Taylor Swift The Eras Tour (2023) [+] A three hour concert film from her Eras Tour where she sings representative songs from her career (the new Taylor's Version of songs). A lot of great songs and Taylor Swift has a great stage presence so this is a really good concert film.

The Super Models (2023) [/] 4-part documentary series looking at the lives of Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington. How they became models and started the super models trend and what they're doing now. Lots of interview footage with the four then and now and lots of great photos. It's interesting but not amazingly so and took me a while to watch all four episodes.

Past Lives (2023) [-] Childhood friends Nora Moon (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Woo) were separated when her family moved to New York City. A dozen years later they happen to find each other online and rekindle a romance for a few months but their lives are separated as he still lives in Seoul, Korea, so they break up again. Another dozen years and he finally visits New York City but now she's happily married to Arthur (John Magaro) so it's more like time to say a final goodbye… A rather slow talky sort of film and I like how during their online relationship they have so many problems with connections and with finding a good meeting time. But ultimately it's a fairly boring film.

Hunan Mifen, Lawrence Expressway, Sunnyvale [/] Chinese rice noodles (round not flat). I had rice noodles with braised beeb sirloin and tomato. Comes in a soup. Tasted ok though I think Vietnamese Pho is better.

Love Next Door is a Korean romance drama running 16 hour+ long episodes.

Bae Seok-ryu (Jung So-min, who I loved as the female lead in Because This Is My First Life) returns home from several years working in the USA. Her parents soon discover that she quit her prestigious software engineering job and broke up with her fiancé [I never realize that one -é is for the man and two -ée is for the woman] but she won't explain why.

Choi Seung-hyo (Jung Hae-in, who played the male lead in Snowdrop) is a talented architect who has also returned home to start his own firm.

Both Seok-ryu and Seung-hyo were childhood friends and their families live next to each other and their bedrooms windows even face each other. There is a bit of distance though because Seung-hyo has unrequited love for Seok-ryu but in flashbacks throughout the series we see that his timing was never right to confess to Seok-ryu.

Still, now that they're back to being neighbors they frequently run into each other — though it's more like Seok-ryu invites Seung-hyo to various activities, he declines then shows up anyway, sometimes just in time to save the day. Romance starts developing.

Complication one: Seok-ryu's ex-fiancé Song Hyeon-jun (Han Joon-woo) arrives to win her back but she's definitely over him because he wasn't there when she needed him.

Complication two: Later on we find out that Seok-ryu had stomach cancer. The recover was difficult and lonely and that experience is why she quit her job and cancelled her marriage.

Complication three: Once the two are dating their parents find them out at a bad time when both mom's are quarreling hence both moms are against their relationship.

There is a secondary romance plot. Jeong Mo-eum (Kim Ji-eun) is another childhood friend of Seok-ryu and Seung-hyo's. She's a paramedic who falls for single dad reporter Kang Dan-ho (Yoon Ji-on) and his daughter Yeon-du (Shim Ji Woo) but when he realizes where this is going Dan-ho rejects Mo-eum and the mystery is why he does it.

This series is pretty good. I think Jung So-min is a good female romance lead. Also nice that although there is a life-threatening medical condition it doesn't end up killing one of the leads in the end.

We had lunch at Pedro's Restaurant and Cantina which I've been to before and the meal I had then was not that impressive. This time I had Enchiladas Del Mar ($30) and it was quite delicious. "Chile-spiced dungeness crab and shrimp wrapped in corn tortillas, roasted poblano cream sauce, sliced avocado, white rice, black beans."

Big shrimp and a nice sauce. Black beans were ok (refried beans would have been better). The whole thing very nice and since I'm here once a year I have to remember this is the entrée to get.

Carrie Underwood: Reflection (2025) [+] 90-minute concert filmed at her performance in Las Vegas. Theme is going through the hits of her 2-decade career. Lots of great songs.

Love Clinic (2015) [/] South Korean sex comedy. Gil Sin-seol (Kang Ye-won who I just saw in The Huntresses) is a female urologist who clashes with her medical neighbor Wang Seong-ki (Oh Ji-ho), an OB/GYN. He's impotent except when she's around. She can't seem to find any good men and is impressed when he shows a bit of thoughtfulness. The romance doesn't quite work in a movie timeframe. Ha Joo-hee plays the sexy neighbor In-young and she has several topless scenes.

Pachinko s1 (2022) [-] Drama that follows four generations of a Korean family from when Korea is subjugated under Japanese rule to modern day. It jumps back and forth following specific people in each time period. Good use of subtitles as sometimes speech isn't subtitled if the main listener doesn't understand. A rather serious drama but didn't really interest me although the last couple of episodes are cool as this includes a character living through the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. I'll skip s2.

Joy Sushi - Dragon Ball [-] "deep fried spicy tuna w/parmasan [sic] cheese(5pcs)". $12. It felt and tasted more like a salty meat ball deep fried. Not tasty at all.

Call It Love is a South Korean romance-drama running 16 hour+ episodes and released on Disney+.

After being evicted from their family home Sim Woo-joo (Lee Sung-kyung) seeks revenge on the woman who did it (and also stole her father btw). The easiest target is her son Han Dong-jin (Kim Young-kwang, who I recently saw in On Your Wedding Day in the lead male role), CEO of a small and struggling exhibition and trade fairs company. Woo-joo gets herself hired as a temp and waits for her opportunity.

But while studying Dong-jin she comes to realize he's a very lonely man who distances himself from everyone because of a disastrous failed relationship. A complication when his old flame Kang Min-yeong (Ahn Hee-yeon). Anyway seeing that a Dong-jin is actually quite compassionate and lonely brings out the protective feelings from Woo-joo and that slowly turns to attraction and love for both of them.

Another complication is when Dong-jin and co-CeO Choi-Sunwoo (Jeon Seok-ho) find out that Woo-joo was working against the company, at least in the beginning. A final complication is when Woo-joo's family find out both that Dong-jin is the son of their hated enemy and that they're dating. They're forced to break up promising never to see each other again.

But one year later Woo-joo is told that mom was ok with Dong-jin all along. Also he's invited to Woo-joo's brother's debut concert. She shows up hoping to see him. He shows up late. They see each other. The audience fades away (a reference to something they talked about when people are in love). She smiles. He smiles. By the way, first and only time either of them smile in this series because they're both very somber characters. They run to each other and hug happily. A pretty nice ending.

This is a series that takes about six episodes to get going and then it's slowly going up and up with only a few dips and sticks the landing at the end. Even for a [+] K-Drama series one of the ones I like more.

I re-read the Hellboy Trade Paperbacks v1 to v12 which span from his origin to the end of the first phase of his life. Mike Mignola did a great job with simple, stark, and evocative art. Hellboy himself is somewhat interesting — a demon raised by humans with a destiny to conquer mankind though he is dead-set against it.

Spanning 18 years there is no actual end plan until towards the end. A lot of self contained short stories which I like the most. The bigger stories that span two to five issues tend to have this drawn out pacing. Lots of sections with little dialogue, lots of small drawings to set atmosphere, and yet after you read an issue it feels like little happened (though first and last issues tend to have more story).

Even though I read a lot of Pulp Mythos stories because of Call of Cthulhu I'm not sure I love that genre. Hellboy is very much in the same style. I do like the earlier stories which had more Nazis with retro-tech and that's cool. Later on it's more fairy/magic sort of opponents which I'm less interested in. Overall I don't think I would have read these stories on my own.

Star Trek: Section 31 (2025) [+] Buddy adventure/mystery film. A Section 31 team led by Alok (Omari Hardwick) recruits Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) to recover a weapon and save the Federation from a Terran Empire invasion. We get flashbacks to how Philippa became Emperor. We have a unique set of characters in the team which includes Lt Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl), future captain of the Enterprise-C. We also have team members being killed because there's a traitor amongst them and I liked that part of the story best as they did a good of giving enough info to figure out the traitor just before the reveal. Fun action scenes too. Overall I really liked this movie as a non-theatrical movie.

The Huntresses (2014) [/] South Korean action/comedy set in the Joseon Period (1400 to 1900 AD). Three female bounty hunters — Jin-ok (Ha Ji-won) master of disguise, Hong-dan (Kang Ye-won) throwing dagger expert, and Ga-bi (Gain) martial arts hot-head — have to save the King by recovering a MacGuffin from the bad guys who are led by the man who had Jin-ok's father murdered… It's an ok film using lots of CGI.

Love, So Divine (2004) [-] South Korean romantic comedy film. Kim Gyu-shik (Kwon Sang-woo) is training to become a Catholic priest. Yang Bong-hee (Ha Ji-won) is the rebellious daughter of the church parishioner where Gyu-shik is training. Their clashes start to turn to attraction though I guess I missed the part where they fall in love because it seems so abrupt to me, hence why I letdown by the story. It's also a 20 year-old movie and looks really dated.

Joy Sushi - Baked Lobster Roll [-] "Crab meat & avocado topped w/ baked lobster, tobiko and joy special sauce". Basically a California roll with stuff on top. Very salty and I guess next time would eat it with extra white rice. $16.

Dating in the Kitchen is a Chinese romance-comedy running 24 45-minute episodes.

Talented but fierce and clumsy sous chef Gu Sheng Nan (Zhao Lu Si) is given the sole job of creating meals for the mysterious guest in room 1134. That person is Lu Jin (Lin Yu Shen), business maven and in line to inherit his mother's conglomerate. Lu Jin is very particular about what food he likes and so far this hotel he's interested in buying has a very pedestrian kitchen staff except for Shengnan.

They don't meet for several episodes except as that clumsy girl who spill stuff on Lu Jin. Then they get to know each other and maybe Lu Jin is falling for Shengnan more than vice versa. Minor complications are Li Man (Li Qian), Lu Jiin's business assistant and hand-picked by mom as a future bride for Lu Jin. Also there is Shengnan's childhood friend Cheng Zi Qian (Fu Jia) who comes in as the hotel's new manager and is determined to make his feelings known to Shengnan.

It's a pleasant series and Zhao Lusi is very charming and I've seen her in starring roles before in Hidden Love (2023) and Who Rules the World (2022). Lin Yu Shen seems ok and I don't think I've seen him before. The last few episodes have a serious subplot where Lu Jin's younger brother Lu Zheng (Yu Xiang) tries to manipulate the two into breaking up to distract Lu Jin and save Lu Zheng's company. Does make the last part of the series less good than the first score of episodes.

Pinnacle Entertainment has a set of Wendigo Tales books — short stories set in the various Savage Worlds RPG settings. Deadlands RPG had a set of Dime Novels published which combined a short story with a corresponding adventure. Wendigo Tales v0 collects the stories in the original set of Dime Novels published for Classic Deadlands.

I never read the stories so was a bit surprised they all have Ronan Lynch as either the main or one of the main protagonists. Ronan is a Harrowed — undead powered by a demon (Manitou) — with free will although occasionally the Manitou can take over and cause mischief.

Anyway, Ronan travels the Weird West sometimes with allies (which can repeat) and sometimes alone. This being the Old West even investigation adventures end with gunfights. Ronan himself, and really all the characters, is thinly developed but I guess that's because the stories are by various authors.

What's more interesting are the various bad guys they fight. Vampires, Werewolves (via a Werewolf the Apocalypse crossover), Mi-Go (via a Call of Cthulhu crossover), as well as various Deadlands monsters. That's pretty much the only thing that keeps the stories interesting.

Otherwise I'm not impressed with these stories. Writing good short stories is a special skill and good short stories have a finish that rivals novels. I'd say in the end this is a book for completionists since Ronan is also in other Deadlands media.

Isle of Dogs (2018) [+] Stop-motion animated film set in a current-day Japanese city where dogs, due to being plague carriers, are all sent to a garbage island in the bay. Young Atari (Koyu Rankin) travels there to find his loyal pet. Once there he befriends a group of dogs who help Atari search for his dog. The film is from the dog POV and they all talk English (with English-speaking actors) while the humans talk Japanese with no subtitles for the most part since dogs don't know the language. It's a cute film.

A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) [/] The original film is set maybe a year after aliens have landed on Earth and claimed parts of the world. In this film the aliens attack and quickly overrun Manhattan Island. Sam (Lupita Nyong'o), who has terminal cancer, is trapped but instead of trying to escape she longs for slice of pizza from her favorite restaurant before she dies. Eric (Joseph Quinn), a British law student, befriends her and tags along and so eventually Sam has to make sure Eric makes it to the evacuation zone along with Sam's cat. Not a bad suspense/thriller film.

Step Up 2: The Streets (2008) [/] Street dancer Andie West (Briana Evigan) enrolls in a prestigious dance school and forms a crew out of the misfits in the school in order to compete in The Streets, a big underground competition. Lots of good dancing and their final dance routine is pretty good.

Trader Joe's Raspberry Stars [-] Two star-shaped shortbread cookies stuck together with raspberry jam. Personally I find them too sweet. Also too big so I split them apart with a knife — if I try it by hand they break apart into small pieces. Blueberry Muffins are better.

Kiss Sixth Sense is a South Korean romance series running for 12 episodes each an hour plus long. Set at a high-end advertising company, Hong Ye-sool (Seo Ji-hye, who plays Seo Dan, the female lead's romance rival in Crash Landing On You) is an up-and-coming project director groomed by the rather harsh company star Cha Min-hoo (Yoon Kye-sang).

Ye-sool is steadfastly single because of her secret power: when she brushes her lips on skin or hair she can see the future about that person. That's why she broke up with her great love, movie director Lee Pil-yo (Kim Ji-seok), because whenever she kissed him she only saw their relationship ending. And then Pil-yo is hired to direct their big commercial with Ye-sool in charge of the ad.

Meanwhile Ye-sool and Min-hoo have had an almost adversarial relationship. She appreciates his mentoring but he's very harsh with her. One day they accidentally kiss and she sees that in the future they are lovers. How does getting from here to there happen though? Meanwhile Min-hoo is being pursued by top actress Oh Ji-young (Lee Joo-yeon) who is also in the big ad, but Min-hoo thinks of her as a kid sister since they grew up together…

The series has good production value and attractive cast. Towards the end it gets dark when a villain is revealed, someone willing to kidnap Ye-sool and kill anybody standing in his way. And in the last couple of episodes they finally get together then find out they drive each other crazy and break up and maybe they get back together at the end? So those last four or so episodes are kind of disappointing.

Kim Ga-eun was good playing Ye-sool's cousin and roommate Ban Ho-woo, who is really smart and believes in having 7-day romances then breaking up before the inevitable letdown.

Overall still fairly watchable especially on Disney+ which doesn't have that many K-Dramas.

The Lathe of Heaven is a 175-page science fiction novel by Ursula K Le Guin.

Set in the present. George Orr is a man who doesn't want to dream and because of drug use is sent to a renown psychiatrist Dr Haber. Apparently when George has an Effective Dream he changes reality and everyone else thinks this is the way it has always been.

Once Dr Haber is convinced about George's power he uses George to make the world better. But dreams are finicky and even with the help of hypnotic suggestions the good changes that Haber wants are often balanced by unwanted changes. George on other hand doesn't like that Dr Haber is changing so much reality but George is a very passive man and goes along with the therapy sessions. Eventually George enlists legal aid from Heather Lelache and there is a small romance element there.

There are also vague turtle-like aliens that George dreamed up in order to bring Peace to humanity by making an external enemy. Once again after more dreams the aliens turn out to be friendly and integrate with humanity. George has a few enigmatic interactions with individual aliens and it's apparent that they know about Effective Dreaming and why his are so chaotic.

Meanwhile Dr Haber has been using an Augmentor machine to analyze and amplify George's dreams and he finally is ready to use the Augmentor to give himself the power of Effective Dreaming…

I've always believe that The Lathe of Heaven was really long and boring. I think this may be from watching parts of the PBS film adaptation when I was a kid and that was boring to me as a kid.

Reading it now it's well written and relatively quicker read than I expected. Although only three main characters only George is developed in that you see a lot of his thoughts and life. Dr Haber gets a bit of his thoughts also and Heather you do get a bit of her thoughts but definitely a minor character.

There's an element of how power corrupts and Dr Haber is not an evil man but more of a Utilitarian which is greatest good for greatest people which in this case means everyone being the same gray color (no racism nor racial wars) and everyone has the authority to execute anyone with cancer (though to be fair that may be more George dreaming something wacky than what Haber had intended).

George is a weirdly passive character to me. He could dream for himself, or try to stop Haber, or run away or commit suicide to save the world from Haber. But he does nothing and doesn't even expect things to turn out well in the end. As a protagonist he is rather dull and I guess one problem is that there is no one to care about. I don't care about George or Haber or Heather and I guess I care about what's going to happen in the end but in the end not a novel I'd ever want to read again.

This is a classic science fiction novel. Worth reading once.