Boss & Me is a Chinese romance drama running 34 45-minute episodes. Xue Shanshan (Zhao Liying) is a new accountant at a big software company run by Feng Teng (Hans Zhang). She somewhat unqualified and later finds out she was hired because of her rare blood type — the first episode starts with her going to the hospital to donate blood to Feng Teng's sister Feng Yue (Zhang Yang Guo'er) who is in labor.

In thanks Yue sends daily lunches to Shanshan and eventually she starts eating those lunches in Teng's office with him. She also eats lunches outside of Teng's office by herself and she doesn't realize the window is one-way so she acts naturally by herself while Teng watches her.

Teng becomes attracted to Shanshan and her openness and honesty. Meanwhile most women after Teng look down on Shanshan because she is from low background and is quite unsophisticated and less attractive (I guess this was intentional but pretty much every other woman in this series is taller and more attractive than Shanshan). One of those other women is Teng's childhood friend is Yuan Lishu (Li Chengyuan) who is sophisticated, runs a bookstore chain, and is secretly in love with Teng.

The last major player is Zheng Qi (Huang Ming), good friend of Teng's and the software company's head of design. He's a ladies man and every woman is attracted to him including Shanshan. Shanshan is attracted to Qi who is much more charming whereas Teng is taciturn and seems to pick on Shanshan even though he then makes sure Shanshan is not bullied by others…

This is a fairly typical Chinese romance drama series. It focuses on Shanshan and we often hear her thoughts (and no one else's). Shanshan tends to overthink things and is quite insecure and spends a lot of time trying to decipher social cues from Teng and others. So most of the problems in their budding relationship stem from Shanshan and it does get kind of annoying at times.

Still, I do like this series though more average than good.

Exit Plan is the third book in Larry Bond's Jerry Mitchell series. Larry Bond designed the Harpoon naval warfare game and co-wrote Red Storm Rising with Tom Clancy and has subsequently gone on to write a bunch of military fiction books.

I haven't read the other books in the series. Jerry Mitchell is a former naval fighter pilot who had to change career tracks due to an injury. In the first book Mitchell is already to a submarine as weapons officer. In Exit Plan has XO on the USS Michigan, a fast attack submarine converted for special operations — less Tomahawk missiles to make room for a Navy SEAL platoon and their equipment.

The main threat is that the Iranians announced they're going to test their first atomic bomb (which means they have two or three others already made) but it's a ruse to make the Israeli's attack and destroy the Iranian atomic facility as a casus belli. Two Iranian informants must be retrieved — a scientist at the atomic facility with a lot of files and knowledge that the Iranians are years from developing Uranium enrichment.

After the primary pilot is injured Mitchell is assigned to pilot the mini-sub that will take a SEAL team of four plus Mitchell and a SEAL co-pilot into the Iranian coast to retrieve the informants. Unfortunately a fire sinks the sub stranding Mitchell and the four-team SEAL team in Iran trying to keep their informants alive while waiting for rescue…

I found this to be a readable book with an entertaining plot. I'm more interested in naval action of which there is little in this novel. The scenario seems quite realistic with the timings and details of US vs Iranian responses making sense. Characterization is not great but that's not really a military fiction thing since the space is needed for the exciting stuff.

Skimming the other series novel descriptions this one is the worst to have jumped into. The other novels seem to be primary submarine warfare or situations and Exit Plan is more SEAL team boots on the ground action. Debatable whether or not I give this series a second shot.

Elevation (2024) [/] Post-apocalyptic Earth after it's overrun by monsters except the monsters don't go above 8000 feet so the few human survivors live there. Set in Colorado, Will (Anthony Mackie) needs to go down to Boulder for medical supplies for his ailing son. Nina (Morena Baccarin) is a scientist who may have a way to kill the monsters but her last attempt ended up killing Will's wife. Katie (Maddie Hasson) tags along because she likes Will. The movie is them going to Boulder, avoiding/fighting monsters, and getting back and it has a small setup for a sequel because turns out the monsters are extra-terrestrial which means some alien race sent them to wipe out humanity (the monsters only target people and they're drawn by exhaled carbon dioxide). It's an ok film, fairly low budget but well implemented.

Cooking Mama: Cuisine! (2022) [/] A cooking simulator exclusively on Apple Arcade. Choose ingredients (as you get better new ingredients added) then go through several steps to prepare the ingredients. Cutting is swiping, flipping is swipe down then up, stirring is swipe in a circle, sprinkle is swipe up and down repeatedly. For each step you have about 15 seconds to do it right and get three stars and at the end you have a prepared dish. Meanwhile Mama encourages you, there is happy music, and the graphics are cartoony though the dishes look good. But it doesn’t really seem like much of a game and I guess this is more of a kid’s game. Note: unlike most Apple Arcade games, Cuisine seems to be a limited version for Let’s Cook rather than the same or better version.

Subway Surfers Tag (2022) [/] Apple Arcade arena brawler game where you control a teen skateboarder. You go into an arena, collect coins/powerups/weapons and fight off the guard and guard robots while tagging things, riding rails, and doing tricks. You keep going until you die but there are new arenas for variety. Probably plays great with a controller but was fine with fingers (virtual joystick and auto-aim). Didn't find it that entertaining but it's a good polished game.

Joy Sushi, San Mateo - Tokbokki [/] Joy Sushi has some K-Food items and when we went there for dinner I had the Tokbokki ($16). “Stir-fried rice cake with fish cake in Korean chili sauce.” Thinly sliced fish cake with wide circular noodles in a tomato-y sauce and fairly spicy (definitely strong spice but not uneatable). Seems like a fairly basic “home cooking” sort of dish and sometimes see this on K-Drama shows. Pretty good.

Nescafé Black Roast [/] Instant coffee. Tastes horrid even with milk and that may indicate I make my usual coffee a bit light. Still, it’s a quick coffee fix without using the coffee maker and also allows me to make double-strong servings. And the taste is about as unappealing as the other instant coffee I had from Trader Joe’s.

Welcome to Samdal-ri is a South Korean romance/drama running 16 hour+ episodes.

Cho Sam-dal (Shin Hye-sun, who I loved as the female lead in See You in My 19th Life) is a talented photographer with her own studio but after allegations of employee abuse she and her sisters flee back to their small home seaside town of Samdal-ri on Jeju island. Once back home Sam-dal has to deal with her ex-boyfriend Cho Yong-pil (Ji Chang-wook, male lead in Backstreet Rookie and Lovestruck in the City) who even eight years later is still in love with Sam-dal.

It takes a while for them to re-hookup. Lots of flashbacks to their childhood and how they broke up (two different perspectives) and how they were as a couple — flashbacks are out of order and often don't reveal the whole truth until closer to the end of the series. The big obstacle to reconciling is that both their parents are sort of against it: Sam-dal's mother Go Mi-ja (Kim Mi-kyung, has played many mom roles) because she doesn't want to see Sam-dal hurt again, and Yong-pil's father Cho Sang-tae (Yu Oh-seong) who blames Mi-ja for the death of his wife and Yong-pil's mom.

A couple of other romantic subplots for variety. Sam-dal's older sister Cho Jin-dal (Shin Dong-mi) divorced her rich husband Jeon Dae-young (Yang Kyung-won) who has returned to the area in order to finalize a deal for an amusement park in the next town. They both still love each other but she divorced him so he wouldn't be ostracized by his family after she did a whistle blower thing on the family conglomerate.

Sam-dal's younger sister Cho Hae-dal (Kang Mi-na) is a single mom who got pregnant at 20 but her boyfriend died. Now she has an adorable 9 year old Cha Ha-yul (Kim Do-eun). In any case Ha-yul befriends Gong Ji-chan (Kim Min-chul), who heads a local Dolphin Center, and then Ha-yul plays matchup between her mom and Ji-chan.

One of the strong elements is the haenyeo, a name for the female divers of Jeju Island who dive daily harvesting ground sea-life such as abalone and seaweed. Go Mi-ja is the head of the town haenyeo and Yong-pil's mother was a haenyeo. It's kind of nice seeing this uniquely Korean thing which I didn't know about before.

I like the series. Nothing groundbreaking but well executed and delivers on the romance.

Hellboy and the BPRD is a natural continuation of the main BPRD series which was set in the present but had covered the beginnings with BPRD: 1946, BPRD: 1947, and BPRD: 1948.

Spanning Hellboy and the BPRD: 1952 to 1957 these are mini-series, one for each year, starting with Hellboy's first mission in 1952. A young Liz Sherman makes an appearance and Trevor Bruttenholm is often around but none of the other regular characters appear so Hellboy is hanging out with human teammates, some from BPRD 1946 et al.

I like these stories as going back to more classic Hellboy: talking and investigating, monster appears, Hellboy punches it. Although occasionally someone dies these stories are lighter than the later Hellboy and really all related series set in modern times.

There's also a nice through-line about a secret US government organization competing with the BPRD. Whereas BPRD is mostly defense oriented "how to stop these creatures" this new organization wants to weaponize some of the BPRD research.

Overall a nice series and good change of pace to the regular series.

Tron: Uprising (2012) [/] Animated half-hour series set in the Tron universe between the original movie and Tron: Legacy. Argon is the last city conquered by Clu and Beck (Elijah Wood) is a mechanic who wants to fight the system, first as "The Renegade" and later after an injured Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) recruits him as the new "Tron". Beck's escapades are opposed by General Tesler (Lance Henriksen) who governs Argon and his chief lieutenant Paige (Emmanuelle Chriqui), who is actually idealistic and a potential ally for Beck but not in season one. Unfortunately this series wasn't renewed and ends at an episode 19 cliffhanger. I found the animation ok but more interesting was showing life as a program. Besides Tron being a secondary character that appears in several episodes you also have Clu (Fred Tatasciore) for an episode or two and Quorra (Olivia Wilde) in an episode.

Frogger and the Rumbling Ruins (2022) [/] Puzzle game on Apple Arcade. You are Frogger as an Indiana Jones-type. Each level has paths and platforms, some of which you can manipulate by moving side to side or up and down (at any time). There are switches which Frogger must step on to activate. Three hidden Froglings on each level to optionally rescue. There might be monsters or other things to kill Frogger (or a Frogling if you're not careful!). It's 3D and you can rotate the map and zoom in and out and you'll need to do it to see things on the other side and so forth. Nice family-friendly game with 100+ levels. Apparently this game was removed May 15th and is no longer available so maybe it'll be released in the regular App Store.

Hellboy in Hell TPBs (2014-16) [/] Two volumes which cover Bellboy's stay in Hell after he died and before he was resurrected to finish the BPRD series. It's a bit dark and not as hopeful as early Hellboy although I suppose BPRD/Abe Sapien covering the same time period were also descending into bleakness. It's nice to have it to bridge that gap but don't think I'll ever re-read this.

Trader Joe’s Brookie [+] This is a brownie layer on bottom and a chocolate chip cookie batter layer on top. Together a bit too rich so I usually eat the brownie first then the cookie (since it’s batter layer and then baked it’s more like a hard dessert than a cookie). It’s like $6 for 8 180-calorie pieces though I usually have half a piece a day with two cups of coffee, so it turns out to last longer than the blueberry muffin and it doesn’t go stale as fast. This is now my coffee companion of choice.

Pho Little Saigon, San Mateo - Beef Stew w. Egg Noodle Soup [/] Perfectly fine Beef Stew Soup with regular thin noodles. Had it delivered so the noodles come separate and you mix it yourself. Lots of beef actually. Large serving was $22 from DoorDash.

Campbell’s Cream of Potato soup [/] For cheap condensed soup it tastes fine. You add milk so it’s soupy/creamy. Bits of potato to give it some texture. 225 calories (I suppose with the added milk) so kind of a snack thing for me.

In Thunderbolts a new super-hero team is formed but first they have to kill each other. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) is in a funk doing mercenary wet work for CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) who gives her meaningless jobs cleaning up messes. But de Fontaine is under investigation by the US Senate and to clean up all the loose ends she needs to get rid of the last pesky witnesses: the mercenaries she's been using.

So Yelena, US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko in a cameo appearance) are sent into an underground vault each having one of the others as a target. The survivors then have to get out and fight their way through a mercenary company. And they picked up Bob (Lewis Pullman) along the way who is unfortunately left behind to show off his new-found superpowers and be captured.

Red Guardian (David Harbour) joins them and then Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) captures them. They decide to stop de Fontaine who has turned the old Avengers Tower into Watchtower. Once there though they are easily handled by Bob, now styling himself Sentry. But when Sentry turns on de Fontaine — for what does a god need with a mere human superior — she has to put him down which only brings in his evolved form as Void.

Void essentially zaps everyone in Manhattan into their own nightmares and that includes the Thunderbolts. They have to overcome their deepest fears and free Bob so he can defeat Void…

This is a fun action movie with lots of great quips and funny bits. A team that is not a great team nor well balanced (as one of them points out they're all basically martial arts shooters). But nevertheless they manage to defeat a really big threat.

Enjoyable movie.

Jigsaw Puzzle is an app that recreates solving a physical puzzle (Jigsaw Puzzle by MobilityWare+ on Apple Arcade). Choose a picture and puzzle size (9 to 1024 pieces) the start. You have a board that you can zoom in or out and an outline of the puzzle (I think these are all square puzzles). On the right is a 1-puzzle wide scrollable pane showing the puzzle pieces which you drag and drop onto the puzzle (or anywhere on the board).

There are a few conveniences:

All pieces are oriented correctly so you don't have to bother rotating.
The pieces pane can show only edge pieces so you can build the edges first.
There is a Fill button to pull all loose pieces on the board back to the pieces pane. This doesn't pull partially assembled sections (so you can assemble puzzle sections anywhere).
When you drop a piece if it's the correct placement there is a little flash and afterwards you can't accidentally pull the pieces apart.

On the downsides:

A big puzzle on my 11" iPad screen is still way too big so you have to zoom into sections to solve.
Scrolling through a thousand-piece puzzle is quite a chore.

Still, I actually found this game enjoyable. Unlike other MobilityWare games it's not really trying to simulate a 3D space so the graphics are just fine. Come to think of it the preferences also seem standard UI not a port from a PC game.

There are a huge number of puzzle sets and on Apple Arcade they're all free. Also a daily puzzle if you want a random challenge (the daily puzzle is from an existing collection not a brand new puzzle).

Naturally when you exit it saves your progress and you can have multiple saved puzzles going with each puzzle having its own timer in case you want to know how long a puzzle takes you to solve. There is also a complete puzzles section to view your previous conquests.

Overall it's pretty good and better than I expected when I saw MobilityWare logo.

2025-05-23:

There are actually four trays so you can sort three colors (or six if you double-up) into three trays and everything else in the first tray.

I was doing a 1024-piece puzzle where every color had multiple subtle shades. Which comes to mind that as far as I can tell no puzzles for color-blind users.

What If…? Season 3 (2024) [/] Favorite episodes:

3.2 What If… Agatha Went to Hollywood - has a nice Bollywood dance number.
3.3 What If…the Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier? - more humorous as Red Guardian is hilarious.
3.7/3.8 …the Watcher Disappeared? / What If? - The Watchers decide to reprimand our Watcher because he's been meddling, leading a band of female heroes to try to save him.

Apparently this is the last season. The series is better than I thought because I was thinking all standalone stories but having each season tie in at least some of the previous episodes made it much better story-wise.

Pro Darts 2025+ (2022) [/] and My Bowling 3D+ (2022) [/] Apple Arcade version of iWare Design's games. Like their pool game it's simulations — showing a 3D area where you throw darts or bowl. UI is rather clunky and ugly and these are obvious ports from some other platform. I don't think I'd recommend any of iWare Design's games even though they are functional games.

Rin-Tei, San Mateo [+] A small Thai-Japanese Fusion restaurant less than 10m walk from my place. I had Asari Pho ($25) - rice noodles and clams in a chicken and soy milk sauce, garlic and cilantro. Dairy free yet tasted just fine. Also Thai Iced Coffee ($5) which comes in a glass and already poured out. Both were quite tasty.

Sleepy Owl Coffee - Xpresso [+] Instant coffee comes in small packs you open and pour into hot water. I’d use two in a mug with some water then add milk. Tastes better than using my Mr Coffee with ground coffee.

Applegate Naturals Grilled Chicken Breast Strips [/] Kind of like the chicken strips you’d find in a chicken salad. Perfectly fine tasting and all you do is heat it up. Apparently mostly available at Whole Foods and a bit pricey.

Lovestruck in the City is South Korean romance-drama of 17 half-hour episodes.

At a beach vacation architect Park Jae-won (Ji Chang-wook, male lead in Backstreet Rookie) meets and falls in love with "Yoon Seon-ah" (Kim Ji-won, female lead in Queen of Tears) and for two months they have the happiest time until he has to return to Seoul for work. Although she agrees to contact him when she also gets back to Seoul she never does and he's been looking for her for a year not realizing that his cousin Choi Kyeong-jun (Kim Min-seok) and Kyeong-jun's friends know "Seon-ah".

But she's not really Seon-ah, she is Lee Eun-oh who runs a one-woman marketing company. The old Eun-oh lost both her boyfriend (he was cheating on her) and her new job on the same day and hopeless wandered to the beach and got a job at a seaside Ramyeon shop and there she renamed herself to Yoon Seon-ah and tried to be an open, positive, experience-everything person that she never was. It was that person that feel in love with Jae-won but once she returned to Seoul it was back to Eun-oh, though an Eun-oh that want's the be more confident and assertive than the old one.

And because she was embarrassed about being a different persona she tried to cut off ties with Jae-won. Unfortunately he does find her and now she has to deal with it…

There's a framing story in that there is a documentary being filmed about relationships and the subjects turn out to be Eun-oh's friends:

• Park Jae-won
• Choi Kyeong-jun
• Rini Seo (So Joo-yeon) - Eun-oh's childhood friend and Kyeong-jun's 5-year girlfriend
• Kang Geon (Ryu Kyung-soo) - Eun-oh's and Rini's childhood friend and Eun-oh's roommate
• Oh Seon-yeong (Han Ji-eun) - high school gym teacher, serial dater, Geon's ex-girlfriend

The main characters talk to each other on an anonymous chat (and there are other chatters, maybe part of the documentary) but they don't know who is talking and they don't know the others are in the documentary. I guess it allows the characters to say what they were thinking at the time without having to film and act it out.

Since this is a half hour show the main plot gets almost all the story time and at least that plot has a happy ending though it seems quick to resolve (episode 17 is almost a new story about an actress not wanting her first kiss to be on-screen). Unfortunately the other two couples don't end well which is unusual for K-romance drama.

Overall not the best series. Not sure I liked the framing as it was sometimes a bit confusing if they really know who was messaging or not. The whole reason for Eun-oh to ghost Jae-won is explained eventually but not convincingly. And the other couples ending badly leaves me with mixed feelings.