Your Friends and Neighbors

In this comedy drama series, Jon Hamm stars as Coop - a hedge fund manager with a lot of money but many relationships that put a strain on him. Upon losing his job he decides that he needs to keep up appearances with the titular friends and neighbors, who are also pretty well off themselves, and he does so by continuing to donate exorbitant amounts of money to charity, attending parties which mostly consist of people he doesn't like, keeping up his membership at the exclusive golf club etc.

He does this by robbing them, one expensive item at a time. This is great as plot wise he's hoping its something they won't miss as to not get caught, but also for us viewers they put in a "product ad" for said items which is really  cool and also just highlights how crazy some people are to own them. It's a fun show with a surprisingly high amount of sex scenes, but also a number of filler bits that are just used to pad out the story. Still worth trying out though, especially if you're a Jon Hamm fan. 

Robobeat

This rogue like rhythm FPS is somewhat the epitome of annoyance. Never mind the story or graphics, the game play loop itself if so tedious. Shoot on the beat (or your shots do less damage) must be one of the most ridiculous systems ever. It's not like guitar hero where the music is the point. Here you need to shoot things to clear zones and advance and requiring to slow everything down to tempo to do so just really takes the enjoyment out of it. Not recommended.

Ukraine: Enemy in the Woods

This is a documentary about a small piece of the war filmed mainly from body cams - following a company of 99 Ukranian soldiers holding a railway forest against the Russian advance. It shows the daily lives of the troop: the down time, the scavenging, the danger, and yes - some of the fighting too. You will see a few dead people (most are blurred/censored/out of shot if too close) so that might be your time to "nope" out, but otherwise it is a sobering 1 hour flick that just makes me really glad I'm not there as I wouldn't last five minutes in those conditions - and that's without an opposing force! Definitely worth watching if you can find it and is possibly one of the best anti-war films around.

As of this post it is day 1585 of Russia's two day special operation.  The front seems to be a stalemate currently, but drone warfare has improved to the point where Ukraine is now hitting targets in Moscow.

Hazbin Hotel Live on Broadway and Songs of Conquest

Entertainment with a focus on music!

Hazbin Hotel Live on Broadway

Celebrating the release of Season 2 of Hazbin Hotel, this live performance on Broadway by the voice actor/singers is absolutely brilliant - my only complaint is that it is too short! Even my wife, who doesn't watch the series, enjoyed it. Highly, highly recommended (but just like the show its not for kids), and I hope they do more of these live shows as there are many more songs they could do in the series (and that's not even going into Helluva Boss songs). I suppose they could do Hellaverse Live on Broadway? :D Here's a little sample for you all to enjoy. Five out of five!

Songs of Conquest

This pixely turn based strategy game plays a lot like the old King's Bounty game, where you have a leader or leader(s) marching around the map to capture resources and towns (where you can spend resources in building structures to recruit more folk for your army) while fighting enemies (usually static ones) via armies in hex grid maps. After you've exhausted your move, then your opponents leader(s) take their turn to wander around. I'm very thankful for the auto combat button in this one to make lopsided fights just finish in a single button press.

While that's all well and good the main draw for me was the nice story and the songs which play at the end of each mission. Very cool. I was sad when the extra "story" missions didn't have this. :P

Warhammer 40k: Speed Freekz

In this really crazy racing game, you play as the Orkz who I suppose are just super bored and want to race and fight? While I'm unaccustomed to Ork (which is basically bad English) which makes the customization difficult to understand, I'm pretty sure its one of those, unlock more vehicles and decorations the more experience you have and there are two game modes on offer, both being team vs team with the option for multiplayer.

In the first one, you're trying to get points by racing but don't let that stop you from shooting the enemy team! First you race to a main marker, then you start a mini-race to hit checkpoint around the main marker and then repeat four more times and the team with the highest score wins.

In the second mode, each team has a slow moving giant robot (that also shoots at you) "racing" slowly to a finish line. The idea is that racers pick up randomly spawning bombs (or stealing said bombs from destroyed enemy) and then driving it into the opposing robot to "slow it down". The team of the first giant robot to cross the finish line wins. 

Both modes are chaotic and... ok. And death is a mere slap on the wrist as you respawn in under five seconds but there's not much else happening with this one. Maybe its fine as a once off party game but otherwise, not recommended.

The Mandalorian and Grogu and Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc

Movies for fans of the series. 

Mandalorian and Grogu

This movie continues the story from The Mandalorian, and has everyone's favorite bounty hunter "dad" continue to teach, protect and nurture his charge Grogu, while doing some kick ass bounty hunting stuff. While the story is just ok, on par with the series, the action is definitely amped up with more fighting sequences. The two title characters also take turns taking the lead which is pretty cool but makes for a long run time. Not that I'm complaining! If you liked the series, you'll definitely enjoy this.

Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc

This movie continuation of the animated series follows our protagonist Denji thinking with his wrong head again, spending at least the first half of the movie trying to get lucky with a girl (which tracks). While the art is always top notch, the animation really kicks in at the second half which holds all the destructive fighting. Slow start but it turned out to be ok. Worth a watch if you've enjoyed the series. If you haven't seen the series, try that first and see if its for you (you'll know in a the first episode). 

Wuthering Waves

This is another gacha game which features better action combat than most and climbing / gliding system like Tower of Fantasy, which is fantastic. It also has a decent story and a ton of upgradable systems which is both good and OMG grindy. 

It also features thirsty gardeners...

You see, you have the usual gacha luck-of-the-draw party who can all level up and you can also level their weapons (both need special material grinded to break level caps). And then each can equip "captured" enemies. FIVE of them. That can also be leveled. But no its not just, "I want a lizard thing instead of this slug thing" because they also have randomized stats and abilities. This lizard might breath fire. This other lizard just naps and heals you. Want to tell the difference? 

Too bad you can't. You need to go kill the lizards until you capture one that does what you want. AND has the substat bonuses that interest you FOR THAT CHARACTER. Good thing you can only have three characters per squad... :P Also, I REALLY DESPISE they systems where everything levels up with you. Great you reached level 10? Well those level 1 monsters are now also level 10. It's like, what was the point of leveling up? But guess what, you can't AVOID leveling up, because its your exploration level that determines the monster level.

Yup! So even if you remained at level one but explored the hell out of the map, guess what? You're just leveling up the enemies. Pity, because there's some really nice story in there. If you feel like you don't mind that level of grind then I recommend this for you. Definitely not one for me though.