The Force is Middling in this One: And Other Ruminations from the Outskirts of the Empire by Robert Kroese





Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform in 2010.

 Entirely composed of a "best of" compilation of blog posts from the author's blog and tied together with quotes and thoughts from the Star Wars movies, The Force is Middling In This One is a fun bit of reading designed to be read exactly as it was written: in small doses. This book is perfectly constructed for reading while standing in line (which I did with my smart phone and my kindle app) or any other time when you just have about 5 minutes to read.

The topics are all over the place, covering topics such as Star Wars, motorcycle riding on the freeway, the author's brain and its lack of focus, the construction of an addition to his house, his life in the least livable city in the United States (Modesto, CA - and yes, it was named that by a survey), Home Improvement Store employees, why gophers are literally evil and a whole lot more. Nearly every posting is interrupted by a totally different very short thought called "From the Sock Drawer." 

 Very few postings are political - he explains early on that he used to have a political blog but he literally alienated almost of his readers to the point that he stopped posting them. An exception to that is a posting called "Burn, Baby Burn!" about the folly of some environmentalists that was so on the point and explains why some programs will never work in a logical economics-based manner that I was ashamed that I hadn't thought of explaining things in this way before - i am a licensed econ teacher, after all.

 I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. 

 This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 
The Force is Middling in this One: And Other Ruminations from the Outskirts of the Empire


Reviewed on July 22, 2013. 

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