Eyes of Wakanda (2025) [/] 4-episode half hour animated series. Each episode is set at a different point in history and each has a Wakandan agent (War Dog?) trying to recover a Vibranium artifact to keep these dangerous weapons out of humanity's hands. The second episode has the agent as one of Achilles' Myrmidons during the Trojan War and episode three has a woman with the Iron Fist infiltrate Wakanda. Episodes one and four interact with less memorable parts of history though episode four shows an alternate future of Wakanda destroyed by the Horde. I do like going back to famous moments in history or interacting with previous versions of current-day heroes and villains. But overall I guess it was a so so series, contrast with What If where it started so so then halfway through s1 it starts showing that the whole season has a meta-story tying the episodes together which you didn't really get in Eyes of Wakanda.

Us x Her (2022) [-] Philippines sexy drama set during COVID. Mari (AJ Raval) and Dave (Kiko Estrada) are a married couple. Dave has a one-night stand with Lila (Angeli Khang), though actually he had sex with Lila before he got married and he doesn't remember. After rejecting Lila again she wants to get revenge by telling Mari. But once Lila gets to know Mari she becomes attracted to Mari (apparently Lila is a bit Fatal Attraction obsessive with her objects of desire). Once Lila and Mari have sex and Dave finds out he can't stand it but at this point Mari likes Lila more than she likes Dave though she does like both of them. The movie ends with Lila moving in and trying to work it out as a romantic three-some though Dave and Lila still don't like each other. And then the movie switches to theatrical play format showing three possible outcomes where Dave kills Lila, or Dave is killed, or they somehow make it work. The End. The sexy parts and nudity are nice and the two women are attractive and busty. But the story and acting kind of boring as it was hard to care about any of the characters.

Squiggle Drop (2023) [+] Side-view physics-based puzzle game on Apple Arcade. You have something at the bottom, such as a stack of blocks or a chasm with cars drive off to their doom. Above is a drawing area. Draw a shape with one continuous line and then the shape falls and hopefully you accomplish the task, such as knocking down the blocks or making a bridge over the chasm. Naturally the shapes you create need to be more and more weirdly shaped as the puzzles get harder. You can get a hint which tells you the outline of the area to draw a solution shape; and a second hint to show you the actual shape to draw which you still have to draw correctly. When you retry it shows you the previous shape you drew to make it easier to draw something a little different if you got close the last time. Feels like an original concept and works great with your finger on iPad, maybe less so on iPhone. Does not feel like it would work well on macOS/tvOS (apparently runs on both) or with a controller. Also kind of jazzy background music which wasn't annoying listening to over and over again (maybe it varies the music a bit).

Castle Crumble (2023) [-] Physics based Apple Arcade game. Kind of like a first person POV version of Angry Birds. There is a castle (more like a tower or more connected). Tap to shoot cannon balls or set off dynamite to destroy the castle. I supposed you get more weapons and the castles get more elaborate but I only played a few levels before I got bored. Pretty much all tower you hit near the bottom and they fall straight down so there doesn't seem to be much "hit one tower and cause a chain reaction" like in Angry Birds.

Trader Joes Frozen Asparagus Spears [-] These are thin asparagus spears (i.e. base already cut off). Microwave for a couple minutes and they’re ready. And pretty bad. Tried frying and also pretty bad. Because they’re frozen they come out maybe too soggy and chewy. Fresh asparagus is quite easy to make so this time I can’t recommend a TJ product.

Touch Your Heart is a South Korean humorous romance series running sixteen 1-hour-plus episodes.

Once the number one actress in Korea, Oh Yoon-seo (Yoo In-na) wants to make a comeback after a drug scandal forced her out of the industry three years ago. Always known for her beauty not her acting she commits to being a better actress for a possible legal drama by working at a small law firm owned by her agent's cousin.

Yoon-seo is assigned to Kwon Jung-rok (Lee Dong-wook), a very series criminal and litigation lawyer who insists on calling her by her real name Oh Jin-shim. At first he kind of ignores her because she has no secretary or legal skills (though she did attend one semester of law school before going into acting). But her perseverance slowly wins him over and she is genuinely interested in his work and helpful. And slowly an attraction develops.

There's the famous actress element. Everyone in the office knows who she is and kind of fawns on her except for Kwon. She's always in disguise outside and avoids crowds and meeting people. And it's something she's always done so after awhile Kwon realizes Yoon-seo leads a lonely life.

This is a bit of a comedy with musical bits and looks. Not over the top but I feel unnecessary. The other comedic elements are fine — lots of misunderstandings and coincidences. Towards the end there are a couple of dramatic situations — the playboy who drugged her returns to Korea and once again targets her and later on once she is finally made it back Kwon breaks up with her because he thinks it'll help her career — but they're resolved fairly quickly, within a couple of episodes so this is not a romance with high drama moments.

Overall I found this a pleasant and enjoyable romance where the middle eight episodes are really good and I watched a couple of episodes a night.

Jang So-yeon plays an older legal secretary — she doe supporting roles and I've seen her in various series though Something in the Rain (2018) was her best as the lead's best friend and sister of the love interest.

Park Kyung-hye plays one of the lawyers — I've seen her in supporting roles in My Roommate is a Gumiho (2021) and Destined With You (2023) as one of the Park Department workers.

Survival is the first novel of the science fiction trilogy Species Imperative by Julie E. Czerneda (don't think I've read any of her other works). In the mid-term future, like a hundred years, humanity has expanded to the stars and found them populated with a lot of alien species in a harmonious Interstellar Union. Interstellar travel is done via transduction gates, a technology discovered by some long lost species, lost then rediscovered. Earth itself is less populated as people moved out and EarthGov has been busy slowly restoring the planet, fixing humanity's ecological damage.

Dr. Mackenzie Connor studies salmon in the Pacific Northwest, has never left Earth and doesn't really care about what's "out there". Unfortunately her peace of mind and research projects are interrupted by an alien visitor, Brymn, an archaeologist from a species where studying the past is taboo. Brymn thinks something evil is re-emerging from the Chasm may be heading towards Earth, something so dangerous it threatens species extinction. (The Chasm is an area of space — and by that we mean systems connected to a trans gate system so all are nearby — where there is no life, at all even microorganisms, just dead cities and other artifacts of civilizations that lived there.)

With that threat (which is very very secret no-one else must know) Brymn has been allowed on Earth to talk with Dr Connor whom he believes will help him research. Government bureaucrat Nikolas Trojanowski is Brymn's handler though it turns out he's more than he seems. Mackenzie's best friend Dr Emily Mamani also happened to be visiting to help in Mackenzie's research so she gets roped into helping and when Emily is kidnapped Mackenzie has to finally leave Earth with Brymn to visit Brymn's homeworld for answers…

It's a slow moving story told from Mackenzie Connor's perspective. Conveniently since Dr Connor is unfamiliar with space and aliens as she learns stuff we learn stuff. The second half of the novel Dr Connor experiences an alien world with alien viewpoints (she almost dies on the two-week trip because Brymn's people didn't bring food and water for her and their attitude is "if you can't survive on your own you deserve to die"). Lots of plot twists because, aside from Dr Connor, the other major characters all have secrets that are revealed and change how we think about them. The ending is also a huge surprise

After a slow start I did end up enjoying the novel enough to want to continue with the second book (though unfortunately not available from my library network).

Ghost in the Shell (2017) [+] Live-action version of the Japanese anime. In future Tokyo robots and cybernetics abound but Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson) is unique as a brain in a cyber body, the first of her kind. She is part of Section Nine, a Japanese counter-terrorist unit. The latest case involves Kuze (Michael Carmen Pitt), a cyber hacker with unnaturally good skills and who is murdering all scientists involved in a secret project which turns out to be the secret project that created Mira. This leads to the terrible secret of Mira's creation… Not the first time I've seen this film though I apparently didn't review it before. Seems like a fine version of Ghost in the Shell with lots of action, cyber tech, and a cyberpunk sort of plot (though Ghost in the Shell is not cyberpunk). Both Chief Aramaki ("Beat" Takeshi Kitano) and Batou (Pilou Asbæk) have significant roles and the rest of Section Nine is there but very minor.

Side Quest (2025) [/] Four episode comedy anthology series set in the Mythic Quest universe. (1) Lead artist (Derek Waters) is hounded by Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) to do work whilst on vacation but it endangers his relationship with long time girlfriend Maude (Anna Konkle). (2) At an African-American small comic book store the patrons fight over the one copy of the new Mythic Quest comic book. (3) A young cellist (Annamarie Kasper, who is also a cellist) is hired by her idol conductor as he produces a Mythic Quest symphony but as the performances go on she starts losing her ability to feel the music. (4) A group of college-age friends embark on their last Mythic Quest series of raids as their social dynamics and issues lead them to break up, for the better… Episode two was the best because of the comic book shop vibe. Episode four was next best since you never really see Mythic Quest the MMO being played in the series.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (2023) [-] and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2025) [-] Spanish-language series based on Jules Verne novels. The concept is that what Verne wrote was real but in an alternate Verne Dimension. 150 years later his descendants are tasked with protecting the Verne Dimension and keeping it secret from the rest of humanity. This is a more kids-centered story where Diego (Sebastián García Huerta) is a descendant and he and his friends discover the secret and although unwelcome they help grandmother Pola (Margarita Rosa de Francisco) deal with the crisis in each mini-series. Comedy is provided by Pompilio Calderón (Óscar Jaenada), a descendant of Verne's nemesis, and Pompilio's mechanical parrot Claudio (Mauricio "El Diablito" Barrientos). Each mini-series does follow a lot of the same elements in the novels (though I'm not that familiar with the novels) but the plots are still fairly simplistic and the kids are annoyingly rebellious. I watched this for the great promo picture featuring Paty Cantú as Admiral Nemo (though only appearing in 4 episodes).

Masterpieced (2023) [/] Apple Arcade jigsaw puzzle game. Unlike Jigsaw Puzzle+ which tries to recreate assembling a puzzle on a big table this one tries to take advantage of the medium. You have to modes, one is the art and the other is words from the artist about the art, so you can try assembling part of the puzzle as art and then switch to continue assembling as text or go back and forth. Another difference is the art starts out very faded and grayscale. As you put in pieces the pieces all the assembled pieces briefly show their full color then fade a bit and as you assemble more and more when the pieces fade they don't fade as far. Not having color does it make it hard as you rely on shapes a lot but then when the puzzle gets hard for shapes the colors by then are good enough you can match by colors. Good implementation though I think I prefer the massive jigsaw puzzles of Jigsaw Puzzle+. These are significant but instead of 100 x 100 more like 12 x 12 which is challenging but not overly challenging.

Izakaya Mai, San Mateo - Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pancakes) [-] Never had Okonomiyaki before and it’s not an experience I want to repeat. “Japanese pancakes. Crispy outside Japanese pancake made with wheat flour, egg, seafood mix, fish cakes, veggies with topped of okonomiyaki sauce, sesame seed and fish flakes. Ramen noodle on top (optional).” I guess it doesn’t taste that bad but it is a light taste. The “pancake” part is a bit too insubstantial for my tastes.

Ironheart is a 6-episode series set in the MCU. The super-heroine appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) but without any background, just there helping out. This series is set after that film but gives her back story.

Inventor Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) is obsessed with completing her Ironheart suit and her antics get her expelled from MIT. With just the suit she returns home to Chicago and develops a suit AI, NATALIE, that has the personality and memories and independence of her late best friend Natalie Washington (Lyric Ross).

Needing money to work on her suit she is recruited and joins a crew led by Parker Robbins aka The Hood (Anthony Ramos). They're involved in breaking and entering and causing havoc in order to get local tech companies to sign over major shares to them. Nothing violent so barely within Riri's tolerance of allowable.

But Riri starts wondering about Parker's Hood suit, which turns out to be much more evil than she thought as a tech genius with no magic experience. Meanwhile she also befriends Zeke Stane (Alden Ehrenreich), Obadiah Stane's son who has a lot of tech stashed away and was sort of a black market arms dealer. Unfortunately after she leaves a piece of tech behind and the police arrest Zeke he blames her and eventually moves into Parker's orbit and is well on his way on the path to super-villain.

I like the characters. Riri is kind of annoying but has a lot of hurt inside due after her father and Natalie were gunned down a few years ago. NATALIE is great as a self-aware AI that wants to be Riri's friend like old times. Parker has his own messed up motivations but, although he was always going to be a bad guy, he veers into villain hood because of The Hood's influence. And Zeke was a nice guy in a bad business who lets revenge get in the way of moving on (though I guess he was in prison and had to help Parker in return for freedom).

The series has good intro music and good music in their montage interludes. I like that the intros eventually put the "Ironheart" title in unusual places. I like that Ironheart armor is very mobile but nowhere near as powerful as Ironman armor except maybe in the climax when it's half-powered by magic.

Overall after the first couple of episodes (which are setting up the story) I really enjoyed this series.

Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! Is a horse racing game using solitaire mechanics to power up your horse. On iOS it's part of Apple Arcade.

You play a rookie jockey breaking into the sport. Horses have various characteristics: speed and stamina are the primary; Age because eventually a horse gets too old; up to three skills which are more like special powers such as gain stamina if you are drafting another horse or find extra luck cards; peak number which is the stage when solitaire scores extra points (but if the next stage is not the finish line your horse gets more tired); whip number which is how many times you can whip your horse in the final stretch; horse experience level and going up a level increases speed and stamina.

A race has a start, 2 to 3 (perhaps more) stages, and a final stretch. The start is a mini-solitaire game where you try to reveal the back cards and find the "3". If you do then your horse has a better start. Most back cards are "2" which is an average start. There is a "1" which would be a slow start. Running out of time would also be a slow start.

Then you have a horse race animation as you ride amongst the other horses (and everyone is riding cute chonky horses). Then either the next stage or the final stretch. A stage is a regular solitaire game: cards are put face up on the table; choose a card to eliminate then you can continue with numerically adjacent cards (Ace connects with Two and King); if you run out of options flip a card from the draw pile. You're trying to clear the table before time runs out and the faster you do it the more energy you get. Sometimes there are special cards like skill XP for your horse (otherwise the horse never gets more skills).

The Peak Stage (depends on each horse) you get more energy and a whole lot if you clear the table. Also you get more energy the happier the horse is. Tired horses get unhappier, getting hit by other horses also makes your horse unhappy, and not clearing the table makes your horse unhappy.

Which reminds I forgot that before each stage you are shown a lane view with all the horses positioned and upcoming special cards you can run over. Middle is harder solitaire games but more energy; next to that is comfortable range ("2" at start) where the game is easier and your horse conserves energy; then there is the easy range where you can regain energy just from racing. You tap where you want to go and your horse will try to get to that position but other horses are moving around too and if you run into a horse with more energy (if they are on fire they have more energy) your horse gets pushed around.

In the final stretch you have a sideways aerial view as you and the other horses run in a straight line. You can switch lanes to avoid horses. Slow down to avoid a crash. Use your whip to go faster. Mostly I stay in my lane and whip as I've never had another horse in front of me (and if you have more energy you push other horses aside so maybe that was it).

In between races you have dialogs with the horse owner, trainer, and rival jockeys — there are no dialog decisions or any choices. You can buy powerups from Chirp the Japanese anime girl. You can change horses and more horses become available as you win races.

It's a fun little game. Also available on the Nintendo Switch and it's the type of game that fits on that console.

Silo s2 (2025) [+] I thought season one was pretty good but season two is so much better. It follows two tracks. The first is Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) making it to another Silo where almost everyone died and interacting with the handful of survivors there. The second is back home where the Mechanical Department stage a revolt in Juliette's name. Lots of tension plus revealing more and more secrets and lore.

Sink the Bismark! (1960) [-] British World War 2 movie about the hunt for Germany's giant battleship Bismark. On the home front you have Captain Jonathan Shepard (Kenneth More), new head of the Operations Research (where they take all intelligence and try to predict things like where Bismark is heading or where she will be), and WRNS officer Anne David (Dana Wynter) who is his chief assistant and vague romantic interest. There's a fair amount of naval battles action using miniature ships and stuff with Bismark's admiral and captain. I didn't find it that interesting which is sad since fairly sure when I saw it as a kid I liked it.

JellyCar Worlds (2022) [/] Puzzle sideview platformer where you control a car made of jelly which means it can get squished and squeeze through narrow openings without dying. Controls are move forward, move backwards, lift front up, life back up (to get over a step you have to both lift front up and move forward). Lifting eventually flips the car which can be useful if you want move end over end. I found it easier using touch controls because with a controller movement is LT and RT and flip is left joystick and it's not quite intuitive enough and neither is controller buttons configurable. Has nice cartoony graphics, background music, and goofy man-made effect sounds.

My Little Pony: Mane Merge (2022) [/] Kids game. Core mechanic is taking an object from your palette, dropping it onto an empty space on the grid, or dropping onto another duplicate object to merge it into a higher object which can then be dragged onto an existing duplicate (or you can drag from your palette again). Very simple game play with lots of cute sounds and horses talking to you and animated interludes and extra little games.

Trader Joe's Fire Roasted Bell Peppers and Onions [+] I heat this up in a pan with a bit of oil and it comes out juicy and tasty. Nothing to complain about. It's about three small servings.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a reboot movie, though this time as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At the beginning it says that this is Earth-828 which as the movie shows is a variant based on 1960's aesthetics, fashion and social mores but with modern technology (and super-science in the case of Mr Fantastic's inventions). No other super-heroes are shown and it seems like the FF are that Earth's only super-heroes.

Via a talk show intro video we see that is three years after the accident that created the FF and they are well-established heroes by now having fought various villains including Harvey Elder and his Mole Men. Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) and his wife Sue Storm aka Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby) lead the team, Ben Grimm aka The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is the team brick, and Sue's brother Johnny Storm aka Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) is the flying blaster.

Big subplot is Sue becomes pregnant (with Franklin). Reed sort of panics as he prepares to be a father. Meanwhile Johnny wants updated space suits so he can flame on in space. Ben has a run-in with school teacher Rachel Rozman (Natasha Lyonne) who may be a love interest in the future (but not this movie). There's also a teleportation experiment Reed is working on which works on an egg but drains New York's power for a few seconds.

And then arrives this alien being from space. Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) — though I don't think they name her other than her real name of Shalla-Bal and maybe they don't do that for the FF either — here to herald the coming of Galactus (Ralph Ineson). The FF use their space rocket plus a warp drive attachment to travel to where Galactus is, confront him, and lose. Turns out though Galactus is willing to spare Earth if the FF give up Franklin (who is born on the way back). Galactus senses has the potential to replace him (which I think he wants so he finally rest) so it's not like he wants to kill Franklin.

Back on Earth Reed is too truthful to reporters so now everyone on Earth knows the FF can't save them but sacrificing a baby will. As the world turns against the FF they have to find a way to defeat Galactus…

I found this movie quite good. I'd already seen a trailer so the retro-future look was not a surprise and reminiscent of when the FF debuted (1961) and the old cartoons I saw as a kid. I love that this film has Herbie the robot (non-speaking CGI so no credits) and a version of the Fantastic-Car which even split apart at the end (though I didn't notice since it's the end of the film).

Better than I expected mostly because previous FF films were good to not good. This one is borderline great and fits into the MCU. Also nice that it's set in its own Earth so doesn't have the kind of history that Captain America: Brave New World or Thunderbolts did (both really good MCU movies released this year).

There are two Hunt the Wumpus type games on the iOS App Store.

WumpusWorld (2018) [-] from Adaptelligence presents a grid and you have a figure that moves around and can shoot an arrow. You try to find the gold, grab it, then get back to the entrance square in the fewest moves. There is a Wumpus and one or more bottomless pits but no bat.

Wumpus Cave (2024) [/] is a lot more complicated. It has a graphical view on top and a text window on the bottom which describes what is going on. The top shows you valid directions: four compass points and four diagonals with blocked exits disabled. But when you exit a room in one direction you enter the next room from a random entrance so it's quite difficult to visualize the space and mapping it out is necessary. There is a Wumpus, pits, but not sure if there is a bat. You have popcorn to mark your trail and a pet grimble but I don't know what it's for. Also this is a leveled game so the more you play the harder it gets — level 1 has 15 rooms and a Wumpus with no pits.

Of the two WumpusWorld is too simple and strange that it didn't implement the bat. Wumpus Cave is challenging enough to be interesting for a while though perhaps a bit strange that it is predominantly text-based.

Circuit Breakers (2022) [+] Teen-oriented science fiction anthology show with seven episodes each less than half a hour long. In each episode teens at this high tech suburban private high school (I guess maybe this show is set a few years in the future with cutting-edge tech) experience different things. Episodes one a teen gets injected with nanobots to help him grow taller and be more athletic; episode two a teen uses a robot plus AI assistant to impersonate him and do all the boring schoolwork while he concentrates for a dance audition; episode seven a bit different as it's set on a Mars base where a teen and her parents handle the isolation and then an emergency… Series is fairly good and thoughtful and better than I expected. It's nice that each episode has one to three main characters but characters from other episodes also make appearances since they're in the same high school.

The Doorman (2020) [/] Former Marine Gunny Ali Gorski (Ruby Rose) with PTSD gets an easy job as a doorman at a building undergoing renovations so most of the tenants are gone except for an old couple and it turns out her dead sister's husband and two kids. She is invited for an Easter dinner and while there a group of thugs takes over the building looking for stolen paintings from the Eastern Bloc when the Wall fell… Kind of a standard action movie where the bad guys die in different ways. But worth it for Ruby Rose in Marine fatigues.

Dead Cells+ (2022) [/] Apple Arcade version of this action platformer rogue-like. You explore a dungeon defeating monsters and collecting items and treasure. You can of want a controller since there are multiple combat options (sword, bow, dodge, throw, jump are all different buttons and you need to use them in combinations). If you die it's over and restart from zero, though apparently you also connect Cells which are used for permanent improvements. One of the few good controller games on Apple Arcade.

Old Man's Journey+ (2022) [/] Apple Arcade version where you play an old man making a hiking journey, stopping at various places, and having recollections of his life. It's a side view game and you're walking on a hill with other hills in front or behind. You can't jump but you can move hills up and down (and the buildings on them) except for the hill you are standing on. Move a hill so that it connects and have the old man walk to it then move another hill and so forth and in general you are moving either up the screen or down it. Not terribly complicated and maybe not meant to be puzzles but more something to do as you watch the old man travel. I suppose the puzzle stuff gets more complicated though I found the game itself not for me. It's a good polished game though just not my type of game.

Deadlands: Rise of the Black Circle (2024) [/] Three-issue limited series released as a graphic novel. The GN has a Bad Luck Betty McGrew short story plus Savage Worlds writeup for the five main characters. The story is four heroes tangling with La Bruja and then having to fight zombies and a giant zombie thing. Unfortunately it ends in a cliffhanger and I guess we’ll see when the sequel appears… I found the story kind of bland though, even allowing for already knowing the characters (and If you don’t know the characters they’re not really explained here).

Oh My Ghost is a South Korean romantic comedy running 16 episodes. Shin Soon-ae (Kim Seul-gi) is a ghost coming up on her three years when — if she doesn't resolve her lingering issue — she will become an evil spirit. Soon-ae's lingering issue is that she died a virgin so she's been possessing attractive women and trying to do it except because she's a ghost she freezes potential partners before she's done.

One day while fleeing from a Shaman (Lee Jung-eun) Soon-ae hides in the body of Na Bong-sun (Park Bo-young, On Your Wedding Day and Light Shop) and then can't get out because they have compatible spirits. Stuck until she figures it out Soon-ae pretend to be Bong-sun, an assistant chef at a small fashionable restaurant run by celebrity chef Kang Sun-woo (Jo Jung-suk) whom Soon-ae immediately takes a liking to and it turns out he doesn't freeze at her touch.

Meanwhile Sun-woo and the other chefs at the restaurant are surprised by Bong-sun's change in demeanor from shy klutz to assertive and aggressive. Also she starts displaying surprising cooking skills since Soon-ae was a cook at her dad's restaurant which happens to be a few blocks away (and Soon-ae spends a lot of time there hanging out with her dad and younger brother). And Sun-woo suddenly starts to see Bong-sun in a new light and starts becoming attracted to her.

Eventually Soon-ae is knocked out of Bong-sun's body leaving Bong-sun with a couple of week's missing memory. But after some difficulties they soon come to an agreement (turns out Bong-sun inherited the ability to see and talk to ghosts though she hates it): Soon-ae will help Bong-sun win Sun-woo's heart and also resolve her lingering issue.

But it turns out that Soon-ae's lingering issue is not that she died a virgin but that she was murdered…

This is a pretty good series. The three main characters are all sympathetic. There is character growth for all three: Bong-sun learns to be assertive, Sun-woo learns to love, Soon-ae solves her murder and peacefully moves on to the next world. Park Bo-young does a good job playing two personalities. There is some suspense because the murderer is out there but it doesn't get too intense, keeping to the romantic comedy genre.

Overall a really nice series.

I bought four from two different brands. I tried these with olive oil and no meat and maybe adding pork would have helped a lot.

House Foods - Chinese Mabo Tofu Sauce, Mild and Medium Hot [/] - Heat oil, then empty packet (there is only 1 per box) then add cubed tofu. Tastes a bit like it's right. Medium Hot is barely spicy. This was the best of the three brands.

Lee Kum Kee Sauce for Mabo Tofu, Medium Hot [/] Same preparation as above though has a little less sauce though then again sauce is thicker so I guess balances out. Even less taste though.

Lee Kum Kee Spicy Bean Sauce (Ma Po Sauce) [/] This comes in a small bottle with I guess enough for a few meals. Also a thicker sauce like for the boxed version. Spicy? Not really. The flavor is a bit stronger though not sure I actually like it.

In the end I guess I'll stick with House Foods. They also made the tofu I used though that shouldn't matter. I don't think tofu differs enough it's best paired with the same brand sauce.

Beautiful Vampire (2018) [/] South Korean romantic comedy movie. A 500 year old vampire, Ran (Jung Yeon-joo), with rent troubles falls for the landlady’s wannabe actor son Lee So-nyeon (Song Kang - Forecasting Love and Weather; My Demon). Or more like his smell reminds Ran of her first love Jin Yi (Hong Bi Ra) and his unwanted puppy love is rather embarrassing… Very small budget (apparently the movie is an edited version of the web series) but it’s a nice story with intentional funny moments (i.e. the comedy bits are obviously comedy bits not "this happened naturally oh it's a bit funny/amusing").

Bewitching Attraction (2006) [-] Korean raunchy comedy. Professor Eun-sook (Moon So-ri) is promiscuous with her co-workers and other people which leads to bad feelings because some guys want more. Also in her high school past she was the same but that fooling around led to an accident and tragedy… I think this is supposed to be funny but it’s more sad and boring. There are a couple of nude sex scenes so I guess there’s that. Also I watched it on Tubi but for this one the audio (and matching subtitles) started being slower than the video and by the end was several seconds behind.

Football Manager 2024 Touch (2022) [/] This is a detailed football (soccer) management game where you are the coach and have to manage the players, sign and release, set club and scouting goals, and do game management. I like that this is not a soccer arcade game in that during a game you see highlights and can pause to change tactics or substitute players. But after the pre-season game (which takes like half an hour) spending another half hour plus learning and setting various club departments made me realize this game is way too detailed for me. I’ve tried a couple of other Manager-type games and all are too detailed and I wish there was a way to keep things very simple at start (e.g. for the first couple of games you only worry about striker, goalie, team tactics and when to substitute for the striker) and then slowly add more and more details. Although this game supports a controller the menus are fairly detailed so touch is much easier and you don’t play the soccer match anyways so a controller is not needed. This app also runs on my Mac and a bigger screen than my iPad would be useful because of all the information.

SpongeBob SolitairePants (2022) [/] Apple Arcade solitaire game. You have a 3x3 grid with a deck. You can place a card or pile on an empty square. On the cross you can place a card or pile on another pile as long as the top card is one away from the target card (i.e. if the target is a King you can place a card or pile with an Ace or Queen on top of it). Note the corners are storage areas — you can place a card or pile on a corner space but not on an occupied corner space. The objective is to place all the cards from the draw pile (and in higher levels you have to make certain combinations). All this with a SpongeBob SquarePants theme. Better than I expected.

Folgers Classic Roast [/] Bought this from the Mexican supermarket. Was not instant coffee. $11 for 9.6 oz so about same price as other coffees. It’s medium roast and I can’t tell if it tastes any better than other coffees. It comes in a plastic container with a lid that does not tightly grip so don’t lift it by the lid. Overall perfectly acceptable coffee.