Time for another round of what I’ve enjoyed lately that is worth sharing. There’s a new pop culture podcast, a droid with disdain for humans, grumpy Matthew Goode, excellent docs, a Nintendo game where you have to figure out the objective and more!

Listen 🎧

But what does ultra-processed foods actually mean?

I love the podcast Maintenance Phase and the hosts Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes. And Ultra-Processed Foods was an absolutely fascinating (and hilarious as usual) episode. They are not talking about whether you should eat ultra-processed foods, or whether they are bad for you or not, instead they dive into what the actual definition is. Why? Because talk of ultra-processed food has been mainstream for a bit and now politicians/governments are talking about policies and if there are going to be policies about something shouldn’t there be a clear definition of what constitutes an ultra-processed food?

“We’ve forgotten more than you’ve seen.”

Yestergays is a new pop culture “rewind” with hosts Justin Sylvester and Blakely Thonton. It isn’t the kind of podcast that dives into past pop culture moments with today’s lens looking to sift through what we remember and what really happened, instead it’s two funny friend’s bantering (sometimes shit talking) about what they remember of pop culture moments that were huge and influenced them personally or the culture.

Watch 📺

Deaf President Now! (Apple TV+)

I highly recommend watching this documentary for a lot of reasons, including: it’s excellently put together in showing the Deaf world in a hearing world; the event itself (after 124 years of only hearing presidents at the only all Deaf university the students locked the school down with demands for a Deaf president) should be widely known; it’s a hell of a reminder that the people do have power and more importantly we can work together while not getting along (at all!) and having different ideas of how to accomplish something and still succeed. 

If you usually avoid documentaries because you think they’re “boring” or “slow” give this one a go, it has a lot of intense parts of the protest, including the students surrounding the building where the school board was dining to demand they be heard.

Pee-wee As Himself (HBO Max)

One more documentary, this time Paul Reubens sat down for a documentary on his life as Pee-Wee Herman. Come for the look at how Pee-Wee came to be and stay for the battle between documentarian and Rubens, who starts wanting to back out of actually talking about two main focuses of his life (which he was supposed to finally be ready to talk about, while hiding that he was dying) and the sadly high cost Reubens’ willingly paid to make Pee-Wee the public figure instead of himself. Lots of people wrote great reviews: Pee-wee Herman and the Cost of Dividing Yourself in Two; ‘Pee-wee as Himself’ Review: Paul Reubens Explores Pee-wee Herman, and His Own Identity, in Revealing HBO Doc.

Murderbot (Apple TV+)

Martha Wells’ novella series, which starts with All Systems Red, is beloved for its main character: a security droid full of disdain for humans that hacked its programing and spends a lot of time watching, and critiquing, television shows and humans. The books are deeply delightful and funny and smart and I was afraid much would be lost while adapting it to another format but it was not, the TV series is also delightful and funny and truly understands the core heart of the series. I’m going to be very sad when I have no episodes left and so help me if Apple doesn’t make a billion more seasons.

Dept. Q (Netflix)

I would have watched this series solely on my liking the book it’s adapted from: The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen, Lisa Hartford (Translator). But I was absolutely going to watch when Matthew Goode was cast as the lead! The series (which changes the book's location from Copenhagen to Scotland) has so many great tropes including a grumpy asshole surrounded by a team of wonderful personalities, cold case mysteries, and a team of underdogs you’re rooting for. Netflix needs to renew this immediately and use the 1 new season per year model.

Ginny & Georgia (Netflix)

I recently talked about my rewatch of the show in preparation for s3 and now I have officially inhaled the new season and want moooooore. This show does two things I love regarding writing: it blends drama and comedy seamlessly and it constantly moves the story forward. It does not keep circling the same storyline and faking you out by having something big happen only to wait an episode or two later to “fix” the problem and go right back to where it was. The two lead actresses and the writers/directors deserve awards for this season. I am so glad it is already renewed.

Play 🎮

Animal Well (Nintendo Switch 1)

It is impossible to sell this game, let alone describe it, because the entire point is to not know anything and have to figure it all out! Literally you are a blob and walk through a world trying to figure out what you are supposed to do not only overall but in each “room/section” you walk into. Which animals are friendly (helpful) and which are not (you gonna die!)? Everything is a puzzle that you have to figure out, many times through trial and error. I can not express how stress relieving it has been to stress out over fictional problems in a video game that actually end up getting solved/fixed while living in a real world that is depressingly so stressful with the feeling of nothing working out. My only complaint is the reminder of old school video games where you have to reach a certain item (won’t spoil) every time you want to save the game.

That’s all for now, as always feel free to shout anything you’ve been loving lately!