This is one of my favorite Spyro Gyra tunes, if not the favorite (yes, I'm still a sucker for that classic 1970s AM pop "Morning Dance"). I note that the Amazon snippet available here unfortunately does not accurately represent this song. The sample features the opening percussion riffs, the drums and conga battle (with ample cowbell) that sets the tone for the rest of the song, and essentially supplies the title. After close to a minute, the rest of the band comes in with a number of bars of guitar- and bass-heavy opening, sliding into Beckenstein's signature SG sound. By midway the song has slowed down into a simple and catchy funk, and then slows even more for a very mellow bridge/solo from Beckenstein, that picks funkily back up, gaining momentum as it winds into the final minutes. What makes this song for me, what keeps me playing it week after week for the 20-odd years I've had this album, is that magical moment, just a few seconds, actually, coming at 6:48 when after a couple of funky breaks--with the crowd wonderfully in time and vocal--the whole band comes together and in slides that fuzzed-out guitar solo, with the bass pumping and popping, everything coming together perfectly as the band makes musical magic. I'm seeing west coast sunsets, blue skies, colors, all things good and perfect. Highly recommend.

It's just now dawned on me the brilliance of the Erotic Alphabet series. Twenty-six books at an average cost of $12.00 per book . . . that's gonna be $312 by the time I'm done with all these . . . which I likely will do. Very well played, Cleis Press.

You get 13 stories in 130 pages, all in the standard Erotic Alphabet 5" x 7" package.

Okay, I finished B Is for Bondage a while back, and was looking forward to this one; yeah, yeah, I did C last year, and am only now coming around to getting on letter-track. B didn't do too much for me, and I was hoping this one, with a theme right up my alley, would really take off.

But no, it just didn't. There were a few stories that hit my expected mark, but overall it didn't get there.

Yeah, I get that "dress-up" is a very broad topic, as editor Tyler explains in her intro. I anticipated some wide-ranging content, maybe even adult baby, plushie, or maybe even some imaginative cosplay. Nope, none of that, none at all. Those aren't thrills for me anyhoo, but I was left scratching my head over how that kind of content doesn't make it into an erotica collection centered on dressing up. Cross-dressing? Yeah, you've got that, one with BDSM to boot.

What was I looking for? Well, the basics of sexy dress-up, really, some frilly and expensive and totally ridiculously small lingerie, a sexy outfit with a deliberate erotic surprise resting beneath, like unwrapping the greatest present ever. A couple of the stories got close, and one did very well, but the others, not so much.

The opener was pretty good, about a horny haberdasher trying to figure out the perfect outfit to put on for her lucky target. The second was a pretty straightforward tale of a club hookup, but was more about the interpersonal dynamics than about outfit. "Dorothy for a Day" was a total winner, a wife knowing exactly what works for her man, and planning and executing a magnificent surprise dress-up for his benefit. Following was "French Cut," about a serious fitness babe who softens up and gives her guy a well dserved lingerie goodie after a grueling hike; also pretty good. "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" is a nice sort of eroticized variation on Clue, maybe a horned-up Agatha Christie tale, but I didn't see the dress-up angle at all. There's a naughty Catholic schoolgirl dress-up and role-play, to my reading a bit too long and drawn out. And some rich girl-poor girl clothing switcheroo, not bad. A GGG wife gets a nice harem idea and her husband and roommate are very grateful. "Lipstick" is one of the cross-dresser stories, but the female protagonist is magnificent, with the right attitude about everything, even her girlie-man.

"Puss in Boots" was my favorite, and it boils down to high-heeled black leather boots and a black dress, nothing more. But the prep, anticipation and the gift were what really spoke to me. Good stuff.

And a really fun quote: "..the black [false phallus] that sprang like a black rubber panther from her crotch."

Bottom line: maybe I'm expecting too much, but this one did not fully satisfy. The stories are good, relatively wide-ranging, different and original, and they are edited well and printed well. There is nothing bad here, not at all. It just didn't quite get to what I was looking for in terms of hot n' horny dress-up. Maybe I should start writing some myself . . .

I wrote in February 2011 in an Amazon.com review that "cones is cones." This was for a set of 100 training cones that I purchased for my youth rugby program. In a nutshell, this is molded plastic you're throwing on the ground to be trampled, so why spend a fortune? All it has to do is be colorful and lie there, right?

Well, this package gives you a very convincing answer as to why spending a bit more might actually pay off.

A quick survey here on Amazon.com showed me training cone sets for as little as 28 cents per cone. Then there were those priced at .30, .34, .67, .73, and an astoundingly steep $1.12. Hell, if you can get that price, then why not charge it? Me, I'm not going to pay that for colored plastic I throw on the ground at least three times a week.

This product comes in at $0.64 per cone. That's just a little left of the middle for my quick and completely unscientific survey, so already this product is doing well. Then you open the box to find that you get an included metal rack for stacking your cones. And with the 20 cones on your little metal rack, you've even got room for another ten or so. That's nice value-added.

Plunging deeper into the box you discover the 11" x 17" heavyweight glossy poster with both a beginner and advanced six-week training regimen using your 20 cones. On the other side, a comprehensive six-week training guide for what appears to be all the awesome Sklz fitness products. Not bad.

But wait, there's more! Also in the box is a surprisingly well-made 97-minute DVD showing all kinds of Sklz workouts. The DVD is not tailored specifically to the cones, but clearly is a drop-in for every Sklz product, as the workouts show all kinds of things to do with the full range of Sklz fitness goodies. Hey, you can't blame them for hyping their gear, right?

My use of these cones has been straight to youth rugby practice, and so far they are doing just fine. They are the same size as all my other cones, so they stack well and go on the strap I've got to carry all the 300-odd cones we use. I note that outdoors the black cones are not very visible in grass.

Bottom line: if you're looking for just cones for your outdoor activities, then buy just cones, and you can find them readily, and more cheaply than this. If you're looking for some personal training cones, then this is a very good set to buy, given the included rack, training poster, and accompanying training DVD.

First off, what is this "luminosity" name? What does this have to do with the bag? It sounds cool, now, happenin', but it sure doesn't have to do with reflected/emanated light, as this bag is all black, and mighty dark on the inside. Maybe it's the "enlightened" or "brilliant" aspect. I dunno.

If I were King of Case Logic, I'd change this product name to "action gear bag"or "electronics action bag," something like that. "Camera" is limiting. A better sell is for all of the various electronics we're all using now, the audio player, the phone(s), and all of that wretched ancillary gear.

The intricacies of the Easy-Cinch(TM) opening/closing took some study, and I finally figgered it out. While not prominent in the product literature's photos, the copy refers to gloves, so what we're looking at is an opening/closing system that's easy for cold weather, either with cold fingers or with gloves on. The closed nylon loop should be bigger by a good 50% for this to be effective.

I've got a Nikon D90 and with its standard 50mm lens it filled the bottom of the bag, with precious little left for other gear, even in the side pockets. With my standard wide-angle 18-50mm zoom on it, the camera barely fit inside, and at an awkward angle to boot. But is this bag really for the serious photographer with large-frame SLRs? Well, no. As the product literature shows, it's for folks with a small camera, a video camera, and all of the extra gear that goes with that kind of stuff.

So, my Panasonic Lumix fit in this bag just fine, with plenty of room left for batteries, the charger, extra memory cards, and the Flip video camera as well. And off we went.

The bag is rugged enough on the outside, and some modest testing showed it to be pretty water-repellent. Having recently had a camera damaged in a drop as it was inside a backpack, I paid particular attention to the padding at the bottom of this bag, and I don't think it's adequate. I'd add at least another ¼" of foam padding to the bottom of the bag, and would give strong consideration to adding padding all around. That being said, more padding would make it a bit more bulky, a little bit heavier, less flexible and would increase the cost, too.

The bottom consists of non-skid rubber, with most of the sides of the bag of a micro-fiber woven Cordura-like nylon, thick and strong. There is a small amount of padding behind the nylon sides, about the same as the bottom. This cordura side does not go all the way around the bag, but is on the "back," the place where it will likely connect to a backpack or something else via the included snaplock. There is a front part of the bag that is nothing but thin ripstop nylon, very thin.

The interior does have 360 storage, as proclaimed. This consists only of open pockets, three of them mesh and one nylon. There is no way to close any of the pockets. A simple Velcro tab might be good to help keep these closed. My D90's modest 50-150mm telephoto lens did not fit into any of the side pockets (not that this matters, as there is no room in the bag with the D90 anyway).

Bottom line: this is not a bad piece of kit for those with modest electronic gear needing a central place to keep it, move it, and be able to get to it quickly. I see this bag as a good start, and at a reasonable price. It should be marketed as an electronic gear bag, not just a camera bag, and with a few modest modifications it could really be something useful.

It was 1981 and Adam Ant had gone from the Dirk Wears White Sox almost-punk, through his pirate phase with Kings of the Wild Frontier that put him and the band on the map as influential new-wavers, and now had become a dandy/highwayman, makeup, stick-on mole, massive cuffs and brocade n' all. And this song opened the Prince Charming album. And what a perfect opener, a sonic assault. Right from the opening bars, you've got screaming horns and that unique Adam Ant double drums, all pounding away quite distinctly, with a touch of flute to keep things light and moving along nicely. This is the band's manifesto on why being a pirate isn't quite the thing anymore (the look was good for Ant, but for Marco . . . eh, no), and it's time to be "pretty and have fun." The kicker, what really sets this song apart, and has it in frequent rotation in my playlists more than 30 years after it came out is that cresting/climax drum break. You've got a number of repetitive bars of chorus as the song moves toward its end, and at 2:27 you get that massive, rocking, rumble-your-teeth double-drumset break that descends all the way to the bottom to allow the horns to blast the song into hyperspace for its remaining 13 seconds of rocking horns. This is a winner still, great for workouts, driving and parties. Highly recommended.

This song is one of the toughest, funkiest of the 70s movie themes, a very strong contender with Shaft for the top spot. But, it's really got to drive, and that refrain has just got to be punching, screaming horns. This cover just about gets there, but its guitar emphasis takes a little bit of the wind out of it. The beat is right, with a nice rhythm breakdown in the middle, with the bass falling low and funky in to build the song back up. At the end there is a simple and short board fade, a bit of a letdown for a song this strong. Note that there is another great cover of this song done by the Kashmere Stage Band (and check out their awesome Super Strut cover.

This is an excellent cover of one of Larry Carlton's signature songs, the one that opened his 1978 "Larry Carlton" album. The sound here is rich and full, with strong bass. This cover tends a little toward the smooth jazz end of the spectrum, as it's kind of soft on the treble, and the guitar solo in the middle, while a full fusion thing with movement up and down the neck, some speed, some changes, is still somewhat tame. It's still got all of it vibe of sunshine, sand, blowing hair and nothing but blue sky and positive energy. I've got this song tagged in my playlists: Drive, Smoove, Jazz Etc., and Fusion. Note that there are a number of other Larry Carlton versions of this song out there, both studio and live, and another cover by SPF. Strongly recommend.

Disclosure: author Coyote contacted me and offered a copy of his book if I would review it. I accepted and promised a fair and honest review in return, and received a photocopy. Thank you for being patient, Mr. Coyote; just as I got into the book, we had to put our dog down, and didn't really want to finish this until just recently (we pick up Gurney on Thursday).

I actually enjoyed this book, until the last three pages. Then it quite disappointingly fell apart, kind of.

Synopsis: Homeless alcoholic and ex-pro football player Murphy lives on the streets of Venice, CA with his dog, Betty, and his colorful homeless crew. Betty gets hit by a car and Murphy needs a ton of money fast to save her, and the only way is to solve a local murder for the reward money. Gritty L. A. action, adventure and drama follow.

I liked this book, and had it set for a solid four stars, right up to the end. Then it just sort of ended. I don't want to give it away, but of the two interwoven stories you're following, one just evaporates. It's moving right along, crests, takes a very nice and realistic twist, gets some new legs and direction, and then just ends, with no resolution. The other story resolves more or less fully, epilogue and all.

This really bothered me, but thinking on it some more, it's clear from the very solid writing that Coyote is no hack, that he has thought through a complete story, but it's not quite what you think, and not what you're waiting for at the end. It's not a tease, not a trick, but easily could be taken as such. This is a story of Murphy's Sisyphean journey, and the tidy resolution of questions of the supporting stories, while aggravating, isn't the point. I get it, I think.

Coyote knows a lot about Venice, and living on the street. Me, I have no familiarity with either, but he had me believing. He also knows about art, yoga, alcoholic beverages, and quite a few other things, as the nicely detailed prose reveals. There's even an important new theory on alcoholism: "a useful mutation essential to the survival of the human race, a marker that allows men of courage to expand the boundaries of the world and discovers avenues of insight . . ." Interesting. The action and dialog were consistently realistic. His geography seems to be spot-on, given a couple of cursory Google Maps checks.

Coyote's situations and characters and plot development all pass the credibility test, which is a big one for me. There is only one part that pushed the credibility envelope, near the end when 50-odd homeless folks have an epic party in a millionaire's mansion, and nothing comes of it. This is after the opening pages show the cops unjustly rousting homeless people. The idea of the party was good, and fit perfectly in the story, but as things developed I found it very hard that the neighbors either didn't notice or decided to take no action on the out of control, destructive, drunken invasion.

I was extremely happy to see that the book was largely full of editorial errors; it's actually been edited and proofread by a professional--huzzah! The story is an adult one, with plenty of salty language, some graphic sex, and frequent use of ethnic and racial slurs. Coyote even uses "santorum" in its newly coined context--ha! There's a short bit about an ugly run-in with some drunken, aggressive, abusive and apparently Australian rugby players. Having been a rugger for 32 years now I have to say I didn't like the characterization; in the 2nd edition they can be lacrosse players.

The book reads quickly, and at 236 pages doesn't take long. It really does read like a book adapted from a screenplay, or maybe this book is a treatment for a screenplay (that would be keeping with one of the recurring jokes in the book). There are no major existential or philosophical issues to deal with, no egregious use of the thesaurus, nothing that complicated. The story gets up and moves in a very linear fashion towards its misdirective conclusion.

Bottom line: This is a fun and interesting story, set in a novel environment. It has surprising depth of development, but readers expecting tidy resolutions to all of the issues and questions of the book will be disappointed--keep this in mind reading it, and I think you'll be approaching what Coyote wants you to get out of it. On page 104, one of the characters says "Dogs transcend." Amen, brother, Rainbow Bridge and everything. Amen.

I've got a couple of heavy-duty chairs, and they are really great, with strong seams, cloth, padding, and they are big, wide and comfortable. This chair really doesn't rate well against them in any category. Except this one's got an umbrella. The product's copy says that the seat is "ultra-wide," but I disagree. It's about the same as any other bargain chair. I fit in this chair just fine, but I wouldn't call it ultra-wide.

And the umbrella. The design is simple enough to figure out without a user's manual. The only possibly confusing part is the clip that keeps the umbrella in place, on either side of the chair. Simply depress the bottom of the umbrella unit, and the umbrella assembly pops up and out for placement on the opposite side.

There are two ways to adjust the umbrella, one at the midway elbow and one at the top of the umbrella canopy. Both work with simple click stops; depress the center button and move it to the position you want. Easy enough. And the stops hold pretty well; none of them slipped or stripped while I was using this chair.

One aspect that I expected of the umbrella was not there: rotation. There is no way to rotate the umbrella. It's a given that angle of the sun is going to change in time, and being able to simply rotate the umbrella would be a great way to deal with that, without a combination of clicks and stops to get it into the right position. This is a design upgrade this product needs.

And what of durability? Well, given that Amazon.com requires a review within 30 days, this chair didn't get that much of a workout in a dark and wet DC April. So far it's holding up just fine, with no rips or tears, nothing falling apart. As I've done with other reviews, I'll provide updates when required describing the wear on this product.

Bottom line: You don't see a lot of these, a chair that integrates the umbrella in a single package. It's a good idea. The price is right for this, although it strikes me it's a bit on the cheap side, which has me wondering about materials and construction. Only time and use will tell on this, and I'll provide updates as they are needed.

I figured it was going to be hard to get away from Verhooven's original 1990 Total Recall and its cheezy, over-the-top charm, with the mutant prostitutes, comical asphyxiating robot faces, Arnold's wacky dramatic vocalizations and that dramatic instant terraforming of Mars. This remake, with its non-Martian, non-mutant storyline departed from the original immediately and effectively, with occasional fun nods to the original, a nice "two weeks" take being just one.

But unfortunately, in the end, literally, the ridiculous story devices and completely impossible physics ruined most of what it had going for it. It's a fun diversion, but that's about it.

The visual world is very cool, with some outstanding CGI. A lot of the future tech is very good, quite imaginative, like embedded communication devices that project interactive interfaces onto any glass surface and a police gadget that penetrates a room and disperses uplinked mini video cameras to a man-portable router/screen. Cool stuff.

The maglev cars, featured in the Big Car Chase (BCC), just don't pass the common sense test. Just like that horrible, horrible, audience-insulting device in Star Wars: Episode 1 of fixing a submerged broken vehicle by tweaking a couple of wires in the center console, we get the same here, with the very nerve center of the sophisticated maglev car being right there in the center. Awful.

The BCC is all mag-levy, and is cool enough, but then Hauser dirves off the grid, literally falls away and gets away. Why can't the bad guys do the same? He falls down, so can't they just see him? Or fall down, too? Where are the flying units? There are no ground units? Radios? And his lady is out cold in the passenger seat, with gawking locals all around him, and yet he somehow manages to get her up and out of the vehicle and away and into his apartment without any noticing where he's going? Awful.

In the end it's physics and logic that doom this film. How is it that this "Fall" thingy passes through the Earth's core? That's the diameter of the Earth, something like 7900 miles. And in this movie the trip takes about 15 minutes. Okay, kids, that's an average speed of . . . wait for it . . . 31,608 mph. That's roughly Mach 45. What kind of physical structure can travel at Mach 45, through a tunnel? The physics of aerodynamics and atmospheric displacement make this impossible. Imagine the heat generated by the air friction; the whole stupid thing would burst into flames at half that speed. And then through the Earth's core, at 13,000 degrees F? How is it the Earth's molten core doesn't just shoot out of the hole? Wouldn't this make it difficult for our heroes to climb on the outside of the vehicle to escape the bad guys?

And if I were a clever little Resistance fighter, and apparently Bill Nighy's miniscule role of Matthias is a smart rebel, I'd note that the only real threat to my domain is the vehicle that comes up through the hole, so why not bomb or disable or otherwise plug up the hole? Hauser manages to do that all by himself with a few nicely placed explosives in the space of less than 15 minutes--why can't the rebels toss a huge bomb down the hole, drop a car or a truck or a rock or a piano or a good ol' fashioned Acme(tm) anvil down the hole? At a closing speed better than 30,000 mph, any of those would do some damage, at least enough to take away the threat that is the basis for the entire story.

And then there's the whole frantic elevator-shaft chase/fight thing. As if people would design all of this without the slightest consideration of auto-stop systems in the event of obstructions in the pathways. Awful, again.

I like Brian Cranston, more his Malcolm in the Middle dad than Breaking Bad methlord, so looked forward to this. Cranston's got a lot to live up to in Ronny Cox's original Cohaagen, and he didn't get there. The ridiculous big blond wig was the first indication; if you're going to guss up your character like that, then the character is going to have to be one seriously over the top bad guy (think Wez in The Road Warrior). But Cranston didn't make it, not even close. Hauser is lauded throughout the film as the baddest of the badasses, yet when it comes down to the Big Final Fight, the two dudes mano-a-mano, somehow Cranston's over-coiffed bureaucrat is besting the "greatest intelligence agent in the world?" It was pathetic and ridiculous, a fight that ended completely predictably, but should have been over after the first swing.

And in the water? Water, on the top of a vehicle that just traveled at more than 31,000 mph right through the Earth's core? Wouldn't it be a bit hot for water? And how did it even get there? It's just another lame movie gimmick to make lame slo-mo action look more than it really is.

And am I the only who got a serious Blade Runner vibe? Farrell goes out to the balcony, cup in hand, just like Decker, to survey the nocturnal metropolis, only Colin is sans shirt and a lot more buff. And the distinctly Asian feel in all of the street scenes, most of which are dark, and rainy, with Chinese and Japanese characters in neon in the background. And a couple of times, I swear I was hearing what sounded like the "Voight Kampf" track from the Vangelis BR soundtrack. I guess it's imitative flattery, but it also comes across as unimaginative and derivative.

Bottom line: this is perfectly fine escapist fare, attractive actors in cool action bits, with a still-intriguing story line, enhanced by some imaginative tech and good CGI. But fundamental flaws in physics and tried-n-true Hollywood gimmicks spin it into the dustbin of future history.