I would have given this movie five stars if it hadn't been for one major shortcoming: it is too short! :) Precious time is wasted on some goat-milk drinking cavalry fool with fake teeth that should have been spent on letting the relationship between the main characters unfold. It seems like one moment Anna is outraged by Tokalah's advances, the next moment he throws a blanket around her shoulders and she changes her mind. One moment she calls him an arrogant pompous fool, the next they're fused at the lips.

It all happens a bit too fast and the ending is a bit bewildering (How come she didn't need a map to find the Indian village? What exactly happened to the village?), but oh well... I love it anyway!

After reading Clan of the Cave Bear, of course I had to read The Valley of Horses to find out what happened to Ayla.

Although I felt sometimes reminded of "The Island of The Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell, I found the author's descriptions of Ayla's life in the valley interesting and this is the only reason why I give this book four stars.

The story of Jondalar and his brother was often boring and towards the end of the book, I skip-read most of it. I find Mighty Hung Jon one of the most irritating characters I've ever encountered in a book. It would have done the story a lot of good if he hadn't been created as such a (physically) perfect specimAn.

The book as a whole would have profited from more thorough editing, especially the deletion of unnecessary and boring descriptions (e.g. of boat building). 100 pages less would have made a big difference!

All in all, I found it a nice, easy read for a lazy Saturday. The story is mostly predictable. No challenge whatsoever, except (sometimes) of my patience.

The Sims - more of the same with each expansion pack: Pick an individual or a group of individuals, move them into a house, get them some very basic furniture, send them to work, buy more furniture, try to keep them entertained, make them study cooking and/or other subjects, make sure they make friends with their neighbors so that they get promoted and earn more money so that can improve their house... and so on, and so on.

I admit that I have never managed to make my Sims happy without using cheat codes. They don't start with enough money ("Simoleons") to buy quality furniture, which means they don't get enough rest, entertainment, nourishment, etc. That leaves them depressed and tired, which in turn keeps them from studying and/or exercising, which means that they don't get promoted and don't earn enough money to buy better furniture.

Then there is the issue of friends: your Sims need friends in order to be happy and also to get promoted. Once your Sim has made friends with someone, the relationship needs nurturing, otherwise your Sim loses friendship points and eventually the relationship itself. Making friends isn't hard, but keeping the relationship going is - especially if your Sim has to work. There are only so many hours in a Sim's day, and especially in the beginning, those hours are spent working, studying, preparing meals, sleeping, etc.

My main criticism, however, is that their children never grow up. How boring! The game would be much more interesting if they became teenagers and wreaked havoc on the neigborhood!

Auel's writing was entertaining enough to keep me interested throughout two thirds of the book. Then I got bored and skip-read the rest, suspecting that the "fateful decision" announced in the inside cover (of the hardcover edition) would be something very predictable, namely Ayla and Jon settling their petty squabble, having sex, and riding off into the sunset on Whinny, their (not quite white) horse.

The book was a nice easy read for a rainy Sunday, though, and it didn't annoy me too much, so I'm giving it three stars.

I played this game for hours on end after I first bought it but got soon bored with having to start the same level over and over and over again because the trolls spotted Bilbo or he didn't have enough health to survive a massive troll attack. Downloading a trainer and cheat codes helped for a while, but now I'm getting bored again (I'm stuck in Mirkwood, getting slaughtered by skeletal warriors in spite of The Ring).

The game action mainly consists of jumping/climbing, picking up things, and wacking baddies.

It's an ok game for relaxation after a long work day and I'll continue playing it, mainly because I like the graphics. My only real criticism is that you can't change the camera angle to 1st viewer perspective (looking at Bilbo's back gets a bit annoying after a while) and that sometimes the view changes by itself (for example in the dwarf mines when Bilbo has to jump from one big wheel to the next), making it hard to control his movements.

Carolyn Niethammer offers a wide-ranged collection of historical information, stories, myths, and taboos connected with the lives of American Indian women, using the female rites of passage as the structure of her book. Her style is mostly descriptive and provides an insight into the hardships, the challenges, and most of all the variety of the lives of American Indian women. I especially like that she lets those women "speak" by quoting them, and each time I read the book again, I am grateful that she does not comment on those quotations. I feel that by letting them stand for themselves, she makes it possible for the reader to catch some of the spirit of these women. Something else I like about this book is that it does not romanticize American Indian women, nor does it consider them primitives. But most of all it does not look upon their lives from a modern feminist point of view. To cut a long story short: if you want to gain an insight into American Indian women's lives of the past - read this book! The only other book on Native Americans I enjoyed as much as this one is "Man's Rise to Civilization" by Peter Farb.