Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Monday, November 14, 2022

Sunday, November 13, 2022

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.

Saturday, November 12, 2022

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.

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.

Jackal of the Mind (Tales of Wyverna #2) ★☆☆☆☆ DNF@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: Jackal of the Mind DNF@2%
Series: Tales of Wyverna #2
Author: Madolyn Rogers
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 6/287
Words: 2/106K

Sexuality and sexual preferences are important enough that I refuse to allow them to be perverted and to pass it off as “well, it’s only a piece of fiction”.

I was disappointed but it happens enough now that I think I’m to the point where I can just shrug it off and dnf the book without much regret. Ahhh well, on to another book and another author.

The Copper Assassin (Book 1)

Friday, November 11, 2022

Bridge of Birds (Master Li and Number 10 Ox #1) ★★★★☆

Title: Bridge of Birds
Series: Master Li and Number 10 Ox #1
Author: Barry Hughart
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 234
Words: 90K

When the wise and venerable Ola (who has one character flaw) reviewed this earlier this year (Her Review Here) it reminded me that it had been almost a decade since I myself had read and reviewed this. Of course, with my Reading Rotation it took me 2/3rds of a year to get around to this again, but like the Wheel of Justice, the Wheel of Bookstooge’s Reviews grinds fine and grinds eternally (except when it doesn’t, like last month).

I really enjoyed it this time around but almost wish I had left it alone. Last time I gave it 5stars but this time I could only give it 4. That was because the humor was of the variety that only really shotgunned me for the first time. After that, it just wasn’t as funny.

The novelty had worn off and while still good, it wasn’t as good. I am definitely not tempted to read any of the sequels now. I highly recommend this if you have not read it before though. I can not imagine you would regret reading this.

Bridge of Birds (2013 Review)

Thursday, November 10, 2022

This Ghost's For You!

The Vitamin Shoppe is having a sale on ghost energy drinks in their physical stores, so I thought I’d try one.

And nothing says “healthy’ like a carbonated can of Swedish Fish flavored caffeine!

So rock on bloggers, because it is Thursday, it’s sunny outside and I’m totally energized.

A Hero's Task (Groo the Wanderer #11) ★★★✬☆

Title: A Hero’s Task
Series: Groo the Wanderer #11
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 26
Words: 2K

This was a direct sequel to the previous issue where Groo hooks up with a handsome hero, does all the work and hero gets the credit. This is another quest where Groo does all the work and the reward is the king’s daughter, a third of the kingdom and all the cheese dip you can eat. Only the kingdom is under a curse to make everyone super ugly and the cheesedip rancid. Groo runs off without realizing there is a curse and so the Hero gets the beautiful girl and all the riches.

I was wondering how Groo was going to get screwed in this issue and I laughed my head off when he seemed to get away only for us the readers to realize he’d run away from everything he’d really wanted. Aragones really knows how to set Groo up like a bowling pin only to knock him right down. It’s perfect and amusing.

Now, this is a Marvel comic and man, the ads inside were not taken out. There is one for a spiderman backpack and then a 3 page spread about Spiderman trying to find the missing Captain Crunch (the breakfast cereal). It was jarring! I’ve gotten spoiled reading these digital scans, as whoever the scanner was took the time to remove most of that junk in the other comics I read. But it shows what age group this was aimed at, middle and highschool kids. And I don’t see them being appreciative enough of Groo to keep the comic going. But what do I know?

★★★✬☆

All of My “Groo the Wanderer” Reviews

Wednesday, November 09, 2022

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More ★★★✬☆

Title: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
Authors: Roald Dahl
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: YA Fiction
Pages: 142
Words: 65K

I gave this a half star bump up from my previous read mainly because this time I knew going in that this wasn’t his usual childrens funny stories. It had humorous elements but there were a couple of times that things were just a bit darker than I’d want to introduce to children. Mid to late teens in my opinion would be a good target for these stories.

Nothing here made me change my mind about not re-reading Dahl’s stuff in the future though. I’m glad to have re-read this but I think I’m all set now.

Monday, November 07, 2022

Benalish Hero - MTG 4th Edition

Sunday, November 06, 2022

On Stranger Tides ★★★✬☆

Title: On Stranger Tides
Series: ———-
Author: Tim Powers
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 301
Words: 122K

Phewwwww, what a re-read. I read this for the first time back in ’07. Then the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise used it as the basis for the 4^th movie.

This time, while I enjoyed it as much as the previous time, the magic used in the story really bothered me. I found the same thing when I read The Stress of Her Regards. The emotional content really hit me in the pit of the stomach. The inclusion of demoniacal beings in league with humans bothered me a lot more than last time too. Being older and seen more since then has made me realize that joking around about spiritual affairs, or trivializing them in fiction, has consequences.

Other than that, this was a cracking good read. I mean, we’re talking about pirates and magic all rolled together. Plus the Fountain of Youth and ghosts that can run you through with a ghost sword. That is just good story telling right there 😀 Add in that the hero’s name is Jack Shandy, he gets the girl in the end AND he kills an immortal Black Beard the Pirate, well, if that doesn’t do it for you then you should probably check your pulse.