Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer...

++ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has come to its end, ending The Late Show's thirty-three year run on the air, with a grand send off and a massive "fuck you" to CBS for bending the knee to censorship. It really does suck that it has come to this, a clown in office who uses bullying tactics and threats for anyone who disagrees with him, and it's unfortunate that it's working. On the plus side though, Stephen gave it his all and he'll go off to do better things, not just with his upcoming LOTR movie project but just in general. After all, censorship doesn't stop people from speaking out.

++ Spartacus: House of Ashur was called by STARZ.

Truthfully, as much as I didn't watch this due to not caring about the character of Ashur and initially questioned the decision to bring back his character for his own little spin-off, this is still a bummer to learn. I do think the direction of the show being an alternate reality spin-off is interesting, and if there was a plan on this becoming an anthology kind of a show exploring different characters from the main series being in their own "what if?" kind of timeline where events happened differently then that would've been awesome. Sadly, we'll never know. Nevertheless, the main series is still awesome and I love revisiting it.

++ We ended up having quite a massive thunderstorm recently, while not uncommon for there to be big bursts of rain nonstop for several days, having it be accompanied by thunder for the entire time was pretty abnormal. It was fantastic. We'll get punished for this during the summer (hot, humid, over hundred degree weather weeks on end, something I am not looking forward to) but it was a pretty awesome to experience.

++ The crew of Artemis II arrived back home safely, and although brief it was such a wonderful thing to witness something this historic in such a heartwarming way.

++ The Spaceballs sequel has officially been titled as Spaceballs: The New One. XD

++ Recently I've been watching The West Wing, a political drama that I only saw little bits and pieces of when it was airing but never actually got into at the time. Watching it now though, I can better appreciate it and I understand the praise and recognition it received, from the performances and especially with how everything is filmed -- as it is known for their "walk and talk" long-shot take moments particularly throughout the White House.

However, it is bittersweet since it demonstrates what an actual intellectually competent presidency is supposed to look like. I cannot help but get this sense of nostalgic yearning for something like this especially in comparison to what we have now, and I'm sure fans of the show also thought the same thing when it was airing too. It's a merely a fantasy of competent politicians and world leaders while also focusing on the stresses and difficulty of the job with varying levels of serious, emotional, and ridiculous scenarios. It makes me think of all of the other media that does something similar, from political comedy movies The American President (also by Aaron Sorkin) and Dave to shows such as Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, they're lighthearted in nature but set in a very serious career environment. While The West Wing tackles more serious situations the drama is balanced out nicely with the funny and lighthearted character moments. It's an engaging show that I've been enjoying lately. It's also fun seeing familiar actor faces, from both the main cast and some guest appearances, and the performances they give.

++ We finally got the teaser trailer for Dune Messiah (yes, it's titled Dune: Part Three, but it's adapting Dune Messiah instead of part of the first book like the first two movies and therefore I will call it as such). First, this music in this trailer is phenomenal, just like with the previous trailers for these films it really demonstrates the grand scale of how epic this story is. Secondly, even just seeing little bits has me very, very stoked, especially the mentioning of Ghanima and Leto II's names. I may have some nitpicks with Denis Villeneuve's creative choices here and there throughout these movies, but it doesn't lessen my excitement to see this one. If he manages to get this right, the reactions to it are going to be very interesting, indeed.

++ Felicia Day will crowdfund for a movie spin-off of her webseries, The Guild.

Again, a pleasantly unexpected surprise announcement that totally caught me off guard! The Guild remains one of my favorite first ever webseries that I watched, and I even have the DVDs that were later made available to purchase because I adored it so much. I know that there was a musical stage reading that was done of The Guild with Felicia recently, so naturally this would be the next step. I hope the crowdfunding will be successful so she can make this happen.

++ Girl From Nowhere is a Thai mystery thriller drama that I've recently gotten into. It's an anthology centering around a mysterious girl named Nanno who transfers to different private schools each episode to expose the lies and misdeeds of the students and faculty. It's utterly fascinating. Nanno, who is quickly revealed to the audience as a mysterious immortal entity, is delightfully unhinged, even more so in the second season, and I like that the acts of revenge are done as a way for characters to experience karma of their wrongdoings. Although the drama premiered in 2018 and has two seasons, Girl From Nowhere: The Reset just recently premiered as a re-imagined reboot of the franchise, theorized to be set in an alternate universe with another girl as Nanno, this time played by Becky Armstrong (known mostly from being paired with Freen Sarocha in various Thai GL dramas). I have only just discovered this drama franchise, so I like both actresses who play Nanno. In general, this drama is dark and twisted, but in a fascinating way that I do so enjoy.

++ I only vaguely follow the Olympics, as in only the sport events I'm interested in. For the winter Olympics it's figure skating. Because of this, I kinda got myself caught up with the sensation of Alysa Liu and her truly inspiring story and the outcome of her winning gold simply by just being herself, returning back to the sport after deciding retire a couple years prior and doing so on her own terms, and having passion for what she loves and having fun. For all the technical and professional elements of the sports competition, the pure joy and confidence in what she was doing is what most of all take away when watching programs like that. Her performances, her general attitude about life, as well as her kindness, support and excitement towards her fellow competitors, it was quite infectious and it's great to see something this positive and uplifting come out of the Olympics.

++ An official music video was released by the cast of A/B/O Desire for "Master of Desire", the drama's theme song. I literally was all chin!hands watching it! (✿◠‿◠) The video itself is visually stunning, and just seeing them all together for this and with them paired off with their respective couples just made me so happy, specifically that of Gao Tu/Shen Wenlang. Anything with them, please, I need more little itty bitty crumbs of those two!

++ Girls Like Girls is an upcoming film by Hayley Kiyoko, adapted from a book she had wrote that is titled and based off of her iconic 2015 song/music video of the same name. I wasn't aware that she had written a novel nor that this film was in the works at all, but that makes this discovery so much more amazing for me. I do remember back when the video music was released that people were saying that it could be its own story in itself, so, whether or not this was taken into account at the time, I like that Hayley wanted to take a step further with her own creation.

++ The news about Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife's deaths is unbelievably sad, and the more information we get surrounding their horrific murder the worse and more depressing it is. :(

++ Leverage: Redemption has been cancelled after three seasons, which is disappointing to hear and yet unsurprising at the same time. First, the way shows are nowadays especially on streaming services have a shorter lifespan than usual, both of its seasons and episodes, it was a miracle it was renewed after the first season to be honest. Secondly, some of its cast seems to be quite busy with other projects, and with the sizable delays of between filming seasons it's unfair to ask them to put their careers on hold. It's sad that there won't be more or even for there to be a proper conclusion, but it was a fun return nonetheless and one of the few revivals that managed to still capture that magic and continuity from the original run.