Mayday (2026) [+] Apple TV action/buddy movie set in 1987. On an SR-71 recon mission (the two or three minutes screen time of the Blackbird flying is really cool, don't know how realistic but it makes it look more like a rocket than a plane) over Russia Navy pilot Troy "Assassin" Kelly (Ryan Reynolds) is shot down but is fortunately rescued by Americophile Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh -- totally didn't recognize it was Branagh and his character is the action/fighting guy though the fight scenes are slow enough he could have done a lot of the filming). Ustinov is former KGB but now disillusioned about the Soviet Union and he wants to help Kelly and hope he can defect to the USA.

A bunch of travel montages and fight scenes with humor. Most of the humor is Ryan Reynolds being a smart-talking character, also each of the main character's of the other's country. They are chased by rogue KGB assistant director Alexander Volkov (Marcin Dorociński) with his KGB troops.

Better movie than I expected. Fairly good action and humor with male bonding.


Under Parallel Skies (2024) [-] Philippine romantic drama movie set in Hong Kong. Parin (Metawin Opas-iamkajorn), a Thai young man from a rich family, meets Iris (Janella Salvador), a Filipino hotel desk employee at the hotel he's staying at. They start with a couple of bad encounters but she must be friendly to guests so he uses that to enlist her help in looking for his mother. Meanwhile they're kind of falling in love -- two people from different cultures and both living in a third culture. And then there's a sad ending for I'm not sure what story reason. I didn't think the chemistry worked either.

Pyrite Heart (2014) [/] A short visual novel with choices from Winged Cloud. You are the arrogant Princess Ahri attending high school for a week as a bet to prove you are better than the commoners. You have two love choices: either high school class president Ryuu or your faithful servant and childhood companion Kenta (also there undercover to protect you). There are only a few choices and I played about an hour through both endings. Nice art and a bit of a heartfelt rated G story. $5 on Steam though I'm not sure it's worth that much.

Macaroni Grill - Butternut Tortellaci [/] Pretty tasty. Stuffed pasta with butternut squash cubes and prosciutto (some kind of meat) sprinkled on top. For $24.50 not a lot of food. I guess even with bread and coffee ($3.50) that leaves room for Cheesecake ($8).

Monthly Magazine Home is a South Korean romance drama running 16 hour-long episodes. Desperate for a job, journalist Na Young-won (Jung So-min - Because This Is My First Life, 2017; Alchemy of Souls s1 (2022); Love Next Door, 2024) is hired as an editor at Monthly House, a sort of lifestyle and beautiful homes magazine recently bought by new owner Yu Ja-seong (Kim Ji-seok, supporting role in Kiss Sixth Sense, 2022).

Yu Ja-seong is a self-made real estate mogul and sees the magazine as strictly a vehicle to sell properties he buys (though it does have other articles). This puts him at odds with the regular magazine staff as they are more idealistic:

• Choi Go (Kim Won-hae, lots of roles usually as the dad) - editor-in-chief
• Yeo Eui-ju (Chae Jung-an) - senior editor and Na Young-won's friend from college
• Nam Sang-soon (Ahn Chang-hwan) - editor who dreams of winning a housing subscription (I guess a lottery where the government helps you buy your first home)
• Shin Gyeom (Jung Gun-joo) - the new magazine photographer doing it as a favor to his good friend Yu Ja-seong, and he's secretly has very rich parents. Also falls for Na Young-won which indirectly causes one of their breakups.

Na Young-won becomes Yu Ja-seong's personal editor, writing promotional articles for his properties, accompanying him on assessments and owner interviews, and editing to his exacting and boring standards (he's all about statistics and resale value not aesthetics).

Meanwhile she finds his YouTube channel where he gives financial advice to help people buy a home. She becomes his biggest fan (even though personally they don't have the best relationship) and is determined to follow his advice and save money for a home. She also uses the YT channel forum to write about her home buying experience and here is where Yu Ja-seong encourages her using an alt account.

Eventually Yu Ja-seong starts seeing Na Young-won not so much as a loser but as someone who is genuinely to be thrifty and save money for a home, which he sympathizes with. And so he starts being kinder to her and a mutual but secret attraction develops.

The ending is a bit off. There is a big reveal and Na Young-won decides to break up and leave Monthly House and one (or three) years later they happen to meet up and she's now an editor of her own small lifestyle YouTube channel (I think). They see each other, they smile, music, credits.

I do like the cool homes they showed off. All very big and expensive and each fairly unique. The secondary romance is between Yeo Eui-ju and Nam Song-soon though he has to go through a lot since he has a sweetheart who eventually leaves him because he took too long to propose -- he wanted to win a housing subscription first.

It's a mostly good series though I didn't particularly like the last episode when they have to break up. I finally got to see Jung So-min in a role where she's smiling a lot even though she's very good playing serious/somber characters and I've loved all her previous roles.

Deepsix is a science fiction planetary survival novel by Jack McDevitt.

A couple of decades ago a science mission was sent to the planet Maleiva III. But after an attack by native avians that left a few people dead the Academy decided never to return to the planet. And during the escape one lander was left behind.

Now back to the present another science mission is sent to Maleiva III because a rogue gas giant is going to collide with it in about a month. Because of this impending doom Maleiva III is popularly known as Deepsix. But the science team's scanning satellites detect signs of a dead civilization, i.e. walls and buildings.

They didn't bring a lander though so the Academy diverts the nearest Academy ship with a lander, Wildside piloted by Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins. She was doing a ferry run returning some people from an archaeological expedition back to Earth. And as fate has it one of her four passengers is Randall Nightingale, the leader of the first Maleiva III science expedition and since he survived all blame fell on him so now he's just an obscure old man who'd rather not get involved.

Skipping ahead. The story really starts when the Wildside lander is destroyed along with a lander from a cruise ship. That leaves Hutch, Nightingale, Gregory McAllister -- famous curmudgeon who was a passenger on the cruise ship and came down to see the ruins and get interviewed --, and two or three other survivors and expendable victims.

Now the survivors have three weeks to trek to the old lander from the first expedition so they can maybe take off. Meanwhile the science ship will try to cobble together a rescue plan that still depends on the survivors using a lander to at least get high off the ground.

And there's the mystery of the planet (which has dangerous native life). The ruins and artifacts indicate a small primitive race that still warred with each other. But there's evidence of a space elevator (including a remnant scaffold a thousand kilometers long orbiting the planet). Luckily the survivors will gather enough information to piece together what happened.

It's a good story and quite interesting. There are a lot of cameo characters but many are introduced with enough background and description to bring them alive. Like the nerdy physicist who comes up with a way to grab the survivor's lander, or the retired zero-g welder who really takes to teaching a few dozen volunteers how to do welding for the grabber.

Apparently this is the second novel in a series and at least the first three star Priscilla Hutchins.

Thank You, Doctor (2022) [/] Chinese medical drama series running 40 45-minute episodes. At a large university hospital two doctors join the new Emergency ICU center (this is different than the regular ICU which the hospital also has so a subplot is justifying the existence of an "extra" ICU). Bai Shu (Bai Yu) is a single dad, gifted surgeon, but very arrogant. He's assigned to EICU in order to broaden his social skills. Xiao Yan (Yang Mi, She and Her Perfect Husband, 2022; Eternal Love, 2017; The Interpreter, 2016; ), returns to China from a stint with a Doctors Without Borders type organization where she did a lot of good but lost her fiancé during a rebel attack.

Each episode focuses on one or two cases with many cases running over to a second episode so it's not as episodic as clean-cut episodic as American tv. Half an episode is about the doctors and staff which means the guest characters get a lot of screen time. This means that, like an American series, you're getting bits and pieces of the various characters -- like head of EICU Lu Ping An's (Li Jie) hidden love for the married head nurse, or first year resident Chen Zhi (Liu Yan Chen) chasing after the fiery doctor Tang Hua (Jiang Rui Jia) who thinks he's a fool. And the very slow romance between Bai Shu and Xiao Yan.

In the end though I found the series below average. Many medical cases are fairly similar or similarly resolved and there's a lot of "trust the medical system even though it seems expensive" messaging. None of the three romances are resolved, though the main one is a strong maybe. But it does seem like they wanted a second season. The last episode ends with a minute or so long insert where it looks like they had everyone available except Bai Yu and in a long, voiceless camera sequence it kind of wraps up things a bit.

I was expecting more romance and/or more drama. I watched for Yang Mi but I think the show is more about Bai Shu than other characters.


Drawing Closer (2024) [-] Japanese romance drama film. Teenager Akito Hayasaka (Ren Nagase) finds out he has a year to live and is considering suicide but meets the bright Haruna Sakurai (Natsuki Deguchi) at the hospital and she only has 6 months to live. Not telling her his illness he befriends Sakurai and tries to brighten her every day as the two fall in love. But eventually they do both die and it's sort of about the mark they leave in other people's lives.

Sakura Spirit (2014) [-] Sexy anime visual novel (with one choice towards the end). You are a teen judo star transported to ancient Japan where you have to help two sexy fox spirits become friends with a local village protected by two sexy girl guards. It's about a 2-1/2 hour story without nudity though lots of cleavage and suggestive situations. A bit weak on characterization but this is a prologue to a longer story that was never completed as far as I can tell. $10 is kind of expensive so I wouldn't recommend this story.

99 Ranch Medium Tofu [-] This is their house brand. It's $2 each whereas House tofu is $2.30 to $3 each. But I found this tofu not quite as good. A bit too firm (firmer than House firm) and dries out faster so I guess there's less water content. On the other hand maybe that means you get more soybean goodness.