I have wanted to see a movie like this for a while now. The last couple of martial arts movie such as Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and movies such as these have always been on such a large scale they overwhelm you with the effect they have on you and they are good movies but I was looking for something different and for once this is what this was. I wanted a martial arts movie that is believable and something which has a lot of martial arts in it. This is a movie with a very good story line, and lots of action to satisfy most appetites. Jet Li plays Huo Yuanjia who is one of the best martial artist out there, and he thought that fighting and beating other martial artist is what he had to do for his family name, but as the story develops he learns that there is more to this then just fighting. The martial arts in this movie and great, and you see Hou appreciating the Wushu style of martial arts for its real reasons. I recommend this movie for any Jet Li or martial arts fan out there, I know some people can’t take subtitles but this is a movie worth seeing.

Link: IMDB

Rating:

This is one of those nice restaurants which is a great find. Its like a New York restaurant transplanted into London. This restaurant has an old trainstation feel to it with the tiles and the wood. Its really clean and always bubbly around lunch time, you are lucky to find a table between 12:00pm to 3:00pm, its always packed with people who are having meetings, or a nice lunch break. It is a popular spot for lunch so you will always see people going and coming, and their food is really good as well. The food is what stands out at the restaurant other then the furniture.

They have a nice selection of food, and a lot of things they have are good. The sandwichs, soups, salads, and the one thing they are known for is their Mac’n Cheese! I love it, I can’t get enough of it and it tastes so damn good. We shared a large dish between the three of us and barely managed to finish it while we all had starts and main courses. The restaurant is full of people, and waiters are running around serving drinks and food. They also had these tiny coke bottles which are very interesting and I love drinking coke from a bottle, it just tastes better to me. The waiters have a good attitude but they were a bit slow sometimes but they made up for it, and they have a good selection of food, if your looking for a good burger place in London with a touch of class then I recommend Automat.

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I had this buff during my time in the desert and I use it to protect my face and neck from the cold while sleeping and while I would be about in the desert. It was the best purchase I have ever made, I bought it to wear under my helmet to protect me from the wind, but I used it in my desert outing and it was fantastic.

It sits around your neck very comfortably, an dcan be adjusted in multiple ways to cover your neck to become a hoodie all the way around your neck. It is very good and blocking the wind and protecting your neck while keeping you warm. I think it is the best purchase anyone can make for a garment to protect your neck. There are a large amount of different designs available for people to choose from, and it is a very versatile product.

Price: $27.00

Link: Buff
Link: Buff USA

Rating:

Im not much for Apple products, but I have to admit that the iPod line is good and its successful for the amount of accessories it has. This is one of the essential accessories if you have an iPod. During my trip to the Desert we were 4 cars and sometimes we would share our music over the radio signal. And there were three iPods which kept getting shared between the vehicles. There were also three different transmitters so we had a good amount of time to test them thuroughly and the Griffin iTrip surpassed all of them.

Positives:

• Very solid build
• Holds the iPod in its case even in rough conditions
• Very powerful signal, able to listen between 4 cars over a 40 meter range
• Detachable and can be used with your home PC to transmit music over the radio
• Works with the new and old generation iPod, and iPod nano
• Very compact and easy to store
• Flexible mounting

Negatives:

• None

Price: $90

Link: Griffin

Rating:

An Ian Shriger Hotel that has a very trendy scene to it in the bustling part of London. Its close to the London’s National Gallery, Leicester Square, and a Waterstones close by. It has a very simple entrance to it that you dont notice it, it has a very clean and sleek look to it. The bar is in front of you as you enter, the reception is no your left, there is table where the concierge sits on the left as well, and Asia de Cuba is at the back left. The elevators are on the left just after the reception, and I missed it a couple of times walking into the restaurant.

My room was on the third floor overlooking the street and there were offices right accross from me, but what I especially liked about the room is the floor to ceiling windows. It gives it a very open feel to it. I loved the look of the room and the large and simple bathrom. I think they need to update their tvs since they are a bit small for the price you are paying for the room, and Plasma screens are relatively cheap these days. The bed was amazing and very comfortable, I love the white linen look with ample amount of pillows. The desk is facing the desk and very artsy looking, but I think the chair needs to be changed for the sake of comfort, after a while of sitting on it you do get a bit uncomfortable. They had wireless internet all over the hotel and you only needed to get a login and password for your stay that you could use everywhere in the hotel which worked very well for me. What I also found entertaining was the different kinds of lighting available to you in the bathroom and bedroom, you can set it to whatever you like. I tend to like the rooms with all the lights lit up.

The people working at the hotel were very friendly and helpful, I was always asking for directions because I tended to walk to a lot of places close by if I wasn’t using the Virgin Limo Bike. Even house keeping is very efficient and quick, I used to ask them to clean early in the morning and clean in the evening again when I would shower up again before going out. The one thing that I kept drinknig out of the little fridge is the Voss water! I love the water bottle and I tend to drink a lot of water so I bought a bunch when going to Selfridges, but I also kept drinking what was in the minibar when I finished my supply. I think that the people at the hotel were friendly and you can carry conversation with them and they were more then willing to give me places to go, even the door man gave me recommendations. I tend to like hotels with friendly people, it makes the stay that much better.
The bathroom is great since it had a lot of warm water and a lot of water pressure which I especially liked, and it was a good amount of space. I really don’t like cramped bathrooms which make you think the bathroom was an afterthought to the architect. This bathroom seemed to be a center point when they were designing it. What I like is the ample amount of towels available throughout the bathroom, I get annoyed with hotels that skimp on towels since you do need them.

Room service was pretty good as well since I had breakfast once and a late night bite after a movie. Both times the food came earlier then expect and it was pretty good. I know this can’t be a complete judge of their room service capability or lack off, but you don’t really eat a lot in your in London since you have such a great amount of choice available to you.

Overall I think this is a great hotel for a stay with a different expereince. The rooms need a few changes, but relative to what is available in London I really like this hotel and especially the staff. It isn’t one of the cheaper ones and I think this is one of the better Ian Shriger hotels out there.

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I was really looking forward to watching this Denzel Washington movie, because he plays the detective role so well. This was a little different since it adds a little science fiction into the mix. A tragedy takes place in New Orleans and Denzel is called into to find out who and why, but with the help from the FBI they have new technology which lets them look into the past, but only by a certain amount. Denzel slowly understands that this isn’t surveillance and he is looking into another reality, and he gets the idea that he can change reality. Denzel is the lone cop with no family but work, and what drives him is the key to save this one victim Claire! You really get caught up with how he is trying to help her and tracking information down. It also tests the theory of physics and science but it is done in a realistic way, it’s believable and you get pulled into it as the story develops. What’s great is that you are satisfied with the movie at the end, but you are still left with just the right questions to keep you thinking of all the possibilities.

Link: IMDB

Rating:

I have had this 500 GB external Hard Drive from Western Digital for over 3 months now and it is great. I have connected the firewire to my PC and it works great. Its very smooth and quiet! You have other External HDs which make noise but this one is very quiet for something of its size. And I really like its design and how you can just place it on your desk without even noticing it is there.

Positive:

• Rugged design, very solid build
• USB 2.0 and FireWire
• Large amount of space
• The software is on the hard drive which installs automatically
• Runs quietly
• There are two blue rings around the power button, the outside ring is for disk activity, the inside ring is for drive capacity so if it is half full, it will be half lit.
• If you don’t access it for a while it goes to standby mode, which is good for sound and for the drive
• It switches off when you switch off the PC
• It is very easy to setup

Negatives:

• Price

Price: $250

Link: Amazon

Rating:

Fafner starts into the lives of people on Tatsumiya Island and it seems everything is normal Phesdum arrive to attack them. The children of the Island dont realize that Japan was wiped out a long time ago, and then reality slowly shown to them. They have to fight to protect their dream of peace, and they must make the enemy understand and accept them to survive. It is a very interesting story about the children of this Island and what they are trying to do. There is a lot of mecha anime involved in this as well as a good dose of science fiction. I really liked how the story was being developed towards the end, but it was a bit annoying in the middle. Overall I did like the story because the pace got better and the story became clearer. This is an enjoyable anime overall.
Link: AnimeNewsNetwork

Rating:

This is for those who love Chinese food. I was really looking forward to trying out this new Chinese Restaurant. They have a very trendy setting when you walk in and the first thing you notice is the lobster tank to your left. The seating is quite comfortable, but it isn’t a very large restaurant. They have a very diverse dim sum and tea menu, I have never seen so many different kinds of tea that I was confused so I asked for a recommendation and went with it. They also had a real good selection of sea food, and they had some specialty dishes so I wanted to try everything and I was happy that I had some friends with me to polish of most of the orders. I have to say that the they had the tastiest vegetable spring roll I have ever tasted, and since they had some seafood we asked for lobster. At that point they asked us to pick out a lobster from the tank, and some people have difficulty doing that I had no problems choosing one to eat. And they cooked two different delicious dishes from the one 3.4lb lobster, and we devoured it. Then we also had a Peking duck which I savored every bite of it. The service was quite good for this trendy restaurant, and they just filling up our tea cups. I haven’t enjoyed and savored the Chinese cuisine as I have at that moment. It is a bit on the pricy side, but the quality of food is unquestionable. If you are looking for a trendy Chinese restaurant then this would be your choice.

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Bond movies are something I really look forward to every few years. And this movie was nothing short of spectacular. They have taken the Bond franchise and revitalized it with Casino Royale, after seeing the movie I think that Daniel Craig was the perfect choice to be James Bond. He plays the lone reckless agent with some brains in the mix quiet well. I also think they could not have timed the movie any better for Casino Royale since Texas Holdem Poker has taken off greatly over the past 4 years and so this part of the movie was found to be extremely intriguing on its own because there seemed to be higher stakes then just the money. What’s great is that you are getting the raw storyline without too much gadgets or gimmicks, one thing pulls another in this story and they are all connected. You get to see the bare bones version of Bond and how he turned into the Agent that he is, and I think the Bond Girls fit their roles perfectly. Each Bond Girl was perfect in their own way and very attractive, they added to the story and didn’t distract you from it. The fantastic part of it was seeing how Bond and the Villains danced around each and other and played mind games, and what underlying story was motivating them. You were consistently being stimulated with new information and more action. At the end of the movie you’re satisfied but yet the story hasn’t finish and Bond has more to do and we shall only see this in the upcoming movies over the next few years. They have broken every stereotypical Bond trait and action in this movie, but they have also kept true to the Bond nature and that is what I loved about the movie.

Link: IMDB

Rating: