ART (and pita bread)

Today started with an early morning trip to the Boca Raton Museum of Art, because Grandma and I had a craving. A craving for Editor's Note: This joke is extra funny with context that The Iron Giant is one of my grandparents' favorite movies of all time, and that we often refer to my grandpa …

Floridian Voyeurism + Yesterday Review

We've settled in for the night to watch the CNN Democratic Presidential Debate, so I figure it's as good a time as any to start my second day debrief. Despite being exhausted by jet lag and obscene humidity, I woke up early to accompany Grandma at L.A. Fitness. She got me a temporary membership at …

The Bachelor in Florida

Hey. Been a while, huh? I've been enjoying my "book writing sabbatical" perhaps a little too much. A lot of my novel has gotten done, but there have been plenty of things over the last month I easily could have blogged about. I was almost completely by myself for three weeks as Mom and Aly …

Far From Home is far above its competition [Heavy Spoilers!]

I have great things to say about Spider-Man: Far From Home; Marvel's first Cinematic Universe film following the bombastic conclusion to their Infinity Stone saga. When the first teaser trailer came out, I was skeptical. It dropped before Endgame and felt like the worst example of draining tension out of character deaths. Then the trailer …

Father’s Day 2019

Another year, another celebration. Today we brought the current peak of the Rochlin's patriarchal totem pole up to my Aunt's house in West Hills to ring in Father's Day with some barbecue and time out by the pool. Let me tell you, there are few things more magical than having some ribs, taking a dip …

Fire Emblem: Days of Future Past

Within a few days, Intelligent Systems announced the 3.6.0 Update to Fire Emblem Heroes — which includes "revival banners" for discontinued 5 Star heroes — and this Awakening child unit banner. Considering the 2019 summer-themed heroes are right around the corner, I have come to the conclusion that the developers just desperately want our wallets. …

A car full of spaghetti

If I was quiet this weekend it's because I've been immobile outside of family chores, and I didn't think a second post about running the Burbank Ikea circuit would be very exciting. The immobility comes from car troubles that have plagued me since early last week and at one point derailed my blog into a …

John Wick is back and bringing his best for Chapter 3

Keanu Reeves' 2014 action vehicle John Wick was lightning in a bottle. Where Reeves was previously known in the genre as a trench coat wearing techno-superhero, the late 2010s has changed his action pedigree to that of a retired super assassin skilled in glorious gun-fu. That film exhibited wonderful cartoony violence in a way that …

Analyzing animation and Pokémon

After dealing with the mental gymnastics of drama retroactively changing content appreciation, it's nice to find some new YouTube personalities to enjoy. You may think replaying Sacred Stones would sate my appetite for entertainment, but the game's weakest point is its soundtrack. I pointed that out in my essay, and it proved to be true. So …

Detective Pikachu made my heart swell

Move over, Endgame. You might have ended a decade of MCU movies, but Detective Pikachu played to my 20-years of investment in the subjectively best video game series of all time. My development as a person and writer was kick-started by Mom teaching me to read with the text in Pokémon Crystal. I've been waiting for this …