📺 "Shtisel" Shulem Pushes Akiva to Get Engaged | Netflix

Watched "Shtisel" Shulem Pushes Akiva to Get Engaged from Netflix
Directed by Alon Zingman. With Doval'e Glickman, Michael Aloni, Ayelet Zurer, Neta Riskin. After Elisheva rejects him Akiva dates Estee. Shulem pushes him to get engaged and remembers his late wife Dvorah. Giti, abandoned by her husband, looks for a job outside the neighborhood.

📺 "Shtisel" Elisheva Agrees to Meet Akiva | Netflix

Watched "Shtisel" Elisheva Agrees to Meet Akiva from Netflix
Directed by Alon Zingman. With Doval'e Glickman, Michael Aloni, Ayelet Zurer, Neta Riskin. Akiva, rejected by Elisheva, dates Estee. Shulem pushes him to get engaged and remembers Dvorah, his late wife. Giti, abandoned by her husband, is looking for a job outside the neighborhood.

📺 Ken Jeong: You Complete Me, Ho (2019) | Netflix

Watched Ken Jeong: You Complete Me, Ho (2019) from Netflix
Directed by Jon M. Chu. With Ken Jeong. Stand-up performance of comedian Ken Jeong recorded live at Pasadena, California.
This was more self-aggrandizement than it was real comedy. While there were a lot of biographical stories and self-congratulations, there just wasn’t as much comedy as I would have expected from a comedy special. I’m almost curious to go back and actually count the laughs and compare them with the applause portions to see which won out. 

Ken is obviously talented, but he seems to be relying too much on the past and not spending enough time charting a future. He also seemed to dip into the well of the “Ho” joke about 10 too many times.

📺 “Shtisel” Everybody Are Looking for Love | Netflix

Watched "Shtisel" Everybody Are Looking for Love from Netflix
Directed by Alon Zingman. With Doval'e Glickman, Michael Aloni, Ayelet Zurer, Neta Riskin.
Circling back to watch the opening episodes I missed originally. 

The meet cute here was just lovely.

📺 "The Americans" Baggage | Amazon Prime

Watched "The Americans" Baggage from Amazon Prime
Directed by Daniel Sackheim. With Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Lev Gorn, Annet Mahendru. Elizabeth and Philip come together to deal with a mission gone wrong, but struggle to reconcile their ideologies; Stan welcomes a Soviet defector to America; Nina acclimates to her new living arrangements.

📺 "The Americans" EST Men | Amazon Prime

Watched "The Americans" EST Men from Amazon Prime
Directed by Daniel Sackheim. With Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Lev Gorn, Annet Mahendru. Tensions simmer between Philip and Elizabeth as they disagree over handling orders from the Centre. When Elizabeth loses key intel, Philip enlists Annelise on a mission with an unexpected outcome.

📺 "The Americans" Operation Chronicle | Amazon Prime

Watched "The Americans" Operation Chronicle from Amazon Prime
Directed by Andrew Bernstein. With Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Annet Mahendru, Susan Misner. With Larrick closing in, Elizabeth rushes to exfiltrate Jared while Philip readies Fred for a crucial mission. Arkady finally plays his hand, forcing Stan to make an impossible choice.

📺 "The Americans" Stealth | Amazon Prime

Watched "The Americans" Stealth from Amazon Prime
Directed by Gregory Hoblit. With Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Annet Mahendru, Susan Misner. Elizabeth makes a shocking discovery about Kate. Philip pursues a contact for information about the new Stealth technology. Stan continues his pursuit of the illegals.

📺 Capsicum Bullet Journal App Review | YouTube

Watched Capsicum Bullet Journal App Review from YouTube

Leo Laporte and Megan Morrone discuss Capsicum, a new subscription app by Illuminated Bits. It's a bullet journal with digital washy tape and cool fonts, plus a way to visually track good habits, keep your Google or Apple calendar, make to-do lists, keep a gratitude journal, a diary, or more. A great tool for living your best (or your worst) life.

Somewhat entertaining review. I wish they’d talked about data import/export a bit. Entertaining that the app has some of the physical attributes that people put into their physical versions. Sadly no mention here of productivity porn however.

Bookmarked to watch on February 8, 2019 at 12:25PM

📺 Micro.blog custom themes | YouTube

Watched Micro.blog custom themes from YouTube

Importing and editing custom templates on Micro.blog.

I do sort of wonder if Micro.blog functionality would break if new themes don’t have the correct microformats 2 markup? I suspect it runs in conjunction with various common parsers and thus may have issues. It’s a cool thing though that this sort of customization is available now on the platform which is quickly becoming more and more flexible.

📺 “Face the Nation” on February 10, 2019 | CBS News

Watched "Face the Nation" on February 10, 2019 from CBS News

On this "Face the Nation" broadcast moderated by Margaret Brennan:

  • Gov. Ralph Northam, D-Va. (read more)
  • Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va. (read more)
  • Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va. (read more)
  • Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. (read more
  • Adel Al-Jubeir, Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs (read more) (full interview
  • Panelists: Jamelle Bouie, Jonah Goldberg, Margaret Talev, and Ed O'Keefe (watch)
The biggest and growing problem here, which started with Donald Trump on the Republican side and perhaps Senator Al Franken on the Democratic side, is the idea of political purity. While all sides want their teams to be politically pure from a game theoretical stance–an issue which also tends to prevent any type of badly needed consensus–the rift between what each side deems “pure enough” is going to kill both. While the racism in this case is decried by Democrats, particularly among leaders who have generally been deemed to have been doing an excellent job otherwise, the Republicans only seem to shout it down for the expediency it creates for unseating what they view as an opponent, rather than for the bad act itself. If both parties aren’t going to play by the same societal rules, then the rift between them is going to accelerate the problems we face as a country.

In this vein, then perhaps we should all be crying for the ouster of Donald Trump who has been actively working on inflaming racial tensions and implementing a racist agenda in the present day instead of worrying about the political purity of a governor who did something decades ago when society was quietly much worse. Let’s work on this first and then worry if the governor of Virginia should step down. If we can’t solve the major aggressions then how are we to address the microaggressions? I’ll agree that we can do both at once, but we certainly shouldn’t be doing this.

I also can’t help but think about politicians being ruined in the 90’s because they employed illegal aliens, and yet here we have a president who not only decries these same illegal aliens, but who has tacitly exploited them to an extreme in his own personal and business life. Let’s get rid of the double standards on both sides and hold people accountable in general.

Perhaps the Christians and the moral majority should be saying before we begin throwing stones, “we should make sure that ‘first we have not sinned ourselves'”?


I couldn’t manage to make myself watch the Saudi minister’s interview. Brennan couldn’t easily hold his feet to the fire on the assassination and there was no way that he was going to stray from his talking points. Better would have been if she asked the question, presented the facts as they’re known and then interviewed him on any other subject or even not at all. They may as well have interviewed Hiltler and allowed him to say that the Holocaust didn’t happen and then let him prance merrily on his way. How can CBS give this guy this much air time in good conscience?


As if to underline my point about the rift in societal mores between Republicans and Democrats, even Jonah Goldberg says essentially “Donald will be Donald” (aka boys will be boys) because he can’t manage to call him out on national television.

📺 Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) | Twentieth Century Fox

Watched Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) from Twentieth Century Fox
Directed by Matthew Vaughn. With Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Channing Tatum. When their headquarters are destroyed and the world is held hostage, the Kingsman's journey leads them to the discovery of an allied spy organization in the United States. These two elite secret organizations must band together to defeat a common enemy.
Only watched the first 47 minutes. Holy crap this sequel is even more over-the-top with phony violence and action. I was a bit shocked that Colin Firth was killed in the first installment, and almost as shocked that he came back in this one, but the outlandish method by which they brought him back was almost too much….

🎞️ Salt (2010) | Columbia Pictures Corporation

Watched Salt (2010) from Columbia Pictures Corporation
Directed by Phillip Noyce. With Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski. A CIA agent goes on the run after a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy.
Definitely very engaging. The tough part is that Salt is incredibly quiet and all of her life is very internal for the entire picture, so we’re left only to  try to puzzle out what she’s thinking and what her motivations might be. We’re simply left with a handful of flashbacks which are seen (generally) from her point of view. As a result the audience needs to suspend their disbelief several times and rely on a bunch of deus-ex-machina. Still not bad. I could be induced to watch this again just for the fun of the romp.

I definitely wasn’t surprised to see Noyce directing such a piece. Upper level journeyman action set piece all the way.

📺 "Blue Bloods" Handcuffs | CBS

Watched "Blue Bloods" Handcuffs from CBS
Directed by Heather Cappiello. With Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes, Len Cariou. When a video surfaces of cops being harassed by a group of people at a housing complex, Frank orders a raid to round up anyone with an outstanding warrant, against Garrett's advice.