Today I wrote my 45th Viewpoints review and, for the first time in a few weeks, wrote more than the minimum monthly quota for paid writers (four @ month) at the site. I know it is a small accomplishment in the greater scheme of things, but I'm pretty pleased, since that means that my monthly check will be a bit bigger than the one for February. I'm not sure how many reviews I'll be able to do between now and the 31st; theoretically I could do 17 more, but I also write for Epinions, and as long as that site keeps on offering the $10 (or $20) for 10 promos, I'm going to try to get 20 reviews a month done there, so it's doubtful that VP will get more than 10 more reviews from me unless I drop everything else I do online and that's not going to happen. 

I also found out today, much to my satisfaction, that if one Googles "Han Solo (Death Star Escape), the review I wrote yesterday shows up at the very top of the first page. I'm not a Google expert, but I'm pretty sure that this makes the folks at Viewpoints' head office in Chicago somewhat happy that they accepted me as a paid writer.  Viewpoints doesn't have a visible "hits per review" bit of graffiti like Eps does, so I do not know how many outside "hits" my articles are getting, but wow. That Google-search result thing sure boosted my self-esteem some.

Today I also reached my minimum goal of writing 10 reviews at Epinions for the previously-mentioned $10 (or 20) for 10 reviews promo.  I was going to pick something easy - like a Star Wars collectible, but yesterday I wrote three of those, so I decided to write what some might call a "real" review and chose Michael Crichton's The Lost World.  (Oh, and I also remembered I need to write a few reviews in the Books category, so that was another factor I considered.)  I think it is a good critique, even though I've already had to update it several times to correct goofs I made while I was composing it. (I definitely need to have Office 2007; I miss Word...and its spellchecker!)

Well, today we got the good news that Mom will have her surgery to remove a pesky remnant of the cancer in her left arm; she had an operation several weeks ago, but the surgeon obviously missed a spot and wasn't too keen on checking if everything was okay before closing the incision on Mom's arm.  Had it not been for a PET scan ordered by another of Mom's doctors, the cancer would have come back and things would have gotten worse for my little family here in Miami.  The surgery is scheduled for the 18th, and hopefully this new surgeon will do a better and more thorough job this time around.

Mom, as you can well imagine, isn't exactly a happy camper about this. She's already had to deal with the debilitating effects of a condition named "watermelon stomach" since late 2005, and this whole cancer crap, she says, is the fault of both the surgeon's lethargic reaction and her Primary Care Physician's somewhat puzzling "wait and see" attitude whiich allowed the original cancerous growth to grow from a boil-sized blip to something about twice as long as my index finger.  She's tired most of the time, doesn't eat well, sleeps little and worries a great deal.

Healthwise, I'm a bit better physically. I've gained some weight - six pounds over the past five months or so - and I am getting some exercise during the day.  I do get a bit over-anxious at times over things I shouldn't be so stressed about, and way over-anxious over things I am expected to worry about (such as my Mom's health) but have no control over.  Because of this, my energy levels and abilty to concentrate fluctuate wildly; one day I'll feel pretty good and able to get a lot done in a typical work day, then the next I'll be tied up in the proverbial knot trying to choose what project to work on or how to put words together in a coherent fashion to get a point effectively across.

As for writing-related stuff....On Friday I received my first payment from Viewpoints; the check was a bit larger than the $32.00 I was expecting...maybe it was the company's way to make it up to me for a lost check, because I only have 43 reviews on the site right now and, as I might have mentioned in a previous blog entry on the topic, we only get $1.00 per review.  I almost e-mailed Jolie, the company's vice president, to ask why I was getting $64 instead of $32, but decided not to push my luck and find out that it was a clerical error or something.  As it is, I almost didn't get any check at all because I forgot to send Viewpoints a completed and signed W-9 form. 

Additionally, today I received my check for February's round of reviews, which was a grand total of $4 for the month.  That happens to be the bare minimum of payable reviews for one month, so if I want to earn more money this month I better not get too distracted by the Epinons $10-for-10 promo and give Viewpoints some equal time and effort.  Last month I wrote 20 Epinions reviews in order to get $40 in my Income Share account, and only did four at Viewpoints.  Sure, the Epinions payout is bigger, but Viewpoints sends out checks every month....Argh. Decisions, decisions.

At least today I did my third review for the month at Viewpoints; at this rate, maybe I can write at least 10 in March.  I know one thing for sure...I'd better write more than four, otherwise I'm never going to make any headway financially...at least not at that site.

Today was my 45th birthday; I spent most of it trying to cope with PC-related issues because this morning my eMachines T-5048 was acting up so much that I decided to use a new Vista computer I bought as a backup so I wouldn't miss one day of work or be out of touch with my online friends for longer than absolutely necessary. The setting-up part was easier than I thought it would be, but the PC didn't come with speakers, so I had to order a set from Amazon, since I can't stand to wear the ear buds I'm now using for long periods of time.  (As far as I can tell, I can only hear sound from one bud, so yeah, I'll be needing speakers ASAP.)

Vista, by the way, is a nice system if you're an experienced Windows user, but I've only been using it for a few hours, so I can't say if it's better than Windows XP yet.  It's graphically niftier in some ways, but it is so radically different from XP that it'll be a good while before I'm comfortable with it.

Anyway, not much besides the PC stuff happened today; Mom is still sick and not really in the best of spirits, so we didn't do anything different for the Day, as it were.  My sister came by and said hello and gave me a card with $40.00, and Mom got me Season 3 of 24 on DVD...actually, she told me to order something from Amazon that was less than $50, so I chose the DVDs....A few of my online buds chimed in to say "Happy Birthday," and that was awesome.

Ever since I was 17 years old and a Staff Writer for my high school newspaper, I have written for every section of two student newspapers and even a few publications not affiliated with either South Miami High or Miami-Dade College.  I've covered news events, done interviews, written editorials, been a foreign correspondent, and even helped out the Sports section once.

As a journalism major/student reporter, I noticed that although I was a fair all-rounder as far as reporting the news went, my talents and personality were best suited in two areas - entertainment writing and opinions/editorial writing.  I started the former in high school, first as a Staff Writer on the Entertainment Beat then as Entertainment Editor, then progressed to Op/Ed columns and editorials in college.  I don't think I did as well as a News reporter; I didn't suck at it, but I was never comfortable nor felt fully competent as a reporter.  Maybe I'm too shy or too worried about not making a mistake, but I just felt out of my league when I was assigned to interview department heads or cover a VIP making a presentation on campus.

I loved - and still love - writing reviews, especially now that I can do it online and for some financial gain.   They are fun to write, even though sometimes they aren't easy to write, plus I don't - contrary to what some think - have to always write glowing reviews.  Both the sites where I write for pay ask for both pans and raves.

A typical Pan review:

Private Lessons tries to have its cheesecake and eat it, too, but fails Aug 22 '07 (Updated Aug 22 '07) Suspense:   Pros For guys in the 18-24 age bracket, Sylvia Kristel Cons For most of us, the plot, theme, and schizophrenic vibe of the picture The Bottom Line Private Lessons tries to be a comedy/love story/caper film with lots of skin; it provides the skin but not the rest.

Full Review

Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie''s plot. In the early 1980s, when Your Humble Correspondent was in high school and, later, making an earnest attempt to do the "college thing," there was a seemingly endless series of movies that featured young adolescents trying to get laid. There were many variations on the "horny teens" theme, most of them involving young guys lusting after girls their age or a just bit older, and they were all billed as comedies, since anything deeper than humorous looks at how guys chase after girls for sex usually bores the target audience of men between the ages of 17-25. One particularly "hot" subgenre of the teen-sex set of films was the May-December pairing of cute but inexperienced younger guy and hot, sexy and very willing older woman, which was the sort of stuff that was at the heart of such fare as My Tutor, Risky Business, and the more recent The Girl Next Door. Leading the pack, as it were, is 1981's Private Lessons, which starred French sex-kitten Sylvia Kristel (Emmanuelle), Howard Hesseman (WKRP in Cincinnatti), and Eric Brown in a supposed-to-be-funny-but-isn't-really sex comedy/caper-style thriller hybrid involving a hot French maid, a shady chauffeur, and a hapless (on many levels) 15-year-old whose dad (Ron Foster) is a wealthy and often absent from home millionaire. Stripped (pun very much intended) to its very basics, Private Lessons' central story has Hesseman's duplicitous chauffeur Lester Lewis lusting not after the slinky and very illegal Nicole Mallow (Kristel) but rather his employer's money, or at least enough of it to make him financially secure for the rest of his life. Knowing Nicole is without a green card and fears being deported, he blackmails her into seducing the very young but horny Philly, then faking her demise in the midst of a sexual encounter in order for Lester to blackmail Philly, who would more than likely be willing to do anything to cover up Nicole's "death." While Mr. Filmore is away on a business trip, Nicole begins the process of seduction, mainly by making sure Philly can see her in various states of dress and undress. Eventually, Philly takes the bait, and Nicole becomes the boy's "private teacher" in the art of sex, starting with a scene in which the two share a bathtub in her servant's quarters. (Odd but true: Eric Brown, who plays Philly, was only 16 when Private Lessons was made, and Sylvia Kristel, who had shed all her clothes in Emmanuelle, opted to have a body double stand in for her during the sex scenes. I wonder...was this because Brown was a minor?) The rest, I suppose, is basically predictable. Nicole apparently "dies" while she's having sex with Philly, and Lester, after informing him that the French maid had a weak heart, exploits the situation by giving the boy a choice: Either Philly finds some way to pay Lester off, or the smarmy chauffeur tells Mr. Fillmore and the authorities what happened. There's a bit more to this, of course, and director Alan Myerson (working from a screenplay by Dan Greenburg) has all the stock cliches of teen sex movies down pat: the hot older woman, the naive but willing main guy, the chubby virgin know-it-all/best friend (Patrick Piccininni), and a host of clueless adults who come and go throughout the 87-minute film without realizing what Philly and Nicole are doing. Private Lessons has a weird schizophrenic vibe, at least in my view, because it wants to have its cinematic cheesecake and eat it, too. It tries being both a comedy (the plot is too silly to take seriously) and a somewhat serious love story (Nicole, despite being older, finds herself falling for Philly). This really is a very uncomfortable combination, and although Private Lessons was a modest hit in 1981 (the same year that Raiders of the Lost Ark ruled the box office charts), it doesn't stand the test of time as a classic of its particular genre. For what its worth, Brown and Kristel do have a spark of a bizarre chemistry; the kid is all right as the shy-but-horny Philly, and France's then-current "It" girl is surprisingly sweet and not-so-surprisingly smoldering as Nicole, even though the situation they are asked to portray their characters in is a bit, well, too silly to take seriously. The rest of the film ranges from the so-so to the simply discomfitting. Poor Howard Hesseman looks as though he wishes he was doing a WKRP reunion special rather than be seen in Private Lessons, and the chubby, smarmy, "nail-her-dude" best friend was Patrick Piccininni's sole big-screen credit, which I don't think did his career any good. If you're doing a research paper on the topic of why the 1980s left us such a bunch of really crappy teen sex comedies, then I suppose you should watch Private Lessons since it was the trendsetting movie that made Porky's, My Tutor and all those like-minded films possible. Otherwise, if an unclad and hot Sylvia Kristel is who you really want to see, rent Emmanuelle; it's classier, sexier, and - best of all - no body doubles or conniving chauffeurs anywhere to be seen. Recommended: No Video Occasion: None of the Above Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age

And a typical Rave review:

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Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Review

Overall 2.5 (by 3 users)

Your
rating

Nov 18 2007

Star Wars fan of the 1977 Generation, Long-time reviewer, John Williams fan

Every saga must start somewhere....

Pros	Cons
John Williams' original score Good, if a bit uneven, plot Solid cast (mostly) Impressive visuals	A bit too talky We had to wait 16 years for it Its expository nature Spielberg should have directed it

Like many Star Wars fans of the 1977 Generation - those millions of young (and young-at-heart) movie watchers who were swept off their feet by George Lucas' space fantasy set "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," I was really looking forward to the May 1999 premiere of Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the first of three "prequel" Episodes dealing with the rise of the Galactic Empire and the tragic fall from grace of a young Jedi named Anakin Skywalker, a.k.a. Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith.

 Also like many Star Wars fans, I thought that Episode I was a bit of a let down, considering that we had been waiting 16 years for Lucas to return to the tale centered on the Skywalker family and its fateful role in both the fall of the Galactic Republic and the decimation of the Jedi Order.  Maybe it was because it was talkier than I expected, or maybe it was because some of its plot points didn't quite jive with my own preconceived notions of what Episode I would - or should - have depicted. 

 And yet, even though I believe The Phantom Menace isn't the best of the six Star Wars Episodes, I also don't look on it as a pile of Bantha poodoo, either.

Although the film is at times more political than fans would have liked because its story revolved around a trade dispute and the Galactic Congress' inability to resolve it, The Phantom Menace begins to reveal how the Galactic Republic evolved into the evil Empire, how Senator Palpatine wormed his way to be Emperor, and most of all, how and why Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.

Assets: While it is uneven at times, The Phantom Menace is consistent to Lucas' original back story for the Classic Trilogy of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.  Readers of the novelization of Star Wars: A New Hope will note that the two-page prologue mentions a Senator Palpatine who manipulated his way into the Republic's highest elected office, aided and abetted by corrupt politicians and greedy corporations.  The prologue to the 1976 novel also mentions, albeit without details, that the Jedi Knights were nearly exterminated by treachery and deception.  Thus, Episode I and the Episodes that follow are essential to the Star Wars mythos.

Another thing I find interesting is the way that events in The Phantom Menace mirror those of A New Hope in what Lucas intended to be a music-like progression of themes.  Anakin as a nine-year-old faces some of the same situations his son Luke will face 32 years later...meeting a Jedi mentor, leaving home to "learn the ways of the Force," becoming involved in a galactic conflict, and saving his friends and thwarting - temporarily, anyway - the villains' evil plot in the film's last act.

 Also in the movie's list of assets are the stunning visuals. Star Wars is, of course, a series known for its spectacular vistas of space battles, exotic worlds, and strange creatures, and The Phantom Menace is the first Episode to fully exploit the power of digital artwork and computer technology to overcome the technical difficulties faced by Industrial Light & Magic in 1975 and the early 1980s.  Many fans say that CGI effects aren't as "real" as traditional miniature-and-matte painting effects, but depicting Coruscant's city planet environs would have been nearly impossible with the techniques used to create the Classic Trilogy.

Finally, The Phantom Menace is enrichened by John Williams' Romantic-era styled score, which not only uses the familiar Star Wars Main Theme, the Force motif, and subtle quotations of The Imperial March from the Classic Trilogy, but adds new ones to the repertoire, such as Anakin's Theme and the rousing Duel of the Fates, as well as action cues for the space battles, the Podrace on Tatooine, and even a theme for the accident-prone Jar Jar Binks.

Liabilities:  Even the most forgiving of fans has to admit that The Phantom Menace is not exactly the best of the Star Wars movies, and I seem to be among the more lenient reviewers.  So even as I say in all honesty that I enjoy Episode I a great deal, I'm aware that it has some problems that can't really be fixed without doing a Special Edition version.

 First, let's consider its function - to give exposition.  Most viewers, even those a bit too young to have been members of the 1977 Generation, know how the saga ends: the Rebel Alliance wins the Galactic Civil War, the Emperor is defeated, Anakin Skywalker is redeemed by his Jedi son, and good triumphs over evil.  The Prequel Trilogy, especially Star Wars - Episode I, is intended to set up that story by introducing the characters, whether they were new ones (such as Qui-Gon Jinn, Padme Amidala, Shmi Skywalker, or even the CGI creations Watto and Jar Jar), or younger versions of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and the boy destined to become Darth Vader.  In short, it's the first act of a three-act play, and that's usually the least interesting part.

 Another problem is that Lucas is a decent director, but considering how underwhelming Jake Lloyd's performance is as Anakin Skywalker, I think Steven Spielberg would have been a better choice to helm The Phantom Menace.  Star Wars films aren't renowned for their great acting or dramatic excellence, nor are they meant to be, but considering that Irvin Kershner's adroit handling of his cast in The Empire Strikes Back earned the respect of the saga's fans, maybe Spielberg's skill at working with actors, particularly child actors, would have improved The Phantom Menace somewhat.

The biggest problem for me, paradoxically, is that one of the reasons why the movie is necessary - the political theme - also is the root of my biggest peeve: it's definitely very talky.   If it's not the Sith Lords and their minions plotting to destroy the Jedi, it's either the Jedi Council debating on whether Anakin should be trained as a Padawan or the Senators debating the invasion of Naboo, it's a bit like watching an intergalactic version of C-SPAN.

Final Thoughts: Although flawed, Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace  is still a good attempt to "start" the space-fantasy series on an epic scale.  It is weighed down by its nature as the expository film that deals with the plots and counterplots that will carry on into Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, but it also offers fans some of the same elements that made A New Hope fun to watch: stalwart heroes, imposing villains (especially Darth Maul, who really gets very little screen time considering how prominent he's featured in the promotional campaign), and thrilling space and lightsaber action sequences.  It's not as fresh or exciting as Episode IV was when that film was released in 1977, but it's still worth watching.

• My sister didn't have her card handy
• My sister told my mom to wait on a bench outside Costco while she went off to park the car, then left my mom unattended for over 30 minutes while she did her own grocery shopping.
• When confronted, my sister denied telling Mom to wait for her at said bench and caused a scene, saying, among other things, that she wants to die soon.

I think part of the problem, ladies and gentlemen, is apathy among the Eastwind Lake Village residents, particularly as the original owners who started the community are dwindling in numbers for various reasons - moving out, mostly, but some passing away. EWLV is over 30 years old, and inevitably two things happen when a community reaches that age.

First, new residents don't really become as community-oriented as the "first generation" owners, especially when they move in from places where homeowners' associations are either new or non-existent. That type of owner thinks that by paying the Maintenance fee and minding his/her own business is all that is involved in condo life.

This, of course, is exactly why the present Board of Directors gets its way. I can't prove any theories or secondhand accounts of owners who make side deals with BOD members to get preferrential treatment in exchange for votes, but I think it happens.

The other factor is, of course, fear that owners will face retaliation once the BOD finds out who votes against them at election time.

Saturday morning, for instance, after a rather nerve-racking evening in which my mom's blood pressure dropped considerably - making her dizzy and extremely tired - things got off to a scary start.

Instead of being greeted by a tired-but-cheerful mother, I found my mom sitting at the kitchen table, looking pale and drawn...and scared.

She hadn't slept very well - no big surprise since she hasn't gotten a good night's sleep for a long time - but Saturday she was really agitated and worried.  She felt faint and weak, so she tried to raise her BP by drinking both stronger-than-normal black coffee and sugar and Coca-Cola.  (Sometimes, you see, the caffeine and cola extract do bring her BP up a bit.) But by the time I got up at 8 o'clock in the morning, she still felt faint and woozy, so she called up a family friend and went to her HMO's ER.

The BP, perversely, was up to nearly normal levels when she was checked out by her PCP, but she still has a kidney infection to fight, plus she can't take her blood pressure medicine on a regular basis unless it goes up, and for that we need a blood pressure monitor, and pronto.  Plus she has to not drink Coke anymore, as the carbonated water will play havoc with her stomach.

I' ve had a weird week so far, too.  Although I managed to make the 10-for-$10  minimum quota of reviews for January, I wanted to write one on Saturday  - between interruptions of power and phone service - to get my mind off my mom's illness and other things that are bugging me.  I chose to write about Rambo: First Blood Part II, partly because the fourth Rambo flick's opening will probably result in a few non-member hits, but mostly because  the other day I reviewed First Blood and I was already on a thematic roll.  I went to Epinions, hit the Write Review link on the proper page, slaved over the critique for two whole hours, and - after I did the Pros and Cons step - hit the Continue button to go on with the submission process.

Argh! When I looked at my monitor, I wasn't on the second page of the Submit Review process, but rather back on the Write a Review first page, with all the fields empty as though I had never written a word.  My headline, my eight-paragraph critique, my Pros and Cons...vanished.

Although this has happened before - prompting me to write drafts on Word most of the time - I've been trying to do several things online to earn some money simultaneously, so I have done my reviews on-site while posting on forums and blogging.  Switching from Word to my browser takes time, and because as of late I've had no difficulties submitting articles online directly, I didn't do a draft on Word and, poof, two hours of work are gone.  I probably could try and start another draft on Word and submit it before 4 PM, but I'm too annoyed and too tired to bother.  Besides, unless I wrote nine more reviews in three days, it won't qualify for the 10-for-$10 sweepstakes.

2:32 P

I'm a bit tired and punchy from a rather sleepless night, but I'll try and update my blog, at least for the benefit of those of you who have been reading so far.

The big news is that my mom finally got her arm operated on.  It took some serious arm-twisting on my older sister's part and a bit of influence-pulling by one of my mom's specialists. but today the ordeal with that bit of skin cancer will, hopefully, end.  My mom's mood this morning was pretty calm, considering the stress we've all been under lately.  I'm a bit calmer today, too, partly because the operation went well (as far as I have been told) and partly because being nervous and negative are not exactly helpful mindsets.

Lesser important news, part one: Last night I went out to buy my first HDTV, a Samsung 26-inch LCD flatscreen.  It's not like the best of the best, resolution wise (being 480i rather than the most desirable 1080i), and it was an open-box set from Circuit City, but at $467.00 (plus tax, plus a 3-year protection plan) it's not exactly like the worst, either.  At least I've got one from a reputable brand and don't have to worry about rushing to get one when the US phases out analog TV signals in February of 2009.  It looks nice and it wasn't hard to install, and although (as I said) the resolution I chose was 480i, the quality of the TV images is quite good.  It even picks up channels my analog couldn't...the ones that are purely HD, I mean.

Lesser important news, part two: Yesterday Jolie, the vice-president of Viewpoints (VP's VP) e-mailed us paid writers and said she was getting ready to pay out for 2007, and that in my account I had $32.00 (32 reviews, $1.00 each).  Not exactly going to make me rich, and indeed it's going to have to be used to help pay my credit card bill, but hey, it's something.

Well, I did it. I wrote my 24th and 25th reviews at Viewpoints way before the 25th of December.

In the afternoon I reviewed Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, a CD which is a "soundtrack" to a book. A book, you ask? Yep. It's not as unusual as you might think; there are several classical compositions based on literary works (Rimsky-Korsakov's "Sheherezade," for instance, is based on One Thousand and One Nights), but I think this is the first time a composer (Joel McNeely) writes music for a Star Wars novel.  It's a cool CD, if you like film music, and if you want to read my thoughts about it, please see http://www.viewpoints.com/Joel-McNeely-Royal-Scottish-National-Orchestra-and-Chorus-Star-Wars-Shadows-of-the-Empire-review-9f3b3

I thought I was done with Viewpoints for the day, but I wrote another one because I was sort of down about not having been able to go to see my friend for her birthday.  (She invited me to fly out this weekend to attend a shin dig in her home town, but my mom's illness and not being able to arrange for someone to stay at home with her prevented me from even calling Expedia to book a flight...I didn't even go to the barber to get a hair cut, which I badly need.)  I popped a DVD (The Longest Day) in the DVD-ROM drive and wrote a review as I watched.   Again, you aren't obligated to read it if you don't want to, but here's the URL if you need it: http://www.viewpoints.com/The-Longest-Day-review-df5d3

Income Share at my other review site was very good in November; Epinions distributed last month's "take" and I made a bit over $50.  Not bad considering that I don't write there every day anymore.  I think I'll write at least seven more in December so I can get in on the "write 10, earn $10) sweepstakes.

For those readers who have been keeping track of my progress to Writer 1 status at Viewpoints: Yes, I did get around - finally - to writing my 23rd review at the site.  I'd spent most of my work day dealing with more pressing assignments, some holiday shopping, and some stressful family problems that I'll not go into here, so I didn't have time to even think about a product or place to write about.  Thankfully, though, my Muse paid me a little visit and whispered into my ear, "Why don't you write about Arbetter's Hot Dogs?"

Arbetters, for non-South Florida readers, is a small, unassuming hot dog stand in the Westchester area of unincorporated Miami-Dade County.  It's been in existence since 1960 (first within Miami's city limits for over a decade, then at its present location since 1972).  Owned and operated by the Arbetter family, it is simply the best place for hot dogs, chili dogs, and "all-around dogs" in the Miami area, bar none.

Although it's been around since before I was born and at its Bird Road location since I was in the third grade, Arbetter's was the sort of place I was always passing by when riding in cars with friends but never stopping to even look around and seeing it, much less eating there. It wasn't till I was dating my now-late ex-girlfriend June that we went there for lunch with my mom...but after my first taste of their chili dogs with onions, I was hooked.  

Anyway, if anyone wants to see my write up about Arbetter's Hot Dogs, just mosey over to http://www.viewpoints.com/Arbetters-Hot-Dogs-Miami-FL-review-11a62.