Cleaner (2025) [/] Action-thriller movie. Eco-terrorists take over the high-rise building of a London-based energy company and massive polluter. Joanna Locke (Daisy Ridley), former British SRR (special forces) and now down on her luck window cleaner is stuck outside while the terrorists (led by her co-worker Noah (Taz Skylar)) take hostages including possibly her autistic brother Michael (Matthew Tuck). Can Joanna convince the hostage negotiator Superintendent Claire Hume (Ruth Gemmell) that she's on their side?… Has a suitable amount of action, explosions, shooting and hand-to-hand fights.

Mythic Quest s4 (2025) [/] In season 4 Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) return from their startup to Mythic Quest to work on the most ultimate expansion ever and to resolve their romantic issues (though Poppy spends most of the season with her boyfriend Storm (Chase Yi) who has a much higher EQ compared to Ian). I wasn't that impressed with this season and the series finale is rather abrupt getting them back together for another try as the credits roll. Favorite episode is the murder mystery where they're all playing a 1920's dress-up game of Mafia.

The Gardens Between+ (2022) [/] Nicely animated puzzle game. Two teens go from island to island. Objective is to follow a path to the top and light the pedestal. Left and right move you through time left and right (i.e. the teens and other objects on the island follow a set timeline so you're kind of scrubbing forward and back). When one of the teens reaches a certain point you can click the action button to do something: pick up or put down lamp, add light to the lamp, activate a trigger. A lighted lamp opens a path (e.g. unlocking a bridge) although there are things that will suck the light which you then have to scrub back and figure out how to stop the blocker. It's a fairly original concept but not that interesting.

Gin Rummy Classic+ (2022) [/] MobileWare game of Gin Rummy where you try to create sets or sequences before your opponent. Pretty standard format for MobielWare card games. You can play vs random people.

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir is a French teen superhero animated series set in Paris. Marinette Dupain-Cheng (Christina Vee, who I love as a voice actress and Internet personality) is a normal high-school teen who has a secret — she is also the superhero Ladybug protecting Paris alongside her partner Cat Noir who she doesn't know is actually her high-school crush Adrien Agreste (Bryce Papenbrook). At the same time Cat Noir is in love with Ladybug and since they don't know each other's secret identity they don't know that they're actually in love with each other.

Meanwhile the main villain is Hawk Moth who is actually Adrien's father the fashion designer Gabriel Agreste (Keith Silverstein). Hawk Moth finds people with negative emotions and akumatizes them into supervillains which he then sicks on Ladybug and Cat Noir because he wants their Miraculous — the totem that lets them turn into superheroes. Later on we find that Gabriel has a good reason for wanting the two Miraculous though still not a good idea to let him have them.

In each episode someone gets akumatized and Ladybug and Cat Noir have to stop them. This also reveals something about the akumatized person since something unfortunate happened to make them angry or sad or disappointed or whatever — and that something is often Chloé Bourgeois (Selah Victor), the rich mean girl of the high-school who also loves Adrien and is intensely jealous of Marinette.

Later on Ladybug is allowed to deputize people to help her for a mission and she gets to lend them a Miraculous. Hence we start seeing new superheroes with their own unique powers and even Adrien (Aspik snake hero) and Miranette (Multimouse mouse hero) get deputized, one because Miranette doesn't know Adrien's secret and the second for Miranette to cover her secret. Even later still Ladybug and Cat Noir have special cookies to turn them into variants, like Aquabug and Aqua Noir.

Season five (the last one to day though season six is coming) Hawk Moth finally gets the upper hand as he obtains all the Miraculous except for Ladybug and Cat Noirs. Things get bleaker and bleaker until a final confrontation that could be a series ender (I guess if they had decided not to do a season six).

Along with the regular series there are four standalone movies (of 45 to 60 minutes length).

• Miraculous World: New York (2020) - introduces American superheroes
• Miraculous World: Shanghai (2021) - introduces a Chinese super heroine with multiple powers akin to Miraculous. The heroes introduced in New York and Shanghai show up for the season 5 climax.
• Miraculous World: Paris (2023) - an alternate world invades where Shadybug and Claw Noir are the supervillains
• Miraculous World: London (2024) - a neat time travel story set right after season 5 ends and sets up season 6's new villain

Miranette and Adrien are a great almost couple and it takes until season 5 before they get their act together (though still, without learning their alter egos). Animation is mostly ok — not the biggest fan of this type of animation. This is a nice wholesome series that I enjoyed watching.

Apple Notes is a note-taking app on all Apple platforms. Though the macOS app is different than the iOS and iPad OS apps their features and compatibility are kept as synced as possible. I will focus on the macOS version since that's the one I use predominantly.

It has a standard three-pane main window. The left bar are folders (both normal and smart folders) and tags (which you create ad-hoc by writing #tagname in any note). There is a special All iCloud folder to list all notes (you can save notes locally but iCloud is so much more convenient and sync is works 99%+ of the time).

The middle pane shows the list of notes in the folder (or that has the selected tag). For All iCloud and for tags it shows notes by last modification date. For normal folders you can sort ascending or descending by one various attributes. You can also pin notes so they're always listed first.

The middle pane can also show an icon view which I don't find useful.

The right pane shows the current note. This mostly a Rich Text page without being able to set specific fonts (you can set a line as Title, Heading, Subheading, Body, or make words bold, italic, underline, strikethrough but you can't set it to Ariel or Helvetica it's just whatever default font Notes uses and the current iOS notes font looks better than the macOS one).

Besides writing text you can make bulleted/numbered lists, also checkbox lists though after awhile I didn't find it that useful and instead manually check things off with √ (option-v on a Mac keyboard). Apple Reminders app does much better check-off lists.

You can create simple tables but I found them cumbersome unless you're just displaying table data. If you want to keep track of information that changes the Notes table is inconvenient and often the cursor doesn't track well (delete might not delete the character the cursor is on or the cursor jumps somewhere you didn't expect). Apple Numbers app does great tables but that is a spreadsheet app.

You can record audio and attach it to a note. You can add images to a note, or a sketch, or even a document like a PDF which is then synced everywhere (though I'm thinking that's an easy way to fill up your iCloud storage). I only write text in my notes which helps syncing (document based syncing so when you update a note the whole note is uploaded to iCloud and downloaded to other devices).

And really that's the best thing about Apple Notes. I can update a note and immediately go to another device and see the change. If you edit a note in two places you will get a warning and asked which note you want to keep showing edit date but not note contents so maybe you choose wrong.

Besides the daily notes I created for Forever Notes system I have 52 regular notes each a topic where I put information. My pinned notes include:

• ✱ Home - Forever Notes home page
• Purchases - stuff I want to buy
• Purchases from Podcasts - RPG stuff from review podcasts
• Reviews - a list of topics to review later plus finished spot reviews ready for my Spot Reviews pages
• TODOs - though mostly keeps track of what I've done today
• Twitch Streams - immediate info and notes as I mod akanemsko streams
• Watching - keeping track of what tv shows I'm watching, mostly to make sure I don't overwatch

Syncing is the primary feature why I use Apple Notes. Secondary is just being able to have a lot of notes organized in one place — it's not I could use a Pages or BBEdit document to replicate Notes. This makes Apple Notes my most often used data entry app (with maybe RapidWeaver Classic for this web site being the second-most used).

Things that Apple Notes lacks:

• No undo once you leave a note and go back to it, or even if you leave the app and switch back to it. Undo with syncing I suppose is problematic but I do miss the way BBEdit has unlimited undos in all open documents as long as the app is running. And many times I want to undo a change but it's too late which just means I have to be more careful when I'm editing a note.
• Gets into a mode where there is a click/select and second click selects range. And then if I'm careless I delete a bunch of stuff and then break undo so I can't get it back.
• Auto capitalize beginning of sentences though I guess this is a macOS thing now.
• Doesn’t keep selection per note, it’s one for all of app. Another feature I like in BBEdit as sometimes I use select to mark my place which I suppose is a bit dangerous but not dangerous at all in BBEdit with it's extensive undo support.

Everyone Loves Me (2024) [-] Yue Qianling (Zhou Ye) confesses to college campus hunk Gu Xun (Lin Yi) but he flatly turns her down because he’s attracted to his online gaming pal Dough Twist who turns out to be Qianling. She in turns also knows him as gaming pal Campus Hunk but they’ve never met in real life. Both end up working in Gu Xun’s Ninth Business Unit which is developing China’s first AAA video game… This is a very average series running 24 45-minute episodes. Attractive cast but bland plot though still watchable. The video game playing angle is cool (and they do it with the actors going around as if they’re playing laser tag with a bit of CGI to make it like a video game) but pretty much gets dropped halfway through the series. Could have been much better.

Love You to Bits+ (2022) [+] A simple point and click puzzle game. Apple Arcade version is the same as the regular version which I reviewed seven years ago. Played it again for a few hours and still a fun game.

Spider Solitaire: Card Game+ (2022) [/] Apple Arcade version by MobilityWare. Now, most of their apps I think are very average PC or Android ports of traditional games. This one is more interesting. Maybe does not seem as much of a port (until you go to the Windows-themed settings) but in any case a fun solitaire game. It's like Klondike except when you flip a card you actually flip a card on each column.

Trader Joe's Sea Salt Chocolate Chunk Cookies [+] $6 for a box of six. Inside is two cellophane packages with three cookies each so that they don't prematurely dry out. Tastes good but only a little chewy. I guess the salt helps bring out the flavor? Not exactly sure how that works. But it's quite tasty and a cookie is good for a couple of day's worth of coffee for me.

The Princess Weiyoung is a Chinese historical romance drama based on a novel. The series runs 54 45-minute episodes.

Feng Xin'er (Tiffany Tang) is a princess of Northern Liang, a client state of the Wei Empire. Unfortunately her family is betrayed by Wei general Chiyun Nan (Jin Han) who then takes over the kingdom and kills everyone as traitors. Xin'er manages to survive and is befriended by peasant girl Li Weiyoung (Li Yixiao) who is the exiled daughter of Wei Prime Minister Li Xiaoran (Bai Fan). Once again misfortune follows when Li Weiyoung is murdered Li Xiaoran's first wife Chiyun Rou (Lily Tien) — this is ancient times when rich men had multiple wives and concubines and Li Weiyoung is the daughter of the Seventh Concubine (Liu Jie). Xin'er takes over Li Weiyoung's identity to hide and because she seeks revenge on behalf of the old Li Weiyoung.

So the new Li Weiyoung is summoned back to the Li household where she is embroiled in scheming among the sisters and their mothers: Li Changle (Li Xin'ai) daughter of first wife and Li Changru (Mao Xiaotong) daughter of second wife Wen Weiyi (Hu Caihong). Since the family is prominent the sisters come in contact with Tuoba Jun (Luo Jin), Prince Gaoyang, the Emperor's grandson and possibly heir to the throne; Tuoba Han (Zhang Tianyang), Prince Dongping, a son of the Emperor and probably second in line to the throne; and Tuoba Yu, Prince Nan'an, the Emperor's son through a concubine and probably third in line.

Everyone is infatuated with Li Weiyoung which marks her as an enemy to eliminate. So although Li Weiyoung is a bit proactive about going after Chiyun Nan most of the series is actually Li Weiyoung reacting to various plots against her. Mostly at first Li Changle who loves Tuoba Jun but later also Li Changru who loves Tuoba Yu. Chiyun Nan also plots against Li Weiyoung. Tuoba Yu loves Li Weiyoung so his plots are more about getting her in enough trouble she needs to turn to him for help. Meanwhile Li Weiyoung and Tuoba Jun are falling in love, though at first she is against it as she also blames the Emperor and his family for her family's demise.

This is a mostly interesting series. Li Weiyoung has lots of ups and downs, victories and setbacks. She is almost executed a couple of times and ends up demoted to slave then maid and works her way back up. Although she and Tuoba Jun are fairly moral people they're both willing to use trickery to turn the tables on their opponents and cause their downfall and perhaps death. There is a lot of people getting assassinated or seriously hurt (and usually Li Weiyoung is blamed or framed for it) and I guess it does get a bit repetitive.

Still, Tiffany Tang is pretty good as the main character, the series has fairly good production, and the story holds together well enough to be entertaining. Did enjoy the series though fairly average I guess. Average enough that I'm not interested in watching the sort of sequel The Song of Glory (2020) which is based on the same source material but different characters.

Forever ✱ Notes is a way to turn Apple Notes into an information store. Created by Matthis Hilse the web site goes over how you'd configure Apple Notes: you're basically creating one note per day of year (and that note will have subheadings one for each year), a note per quarter and month so it's easier to drill down, a shortcut you install that goes to the today's note, using hashtags to organize information.

The web site has good screen shots and fairly clear step by step to setup Apple Notes. Not so much on how to actually use it though there are discussion groups to learn more.

I did this and I think it's more organized than I had it before. I wasn't into using hashtags but now it makes more sense. Setting up was rather tedious since you have to add the forward/back/month/quarter links for each daily note, though easier since key notes have the special ✱ at the beginning which makes it easier to search (Forever Notes also tells you to setup a keyboard shortcut that converts double * automatically to ✱.

This is a nice way to turn Apple Notes into something more useful since you already have Apple Notes and don't need a third party app that has macOS and iOS/iPad OS versions.

Garden Tails: Match and Grow (2022) [+] Apple Arcade match 3 game that is very cute. Solve math 3 puzzles to collect seeds which you buy plants and decorate a garden (decoration is automatic). There are various animals that appear and each has a set of plants they want you to add to the garden. In between levels you can look at the garden rendered in 3D simple graphics with the animals roaming around. Puzzles are the usual with lots of powerups and combinations (powerups have animal themes: rabbit, hummingbird, bee, etc.) and various difficulties (branches, dirt, ice that require multiple matches to clear). Nice soothing music and end of level congratulations animation. Overall an elegant match 3 game with a pleasant and thoughtful theme.

Horizon Chase 2 (2022) [/] Apple Arcade racing game along the lines of a 1980's/1990's arcade game, i.e. not trying to be ultra-realistic. Default controls are on screen buttons: turn left, turn right, accelerate. You can reconfigure a bit but no swipe or device rotation controls. Luckily the game is designed for push button turning and I rarely crashed. It has the usual: various tracks, various cars, customize cars. It's a fun game at least for a while.

Jetpack Joyride 2 (2022) [/] Apple Arcade endless runner game. You are a guy with a jetpack, tap (and hold) to fly up and release to drop down as you move forward at a constant speed. Avoid obstacles and pick up coins. Pick up powerups which can be a mecha suit or better weapons (you always fire downwards but other weapons allow you to fire in other directions). Each level ends in a boss fight. Rather polished game with good cartoony graphics.

Trader Joe's Yogurt Cups [/] 4 oz cups of Bananas & Cream, Strawberries & Cream, Mangos & Cream, Peaches & Cream (some other flavors but haven't tried them). Basically tastes and feels a bit like pudding with a flavoring. Good but also 140 calories per cup because it's full of sugar. $4 for a batch of 6 cups. I'll probably try a different yogurt.

Alchemy of Souls is a South Korean romance fantasy drama running two seasons on Netflix. Season one is 20 episodes, season two is 10 episodes, and each episode is about 1-1/4 hours long.

In a mythical land there is an Emperor and the Royal Family and there are mages in various houses.

Mage Assassin Nak-su (Go Youn-jung) is finally caught by the mage guild and after being pursued she is wounded and cornered. But she use the forbidden Alchemy of Souls to exchange her soul into the body of Mu-deok (Jung So-min, who thereafter is Nak-su throughout season one). Nak-su is stuck in the comparatively frail body of a blind woman with no magical powers.

Hiding out she runs into Jang Uk (Lee Jae-wook), the scion of the Jang mages who are foremost in the mage guild. But Jang Uk's magic was locked out by his father (who then disappeared) and he's been trying all his life to find a master who can unlock his magic. Having failed with 12 masters Jang Uk recognizes that Mu-deok is really Nak-su but instead of turning her in he makes a deal: he wants Nak-su to be his master and help him unlock his magic.

So the series is about Nak-su hiding out as Jang Uk's new servant, teaching him secretly — first discipline and fighting, then unlocking his magic through trickery, then teaching him various magical arts. She is a harsh master who often puts Jang Uk in danger but she also puts herself in danger to spur him on. Naturally a more romantic attachment starts to form because Nak-su is not really a bad person but has justifiable hatred for the mages who murdered her father whilst Jang Uk is not the lazy dilettante that he portrays to others.

I love the first season. Nak-su is a great character and Jung So-min is so freaking good (she was also great in Because This Is My First Life and good in Love Next Door). I'd say if you watch episode 19 and then stop that's a good ending point as it's a soft ending leaving everyone happy.

Episode 20 changes it to a bad ending so that we can have a season two. Now Nak-su is played by Go Youn-jung (still in the same body but due to blah-blah-blah her outside appearance now reflects her inner spirit). One the one hand, since Nak-su has amnesia and it's been three years, when she meets Jang Uk again they don't recognize each other. He's still mourning for Mu-deok who "died" but Nak-su keeps reminding him of his lost love. Meanwhile the same bad guy Jin Mu (Jo Jae-yoon in an excellent evil baddie over-the-top portrayal) still wants to control the Emperorship using the Alchemy of Souls.

Season two is still fine viewed standalone (and it's half the length since a lot of backgrounds carries over from season one) but suffers in comparison with the great season one. So it's not like I regret watching it.

Oh, I like the romance subplot between Maidservant Kim (Oh Na-ra), who is like a mother to Jang Uk, and Jang Gang (Joo Sang-wook) who is the current head of the family (and he is not Jang Uk's father). They both like each other but don't say it and he's rather oblivious to all of her hints.

Anyway, Alchemy of Souls is one of the best Korean series I've seen and there are lots of good Korean series.

This is Free Trader Beowulf: A System History of Traveller ($30 PDF, $50 Print+PDF), by Shannon Appelcline, is a 300-page book (digest sized landscape format I think) going over the history of the Traveller RPG and the various companies that have published for it.

Table of Contents

1. GDW: Before the Game (1973-1977) - how GDW was formed and their early games
2. GDW: The Little Black Books (1977-1979) - Traveller when it was digest-sized books
3. GDW: Discovering the Imperium (1979-1985)
4. Licensees: The Guild to the Lords (1979-1985)
5. GDW: The Big Color Books (1982-1987) - Traveller when it went to regular-sized color books
6. DGP and Seeker: New Traveller Partners (1985-1987)
7. GDW: The Megatraveller Era (1987-1992)
8. HIWG and 'Zines: The Growing Fandom (1981-1992)
9. GDW: The New Era (1993-1996)
10. Imperium: The T4 Era (1996-1998)
11. Shattered: The Long Night (1998-2007)
12. Mongoose: Rise of the Third Imperium (2008-2015) - Mongoose Traveller 1E
13. FFE: T5 & Beyond (1997-Present)
14. Mongoose: Strephon Lives (2016-Present) - Mongoose Traveller 2E

Each chapter includes a page-sized aside going over how the rest of the industry was doing at the time. There's also an aside for unpublished products. Each chapter ends with product checklists including SKUs so collector's can keep track of what they own. Each chapter also ends with references and sources for Appelcline's research.

There are plenty of good product photos (and people). There are sector maps showing where each adventure mentioned in the chapter was set and also some overview maps showing the various land grants (a land grand was given to a publisher for their exclusive use so that their stuff was canon for that grant) and the whole Traveller space (mostly centered on the Imperium).

If you've read Appelcline's Designers & Dragons series then this book has pretty much the same style and attention to well-researched detail. Although the focus is mostly on companies and organizations lots of people are mentioned and if someone disappears then comes back later there's a bit of callback so you remember. There is some stuff on non-Traveller because a company (especially GDW) also published other products or because a person either did something RPG-notable before or after their Traveller contributions.

Overall it's a good read and a nice history of Traveller a lot of which I didn't know even though I lived through the times and sort of paid attention to the industry. Kind of pricey for a PDF (although I got it as part of Traveller bundle which helped). In print I assume it's to the standard of current Mongoose Traveller 2E books (hardcover, full-color glossy pages) in which case the price is fine for that. This would look good on a shelf alongside Designers & Dragons though I'm guessing the size and spine won't match.

Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld (2025) [+] The third season of Star Wars Tales once again focuses on two 45-minute stories, each with three 15-minute episodes. The first one is Ventress (Nika Futterman) back from the dead trying to live an anonymous quiet life amidst the Empire. The second story is the origins of Cad Bane (Corey Burton) from childhood when he was recruited and eventually took over his dead mentor’s gang. I love Ventress so loved her story. Cad Bane is too bad guy for me; I’d rather have seen a story focusing on the more amusing Hondo Ohnaka.

Marvel Strike Force [/] Two years later I re-downloaded this iOS game and got back into my account to play for a few weeks. Much the same as in my review. Did get lots of bonus stuff; I guess since I’ve been gone a long time. New recruits Captain Carter and Emma Frost at Red Tier 3 (red tiers are more power than normal tiers) made them the two best characters in my portfolio. Went from level 41 to 55 and I don’t think any new modes unlocked (there stuff still locked for me). In the end will probably delete this game again.

Samorost 3+ (2022) [-] Apple Arcade version of Samorost 3. Point and click adventure game where you are this little guy exploring his home asteroid (which seems strange since you live here and the first obstacle is a bridge pulley system you don't know how to operate). No text or speech though there's music and picture bubbles for speech. I couldn't get past the first puzzle so maybe not the game for me.

Trader Joe's Snickerdoodle Cookies [+] I'd only heard about Snickerdoodle cookies from watching Hope & Faith or maybe one of the Southern cooking shows. Turns out it's just a cookie with cinnamon and lots of sugar. It keeps in the box for a surprisingly long time so that the cookie is still a bit chewy on the inside. It's like $6 for 8 but with small bites half a cookie lasts two or three cups of coffee so a box will last a couple of weeks.