December 30, 2009 - Book List...Part 2

As promised, here is the second section of the books I read this month.  Hopefully something strikes your fancy.

June:


Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, 400 pages (** ¾, One of the reviews said it’s one of the best who-dun-it stories in a long time. I’m not quite inclined to agree with that because for all of the emphasis on the crimes that are being investigated by the main character, a former police officer, there’s not a whole lot of real crime solving. You get the conclusion at the end, which up until the last 40 pages or so I had no clue what it would be, but it all feels a little more like dumb luck than good detective work.)


The Office of Desire by Martha Moody, 336 pages (** ¼, As this novel went along it got better. In the beginning it felt very disjointed even though all of the characters work, laugh, and love in the same small medical practice office. There’s a saving of souls, a tender death, a gruesome suicide, and covered-up homosexuality running rampant, but even with all of that, it felt like the book didn’t really “get going” until about the last 100 pages. And the end left me just feeling blasé. Still, I did like the author’s writing style, and she offers some very good musings on the character’s situations and life in general.)


The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld, 304 pages (* ¾, Maybe I’ve just hit a little bad streak, but nothing I’ve read lately has lived up to my expectations. The synopsis of the book suggests that the plot will follow the ups and downs of Hannah’s search for the man of her dreams. It doesn’t at all, really. Moreso it shows the myriad of ways that she can sit back and not do anything when opportunity presents itself, self-sabotage when she actually lucks into something, or just get sucked into a fantasy of what’s to come with no real reason to believe it ever will. And who does she end up “in love” with at the end of the book? You can read it to find out, but I don’t really recommend it.)


The Spy Who Came for Christmas by Dave Morrell, 248 pages (***, Did you know that the Three Wisemen were really spies? At least that’s a theory that Paul Kagan, the spy who steals a baby on Christmas Eve and takes refuge with the crippled son and just-beaten wife of an alcoholic espouses. I’m not a big spy novel fan. I don’t even enjoy most James Bond movies, though Pierce Brosnan did a lot to at least get me to watch. But the book was a dollar, and I figured “what the heck??” And it was really good. A page-turner, in fact. It almost makes me wish there was a series. The Spy Who Came for Columbus Day could be big.)


Working Stiff by Grant Stoddard, 304 pages (** ½ to ** ¾, I’m a little bit iffy on the grading of this one. I guess picking up a book with the description of how a woefully virginal English boy gets sucked into a world of kinky sex because he’s being paid to write about it and expecting to not be disgusted by parts of it was expecting a lot, but it didn’t meet all of my expectations as being particularly insightful, or even just raucously funny. In the end I felt more sorry for Grant than enlightened. Not so much for the crazy, sometimes slightly frightening, always awkward situations that he puts himself in for a paycheck, but because he says that he’s more of the type to cuddle afterwards and call the next day, yet as time goes on, it seems that he’s willing to settle for anything but that, even in his personal relationships. The whole book I just couldn’t help thinking, “Oh, I could never do that!” But for an eye-opener “that really HAPPENS?!” kind of read…you might want to give it a shot.)


July:

Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee, 256 pages (**, Too much imagination hindered this book for me. The main character, Clara winter (and she lowercases her last name), goes through life making up stories about the people in her life and the people she knows were in her life once, including her grandfather, and the twin sister that died at birth. The people she’s surrounded by most, her mother and an old man, are word economists to the T, so you’re left mainly with Clara’s interpretation, or outright fabrication of things. And the stories change to suit her needs. I wasn’t really invested in the book until the last 50 or so pages.)


Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling, 652 pages (***, I’ll admit that this is a re-read in anticipation of the movie release mid-month. Apart from the one scene that I literally gasped at while reading the first time, I didn’t remember much of the book. And re-reading it, I was reminded of how dependant one book in the series is on the others. Rowling does a fantastic job of weaving the important details through the series, but it forces you to remember things, and if you haven’t read the book immediately preceding/in the last two years, some things might leave you scratching your head for a moment, trying to play the game of “Memory.” But still…a fast, thoroughly enjoying read.)


The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason, 464 pages (** ¾, The excitement of the novel gets lost a little in the complicated riddle that is the Hypnertomachia, a Renaissance text the main character obsesses over while trying to unlock its secrets. The story, once all of the layers are removed is a pretty good “who done it?”, but it gets weighed down by the prose and the minutiae of the riddle-solving. It felt as though I needed a degree in Renaissance literature to get all of the clues or at least stay in it enough to understand when the solution was found. That said, the ending was great. Maybe predictable, but I felt at peace with the ending of this one.)


Once Upon a Day by Lisa Tucker, 368 pages (*** ¼, A girl with the naivete of Brendan Fraser ala Blast From the Past arrives in St. Louis to find the brother that walked away from the “Sanctuary” that their father has kept them sequestered in for nineteen years. As she searches for him then finds him, and the truth about their father/mother/and past, she grows up quickly but not without stumbles. The book was very engaging, and I couldn’t help getting caught up in the mysteries that surround Dorothea and her family. I almost wish the book had gone for the slightly more painful ending, but I wasn’t disappointed in any part of the book. That’s saying a lot given the last several books I’ve read.)


Secrets of a Shoe Addict by Beth Harbison, 368 pages (*** ½, Minus the somewhat pat ending, this was, quite possibly, the best book I’ve read this year. Laugh out-loud funny. I mean, laugh OUT-LOUD. Especially not to be missed is the date one of the women goes on, with a guy and his marionette.)



August:

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, 480 pages (***, Jodi Picoult is a really good writer. Her style is fluid, her observations about life are dead-on accurate in surprising metaphoric ways, and she crafts a pretty good story. My problem is that I sort of feel like all her stories are the same. There’s a really long – usually around 350 page – buildup and then bam…everything gets resolved with a big twist at the end. Maybe it’s nice to know you should be looking for something, but it feels formulaic. And this book felt much the same to me as The Pact in terms of plot. I liked The Pact better, minus the inconsistencies in detail that the author, herself, didn’t seem to catch.)


Accidentally Dead by Dakota Cassidy, 352 pages (***, Despite the author’s penchant for spelling out words phonetically or exaggeratedly or punctuating every other word to try to emphasize a point (Jay-suess, cooooool, This.Is.Not.Good.) and the main character’s penchant for swearing, the story of a dental hygienist who, on her first day at work, accidentally gets turned into the undead by a patient suffering the ill-effects of anesthesia flows pretty well. I read it in a day and had a warm fuzzy feeling at the end. I was rooting for the characters and liked the end. I did get the feeling while reading this, however, that the author had spent some serious time with Twilight while writing it, so if you didn’t like that series, you probably won’t like this.)


Oxygen by Carol Casella, 320 pages (***, This was on its way to a good solid 3 ½ stars before a twist near the end that, while it explained why the main character’s patient died while on the surgical table, seemed too out of the blue and too sensational. Still, the author, who is an anesthesiologist in her “real life”, has a great writing style. Her language is incredibly descriptive without being over the top. And she infused her main character with a sense of grief and guilt that was very believable. It’s a fairly fast read with lots of small chapters, so I’d definitely recommend it.)


The Elevator by Angela Hunt, 352 pages (** ¾, I’ve read a few other novels by Angela Hunt, and normally I love them, but this one felt like there were some things missing. The basic premise is that three women, all with a secret, get trapped in an elevator as a hurricane bears down on Tampa. Hunt is a Christian author, but it felt like any sort of faith-based content was left out until almost the very end, and even then it was the least I’ve seen in any of her books. I don’t want to be hit over the head by it, but it felt like there should have been more. The ending also felt incomplete to me. But I give it a decent score because it was a fast, engaging read as the mysteries played out on the pages.)


The Baby Merchant by Kit Reed, 336 pages (*** ¼, A very fast read that grips you and doesn’t really let go. Sometime in the future (could be nearer than we’d like to believe) “the crop” has dried up, leaving people who waited too long to have children scrambling for babies. Enter the titular character who rescues over-worked mothers by stealing their babies and giving them to wealthy couples. The book follows the baby merchant as he makes one last delivery in an effort to save his own mother’s dignity though he understands quite well that she never really loved him. It also follows the “supplier,” the mother whose baby he’s intent on taking. It’s a very interesting story focusing on just what makes a parent.)


The Shack by William P. Young, 256 pages (** ¾, It’s very hard to give a grade to a book that so many people have read and claimed to have an extraordinary influence on their lives. Admittedly that’s one of the reasons that I read it at all. A father who is grieving the loss of his daughter, who was abducted and murdered years before, is sent an invitation by “Papa” (his wife’s name for God) to spend a weekend at the shack where the daughter’s bloody clothes were found. When the man accepts the invitation he’s greeted by three individuals (or is it just one?) who try to teach him about God’s love in ways that he has not realized it before. There were parts (and admittedly they were strange parts, parts where even I thought “huh?”) where I choked up, but most of the book I spent feeling confused, not quite getting the lesson that I was being taught. Was that my bias and filters or the product of an author trying to espouse God’s intent for the world at large? I don’t know. It’s one you’ll have to read for yourself to judge.)

Barbie and Ruth by Robin Gerber, 288 pages (** ½, The book is supposedly about the Barbie doll and the woman who created her, Ruth Handler, but Barbie is really just a minor character in what appears to be a rehash of Handler’s autobiography, which Gerber quotes quite a bit. I wanted more about Barbie, but she comes only as a chronological accomplishment in the founding, building, and then trials of Mattel, which Handler founded with her husband, Elliot. The animosity of Barbara, Ruth’s daughter and Barbie’s namesake, toward her smaller version is glossed over, but you get the impression that it could be a book in and of itself. Interesting trivia though…Ken is named after Handler’s son (so Barbie has been essentially dating her brother for forty years), who turned out to be gay in real life. No wonder Barbie and Ken never married!)

September, Part 1:

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, 576 pages (***, I want to give this fewer stars but I can’t. After I got past the first sixty or so pages which were torturous for some reason, it really grabbed me and pulled me in. My biggest problem with the novel, which is a biographical retrospective of the main character, the First Lady of the United States, is that it is, intentionally, a novelization of Laura Bush, complete with 9/11 references. The only part that deviates from the script that becomes increasingly more “real” as the book goes on is what saved it in the end. I won’t spoil that for you. I will add, however, that if George W. is really anything like Chuckie B., the main character’s husband, it’s no wonder that I don’t like him in real life. He’s a real ass in the book! And I don’t want anyone to be President if they’re afraid of the dark!)


Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, 208 pages (*** ¼, It’s a classic that everyone’s supposed to read, and I’ve tried to get into it before but never managed to get past more than a few pages. But it’s the book for the book club this month, so…. In a future that’s undetermined date-wise, Montag, the main character is a fireman whose job is not to put out fires, but to start them. Anyone caught reading a book has their home destroyed, the idea being that if you keep the ideas from people’s heads, you keep them from being confused. The startling allusions to our own time (though Bradbury wrote it in the 50’s) is what makes the book. You can draw direct comparisons from Montag’s world to ours, and it’s indeed unsettling. The only thing keeping it from getting a full four stars was the disjointed sentence structure that made it hard for me to concentrate while reading.)


November 22, 1963 by Adam Braver, 200 pages (****, Fantastic! A mixture of fact and fiction surrounding the infamous day in Dallas, Braver gets inside the head of Jackie Kennedy as she struggles to deal with her husband’s assassination while also fictionalizing the thoughts and feelings of those around her in the moment: Kennedy’s chief of staff, an ambulance driver/mortuary assistant, a man present for the autopsy, Abraham Zzapruder, and the people at the White House charged with arranging a presidential funeral. It’s hard to distinguish what’s real and what’s from the mind of Braver, but none of it seems as though it doesn’t belong. It was a page turner that I couldn’t put down.)

 
Random thoughts:
1.  Today the hairstylist I've been going to the past few times and who has told me (or intimated) that he is straight, came out to me.  Then he promptly told me that he was giving up the "demon homosexuality" for New Year's.  I wanted to tell him I don't think it works that way.  I also wanted to tell him that straight men just don't do as good of hair.  Fact.  I'd rather he stay sinful and fabulous if it means I don't have to hunt for a new stylist!
 
2.  Three days into the Biggest Loser Wii fitness program and I am SORE!!
 
3.  Some people are just too anti-germ for their own good.  I wanted to lean over a toilet stall divider today and ask the mother who was freaking out about her daughter touching the toilet just how many fatalities she's heard of attributed to germs from a public restroom.  The only part of me to touch a toilet seat is my ass, and it's not like it then goes into the kitchen and cooks my food.

December 29, 2009 - "...Give Me a Book I've Never Read"

Applicable to nothing in my weight loss journey, for the next few days I'm going to be posting the list of books that I've read this year.  I've always been a reader, averaging 1 or 2 books a month, but with the unemployment thing this year, I got quite a bit more reading done.  Because the comprehensive list would be too long to post as one blog, I'll break it into chunks starting with January to May before the deluge begins.  Each book listed contains my review.  Take it for what you will.

Abraham Lincoln once said, "My best friend is a person who will give me a book I've never read."  Hopefully at least by giving you my reading list for the year you'll find something you want to give a whirl.

January:


Family Trust by Amanda Brown, 336 pages (*** ½, From the author of Legally Blonde, which I didn’t know was a book, this story finds over-worked Becca suddenly tied to Edward, a male socialite whose only job is to attend charity functions with stupid names, through a little orphaned girl named Emily. Named co-guardians of the four-year-old, Becca and Edward must learn to handle not only a small child but also each other. Formulaic with hyperbolic characters, but it was still a fun read. Emily, the four-year-old, is a hoot! And you can’t help rooting for Edward and Becca.)


February:

Don’t Look Down by Jennifer Cruisie & Bob Mayers, 384 pages (** ½, I’m not a big fan of books written by more than one individual. I think it tends to muddy the writing, and while I didn’t see it here, it did feel like there were two different genres trying to be packed into one book. On one hand you had total chick lit, but on the other there were explosions, and snipers, and CIA operatives. Plus, the end had way too many twists and turns (not all of them believable or really adequately explained). I didn’t really hate the book, but I didn’t really like it either.)


March:

Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Cruisie, 416 pages (***, Of the two Jennifer Cruisie books I’ve read lately, this is the better one. It’s the same storyline, just packed in a different setting with different names. But, I liked her characterizations better in this one. The independent woman has more depth, a little something more to hide. The standoffish guy is a little less Rambo, a little more chauvinist, which for some reason makes him more likeable. Or maybe that’s just my issues surfacing. The plot’s convoluted like the last one, but a little more believeable. Sort of. Fluff, but a pretty good read.)

Bleachers by John Grisham, 176 pages (** ½, Not at all what I was expecting, but ok. An injured, damaged high school football player returns home to say goodbye to the dying coach that in turn made his life hell and made him who is he, good or bad. Some of the relationships seemed genuine, others seemed too superficial to be included as thoroughly as they were. But, there’s something about the book that makes you realize you can’t escape your past, no matter how hard you want to, and sometimes you just have to embrace it to be able to move on.)


April:

Little Pink Slips by Sally Koslow, 400 pages (*** ¼, An editor of a venerable ladies magazine, Magnolia Gold finds herself being progressively pushed out of the position by which she is almost singularly identified. And as the story goes along, the mayhem that exists around her escalates. I found myself enjoying the craziness, but hoping for more in the way of fulfillment for Magnolia. Still, it was a very enjoyable read.)

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore, 444 pages (** ¾, The concept is unique: a narrative of the “lost” years of Jesus’ life. And the protagonist is likeable, but I couldn’t get past the crazy way that Jesus, and Biff, roam the earth in search of the Wise Men, and end up discovering all Eastern religions and incorporating them into Christianity upon return to the Middle East. Nor could I get past the fact that Jesus Christ is an unrepentant swearer. It just seemed wrong to me. The first third of the book was great. The rest was ok.)

May:

The Summons by John Grisham, 304 pages (**, I think I was expecting too much. When Ray Atlee is summoned home by his dying father, a hardened judge, only to find him dead upon arrival, Ray’s life is turned upside down. But not in any real emotional way though he’s dealing with the death of his distant father and the appearances/disappearances of his addict brother. The ending was disappointing. It was my second Grisham book of the year, and I’m really not inclined to give him a third chance based on this one.)

The Birth House by Ami McKay, 416 pages (*** ¼, The story of a young woman, the first girl born in her family for generations, who is pulled into a life of midwifery is strangely compelling. I was sixty pages in before I realized it, and I didn’t really want to put the book down. The story leads you through the life of Dora Rare, from her first encounter with childbirth at the side of the local “witch” Miss B, through her struggle against the all-knowing doctor from the larger town at the bottom of the mountain. Dora encounters not only prejudice from the doctor but from people she’s known all her life who think she’s too independent and too much influenced by Miss B. But when there’s need for her, the women of the community seek her out, and you experience medicine in the early 20th century through Dora’s eyes.)

Ivy Briefs by Martha Kimes, 288 pages (** ½, The amusing neuroses of the author as she battles first the amazement that she got into Columbia Law School followed by her near-insanity as she struggles through her classes gets lost with all of the legal mumbo-jumbo. Granted it gives you a realistic picture of what anyone in law school, forget the ivy league, #4 in the country law school, is up against, but sometimes you feel as bored as she is, slogging through terms that have no meaning, and you don’t get a set of ancillary materials like she does. Still, it is rather entertaining to watch Martha struggle through Year 1, enjoy the slight sense of knowing what she’s doing in Year 2, along with her summer internship at the Lavish Law Firm that wines and dines her spectacularly, and see her senioritis of Year 3. I wish a little more emphasis would have been put on the people she encounters in school. The diverse population was what made Legally Blonde really pop. It would have added a whole new layer here.)

Stay tuned for more tomorrow...

December 28, 2009 - Wii!

After almost five months being unplugged I finally took the time to get the Wii (William as I call him) up and running again. 

The big impetus came from the fact that my aunt, who is incredibly awesome by the way, got me the Biggest Loser Wii game for Christmas.  I had kind of assumed it might be in the works when my cousin not-so-slyly asked me last week what I wanted for Christmas.  Since George Clooney seemed out of reach, I told her about the BL game.  But keep in mind people that we're supposed to keep Christmas in our hearts all year long, so, uh...if you snag George Clooney and want to pass him along...

This game will be interesting I think. I signed up today on the game for a 12-week program.  The game creates a fitness program for you and each day when you log in it provides you with a set of exercises to do.  The whole goal can be customized as well, whether you just want to stay fit, whether you want to lose a little weight or a lot.  And the hardest part...you can pick your trainer!  I sat for almost five minutes trying to figure out whether I wanted Bob's uplifting friendly guidance or Jillian's gut-check, she kind of scares me intimidation into action.  I ultimately chose Bob because 1) gay men have never steered me wrong before (except in love and that's a whole different blog), and 2) I just didn't think I could handle being yelled at.  It's too easy to just turn off the Wii when Jillian pushes you to a place that makes you want to puke.  However, I can go back and select the Bataan Death March if I so choose.

Today's routine was yoga, which I am not a fan of.  I just can't get into anything that has a pose called Downward Dog.  But, I did the routine (mostly...I was a not perfect).  I'm ready for some more active things though.

I will say this.  While you can operate the BL game without the Wii Fit board, it would definitely be an asset.  Without the board (at least I'm assuming this is the case since I can't test it), you have to hold the Wii remote at all times, and it's annoying to switch it from hand to hand, not to mention securing the wrist strap each time.

I'm excited though.  What with this and the work I'll be putting in at the gym to get myself 5K ready, I think I have a good shot of reaching my target of 257 (per my input and BL program modifications) in the next 12 weeks.

Random thoughts:

1.  While I love having off the two weeks around Christmas, there is nothing on TV to make that time even remotely entertaining.

2.  My grandma sent me $20 for Christmas, and I can't decide if I should use it for the Wii nunchuck or groceries.

3.  Four months from today is the 5K!  Eeek!

December 15 - Unfortunate timing, really...

I realize now the poor timing of my decision to start on my weight-loss quest.  Hello, it's Christmas! 

Last night I was all committed, and then today I went to work and the president of the system provided a full-course Christmas dinner!  Then, I went to Wal-Mart to run some errands, and prominently displayed by the door (and again, further in) were those damn Lofthouse cookies, aka "devil cookies."  They're one of my weaknesses!  The super soft sugar cookie topped with a good 1/4" of frosting and then sprinkles!  It's impossible to eat just one.  Temptation abounds everywhere!!

But I didn't get the devil cookies, and I took the smallest piece of pie on the table for lunch.  Ok, yes.  I could have passed up the pie entirely, but as I said yesterday, I'm not going to be perfect.  And here's my plan.  If I can get into the gym routine again and have that down by New Year's, then I can start 2010 with a fridge stocked only with stuff I'm supposed to have and commit to that with a vengeance.

Random thoughts:

1.  I don't really pay attention to the people around me at the gym unless they're stick-thin, petite blondes, and then I think, "Why are you here???"  I want to scream, "You don't need it!  Go out and live your life!"  I would be if I were them.

2.  I'm not sure what to think of "The Singing Bee" yet.  The first two performances were underwhelming, bordering on just bad.  The third is showing potential.  I'm giving it a chance solely because of Nick Lachey.  Yet another thing probably to be embarassed about.  Oh well.

3.  For the second night in the row, I'm so tempted to be in bed by 10 pm.  I've become an old woman.

December 14, 2009 - Ever wanted to know how much I really weigh?

If I'm just a faceless blog to you, this won't mean much, but I'm sure there are a few people out there who've wondered over the years just how much I really weigh.

296 pounds.

Bam, there it is.  Might as well get it out of the way so you don't have to scroll down past the rest of this blog just to see the number.  :-)

As much as that number might shock you, and as much as you may not believe me when I say this, it really always has been "just a number" to me.  The same is true for the higher numbers I've seen on the scale in my lifetime.  While my weight has always defined my life in some ways, I've never really felt defined by it.  Even if I have to do things a little slower and I'm more winded at the end, I've always been able to do what I wanted.  So it's not a problem.  At least that's what I've told myself for 15+ years, with occasional moments of lucidity that something needs to change.  And it might change for a while, but I've always fallen back into my patterns of eating too much of things that are not good for me and not getting my butt off the couch.

That stops today.

Now, there's probably an argument to be made that by putting my weight out there, I'm humiliating myself into action.  Oh God!  They know!!  Have to do something about it now!  Let's be honest, if you've met me it's not like it's a huge surprise that I'm overweight, obese even by clinical standards.  I'll admit that my height hides it better than if I were short, but it's not like I've ever fooled anyone.  I'm fat.  That's obvious.  So simply putting a number to the public image isn't going to be enough to "shame" me into action.  I have much more embarassing things in my life: owning the official replica of the Heart of the Ocean from "Titanic," 279 Clay Aiken songs in my iPod, sending an "anonymous" love email to a crush and getting pegged because of the proper use of grammar and punctuation.  There's a lot to judge me on.  If you want to judge me on my weight over any of those things, fine by me.

So here's the deal.  If shame or embarassment isn't going to be enough of a catalyst, then what is.  In the more immediate, I'm focusing on two things which I hope will propel me to my goal weight in time.  The first is superficial.  I'm the maid of honor in my best-friend-since-kindergarten's wedding, and I want to look good (better at least) for it.  Second, and this is the first step in a larger goal to eventually run a marathon, I'm signing up for a 5k in March.  Running and I have gone together like oil and water to this point, but for some reason I've always wanted to run a marathon.  I'm willing, however, to start small.  By actually registering, I have a concrete goal to work toward.  And I need a deadline.  The first deadline of many, no doubt, but a deadline.

Though I don't intend to post every day, I fully intend to blog about my progress, the good days and the bad.  Already I anticipate a post lamenting the loss of chimichangas and egg rolls. :-(  I can tell you right now that I will not be perfect on this journey, but I hope to see progress each week.  I went to the gym today for the first day in a month; I'm counting it.

So...mock me, wish me luck...either way, here we go!!

Random thoughts:

1.  The gym smelled like cotton candy tonight.  Luckily I hate the smell of cotton candy, but I swear, if I start smelling peanut butter cups when I'm there, this could be brutal.

2.  Since I've started my new job, I feel slightly like Melanie Griffith in "Working Girl," only in reverse.

3.  A couple of weeks ago my car battery died (yes, I left the lights on...again).  It wound down so far that it re-set the stereo system in the car so that when I turned it on the bass was turned up more than I normally keep it.  It hasn't really mattered much in the meantime, so I haven't readjusted it.  Today, however, when I was trying to pump myself up for the gym, I put on my gym playlist, and started with a little Flo Rida.  I've had this car, and the stereo system, for six years and never felt like such a bad ass!  It was awesome!