The Bookstooge Chronicles: The Freshman Year

I’ve made my way completely through 400 pages of my freshman journal. Like I described in my Midlife Crisis Post, I was equally horrified, amused and entertained. 9/10ths of my entries were centered around girls. This girl, that girl, the next girl, some random girl, a previous girl. I could practically smell the hormones wafting off the pages. But in between my tortured musings on Being Alone Forevah! it was quite the little time capsule.

September 1997 through August 1998 was a wonderful time to be alive if you liked tech. I had a quad speed cdrom and let me tell you, it was 100% better than those measly 2speed ones! What other things popped up? Oh yeah, you didn’t need a passport to go into or come back from Canada. I was a total drama queen and reading about some stuff now makes me realize how out of proportion I would blow things up in my mind. Funnily enough, that STILL happens a lot to me, hahahahaa 😀 Despite being 20, I still fought with my little brother and littler sister like I was 10.

But what stood out to me, in the 400 pages, was my reaction to my first spam email. Do you remember your first? There are a lot of firsts in life but in the late 90’s, spam email wasn’t quite what it is today. I wrote this down in my journal. So cringe along with me as we go back 25 years to a more innocent time when email was only used for good, sigh :-/

2/8/98 – 11pm Saturday
Got a weird e-mail, supposedly from Bill Gates. It is testing some new e-mail tracking software. Once the list reaches 1,000 people, we will all get $1,000 & a free Window98 package. I hope it is real!
If it is bogus, Microsoft will be angry as anything & I bet there will be lawsuits flying.
But I’m hoping & praying it is real. I could really use $1000 & W98. Specially now with my new computer.

Now is that just adorable or what? Makes me want to pinch my younger self’s cheeks and go “ohhh, you cute little thing”. Of course, back then I didn’t have cheeks because I was so skinny, I was skin and bones, poor guy.

But it took me over 6 weeks to read the whole thing because there were times I just had to put it down and give myself a break from myself. Man, I was an intense young man and it really carried over into my words in my journal. At the same time, it has whetted my appetite to read more (but I’m totally not a Narcissist, really!). I am giving myself a 2 month break before diving into my Junior year, as I remember life got super intense for that year and I’m not sure how I’m going to handle it even now.

What is interesting to me is that certain things I wrote I can picture with absolute crystal clarity. I read the words, the situation I describe and I can SEE it perfectly in my mind all over again. Isn’t the mind a wonderful thing? Truly the Psalmist spoke true when he wrote “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.“

Well, I think I’ve talked about myself enough. For today anyway 😉

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

My new laptop came yesterday. I wasn’t supposed to get it until almost Christmas but there must have been something in a warehouse somewhere because it showed up about 3 weeks early. I am pretty happy to be on a laptop again and not on my blasted phone! Even two days was two days too many to endure.

I have also made the choice to go dotblog here at wordpress.com. Despite my many, many, many, MANY complaints about Automattic as a company, they are the only ones that give me the majority of what I want for a blog. Doesn’t mean I won’t keep on being vituperative towards WordPress but I have realized I don’t have any other place to go and with all the work of the Hotel Bookstooge already done and the ongoing Author Index, well, I think it is time to simply accept I’m stuck here at wordpress. So say hello to Bookstooge.blog If you notice any problems, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do to fix it.

Next on the agenda is to change my theme here. I currently use Penscratch 2 and it did what I wanted it to, but when I was looking at my site, I realized people have to do an awful lot of scrolling to get through my posts (sometimes). Then WordPress introduced the Masu theme and I really liked the look of it. The only problem is, it’s one of the FSE themes (full site editor) and I don’t know if I want to mess with all of that. But this month not only have I had changes forced on me but I am actively seeking them out. So I think later this afternoon I’ll be changing my theme as well. Be prepared for a lot of screaming and crying if things go bad.

For right now, that’s enough changes. I suspect there will be more changes by years end, even if I have no idea what they will be. Maybe I’ll buy a red sports car! 😉 hahahahahahaahaa.

Vang: The Military Form (Vang #1) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Vang: The Military Form
Series: Vang #1
Author: Christopher Rowley
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 229
Words: 99.5K

A good re-read. I am pretty happy with how this went, even though I took it down half a star from when I read it in 2010.

It starts out slow and I initially thought “Oh good, this is some good setup”. But then the setup kept going and going and it wasn’t until almost the 50% mark that the Vang even shows up. It is just ONE Military Form and it still manages to take over a planet in about 24-48hrs. It comes thiiiiiiis close to getting loose into the galaxy at large too * hold finger and thumb a hairs width apart *

While I was happy it was defeated, it wasn’t very satisfactory. It has genetic directives and they take over and so it has to make a politician Vang and that of course that just ruins everything. The world is cleansed with nuclear fire by the Human Space Armada and the Military Form pretty much just has to sit there and take it. Sucks to be him!

This used to be a favorite of mine but now I think this is the final fling I will be having with it. Farewell Vang, you’re just not what I’m looking for in a book anymore. But don’t worry, it’s all you, so that way you don’t have to feel guilty that I changed on you. You were just not quite good enough but I wasn’t mature enough to realize it.

Sucks to be the Vang, hahahahaha!

★★★✬☆

• Vang: The Military Form (2010 Review)
• All of My “The Vang” Reviews

Hit & Fade (Forgotten Ruin #2) ★★✬☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Hit & Fade
Series: Forgotten Ruin #2
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 274
Words: 97K

The only reason this was better than the first book was because it was over 100 pages shorter and the final battle was awesome without the narrator going “Ranger X is gonna out-Ranger every other Ranger who is Rangering like a REAL Ranger would Ranger, which you would know if you were rangering like a real ranger too, scrub”.

I’m going to give the next book a chance. But if I hit the 50% mark and rangers are still out-rangering all the other rangers, blah, blah, blah, then I’ll dnf the book and the series. Us regular Mil-SF readers don’t got no time for butt licking. We want a good story.

★★✬☆☆

• Forgotten Ruin (Book 1)

A Brief Interruption Part II

Last year (A Brief Interruption) I had to take a brief comment break because my laptop died. Well, this year my wifi on the laptop won’t connect for longer than 10minutes. The last 2 weeks have been incredibly frustrating. It doesn’t have an ethernet port so I can’t even hardwire it in.

I’ve ordered a new laptop and once that arrives and is setup, I’ll look into repair options for the problem child.

So I am back to my phone and the app for a couple of days anyway. Hopefully this will be fully resolved by Real Thanksgiving but wanted to give you all the update in case it goes sideways.

Asterix and the Roman Agent (Asterix #15) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Asterix and the Roman Agent
Series: Asterix #15
Authors: Goscinny & Uderzo
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 53
Words: 3K

Julius Caesar is sick of the Gaulish village that keeps defying but has no idea how to deal with it. One of his friends suggests that they try to split up the unity of the village by using an acquaintance. This roman agent divides and conquers wherever he goes and even the Gauls fall prey to his machinations. As do the Romans and even the Pirates! Thankfully Getafix, Asterix and Obelix figure out what is going on and put a stop to it. A huge battle ensues, thus making the Gauls happy and they live happily ever after!

Wasn’t sure how this was going to go. I was impressed with how the creators used green speech bubbles to show when people were talking under the influence of the roman agent. There was also a panel where they totally reference themselves (last panel on the bottom right) and it just made me grin.

Overall, another solid entry in the Asterix series.

★★★✬☆

• All of My “Asterix” Reviews

Hidden Voices (Arcane Casebook #9) ★★★★☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Hidden Voices
Series: Arcane Casebook #9
Author: Dan Willis
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 275
Words: 91K

Willis is finally getting to the point where he can’t connect multiple mysteries and so he doesn’t even try now. But he still shoves in multiple mysteries just to keep the page count up there.

This time we’re dealing with Nazi’s in America chasing down an alchemist of some sort, There’s also a murder that involves a Stradivarious. There’s also more involvement with the Supernatural OSC and a vengeful FBI agent who is pissed at Alex Lockerby because he helped the Sorceress Sorsha instead of him.

Runes are tattooed on a german making him an ubermensch. It reminded me a LOT of the beginning of the Grimnoir Chronicles where the main character there talks about magic users in World War I. This sounded like a prequel to that kind of thing, but for World War II instead.

I started out really gung-ho for this series and while my overall enjoyment hasn’t waned, the never ending nature of it is starting to wear on me. The ending where it is revealed that Alex is fully addicted to Limelight and his mentor makes a mysterious call to some unknown person just increases the scope again. At the same time it is fully in line with how Willis writes. He’ll introduce an idea (the group of good guys who are supposedly opposing Legion) and use it for a book or two and then just abandons it and starts using some other idea.

I don’t want to rag on a series that I like, but the weaknesses of the author are fully on display by now. If those weaknesses don’t bother you then they won’t bother you for 1 book or for 10. But I am reaching my limit. It used to be that I would eagerly await and snap up any Arcane Casebook as soon as it came out. Now? I’m going to be waiting until a couple come out instead of reading them as they come out.

I’m including a large scale picture because once again I absolutely love the artwork!

★★★★☆

• All My “Arcane Casebook” Reviews

Bird Maiden - MTG 4th Edition

A Muppet Retrospective

Back in December of 2020 I watched and reviewed The Muppet Christmas Carol. That one lone act sent me down a path that has taken me 2 years to complete. Last month I wrapped up my Muppet Journey of Discovery with Muppets Haunted Mansion. Now I want to talk about the journey as a whole instead of piecemeal like I did for each movie or television season.

Overall, this was some of the best entertainment that I have had in decades. While not every movie or episode landed, the good so far outweighed the mediocre or bad that I think of the journey as Bookstooge’s Totally Excellent Journey. Jim Henson had an idea, ran with it until he felt he had reached the top and then stopped. People should be left wanting more, AND NOT GET IT. Learning to control your desires and to put up limits on them is good for us. It is what we have not done and look at the mess our entertainment is in today. Hollywood can’t (or won’t) even tell a good story nowadays because of excess and mental gluttony. I think the Muppets were a counter to that and each try to revive the show proved that Henson was correct. Not that some of the stuff that came later was total garbage, some of it was quite good, but we as viewers would have been better people without it.

I don’t want to wax too philosophical here, OR anti-cinema/movie, because either of those issues is an easy rut for me to slide into and I tend to repeat my main points over and over again as comments in various places, so no need to repeat it here. But when the aliens come and abduct all the cinemas, you won’t see me mounting a rescue mission to get them back, jus’ sayin’. But I will sit back and debate with you if the aliens had the moral right to take the cinemas or not. So grab that rocking chair, because we’ll be sitting on that porch a long time! (and bring your megaphone, I’m tired of those kids ignoring me when I yell at them to get off of my lawn)

Out of everything I watched, I suspect that the original Muppet Show itself (all 5 seasons) will be the only thing I try to rewatch every 5-10 years. I’m running out of words very quickly for this but some of that is because these are movie and tv related instead of a series of books. I have a very hard time explaining what goes on inside me for that aspect of entertainment. I don’t even know why, as you’d think that it would be almost the same as talking about how a book affects me. But nope. I actually thought about scrapping this post half way through but figured it would be easier to finish it up than to try to start something new and stumble all over that. And I haven’t even hit the 500 word mark yet. Aye yi yi.

If you want some good entertainment, watch the original Muppet tv show. If you’re hooked, then check everything else out.

Giving Up The Ghost

I stand here before you (metaphorically speaking of course) to announce some very sad news. This weekend I am giving up the ghost. I know, I know, quite shocking news. It was pretty unexpected to me too. I know I just wrote about my excitement about ghost earlier this week (BIG HUGE AND TOTALLY AWESOME POST THAT YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE MISSED, BUT JUST IN CASE THIS WHOLE SENTENCE IS THE LINK, SO GO READ IT. NO, REALLY, YOU SHOULD!) but after drinking just a couple, it became obvious on Friday that I was going to have to give up the ghost if I wanted to survive.

As is my daily custom, I partook of some carbonated caffeine early friday morning before work. Sadly, having partaken on Thursday and on Wednesday as well, my body decided to let me know that it didn’t appreciate having ghosts put into it. Since the ghost busters aren’t real, the only option it gave me was to put on my Pope Hat several times and go pretend to be a bear in the woods.

I found it. In the woods!

That is never a fun experience. People who talk about getting close to nature have obviously never had to use nature or they’d change their tune pronto. But because I’m such a manly man, I can use nature, complain about it vociferously and then move on. But even I draw the line at trying to MAKE myself use nature.

So this is a fond farewell to what could have been. A dewey eyed glance at a past that had no future. A gentle thought of inspiration that I COULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST BEARPOPE EVER, except it wasn’t my destiny. ahhhh, destiny is such a fickle thing.

Saint Bookstooge, the First BearPope in History

So go forth, most kind and beneficent of readers and thank your lucky stars you didn’t have to give up the ghost this past day.