Book Review: Rocketeer Adventures Vols. 1&2 by J. Cassaday et al.

Rocketeer Adventures Volumes 1 and 2 written and drawn by John Cassaday and many others, based on the character by Dave Stevens

Dave Stevens created The Rocketeer in the 1980s and the comic book was a hit. He died of leukemia in 2008. This book is a tribute to Stevens' creation, with more than a dozen contemporary comic book artists. The stories all follow the same general format--Cliff Secord is secretly The Rocketeer, active in California, fighting America's World War II enemies who are spying in Hollywood. He's got a very attractive girlfriend named Betty who works as a bit player in movies. Peevy is the guy who built the suit and maintains it, providing comic relief and commentary in the stories. 

I was only familiar with the character from the movie version. This book leans into the pulp fiction of the 1940s, with Betty being a scantily-clad damsel-in-distress more often than she should be. The stories are fun, lightweight entertainment.

Mildly recommended.

I read this on Hoopla, along with a second volume which is pretty much the same with different artists working on it (including Stan Sakai from Usagi Yojimbo!).

Movie Review: The Gift (2000)

The Gift (2000) directed by Sam Raimi

Annie Wilson (Kate Blanchett) lives in a small town in the American South. She has three boys and her husband died a year ago in a factory accident. She makes a living doing readings, using a special deck of cards and her psychic abilities. She also has dreams and visions, though much more rarely. Her clients include Buddy (Giovanni Ribisi), who has troubling and unclear memories of his father, and Valerie (Hillary Swank), whose abuse by her husband Donnie (Keanu Reeves) is pretty obvious without psychic abilities. Annie tells Buddy he needs to confront his memories so he can get past them and Valerie that she needs to leave her abusive husband. Donnie is very unhappy with the situation and threatens Annie and her children. Her oldest son Michael (Lynsee Provence) has been having trouble at the school, pulling Annie into meetings with the principle Wayne (Greg Kinnear). Wayne is engaged to Jessica (Katie Holmes), daughter of a local rich man who also cats around quite a bit. The situation gets more difficult and dramatic when Jessica disappears and her father enlists Annie's aid to find the body, which turns up in Donnie's pond. 

While this movie combines a mystery story with a psychic story, it works hard at balancing the two and maintaining a realistic tone. Raimi, who is famous for directing the original Spider-man and Evil Dead trilogies, keeps his cinematic style to a minimum here. Annie's psychic abilities are bare-bones and depicted as such, giving her clues to what's going on without giving her whole picture. The limited information keeps the mystery side of the story in suspense, as the various suspects in Jessica's murder all seem plausible. The cast does a good job all around, especially with Reeves acting counter to stereotype as a villain. The movie is neither hysterical or over-the-top, a straightforward story that delivers an interesting mystery with twists until the end.

Recommended. 

I watched this streaming on Kanopy, a free service available from many public libraries, in June 2025.

Game Reviews: Wild West at Breakout Games and The Inflation Monster Card Game

My family took me to a local escape room for Father's Day. The room is called Wild West at Breakout Games in Columbia, Maryland. The theme is fun: We were gold miners who had been robbed by some local bandits. Half of our crew was handcuffed inside a local saloon while the rest of us were just outside. So there were three tasks: free our friends, find our gold (hidden in a vault), and get the heck out of there. 

The game had a lot of old west flavor and we had a big enough group to solve all the puzzles in a very quick time. The puzzles had a good variety of mechanical and verbal solutions. The finale was satisfying. We had a lot of fun working together.

Very good considering we had 60 minutes to finish

At home, my daughter got an early birthday present, a card game called The Inflation Monster. It is based of an episode of the Tuttle Twins on Angel Studios, flagging up how damaging inflation is. Players start with a little money that they can invest in real estate, gold, stocks, bitcoin, or a new business. The various ventures bring in money in a couple of different ways. But after each player has a chance to invest, a die is rolled and the inflation number moves up (or possible down, though only one side of the die is a -1). Then everyone has to pay the amount on the inflation counter. Pretty soon, only one person is left with any money and is declared the winner.

It was interesting to play and brought up some discussion about what are really good investments and how you can mitigate inflation in various ways (including actions not in the game). We had fun playing though getting wiped out by inflation in the game is not so much fun. 

Playing the game

Posing for a picture

Book Review: Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill

Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus by Thomas Cahill

After his successes with How the Irish Saved Civilization and The Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Cahill continues what has become a series called The Hinges of History. The series is meant to chronicle people and events that influenced Western Civilization for the better. In this book, he looks at the impact of Jesus.

After a brief and colorful review of the Greek and Roman world that led up to the time of Jesus, Cahill gets into Jesus's story. A lot of people in Jewish society were expecting an apocalyptic revolution that would put Israel back on the map. After a time of hardship and suffering, the Kingdom of God (that is, the Kingdom of Israel) would be restored. Jesus's preaching does not follow this track according to Cahill. Jesus taught a time of reconciliation that would bring about peace in our time through loving God and our neighbors. Cahill's description and analysis is very earthy and very modern. Jesus's teaching on marriage, that it should be indissoluble, Cahill interprets as a triumph for feminism and a great social advance--no more "guys only" free divorce or blaming the woman for adultery. Cahill says that the Gospels give very little evidence what Mary, Jesus's mother, was like, and then proceeds to characterize her as a brilliant and manipulative schemer who wants the downfall of the rich and the rise of the poor (because that's what the Magnificat is all about, right?) orchestrated by her Son. 

The first chapters have so many moments where Cahill is so off-the-mark that I found it very hard to read. His text isn't confusing or excessively erudite, just a modern scholar reading in his own biases and calling it a "fresh and new understanding." If only there was something fresh or new or accurate! He briefly discusses metanoia, a famous Greek word used in the Gospels that identifies the change Jesus makes in His followers. It's a compound of meta and nous, which Cahill claims is a change (the meta) of mind (the nous). People are being persuaded to new ideas and understandings. But the word nous refers to much more than a person's thinking part. It is the core of a person's being, so the change is more fundamental than just being persuaded by an argument or behavior. The Gospels even have a word for the "change of mind" that Cahill references, metameletheis, which is used to describe Judas Iscariot's attitude after he betrayed Jesus. If Cahill is really a Greek scholar or a Bible scholar (which he definitely presents himself as), how can he not know this? He has plenty of other little and big errors. I gave up reading the book after a hundred pages because I felt like I was wasting my time. At least The Davinci Code, for all its ridiculous misrepresentations, admits it is fiction and has some interesting puzzles in it.

Not recommended.

Annapolis Maritime Museum and Park

Thanks to a pass from the local library, we were able to visit the Annapolis Maritime Museum and Park for free! 

The museum is housed in the former McNasby's Seafood and Oyster Company, a plant that canned mostly oysters but also other foodstuff taken from the Chesapeake Bay.

Looks like an industrial building, except for the mural

The entrance

The original sign outside

The museum chronicles the history of the Chesapeake from the first settlement of Europeans to today. Some of the exhibit are very high-tech, including video games that can be played on a touch-screen table (harvesting oysters) or on a VR headset (which wasn't working the day we visited).

My children try to dominate the oyster market. Ah, capitalism!

VR station

One book has minimal writing on it, but a projector aimed down at it shows different images depending on which page is open. It's almost like reading the Daily Prophet from Harry Potter. The set-up is a great way to make the information more memorable.

A magical book!

Back in the 1700s and 1800s, oyster harvesting was mostly done by individuals with simple tools. One display shows the tongs used to scoop up oysters from the bay bed. Dredgers were hauled behind boats to harvest more oysters more quickly.

Two types of tongs

A dredger

Annapolis became a prosperous place since the oyster population was so great and demand was quite large too. They referred to them as "White Gold." As with any valuable commodity, conflict was bound to ensue.

I didn't make that up!

Harvesting became so popular that regulations were put in place. Dredgers could only work in certain areas and tongers had protected areas for their harvesting. Maryland had laws against some mechanical harvesters. Virginia did not. Soon enough, oyster wars broke out between the different groups (Maryland tongers vs. Maryland dredgers, Maryland harvesters vs. Virginia harvesters, etc.). Maryland created the Maryland State Oyster Police Force to ensure the rules were being followed, so conflict options expanded. Guns and even cannon became involved. 

Civil War cannon repurposed for oyster wars

Another display shows various recipes for oysters, dating back 200 years!

Dining advice!

The back wall has a display on the conditions of the bay. When the first English colonists came, the bay was clear and oysters numbered in the millions. By the 21st century, conditions have worsened and the oyster population has significantly dropped.

Recreation of 1600s Chesapeake

Recreation of 2000s Chesapeake

The wall features a sort of bar graph of the drop in population. The picture below shows the various cages and how less and less they are filled further down the hall.

Also, the water quality changes

Another high-tech exhibit has a factory worker describing the process of shucking and storing the oysters for canning.

That guy isn't really there, even though he talks to you

Other tools of the trade

Several model boats are on display, including Bugeyes and Skipjacks.

Sample of a bugeye boat

A model skipjack

Local volunteers helped to restore the Wilma Lee, a skipjack that now serves as a cruise boat that can be rented for parties or used for education on the water. 

The Wilma Lee

The front of the boat

The museum has a small pier with a nice view of the Chespeake and the Bay Bridge in the distance.

A beach across the way

Bay Bridge in the distance

Mosaic of the product made here

We were grateful to the library for having a free pass and for the museum not being too huge. It is a lot of fun to visit.

Book Review: Batman/Deadman Death and Glory by Robinson and Estes

Batman/Deadman Death and Glory by James Robinson and John Estes

Batman is fighting the Joker when he suddenly shifts to a restaurant with piles of dead bodies...and he seems to be the killer. Commissioner Gordon is extremely upset because a close friend was killed in the massacre and he blames Batman. He even sets out to kill Batman. At the Batcave, Batman can't figure out what happened. Alfred suggests a supernatural angle, so Batman summons Deadman. Deadman is a former circus acrobat who died in a performance and is cursed to wander the Earth search for his killer. In the mean time, he fights crime as a spirit of can possess people. He's a natural to have the scoop on what might have possessed Batman.

The slightly convoluted premise slowly unpacks over the course of the story. I found the plot only mildly interesting. The art is quite incredible, much better than the story that is being told. Without a good story underpinning it, the art is not enough to carry the rest of the book.

Not recommended.

Movie Review: The Lost World (1925)

The Lost World (1925) directed by Harry O. Hoyt from the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Professor Challenger (Wallace Beery) has returned to London with tales of a South American plateau where dinosaurs have survived and are still roaming around. He has no proof (his canoe tipped over dumping all his documents and samples) so the academic and scientific communities mock him. He does not take well--he's a brilliant scientist but also has (and this is a quote in the movie) "the temperament of a gorilla." He especially hates the press, which makes things awkward for Ed Malone (Lloyd Hughes), a low-level reporter who wants to impress his girlfriend by doing something brave and death defying. Getting an interview with Challenger would be frightening enough, but Ed goes the extra step and volunteers to go on a trip to South America. One of Challenger's comrades was trapped on the plateau and the friend's daughter Paula (Bessie Love) wants to go back immediately to rescue her dad. Ed is friends with Sir John Roxton (Lewis Stone), a famous hunter who is also friends with Challenger. They convince Challenger to take on Ed and they convince Ed's newspaper to finance the voyage, which at least will have the human interest story of rescuing Paula's father, even if there aren't any dinosaurs. The movie then gets to that South American plateau which is full of dinosaurs.

This classic silent film was the first adaptation of Doyle's novel of the same name. It is mostly faithful to the book, with an extra love interest added in the shape of Paula. She has a few too many "shocked and fearful" reactions as they confront various creatures but she also has more character too. The effects are by the same specialist that would go on to make King Kong, so they are top-notch for a hundred years ago. The story is fun though in the following century plenty of other films have copied the same story beats, so the plot is very familiar. There is a mildly annoying blackface character but his role is quite small. There's also a lovable comic-relief monkey named Jocko (played by Jocko, go figure), another recurring cliche that probably originated in this film. 

Recommended--this is a classic from the silent era and is the source for a lot of big-monster cinema that has come after it.

I watched this on Kanopy, which has two different versions with two different soundtracks. I watched the Flicker Alley edition, which has the restoration from 2016 (1 hour, 44 minutes) with a fairly standard orchestral soundtrack. 

Tire Park at Patapsco State Park

On the last day of spring break (Easter Monday), I took the kids to the Tire Park at the Hilton area of Patapsco Valley State Park. They have a nominal fee for entering ($2 for a car) but we only had a five-dollar bill, so we overpaid (though I did make a note to myself so I can go in one other time without paying!).

The playground is made up of used tires, mostly imbedded in the ground. The kids ran around and played on them. A couple of lines of tires are set up as running courses. After they raced each other, they wanted to race me. They did one-on-one races with me. I felt it was a little unfair, having to run twice in a row while they had breaks in between each race. On the other hand, my longer legs were a benefit here.

Before I got dragged in

A lot of other kids were there (mostly younger), so my kids were selective about where they played. Seemingly everyone selected out of this particular piece of equipment:

Unused!

Some tires were stacked together to make little forts, though the tires were on their rims, leaving holes to go in and out.

View into a tire fort

My kids' favorite thing here was the tire swing. They had me push them while the both rode.

Making a face for the camera

Making two faces for the camera

After a while, they wanted to ride individually. First, big sister pushed little brother around (a not uncommon occurrence). 

Ready to let go!

Pushed with all her might

Then they traded positions.

All his might might not be enough

We had a fun time. My children especially appreciated that the nature center was closed so no education happened on the last day of their school break.

At least they could appreciate the art

I did find a geocache while we were there, so we got our money's worth. At least we will when we visit one and half times more.

Book Review: Scum of the Earth by Alexander C. Kane

Scum of the Earth by Alexander C. Kane

Ezra Barker is an assistant to The Senator, the woman in charge of a section in the middle of what used to be the United States. The Merg, a hostile alien race, came and conquered. They are now extracting any and all valuable resources from the planet (which they call "Merg 12") with the promise that they will leave behind a human utopia when they are done. Barker is a collaborator who signed on early to save his own skin. He's really good at his job, handling paperwork and scheduling and managing minor situations for The Senator. His life is disrupted by two things. The Merg have a "visitor" coming and he is assigned to review safety procedures for the route from the landing site to the heart of Zero City (formerly known as Chicago). His other disruption is a woman who brushes her hair in a window across the street from his apartment. She lives in a workers' tenement, so she probably has unenviable mine work. He is smitten with her though she is completely unaware.

After he does the route inspection, he has more knowledge than is good for him, so the Merg plan to eliminate him. But the woman drops her brush out her window, giving him the chance to meet her. Once they are together on the street, a car drives up and kidnaps him. She was part of the resistance movement that needs him for their next big plan involving, you guessed it, the visitor.

The story has a tricky balancing act giving a rather undesirable hero sympathy. He's intelligent and a survivor, skills that have put him on the anti-humanity side, though all the rhetoric from the Merg is about how great things are and will be once they have left. After being kidnapped, he's pretty quick to help out the resistance though the woman has no interest in him at all. 

Enough side characters are thrown in to keep things interesting and to present different ways of collaborating and resisting. The Senator is a typical politician, telling people what they want to hear and generally being able to read a situation and charm/persuade people and Merg to do her bidding. Some lower-level cops are fully invested in the Merg propaganda, making them natural antagonists to Barker and the resistance. The resistance characters are a loose collection of people with varying degrees of competence and commitment. 

The characters have a lot of Orwellian "double think" going on. The Senator is described as able to believe two contradictory ideas are true at the same time. Others believe in the Merg's promises or in their own ability to make a bad situation better, even when they have almost no control over what happens to them. Even though the book is very comedic, it sneaks in some more serious ideas about how people deal with the worst situations, often in very different ways. I found it surprisingly satisfying as a comedy and a drama about an alien invasion.

Recommended.

This book is discussed on A Good Story is Hard to Find Podcast #358. Check it out!

TV Review: Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight (2025)

Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight (2025) created by Alain Chabat based on the comics by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo

This CGI-animated short series (5 episodes that are 30-40 minutes each) tells the tale of another attempt by Caesar's Romans to take over the last independent village in Gaul. The Romans haven't conquered it because the village druid, Panoramix, has invented a potion that temporarily gives the villagers superhuman strength. One villager, Obelix, fell into a pot of potion as a child and permanently has super-strength. He's a menhir merchant, selling large stones (like the ones at Stonehenge). The villagers are tough and regularly beat any legion that comes to conquer.

The Roman plan is two-fold. First, they kidnap Panoramix so the villagers won't have the potion. Second, they get one of the other Gaulish chiefs to challenge village chief Vitalstatistix. The Gauls have an ancient law that one chief can challenge another to combat and whoever is victorious becomes chief of both villages (the titular Big Fight). Without the potion, Vitalstatistix (a chubby little fellow) is sure to lose. Caesar himself comes from Rome to witness the ultimate triumph of the Romans.

The story is based on one of the original comics by Goscinny and Uderzo, but this version throws in a lot of other stuff. The flashback story of Obelix's accident is shown. The big fight at the end has the Romans building an arena and fun fair for the event, enabling them to make fun of sports commentators and Disneyland. The creators of the show throw in some new characters with punny names, like Tenmillionclix (whose name gets changed to Tenmillionviyus to be more Roman), Annabarbera, and Fastanefurius. The usual puns and comic interactions work really well with the animated style. This series captures the fun and entertaining spirit of the original comics.

The series was made in French and I watched with subtitles but there is an English-dubbed version. As I write (June 2025), this is only available streaming on Netflix.

Recommended, highly for Asterix fans.

Book Review: God's'Dog Vol. 2 by J. Pageau et al.

God's'Dog Volume 2: Warrior written by Jonathan Pageau and Matthieu Pageau, adapted and drawn by Matthew Sheean and Jesse White

See my review of the first volume here!

The pilgrims continue their journey to Jerusalem but have to contend with their uneasy relationship with Reprobus, the talking dog-headed creature that some think is a monster and some think is redeemable. The issue becomes important as more is revealed about the Skins of Adam, an ancient relic that George, the leader of the pilgrimage, has. The relic has great power and he needs to choose the next person to carry the Skins. At first, one of his fellow soldiers was his choice. But as Reprobus becomes more civil, perhaps he could be the caretaker? 

New artists take over but the style is close enough to the original to be recognizable and consistent. The storytelling bounces back and forth from exposition-heavy to image-heavy. And from the main story to the back story about the Skins. The balancing act is tricky but works here. Readers get another cliffhanger ending, so hopefully the next volume comes out soon.

Recommended.

Movie Review: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

An American Werewolf in London (1981) written and directed by John Landis

Two young Americans, David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne), are hiking in northern England when they are attacked on the moors by a beast. The locals don't admit what's really going on, even though David is killed and Jack is sent off to a London hospital. Jack finally wakes up three weeks later. He's told they were attacked by a lunatic, which he flatly denies. Jack starts having horrible dreams and waking visions of a slowly decomposing David, who tells him he's become a werewolf and needs to commit suicide or else he will kill others. Also, David cannot move on to the afterlife until the line of werewolves is destroyed (the creature that attacked them was killed by the local villagers). Jack has a hard time dealing with all this, though not a hard enough time that he doesn't start flirting with one of the hospital nurses, Alex (Jenny Agutter). She takes him in when he's released from the hospital and they have sex at her apartment. But the full moon is coming soon, and the pressure from the dreams and from David's reappearances starts to mount.

The movie is a classic because of the comic tone and the famous transformation scene when Jack turns into a werewolf in Alex's well-lit living room. It's a harrowing sequence and still looks great even 45 years later. Landis is able to balance the tone of the film, blending the horror pretty tightly with the comedy. Jack may not know if he is crazy or actually a werewolf but viewers remember the title so we know how doomed he is. Side characters like his doctor and his family (not sure why they couldn't make it to England in three weeks to see their comatose son?) throw some humor and pathos into the story. His nightmarish life is rough but compelling. 

Recommended, though this is not kid-friendly: in addition to the extended sex scene between Jack and Alex, the movie ends with a confrontation at a London adult theater. For some reason, they have to show what's on the screen though it is completely unnecessary.

Theater Review: Puffs by Matt Cox Presented by Pasadena Theatre Company

Puffs: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic written by Matt Cox and Presented by Pasadena Theatre Company June 6-8, 13-15 2025

As Harry Potter fans, we were intrigued to see this performance somewhat near our home. The play is about the Harry Potter Hogwarts saga, but seen from the view of the Hufflepuffs...you know, the nice student house that doesn't really excel at anything. Their most famous member was Cedric Diggory, who came to an unfortunate end in the middle of the saga. As the play is not canonical Harry Potter lore, names have been changed to protect from lawsuits. More importantly, they are changed for comic effect, because this is definitely a light-hearted look at all the shenanigans that went on at a Certain School of Magic and Magic.

The parody is quite fun. The main character here is Wayne, an orphan boy from New Mexico who gets a letter from an owl inviting him to an exclusive British school. Wayne's uncle quickly explains a lot of stuff he hasn't been told. Wayne show up and is sorted by the hat into the Puffs, not the Braves, Smarts, or Snakes. He's okay with this because it is just exciting to be a wizard and to have this fantastic fate. Surely he will be a hero! Another American, Oliver, is a math wiz, which gives him no advantages whatsoever at a school of actual wizardry. Megan is a British girl who insists she has not been properly sorted and should be with the Snakes since her mom is in magical prison for consorting with that guy they can't talk about. The story loosely follows the seven years of school at Hogwarts as this trio has a lot of encounters with Harry, who is a bit full of himself and always robs any glory that might shine on the Puffs, including not coming in last place in the house cup tournament.

The show is not entirely a comedy. The main theme is about how background or seemingly unimportant people have lives and can be significant too. Wayne, Oliver, and Megan all have ambitions (encouraged by a magic mirror that shows them what they desire) that are frustrated but they learn to shift their expectations and grow as characters through the course of the play. This bit of grounding gives the play something more to it than just an extended Saturday Night Live skit. The audience cares about the characters so the big battle at the end, with a lot of deaths, has more to it than comic elements.

My family enjoyed the play a lot. The amateur production is bolstered by the company's longevity (45 years!) and borrowed sets and props from another local production. The actors do well at their jobs though we felt Cedric should have had more presence and charm than the actor delivered. The plot moved along nicely, providing a story while skewering bits of the books and the movies.

Recommended, though obviously it will be hard to see this production if you are not local to Annapolis and are not reading this review in a timely manner. But if a production shows up in your area, give it a try!

TV Review: Severance Season 1 (2022)

Severance Season 1 (2022) created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller

Mark S. (Adam Scott) leads a team of Macrodata Refiners at Lumon Industries. He works in a sub-basement with three other employees in a room too large for their four connected cubicles. They have all undergone the Severance treatment, separating their work and home lives by surgically implanting a device in their heads. Mark comes to work as his "outie," who removes any identifying possessions and heads down an elevator. At one point on the elevator ride, his perspective shifts and he is his "innie," a worker who knows nothing of his outside life or even anything about the outside world. The innie-version has no memories of sleeping or eating or family or possessions. The team works at a seemingly mindless job of sorting sets of numbers on old-fashioned (at least to viewers' eyes) computers. Mark has just become the leader of the group after Peter has left. New employee Helly R. (Britt Lower) arrives to fill out the team. She has a hard time accepting the whole situation and is highly resistant to practically everything. Mark is uneasy about the situation and starts to explore more of the floor, finding other employees with similarly baffling tasks.

Mark Scout (the outie-version) has recently lost his wife and took the job at Lumon as a way to deal with the grief. It has not worked well and he's become curious about what actually happens in the company. Severed employees arrive at different times so they don't run into each other at work. Lumon is a very large, high-tech firm that has a lot of control of their employees and even in the town where they all live. The town is called Kier after Lumon's founder Kier Eagan (Marc Geller), an enigmatic genius of the Steve Jobs variety. Kier lived a hundred years ago but left a lot of information and guidance for the company, including founding principles that are incorporated into the work life. Mark's outie-world is rather odd too, with a pregnant sister whose husband is a self-help guru who is more like Jack Handey from Saturday Night Live than Steven Covey from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Mark's Lumon manager (Patricia Arquette) is also (unknown to him) his next door neighbor. She has a different name and initially it is unclear whether she has had the Severance treatment or not.

The set-up of the series is very intriguing and introduces a lot of interesting questions about what is going on at Lumon. The Severance situation seems like an ideal solution for leaving work stress at work, though it does not play out that way as the series progresses. The innies are, for the most part, very unsatisfied with their lives that are only work. They don't even discuss sports or movies or tv shows or weather or any normal topics. Occasionally they speculate about their outie lives but they have no real consolations other than corporate swag and occasional treats. If they misbehave, there's a punishment room that seeks to correct their attitudes and behavior. In the town, many people protest Lumon in general and Severance in particular as a violation of human rights.

I really enjoyed the first half of this season. The situation is fascinating and figuring out what is going on is satisfying even when inconclusive. The last episode stumbles a bit with plot twists, revelations, and actions that just aren't plausible even within the world of the show. The actors do a great job with their characters and I did care for them but I have the impression that the overall story has not been thought out in detail. It reminds me of Lost, which was really great in the first few seasons but started falling apart under the weight of its own premise. 

Also, I wonder if the pseudo-profound brother-in-law character is in the show to make the rest of it seem more profound. The morality of the Severance procedure and the relationship between the innies and outies is fascinating and well worth working out. Do they constitute two separate persons? Is the innie a slave and the outie a master? Can they really develop different personalities? Those ideas and issues are more interesting to me than surprise twists about the other characters' outies.

Not really recommended. I am tempted to watch the second season to see if they work things out but I borrowed this season on DVD from the library and don't think it is worth subscribing to Apple+ for just one series that may be unsatisfactory. By the time season 2 comes out on DVD, I may have forgotten too much detail from season 1 to appreciate it fully.

Geocaching May 2025

The month started back at home (after the Florida and Virginia travels) with Manifest Destiny, Grandfather Tree Cache, and MD Cluedo 1 of 10. I am slowly working my way through the Cluedo series, based on the board game with each cache having some cards eliminating suspects, rooms, and/or weapons.

Soothing creek by Cluedo cache

Unsoothing bug on grandfather's tree!

My youngest went on a field trip to the monuments in DC and I was chosen as a chaperone. A lot of the virtual and earth caches by the monuments involve some detail work that I wasn't going to force the elementary school students to do. Luckily, The View of an "Honest Man" only required a photo, so I got one smiley on the trip.

At Lincoln Memorial

I went back to Bacon Ridge Park to find some caches and avenge some Did Not Finds because the foliage was too dense. I snagged Random Wiki Puzzle: Erie to Pittsburgh Trail, Nothing to See Here Challenge, and The Ultimate Attributes Challenge. Since I was there, I signed a couple of logs for challenges that I have not completed yet.

Bacon Bridge

Some swag

Does this really not count as something to see?

Tracking Maryland Mammals is a mystery cache that requires identifying scat to get the correct coordinates. The container is suitably decorated.

What the crap?

Agnes Deadend and SSB - Baltimore National Heritage Flag House were finds of opportunity in Baltimore during a visit for Mother's Day. The flag house is where the Fort McHenry flag was made. It is famous because it was the "Star Spangled Banner" that Francis Scott Key was inspired by for his poem that became our national anthem.

In Bowie, I made a string of discoveries: Butterfly Garden Little Free Library #101699, The Girl Scout Law, Calvin & Hobbes: #4 Snow Goons, Calvin & Hobbes: #6 Alter Egos, and The Cat Who Stole My Heart. The Calvin & Hobbes series has some in-field puzzles that I have yet to solve and a final once I have all the code words from the six caches. I also didn't sign the log for Ireland's Crazy Encryption Puzzle Tutorial #2 because the container was out of reach.

Butterfly Library has no butterflies in it

Nice container, impossible to reach without assistance

Closer to home I found Kerckhoffs #1, a mystery cache that wants finders to write a program to decrypt but I did the decrypting by hand. The cache was in an out-of-the-way place but near some shopping, so I was in the location anyway to get groceries.

A tricky one to qualify for was OCCT #30 Alphabet Soup: The Puzzle Challenge. I had to find mystery/puzzle caches that all started with different letters of the alphabet. Kerckhoffs made my last missing letter, so this cache was my find the next day. 

The next day I made a couple of finds, basing myself around Strip Mall Jumble #1: Lakeside Plaza. This mystery requires names of stores from the mall and then unscrambling certain letters into a code. Nearby I signed logs for Noah Gives It a Try, PEC#6 FORRRREEE, and LSLS #8 Rick Loves Rides. I didn't find the mystery Cured Pork Belly but I sent a photo to the cache owner for where I thought the final was. They confirmed it was right spot and let me go ahead and take credit for the cache.

Container FORRRREEE the cache

Empty GZ

Undefeated Champ! was an easier mystery find the next day. I also qualified for the Baltimore County Icon Challenge, requiring at least six different types of caches in the county. Sailor's Tattoo has some interesting folklore behind it and a tricky cache once the final coordinates are discovered. 

Next I found There's Gnome Place Like Gnome (see the cute container below), Quickest Whereigo Tour in Maryland (REALLY), and Walking Around Columbia Wilde Lake. The Whereigo was indeed quick, though I was slowed down by a stop sign that was clearly thematic.

3D-printed gnome

Why the CO picked the spot

While my wife shopped at Ikea, I went to Dunkin with my youngest and found FOFD #8: Deep Concern. The find wasn't hard (faster than getting the donuts). Next, I picked up Quarantine Matter #4, a puzzle placed during the pandemic shutdown. Then I visited my brother in Virginia and got Geo Whiz: Puzzle Cache for a New Dad which was an easy solve and find, even in the rain. 

The month ends with a grand total of 1852, with 32 found this May.