Brunner's Bar

The Houdini Box My wife and I took turns reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret to our son as a bedtime story. We all really liked it, and I wanted to read more by Brian Selznick. On a regular trip to the library I decided to see what they had in for Selznick. Honestly I was really hoping they had his newer one Wonderstruck, but I saw this and figured my son would love anything having to do with magic. This is a lot shorter than it looks. Like Invention of Hugo Cabret there are words and pictures throughout the book, and I do enjoy his illustrations. The story takes up a little over half of the book. The other half of the book is a brief history of Houdini and how this book came to be published. Both were very interesting, and I enjoyed them, but my 4 year old couldn't care less. The story is a good one. Victor is a young boy who hero worships Houdini. In a brief moment  in a train station he meets his idol and asks as many questions as he can. If I elaborate any more I w

Anyone who reads my blog fairly regularly must have noticed that it has been pretty quiet around here lately. For that I am sorry. I really miss writing these posts, and I miss reading even more. I haven't been able to pick up a book in awhile. There is big news in my life these days!!! After years of looking for a new job I have finally landed a good one. I have hated working in a retail setting and I have been desperately trying to get a big boy job. I have been in retail for 14 years now and actively looking for something else for a little over six years now. Last Monday I started my new job, but it has taken a lot of my time. I will not have health benefits until January, so I am working my old job part time until then so I can keep my family insured. From now to January I am studying for two certification exams that I will take to keep my new job. This means I am studying like crazy and have yet to actually do what I was hired for. I am so overwhelmed by it all, and

Despicable Me 2 Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly book meme hosted by Jill over at  Breaking the Spine.   This day allows us to  share news on upcoming releases that have us on the edge of our seats in anticipation Well it's movie time again. Recently I have been really excited for a bunch of movies to come to Blu-Ray. This is definitely one of those. I wanted to take my son to go see this movie in the theater so bad because we all loved the first. When this movie came out we just didn't have the money to risk on a 3 year old sitting through it. We still have a dollar show here and I wanted to take him when it finally arrived there. Well it seemed like we just never had the time in our busy lives to go. My heart breaks thinking about not getting to take my son to see it at the theater. Now I 'm very excited that this is finally coming out.  December 9th is when this will be available to own but of course you can pre-order it now. I was planning on getting this for m

Star Trek Vol 6: After Darkness  I really wish I had read the earlier volumes first. I loved both of the recent Star Trek movies and recently I found that they have a comic book series based off of them. When I saw this was going to follow the movie I thought it would be a lot of fun to continue the story after Into Darkness ended. What I didn't expect was how much would be referenced from previous volumes. A little part of the story revolved around a secret army that Admiral Marcus was creating, but then there was an encounter with Gorn that I missed. Even thought the synopsis says this is a continuation of the movie, there was very little that had to do with the Klingons and repercussions from events that happened in the movie. Instead this revolves around Spock and his delayed puberty or Pon Far as the Vulcans call it. Even though it wasn't what I expected I enjoyed this story a lot. Even though this wasn't at all what I expected the action of the story line made

Divergent Normally I am not a big fan of YA. I read the Hunger games and really liked it so I try to keep an open mind and trust in my wife's judgement when picking up a YA title. I also like Dystopian style books so I was curious as to what this one was about and figured it would be worth try. Tons of people I know have read it and loved this series so it has sat on my to-read list for a long time. Just recently the reserve my wife set up at the library came in and  we decided this was as good a time as any to read this together. I have thought a lot about what I was going to say in this review and here it is; I liked it, but I am not really sure why. Has this ever happened to you? I really liked the book once it got to the ending and I am anxious to read the next, but other than that I am just lost as to what all I should say. Here are some thoughts I had while reading this and I hope I can get a decent review from these. First of all, I'm surprised that I ended up l

The Halloween Hangover; t his isn't because of having to much to drink the night before and now suffering from bad decisions. I mean the day after Trick-or-Treating, binge candy eating, and lack of sleep. When I was a kid I can remember trying to stay out as late as I could and fill my pillowcase with as much free candy as possible. By the end of the night my knees hurt, I was usually cold and wet (since it usually is cold and rainy here in Missouri on Halloween), and my tummy hurt from an over eating of candy. These days the feeling is a little different. Now that I have kids of my own I am so excited to chase my son from house to house as his excitement flows out of him. Watching him run in his costume and laugh like a crazy person is intoxicating. After Trick-Or-Treating we dug through the candy to throw away any open or damaged candy, and all enjoyed a piece (or two) and then it was off to bed. Today I'm tired, my knees hurt and I really shouldn't have had that sec