Apple ID Updates

To change the primary email address for your Apple ID, use the instructions below.  You will need to have your iPhone handy In a browser on your computer, go to:  appleid.apple.com . Type your Apple ID in the white box below ‘Manage your Apple account’, click on the right arrow, type your Apple ID password…

Pokemon Go Login

Account Setup Though you can use a Facebook account to login, create a Pokemon Go username.  This account will be with the Pokemon Trainer Club.  This username may or may not be different from your screen name.  One word all lowercase is sufficient for a username. Record the username and password on the device used…

Community Days

A Pokemon Go Community Day is a worldwide three-hour window during which there is a featured Pokemon with an exclusive move and along with bonuses (increased XP (experience points) or stardust) appearing at local parks.  For example, the first Community Day on January 20, 2018 featured Pikachu with the charged move Surf, double XP, and…

World Trigger

World Trigger by Daisuke Ashihara is an entertaining Japanese battle and strategy manga populated primarily with teens and young adults – they have the necessary energy (trion) to power their avatars who do battle on their behalf (and which means that there is very little real bodily damage).  The artwork is clear and (most of)…

Vamplets

Vamplets Book One: The Nightmare Nursery by Gayle Middleton and Dave Dwonch and illustrated by Amanda Coronado with Bill Blankenship is a graphic novel for more savvy kids given that the main plot trigger is vampires and other paranormals promiscuously producing babies which they are too busy to parent – especially since adolescence is 777…

It’s Quacking Time!

It’s Quacking Time! by Martin Waddell (such an appropriate last name) and illustrated by Jill Barton is an adequate though not very engaging picture book addressing the topic of having a baby – but without the touchy subjects of reproduction and childbirth.  This is accomplished by telling the story of Duckling and his family: at…

Margaret Wise Brown

Margaret Wise Brown is the author of several classic children’s picture books including Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, and The Color Kittens.  The lilting, steady prose makes for a good bedtime read-aloud – though everyone will want to stay awake for the illustrations (the first two illustrated by Clement Hurd and the third by Alice…

Kung Fu Panda 2

Kung Fu Panda 2 (and the first and third editions) works mainly because Jack Black does such a good job of bringing the title character to life.  The three movies are pretty similar so unless you’re a really big fan of animated Kung Fu movies with anthropomorphized characters and/or of DreamWorks films, you only need…

Kubo and the Two Strings

Kubo and the Two Strings is an animated movie from studio LAIKA about a Japanese boy going on a quest to find his dead samurai father’s magical armor.  George Takei ably voices the grandfather but I found Matthew McConaughey’s Toy Storyish samurai beetle jarring – too American; Charlize Theron’s voicing of the mother was okay…

William Heads to Hollywood

William Heads to Hollywood by Helen Hancocks was a benign but somewhat unsatisfying picture book with tuxedo cat William, “international cat of mystery”, solving a case in Tinseltown for Audrey Mieowski.  My main objection was that William and Audrey are ostensibly cats but they don’t exhibit feline traits and the other characters are all visibly…