📺 WondLa — I was enamored by this story of a girl in a strange post-apoc world. Season 1 was a lot stronger than season 2, so despite the cliffhanger ending, I’m not holding my breath for a third.

🎥 Sinners — This was like three movies in one. A movie about family and community in a small town, a movie about music and it’s connections through time, and a movie about the devil and his legion of vampires.

🎧 Northern Disclosure — Northern Exposure is my favorite TV show of all time. Despite a few efforts to bring it back, it’s probably good it never has been. But this podcast re-watch from Rob Morrow and Janine Turner (who play Joel and Maggie) is the right amount of nostalgia for me. Joel used to be my least favorite character on the show. The philosophical Chris in the Morning was an easy first favorite, swinging to the non-traditional machismo of Holling, moving onto the conflicted bravado of Maurice. But this latest re-watch has me impressed by Rob’s performance and his demeanor in the podcast has me liking him as a person.

▶️ Balatro University — I’ve been relaxing to Balatro streamers lately. Often whoever the most interesting one on Twitch is at the time, but otherwise YouTube with the likes of Dr Specterd and Roffle. The recent Major League Balatro tournament was fun. Multi-player Balatro is a game mod that allows players to battle against each other. That changes the game dynamics a bit, so the strategy doesn’t line up with personal play perfectly, but it ups the drama.

🎶 Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young, Vol. 1 — A tribute album (must be cool to get a tribute while you’re still alive). It’s high budget and star-studded. Courtney Barnett, Fiona Apple, Mumford & Sons, Sharon Van Etten, Steve Earle, etc. Kinda seems like the vibe was to try to do the song as faithfully as possible. Eddie Vedder’s Needle & The Damage Done is awesome but so 1-for-1 with the original, it’s like… why? I think The Lumineer’s Sugar Mountain is my favorite.

📘 Long Bright River — I finished the book, which I really enjoyed, despite this strange lingering feeling that it was written… toward popularity? Like it wanted to inhabit a genre perfectly, not be authentic. So now I started the show and I’m a couple episodes in. There are a ton of changed details in ways it’s hard for me to understand why (e.g. “Gee”, the grandmother, is now “Gee-pa”, the grandfather, who is gruff-but-nice instead of gruff-and-actually-mean). And for TV: they aren’t quite as poor, nobody is quite as nasty, and everyone is much more beautiful.

💳 Nomad Card — Not really media, but not worth a full post. I’ve had an AirTag in my wallet forever, because I really like being able to find it easily when I misplace it. But even my attempts at “AirTag Wallets” which have a slot for them to go, they are awkwardly thick. FINALLY — the Nomad Card works with Find My and is just the thickness of a credit card.