Notes from May 2026
2026-05-01
Sliver
"Sliver" is an erotic thriller from 1993, starring Sharon Stone, William Baldwin, and Tom Berenger. As all the erotic thrillers from that time, it got old specifically. I read that it was not a good movie back in the days, but perhaps, time worked in its favour. It's campy but also unpredictable, because the modern pattern matching fails at times. The ending was surprising, but I learned it was changed from the one we were expecting. I dug the trip-hoppy soundtrack, though; CD's in order.
The story is based on Ira Levine's book, albeit apparently butchered, and very much like his "Rosemary's Baby," it has the action set in an apartment building. We joked with my wife that it must be his thing, but it might be just that these two books have this in common.
And one more thing: William Baldwin's character is like an early take on Patrick Bateman, albeit less psychopatic; but there is something in his aura that fits Christian Bale's depiction. Which is to say that the cinematic American Psycho did not come from nowhere.
Demolition Man
"Demolition Man" is a SNES game from 1996, loosely based on the movie of the same title, starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes (for some reason, I remembered it was Dennis Rodman; mayhap due to the hair colour, no clue). It's generally a side-scrolling shooter, with two top-down levels. I found it accidentally while browsing the SNES catalogue on my R36S. I played the first level for a bit, and it fell to my liking, so I returned to it this week.
I think a Polish saying "choćby skały srały i pierdziały" ("even if rocks were shitting and farting," meaning it's not gonna happen, no matter what) could catch up in other languages.
And now I'm learning that "The Partisan" is not originally from Leonard Cohen; he merely covered it, albeit well.
Dorohedoro-restart
I started "Dorohedoro" from the scratch, and now, six years later, after seeing many animes in the meantime, I am enamoured with the visual style.
2026-05-03
We went for sushi today, and one of the TVs in the restaurant played Japanese commercials; at first I thought it was a commercial break, but no, that was all that. One of the ads was for Snickers, of the "hungry, you're not yourself" slogan. An angry older woman was shouting at young people, so they gave her a Snickers, and she turned into a young, polite man. I don't think an ad like that would fly in the West in 2026; it would be ageism and sexism and what not. Things have changed.
Though, the next day...
But maybe I'm wrong. I realised later that one of the commercials were for a "One Piece" game for PlayStation 4, which wouldn't make sense now, so they might have been playing old commercials.
In which case, I had a rightful amount of nostalgia. Not that I miss the old days, but the old days it reminded me, irregardless; the days when I was younger and the world seemed simpler (plot twist: it wasn't).
2026-05-05
I tried playing "Grand Theft Auto" and Grand Theft Auto 2" on Game Boy Color, and controls killed me. It never ceases to amaze me how brutal we had it; or at least people who played games with D-pads only.
2026-05-06
I just donated to Wikipedia. I have a monthly recurring payment, but they're short. *We're* short, in terms of collective value. I have no time to write stuff or do anything else, but I use Wiki every day, so let me chip in, so people who are more active can continue.
Just go to Wiki, and there will be an infobox that will lead you.
What's with this transparent shells for devices? Why is that so appealing?
I played GTA for GBA, and it's much better. It also is 3D, but in PC's GTA and GTA2 way. Generally, I can see there are 3D games for GBA, which have this early 3D software sharpness. I like it. So, this Grand Theft Auto I will try playing just a bit.
2026-05-07
Two days ago, with people at work, we went to a Thai restaurant. I ordered pad kapraw, and when it came to spiciness, I said that I want Thai spicy, and added, "Challenge me." And challenge me they did; I felt high of the spiciness; which is something I like, but I try not to do this too much, because it's not so healthy. After I finished, the waiter said, "You can really eat Thai spicy. You didn't even sweat." Small achievements of every day.
Tron 2.0
Yesterday, I played "Tron 2.0" on GBA, and I generally found it to my liking: there are isometric levels where we control a character of our choice (Tron being one of them), and from those we can teleport to 3-D levels where we control a tank and other "Tron"-like vehicles; and puzzles. The isometric levels are cool, I dug the pixel art, but the tank levels are tough; might be a skill issue or GBA key mapping. When you die, it's game over, so I'll use RetroArch's state saves next time.
Every evening, I have 20-30 minutes to check one retro game. It's amazing how many games were made. Who's gonna play 'em all?
2026-05-08
X2: Wolverine's Revenge
Yesterday, I gave "X2: Wolverine's Revenge" a shot. It's loosely based on the movie but focused on Wolverine; I've seen it in 2003, so I don't remember it that much. There was PC/console game of the same title, but it was fully 3D and all. This one here is a 2D hack'n'slach side-scroller. Pixel art is really good here. I added it to favourites, to return to it later. The funny thing is that back then I wouldn't walk next to it, but now, it's a perfect product to play.
The olive tree
Our dog turned out to be allergic to an olive tree we had in the patio, so the tree had to go. The idea was to leave it by garbage, where someone would take it. I joked that we should plant it somewhere, ideally in a more rustic area, then suggested leaving it to one of our neighbours, as a surprise gift. But the garbage concept won. However, as we were leaving our comunidad, we met a neighbour who said that she would take and plant it in more rustic area.
Always jokes about outcomes you want.
Blogging here, like it's 2002 all over again.
2026-05-09
Father Mother Sister Brother
"Father Mother Sister Brother" is a Jim Jarmusch movie from 2025. The director returns here to the anthology format to tell three stories: of father, of mather, and of two twins. It's slow paced and very intimate, with two to three characters at the same time on screen. As always, a very versatile cast, with a brilliant decision of making Charlotte Rampling and Cate Blanchett mother and daughter, to name one. I liked the contrast between the first two stories and the final one.
Veep (Season 7)
Season 7 of "Veep" is its final one. It has less episodes, which I forgot, so the last one took me by surprise; always a good thing. After a bit transitory previous season, Selina Meyer is reaching new lows in her pursuit of presidency. I liked the bittersweet ending that didn't try to find a way out for everyone; no, you go into politics, you're gonna get burnt, one way or another. Anyway, I'll remember those multi-layered insults they served each other.
The way characters talked to each other inspired the tone of dialogues in my short story, "Hammered."
The Devil
"The Devil" is Andrzej Żuławski's movie from 1974; although it wasn't released until 1988, courtesy of communists. A story of a conspirator, Jakub, released from a prison on the day of Second Partition of Poland. A mysterious stranger who sets him free gives him a mission, and Jakub visits his home. A lot of strange things in dream-like sequences that bring fond recollections of "The Saragossa Manuscript" or David Lynch movies. It was better than I expected.
Speaking of David Lynch, I can't shake the feeling that he was inspired by this movie, due to three scenes: the stranger puts a razor in Jakub's hand the way that Mystery Man does with Fred in "Lost Highway;" in Jakub's home there is a character looking like The Man from Another Place, also from "Twin Peaks;" and finally, the Jakub's mother's brothel looks like the Black Lodge, complete with red curtains and ancient statues. The show came out right after "The Devil" premiered.
To illustrate what I meant:
Fig. 1. The brothel from "The Devil." In the background, there are two ancient statues and barely visible, dark red curtain.
Fig. 2. Red Room from the Black Lodge in "Twin Peaks." There is an ancient statue and red curtains in the background, though lit better than the ones in "The Devil." This actually looks like the same statue! :D
And the timing is on track, too: "The Devil," 1988; "Twin Peaks," 1990.
And one more thing. We had the movie with English subtitles, and I gotta say that it was missing all the beauty of the language of the original. I've finished reading "Moby Dick" this year and I'm reading "The Difference Engine," so I know very well that English language has vocabulary to handle this properly. It's not like some blockbuster-consuming viewers are gonna stumble into this movie by accident. There's no excuse.
The same thing was with "On the Silver Globe."
The Great (Season 2)
Season 2 of "The Great" starts with Catherine taking the throne from her husband, then trying to rule Russia, only to find out it's a tough business. Episode 1 was dragging a bit, but I realised that these kinds of things probably did too, in reality, so I found it oddly accurate. As the last time, Velementov rocks. And surprising presence by Gillian Anderson, who played a really pissing me off mother. At the end, the creators abandoned any pretences of being connected to history.
Zapis zbrodni
"Zapis zbrodni" ("Record of the crime," but even IMDb has it under its original title) from 1974 is exactly what it says in its title: it's a meticulous and passionless recreation of a crime, heavily inspired by real events. As such, it's in the same league as Gus Van Sant's "Elephant." But above all, it's a document of its time, capturing harsh reality of the 1970s in Poland. I never heard of this movie before, and it's one of the best Polish movies.
You can see it on YouTube, but there are only auto-generated subtitles, which, even in Polish, are pretty much useless; we had them on to catch single words we didn't understand.
I love being able to quote myself, and weave this web of posts on connected topics.
New old games
I downloaded a couple of SNES, Mega Drive, and one Amiga new, modern games from Itch.io, and I uploaded them to the R36S, but every game failed to run. Could be an issue with games, could be an issue with Rocknix, could be an issue with wrong emulator; finally, could be an issue with the device itself, being a cheap knock-off. So, for now, the experiment is over. I'll revive it in time. Meanwhile, I'll upload more Pico-8 games; those fit the small format of the device perfectly.
2026-05-10
Basquiat
"Basquiat" from 1996 is a biopic on a 1980s' painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who also happened to be a friend of Andy Warhol; who is played here by David Bowie, and it was my main reason to see this movie. There is a lot of famous actors here, including the youngest Jeffrey Wright I've seen so far and a cameo from Willem Defoe. Apparently, the first movie about a painter *by* a painter. According to Wright, Basquiat was softened here. Nice soundtrack, though.
Dang.
I once wrote a story of my cellphones and first smartphones, and it was the most boring thing ever written. It is, luckily, lost due to me not backing up my website properly. I irreversibly lost some interesting texts, too, but losing this one was actually a good thing.
As an experiment, I decided to switch from DuckDuckGo to Qwant, to go European, as they say. I considered also Ecosia and Starpage, but they were not able to provide many results when searching for my moniker, so welcome, Qwant.
2026-05-11
I definitely need new glasses. I had this pair for 9 years. If anything, I got bored with their shape. I need to go back to the John Lennon shape; though, at some point, they started to be dubbed the Harry Potter glasses. For a moment, I was also thinking about the Jeffrey Dahmer ones. But, whatever I choose, I need to try them out first.
I just saw a video on how to change PlayStation Classic from a 20-game dud to a RetroArch station. After what I came through with R36S clone, it's pretty straightforward. Now, a new model costs over 200 euros, at which price I could as well get SuperStation One, but there are second-hand ones for as little as €40, which means I could experiment with it at decent pricing. It's true what they say: once you get into retro-gaming, there's no end to it.
We got Claude Code at work. There is no obligation to use it, and one colleague is utilising it heavily, and I thought that if I have it, I might as well see how it works. So far, I was not impressed, but the idea is to do my best, as I expect it doesn't need my help to fail.
2026-05-12
I saw a CD on Discogs, and I was going to buy it, but on the checkout page, it told me that the seller has the minimum of 20 euros per buyer. So, here I am, fishing out an album for less than 2 euros and yet, I cannot buy it. Oh well.
(The CD in question: Polar, "Bi.")
I don't feel ready to write poetry in English.
In a common to me thing, I am going through all "The Partisan's" versions that I found on TIDAL; I am on the 15th. Some are boring, one is haunting, there are also reggae ones, and then more guitar-noisy.
2026-05-13
Batman (NES)
Yesterday, I saw NES's "Batman" on YouTube (compared with Game Boy's), and the pixel art was so exquisite that I just had to try it for myself. Musically, it's a bit worse, but the character design, and background design, and all that with a limited palette of colours -- it's just amazing. You can feel it's a late-in-the-lifecycle entry. Gameplay wise, it holds pretty well, as well. And they have cut-scenes, in a form of slightly animated frames.
2026-05-14
I'm at the 44th "The Partisan" version, and what I noticed is that there are a lot of albums with these partisan songs, and on many of them, there is also "Bella Ciao" present.
Two days later...
I quit at 50.
The best Highwayman
I heard one of the best versions in my life of "Highwayman" in 2025, in the North of Finland, where they had this karaoke bar, and one guy stepped up onto the stage and sang it. Nothing fancy, but he nailed the spirit of the song. And that is not something you expect to hear on karaoke, so afterwards, I approached him to congratulate him.
I don't know why I didn't look for that earlier, but there is a large collection of Leonard Cohen songs translated to Polish and performed by Maciej Zembaty. I created a playlist to munch through it once I am throwing up with "The Partisan's" versions.
2026-05-16
Slow Horses (Season 3)
Season 3 of "Slow Horses" has even more Jackson Lamb in action, which means that his end-of-career rotting in the Slough House is not working as planned. More better for us. Other than that, I can only repeat myself that having this B-tier of agents makes the whole thing more relatable. Not that the top brass, with their cabinet plots, is any better. To note, though, too, the super arc continues, revealing one piece at the end of each season.
Castle in the Sky
Due to its 40th anniversary, I got to see Ghibli's "Castle in the Sky" in cinema! Ain't it a treat. I was planning to see it on Netflix, but things were happening, thanks to which I went into the theatre fresh. The first part reminded me of "The Difference Machine," of which I got to the last part, but later, it was like revisiting "Tears of the Kingdom," with floating castle, robots, and ruins. Other than that, it's Ghibli; top quality and all.
However, next time I go a Spanish cinema, I am taking those industrial ear-protecting headphones that I bough a couple of months ago, because the volume level was simply killing my ears.
Torremolinos 73
"Torremolino 73" (2003) is a Spanish comedy, about which I only knew that Mads Mikkelsen was there; before his international breakthrough in "Casino Royale." It's funny to hear him speaking broken Spanish. But that's later; the movie is generally a story about a marriage that accidentally ends up shooting adult movies, with a great success. And some real life drama in the background. A really good movie. And funny.
Also, I live close to Torremolinos, so there's personal connection, too.
Retro-gaming is like starting endless number of games, just to abandon them for another one. At the very least, it provides a steady flow of new threads for me here.
Van Helsing
"Van Helsing" is a Game Boy Advance game from 2004, and it's based on the movie of the same title, with Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale. As with the Wolverine game last week, there were two different games for GBA and consoles at the time. I gotta say, I had fun with it, but then I read it was a bit of a disappointment at the time, which doesn't really surprise me. But now, it doesn't matter anymore.
Getting RetroArch to run Amiga CD32 was exhausting.
2026-05-17
The Mean Season
"The Mean Season" from 1985 is a film about which existence I had no idea, despite Kurt Russel playing the main role. A story of a journalist getting dragged into a dangerous game with a serial killer. Reminds me a bit of the Zodiac killer, while the pacing and vibe fall along the lines of Michael Mann's "Manhunter," and it got old well in a sense that it's not campy, which is not an easy feat for a movie from the 1980s.
An interesting thing is there is no exploration of the psychology of the killer: there are no attempts at showing what were his reasons, etc. And that makes it more believable in my opinion, because in the moment, which is what is shown on screen, there's no time for that.
Turns out, I had an old RetroArch, and installing a newer one vastly helped. So, now I have a collection of games from Amiga CD32, including "Oscar," which had the best version on Amiga, and -- fanfare -- "Superfrog." I spent months with both games. With "Superfrog," I just jumped in, as if it was 1993 again.
Turok: Evolution
I had a quick run with "Turok: Evolution," which, per tradition, has a separate Game Boy Advance version: a side-scroll shooter. Pixel art is beautiful, reminding me heavily of arcade games. The gameplay is very demanding as for a game from early 2000s, because you generally have to make a perfect run. For some, it was a bad thing, but you have infinite number of continues, so if you only have stamina, you'll munch through. I've yet my first level to finish. :D There is a story, but who cares?
Oscar
When we bought Amiga 1200 in 1993, it came with two games in the box, and one of them was "Oscar," and I spend many hours with him.
"Oscar" had many ports: there was one for PC and also SNES version, but the Amiga's was the most definite experience. PC had ulterior graphics, and SNES had content cut out (only 4 worlds instead of 7, and Oscar doesn't change his outfit to match the movie).
Thus, I'm glad I managed to make CD32's version working.
2026-05-18
I ignored Amiga FPSes yesterday, but it could be interesting to actually see what they were up to. Those games were released after I sold my Amiga, to switch to PC, so I never really had a chance.
(When I write that "I sold," I of course mean my father. I was 12 at the time. But we managed to sell literally days after Commodore went bankrupt.)
My colleague asked Claude Code for a general review of our repo, and it wonderfully "hallucinated" an interesting issue that did not exist (missing deps for useEffect). It listed many files with line numbers, etc., and all that was just made up. It puzzled me enough to check each reported occurrence.
A post from enargeia
2026-05-19
Good to see that Microsoft's dashboards are confusing as always; feels like a constant in this world of chaos.
2026-05-22
I was wrong, I was so wrong. It turns out, it takes time for a game to load, and original games at the time had some sort of splash screens, which those new positions lack, so it displays a black screen for a while. I realised that when loading a saved state of "X2: Wolverine's Revenge". So, yesterday, I tried again, and both games (one SNES, one Mega Drive) loaded and I could play them. Therefore, I will be writing a thread on brand new 16-bit console games. Sweet.
So, a thread with short reviews about modern SNES, Mega Drive, and Game Boy games. Modern as in, 2025.
2026-05-23
I never really fell for Minecraft's aesthetics. I like low-poly and pixel art, but this one just didn't land.
None of my Funko Pops have black eyes, which, for long, I considered to be a defining characteristic of them. And yet.
I started reading Cormac McCarthy's book ("The Passenger," but I have "Stella Maris," too, to read it back-to-back), so it's possible that I will drop some commas, being influenced by the style of the master. Though, I feel I'm close to finding my own proportions in punctuation. It will come in handy, however, for the children book that I need to finish, as it's intentionally written in McCarthy's style.
2026-05-24
Princess Mononoke
To follow up with Ghibli, two days later, we've seen "Princess Mononoke" (1997). It's a superb experience, but it is different from all the other Ghibli movies so far, because the main character is not a child; as a matter of fact, there are no children here at all. And that made the flow a bit different. And, just like "Castle in the Sky," players of "The Legend of Zelda" will feel like at home: especially Irontown is like villages from "Breath of the Wild."
This is something I did not expect from playing "Breath of the Wild" and "Tears of the Kingdom" -- that it would prepare me for Ghibli worlds. And it's not just "oh, cool" but much deeper immersion, when you can imagine how to storm the village or when a character is climbing somewhere, you can see the stamina bar dropping.
Kohrra (Season 2)
The second season of "Kohrra" follows one of the policemen from season 1 and introduces a new boss, this time a woman. Remarkable story building here, with a really good slow burner dripping slowly, like a leaky tap, alongside more traditional investigation. I find India an interesting scenario, because it's so different. And interrogation with smacking people is kind of a running joke here, though I realise it is how it works in real life. Now give me season 3.
Avenue 5 (Season 1)
After finishing "Veep," I decided to give a shot to "Avenue 5," another show from the same writer, Armando Iannucci. This time the setting is sci-fi, on a space cruiser flying to Titan and back. In the first episode, they miss their window and a couple of remaining weeks becomes 3 years. Hilarity ensues. The sci-fi is not merely a decoration but serves some story points (like a coffin becoming a satellite of the much larger cruiser or ring of human excrement).
But sci-fi doesn't play the first fiddle here. It's mainly a story of a large corporation, ran by a giant man baby who cannot take a criticism, and people dancing around him: the personal assistant who actually does the job, the technical people trying to make themselves sort of invisible, and then, finally, there is a fake crew on the captain's deck who cosplays for everyone. Oh, and the captain? Fake as well. It's quite brutal. I had bosses like Judd, so sometimes, it actually hurts.
The separate narrative layer are the passengers who are an illustration of clients as well as a general public.
The whole thing feels inspired by the Covid Era cruise ships where people were locked for quarantine.
The show got cancelled after two seasons, so we'll see if it was bad. But they cancel so many shows these days that it doesn't mean anything.
The Boys (Season 5)
And now, finally, after seven years, "The Boys" came to an end. The finale was so-and-so for me, but I'm far from criticising it as a large part of the Internet seems to be. It's a comic-book story, and that has its side-effects. Also, it's generally tough to come up with a good ending; much easier with a beginning. It was satisfactory, and what Billy Butcher says at the end is a sign of a slight maturity.
Now we'll get a spin-off. I am curious, because Soldier Boy has potential.
The final battle, to not tell too much, has this "boring but practical" vibe to it, which, if you think about, should be the approach if you're going after a god-like superhuman.
The show had a really good cast. Antony Starr absolutely nailed it. Superman is a character who's difficult to update it to modern times; not that this stopped anyone. And Homelander shows pretty well how problematic it could be if the character was not as good as Superman, which was always kind of a lazy happy path.
Same goes to Karl Urban and his Billy Butcher: half repulsive, half tragic, and half funny.
The Difference Engine
I knew about William Gibson's and Bruce Stirling's "The Difference Engine" since the late 1990s, but the non-future sci-fi setting was making me less interested. It's not a strict steam punk, but it's close enough, and I was just not my thing. But now, over a quarter of century later, I am more opened to alternate histories. The final spark was reading that "The Chaos Engine," one of my favourite games from the Amiga era, was spiritually based on the book.
In the alternate timeline, a mechanical computer, based on Charles Babbage concepts, has been successfully built and is running the world. The British engine is steam-powered, but its French counterpart, called the Great Napoleon, is running on compressed air. There is no global network, but Britain-wise, it acts as a giant database having all the information going through it (including, e.g., all the telegrams). A lot of attention is paid to physical constraints of this concept.
The book is split into 5 iterations followed by a set of loose materials, filling in gaps and acting as a What Happened To Them kind of epilogue. Iterations 2, 3, and 4 have the same protagonist, with the first and the last ones having their own; but in the end, all connects nicely. Unlike in other William Gibson's books, there's a single leading character in each part, whereas usually it's a team and interweaving plots.
Another note should go to the language used, which imitates the 1855's one, and to my surprise, had a lot of English words that sounds more Polish than their modern equivalents, to just name a few: cravat, foetor, valise, or shawl. My wife even joked that it makes it more approachable to me than some native speakers. As a more language-conscious person, I appreciate the writing style a lot here. Top notch.
And, due to its connection to "The Chaos Engine," it creates a lot of context to the world-building of the game, very much like happened with The Legend of Zelda games and Studio Ghibli movies. It could be that it's a better deal than a direct adaptation. I gotta hand it to culture: it's a great concept when done well.
Slow Horses (Season 4)
Season 4 of "Slow Horses" brings us more of River Cartwright's backstory. There is also deepened relation between Shirley and Marcus. The new addition to the team, JK Coe, is a nice slow-burner who doesn't play a role until late into the season. Other than that, it's good ol' Jackson Lamb being dick to everyone and Diane Taverner plotting, although this times she's not the driver. I like that the show is not shy of killing off likeable characters for good; no plot shields for anyone.
In this season, there was also a touching subplot about River's grandfather David Cartwright losing his battle with dementia. It reminded me of our own struggles with my grandfather.
The Bride
"The Bride!" (2026) is Maggie Gyllenhaal's movie about the bride of Frankenstein's monster. The bride is played by Jessie Buckley, while Christian Bale is the monster, both amazing; the list of known actors is longer, including a husband (Peter Sarsgaards) and a brother (Jake Gylenhaal) of the director. The movie is a mix of comic-book and musical and gangster movies, and apparently, the mix didn't land well with many people. Might be a case of "mixed reviews first, cult following later," though.
Turkish Delight
"Turkish Delight" (1973) is Paul Verhoeven's movie, which is an adaptation of a book of the same title. It's also the movie with the youngest Rutger Hauer (29 years) that I've seen so far. The movie is categorised as erotic, probably due to all the nudity, including male full frontal, which is always a hot spot for the Usonian puritans, but I find this misleading. As if people haven't seen a penis. C'mon :D. If anything, it is a drama about loss. Sure, it is a bit over the top, but I can imagine someone having a story like that.
Amiga CD32 had a CD drive, but a lot of games there were simple ports from Amiga 1200 and others, and as a result, some of those games would take 2-3 MB (out of 650/700 MB available). Transitional period. Thanks to that, it was possible to buy in the mid-1990s CDs with hundreds of games on them. It kind of returns now with many retro consoles that come packed with a lot of games; all in a grey area, though I only heard of a single case of legal problems because of that.
2026-05-25
But in Japan, it's known as the Tower Day.
I just listened to techno in a park, and it was a superb experience.
2026-05-26
I ran my website, krazov.com, through a smolweb validator, and I got grade F, so I guess I'm not as smol as I imagined it. Ha, ha. Oh well. It's smol enough for me.
2026-05-28
I got into piano works in these recent days. Mostly because of Eric Satie, but I listened to Claude Debussy in a car a little, and now going through Fryderyk Chopin. However, in the car this morning, I went with John Lee Hooker; I love the sounds he's getting out of the guitar.
I got new glasses, finally -- going with the John Lennon shape, also known, since around 2007, as the Harry Potter glasses -- and my neck hurts me less. Turns out, the old glasses were not so good anymore, and I was stretching my head forward. I had them for 9 years, so the change is substantial now. I am, of course, asking myself why it took me so long.
"Something out of another time."
-- "The Passenger," Cormac McCarthy
(It has just struck me that it would feel more appropriate had I omitted the quotation marks. But I'll live with it.)
2026-05-29
Just a mid-first-chapter into Cormac McCarthy's book and I'm already shifting my style. It's an interesting observation because it means that what I'm reading in my spare time is of crucial value. But also, it means that I can sort-of shapeshift into a different style with a minimum of reading someone. I might ditch badly written books. Or move them to the end of my readlist.
Delhi Crime (Season 1)
"Delhi Crime" is an Indian procedural show depicting an investigation inspired by a true event, sadly. The writing is really good. I begin to like India as the action setting place, next to Australia. I really liked the characters, who were competent and sympathetic to each other; they reminded me of the team from "Ghost in the Shell." I cannot say how accurate the depiction is, but I think there is at least intention; hence, sometimes I shook my head in disbelief at living conditions.
I got inspired by "Kohrra," of course, and it was interesting to compare them side by side. "Delhi Crime" felt more like imitating docuseries when it comes to the visuals, and it was more procedural. "Kohrra" felt more like fifty-fifty the case and the private lives of the policemen, but here it was more like 75/25. I am glad that there are more seasons.
Dorohedoro (Season 1)
I've seen "Dorohedoro" back in 2020, when it was released, and I immediately liked it. But then, no new season was coming, so I forgot about it to the point that when they announced the new one this year, I had to rewatch it again. And oh boy, wasn't it a treat. It's so unhinged, on par with "Smiling Friends" and "Rick and Morty," though in a different flavour: it's like psychodelic Harry Potter, due to sorcerers. But at the same time, there's a mystery to solve. There have been stories of detectives where the main character had to investigate his own death, like "Discworld Noir," but the progression of events here is hard to predict. :D
On plus, what I always like, are the characters. Likeable, sympathetic to each other, and over-the-top: the main character, Caiman, has a lizard head; there is a giant cockroach named Jonson who can only say "Shocking!"; there is Kasukabe, an old doctor in a young body (courtesy of sorcerer's experiments); and so many others. The female characters deserve special mention: they are interesting because two out of three (Nikaido and Noi) are strong and independent women; the third one (Ebisu) simply being young and still childish.
The world consists of two worlds: there is the Hole, where normal people try to make end meet, fighting off sorcerers who come to the Hole practice their magic; and then, there is the sorcerer's world, much more lavish but also cleaner, with blue sky (and without the rain).
And then, it's bloody gory.
2026-05-31
A new project dropped.
I just found out that there is a Torrent page with public-domain movies and B-movies. Boring but practical. Then, within two clicks, I found a 1937 movie with The Shadow. Exploding brain.
https://www.publicdomaintorrents.info
I needed to get to a Discord server, and I didn't want to use my email for that, so I used SimpleLogin for the first time, and now I'm asking myself why only now. It's way easier than I expected it. And now, all the disposable accounts will go there.
Anyway, turned out that the server in question is desolate, if not dead, so at least I learned something.
Body of Evidence
"Body of Evidence" (1993) is an erotic thriller with Madonna and Willem Dafoe. It tells a story of an attorney and his client suspected of murder; then they have an affair. A sadomasochistic affair, that is. That was too much for me, so I decided to see it for myself. The movie is bad, but at times so bad that it's actually good. Being 2026, the whole sado-maso turned out to be a slightly rougher sex with wax-dripping in one scene. Generally, watch it only if you know what you're stepping into.
Madonna is not a good actress, and while it could have worked for her in "Who's That Girl," which I still recall fondly, her lines delivery here was totally unconvincing. Willem Dafoe was the workhorse dragging the whole show, but even he couldn't save it.
The sex scenes got old, especially with soft-sax soundtrack from Graeme Revell. I find it fascinating that this was seriously considered a proper soundtrack. Kills half of the mood.
And speaking of sex scenes, there is this marvellously obsolete scene between Willem Dafoe and young Julianne Moore that brings exactly nothing to the plot. One could argue that Madonna/Dafoe scenes are a bit too much, but they kind of prove to be needed (when he realises during a witness hearing that Madonna's character is doing the same thing to him). The scene with Julianne Moore? Nothing. Nada. Apparently, she herself is embarrassed by it.
I can compare the movie to "Sliver," which came out the same year and also was an erotic thriller; though, there you could have cut off all the erotic scenes. It does seem that this kind of movies was ruled out historically as a dead end, and discontinued. And for better, probably. Both seemed to capitalise on "Basic Instinct" from the year before.
Weapons
"Weapons" (2025) is a horror with action set in a small town where one night 17 children run out of their home into darkness. While there is around two jump scares, it's not really that kind of horror; I think it would more appropriate to say there's more adult fear here at times, with children involved and all. I liked the structure: the narrative is split into chapters where each tells story from a new point of view, often overlapping with others. Solid genre work.
At one point, I thought it reminds me of "Barbarian," and it turns out it's from the same director.
I liked that the person playing the bad character was told two alternative interpretations of their character, and then, they had chose which one they're gonna use. A bit what Jim Jarmusch did with the letter in "Broken Flowers."