The Joy of Cookies: Cookie Monster's Guide to Life (C. Monster)

The Joy of Cookies: Cookie Monster's Guide to Life, Cookie Monster, Julie Kraut (Ghostwriter) (2018)

Of course, a monster would have a ghost writer!

You probably already know what you're getting when you pick up a book written by a Sesame Street Muppet. If not, the teeth marks and the missing bite in the corner should clue you in.

The book is similar to other inspirational books, with a quote or passage on each page or two. In this case, familiar adages, proverbs, nursery rhymes and even song lyrics appear, except rewritten in Monster-speak -- e.g., using "Me" instead of "I" -- and centering the quote around Cookies. But that is generally just the beginning. If Cookie Monster were to say "Ask not for who Cookie tolls, it tolls for me", it would be followed by whatever actions or thoughts might occur to a monster after saying something like that. And there might be an illustration.

There are Word of Wisdom, like Keep Calm and Eat a Cookie, and three recipes, complete with monster-speak directions. The first recipe is simple enough for young hands to try. The last is several pages long.

I'd glad I held onto this book. This was a "rescue book" -- one that was in a pile to be donated, where quite a few of them became books to be recycled. (The garage leaked a little.) I knew I would enjoy it, and I did.

It also reminded me to follow Cookie Monster on Twitter.

Corrected tags: Science vs SF

At some point, it seems that I forgot that I had an "SF" tag and started using "Science" and "Fiction" as two separate tags. The Science tag was meant for books with actual science in them (usually nonfiction). I've corrected that.

I hope.

If anyone spots an errant tag, please feel free to leave a polite message.

How to Break Up With Your Phone (Price)

How to Break Up With Your Phone , Catherine Price (2019)

This was among a bunch of books slated to be removed from my house. The title intrigued me, so I took it out of the recycle pile. As a result, I only read this in school, not at home, because someone might've been upset that I'm rescuing what is supposed to be trashed. But I digress...

My phone is the least of my problems. Until a few years ago, I still had a cheap flip phone because it was costing me about $7 per month, and because I still have a legacy house phone that isn't going away any time soon.

However, it could be said that I have a problem with my iPad and any working PC with Internet at work (or at home). I'll sit down to do one thing, and I'll find myself checking out the same handful of sites over and over again, and not getting done the things I'd planned on doing. That sure kills writing projects (and sometimes comics), and is one of the reasons I no longer post weekly TV/movie/whatever reviews on another blog I maintain.

Oddly, I've gotten better about the number of sites I visit because typing on the ipad is a pain, and I use the ipad more than the pc.

Anyway, I thought the book's focus might be transferable, and in some ways it was. If nothing else, it's stuff to watch out for as I upgrade to my next phone and start using my features and functions.

The downside is that the book is really a Read-a-Day book where you are supposed to reevaluate your relationship with your device over the course of 30 days. I did not do this. I have no need to. So I just read through.

If you are addicted to your phone, there are likely good tips in here. If you are annoyed when people are on their phones when you're hanging out, you may want to give them a copy of this. If they are annoyed with you for the same reason, you should read it.

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice: The Dark Rival (Watson)

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice: The Dark Rival , Jude Watson (1999)

Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ...

In the final pages of the first book, there's an Epilogue that is really just a set-up for the next book. We find out that Qui Gon's first padawan, whom he lost, is still alive. He lost him to the dark side. (I don't know if this mentioned in the first movie or any other expanded universe stuff.) Qui Gon took the boy from his planet with his father's blessing, but for his last step as a padawan, Yoda sent the two back to that planet. Xanatos's father was preparing for war. Without spoiling too much for whomever reads this, Xanatos turns away from the Jedi and now embraces the dark side of the Force. And he has major issues with his former Master.

As such, it was Xanatos would arranged for Qui Gon to be sent to Bandomeer. Less clear is if he arranged for Obi Wan to go there as well, or if he just assummed that Qui Gon would have a new apprentice at this point. Xanatos is bent on revenge, even if he plays it cool, but his plans include taking that revenge out on Obi Wan, who he believes is Qui Gon's apprentice. (He is not yet.)

Bandomeer is a farming world, but it is also being mined by Offworld Corporation, run by Hutts, which employs Xanatos, who has his own plans for this, too.

A good follow-up to book one in that it continues the plot and characters (even the minor ones), even though it has a different writer. Also, it was a bit shorter. This one was also rated RL 4.

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice: The Rising Force (Wolverton)

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice: The Rising Force , Dave Wolverton (1999)

Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ...

As soon as I saw the first two books in this series sitting on a shelf in the Teacher Room at the high school I'm currently assigned to, I knew I had to borrow them. The fact that the apprentice was Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the Jedi was Qui-Gon Jinn just made it better. The fact that Scholastic had labeled it RL 4 was less attractive, but it didn't deter me. Actually, that meant that I should be able to read both and return them before anyone notice they were gone. (Or if I was suddenly reassigned, I wouldn't have someone else's property!)

The first book in the series opens about a month before Kenobi's 14th birthday when he'll be asked to leave the Jedi Temple that he's known his whole life if he isn't selected to be a Jedi's padawan before then. He'll be "condemned" to a life as a farmer, a fate he hopes to avoid. His problem is that he is easy to anger, which isn't a good trait for a Jedi Knight.

His main rival at the temple sabotages his chances of meeting with -- and battling in front of -- Qui-Gon, who has been without a padawan for some time now since he lost his last one.

Despite his performance, and the reveal that he'd been set-up, Qui-Gon does not choose to train him, even over prodding from Yoda. Kenobi is to be sent off to a farming world now because there a ship ready to go, and it can't wait for his birthday. As the Force would have it, Qui-Gon is sent on a mission to the same planet and travels on the same ship. And that's where the trouble begins. There are two separate groups of miners on board, one of which is run by the Hutts. They aren't happy with Jedi being on board.

When the ship is attacked by pirates, Qui-Gon battles the boarding party while Obi-Wan steers the ship out of danger, but has to set it down on a planet with dragon-like creatures. (Oddly, these creatures sleep in the air and rest on mountain tops, but there's no other life on land. All other life seems to be water-based. This doesn't make much sense, but we're only getting a snapshot of the world.)

I enjoyed the book, and, geek confession, I still haven't seen Episode 1 in its entirety in one sitting, but this is still a fun read. In some ways, it's like Clone Wars (or a prequel to it), in that Obi Wan is dealing with Anakin's anger issues as well as his impatience, even as Anakin has his own padawan (who is actually better than the other two at this point).

Speak Thai (Flood)

Speak Thai: The Easiest Way to Learn Thai and Speak Immediately , Daniel Flood (2019)

NO IMAGE ADDED

There are lots of free ebooks out there, so many that I've stopped downloading things just because they were free. But every now and then, a title pops up that intrigues me. If a newsgroup online (okay, it was really a "subreddit"), the author posted a link, stating that the book was free for a short time.

His approach makes sense: you don't need an extensive book that covers everything. ou won't see a zebra in Thailand, so you don't need to say it. On the other hand, there are too many references to "ask a native speaker" because they will be glad to help. I'm not going to find a native speaker (outside of a restauurant), and I'd have to keep asking them to slow down so I can hear how the language is spoken.

Speaking is the problem. There are a few references to how some letters or letter combinations are promounced. There needed to be much more than that. When it gets to the the useful phrase chapter, there are no suggested pronunciations next to any of them. I'd likely try to say them as if they were English words.

So, it's nice that it's short and free, but it needed to be a little longer (or less chatty). And it seems like the "easiest way to learn Thai" is to go there, immerse yourself, and listen to natives. However, that isn't very easy, and it definitely wouldn't be immediate.

Tales from Dragon Precinct (DeCandido)

Tales from Dragon Precinct , Keith R. A. DeCandido (2013)

Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ...

To date, I have read all the Dragon Precinct novels which have been published. I have not read all the stories. As I discovered in a sit-down at Heliosphere (NY) this past spring, Keith has submitted a number of Precinct stories to various anthologies that ask him for stories. Some of those are collected in this volume. Not all, obviously, because it was printed in 2013.

The better stories are the ones that remind me of Barney Miller episodes, even if I don't try to see specific analogues. The only downside was that the "first meeting" story, which concludes the book, was published in one of the actual Precinct books -- or at least in the edition that I purchased. (People who bought it "back in the day" might not have seen it.) The other amusing thing -- and this isn't a criticism, but a hazard of having submitting stories to many outlets -- is that I recognized when DeCandido reused a passage about calling the resident wizard to crime scene. A quibble.

None of these stories are "required reading" to enjoy the novels, but they fill in the gaps. The other books sometimes reference past cases, and some of those are in this book. The funny thing is that some of them were written after of a reference in a novel, not before them.

Fun book. Fills the long gap until either the Phoenix or Manticore books are written. And now I'll have to get More Tales.

Buffalo Dogs (Schoen)

Buffalo Dogs (The Amazing Conroy, Book 0) , Lawrence M. Schoen (2001)

Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ...

Not a book, just a story from 2001, which was republished as a standalone book, available for free. It's a great introduction to the series. And least I hope it is because I haven't read the series, but I would like to.

Disclosure: I've met Schoen at conventions, and while I doubt he'd remember it, we even had dinner together once, as a group of six were trying to eat before other panel appearances. (My brother and I were the only two who were not panelists, but I gave a ride to one of the others.) I also own a small Buffalo Dog stuffed animal that I won at a Reading at a different convention -- there were twelve people in the room, so he rolled a d12. Woo Hoo!

Back to the story. Conroy is a space-traveling hypnotist who works lounges on foreign planets and space stations. He gets into a little bit of trouble after his act one night with some literal-minded aliens who are also somewhat telepathic. The major export on the planet are their buffalo dogs: little animals that could be carried around the way celebrities these days keep one in their purses.

As a result of the mixup, Conroy finds himself forced to become a licensed dealer, who is able to transport one dog off-world at a time. Females cannot be taken unless they are neutered to keep control of the supply. Back when a trader gets arrested for smuggling, Conroy is enlisted because of his license. He puts his hypnosis skills to good use, and likely set up a great future business for himself.