Wonderland (2024) [/] Ensemble film centered on Wonderland service which digitizes your mind and creates an avatar that thinks it's you and interacts with loved ones via video calls. Three plot lines: Bai Li (Tang Wei) is on an infinite archaeological dig while her grandmother and daughter interact with the avatar because grandma doesn't want daughter to know her mom is dead although later Bai Li avatar realizes what she is; Jeong-in (Bae Suzy) has digitized her boyfriend who is in a coma and when her real boyfriend wakes up but is a bit mentally damaged she continues to use the avatar for emotional comfort and then her boyfriend finds out; there's also a plot about how the developers are using the service and thinking about the ethical implications… I like the concept and the cinematography is good. But the intertwining stories made everything short and confusing for half the film. Making it just one storyline would have been better I think.

Wylde Flowers (2022) [/] "Wylde Flowers is a cozy life and farming sim with a witchy twist!" on Apple Arcade and other platforms. You (playing Tara) maintain a garden, interact with town citizens, become a witch and do quests. Has good voice acting. I find the characters slightly disturbing because their heads are slightly too big for their bodies.

Gibbon: Beyond the Trees (2022) [/] Apple Arcade game where you are a gibbon making your way (always going to the right) along a forest. You swing automatically and tap at the end of a limb to jump to the next limb. You can double hold down to slide or ambulate (never quite figured out what it did). Very few obstacles to stop you and as you go along a story unfolds about man encroaching on your home. I did find it a bit boring though it's a novel concept for a game.

Pho Nam Restaurant, Sunnyvale [/] $18 combo is large pho + a drink. I had some sort of beef strips pho and iced milk coffee and it was perfectly good. Place is in a small rundown corner mall and the inside is definitely down-scale. Staff is friendly and people didn't mind screaming from our table (kids).

Destined With You is a South Korean romance drama running 16 hour+ episodes.

Lee Hong-jo (Jo Bo-ah who was the female lead in Military Prosecutor Doberman) is a civil servant recently transferred to Onju City Hall working in the parks department where she starts disadvantaged because her new boss she reported for bribery (which was a misread on her part) and that his dislike leads her two co-workers to shun her leaving her alone (she has no parents).

Early on she's tasked with up keeping a specific park (think more like wilderness park not a city park) and her first problem is getting an abandoned shrine demolished after someone died live-streaming on the site. It takes her a bit of doing but she eventually does it over the objections of current land owner Jang Shin-yu (Rowoon). Shin-yu subsequently leaves his company (a big land developer but unscrupulous) and joins Onju City Hall as the lead lawyer.

While the shrine was being bulldozed Shin-yun found a buried box which his prescient aunt says belongs to Lee Hong-jo. Inside she finds a spell book from her Jeseon-era ancestor. One of the spells can break the Jang family curse, of which Shin-yu is starting to feel the effects (a brain tumor that is causing neurological effects like shaking hand). It takes a while to convince Hong-jo to try it but she does so. She then uses a love spell potion to captivate Onju City Hall hottie Kwon Jae-kyung (Ha Jun), who is the mayor's adviser.

But Shin-yu accidentally drinks the potion so the next few episodes are trying to reverse the effects since neither one wants a romance with the other. Of course eventually Shin-yu gives in as his rational mind comes to agree that Hong-jo is the one for him. Another complication is Shin-yu's girlfriend Yoo Na-yeon (Yura who I just saw in a supporting role in Forecasting Love and Weather). Na-yeon is the mayor's daughter and has been angling for marriage for some time now but Shin-yu didn't really love her even before the love potion.

While Na-yeon tries to sabotage any budding relationship between Hong-jo and Shin-yu the latter picks up a stalker who is much more sinister as the series goes on. There is also a whole episode in the past showing how Hong-jo's and Shin-yu's ancestors fell in love and then he betrayed her (for good reasons I suppose) and the stalker's ancestor is also there.

It's a fairly good romance. It is annoying that Hong-jo keeps doing things that put her in danger (apparently even though you know there's a stalker and know who he is going out alone to a wilderness park doing your job is fine). It's unfortunate that Na-yeon has to be the bad guy who bullied Hong-jo in high school and is just continuing being a Mean Girl, especially as there is a perfectly good bad guy in the stalker (played by Ahn Sang-woo). Shin-yu's illness is barely used.

Interestingly no other romantic subplots. Closest is Shin-yu's parents: Father Jang Se-hun (Lee Pil-mo) is sort of constantly belittling his wife, former actress Song Yoon-joo (Jung Hye-young) to the point where she files for divorce and now he has to win her back. But that's fairly late in the series, takes a while to get to the divorce notice, then is quickly resolved.

Not in my top K-romance drama series but still very enjoyable.

Burma '44 by James Holland covers the British perspective in western Burma from October 1943 to late February 1944. It's from the British perspective because that's where most of the historical records and memoirs are in. A bit of the Japanese perspective is also given mostly from their official records.

The first half of the book introduces personalities and what they did as well as British fortunes from the start of World War II until the start of 1944. Much is written about how Lord Mountbatten and General Bill Slim turned around morale and the way of doing things in that theatre to the point that the Allies (mostly British and Indian troops) were ready to go on the offensive again at the start of 1944.

Meanwhile the Japanese were getting ready two offensives: U-GO aimed at Imphal in March and HA-GO to the south in the Arakan Hills to go in February and draw British troops southwards and away from Imphal. The British offensive went off first and did well. Then HA-GO went off and surrounded the British salient.

The second half of the book goes in narrative detail on the battle of the Admin Box. British strategy at this point was to stand and defend in place when attacked by the Japanese. Like how they operated in North Africa, the British would form defensive boxes and let the Japanese exhaust themselves attacking and significantly defending the British supply concentrations so the Japanese could not get them — the Japanese army depended on capturing supplies to keep offensives going.

The Admin Box had the divisional HQ, a brigade HQ, a battalion of regulars, a couple of tank companies, and various other smaller units mostly medical, maintenance and supply. And most of the divisional supplies. Over the course of a couple of weeks they were repeatedly attacked and they repeatedly counter-attacked to maintain their perimeter (bordered by hills which prevented the Japanese from getting artillery observation; though artillery fire was also discriminate because the Japanese didn't want to blow up the supplies).

The air war is included once again mostly from the British side. The Brits started out with obsolete planes that were about evenly matched then started upgrading to Spitfires in late 1943 so by the time of the Admin Box battle they for the most part dominated the skies which also allowed air resupply of the Admin Box and other boxes (each brigade became a defensive box though the bulk of attackers were pitted against the Admin Box).

Lots of personal anecdotes and the narrative focuses on a few people on the British side because they wrote their memoirs or had diaries. Writing is good and moves along. A few maps so you know where the action is happening though I'm still not sure of a couple of places. It's a fairly engrossing read on a battle I've never heard of so just for that I'd recommend reading this book.

Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles (2021) [+] Billie Eilish 1-hour concert film on Disney+. It's every song in her Happier Than Ever album often with a bit of commentary on each and an animated story running in-between songs. I don't think I've ever really listened to Billie Eilish and it's interesting sort of folksy-contemporary music style. I think of Katie Melua though still quite different.

Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel Seasoned Kettle-Cooked Potato Chips [/] As kettle chips go about average and I think I’ve had better (Kettle brand is fairly good). Didn’t particularly like the seasoning (pepper and garlic) but I’m partial to plain or lightly salted chips. So slight mistake in me buying them not noticing they were seasoned chips.

Hidden Folks+ (2022) [/] Apple Arcade version. This is a Where's Waldo sort of gameplay: large and intricate black and white drawings and you have to find specific people, animals, or objects. It adds tap-able interactivity such as tap to clear brush or move tree leaves or open a door and reveal what's behind.

Bridge Constructor+ (2022) [-] Apple Arcade version. Build bridges using various materials and bracing techniques. Then run one of three different sized vehicles over it and see if the bridge holds (using a physics model to see how the bridge breaks if it does). It has hints but even I couldn't figure out level three or four.

Forecasting Love and Weather is a South Korean romantic comedy series running 16 episodes.

At the Korean Meteorological Agency (KMA) Director Jin Ha-kyung (Park Min-young) is the new head of Team Two. She has to deal with Han Ki-joon (Yoon Park), Director in the PR department and Ha-kyung's ex-fiancé who cheated on her with his new wife Chae Yoo-jin (Yura), a weather reporter in the newsroom.

Then arrives Lee Shi-woo (Song Kang), a hotshot weather forecaster who joins Team Two as Severe Weather Forecaster. His smug and impertinent attitude annoys Ha-kyung but slowly a romance develops even though Ha-kyung is against office romances after her experience with Ki-joon…

Not really a high-drama series which is fine with me. As usual the romance tries to be secret and drama ensues as various people find out. There is a tension because Shi-woo is against marriage (for reasons revealed later) and Ha-kyung wants to get married eventually.

A good subplot is Ki-joon and Yoo-jin's marriage which hits a rocky patch. Ki-joon becomes focused on breaking up Ha-kyung and Shi-woo because he thinks Shi-woo is not the right man for her. He also treats Yoo-jin with less respect as a serious reporter and lets her down on a couple of promises. I really like Ki-joon's growth when he realizes Yoo-jin is important to him and starts working on repairing his marriage which also matures him and he starts to support Ha-kyung and to a lesser extent Shi-woo when their relationship starts to flounder.

I like the meteorological background. Each episode has a different weather theme. We have two typhoons in one episode, a heat wave in another, first snow of the season in yet another. You'd think weather forecasting would be boring but the stakes are repeated over and over: inaccurate forecasting leads to economic loss and lives injured or lost.

Even though at one point Ha-kyung discusses why something can't be done because the KMA is underfunded it does seem comically well-funded. Nice building, big operations room with huge screens and good computers. And the satellite offices are also well-appointed. Just something that stood out to me when it usually doesn't.

I've now seen Park Min-young star in three series: Her Private Life (2019), When the Weather Is Fine (2020), and this one. I think in general this is the best of the three series with Her Private Life being a close second (When the Weather Is Fine was subpar). I think I liked her character best in Her Private Life as she had more emotions. In the other two series her character is rather subdued.

Song Kang I've also seen as the lead in My Demon (with Kim Yoo-jung). In My Demon his character is a little annoying but cool. In this one his character is very annoying the first half (and he has this really wide yet smug smile). I guess that's acting.

Overall Forecasting Love and Weather is a nice romantic comedy series. Entertaining and above average.

Bloons TD 6+ is a cutesy tower defense game where the towers are monkeys and the bad guys are balloons.

As usual for the genre there are set maps and the balloons follow set paths on each map. You place your initial monkey(s) and earn money by popping balloons which allows you to upgrade monkeys or place new monkeys (and there are a couple of structures like a banana farm for money generation and a house that buffs nearby monkeys).

Each monkey type can be upgraded with XP and monkeys get XP for usage so if you concentrate on a few monkeys they'll upgrade to max and the other monkeys will be at base level. Each monkey type has three improvement chains and when you upgrade a specific monkey you can have one chain at max upgrade, a second chain at two upgrades, and the third chain cannot be upgraded so there is room to specialize monkeys of the same type.

Balloons can have more color layers so they take more damage to kill. There are specialized balloons: camo which monkeys don't target unless they have specific upgrades, lead which shrugs off most damage unless a monkey has a different upgrade, blimps which can take a lot of damage and when they explode release lots of balloons.

Each map has some variant goals so you'll play them multiple times each game being different: restricted to certain monkeys, balloons move in different paths, you can't gain money, etc. There are also other game types like Odyssey where you have to complete a series of levels with the same group of monkeys.

It's a very polished game as you'd expect for the 6th in the series and in general an entertaining version of tower defense. I do think there is maybe way too much going on: too many monkey types and upgrades and balloon types and challenges. But I've spent a couple dozen hours playing and it's good.

Captain America: Brave New World (2025) [+] Newly elected President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) is desperately trying to form an International treaty to exploit the adamantium on Celestial Island (formed at the end of Eternals 2021 film). But the Leader (Samuel Sterns) is doing all he can top foil Ross and ruin his legacy as revenge because Ross imprisoned and used the Leader for years. Captain America (Anthony Mackie) and the new Falcon (Danny Ramirez) are caught in the middle trying to keep a war from breaking out… Saw this in a theater with my brother. A focused film running at about 1-3/4 hours of story. Fairly good special effects. Bit of meta-plot moving as President Ross asks Captain America to reform the Avengers (and the Leader tells Captain America that some big danger is coming). A perfectly entertaining super-hero action movie.

Hearts+ (2022) [/] MobilityWare's version of the card game on Apple Arcade. I like that it quickly teaches you the basics. You can play online vs random people or you can play vs bots. Not really into card games and I'd say this is not appealing enough for me to keep around.

Spades+ (2022) [/] Another MobilityWare game on Apple Arcade and has the same UI as Hearts+. Once again nice enough implementation though not that interesting to me.

Kevin’s Natural Foods - Thai-Style Coconut Chicken [/] sous-vide cooked chicken breast with a separate Thai yellow curry sauce. Microwave the chicken for a minute then add sauce and microwave for two minutes. It’s got a mild flavor (not as in not spicy but as in less flavor than I expected). Guess I wouldn’t recommend.

Something in the Rain is a Korean romance drama running the standard 16 hour+ episodes.

35-year old Yoon Jin-ah (Son Ye-jin; Thirty-Nine and Crash Landing on You) is an store support manager at CoffeeBay corporate HQ, competent and puts up with the casual sexual harassment endemic in her department. Her best friend Seo Gyeong-seon (Jang So-yeon) is a store manager at a local branch.

Enter Gyeong-seon's younger brother Seo Jun-hui (Jung Hae-in; Snowdrop) returning after three years working in America. He's a graphic artist for a computer game company that is HQ'd in the same building as CoffeeBay HQ so he and Jin-ah start encountering each other frequently. It's soon apparent that he's subtly pursuing Jin-ah but he's so slow about that she eventually makes the first move (in a cute dinner with friends scene).

Their romance proceeds along, kept secret from everyone else. The main conflict is when their families find out halfway through the series. Although Jinah's dad and brother eventually come around her mom Kim Mi-yeon (Gil Hae-yeon) is adamantly against it mostly because Jun-hui and Gyeong-seon grew up practically parentless (mom died after dad divorced and left them) and Jun-hui is not successful enough (he's 25 or so and not a business mogul or a PhD professional or lawyer).

The secondary conflict which also runs throughout the series is a sexual harassment case brought against Jin-ah's superiors. Although many women are affected and although they have support of a senior manager the President turns out to be quite willing to quash it. Pressure put on by the execs keeps all the other women in line and afraid so It becomes Jin-ah's sole burden to bear. It's a pretty good dramatic storyline showing how sexual harassment can be so hard to stop when the power of management Is against you.

The romance is really good. There is the usual they break up in the 15th episode then three years later they meet again and somehow get back together again in the end.

But their relationship has issues. A lot of their issues stem from white lies. They so often don't tell each other the truth in order to save the other from trouble and it always comes out and causes more trouble and they never learn to stop doing that. They also make big unilateral decisions without consulting each other and somehow expect to convince the other to go along after the fact.

Also the final reconciliation is a bit too pat. They build up the negative parts and arguments and continuing resentments and suddenly it's resolved in the final few minutes? And not really resolved it's like he realizes he loves her then visits her and he hugs her and apologizes and suddenly that's fine? I kind of wanted more talking and realizing that their problems result from so much white lying to each other.

The background music can be a bit annoying. Two American country songs are used extensively and I did start to hate them. On the other hand Rachael Yamagata has some original songs which are also played extensively and I do like her vocals.

Those problems keep this series from being ++ but it's still quite fun to watch. Son Ye-jin is so freaking good and she's totally carried the three series I've seen her in. The romance for all its flaws is still great to watch. The ending at least leaves the two happy together. (Now that I think of it, both Thirty-Nine and Crash Landing on You also had somewhat downer endings.) I recommend this series.

Run Silent, Run Deep is a novel set in WW2 with a US submarine vs the Japanese foes. The author is Commander Edward L Beach, USN (retired) who served in submarines from 1942 to the end of the war, the latter part as an executive officer (2nd in command of a submarine).

The story is told from the first person by Commander Edward Richardson as recollections for a report done after the war. Richardson was commander of S-16, an out-of-date submarine at the start of the war. He went to command USS Walrus and then USS Eel.

With the S-16 the narrative is his XO, Lieutenant Jim Bledsoe, as he tries to qualify for command and ends up failing. Bledsoe blames Richardson but Richardson convinces his superiors to give Bledsoe another chance once he's had more seasoning (normally a prospective submarine commander only gets one chance to qualify).

But then war breaks out. Richardson Is assigned a new submarine, USS Walrus, and keeps most of his crew including Bledsoe. The second part of the book is getting the Walrus ready, traveling to Pearl Harbor (from the East Coast), then combat patrols in the Bungo Suido, an area between the southernmost main Japanese island the other two big islands where there is lots of shipping traffic.

Walrus encounters Bungo Pete, a Japanese destroyer with an experienced captain who has been making a habit of destroying US subs operating in the area. Their first encounter almost destroys the Walrus whilst in the second encounter the Walrus ambushes a convoy and escapes before Bungo Pete can get at them.

Richardson is wounded which takes months to recover. During his convalescence he's put in charge of finding out why American torpedoes keep failing to explode. Meanwhile Bledsoe is finally given command and takes the Walrus on three wildly successful patrols.

Once the torpedoes are fixed Richardson gets command of USS Eel, a new ship straight out of the yards. But Walrus has gone missing and fears are that Bungo Pete got them. Richardson convinces his superiors to let him and Eel go after Bungo Pete with their new torpedoes and so they go for their final battle…

This books is a great read. The submarine descriptions are detailed and evocative and there is a variety of missions and situations that occur. Setting up a torpedo attack or diving and evading a depth charge attack is well written and very tense reading. Unlike Hunt for Red October or Red Storm Rising — two of my favorite books — the action here is very personal and almost a battle of captain vs captain rather than ship vs ship.

I've seen the movie version and it's quite different. The movie is excellent and whether you experience the movie or book first I don't think it spoils experiencing the second afterwards.

Overall a great read.

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.