Site History

I’ve been posting the occasional book, game, TV or movie review on my blog, or on one bookshop or another, for ages. Eventually I started collecting them here.

September 2002

• Might and Magic IX It’s interesting and immersive, but some of the game and UI design choices make it really frustrating.

August 2005

• New Spring (Comic Book) #1 The first issue of the New Spring comic book was surprisingly good.
• From Hell (Movie) ★★★☆☆ A fairly decent Jack the Ripper film (if there is such a thing), but tossed out the main themes of the graphic novel.
• Unofficial Trilogy of Cheese The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Van Helsing, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow should make a trilogy of sorts.

December

• Edward Scissorhands ★★★★☆ The film still holds up: the fairy tale music, the contrast between ‘normal’ suburbia and Edward’s home, and the tension between appearances and heart.

July 2006

• Superman Returns ★★★☆☆ Enjoyed it, but no interest in seeing it again. It already felt like deja vu since there were so many references to the first two movies with Christopher Reeve.

September

• Bride of Frankenstein It’s interesting to see just how much of the Frankenstein mythos not only isn’t in the book, but isn’t in the first movie.

November

• Nightmare Before Christmas (in 3D) ★★★★⯪ ILM remade the entire film in CGI, then shifted the virtual camera over for the second viewpoint. They match seamlessly. That said, 3D doesn’t add much to the original, but it doesn’t interfere either.

May 2007

• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ★★★★☆ A lot of fun, if hard to keep track of all the double-crosses. Doesn’t require intimate knowledge of the previous films, just knowing who the major players are.

June

• The Bard’s Tale (reboot) ★★★☆☆ While I liked the attitude and metatextual humor, it was annoyingly linear when compared to the original series.

July

• Doubletree Hotel San Diego Downtown The location is good for Comic-Con, though it’s a 40-minute trip to the convention center. It’s hard to review much else, because we were there during major remodeling.

August

• Babylon 5: The Lost Tales ★★★⯪☆ It’s mixed. The first segment is essentially a bottle episode. The second is much stronger, and feels like a real return to Babylon 5
• Stardust (Movie) ★★★★★ Light-hearted fantasy adventure built around a love story, Stardust takes itself just a touch more seriously than The Princess Bride. Enjoyable on its own, and stays true to the heart of the book.

September

• Transformers (Movie) ★★★☆☆ Better constructed than I expected, with impressive effects, plausible story logic, but a lot of the humor is forced and it feels like they missed the big picture in trying to get the details right.

November

• Tales From The Bully Pulpit ★★★★★ Benito Cereno and Graeme MacDonald
  A sci-fi comedy graphic novel featuring a time-traveling Teddy Roosevelt and the ghost of Thomas Edison, battling a descendant of Adolf Hitler. On Mars. Wearing mecha armor.
• Beowulf (in 3D) Impressive monsters and realistic animation. Better than 300, a bit reminiscent of the recent Lord of the Rings films.

December

• Tin Man ★★★☆☆ The Wizard of Oz meets The Dark Crystal by way of 1930s scifi was fascinating as a concept, but they managed to make it dull and tedious.

February 2008

• House of Frankenstein A rather disjointed tale of revenge focusing on Dracula in one segment, the Wolfman in the other, and not much on Frankenstein’s monster.
• Cavalier Oceanfront Resort (San Simeon) ★★★★★ Not really a resort (at least in the late 2000s), just a very nice motel. Right on the coast and conveniently near Heart Castle.
• Best Western Silicon Valley Inn (Sunnyvale, CA) ★☆☆☆☆ I hope it’s better now than it was in 2008.
• Mark Twain Hotel (Closed) ★★★★☆ Classic hotel, small rooms, right on the line between the financial district and Tenderloin. Now the Tilden Hotel, closed since 2020.
• Justice League: The New Frontier (Movie) ★★★★☆ Cooke’s drawing style and the 1950s retro look to the artwork both translate well to the screen. A bit disjointed at first, but settles into a solid story about hope and trust.

July

• Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog A campy take on the super-hero genre, from the point of view of a D-list villain trying to make it to the big leagues.

October

• Soon I Will Be Invincible ★★★★☆ Austin Grossman
  Austin Grossman’s novel Soon I Will Be Invincible is a fun read for fans of the super-hero genre, an affectionate parody featuring every cliche in the book.

December

• Omni Hotel San Diego Rooms and service are very nice, and it’s right across the street from the convention center.
• Heroes Volume 3: Villains I liked the start of the season, but by the end it had gotten to the point where I was alternately ready to jump for joy and throw things at the screen in the space of the same episode.
• FlashForward (Novel) ★★★★★ Robert J. Sawyer
  A fascinating exploration of time, destiny and free will after everyone on Earth gets a glimpse of the same moment 20 years in the future.

February 2009

• A Game of Thrones (Book) George R.R. Martin
  I should have liked this book. I tend to enjoy big epic fantasy, but I just couldn’t get into this one.
• Paradise The ST:DS9 episode “Paradise” tries to make a point about self-reliance without technology, but misses the mark by not actually showing any benefits.

March

• Mosser Hotel (San Francisco) ★★★★☆ Nice, well-located for conventions at Moscone Center, but tiny rooms by modern standards.
• Frost/Nixon ★★★★★ Peter Morgan
  Ahmanson Theater, 2009
  Gripping play about the negotiations behind David Frost’s famous TV interviews with ex-President Richard Nixon.

May

• Star Trek (2009 Movie) ★★★★☆

July

• The Illusionist For the first hour I couldn’t get past lead characters being colossally stupid, but the ending totally made up for it.
• Ghostbusters ★★★★★ The jokes are still funny, the story still works, and even the effects hold up pretty well.
• Holiday Inn on the Bay (San Diego) The hotel worked out well for Comic-Con, both on its own merits and in its location near Little Italy and just close enough that you can walk if you have to.

September

• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ★☆☆☆☆ In some ways it wasn’t as awful as I’d heard, and in some ways it was worse. I’m glad I waited for the second-run showing and only spent $1.75.

October

• Conan the Destroyer ★★☆☆☆ The first movie holds up. The second tries too hard to fit in a PG rating and ends up as self-parody.

November

• The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time Book 12) Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
  Events move rapidly toward the apocalypse foretold in book one, and Sanderson shows he was a good choice to finish Jordan’s series.
• Battlestar Galactica: The Plan ★★★⯪☆ Pulled together a consistent story from elements that were originally unconnected, but depended on the audience remembering the series and still felt like a clip show.
• Equivocation Geffen Playhouse, 2009
  Can Shakespeare discover the truth about the Gunpowder Plot? And if so, can he afford to tell it? Political intrigue, terrorism and torture (plus plain old personal conflicts) make for a compelling story.

December

• Xanadu (Stage Musical) ★☆☆☆☆ Segerstrom Center, 2009
  The stage musical of Xanadu is a silly, self-aware parody that revels in its camp. I really liked about 10% of it. The rest, not so much.
• Eifelheim ★★★★☆ Michael Flynn
  Detailed and thoughtful exploration of first contact with aliens in the midst of the Black Death.

January 2010

• The Glass Mendacity Ark Theater, 2010
  This spoof of Tennessee Williams’ most famous plays is funny on its own, but even funnier if you know the source material.
• Ordinary Days South Coast Repertory, 2010
  A slice-of-life musical about four people living in New York, their paths intersecting.
• Rotten Tomatoes ★☆☆☆☆ Let’s see…worst movie I’ve ever seen in a theater. Top three candidates
• Dungeons & Dragons (2000 Movie) ★☆☆☆☆ So bad that the group of friends I was with started heckling the movie, and the rest of the audience joined in.
• The House and the Spirits (Movie) ★☆☆☆☆ This should have been a great movie. Epic story, all-star cast…but it was intensely boring.
• Cirque du Soleil: Kooza ★★★★★ Impressive acrobatics as always, contortionists, extra clowns, a rainstorm and the Wheel of Death (really).

June

• New Spring (Comics): The Long Publishing Saga It’s taken a long time (and three publishers) to complete this adaptation of the Wheel of Time prequel, even though it only covered eight standard-sized comic books

August

• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Movie) ★★★★☆ It’s a fun mash-up of movie, comic book and video game sensibilities, though it does suffer from cramming six books into a single movie.

December

• Stan Lee’s Starborn Stan Lee, Chris Roberson and Khary Randolph
  An unpublished writer discovers that the science fiction saga he’s been building since childhood is actually very, very real. And it wants him dead.

April 2011

• Comics Toons N’ Toys ★★★★★ The best comic store I’ve been to in Orange County. The staff is friendly and helpful, and the selection is incredible.

October

• Del Cerro Park ★★★★☆ Incredible views of the Pacific Ocean, Catalina Island, and the coastal hills and canyons from the top of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Calm and quiet, usually breezy.
• Neighborhood Grinds (Closed) ★★★★☆ This used to be a great local coffee shop.

July 2012

• Cirque du Soleil: Iris ★★★★★ Cirque’s acrobatics are always impressive, but IRIS’ focus on early cinema makes the clowns’ story is just as enjoyable, and video effects give it an entirely new look.
• Good Time Travel Comics ★★★★★ Some DC stories I can recommend include DC One Million, JLA: Rock of Ages, Time Masters, and Chronos.

October

• Beauty and the Beast (2010 Tour) ★★★☆☆ San Diego, 2012
  The simpler staging & costumes work well enough, but the big numbers suffer from the smaller cast.

November

• The Comic Bug ★★★★★ Open, inviting, and kid-friendly, with friendly staff and a wide selection. Frequent artist/writer signings.

December

• This Is True vol.8: Invisible Man Disappears From View ★★★★★ Randy Cassingham
  A fun collection of strange-but-true news stories from 2001-2002.
• The Law of Superheroes ★★★★★ James Daily, J.D. and Ryan Davidson, J.D.
  A fun read that applies real-world law to comic book tropes. Shape-shifters, alternate realities, resurrections and massive property damage are all explored.

July 2013

• Flash Forward (TV Pilot) ★★★★★ The first episode of Flash Forward is one of the best-constructed pilot episodes I’ve seen in a long time, especially of an arc-driven series.

September

• Shy Little Kitten’s Secret Place ★☆☆☆☆ A 1980s sequel to the classic The Shy Little Kitten that completely misses the point of the original book and tells shy kids they need to change themselves.

July 2014

• Mysterious Galaxy ★★★★★ Bookstore specializing in sci-fi and mysteries, involved in local community and conventions.

November

• Ragtime ★★★★★ Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, 2014
  Ragtime has even more emotional impact on stage than the songs do alone, and the historical themes resonate strongly with the present day.

August 2015

• Doma Kitchen (Closed) ★★★★★ Used to be a great Eastern European restaurant. Bounced around the South Bay for most of a decade before closing.

February 2016

• Belle’s Dreams of Adventure I never thought Belle gave up her dreams of adventure. I figured she had one, and gained the opportunity to have more. That’s why I hate the song ‘A Change in Me.’
• Beauty and the Beast (3D Theatricals) ★★★★★ Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, 2016
  An elaborate production by a local company with great performances from the leads, and a surprise understudy.

August 2017

• Hotel St. James (San Diego) ★★★★☆ Historic hotel in the Gaslamp area that’s been renovated since I was last there.

November

• Chess in Concert: Post-Cold War Edition ★★★★☆ Claire Trevor School of the Arts, 2017
  The cold-war musical Chess works surprisingly well set in the present day.

March 2018

• Xmarks (Discontinued) ★★★★☆ Xmarks was a cross-browser bookmark sync service that I used for a long time to keep Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Safari on multiple computers using the same set of bookmarks. It shut down in 2018.

May

• Solo: A Star Wars Story ★★★☆☆ Solo isn’t high art, and it’s got some rough edges, but it’s a fun ride.

July

• Ready Player One (Book) ★★★☆☆ Ernest Cline
  Back when I read it, the nostalgia and scavenger hunt were enough for me. Now, not so much.
• Head On ★★★★★ John Scalzi
  The sequel to Lock In is a fast read with intriguing concepts, fun characters and an interesting mystery. This time locked-in FBI agent Chris Shane investigates the death of a locked-in athlete in a sport too extreme for human bodies, played with remotely-controlled robots.

August

• Flash: Stop Motion (Audio) Mark Schultz
  The concepts are intriguing, the characters are handled well, and the full cast and sound effects make up for the lack of visuals in superhero novels.

September

• The Three-Body Problem (Book) ★★★★☆ Liu Cixin, Ken Liu (Translator)
  Not a proper review of the book, but a collection of comments I made while reading it back in 2018.
• Final Crisis (Audio and Graphic Novel) It actually flows better than the comic book, especially toward the end, when the comic starts fragmenting the narrative.
• Final Crisis: Revisiting the Tie-Ins Superman Beyond is essential. Submit and Reqiuem show the street-level perspective. Rogues Revenge is not a good as I remember.

February 2019

• Star Wars: The Last Jedi ★★★★☆ The performances are way better than most of the prequel trilogy, and the story is the first theatrical Star Wars to break new ground in ages.

March

• Dark Knights: Metal ★★★☆☆ Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, and Jonathan Glapion
  The art is great, and the scope is ambitious, but the story follows the same beats as Final Crisis.

June

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Phone) ★★★★★ Much as I like newer phones, there are a few things that I really miss about the S4, especially the ergonomics.
• Under the Influence ★★★★☆ Trey Ratcliff
  Trey Ratcliff details a fascinating look at a side of Instagram that I’ve mostly ignored.
• Space Opera ★★★★★ Catherynne Valente
  Fun sci-fi social satire from Catherynne Valente. The world is a mess, but we can find the sublime in chaos.

February 2021

• Farewell to Fry’s Electronics I miss two things about Fry’s Electronics: 1. Being able to walk in and grab random parts immediately. 2. The decor.

January 2022

• Les Misérables (Adaptations) Reviews of several Les Misérables movies, parodies, comic books, the 25th Anniversary production of the musical, a children’s book, a radio play and more.

March

• Vespucci (App) ★★★★★ Vespucci is a powerful editor for OpenStreetMap on Android that can handle just about anything, though the learning curve is steep.
• Triggers ★★★☆☆ Robert J. Sawyer
  It’s an interesting take on memory and identity, but not one of Sawyer’s best.
• A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching ★★★★★ Rosemary Mosco
  A fast, funny, informative read about pigeons, their long history with humans, appearance and behavior, and even modern extreme pigeon breeds.
• Star Hunter ★★★☆☆ Andre Norton
  A standard survival adventure with mismatched partners and ruthless rivals, only with weird stuff going on and in space.
• Star Born ★★★★★ Andre Norton
  An adventure woven through the post-war struggles of an alien world, with humans caught on both sides, exploring identity, colonialism and prejudice. Definitely worth the read.

April

• The Time Traders ★★★★☆ Andre Norton
  A fun time-travel spy thriller through the bronze age that’s very rooted in the cold war.
• Codeberg ★★★★★ Non-profit git services for free/libre/open-source software projects. Familiar interface, works well, easy to migrate from GitHub and other forges.
• Amazon Music ★★★☆☆ I want to use it to listen to music. Amazon wants to use it to sell me more subscriptions.
• KeePass2Android ★★★★★ Nice, clean interface to a KeePass2 database with auto-fill support for both websites and apps and seamless syncing over your own server or the cloud of your choice.
• Standard Ebooks ★★★★★ Great source of classics and other public domain material, formatted and edited for maximum readability and compatibility.
• Project Gutenberg ★★★★★ Predating the web itself, they’ve put together tens of thousands of ebooks from classics and other public domain sources in multiple formats from plaintext to ePub.

May

• The Bard’s Tale IV ★★★★★ This is the game Might and Magic IX wanted to be. A classic party-based quest in an immersively detailed world. Only, you know, playable. Plus amazing music!
• Nextcloud Notes ★★★★★ Simpler than Google Keep, more private, with human-readable data that syncs quickly and cleanly with your devices.
• Little Fuzzy ★★★★☆ H. Beam Piper
  An enjoyable tale of first contact, colonialism, environmental stewardship, corporate greed vs. ethics, and most importantly, who counts as “people” on an alien world that turns out not to be uninhabited after all.

June

• The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell ★★★★★ Mira Grant
  Seared into my memory. Cascading failures as zombies attack an elementary school. Well-written, but I never, ever want to read it again.
• Quantum Night ★★★★☆ Robert J. Sawyer
  Intriguing premise, well explored: Quantum entanglement, psychopaths, and mob behavior. Can we reboot humanity amid a rising tide of xenophobia?
• Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 ★★★★☆ Star Trek with the pace of Farscape, weaving through existing lore and focused on one crew member’s quest for redemption.
• Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 ★★★☆☆ The stand-alone episodes are good, and the Burnham/Spock family dynamics, but the main arc gets really frustrating in the second half.
• The Kaiju Preservation Society ★★★★★ John Scalzi
  Escaping the pandemic by learning to survive on a world with gigantic monsters.
• Mastodon – Simplified Federation ★★★★★ A Firefox add-on that automatically opens remote Mastodon users or posts in your home server when you interact with them.
• Norse Mythology ★★★★☆ Neil Gaiman
  Entertaining, sometimes gruesome, sometimes funny and sometimes sad collection of stories about Odin, Thor, Loki and the other gods of Asgard.

July

• Every Heart a Doorway ★★★★☆ Seanan McGuire
  A fast read with an intriguing concept that reverses multiple YA fantasy tropes.
• A Dragon for William ★★★★★ Julie Czerneda
  A welcome return to the world of A Turn of Light (though shorter!)
• Plex ★★★☆☆ It does let you stream your local media library, but it insists on connecting to a cloud account and pushes you to buy a subscription, even if you’re not using its remote services.
• Jellyfin ★★★★★ Great for playing music across my local network, doesn’t phone home to a cloud or try to upsell subscriptions.
• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace ★★★★☆ Better than I remember. It’s well constructed, and there are incredible subtleties and thematic elements hidden among the flashy (and cheesy) A-plot.
• Down Among the Sticks and Bones ★★★★★ Seanan McGuire
  Creepy tale of twins transported to a world out of 1930s monster movies. Hangs together better than the first book.
• Chivalry ★★★★★ Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran
  Beautifully drawn and illustrated, a charming tale of Arthurian legend brought into modern times.
• KeePass Password Managers ★★★★★ KeePassXC, its browser extension, and KeePass2Android are a nice, clean set of apps to manage your passwords on your OWN desktop and mobile devices, auto-fill websites and apps, and sync over your own server or cloud provider.

August

• Outer Wilds ★★★★★ A fascinating game of discovery in a finely-crafted, tiny solar system trapped in a time loop. In a ship made of plywood, sheet metal and duct tape. Where you can roast marshmallows on every planet.
• Heroes of Might and Magic III ★★★★★ Possibly the high point in the turn-based strategy battle series.
• The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) ★★★★★ Katie Mack
  An engaging read for the general audience about what we currently know about the history and structure of the universe and what that knowledge – and the pieces we don’t know – might mean for its future and eventual end.
• Fuzzy Nation ★★★★★ John Scalzi
  Not sure it’s better, but it is more enjoyable than the original, with better characterization and less deus-ex-machina. Same overall story of colonization, corporate greed, enviromnental exploitation and who counts as people, but different enough to enjoy both.

September

• Thor: The Mighty Avenger ★★★☆☆ Amazing designs, intriguing concepts, but a plodding plot that tries to be a character piece but is required to be an action film.
• Captain America: The First Avenger ★★★★☆ Better than I remembered, Captain America stands out from the MCU both because it’s a war film and because the formula hadn’t solidified yet.
• Doctor Strange ★★★★☆ Surrealism is the best part. Creative use of Escher gravity, portals, astral projection, time manipulation, incredibly detailed alterations to reality, and effects that make it all look incredible.
• The Sandman - Season One ★★★★★ The Sandman has been brought to life. And it’s amazing.
• StreetComplete ★★★★★ StreetComplete is an easy way to contribute to OpenStreetMap on the go, as a beginner, or both from your Android phone.

October

• Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness ★★★☆☆ Not as bad as I expected, but the alternate realities weren’t as fun as the reality-bending in the first movie. And there was way too much reliance on the Idiot Ball.
• The Time Machine ★★★★☆ H.G. Wells
  A bit dry, but it draws you in, and if the plot is simple, it’s enough to wrap around some thought-provoking speculation about the future of humanity - and a critique of industrial society.
• WordPress Block Editor ★☆☆☆☆ This is not distraction-free writing. Every time I try to use it I get frustrated and switch back to the classic editor…because I can USE it.

November

• Dracula ★★★★★ Bram Stoker
  The original Dracula is a great read, not just for the way it codified modern vampire lore, but the way it’s built as a collection of letters, diary entries, and so on.
• Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3 ★★★★☆ I liked Season 3 a lot better than season 2. It finally got to be its own Trek. And they did some really interesting things with the future of the 'verse and how the Discovery crew adapted to it.

December

• The Defiant Agents Andre Norton
  An enjoyable space western with Apaches as the good guys, wrapped up in the cold war and tossing in the Golden Horde, a lost alien city and Russians with a mind-control ray.

January 2023

• Star Wars: Andor - Season One ★★★★☆ A more serious take on Star Wars, with a bit more personal scope showing how oppression grinds people down, and what sacrifices rebellion can require.
• Key Out Of Time ★★★★☆ Andre Norton
  Lost in time, lost in space, out of their depth, a handful of humans are caught in the middle of a four-way power struggle on the high seas of an alien world.

March

• Star Trek: Lower Decks ★★★★★ Hilarious self-parody of TNG-era Star Trek. Funny on its own, but even better if you know the shows it’s riffing on.
• Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett ★★★☆☆ The flashbacks were great! But I couldn’t get into the present-day story.
• You Look Like a Thing and I Love You ★★★★★ Janelle Shane
  A fun, accessible introduction to how artificial intelligence works…and how it sometimes doesn’t!

April

• Star Trek: Picard - Season 2 ★★★☆☆ Hard to pin down, with a weird start, then a few good time travel episodes, before throwing in not just the kitchen sink but everything in the sink.
• Nextcloud News ★★★★★ Simple web-based news reader for Nextcloud, easy to install and syncs with multiple desktop and mobile clients.
• NetNewsWire ★★★★★ Clean, stable, fast, free, no-clutter and no-nonsense RSS/Atom newsfeed reader for macOS and iOS.
• Clusterduck ★★★★☆ Fun and weird, good for killing time while you’re waiting in line. Eventually it gets monotonous, but it takes a while to get there.
• Target (app) ★★★★★ Well-designed, runs smoothly, great for ordering items to pick up in-store or for shipping.
• Assistant for No Man’s Sky ★★★★★ Very useful for looking up crafting recipes and other reference while playing the game on my PC. Updated quickly when the game adds new features.
• OpenTasks ★★★★☆ Simple to-do list that works great with a Nextcloud server or local storage on your phone.
• Manyverse ★★★★☆ Takes the pain out of setting up and running SSB. Unfortunately it doesn’t overcome SSB’s inherent challenges of discovery, data size or multiple devices. (So far?)
• Night Watch (Discworld) ★★★★★ Terry Pratchett
  Time travel, barricades and a mix of humor and darkness in a rebellion with good cops, bad cops and time monks.

May

• Under Alien Skies ★★★★★ Philip Plait
  A fun look at what it would be like to visit other planets or star systems, weaving together sci-fi scenarios, the science behind them, and the history of how those discoveries were made.
• Four Lost Cities ★★★★★ Annalee Newitz
  Fascinating look at how cities form, live and die, seen through archaeological discoveries at Pompeii, Angkor, Cahokia and Çatalhöyük.
• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones ★★★☆☆ I think it’s the weakest of the prequels and of the six that George Lucas was actually involved in.

June

• DAVx⁵ ★★★★★ Background app that syncs your non-Google cloud accounts with your Android system calendars and contacts.
• Pebble and Wren ★★★★★ Chris Hallbeck
  Hilarious and heartwarming tale of a girl and the monster who lives under her bed.
• Not Cross-Posting to Better World Books I recently picked up some used books, which worked out great. But I’m not cross-posting my reviews there because they claim copyright over user submissions, not just a perpetual license.
• Feedly ★★★☆☆ Cloud-based feed reader with all the bells and whistles, focusing too much on the bells and whistles.
• Liferea ★★★★☆ A nice, lightweight feed reader for Linux that does the basics.

July

• Instagram ★★☆☆☆ Like checking out your friends’ vacation photos, but every other photo is an ad, and half of your friends’ pics are full of product placement.
• NewsFlash ★★★★★ Clean, stable, fast, free, no-clutter and no-nonsense RSS/Atom newsfeed reader for Linux that optionally syncs with multiple services.
• BBEdit ★★★★★ Text editor for macOS that’s powerful enough to handle multi-megabyte files and still light enough to jot down notes.

August

• Rocannon’s World ★★★☆☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A serviceable quest story that melds fantasy and sci-fi. Engaging enough, but I’d only recommend it to someone who’s read her later work.
• Tinyview Comics ★★★★☆ Good comics formatted for small screens.
• Tune in Tomorrow ★★★★☆ Randee Dawn
  A fun romp through backstage theater, mystery, soap opera, mythology, fandom and screwball comedy romance tropes. (whew!)
• The Outer Worlds ★★★★★ Immersive space RPG that at once satirizes corporate control while asking you to make hard choices within it.
• Semiosis ★★★★★ Sue Burke
  A fascinating take on space colonization, intelligence, and language, following multiple generations of humans on a world dominated by sapient plants.
• K-9 Email ★★★★☆ Classic email app for Android: No frills, no ads, no tracking. Supports multiple accounts, phone-to-tablet layouts, and dark mode.
• George F Canyon ★★★★★ A quiet hike along a seasonal streambed. Shady for the first part, then opens up. Beware of poison oak. City view at the summit. Birds, rabbits, butterflies.
• Toulon Drive Loop ★★★☆☆ The easy part runs along a stream bed. Then it gets steeper and a lot less shaded as it wraps around a chaparral-covered hill.
• A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking ★★★★★ T. Kingfisher
  A fun and original take on the teenage wizard genre. With an immortal carnivorous sourdough starter named Bob.
• Dōh Creamery ★★★★★ An ice cream shop that also specializes in cookie dough. Good selection of flavors for both, and you can mix and match however you want.
• Birding Is My Favorite Video Game ★★★★★ Rosemary Mosco
  A fun collection of cartoons about nature (not just birds!) collected from Bird and Moon. Mostly funny, a few serious.

September

• The Lathe of Heaven ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A surreal tale of dreams changing reality, global stakes anchored by the three people involved. Be careful what you wish for.
• Hopkins Wilderness Park ★★★★☆ A good place to bring your kids or just take a shady walk in something that feels like nature. Lightly wooded, some hills, trails, a stream and a duck pond, plus picnic areas and camping.
• Entradero Park Loop ★★★★☆ Relaxing walk through scrub habitat around a basin with restored wetlands. Not much shade, good for spotting birds.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves ★★★★☆ To my shock and surprise, this D&D movie was actually good!

October

• The Crafted Scone ★★★★★ Not just great scones, but a great variety of scones. Good for breakfast, lunch (they also make ‘sconewiches’), a snack, or just coffee or tea.
• Natureba ★★★★★ Tiny small business, great smoothies and tropical juices, plus Brazilian-style grilled sandwiches and Açaí bowls.
• Madrona Marsh Preserve ★★★★★ One of my favorite places to walk in the South Bay, the preserve is the last remnant of seasonal marshes that once covered the western part of the LA basin.
• Apple Mail (macOS) ★★★★☆ No-nonsense but full-featured email application for macOS that works well with multiple IMAP accounts and Gmail.
• Wine and Crossover ★★★★☆ THE major compatibility tool for Windows apps on Linux or macOS, including SteamOS. And a commercial distribution with installers and support.
• Windows 10 Mail and Calendar (discontinued) ★★★⯪☆ Not a bad email client. Snappy, works with multiple accounts. Some issues with Nextcloud calendar and contacts. So of course it’s been discontinued in favor of Outlook.
• The Empanada Shop ★★★★★ Great selection of both meat and veggie fillings, plus desserts (the chocolate one is intense).
• People of the Crater ★★★☆☆ Andre Norton
  Standard fantasy rescue-the-princess adventure with sci-fi trappings, nodding vaguely toward Hollow Earth tropes.
• PixelDroid ★★★★★ Optimized for photo sharing and viewing, works smoothly and integrates well with the system. FOSS, won’t vacuum up your personal data.
• South Coast Botanic Garden ★★★★★ Big enough to feel like you could get lost (but not big enough to get lost), packed with trails that feel like walking through nature, surrounded by more structured gardens. Great for events, families or just getting out for a walk.
• Star Trek: Picard - Season 3 ★★☆☆☆ If season one was like The Last Jedi, this is The Rise of Skywalker, complete with gratuitously resurrected villains, young characters freaking out about their genetics, a family/found family theme that only sort of makes sense, and a galactic-level threat that can only be defeated by taking out that one resurrected villain.
• The Daughter of Odren ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A small, stand-alone tale set in Earthsea, reminiscent of the folk tales glimpsed throughout the series. Betrayal, revenge, kindness, and power - and just living.

November

• Hamilton Beach 12 Cup Coffee Maker ★★★⯪☆ Basic coffee maker. It makes coffee. But be sure to mark the fill gauge on the side yourself after checking how much it actually makes
• Starter Villain ★★★★☆ John Scalzi
  A fun, fast read, parodying the James Bond Villain archetype. With talking dolphins and typing cats.
• Prickly Pear Trail ★★★★☆ Short loop with some steep sections. Lots of cactus. (Keep your balance!) Nice views of the ocean and Point Vicente Lighthouse.
• Thunderbird (Email and Calendar) ★★★★★ Stable, capable desktop email application, works well with multiple accounts including Gmail, Nextcloud, easy to set up and use but with advanced settings when you need them. FLOSS.

December

• City of Illusions ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  How can you be yourself when you don’t know who you really are? A story of isolation, adaptation, kindness, cruelty, trust and hope, and above all, how to piece together the truth (or at least pick out the lies) on a future, depopulated Earth.
• The Press Espresso ★★★★★ Good coffee with a wide range of flavored drinks. Small but inviting.
• Rival Coffee Co. ★★★★★ Good coffee and creative flavor combinations. REALLY good breakfast sandwiches. A bit out of the way, but worth it.
• Coffee Cartel ★★★★★ Offbeat local coffee house with atmosphere that makes you want to hang out there.
• Star Trek: Picard - Season 1 ★★★⯪☆ I have mixed feelings about the first season of Picard. But later seasons have given me a new appreciation for it.
• Planet of Exile ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A tighter story than Rocannon’s World, with better-drawn characters, and more ambitious in its worldbuilding and themes.
• Worlds of Exile and Illusion ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Interesting to see Le Guin as she’s developing her craft. Not the best place to start with her work, but absolutely worth reading.
• Linode ★★★★★ Flexible, inexpensive cloud hosting with a variety of Linux options. Rock solid so far!
• RSS Guard ★★★★☆ A solid cross-platform feed reader that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Extremely capable and customizable. Syncs with multiple services.

January 2024

• Minor Mage ★★★★☆ T. Kingfisher
  By turns melancholy and creepy, with a dash of sarcastic armadillo.
• Nextcloud Calendar ★★★★★ Self-hosted, web-based calendar that syncs easily with other apps and has completely replaced Google Calendar for me.
• Wayback Machine Browser Extension ★★★★☆ Useful for when you want to make sure the pages you’re reading will still be around in some form in the future, and to easily get at additional context. Checks every page you view against the Wayback Machine, so turn it off when you’re not using it.
• Union Pizza ★★★★★ Thin-crust pizzas are good, deep-dish pizzas are REALLY good. My favorite is the Classic Deep Dish (spinach, roasted garlic, ricotta and mushrooms) - and normally I don’t even like mushrooms.
• Fluent Reader ★★★☆☆ A simple, no-nonsense, modern-looking RSS/Atom newsfeed reader for Windows, Mac and Linux. Optionally sync with multiple services, but I’ve had issues with Nextcloud.
• Illuminations ★★★★★ T. Kingfisher
  Madcap magical damage control in a family of eccentric artist-magicians. Fun like A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive baking, but with a tighter story and better-defined characters.
• Geary ★★★★☆ Really lightweight but still modern, so it’s a good choice on lower-end hardware. Basic IMAP features, good for most day-to-day email use. Needs GNOME for setup.
• Fossify Apps: Replacing Simple Mobile Tools Simple Mobile Tools was purchased and now does everything it used to refuse to. Fossify is a privacy-respecting fork.
• Gmail (Android App) ★★★☆☆ Works well with multiple accounts and display modes, but tracks you more than it should.
• Kéan Coffee ★★★★★ Great indie coffeehouse. Good coffee, good place to hang out. Established by the founder of Diedrich Coffee, a local chain back in the 80s and 90s.

February

• Microsoft Outlook (Android) ★★★★☆ It works. More stable than the desktop version. Handles mail, calendar and contacts, offers the focused/other inbox view. Tries to keep you in Microsoft’s apps. OK for work, wouldn’t use it for personal mail.
• Onyx BOOX Poke3 ★★★★☆ I used the Poke3 as my main ebook reader for almost five years. It’s a convenient size, has a clear e-ink display, and can run the Android app for (almost) any eBook store.
• A City on Mars ★★★★★ Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
  Accessible and intricately researched, with scattered humor to keep the reader’s interest. Getting to space is the easy part. Staying there is going to be a lot more complicated.

March

• Taishi Hainan Chicken ★★★★★ Variations on chicken and rice, all of them good.
• Star Wars: Dark Forces (Remastered) - First Impressions ★★★★☆ The remastered Dark Forces is the game you remember playing back in the day, not the game you actually played.

April

• Fuzzy Sapiens ★★★★☆ H. Beam Piper
  Continuing the Mad Men approach to ecological space colonization, this sequel explores the growing pains of a company town becoming a democracy, a corporation losing its monopoly, and two species of people figuring out how to live together.
• Git ★★★★☆ An extremely capable and flexible version control system, Git is also extremely cryptic, and you’ll want to keep the docs handy for commands you don’t use regularly.
• Invasive ★★★★☆ Chuck Wendig
  Swarms of killer ants genetically altered to target humans are as much nightmare fuel as you would expect.
• El Amigo ★★★★★ Great spot for takeout Mexican food. I particularly like their Chile Relleno. Dine-in, limited parking.
• Holiday Inn Express Murrieta ★★★★☆ Nothing fancy, but nothing bad either. Friendly staff, clean rooms, free WiFi and breakfast, ample car chargers. Next to a great coffee shop.
• Fossify Contacts ★★★★☆ Basic, privacy-respecting contacts app for Android that works with all contacts accounts on your phone.
• Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village ★★★★★ Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper
  A delightful parody of every English countryside murder mystery trope, as a guidebook to a village that has them all.
• Fossify Calendar ★★★★☆ Basic calendar app that works with your phone’s local calendars. You can do all the usual things you want to use a calendar for on your phone. Doesn’t clutter up your schedule with ads or vacuum up your personal data.

May

• The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport ★★★★★ Samit Basu
  Starts as a cyberpunk take on Aladdin and gleefully launches into a glorious mishmash of robots, legacies, secrets and political upheaval in a crumbling spaceport slowly sinking into the mud on a backwater planet.
• In the Shadow of Spindrift House ★★★★☆ Mira Grant
  Imagine the Scooby-Doo gang encountering a Lovecraftian horror in Hill House. They manage about as well as you might expect.

July

• The Last Unicorn ★★★★★ Peter S. Beagle
  Whimsical and melancholy tale of the last unicorn’s quest to find others of her kind. Well drawn characters and story, very much a classic.
• The Word for World is Forest ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Infuriating to read…and that’s the point. A story of colonial exploitation, asymmetric warfare, dehumanization and environmental destruction.
• Pure Bean ★★★★★ An indie coffee shop and roaster that opened in a space vacated by CBTL a few years back.
• Two Guns Espresso ★★★★★ Serious coffee. Small chain in LA’s South Bay that introduced the Flat White to the region in the early 2010s.

August

• Alpine Linux ★★★★★ Lightweight Linux distribution with modern capabilities and smooth package management despite its low resource requirements. Good for small cloud servers, old hardware, Raspberry Pi, etc.
• CSCPay Mobile ★★☆☆☆ Now my laundry doesn’t just depend on the washer and dryer, but on a controller box, its internet connection, my internet connection, my phone charge, and an online service.
• Lavender & Honey ★★★★☆ Good coffee, pastries and sandwiches, maybe a bit expensive. They also sell artisan honey and beeswax products.
• Fossify Keyboard ★★★☆☆ I wanted to like this keyboard, but I can’t seem to type reliably with it just by tapping on my phone, and there’s no swipe gesture or autosuggest support. It works better at tablet size.

September

• Stellaris - First Impressions ★★★★☆ An empire-building game, like Heroes of Might and Magic in Space, but more complicated, with diplomacy, espionage and alliances along with base building and battles.
• The Great Typo Hunt ★★★⯪☆ Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson
  A cross-country road trip with a Sharpie pen, correcting grammatical and spelling errors in road and shop signs. I’ve mellowed on the subject since it came out, but it’s still interesting.
• Summer in Orcus ★★★★★ T. Kingfisher
  A portal fantasy that answers the questions: What kind of quest would Baba Yaga send an 11-year-old girl on, and how can she save a world anyway?

October

• Floccus Bookmarks Sync ★★★★★ Very flexible, syncs across many different desktop browsers and mobile devices, and for privacy it can run on your own server or encrypted on another cloud service.
• Scott Pilgrim Takes Off ★★★★★ The cartoon is both wackier and more introspective than the source material. Sort of a mash-up of the movie and comics, sort of a reunion, sort of a remake, and sort of a What If.
• Remembering Diedrich Coffee ★★★★★ Small OC-based chain that used to be my favorite coffee place until Starbucks bought them out. The founder has since opened Kéan in Tustin and Newport Beach, and it’s every bit as good.
• ClassicPress ★★★★☆ More than just WordPress Minus Gutenberg! Familiar, super-easy to migrate, and can work with most of the WP plugin/theme ecosystem.
• WordPress Plugins (and ClassicPress too!) Some WordPress and ClassicPress plugins I’ve used and which ones I recommend.

November

• Fossify Launcher ★★★☆☆ Works fine for launching apps. Widget support needs more work. Does not auto-rotate.
• Space Oddity ★★★★⯪ Catherynne Valente
  Not quite as fun as the first book, but it’s just as absurd and chaotic, and exactly what I needed in the weeks leading up to the 2024 election.
• DreamHost ★★★★☆ Rock solid web hosting with managed VPS and good support. Hosting this page right now. Cloud computing has been less stable in my experience.
• Nomad of the Time Streams ★★★⯪☆ Michael Moorcock
  A 19th-century British soldier in India is flung into three wildly different future wars, forcing him to reexamine the world he thought he was building.
• Three Rental Cars While my car was in the shop recently, I rented three very different cars: a Ford Edge SUV, a Chevy Bolt EV, and a Ford Mustang.
• Snac ★★★★☆ Extremely bare-bones social networking server that runs on low-resource machines, works on the web without cookies or JavaScript, and still interacts through ActivityPub with Mastodon, GoToSocial and other Fediverse software.
• The Telling ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A thoughtful tale of discovery, as an observer from Earth struggles to find and understand fragments of the lost cultures hidden beneath a society that’s thrown away its past in favor of a single vision.

December

• Notepad++ ★★★★★ A perfect balance of powerful and lightweight, Notepad++ is far more capable than Notepad, but doesn’t complicate things like a full IDE.
• Agate (Gemini Server) ★★★★★ A simple Gemini Protocol server for static files. Fast, stable, easy, and running the Gemini version of this site.
• Lagrange ★★★★★ Lagrange quickly became my favorite Gemini client on the desktop with its clean and convenient UI, stability and speed across platforms. And the mobile version works well too.
• Fossify Gallery ★★★★☆ Basic on-device gallery that lets you manage your photos without sending them to a cloud service just to deal with what’s on your phone.
• QuickEdit ★★★★★ Full-featured text editor for Android. Good in a pinch on a phone, better on a tablet.
• VMWare Fusion ★★☆☆☆ VMWare Fusion worked great on my Intel-based MacBook for work for years. But since Broadcom bought the company, I can’t even find it.
• Subspace Rhapsody ★★★★⯪ The first time through my reaction was: OK, that was fun. The second time I really appreciated the way it was put together and immediately went looking for the soundtrack.
• Astra Lumina ★★★★★ Nighttime walk through botanical gardens and a series of immersive light-and-music shows that you can take at your own pace. Definitely worth it!
• Cordwainer Smith: Short Fiction ★★★★☆ Paul Linebarger
  Three mid-century science-fiction stories about the future of war, space travel, symbiosis, and the dangers of cutting off your own humanity.

January 2025

• El Tarasco ★★★★☆ Small local Mexican fast food chain in the South Bay area. Great for takeout. Lots of outdoor seating at Artesia and Hermosa locations.
• No Man’s Sky ★★★★★ Open-ended, self-directed sandbox game of exploring space. Amazing graphics. Gameplay switches smoothly between solo and multiplayer modes.
• Opera (Web Browser) ★★★☆☆ Opera used to be one of my favorite browsers back in the day, but its current incarnation just doesn’t appeal to me. I much prefer Vivaldi, which is a spiritual successor to the original.
• Google Chrome ★★★☆☆ There was a time when Chrome was the fastest web browser available. It isn’t anymore, and over the last few years it’s felt less like a user agent and more like a Google agent.
• Firefox ★★★★☆ I still have a soft spot for Firefox. At times it’s been the best web browser on Windows and Linux. It’s still good, has a solid extension ecosystem, and serves as an important bulwark against one company dominating browser tech.
• Arch Linux ★★★★☆ Once it’s installed, it’s fine! Faster updates than Fedora or Debian. Smaller software selection, but community packages and Flatpak make up for it. ARM port and the Danctnix drivers for Pine hardware are solid. I don’t miss the old days of setting everything up by hand, though.
• Consent-O-Matic ★★★★★ Convenient browser extension that detects cookie consent pop-ups and automatically fills them out according to your choices. Lets you know it’s working without getting in your way.
• Dillo (Web Browser) ★★★★☆ Ultra-minimalist and super-fast browser for web documents (not applications). You won’t be logging into Gmail with it, but it’ll load a Wikipedia article incredibly fast.
• GoToSocial ★★★★☆ A lightweight Fediverse server, with a clean web interface for viewing public posts. Compatible with Mastodon apps and interacts with other ActivityPub platforms.
• Vivaldi (Web Browser) ★★★★★ Spiritual successor to the original Opera browser, this ultra-customizable web browser can open into a full suite for email, calendar, feeds and more – but only if you want it to.
• Falkon (Web Browser) ★★★★☆ A surprisingly capable Chromium browser for KDE and other Linux desktops that runs well even on low-end hardware and virtual machines.
• The High and Faraway (Trilogy) ★★★☆☆ Greg Keyes
  Not Keyes’ best work. Interesting concept and characters, but poorly edited and creepy (in a bad way).
• Four-Day Planet ★★★☆☆ H. Beam Piper
  A fun frontier/sailing adventure, but nothing special. Sort of Moby Dick in space with everyone based out of a corrupt frontier town.

February

• Chromium (Web Browser) ★★★⯪☆ The basis for most web browsers these days, driven mainly by building Google Chrome. Less tracking and branding, but stable updates are only available on Linux.
• Ungoogled Chromium ★★★⯪☆ This takes Chromium and removes everything that connects to Google services…including things like safe browsing and the extension store.
• Short Circuit ★★★★☆ The comedy about a robot coming to life and the humans trying to catch him or help him escape holds up better than I expected.
• Debian Linux ★★★★⯪ My second choice distro for both desktop and servers. More reliable than Ubuntu, more stable than Fedora, easier to install than Arch, though a bit slower to update. Bigger than Alpine, but uses the more typical glibc.
• Justice (ST:TNG, Season 1) ★☆☆☆☆ Some old TV shows are better than you remember. Planet of the Jogging Bimbos…isn’t.
• Privacy Badger ★★★★★ Tracking protection add-on for web browsers that also converts embedded media to placeholders and adds GPC support to browsers that don’t have it built in. (It used to detect new trackers automatically, but had to stop when someone figured out how to track that.)

March

• ConnectBot ★★★★★ A no-nonsense SSH client for Android.
• Watch Duty ★★★★★ More useful than official alerts or the LA Times fire maps for knowing which parts of a wildfire you need to worry about and how soon.
• Star Trek: Section 31 ★★☆☆☆ As a Star Trek pilot it’s merely OK. As a stand-alone movie, it’s a mess. It could have been retooled as a good heist film, but wasn’t.
• Regarding Mozilla and Brave On Brendan Eich’s brief promotion to CEO at Mozilla, the fallout for Mozilla and the creation of Brave.
• Brave (Web Browser) ★★☆☆☆ A privacy-focused browser, but for every cool privacy feature there’s something else that makes me want to firewall the application away from my system.
• Ladybird and the Controversy over Inclusivity What people were upset about, why it blew up, and why some people are still leery of the project to this day.
• LibreWolf ★★★★☆ Customized Firefox, with an eye toward security and privacy. Follows the stable release channel. Works well most of the time, but privacy features can break some sites.
• NetSurf ★★★☆☆ Lightweight browser for RISC-OS and Linux/Unix (and a few smaller OSes). Slightly more capable than Dillo, if not quite as small or fast.
• Geopard ★★★☆☆ Simple desktop Gemini Protocol client with bookmarks. Polished, fits well with any Linux desktop but especially GNOME. Fast, no frills.
• Kristall ★★★★☆ Cross-platform desktop browser for the small internet, including Gemini, Gopher and Finger. A little faster than Lagrange, but fewer features and hasn’t been updated in a while.
• Waterfox ★★★★☆ A Firefox fork aimed at improved performance and privacy, without sacrificing usability. Also available on Android.
• GNU IceCat ★★★☆☆ Firefox minus all branding and connections to Mozilla services, plus add-ons to block non-FSF-approved JavaScript.
• Buran ★★★★☆ Simple, fast, intuitive Gemini Protocol client for Android with a clean interface. Supports bookmarks and client certs, but not subscriptions.
• Deedum ★★★☆☆ A full featured, if awkward, Gemini client for Android and iOS. Handles bookmarks, subscriptions and client identities.
• Nextcloud Bookmarks ★★★★☆ Online web app for managing bookmarks using your own Nextcloud server. I usually use it indirectly as the storage for syncing via Floccus.
• Arc (Web Browser, discontinued) ★★★⯪☆ An interesting experiment in finding different ways to use the web, on the idea that people don’t want to use it more, they want to use the web less to accomplish what they want.
• Pebble 2 Smart Watch ★★★⯪☆ The rare smartwatch that was actually designed to work well as a watch. It was discontinued ages ago, but the just-announced Core Duo 2 is essentially an updated version.
• Phanpy (Mastodon App) ★★★★★ An app for Mastodon (and other Fediverse sites) that cuts through the clutter. Runs anywhere in a web browser, or can be installed to your device’s home page as a PWA.
• Mastodon (Mobile App) ★★★⯪☆ Good for someone new to Mastodon, but lacks advanced features found in other apps like Tusky.
• Changing Planes ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Lighter than most Le Guin I’ve read, Changing Planes is a Gulliver’s Travels for the present era, the social satire made possible through interdimensional travel.
• Firefox Sync ★★★★☆ Works on nearly every Firefox-based browser and can mix and match. Even IronFox and LibreWolf recommend using it, as it’s encrypted end-to-end.
• IronFox ★★★★☆ A privacy-hardened Firefox variation for Android, comparable to LibreWolf on desktops. Removes Mozilla tracking and services like Pocket. Locks down features that can leak data, but those changes can break some sites.
• Tor Browser ★★★★☆ When you really want (or need) to stay private while using the web, Tor is the way to go. Just keep the drawbacks in mind when you do.
• Fossify Camera ★★★⯪☆ Basic camera app with support for flash, timer and video, optional EXIF. Lacks advanced processing like night sight. Images are slightly noisier than Google’s camera.

April

• Microsoft Edge ★★☆☆☆ Once you turn off all the Microsoft specials, it feels usable again – but then, it’s just another Chromium skin.
• iCab ★★★⯪☆ This macOS-only WebKit browser is just OK, but with so many other browsers trying to grab your attention and data, sometimes ‘just OK’ is what you want.
• Squirrel With a Gun ★★★★☆ Fun, absurd, and absurdly fun. Yes, you play as a squirrel, outrunning and outgunning secret agents and charming the civilians.
• Valmonte Trail and Frog Creek Loop ★★★★★ A nice, easy loop trail. Hilly, with plenty of shade in the wooded areas along the stream beds. Lots of side trails.
• Five Ways to Forgiveness ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Five loosely-connected stories set in the final years of a color-based enslaving society, the war for liberation, and the messy aftermath.
• Arc Search (discontinued) ★★★★☆ Surprisingly, I like the mobile Arc browser better than its desktop counterpart. Simplified UI, stays mostly out of your way, and it’s satisfying to fling tabs offscreen to close them. Still leery of the AI summarizer, though.
• Fossify Messages ★★★☆☆ Minimalist SMS/MMS app with custom alerts, archives and actions on the pull-down notifications. No RCS support or swipe actions, but does the job without sending a copy of all your messages to Google.
• Zen Browser ★★★★☆ Similar to Arc, Zen has a non-cluttered design that stays out of your way. Unlike Arc, it’s built on Firefox, runs on more platforms, and doesn’t require you to log in just to use it!
• Kobo (eBook store and readers) ★★★★☆ A solid alternative to Kindle, from the eBook selection through apps and hardware. The app works well on my eink tablet without too much tweaking, though it still wants to sell me more books before I can open the one I want to read.
• Soonish ★★★★★ Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
  Fascinating, accessible, funny, and still relevant overview of cutting-edge tech, even though it took me 7 years to get around to reading it.
• Linden H. Chandler Preserve ★★★☆☆ Hilly, with not much shade except in the lightly wooded areas along the intermittent streambeds. Higher areas have clear views of the LA Basin and the golf course next door.
• Ready Player One (Movie) ★★★★☆ Steven Spielberg
  Better than I expected, having soured on the book by the time it came out. Not a straight adaptation so much as a rewrite of the same premise that’s more character-driven and yes, more cinematic. With Spielberg.
• Subway Tooter ★★★⯪☆ Extremely customizable, capable, cluttered and complex. Also extremely frustrating to use, especially on a phone. Better on a tablet where there’s room for more columns at a time.
• eBooks.com ★★★★☆ An eBook seller with some actual business ethics. No hardware (which simplifies things), but they have an app for Android and iOS, and any DRM-free titles can be downloaded and read on just about anything.
• Where to Get eBooks A round-up of places I’ve used to find, buy, borrow and download eBooks.
• Malaga Canyon Reserve Gorgeous views from the trailhead that I found (which was closed). I need to see if the other trailheads are open.
• Redondough (bakery/cafe) ★★★★★ Bakery with coffee, tea and sandwiches. I usually get one of their cream cheese and fruit-filled croissants. Breakfast sandwiches are also very good.

May

• Safari (Web Browser) ★★★★☆ Dependable web browser built into macOS. Not much in the way of bells and whistles, but it does offer the usual bookmarks, autofill, reading mode, private windows, etc. And it’ll install PWAs on a desktop.
• Fossify Calculator ★★★★☆ Basic calculator, like the cheap 16-key models. No fancy scientific functions, but also no ads, no data mining, and no subscription. And it’s already in your pocket.
• Postmarks ★★★★☆ A self-hosted public bookmarks/linkblogging server (think Delicious or Pinboard) that can interact with Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse.
• Orion Browser ★★★★★ A Mac-native WebKit browser from Kagi that’s more advanced than Safari, slightly cleaner than Arc or Zen, and can run Chromium/Firefox extensions. I may be sticking with this as my main web browser on macOS.
• King Mediterrano ★★★★★ Mediterranean/Mexican fusion, right at the 3-way border between Torrance, Lawndale and Redondo Beach. You can get a wrap with shawarma or falafel at a lot of places, but where else can you get a shawarma burrito with mozzarella, jalapeños and chipotle sauce?
• Parable of the Sower ★★★★★ Octavia Butler
  Hard to put down. And hard to pick up again. It’s certainly not a fun book, but it’s extremely engaging, despite the bleakness of the slow-apocalypse setting and story.
• Pocket (discontinued) ★★★⯪☆ I used Pocket for ages to better manage my time reading articles. Eventually I soured on the way it’s turned into a recommendation engine. And now Mozilla’s discontinuing it. Wallabag is a decent alternative for the read-it-later aspect.
• Wallabag ★★★★☆ A read-it-later type service built on open-source software that you can run yourself if you want (but don’t have to). Not as polished as Pocket, but it’s sticking around, and you know it’s not using your saved bookmarks to train a recommendation engine.
• Fossify Voice Recorder ★★★★☆ A simple mono recording app where the audio stays on your phone. No ads, no subscriptions, no remotely-generated transcripts, just basic recording.
• Ecosia (Search) ★★★☆☆ Non-profit search provider that uses renewable energy and partners with environmental organizations. AKA “the search engine that plants trees.”
• Sequel Ace ★★★★★ An unapologetically macOS application and a powerful database manager for MySQL/MariaDB. This and its predecessor Sequel Pro are the only database GUIs I’ve actually liked.

June

• DuckDuckGo ★★★★☆ A private-ish search engine that’s also serving less slop than Google. Disposable email aliases are convenient. The browser extension and standalone browser block known trackers, and the Android app can block trackers in other apps too.
• Husky (Social Media App) ★★★⯪☆ A fork based on an older version of Tusky, with added support for Pleroma and Akkoma extensions.
• Fedilab ★★★★⯪ A full-featured app for connecting to Mastodon and other Fediverse servers. Includes specific capabilities for Akkoma, Pixelfed, PeerTube and more, without getting too cluttered.
• Pachli (Mastodon App) ★★★★☆ A Mastodon app forked from (and still similar to) Tusky. Capable without being cluttered. Faster, smaller updates, some minor differences, and some cool anti-harassment features I’d like to see adopted more widely.
• Tusky for Mastodon ★★★★★ I’ve checked out some alternatives after several years using Tusky, and it’s still my preferred Mastodon/Fediverse app. It really runs smoothly, even with multiple accounts.
• Dia (Browser) ★★☆☆☆ An AI chatbot masquerading as a web browser, or the other way around. You can use it without the AI features, but that just leaves you with a stripped-down Chromium skin.

July

• FreeOTP (Authenticator) ★★★⯪☆ Extremely bare-bones 2FA app for iOS and Android, sponsored by Red Hat. It’s secure, works offline, and doesn’t depend on Google. A decent choice if you start with it, but a lack of import features means switching from another app is tedious.
• Aegis Authenticator ★★★★★ A well-designed 2FA app for Android that lets you organize accounts into groups, can use a password or fingerprint to add another layer of security to your codes, and can easily import from several apps including Google Authenticator.
• When The Moon Hits Your Eye ★★★★☆ John Scalzi
  A fast, enjoyable read with a few gut punches hidden throughout. Not so much about the moon turning into cheese as how lots of different people react to the moon turning into cheese.
• Microsoft Outlook (Desktop) ★★★☆☆ I won’t say I’ve never liked Outlook, because the macOS version has been pretty decent for a while now (if a bit of a resource hog), but the Windows versions have always been awkward, cluttered, and quirky.
• GNOME Web (aka Epiphany) ★★★⯪☆ A rare WebKit browser for Linux. Handles the basics, but it’s specifically designed for GNOME, and it’s limited in what it can do around websites. Well-suited for PWAs, though!
• Moshidon (Mastodon app) ★★★★☆ A modified version of the Mastodon app for Android that adds a bit more functionality. Helpful if you use lists or bookmarks a lot, or your instance supports formatted posting.
• Calculating God ★★★★☆ Robert J. Sawyer
  What if there is scientific evidence out there for a supreme being, but to find it you have to correlate knowledge from multiple inhabited worlds across the galaxy?
• Scrambled EXIF ★★★★⯪ One of those ‘does one thing really well’ apps: It’s a filter that removes all the date, time, location, camera, and other metadata from a photo as you share it from your phone.
• Sly (Image Editor) ★★★⯪☆ Simple, friendly, privacy-respecting image editor for Android and Linux. Convenient for most basic photo adjustments, but metadata handling is currently broken, so I can’t use it to just crop photos for iNaturalist. Once that’s fixed, though…
• Image Toolbox ★★★★☆ An extremely powerful image editor for Android. And not just the usual features like crop, adjust contrast or brightness, maybe apply a filter, but you can do batch edits, format conversion, scaling the actual pixel image, editing metadata…all the things that mobile apps tend to hide behind the curtain. And it can preserve EXIF data when you want it to.

August

• Whalebird (Mastodon client) A simple desktop app for Mastodon and (most) compatible Fediverse servers. Fast, runs on multiple platforms.
• Parallels ★★★★⯪ A virtual machine application for macOS that makes it easy to install a Windows, Linux or macOS guest. Downside: annual subscription.
• UTM ★★★⯪☆ A simple application wrapped around macOS’ built-in virtualization and emulation capabilities. Fewer bells and whistles than the commercial options, but works better for some purposes.
• White Point Nature Preserve ★★★★☆ Mostly flat, with hills along the inland edge. Views of the ocean and Catalina. Not much shade except for one stand of trees at the foot of the hills, the garden around the visitor center, and the bunkers remaining from a military site decommissioned in the 1970s.
• The Downloaded ★★★★☆ Robert J. Sawyer
  A short, fast tale of frozen people reawakening after the fall of civilization, built around the premise that you need to keep a frozen person’s consciousness active in VR, and there are very different reasons you might put people into cryo storage and a simulation. Not a lot of plot, mainly concepts and character studies.
• OpenVibe ★★★⯪☆ A cool idea, and it looks great, but the combined feed is too much of a firehose unless you’re only following a small number of people on each account.
• Elk (Mastodon App) ★★★★☆ Alternate web front-end for Mastodon and compatible servers. Slightly more user-friendly, if a bit buggy, especially on non-Mastodon servers like GoToSocial.
• Overgrowth ★★★⯪☆ Mira Grant
  Invasion of the Body Snatchers from the POV of an alien plant person who grew up human. Now the invasion has started, and she’s sorting out friends, family, and who she can trust from either planet.

September

• Enafore ★★★★☆ Minimalist web front-end for Mastodon and compatible servers. Not as capable as Elk, but more stable.
• Interference ★★★★☆ Sue Burke
  An intriguing followup to Semiosis that weaves several drastically different sentient species (both plant and animal) into a story about factions, community, freedom, communication and war.
• Microsoft Surface Go 2 ★★★★☆ A great ultra-light Windows 10 tablet with detachable keyboard. Or an annoyingly slow Windows 11 tablet.
• Automatic Noodle ★★★★★ Annalee Newitz
  A short but joyful tale of creating the future you want out of the present you’ve been stuck with, told by robots who would rather make noodles than war.
• Fread ★★★★☆ Another Bluesky/Mastodon/RSS Combo app like OpenVibe, a bit less polished but considerably more useful. Handles multiple accounts per type, plus custom feeds.
• Boxes (GNOME) ★★★⯪☆ A simple GUI wrapper around Linux’s built-in virtualization support. It makes simple things easy, but to adjust advanced settings you either need to edit config files manually or use another GUI.
• Ladera Linda Community Park ★★★★☆ Nice park with a view of the ocean and Catalina Island, open grassy areas, playground, basketball and tennis courts, lots of parking and clean, new restrooms. Near the Forrestal Reserve trailheads making it a good post-hike restroom stop or picnic spot.

October

• Earthsea (TV) Every once in a while I’m reminded of SyFy’s notoriously bad TV adaptation of Earthsea, and think, maybe I should watch it just once, like the Star Wars Holiday Special. This is not a review. This is why I still haven’t seen it.
• iNaturalist ★★★★★ A citizen science project for reporting and identifying wildlife observations, plus a phone app for use ‘in the field.’ Think of it as Pokémon Go for real animals and plants.
• A Wizard of Earthsea ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  The Earthsea series is one of my regular re-reads. It starts here, with the tale of how a goatherd grew into a wizard in a world where magic is woven through everything from the poorest village to the greatest palace. How he released a terrifying evil in his youth, and how he sailed the world seeking how to make up for his mistake.
• SeaMonkey (Internet Suite) ★★★☆☆ The old Mozilla Suite lives on! Featuring web, email, news, an HTML editor, IRC client and more. Recent work has mostly been to keep it working and backport security fixes, so web app compatibility lags way behind even the ESR Firefox.
• Usurpation ★★★★☆ Sue Burke
  A different sort of book than Semiosis and Interference, taking place entirely on Earth long after the second Pax expedition returns. Can the bamboo keep humans’ chaotic conflicts in check? Where do the robots fit in? With so many forms of intelligence, who counts as a person, anyway?
• Fedora Linux ★★★★⯪ Still my favorite Linux for desktop use, but every once in a while you’re reminded that IBM (via Red Hat) still has an out-sized influence on it.
• FeatherPad ★★★★☆ A lightweight, fast, stable, and capable text editor for Linux.
• A Wizard of Earthsea (Graphic Novel) ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin and Fred Fordham
  Fordham’s watercolor-style art is absolutely gorgeous. The adaptation plays to the medium’s strengths, allowing the visuals to tell the story when possible, keeping Le Guin’s prose when needed. Wide seascapes, rocky coasts, forested landscapes, people (not whitewashed!) and dragons…
• Agatha All Along ★★★★★ The best Marvel TV I’ve seen since the first seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones. Solid cast, with Sixth Sense-level twists that grow organically over the course of the show.

November

• The Birding Dictionary ★★★★★ Rosemary Mosco
  A delightful collection of comedic ‘definitions’ of various terms one might encounter while watching birds (or interacting with people who do), filled with the style of humor and illustration the author brings to her comics.
• Vaster Than Empires And More Slow ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  An intriguing story of a dysfunctional crew dealing with each other and a planet that, at first glance, appears to have no sentient life, only plants.
• iZombie (graphic novels) ★★★★★ Chris Roberson, Mike & Laura Allred, Todd Klein
  A horror/comedy that ranges from Scooby Doo to Lovecraft by way of Moorcock, featuring thinking zombies, vampires who run paintball, ghosts, secret societies, and a were-terrier. Off the wall concepts and a clean, sharp art style that contrasts with the monsters and gore. The TV series was loosely based on these comics.
• Fossify Phone ★★★⯪☆ Minimalist dialer app for the actual phone part of your smartphone, with basic call blocking. Doesn’t provide all the transcription and screening that Google’s app does, but it’s also not sending your call activity to the cloud.
• The Word of Unbinding and The Rule of Names ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  The original two stories set in Earthsea, before Le Guin wrote the novels. Each stand-alone, each interesting both in itself and in seeing what the series and its themes grew from.
• The Wind’s Twelve Quarters ★★★★⯪ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A collection of short stories from early in Le Guin’s career, spanning her first sale through the time when she’d begun to be recognized as a major force in the genre.
• Forrestal Reserve ★★★★☆ Coastal hillsides, landslides ancient and modern, and an abandoned quarry. (Let’s call it a geologically interesting area!) Trails range from nearly flat to infuriatingly steep. Lots of chapparal, not much shade.
• The Tombs of Atuan ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Still my favorite of the Earthsea books. There’s something fascinating about a labyrinth that you must traverse in total darkness, keeping a map and counting turns in your head.
• The Old Iron Dream ★★★★★ David Forbes
  An extended essay tracing the strand of military authoritarianism and white male supremacy in science fiction, from John Campbell through Heinlein, Pournelle and other major names up through the then-present of 2013.

December

• Curry and Pizza ★★★★★ Halal pizza fusion, right off the freeway. You can get pizza and calzones, you can get curry and tandoori, or you can get them combined. And they’re really good combined.
• Point Vicente ★★★★★ Easy trails run through scrub brush along the tops of the coastal bluffs, the lighthouse almost always in view. Shade only in the picnic shelters, but plenty of ocean breezes. On a clear day you can see from Catalina Island to Malibu.
• The Dough Connection ★★★★★ Cookie dough you can eat, in a tiny shop hidden in th eback of a building along Morro Bay’s Embarcadero. Plus baked cookies and brownies.
• Mobile Apps and Preserving Photo Metadata You’d think that ‘don’t change the stuff that the user isn’t changing’ would be a low bar, but most image editors I’ve used on Android tend to mess up the EXIF metadata one way or another.
• Web Browser Recommendations Vivaldi, Orion, Waterfox and Zen are my current favorites. I want to like Firefox, but I’m not so sure about Mozilla these days. Safari’s OK. LibreWolf and IronFox are good for everyday privacy, Tor for advanced scenarios. Falkon and Dillo are good for slow hardware.
• Galactic Derelict ★★★☆☆ Andre Norton
  A decent outer space adventure from the anything-goes era of science fiction. The story drags a bit after it switches from time travel to space travel.
• Wanderlust Creamery ★★★★★ Incredibly good ice cream with flavors and combinations not usually found here in the US. Of their regular flavors, the Ube malted crunch and Vietnamese coffee rocky road are my favorites.
• Time Breakers ★★★★☆ Rachel Pollack and Chris Weston
  This comic book from the 1990s flips the familiar time-cop trope on its head: Instead of protecting time from paradoxes, the protagonists are trying to create more paradoxes, convinced that the very existence of life depends on it.
• Paradises Lost ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  An intricate novella about the middle generations of a multi-generational spaceship, and the religion they’ve developed that believes nothing outside the ship is real, and both Earth and their destination are myths.
• A Christmas Carol ★★★★★ Charles Dickens
  It’s been ages since I last read the original, and I wanted a break from a longer book two days before Christmas, so I figured I’d pick it up. And yeah, the story holds up.
• Doom Patrol ★★★★☆ An absurd, character-focused, darkly humorous, psychological take on people with the super-power/body horror combo.

January 2026

• Bookshop.org ★★★★☆ A good place to shop online for books and still support indie bookstores. They sell eBooks too, in standard ePub format.
• BOOX Go 7 Color (Gen II) ★★★★★ After five years, I replaced the Poke3 with the Go 7 Color. It’s a lot faster and more responsive, brings back physical page turning buttons, and adds (pastel) color. Like its predecessor it has a sharp e-ink screen and runs any Android-based ebook reader app.
• Google Docs, Sheets and Slides ★★★⯪☆ Fast cloud-based office suite, with good collaboration and mobile support. Too bad I don’t trust Google’s servers any more than Microsoft’s these days.
• LibreOffice ★★★★☆ A complete open-source and Free office suite for your desktop or laptop, comparable to and largely compatible with Microsoft Office. I’ve been using the word processor and spreadsheets for decades on Linux, years on Windows, and occasionally on macOS.
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ★★★★☆ Jules Verne (F.P. Walter Translation)
  Even though marine science and geology have passed it by, it’s still a gripping episodic adventure through a strange, hidden world of marvels.
• Toilers of the Sea ★★★★☆ Victor Hugo, William Moy Thomas (translator)
  An outcast from a small island community spends weeks salvaging a shipwreck, alone, to prove himself. More tightly structured than Les Mis, if less ambitious in scope.
• Heaven’s Vault ★★★★★ You play as an archaeologist, sailing among the moons of a habitable nebula linked by rivers, exploring ruins, interacting with townspeople, and translating ancient inscriptions. What starts as a simple quest to find a missing person ultimately reveals surprising truths about the history of the nebula and its people.

February

• Jurassic Park (Movie) ★★★★★ Steven Spielberg
  The original Jurassic Park film is still great, more than 30 years later. The dinosaurs are still impressive, it’s well-paced and dramatic, and despite contemporary reviews, the characters are engaging.
• HeliBoard ★★★★☆ Versatile on-screen keyboard for Android with local-only autocorrect and suggestions for multiple languages. Extremely configurable. More private than GBoard, and works better for me than Fossify Keyboard. A separate download can enable optional gesture support.
• Virt-Manager ★★★⯪☆ A front-end manager for Linux’s built-in virtualization/emulation (QEMU and KVM, using libvirt). Much more customizable than Boxes, but missing a few convenience features.
• Solitude ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  The people of Eleven-Soro live alone except for a bare minimum of human interaction. But what is that bare minimum, and what does it mean for people who avoid all other contact?
• The Birthday Of The World (And Other Stories) ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A collection of stories set in Le Guin’s Hainish universe, on worlds with vastly different gender relations. Plus a couple of stand-alone stories. Mostly ranging from good to great, with Solitude and Paradises Lost being my favorites of the batch.
• T-Life (T-Mobile Account App) ★★★☆☆ Handles most (but not all) account management actions, but it really wants to upsell new devices/services, and spams you on T-Mobile Tuesdays. Some phones that work fine on the network can’t run the app.
• Fossify File Manager ★★★★★ Nice, simple app for handling the local files on your phone without talking to any cloud services.
• Bitwarden ★★★★☆ A much more usable password manager than LastPass (and with a better track record). Apps for desktop, mobile, and web browser extensions, and organizations can self-host the server if they want to.
• Heaven’s Vault (Novels) ★★★★☆ Jon Ingold
  Aliya and the robot sail the Nebula, seeking clues to its history and future. The first two novels tell a story similar to the game, just different enough to feel new. Ancient writing appears throughout, sometimes translated and sometimes left for the reader. Book three picks up both after the game and long before, exploring a changed Nebula and the Loop.
• The Trouble With Oracle I’ve disliked Oracle since they were trying to push thin clients and what we now call Software as a Service back in the 1990s. And they keep buying things I like or use, and messing them up.
• VirtualBox ★★★★☆ Reliable virtualization that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and can actually run a Windows 11 guest on my Linux host. The core app is Free, but Oracle charges for add-ons.
• Hex Fiend ★★★★★ Handled opening, searching, editing and saving an 8GB file without breaking a sweat.

March

• Simplenote ★★★★☆ A simple, but solid alternative to Google Keep or Apple Notes that syncs across multiple platforms. Downsides are that it’s not end-to-end encrypted, and Automattic has stopped developing new features, so it’s not clear how long they plan to maintain the software - or the service.
• The Farthest Shore ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Magic is failing, and a young prince sails with the Archmage of Earthsea to seek out the cause and resolve the crisis. It’s my least favorite of the original trilogy, but that’s not a euphemism. It’s still quite good, and there’s so much in it worth reading.
• The Wind that Sweeps the Stars ★★★★☆ Greg Keyes
  Betrayed by an empire, Yash has one night to assassinate as many magicians as possible, set in a fantasy world inspired by southwest indigenous American mythology.
• Proverbs ★★★★★ Like a calming, but weirdly addictive giant board of Minesweeper, only instead of marking explosives, you’re slowly uncovering a giant pixellated painting.

April

• Mrs. Davis ★★★★★ A friendly world-dominating AI vs. a surly nun. A tale of our dependence on technology and the lengths people will go to feel appreciated, wrapped in the weirdest take on the Holy Grail I’ve ever seen. Seriously absurd, and occasionally absurdly serious.
• Reviews have moved to KVibber.com I finally decided to move beyond the site I named after a mythical location in a 50-year-old movie 25 years ago.
• MapComplete ★★★★☆ A web app that guides you through updating OpenStreetMap by category, similar to StreetComplete but with a different set of features.
• RSS Parrot ★★★★★ A simple Fediverse service that follows an RSS/Atom feed and creates an account you can follow from Mastodon or any other ActivityPub site.
• Star Trek: Discovery - Season 4 ★★★★☆ Burnham comes into her own as captain, the Federation faces a large-scale scientific hazard, and people make disastrously bad choices, along with some cool xenoarchaeology and a fascinating first contact with aliens who are very much not human.

May

• The Beginning Place ★★★⯪☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  More of an in-between place, a portal fantasy of people caught in liminal spaces and a quest that never quite makes sense to the two young adults pushed into it.
• The Time Ships ★★★⯪☆ Stephen Baxter
  A sequel to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine that drastically expands the scope across multiple timelines, from the dawn of time to the far future seen in the original. Now with Dyson spheres, nanobots, and a seemingly endless war that can only be stopped in the past.
• Malaga Creek ★★★★★ Malaga Creek carves a canyon through the coastal bluffs down to a narrow pebbly beach. The canyon is too choked with trees to follow in most places, but an informal trail runs around the top of the canyon, climbing down to the creek in a few spots, and a service road winds down to the cove.
• Tru by Hilton Las Vegas Airport ★★★★☆ Just a hotel, nothing fancy. Clean rooms (if small), comfortable beds, free WiFi, decent breakfast, friendly staff, free parking. Way off the strip. Bring earplugs for the air conditioner.
• Forbidden Solitaire ★★★★⯪ Framed as a lost (and cursed) CD-ROM game from the 1990s, and it nails the 90s gore look for the dungeon. The playing mechanic is fun, and the framing story around it is suitably creepy.

June

• Murderbot Season 1 ★★★★★ A pitch-perfect adaptation of All Systems Red. Alexander Skarsgård is dead on as the socially-anxious security cyborg who just wants to be left alone to watch its shows, but has to protect its humans from alien creatures, their own naivete, and rival corporations willing to kill.
• Tehanu ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A character-driven look at the lives of ordinary people in a world of magic, especially the women and children (and not a few men) caught underfoot when wizards, heroes and villains fight. And (of course) dragons.
• Hidden Swing Trail ★★★★☆ A hike along the coastal hillside, with views of Bluff Cove, intermittent trees, and yes, a homemade swing. Some steep parts, eroded, tree roots. Upper end in the hills, lower end at PV Drive. Bring water, and watch for the fork.

July

• PineTab 2 ★★★⯪☆ The PineTab2 is not a great computer. But it’s a hyper-mobile Linux tablet that can run desktop and command-line apps natively, with a touchscreen and an optional physical keyboard, for a budget price.