Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Sunday, January 22, 2023

Book Review: Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back

 


This is the second in what is likely to be a trilogy of books released in 2020 to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back. Like the first book, which had stories told during the events of A New Hope, this one has a collection of 40 short stories that are set during the events of The Empire Strikes Back. The twist is that most of the stores are told from the point of view of an ancillary or background character or creature, like that of the Space Slug, a Stormtrooper who decided to defect in the chaos of Cloud City during the evacuation, the Ugnauts on Cloud City, the Wampa on Hoth, one of the Tauntauns on Hoth, etc., There are a couple of stories that are told from a main character's point of view, such as from Yoda's point of view as he was sneaking up on Luke, or Obi-Wan's point of view when he and Yoda were trying to convince Luke to stay on Dagobah, and Palpatine's point of view just before he made Vader contact him during Vader's pursuit of the Millennium Falcon.

The stories are mostly very good, although like pretty much every book that has a collection of stories in it, some are better than others. The stories range in length from just a few pages to about 20 pages, give or take. The book is fairly long (at just under 550 pages), but it is a pretty quick read, especially because for most people, the story is not entirely new. The final "story" in the book is from the point of view of The Whills, who are writing the opening crawl to the movie and arguing about what to include, which is pretty humorous. So, if you are a fan of the original trilogy, this is definitely one of the must-read books. 

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