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. 

Thursday, August 15, 2024

Book Review: Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Force Collector

 


The Force Collector is a young adult novel that is ancillary to the "main" canon storyline, set sometime before The Force Awakens. It was published in 2019 and written by Kevin Shinick. It is a bit different in that sense from the other "Journey to the [insert movie title]" in that most of the others have been set between the last movie and the next one, so this would be better under the "Journey to The Force Awakens" than The Rise of Skywalker. The novel is centered around a force-sensitive teenager named Karr who can see history by touching items and runs away from home with his friend, the daughter of a First-Order officer, and his droid to find items linked to the Jedi, in hopes of finding a living Jedi to train him. It is, of course, set at a time when Luke Skywalker is in exile, and for some strange reason, the only memory of the Jedi seems to be of those who were around before the Clone Wars and much of what people do remember of the Jedi is through the lens of disinformation that the Empire used to tarnish their Jedi's collective reputation.

Even though the book is one of the young-adult novels, it is long enough (about 370 pages) and good enough that adults can find it enjoyable, too. Through his travels, the main character visits different locations from the prequels, the original trilogy, and the sequel trilogy. It contains events from the movies, sometimes shown from a different perspective from what was shown in the particular movie scene. The story flows well, and if you are a fast reader, it is pretty easy to get through in a few days or less. Chances are, if you collect all the hardcover novels as they come out, you will get this anyway. If you are one who only gets some, but not all, of the young-adult novels, I definitely think this one is worth the purchase.





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