really long sentences and use words like sinosoidal and verisimilitude. bye teh time you finnish the finnish finland vodka you are really happy. and that's really all you want from finnish vodka is to be happy. well, that and to be rich. finlandia finnish vodka that you finish won't make you rich. i guess finlandia finnish vodka really sucks because of that. that and the part where you pass out in the bathroom.
so for REALLY good finnish vodka that won't make you rich and isn't really expansive but not cheap either drink finlandia finnish vodka.