Green in My Heart (2020) [+] Hour-long K-Drama romance story. College best friends — new director Han Seo-Rin (Jun Hyo-seong) and popular actor Cha Soo-Hyuk (Choi Kyu-Jin) — are reunited for her first film in Korea. He still professes his love for her but she wants to remain friends since the lead actress is his public girlfriend (a publicity stunt but she actually wants to be his girlfriend). Lots of little flashbacks to fill in the story. Very tight story with little characterization but it still works.

My Last Love (1999) [/] Romantic drama tv film starring Nancy Travis as Susan, a terminally ill mom who moves back to the West Coast to arrange her last months. She meets Michael (Scott Bairstow) and can't help falling for him, who is fine that she has a strong-willed daughter, Carson (Jamie Renee Smith). It's a nice story with little drama points -- such as Susan's parents being upset when she wants Michael to adopt Carson after Susan dies -- that don't blow up and ruin the theme.

Alto (2015) [/] Romantic comedy small film. After she finds the dead body of a mafia goon, struggling musician Frankie (Diana DeGarmo) comes to the attention of the local mafia boss, the FBI, and the boss's daughter Nicolette (Natalie Knepp). Although Frankie just accepted her boyfriend's marriage proposal Nicolette starts to bring out feelings Frankie didn't know she had (and it helps that Frankie and her fiancée have quite different ideas of what their marriage will be like). It's a nice film for the apparent budget. With Annabella Sciorra as Frankie's mom.

Go Back to China (2019) [/] Los Angeles native Sasha (Anna Akana) is forced by her estranged father Teddy (Richard Ng) to move to China and work in his toy factory. She befriends older half-sister Carol (Lynn Chen) and two half-siblings (because Teddy kept cheating on his current wives and then remarrying). Working at the factory Sasha also learns to take on responsibility and goes from spoiled brat to a more mature adult. It's an entertaining coming of age story though could use more production.

Wolfs is an Apple TV+ movie starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as two nameless freelance fixers working one night in New York City. A dead Kid (Austin Abrams) in a high end hotel is an inconvenience for the powerful woman who was having sex with him and the powerful woman who owns the hotel. They both bring in their own fixers to clean up the situation and to make sure their respective interests are handled they force both wolfs to work together in this job.

The job gets weirder when the Kid has a backpack full of cocaine bricks and it turns out he's not dead. So now the wolfs have to make sure the drugs are returned and that the Kid won't talk about this. More complications follow…

This is a high end movie. Clooney and Pitt are great verbally sparring with each other. Cinematography is really nice. It's shot at night so not that many characters or extras around. Great atmospheric music. Very entertaining movie and probably would have done well theatrically.

Unlock! Is a series of puzzle-solving board games. Each comes with three puzzles and each puzzle is based on a set of custom cards.

You begin with a start card which has a drawing and maybe some numbers. Numbers correspond to other cards which you then display and they might have numbers. A card can also tell you what old cards to remove as the story progresses and this also helps so you don't have to consider useless cards.

Some cards have a blue number and some cards have a red number. Sometimes the solution is to combine appropriate blue and red cards (e.g. a blue key with a red door) — add their numbers and that gives you a new card to flip.

These games feature a mobile app. The app keeps track of the timer (an hour timer seems typical), there is a button to subtract 1m penalty (some cards are traps to discourage random guessing), and in the end it rates you one to five stars. Some cards have a machine symbol which then the app shows you the machinery to manipulate. The app can also give you three clues for each card (affects your score).

The "add two cards to find third card" was very familiar and when I looked at Space Cowboys they also did T.I.M.E. Stories which are also cool mystery stories though they don't use an app but instead have tokens and resources which Unlock! Does not have.

We played an adventure in a circus. This one had cards you lay and overlap to reveal new numbers (edge of one card is the tens-digit and overlap shows the one-digit). You also built a circus tent in the end with certain cards and if you look at it just right a number was revealed. Also there is a sheet where you slot in circus act cards and when you turn it over there is a simple math formula to reveal another card.

The second adventure you used a ray gun that transfers your mind into various animals. This one had a recording that you play and then hover the phone over the right card to reveal the clue (the app uses the camera and can somehow identify cards). You also used the app to view cards and see hidden things. And use the app to simulate shooting an animal with your ray gun to switch minds (and in one puzzle the animal kept moving around the card so you had to figure out that you had to shoot where it would appear next).

These are fun detective solving sort of games. Too bad this format you can pretty much only play each adventure once. Still, quite enjoyable experiences.

Never Been Kissed (1999) [/] Nerdy newspaper copy editor Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore) gets her big shot at being a reporter by going undercover at a local high school to do a story on how today's teens live. Although she first starts out with the geeks, led by Aldys (Leelee Sobieski), she manages to turn herself into a popular girl and starts having the time of her life, including a possible romance with history teacher Sam (Michael Vartan), which suddenly becomes the story since Josie is masquerading as an underage high schooler... It's an ok film but the high school stuff seems rather stereotypical. Has Jessica Alba before Dark Angel.

Kingdom Rush Frontiers TD+ (2021) [/] Tower defense game in the Kingdom Rush franchise and available for Apple Arcade. It's the usual bad guys use paths to get to your base and build towers to shoot them. Some towers send out troops to fight and slow down the bad guys. You also have a hero who you can move around and activate special powers and you have a few magic spells of your own. Kind of difficult even on casual and I always find it annoying when the base towers have no range and everywhere the paths are wide.

LEGO Star Wars: Castaways+ (2021) [/] In this LEGO game you are a random person who is marooned on a planet where a bunch of other people have been marooned. Do missions, level up your character, get better weapons. Missions are 2-1/2D where you go around breaking things, activating things, shooting enemies. Looks nice, has good on-boarding, and it's an MMO-like world. But I didn't really find it interesting.

Trader Joe's Gourmet Fried Onion Pieces [/] It's a can full of bits of battered fried onion usable sprinkled on food. Not really that crisp nor tasty though not horrible. I'd say doesn't really add to whatever food you sprinkle it over unless that food is really bland. I've used it with rice, scrambled eggs, spaghetti. Maybe I just haven't found the right food.

Surfside Girls is an Apple TV+ teen girls half-hour mystery series running 10 episodes.

Teen best friends Jade (Miya Cech) and Sam (YaYa Gosselin) live in the small California coastal town of Surfside where the most exciting issue is the nearby cliff unnaturally eroding into the sea. In the first episode Sam almost drowns but ends up in hidden cave where she picks up a doubloon (gold coin) and eventually is visited by Remi (Spencer Hermes-Rebello) a ghost pirate teen.

Apparently whatever is causing the cliff to erode is also destroying Remi's home, a ghost pirate ship. Jade and Sam agree to help Remi find the cause. Meanwhile Jade and Sam have issues of their own, mostly that Jade is a science geek going to summer science class and her new smart friends make Sam rather uncomfortable and left out. This eventually leads them to break up for an episode or two until their investigations bring them back together.

Since it's half hour episodes things move fairly quickly. As a teen series there are no high stakes or melodrama so it's pleasant watching. Overall it's a good family series.

The Ramen Girl (2009) [+] Having moved to Tokyo to be with her boyfriend, Abby (Brittany Murphy) is suddenly there on her own after he breaks up and leaves her. Not knowing any Japanese and not wanting to go back to her parents, Abby is kind of aimless until one night she sees that a Ramen shop is open down the street. A bowl of Ramen changes her outlook on life and soon she demands that Ramen shop owner Maezumi (Toshiyuki Nishida) teach her how to make Ramen. With no language in common he still agrees and proceeds to put Abby through grueling tasks. Turns out he is a master Ramen chef and sees Abby as a way to pass on his tradition... Kind of a low key movie but it works because Brittany Murphy was really charming.

The Dynasty: New England Patriots (2024) [/] Apple TV+ documentary series of ten 30-minute episodes chronicling the Patriots mostly from when Bill Belichick became head coach through to when Tom Brady left the team... I liked the first couple of episodes which was from when Robert Kraft bought the team in 1994, having Bill Parcells as coach for two years then Pete Carroll for two years then Belichick. Drew Bledsoe was the quarterback and quite good then they drafted Tom Brady, Bledsoe got hurt and Brady did enough to supplant him... The rest of the documentary though tends to focus on the controversies more than the football. Spy Gate, Deflate Gate, Bill vs Tom. Not that interesting to me. In the end it was an ok and somewhat interesting documentary from a viewer who is more interested in NFC and West Coast football.

Terminatrix (2013) [-] A very low budget sci-fi film. Fifty years in the future a prototype android, Lia (Samantha Ruston), is sent to wipe the last rebel group led by Cass (Kasey Williams). The rebels capture Lia, Cass talks her into changing sides, and Lia goes on to kill her creator, Dr. Peter Hess (Roberto Lombardi), who made Lia in the image of his murdered wife. Murdered by his first android Genesis (Chris R Notarile)... There's a whole first act that's fairly irrelevant other than to let write Notarile act as Genesis and give Hess a reason to make a female android -- but it's 15 minutes that could have been shortened to one allowing more time for the rest of the film. Huge amount of talking and close up head shots I guess to hide that the locations are just whatever was available and to avoid actors having to move around. CGI is very cheesy with computer graphics for gunshot hits though very quick cuts hides stuff pretty well.

Trader Joe's Seasoned Waffle Cut Fries [/] These are easy to heat. About 20 minutes at 400 degrees turn over halfway through. They are a bit too seasoned for my taste though maybe ok with a dipping sauce of some kind. A bag of 20 oz was four or five small snack-sized servings.

Risky Romance is a Korean romance drama running 16 hour-long episodes (though I guess in Korea it ran as 32 half-hour long episodes to allow for more commercials -- apparently they don't do commercial breaks while an episode is running).

Joo In-ah (Lee Si-young) is a hospital doctor specializing in hormones. She is given the challenge of diagnosing surgeon Han Seung-joo (Ji Hyun-woo) who returned from a major accident a changed man -- angry and humorless. He comes to believe that In-ah is the former girlfriend of his best friend who, by dumping him harshly, indirectly caused his death in a drunken motorcycle accident.

That gives a reason for the two to spend time together. She is eternally cheerful which is trying because he is quite harsh and rude to her and eventually even gets her fired. In-ah starts a clinic from her home and Hyun-woo manages to acquire half the mortgage from In-ah's step-sister Joo Se-ra (Yoon Joo-hee), who just hates In-ah for being the favored of her parents and believing that In-ah inadvertently got their parents killed. Anyway Hyun-woo uses that half mortgage to justify moving into the big house in order to keep an eye on In-ah.

Eventually though Hyun-woo realizes he was wrong. Then has to keep the secret from In-ah because it was Se-ra who was the former girlfriend. Then in the last few epidodes Hyun-woo's headaches that he's had since the accident and that In-ah was trying to diagnose get worse as his feelings for In-ah grow into love...

It's kind of an up and down series and maybe not the best but thinking about it a bit I guess it's better than average. It executes the normal tropes but not as well as other series. Even the last scene showing everyone has a happy ending is a bit of a cheat since it goes from a dramatic "did he live?" fade to black then one year later and it elides the resolutions scenes to show the end scene.

Still I did enjoy the series but an another example of Prime Video not having the best Korean romantic drama series.

"BlackHole is a modern macOS virtual audio loopback driver that allows applications to pass audio to other applications with zero additional latency."

How does this work? BlackHole is a MIDI extension. Open Audio MIDI Setup and you see it there and it has stereo inputs and outputs (there are versions of BlackHole for 16 and 64 channels). Add a Multi-Output Device with BlackHole and your standard output (such as speakers or headphones). Set your Sound output to the new MOD.

Now you still hear your computer audio like normal (one thing I noticed is that you can't change sound volume directly -- you have to change Sound to your regular device, change volume, then set back to MOD device) and there that sound is going into BlackHole as an input. In programs that record audio you can set your input device to BlackHole and now you can record whatever audio your computer is playing.

Mostly I've been using BlackHole for years with GarageBand to record music from streaming sources (not YouTube since you can download the video then extract the audio if you wanted to). If an application supports setting an audio output you could instead output to BlackHole then in the second application input from BlackHole and that way direct audio from one application to another (but few apps let you set where they send audio).

BlackHole used to be free but now it's $10 donation-ware (i.e. optional donation) which I paid. If you want an actual app that's polished and well featured Rogue Amoeba has Loopback ($100) though that's priced for a pro/semi-pro audience.

Zulu (1964) [+] I watched this when I was a kid. Watched it in 2011. Recently rewatched this again (on Amazon Prime Video Freevee) and still a good action film and I guess this time I liked it better than last time. I love Michael Caine and this was one of his first big roles... This British film depicts the Battle of Rorke's Drift from the British POV where 100-odd soldiers held off 20 times their number.

Wild Eyed and Wicked (2024) [/] A small drama film. Lily (Molly Kunz) comes back to the country home of her estranged father Gregory (Michael X Sommers). Mom Silvia (Stefanie Estes) committed suicide when Lily was young and Lily has been carrying that trauma ever since. But as the two go through mom's old things Lily comes to realize that it was some evil spirit that caused mom's death and the spirit is now after Lily... It's a very low budget film but not bad.

Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues (2016) [-] An animated film based on Dynamite Entertainment's Red Sonja v1: Queen of Plagues story arc. The style takes direct images of comic book panels and animates them so it's more like an animated comic book than an animation video. Not a really appealing animation style though the story and voice acting are fine. Starring Misty Lee as Red Sonja, Shannon Kingston as Sonja's shield maiden sisters Ayla and Nias, Becca Strom as Sonja's nemesis Dark Annisia.

Trader Joe's Sea Salted Saddle Potato Crisps [/] Basically TJ's version of Pringles. Not quite as salty or as crisp as regular Pringles but still pretty good and cheaper.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is a Prime Video romantic movie. We start in media res with Mark (Kyle Allen) going through his day where it quickly becomes apparent he knows what's going to happen and is in minor ways helping people as he goes to high school and goes through his day. And that's because he's been reliving the same over and over and has eventually decided to improve things bit by bit memorizing what's going to happen and stopping unfortunate happenings.

But his day is interrupted when Margaret (Kathryn Newton) pass by. She's totally new and he quickly realizes she's going through the same thing. It takes him a few days to find her again and a bit of convincing that they should hang out. They're both unsure of how to end the time loop and to prevent boredom he convinces her to look through town for tiny perfect things, or really tiny perfect moments -- these cool little things that would delight a viewer but are very brief in duration, such as a bird coming down and grabbing a fish.

But Margaret has a boyfriend she always needs to meet after 6 PM and she is adamant about the meet and that Mark is not invited. Eventually that causes them to break up and Mark decides to branch out and do crazy things for a while, much like how Margaret lived her day. That results in a trip to the hospital where he sees Margaret heading in to meet her boyfriend. He follows and discovers Margaret's secret and realizes that this whole time loop thing is not about him it's about her...

It's a good romantic comedy. Enough budget to have a good soundtrack and production. Both actors are charming and it's nice that this is not a high stakes story. A movie I watched in two sittings which is pretty good for me.

Galaga Wars+ is a Galaga sequel. You fly a ship anywhere on the screen. It continuously shoots upwards except for a couple of special weapons. Shoot enemy ship squadrons that come in from the top and sides. Fight mini-bosses. Pick up power-ups and collect coins.

In terms of gameplay on my old iPad it's pretty smooth. Your ship moves along with your finger touch which can be a bit RSI if you play this a lot. I moved to using my Apple Pencil and it solved that problem and it's easier to move the pencil than my finger.

Action is frenetic for a few seconds then a pause of a couple of seconds then more enemies come in. You have the Galaga "free a captured ship and have it join you" for twin fighter action, though in this case you don't have to have your ship captured in the first place.

There are 11 sectors with the 11th being an infinite level. I've gotten as far as 10 starting from 1. When you clear a sector you have the option of unlocking it so you can start a game from there (unlocking takes capsules which you pick up a few each game).

There are multiple ships though I think other than graphic they all play the same. You can pick up a ship unlock in each sector and it takes an increasing amount of ship unlocks to unlock a ship. But each ship unlocked effectively gives you one more life each game and there are like 10 ships to unlock.

Coins you pick up about 50 or so per sector. You also get 500 coins accomplishing a daily mission and you get about 500 daily login bonus. You use coins to upgrade each ship. Every ship has the same five upgradeable stats: the first four are the four power-ups that ship can pick up (so that's how ships are differentiated) and the last one is fire rate power-up. The cost of upgrading goes up as you upgrade a power-up more though each additional ship acquired reduces all upgrade costs. Otherwise you don't use coins.

Overall I found a very fun arcade game especially using an Apple Pencil. Good amount of replay-ability even though the waves come in the same each game through the power-ups are kind of random so good if you get lucky you can get further. And as you get more ships you can also go further so that's a nice bonus to buying more ships. Several hours of fun at least.

Slow Horses s4 (2024) [/] British MI5 thriller series focusing around a group of agents assigned to Slough House where all the rejects go. In this season someone tries to murder River Cartwright's (Jack Lowden) uncle so he goes undercover in France to find the people responsible. Meanwhile a suicide bomber exploded a car bomb in a London mall and an assassin is trying to kill a former agent that Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) wants kept alive. As is usual for the series a significant character dies during the season. Overall a good enough season though I guess the luster has worn off on the series.

Crayola Create and Play+ (2021) [/] Apple Arcade kid's activity app. Paint on a giant egg (with Crayola crayons and markers) then it hatches in a creature (pet) with your design as a skin. Give your pet an outfit and hat. Make a kite of various shapes (and draw your own design on the kite). And I guess other activities that involve drawing with crayons. More of an explore app than a do-these-tasks app.

The Strix Chronicle Anthology (2013) [/] A collection of short stories set in the world of Vampire: The Masquerade and the theme is the reappearance of the Strix, who are witches that can possess vampires and thus are enemies of the Kindred. It's not explained so it took a few stories to understand what they are and what they do. Most (all?) of the stories are first person from a vampire's POV so you do get a lot of vampire feel. For the most part though they're not great stories so would not recommend as general vampire fiction reading.

Foster Farms Take Out Crispy Wings [+] Easy to bake since you don't have to turn them over. Comes out crispy, oily and salty -- just the way I like it. Didn't try the Sweet Chipotle BBQ sauce and they have version with other sauces.