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. 

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Book Review: Star Wars: Skywalker: A Family at War

 


This is a novel that basically summarizes the Skywalker Saga, from Anakin's birth to the end of The Rise of Skywalker with Rey taking the Skywalker name. The book includes elements from all of the movies and fills that in with content from the animated series like Rebels and The Clone Wars, the canon comic books and graphic novels, as well as some of the other novels, such as Leia, Princess of Alderaan, and Bloodlines.  The big exception is that it was written before the Obi-Wan Kenobi series was made, so it does not include any of those events and basically time jumps over that period. So, the book does conflict a little with what was shown in the Kenobi series. 

The book provides a way for someone who has only seen the movies to get a deeper version of the events that occurred from The Phantom Menace to the Rise of Skywalker. If you have seen the animated series and read most of the novels almost nothing in the book will be new to you (with a couple of small exceptions), but if you have only watched the movies you will get a lot of detail that flesh out those stories. 

The book is not very long (just a little under 300 pages) and it reads pretty quickly, especially if you are well-versed in the Star Wars lore. So, if you are a fast reader you can easily finish it in a day or two. So, I would not call this book a must-read, but I do think it is worth reading. 

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