My Two Blessings

  It's book week 5 in our 52 Books Quest as we head into February. I am so proud of myself. I'll admit it, I'm a bookaholic and made it through January without out buying any new books.   Nor did I read any ebooks. I read only physical books have had on the shelves, forever and a day it seems like, for the  month of January.  May not seem like that big of a deal, but given that last year I forsake physical books in favor of ebooks, it is.  I have absolutely no desire to read ebooks at the moment. Let's see how long that lasts. Right now I'm concentrating on reading all the wonderful physical books and enjoying myself.      All Shall Be Well (#2 Kincaid and Duncan) - Deborah Crombie (Police Procedural, 268) Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu (Science Fiction, 416)  Ghostbusters 1 and 2 novelization  - Richard Mueller/Ed Naha (Audiobook) Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon (Historical Fiction, 1930's, 684) Devlin D...

  For Christmas I received the Super Powered Series from my brother which are by an author I never heard of before, are super chunky, about college students who were extra special, enrolled in a Hero Certification program. The books were previously a web novel so I thought, Oh boy, I hope they are good.  I knew nothing about the series but a friend had read his other series, Fred the Vampire Accountant and liked the author.  So I dove in.  "Knowledge is power. That would be the motto of Lander University, had it not been snatched up and used to death by others long before the school was founded. For while Lander offers a full range of courses to nearly all students, it also offers a small number of specialty classes to a very select few. Lander is home to the Hero Certification Program, a curriculum designed to develop student with superhuman capabilities, commonly known as Supers, into official Heroes. Five of this year’s freshmen are extra special. They have a secr...

  Greetings again, true believers, we're back to review somethin' green. Its... HULK! Released in 2003 and starring Eric Bana as the scientist Bruce Banner and his alter ego known as The Hulk, this movie made a lot of money and was kinda mixed with both fans and critics. However, this movie's legacy lives on to this very day, but plans for a sequel were scrapped and the next Hulk movie titled The Incredible Hulk released five years later as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I saw this film back in 2018 when dad got it on DVD and I watched it again a few years later. And despite what the critics say about films like this, Hulk isn't too bad. Its actually fun, just like every film we've seen that never performed well. Eric Bana was the perfect fit for Bruce/Hulk at the time, even though Mark Ruffalo does play him well nowadays in the MCU. So, what's the story? Scientist David Banner, after running experiments for the millitary, getting canned by General Ross ...

  Hey guys, its been a while, but I'm here to review the MEGA MAN FULLY CHARGED animated series from Wildbrain Studios and Man Of Action Entertainment. Been quite a while since I last covered something related to Mega Man, last Mega Man-related content that I covered was the Archie comic and the first crossover between Sonic & Mega Man.  Don't worry, I will review the Mega Man fan film and some of the Mega Man games (including Mega Man X) in the future. But for now, we're talking FULLY CHARGED. This is perhaps one of my favorite shows and favorite video game-inspired mediums, its fun and engaging, and it started airing on my 19th birthday the year it started. That's right, one of my favorite birthday gifts is the TV show MEGA MAN FULLY CHARGED. Its too bad this show didn't get a season two, but at least I can re-watch this and reread the Fully Charged comic eventually. So, what is so special about this show, you are asking. While the show is somewhat faithful to...

  Decisions, decisions!  Emily, a slight woman at 5 foot 2, swept the kitchen while she thought about her next steps. Forward or backward, either way would be momentous, out of her normal reality.  Given that she didn't want to change anything, she fretted and fumed, mad at the world at large. How was the responsibility hers? Instead of her sisters, even her brother.  Just the other day, Emily had told her mother to butt out, to leave her alone, and that it wasn't any of her business.    Knocking the dust pan on top of the waste can, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. Little did Emily realize that her day was about to get worse.  Moving on to the living room to vacuum, she discovered all her books had decided to rearrange themselves. Not again.  Ophelia mentioned yesterday a strange memo had been left on top of her desk. "Prepare to heed the word of the Iam a Lama Ding tree." along with a riddle.   Quite the conundrum and the...

Hellooooooooooooooo, friends. Its me again and I'm back to review... SCOOBY-DOO... The movie. That's right, we're reviewing the first live-action Scooby Dooby Doo movie released in 2002 almost twenty years ago as of this one. What makes this film so special, you may ask? Well, it got me back into Scooby-Doo after I spent so long away from it, even though, at the time, the only Scooby-related thing I'd done was the Spooky Swamp Mystery video game on the Wii. It may as well have fully reignited my Scooby Doo fandom as, since then, I've been watching Scooby-Doo stuff now and then and I'm soon going to watch the SCOOB movie! So who plays the characters in this movie, the cast is very important after all. Well, right off the bat, Freddie Prinze Jr. plays the role of Fred, the leader of Mystery Inc.  As for the roles of the other characters, well, its simple. Neil Fanning voices Scooby Doo, Mathew Lillard plays Shaggy, Sarah Michelle Gellar is Daphne Blake and Linda C...

  I gave up on The Great Passage as well as Wayfarers .  Decided this year that if I’m not enjoying, I can give up, and move on to something else.  Placing it in my life is to short, not for me category.  Read several chapters of ebook Great Passage and it felt like an eternity and when checked how much had finished, expecting to see 75% and only saw 35%, decided enough was enough. Wayfarers is a continuation of Passage and it’s been a couple years since read Passage, so was completely lost as Wayfarers didn’t give much explanation, expecting one to know what had happened. I have no intention of reading Passages again. So gave up. On to Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum and YA Fantasy Super Powereds Year 1 by Drew Hayes.  This is book one out of four and my brother sent me the whole book series which are super chunky. “Knowledge is power. That would be the motto of Lander University, had it not been snatched up and used to death by others long before the sch...

  Adam Christopher's Made to Kill is billed as Robotic Noir. Sign me up, please.  "Raymond Electromatic is good at his job, as good as he ever was at being a true Private Investigator, the lone employee of the Electromatic Detective Agency--except for Ada, office gal and super-computer, the constant voice in Ray's inner ear. Ray might have taken up a new line of work, but money is money, after all, and he was programmed to make a profit. Besides, with his twenty-four-hour memory-tape limits, he sure can keep a secret. When a familiar-looking woman arrives at the agency wanting to hire Ray to find a missing movie star, he's inclined to tell her to take a hike. But she had the cold hard cash, a demand for total anonymity, and tendency to vanish on her own. Plunged into a glittering world of fame, fortune, and secrecy, Ray uncovers a sinister plot that goes much deeper than the silver screen--and this robot is at the wrong place, at the wrong time." A robotic gum sho...

  Greetings, fellow nerds. I'm back... with another crossover movie. Its SCOOBY DOO AND BATMAN... The Brave & The Bold. So, what's this film about? First, this is NOT the first time the Scooby gang and Batman have crossed paths. They met for the first time in an episode of the 1970s New Scooby Doo Movies where they teamed up to take on The Joker and Penguin together. Since then, they've occasionally met and its made a lot easier thanks to Warner Bros owning both the rights to Scooby Doo and the DC material. Second, you're in for a wacky Dark Knight ride. Now lets do a summary, shall we? When an entity known as the Crimson Cloak starts causing trouble, Mystery Inc must team up with Batman and his own band of mystery solvers to take on this mysterious villain.  Along the way, they find themselves dealing with the likes of The Riddler, who's involved with the plot, and many other villains. In the end, they defeat the Crimson Cloak, thwart Riddler's plan and res...

  I've read many books about WWII but never one concentrating on Italy, Mussolini, fascism and how he treated the Jewish Italians.  Lisa Scottoline's  Eternal , left me wanting to know more, a deeper dive into the historical aspects. "Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart. But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy's Fascists with Hitler's Nazis and altering the very laws that govern Rome. In time, everything that the three hold dear--their families, their homes, and their connection to one another--is tested in ways they ne...

  Happy Sunday! It is book week 4 in our 52 books quest and I finished Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall which was an awesome read.  Reviewed it down below.  I probably should have taken a breath from historical fiction because my last two shorter historical fiction reads have been less than stellar and I think it's because Wolf Hall was so well written, complex and dense, they couldn't live up to her standard. I'll have to remember that in the future. Still reading alphabetically from my own shelves and it’s so much fun. Like shopping without spending any money.  Hee hee! Takes all the guess work out of it, makes decision easy and helping me read all those dusty books.  Started to include alphabet by author.  Averaging two books a week and avoiding reading ebooks on my ipad for now, until I clear a few books from the shelves.   I'm beginning to see a pattern - Science Fiction and Historical Fiction.  So far for ABC by Title: A -  All Shall Be ...

  Hmm... The Devlin Diary was a little bit of a disappointment. It wasn't as good as The Rosetti Letter which was excellent. Liked the past and present story line, but had slight difficultly keeping all the different characters introduced during the past straight and couldn't see how they were going to coalesce for at least two thirds of the book, then boom. Could have eliminated the modern day story line which seemed superfluous and would have had a complete historical fiction story. Dusty, Alphabetical, Historical Fiction, 1672/2008 England, 427)

Hi, nerds. James M here and we're back to review a big DC story, FLASHPOINT! While I was visiting the local comic book store many suns and moons ago, I had the time to purchase the DC graphic novel containing all the issues in the storyline known as Flashpoint by DC Comics. After that, I read the entire comic and it was a treasure to read. The comic was nicely constructed and the storyline was well written and is respectable, the folks at DC gave us quite the deep story. Then, just recently (as of this), I had the time to watch the Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox movie and it is incredible. So, what's Flashpoint about?  Its story's simple really: The Flash aka Barry Allen travels through time via the Speed Force and tries to stop his mother's death, but his actions cause history to change, leading to an alternate timeline where Bruce Wayne dies as a boy and his father Thomas becomes Batman, Kal El/Superman's Kryptonian ship crashes in Metropolis and destroys the ...

  I finished  Wolf Hall   which was not a book to speed through. I read it in small sips during breakfast, often times staying a little bit longer at the table to stay with the story for just a few minutes more. I was reminded today why I should have taken the time to annotate.  James is taking an online English composition class and we were watching videos on annotation which made so much sense I was kicking myself.  The story was so complex and while reading there were phrases and images that struck me or quotes I wanted to save of Cromwell’s wit, reactions of his family, his thoughts pebbled throughout from childhood to adulthood and I only copied a couple at the beginning. Things like: ‘quick as a needle, she darts at him.’ “He will never tell the cardinal about Mary Boleyn, though the impulse will arise. Wolsey might laugh, he might be scandalized. He has to muggle him the content, without the context.” Lesson learned. I enjoyed my front row seat into the l...

I'm back and we're reviewing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-related movie, this is TURTLES FOREVER, made back in 2009 to rejoice the TMNT franchise's 25th anniversary at the time and also created as the proper finale to the 2003 TMNT series. The story is simple and I can give you the rundown of it. When the Turtles of the 2003 universe come face to face with their 1980s counterparts from their universe, they team up to defeat both 1980s Shredder and the 2003 Shredder to stop them from terrorizing and destroying the TMNT multiverse. In the end, after a long struggle, the Turtles overcome the odds and defeat 2003 Shredder, saving the multiverse with help from their 1984 comic counterparts in their universe which serves as Turtle Prime. Running at an hour and ten minutes, this film is just perfection and nothing could possibly top this one, not even the 2007 TMNT film or any of the other Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. I recently watched this after getting it a couple yea...

  Caution Ahead, the sign said, via a handwritten note tacked to a folding billboard, and placed in the center of the road to prevent passage. Dorothy peered into the distance and couldn't see any cars, any police or ambulances, nor were the roads wet or muddy.  Earlier in the day, streams of cars had passed her on the Western highway, all rushing to get to their destinations. Funny how all the vehicles, the people, even towns seemed to have disappeared into the ether, the farther she went and gave her the feeling she'd entered the twilight zone.    Get a grip, she told herself, and grasped the wheel tight, trying not to hyperventilate and give in to her weird imagination.  How did she get here, she wondered, the trip a blur in her mind, the sign filling her with dread, and the unknown danger made her want to turn around and flee the other direction. Indecision plagued her at the strangest times, a weird fugue blurring her thoughts.  Just yesterday she hadn...

  Welcome back, Sonic squad. Its time for us to review the very first Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon that ever aired, the one that was wacky and memorable next to many others. We're looking at... ADVENTURES OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG! The year was 1993 and it hadn't been that long since the first Sonic game had released for the SEGA Genesis with Sonic 2 releasing over a year later. Sonic was popular and merch was flying off the shelf, even a comic book by Archie was about to happen while other comics and manga were happening. And in the midst of all that, two animated shows were about to air and one of them was none other than Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Starring many talented voice actors, Adventures took place in a cartoonish take on Sonic's world and focused on Sonic and Tails as they engaged in many wacky adventures and fought the evil Doctor Robotnik and his lackeys Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts to stop the villainous scientist from taking over the planet Mobius. Assembl...

  It's week three in my 52 Books reading quest and I'm hanging out in the past with my dusty books.  I finished my C book - Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay which was an amazingly complex character study of two young Jewish men from the 1930’s to 1950’s dealing with war, life, love, family, loss, plus the comic book industry and bosses who took advantage of them. A more in depth review is posted below.  I'm at the 75% mark with Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel:  Henry has married Anne and she’s been crowned queen, given him a baby girl, and still Katherine refuses to accept the dissolution of the marriage. Enjoying all the machinations of Cromwell and the court. Already dove into my fourth dusty book, a historical fiction novel The Devlin Diary , which is set in two time frames – London in 1672 and Cambridge in 2008. It is the 2nd book in the Claire Donovan duo by Christi Phillips, author of Rossetti Letter which was excellent. Devlin Diary is al...

  I finished Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay which left me with a book hangover and the feeling of having read and excuse the pun, an amazing, yet exhausting adventure.  "Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book. Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men." Years ago I would probably have disliked this book because of Chabon's writing style. Today I appreciate and understand it, and especially like how he emulated Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried with the vivid writing and lists of thoughts, things, ...

Welcome back, Doctor Who fans, its time for another review... After the universe-shattering revelations and events of "THE TIMELESS CHILDREN" at the end of 2020's Season 12 of New Who, there was the question of what awaited in the next episode of the sci-fi phenomenon. After months of waiting, we got our answer in the New Year's 2021 special known as REVOLUTION OF THE DALEKS. That's right, the Daleks were back and this episode seemed to follow up from 2019's Resolution which dealt with a Recon Scout Dalek. So, what's the story with this one? Story: Well, the episode takes place ten months (from the perspective of The Doctor's friends Ryan, Graham and Yaz) after the events of THE TIMELESS CHILDREN and the trio discover that businessman Jack Robertson, whom they met in the series 11 episode ARACHNIDS IN THE UK, is working with the Daleks after seeing footage of a Dalek drone in action. The companions try to confront Robertson about the Dalek, but the are...

Bandits surprised Corey and Michelle Biannaib when they walked through the dark parking lot behind the theatre, empty now, except for them.  Caught off guard, Corey hesitated, then dropped Michelle’s hand and stepped in front of her.  Defense, he thought, her safety is more important than his. Even though it’d been years since his old karate days, muscle memory kicked in.  “For what it’s worth, I have a black belt," Corey said, his voice rising, making the statement sound more like a question and gave them the appearance of an ineffectual dork. “Good for you," the taller one with a diamond studded eye patch said, “but I have a gun so if you want to play rock, paper, scissors.  How about you turn over your wallet, purse, the diamonds, and you can go your way.” “I’d do what he says honey, this stuff isn’t worth fighting over,” Michelle said as she swept her hand down his back and stuck a small sheathed knife inside his belt. “Jack, I’d listened to your lady,” the short...

  How do you do, people?  We're back... with a review of BATMAN... VS TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES! That's right, Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a crossover movie. Plus, this was basically my first true animated Batman movie I ever saw and I'd already seen the first TMNT movie several years prior. I watched this back in 2019 and saw it again in 2021 after getting it on DVD, this film is unbelievably good and has some fine quality animation and storytelling. The voice actors really had a ball with this one, even the writers seemed to have quite a lot of fun too. Fun fact, this is not the first time Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had a crossover. They had some crossovers in the comics beforehand, this movie is a bit of a loose adaptation of one of their first crossovers. So, what's the story? I'll give you a short rundown. Shredder teams up with Ra's Al Ghul to take over Gotham City and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles team up w...

  Welcome back, its here, the second issue of Imposter Syndrome is out. What did I think of it? I can only say... Pure comic fun non-stop. Without giving away any spoilers, I will say that Starline's characterization never ceases to amaze and Ian Flynn's ever-so masterful writing has delivered some quality character moments. Meanwhile, Surge and Kit are fantastic, they are compelling IDW characters and have been entertaining on the same level as Starline and other characters such as Tangle and Whisper. So far, Sonic 2022 has gotten off to a great start, especially with this issue of IDW Sonic. Let us hope that the IDW comics continue to evolve and advance as time goes on until they eventually come to an end before IDW Sonic becomes a "bizarre anomaly" just like Archie Sonic before it with its origins linking it to the infamous Meta Era of the 2010s taking place after Forces just as Archie Sonic was linked to the 90s with the first two games and AoSTH/SatAM. Going off ...

Did you know this week is National Letter Writing week which means it's time to grab some paper and a pen or pencil, not the keyboard, and write a letter to a  significant other, family member, friend, long lost relative or even an author to thank them.  I was eating my dinner at work yesterday, browsing the internet and f ell into this article on Dame -   Have We Forgotten How to Read Critically .  I was reminded of a conversation I had with my son recently about authors, video games writers, comic book writers and how once something is published, that isn't the time to argue with them about how it's written and how you think it should be changed.  Lot of conversations online these days from Authors I follow who have people emailing them, questioning their choices, their writing. Then you have the ones who don't understand or want to cancel all the dead authors because the language may be discomforting.  Okay, getting off my soap box. All this to say it is...