Tuesday, July 08, 2025

Thorn: The Complete Proto-Bone College Strips 1982-1986 by Jeff Smith: Book Review

(Book Review--Bone Series)


(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)





I was able to read this book thanks to the Michigan statewide state-wide interlibrary loan service called MeLCat, which may be in danger thanks to a Presidential executive order.  If you, like me, enjoy using MeLCat, contact your local representatives and let them know. 

Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4lIFkJZ             (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
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Monday, July 07, 2025

Started: Countdown to Final Crisis Volume Two

This book doesn't appear to be currently in stock at Amazon, but here is the link nonetheless: https://amzn.to/4nDd0L2      (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
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The Newsroom: TV Series Review



This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:

This is also part of my Television Addiction series.  For my explanation of what the Television Addiction series is and why I'm doing it, see: https://youtu.be/T5CEQ9-35xA and http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2021/04/television-addiction-article-on.html


The Newsroom

          I mentioned a while back that I had been watching this show.
            I first started watching this show because it was recommended by the magazine Asia Life, one of the expat magazines out here in Cambodia.

            I was only a few episodes in before I started wondering what in the world the editors of Asia Life were thinking.  The show was so cheesy, and so contrived, and just…well, ridiculous really.
            (The AVclub has an episode by episode rundown of the show that do a very good job of highlighting all the ridiculous points about this show).

            And yet, despite all the problems with the show—despite the cheesy soap opera relationships, the contrived plot points, and the arrogant 20/20 hindsight smugly applied to every news event, I still found myself watching episode after episode.
            Aaron Sorkin may mess up a lot of things, but he still understands the mechanics of screenwriting very well.  Each episode may be terrible objectively if you focus on the plot, but Aaron Sorkin still knows how to keep the dialogue snappy and he knows how to keep the forward momentum of the story going.  So the show may be terrible, but it never really gets boring.  And, I have to confess that even while I was rolling my eyes at how cheesy the plot was, I still kept watching it.
            Also, if you’re a political junky, then all the political diatribes mixed-in with the soap opera drama is another guilty pleasure.  On several of the polemical speeches throughout the series, I think Sorkin did a very good job of sticking it to the Republican Party.
            Of course when Sorkin bashes causes I’m sympathetic to, like Occupy Wall Street, then I enjoy it a lot less, but I guess that’s just my liberal bias double-standard showing through. (I think actually there’s actually good case to be made for the strength of a grass roots bottom up leaderless movement.  But the straw-men Occupy Wall Street characters that Sorkin created were never able to give a good defense for this.)



Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

Check out this series on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4kqIjpo          (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
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Sunday, July 06, 2025

The Cuthaean Legend of Naram-Sin translated by Benjamin R. Foster (from Before the Muses): Summary


According to Wikipedia, this text is also titled: Naram-Sin and the Enemy Hordes





Wikipedia uses the spelling "Cuthean".  Benjamin Foster uses the spelling "Cuthaean"

Related Playlists




* Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x4Cvg1Yw4LQyKEXIwDwo1m0&si=X6OZ7Ectw-fzHbCn

* Akkadian Literature: The Mature Period 1500-1000 BC Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x545tikwEDqcgD_qmFqtLUF&si=XlI2gaYNnh1HGPyf

I was able to read this book thanks to the Michigan statewide state-wide interlibrary loan service called MeLCat, which may be in danger thanks to a Presidential executive order.  If you, like me, enjoy using MeLCat, contact your local representatives and let them know. 

Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4k08VgZ            (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
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Friday, July 04, 2025

It's me.  This video is my story. 
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Thursday, July 03, 2025

Sargon, King of Battle translated by Benjamin Foster (from Before the Muses): Summary & Discussion





In the video, I misquoted the Wikipedia article slightly.  What it actually says is:
Of the twenty-three tales composed of the Kings of Akkad, this was one of only three, along with the Birth Legend of Sargon and the Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin, to continue to circulate in the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, some 1,500 years after the events they describe.[3]
...in the video I said 3 texts about Sargon, but I should have said 3 texts about the kings of Akkad.

Related Playlists




* Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x4Cvg1Yw4LQyKEXIwDwo1m0&si=X6OZ7Ectw-fzHbCn

* Akkadian Literature: The Mature Period 1500-1000 BC Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x545tikwEDqcgD_qmFqtLUF&si=XlI2gaYNnh1HGPyf

I was able to read this book thanks to the Michigan statewide state-wide interlibrary loan service called MeLCat, which may be in danger thanks to a Presidential executive order.  If you, like me, enjoy using MeLCat, contact your local representatives and let them know. 

Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4k08VgZ            (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
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Wednesday, July 02, 2025

Hymn to Tiglath-Pileser I translated by Benjamin R. Foster (from Before the Muses): Discussion

Alternative title: A Heroic Poem in Celebration of Tiglath-pileser I's Muṣru-Qumanu Campaign






The article From Chicago University Press is available here: https://archive.org/details/hurowitz-westenholz-1990-musru-qumanu

Related Playlists




* Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x4Cvg1Yw4LQyKEXIwDwo1m0&si=X6OZ7Ectw-fzHbCn

* Akkadian Literature: The Mature Period 1500-1000 BC Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x545tikwEDqcgD_qmFqtLUF&si=XlI2gaYNnh1HGPyf

I was able to read this book thanks to the Michigan statewide state-wide interlibrary loan service called MeLCat, which may be in danger thanks to a Presidential executive order.  If you, like me, enjoy using MeLCat, contact your local representatives and let them know. 

Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4k08VgZ            (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
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Tuesday, July 01, 2025

House of Cards Season 1: TV Series Review


Links to stuff mentioned:

This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:

This is also part of my Television Addiction series.  For my explanation of what the Television Addiction series is and why I'm doing it, see: https://youtu.be/T5CEQ9-35xA and http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2021/04/television-addiction-article-on.html


House of Cards

          I had high hopes for this series.  I love political dramas, and I’m a big fan of Kevin Spacey.
            Alas, I regret to say that the series was awful.  So awful, in fact, that I didn’t even bother finishing the last few episodes.  (What was the point?  None of the characters seemed at all like real people, and I the plot was obviously manufactured and contrived.)
            The AVclub has an excellent rundown of all this show episode by episode, and I basically find myself in agreement with their analysis of all the show’s faults.


Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

Check out this series on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3TlSbWG           (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
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Monday, June 30, 2025

Bone Handbook by Jeff Smith: Book Review

 (Book Review--Bone Series)


(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)





I was able to read this book thanks to the Michigan statewide state-wide interlibrary loan service called MeLCat, which may be in danger thanks to a Presidential executive order.  If you, like me, enjoy using MeLCat, contact your local representatives and let them know. 

Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/40wTuFU             (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
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Sunday, June 29, 2025

Now that I'm back in America, I'm listening to the the American radio again.  
When I first got back to America, I was only listening to NPR in the car.  Or sometimes I would use my phone and listen to my podcasts.  But the past few weeks, I've started switching over to music stations, because when the wife and kids are in the car, it's nice to have music on for background.
Radio in America has of course changed since I've been gone.  Although not as much as I thought it had.  I had been under the impression that oldies radio stations were permanently gone from the cultural landscape, but oldies and classic rock stations are actually still around.  They've changed, of course.  I feel like the Doo-wop songs from the 1950s and early 60s are gone.  (e.g. when I was a kid, it wasn't unusualy to hear a song like Bristol Stomp on an oldies station, but you'd never hear this song on the radio nowadays, would you?)


(BTW, I'd completely forgotten this song even existed until Family Guy reminded me of it.  But once upon a time, it used to be a staple of oldies stations.)
But while the 1950s seems to have fallen off the radar,  oldies stations seem to have increased in their scope on the other side.  I've noticed that when I listen to oldies and classic rock stations, songs from the 1980s and 1990s are now considered oldies.  Well, fair enough I suppose.  Time has moved on.  Those songs are objectively old now.
But what does confuse me is how I seem to keep hearing the same songs over and over again.  Now that oldies/classic rock has expanded to include the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, I would expect that these stations would have a lot more songs to draw on, and I would hear a new song each time I turned on the radio.  But instead, it seems to be the same 10 songs over and over again.  Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd seems to be always on.  Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith is another one that I think I've heard 3 times this week already.  

As always, take everything I say with a grain of salt, because I've only been back a short time, and these are just my observations from the past few weeks of listening to the radio.  Those of you who've been listening to the American radio for the past few years will know better than me, I'm sure.

Nevertheless, despite my complaints about how repetive the classic rock stations have gotten on the radio, I have encountered a few songs the past week that I've not heard in years, and it's reminded me of how good some of these songs are.  And I may start sharing them on this blog as part of my Sharing Music I Like project.
Stay tuned for future posts.
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