Tony Island Blog - Sane Thoughts for an Insane World

Welcome back! I recently viewed Roman Polsanski's Oliver Twist , Charles Dickens' story of an orphaned boy attempting to survive19th century London. I thought it was very well done - the acting was top-notch with the sets wonderfully re-creating 19th century London.The overall atmosphere was very Dickens-ian.. The story is condensed from the original source material - necessary since the original material is about 300 pages! So, some of the twists and turns of the original have been elminated or changed to fit the set of characters presented here (ie, they used the core set of characters from the book thus minor characters and their roles in the plot were eliminated or given to the characters used here). I didn't realize that Fagin was played by the wonderful Ben Kingsley ! That's how good he is and how good the makeup/atmosphere is. 9 year old Barney Clark did a fine job as Oliver while 14 year old Harry Eden makes a fine Artful Dodger. The DVD has several special feat...

Welcome back! OK - so this is a sign of desperation...but I really want to know if anyone is reading my blog! So, to promote my blog, I'm going to give away $1.00 to the FIRST (and only the first!) blog reader to leave a COMMENT! That's right, follow the simple rules below and earn $1.00! 1) Leave a coherent comment - full sentences, punctuation, etc - to any PREVIOUS entry (NOT THIS ONE!) 2) NO SPAM! 3) Have a PAYPAL account that accepts US dollars! 4) Leave a valid email address so I can contact you. That's it! I'll contact the first person to leave a comment to any previous entry in my blog (as of today, there have been no comments at all!) And get this -- you could earn another $1.00 by finding my OTHER Tony Island blog!! That's right - I have two Tony Island blogs on two different hosts - find the other one and earn another $1.00! Tags: paypal , 1.00 Powered by Qumana

Welcome back! I'm sitting here scratching at my eyes - they're itchy due to all the pollen in the air. We've had some rain here today and I had hoped that would help reduce the pollen floating around. It did during the day - I wasn't scratching my eyes and my nose wasn't as stuffy...but tonight is slightly different. While the nose is fairly dry, the eyes are making up for it! Yikes! It seems that the night is almost as bad as the day - I wonder if pollen is being sprayed at night? I dunno. According to Pollen.com and weather.com, the alergy alert for my immediate area is HIGH . Great! Itchy eyes galore. Pollen.com does say that Thursday - Saturday should be medium - whew! Speaking of Pollen.com, I was going to direct you to my home page and let you check the alergy alert for your area - but they declined my request to add their Alergy Alert script to my Web site. Why, you ask? Well, it's quite simple - they claim I don't have a Web site....hmmmmm...click t...

Welcome back! As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up a copy of Blogging for Dummies -- and am still slogging thru it. It's a really good read and most likely I'll read the whole thing cover-to-cover! Not to sound like a shill for the "Dummies" publisher, but I do enjoy their books - mind you, I haven't read a lot of them, but they are useful to get a good, quick grounding on a particular subject. I remember buying the HTML for Dummies book a few years ago - it was a good breezy read and got me up and running in no time. I do like the light hearted manner in which they are written - the interesting thing being that they are mostly written by different authors, so I assume maintaining that light-hearted approach takes some effort on the editor's part. The only problem I find with them is that they don't make great reference books after you have the material down pat (ie, when you're ready for the next level). But for going from novice to beginner, t...

Welcome back! I'm back, too! Took a small breather from posting - a chance to recompose myself (no pun intended!) and figure out where Tony Island Blog is headed. I also picked up a copy of Blogging for Dummies (really, I did!) - so hopefully that will give me a better handle on this blogging thing! I wasn't sitting around either - I watched a few DVDs, some of which I'll mention in more detail next time. And....I indulged in my guilty pleasure by watching CBS' "Dynasty Reunion: Catfights & Caviar" on Tuesday night! Did you see it? If so, post your comments! OK - this was just a quick post to let you know I'm alive. Thanks again for stopping by - don't forget to leave a comment before you surf away - and add our RSS feed to your RSS reader! Tags: Dynasty , Joan Collins , Linda Evans , John Forsythe Powered by Qumana

Welcome back! I'm going to take a small break from my semi-regular posting - I should be back on Wed May 3 -- can you believe it's May already?!?! Take a look at some older posts - post some comments - let me know you're out there! See you soon! Powered by Qumana

Welcome back! Do you remember "Wacky Packages" from the 1970's? How about "Garbage Pail Kids" from the 1980's? Pokemon from the 1990's? Or Yu-Gi-Oh from the new millennium?? What do all these products have in common? They're all examples of popular non-sport trading cards (technically Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh are CCG trading cards). Non-sport trading cards (aka bubblegum cards or entertainment cards) cover a wide range of subjects - from TV/movies  to art to CCGs (collectible card games). My personal interests cover TV/movies and art for the most part. I haven't gotten into CCGs (yet!). I first started collecting trading cards as a kid (as most die hard collectors do). I had a small collection of various cards - some Space:1999 cards, a few Wacky Packages cards and some from the original Batman TV series. The only trading cards to survive that period of collecting are my Space:1999 cards - I lost the Batman cards (and with the unlikelihood of another...