Friday, February 26, 2016
Get $100 off DirecTV
If you're signing up for DirecTV, you can get $100 back with this deal. So will I.
Here's how it works.
2. Give account number 2328390 when signing up
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Los Angeles Times subscription phone telephone number 800-528-4637 (800-LATIMES)
Los Angeles Times main phone number 213-237-5000
Subscriber services Los Angeles Times 800-LATIMES
Subscriber services Los Angeles Times 800-LATIMES
Los Angeles Times phone telephone number 213-237-5000
Los Angeles Times main phone number 213-237-5000
Subscriber services Los Angeles Times 800-LATIMES
Subscriber services Los Angeles Times 800-LATIMES
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Book review: "Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowat
I didn't expect "Never Cry Wolf" to make me laugh so much.
The cover on the edition I read featured a serious-faced adult wolf shepherding a pup through a grass-and-rock landscape. On the back, an excerpt from a review called the book "an intimate casebook in wolf sociology." There was nothing there that shouted "funny."
Also, in my mind, I confused this book with Jack London's "Call of the Wild," a not-very-funny story of suffering, struggle and death among Alaskan sled dogs.
But "Never Cry Wolf," a 1963 book by Farley Mowat, finds plenty of room for humor.
"Never Cry Wolf" is Farley Mowat's description of his year studying wolves in the barren wilds of Canada at the behest of the government. Trappers and others living in the northern lands had claimed that bloodthirsty wolves were devastating the caribou population, so Mowat was sent to assess the situation.
Mowat finds his rigid, and sometimes clueless, government overseers to be ripe targets for sarcasm. Later, he finds that the Eskimos he encounters have difficulty fathoming his peculiar research (who boils mouse skeletons?).
There are great moments. There are the residents of Churchill, Manitowba, who find Mowat's story of heading into the wilderness to live with wolves such a ludicrous idea that they conclude he's really a CIA spy. There are the puzzled reaction of Eskimos trying to figure out why Mowat is dissecting the feces of animals. There's the image of a naked Mowat chasing wolfs through the grassy hills, alarming local natives who figured that the white man -- once again -- had lost his mind.
Observing courting and sex by a male wolf he named Albert, the author is too much of gentleman to tell all :
"My notes on the rest of this incident are fully detailed but I fear they are too technical and full of scientific terminology to deserve a place in this book. I shall therefore content myself by summing up what followed with the observation that Albert certainly knew ho to make love."
For all the humor, there are touching moments as Mowat illuminates the personalities of the wolves. They're not mindless killing beasts, he finds, a conclusion that puts him at odds with his bosses. That part is not funny.
---
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The cover on the edition I read featured a serious-faced adult wolf shepherding a pup through a grass-and-rock landscape. On the back, an excerpt from a review called the book "an intimate casebook in wolf sociology." There was nothing there that shouted "funny."
Also, in my mind, I confused this book with Jack London's "Call of the Wild," a not-very-funny story of suffering, struggle and death among Alaskan sled dogs.
But "Never Cry Wolf," a 1963 book by Farley Mowat, finds plenty of room for humor.
"Never Cry Wolf" is Farley Mowat's description of his year studying wolves in the barren wilds of Canada at the behest of the government. Trappers and others living in the northern lands had claimed that bloodthirsty wolves were devastating the caribou population, so Mowat was sent to assess the situation.
Mowat finds his rigid, and sometimes clueless, government overseers to be ripe targets for sarcasm. Later, he finds that the Eskimos he encounters have difficulty fathoming his peculiar research (who boils mouse skeletons?).
There are great moments. There are the residents of Churchill, Manitowba, who find Mowat's story of heading into the wilderness to live with wolves such a ludicrous idea that they conclude he's really a CIA spy. There are the puzzled reaction of Eskimos trying to figure out why Mowat is dissecting the feces of animals. There's the image of a naked Mowat chasing wolfs through the grassy hills, alarming local natives who figured that the white man -- once again -- had lost his mind.
Observing courting and sex by a male wolf he named Albert, the author is too much of gentleman to tell all :
"My notes on the rest of this incident are fully detailed but I fear they are too technical and full of scientific terminology to deserve a place in this book. I shall therefore content myself by summing up what followed with the observation that Albert certainly knew ho to make love."
For all the humor, there are touching moments as Mowat illuminates the personalities of the wolves. They're not mindless killing beasts, he finds, a conclusion that puts him at odds with his bosses. That part is not funny.
---
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Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Book review: "The Wimpy Kid Moive Diary" by Jeff Kinney
Let's not blow this out of proportion, but "The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary" is pretty good.This book shows how the movie "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" was made, using a mixture of pictures, drawings and text.
I'm not saying this is great literature, but it's fun to read and you do learn some things about how movies are made. For instance, remember the gross, moldy cheese that lies on the playground in the movie and is the focus of the dreaded "cheese touch"? The filmmakers put a lot of effort to make sure that cheese looked properly gross and moldy.
There's good stuff about how the clothing ("costumes") were chosen to reflect each characters personality and how they used a few computer tricks to do certain shots.
There is a "cheerleader" element to this book. You're not going to learn any dirt about arguments or temper tantrums on the set. They want you to like the movie, the actors and the crew.
Still, it's an enjoyable book and the blending of the pictures and cartoons with the text is nicely done.
Monday, February 8, 2016
Book review: "The Boys in the Boat" by Daniel James Brown
There are a lot of good things about "The Boys in the Boat," the 2014 book by Daniel James Brown. In fact, there may be too many good things.
In this book, Brown brings alive the story of how nine American college boys from humble backgrounds ascended to to top of the U.S. rowing world and into the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Brown has a terrific eye for detail and his writing can be so vivid you would swear that he must have been an eyewitness to the events he's describing (he wasn't).
He describes female college students "wearing flower skirts and ankle socks" while "the first violet-green swallows of the year swirled among the spires of the library." For a young man working on a new dam, "sharp chips and shards of rock flew up and stung his face" while "sweat dripped from his back." Watching a race, a coach "sat alone in silence, methodically chewing a piece of gum, looking out intently from under the brim of his white cloth cap."
Still, for all of Brown's descriptive strength, there seems to be no storyline, no matter how tangentially related the main plot, that he can resist telling.
While this is purportedly a book about the sport of crew, there's a lot more in it: Brown tells us about Hitler's obsession with making the 1936 Olympics a showcase for German superiority, He explains the relationship between German filmmaker Leni Riefinstahl and Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
He talks about the building of the Grand Coulee dam, the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl on the Great Plains. He explains the hardships of life in the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s and 30s. Mostly, the book is the life story of Joe Rantz, one of the rowers, and it is a story that involves a lot more than crew.
In fact, even if you took all the rowing portions out of "The Boys in the Boat," you would still have a pretty substantial book.
I'm almost a perfect target for this book -- like these young men, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and I rowed at the University of Washington. I am familiar with many of places and the names in the book. Yet, even I got tired of Brown's frequent sidetrips onto other topics, no matter how interesting.
Rather than zipping through the water like rowing shell, this book meanders like a canoe on a lazy river.
That said, for those of us familiar with collegiate rowing, this has got to be the best crew book ever (OK, how much competition is there?). It captures the incredible interplay of muscle, brains and teamwork that it takes to move a wooden rowing shell through the water at high speed. Brown helps readers understand how each of the personalities in the boat combine to form one entity.
In may seem hard to imagine today, but as Brown outlines, crew was a major sport in the 1930s. Some 80,000 fans showed up to watch major races. A thousand fans and a marching band showed up at the train station to see the crew off on road trips. Big races got national radio coverage.
I liked that the publisher inserted the photos into the appropriate place in the story, rather than stuffing them altogether in the center, like some books do. It also has a very good index.
----------
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In this book, Brown brings alive the story of how nine American college boys from humble backgrounds ascended to to top of the U.S. rowing world and into the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Brown has a terrific eye for detail and his writing can be so vivid you would swear that he must have been an eyewitness to the events he's describing (he wasn't).
He describes female college students "wearing flower skirts and ankle socks" while "the first violet-green swallows of the year swirled among the spires of the library." For a young man working on a new dam, "sharp chips and shards of rock flew up and stung his face" while "sweat dripped from his back." Watching a race, a coach "sat alone in silence, methodically chewing a piece of gum, looking out intently from under the brim of his white cloth cap."
Still, for all of Brown's descriptive strength, there seems to be no storyline, no matter how tangentially related the main plot, that he can resist telling.
While this is purportedly a book about the sport of crew, there's a lot more in it: Brown tells us about Hitler's obsession with making the 1936 Olympics a showcase for German superiority, He explains the relationship between German filmmaker Leni Riefinstahl and Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
He talks about the building of the Grand Coulee dam, the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl on the Great Plains. He explains the hardships of life in the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s and 30s. Mostly, the book is the life story of Joe Rantz, one of the rowers, and it is a story that involves a lot more than crew.
In fact, even if you took all the rowing portions out of "The Boys in the Boat," you would still have a pretty substantial book.
I'm almost a perfect target for this book -- like these young men, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and I rowed at the University of Washington. I am familiar with many of places and the names in the book. Yet, even I got tired of Brown's frequent sidetrips onto other topics, no matter how interesting.
Rather than zipping through the water like rowing shell, this book meanders like a canoe on a lazy river.
That said, for those of us familiar with collegiate rowing, this has got to be the best crew book ever (OK, how much competition is there?). It captures the incredible interplay of muscle, brains and teamwork that it takes to move a wooden rowing shell through the water at high speed. Brown helps readers understand how each of the personalities in the boat combine to form one entity.
In may seem hard to imagine today, but as Brown outlines, crew was a major sport in the 1930s. Some 80,000 fans showed up to watch major races. A thousand fans and a marching band showed up at the train station to see the crew off on road trips. Big races got national radio coverage.
I liked that the publisher inserted the photos into the appropriate place in the story, rather than stuffing them altogether in the center, like some books do. It also has a very good index.
----------
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Sunday, February 7, 2016
The dark hole of Tracfone customer service
Tracfone just sent me an email asking me to rate its customer service. Thanks for asking, Tracfone!
Unfortunately, Tracfone's online survey consisted of exactly one yes or no question, and didn't allow me to say what I really thought of their customer service, which is: It sucks.
Tracfone excels at offering very cheap cellphone service -- I've looked around and I can't find any other company with such low prices. I pay just $7 a month for my cell service.
Unfortunately, such prices come with a cost: If you need help, you're going to face a lot of barriers before you can talk to a human. And there's a fair chance that their "help" will actually hurt.
I called Tracfone recently for what should have been a simple request. Instead, it turned into an ordeal of six phone calls, and three hours lost from my life that I'll never get back. And when it was over, I was worse off than when I started.
All I wanted to do was to transfer minutes from my son's deactivated phone to my phone. I know this can be done because I did it before with a different phone.
But the first customer rep I spoke to -- after I had waded through the numerous phone menus Tracfone erects -- seemed puzzled by my request. He said it couldn't be done because my son's phone was deactivated,. He said I would need to spend $11 to buy an "airtime" card, temporarily activate my son's phone, then transfer the minutes.
This didn't seem quite right to me, but I figured $11 wasn't too much to spend to get the 590 minutes on my son's phone. I spent 35 minutes on the line with the rep repeatedly putting me on hold, and mumbling a lot of things in Indian-tinged English that I couldn't quite get.
The rep said all would be taken care of once I reactivated my phone -- wait, what? All I had to do, he said, was wait 10 minutes after the end of our call.
Except after 10 minutes and "reactivation" my phone didn't work at all. Another call got me to a rep who asked me three times in a row to state my phone number, and no matter how many times I explained it, never did seem to understand why I was calling. At one point, he wanted to completely reset my phone, a step that would have deleted all my photos and contacts that I had built up for the past two years. I declined. That call cost another 40 minutes.
After that, I did get my phone to work -- but they had erased the phone number I had used for 10 years, and given me a new one. And while I now did have the 590 minutes from my son's phone, I had lost all my minutes, texts and data (1000 minutes, 59 texts, 135 mb of data).
To say I was angry is an understatement. My third call got me to a gentleman who told me that there was no way I could get my phone number back -- but when I insisted, he found a way to get my phone number back. As for my missing minutes, he said, oddly, "Don't worry about those." This call took another 40 minutes.
My fourth call, which was 30 minutes long, went to a woman rep. After explaining the situation, she dutifully tapped away on her keyboard and promised that my minutes would be restored once I did some "reprogramming" steps on my phone.
Except they weren't. Nothing changed.
A fifth call went nowhere when the rep I spoke to said the department I needed was closed.
I arose at 5 a.m. the next morning to get on the phone, this time, strangely enough, with a customer service rep who actually knew what she was doing. In about 15 minutes, she had restored my minutes/texts/data without any reactivating or reprogramming of my phone.
I gave up trying to get the minutes from my son's phone, since that just led to problems. And I didn't even try to get back the $11 I spent for service that I never got.
If there is a tiny silver lining to all this it's that Tracfone gave me its "hotline" phone number. Check here to get it.
---
(Please support this blog by clicking on an ad.)
Unfortunately, Tracfone's online survey consisted of exactly one yes or no question, and didn't allow me to say what I really thought of their customer service, which is: It sucks.
Tracfone excels at offering very cheap cellphone service -- I've looked around and I can't find any other company with such low prices. I pay just $7 a month for my cell service.
Unfortunately, such prices come with a cost: If you need help, you're going to face a lot of barriers before you can talk to a human. And there's a fair chance that their "help" will actually hurt.
I called Tracfone recently for what should have been a simple request. Instead, it turned into an ordeal of six phone calls, and three hours lost from my life that I'll never get back. And when it was over, I was worse off than when I started.
All I wanted to do was to transfer minutes from my son's deactivated phone to my phone. I know this can be done because I did it before with a different phone.
But the first customer rep I spoke to -- after I had waded through the numerous phone menus Tracfone erects -- seemed puzzled by my request. He said it couldn't be done because my son's phone was deactivated,. He said I would need to spend $11 to buy an "airtime" card, temporarily activate my son's phone, then transfer the minutes.
This didn't seem quite right to me, but I figured $11 wasn't too much to spend to get the 590 minutes on my son's phone. I spent 35 minutes on the line with the rep repeatedly putting me on hold, and mumbling a lot of things in Indian-tinged English that I couldn't quite get.
The rep said all would be taken care of once I reactivated my phone -- wait, what? All I had to do, he said, was wait 10 minutes after the end of our call.
Except after 10 minutes and "reactivation" my phone didn't work at all. Another call got me to a rep who asked me three times in a row to state my phone number, and no matter how many times I explained it, never did seem to understand why I was calling. At one point, he wanted to completely reset my phone, a step that would have deleted all my photos and contacts that I had built up for the past two years. I declined. That call cost another 40 minutes.
After that, I did get my phone to work -- but they had erased the phone number I had used for 10 years, and given me a new one. And while I now did have the 590 minutes from my son's phone, I had lost all my minutes, texts and data (1000 minutes, 59 texts, 135 mb of data).
To say I was angry is an understatement. My third call got me to a gentleman who told me that there was no way I could get my phone number back -- but when I insisted, he found a way to get my phone number back. As for my missing minutes, he said, oddly, "Don't worry about those." This call took another 40 minutes.
My fourth call, which was 30 minutes long, went to a woman rep. After explaining the situation, she dutifully tapped away on her keyboard and promised that my minutes would be restored once I did some "reprogramming" steps on my phone.
Except they weren't. Nothing changed.
A fifth call went nowhere when the rep I spoke to said the department I needed was closed.
I arose at 5 a.m. the next morning to get on the phone, this time, strangely enough, with a customer service rep who actually knew what she was doing. In about 15 minutes, she had restored my minutes/texts/data without any reactivating or reprogramming of my phone.
I gave up trying to get the minutes from my son's phone, since that just led to problems. And I didn't even try to get back the $11 I spent for service that I never got.
If there is a tiny silver lining to all this it's that Tracfone gave me its "hotline" phone number. Check here to get it.
---
(Please support this blog by clicking on an ad.)
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