I blatantly stole obviously borrowed the idea for this post from Carlo. He is doing them for a while now, and I always found them pretty interesting.

My media diet in March was pretty sci-fi heavy. I hope that I finish Patrick Stewart’s audiobook in April; I do not have that much left. A part of me does not want it to end, as it is really interesting and I grew fond of his narration. But I have Brent Spiner’s memoir already lined up next.

🎬 Elemental – another nice feel-good animated Pixar movie. It is not an instant classic, but I liked it (⭐️ 3/5).

🎥 Nature Boy – a nice documentary about the wrestler “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. A little bit too long winded for my taste, but very interesting. Especially when you had a connection to the WWF/WWE as a kid – like I did (⭐️ 3/5).

🎬 The Marvels – another horrible “phase 4” Marvel movie. I really liked Captain Marvel, but this one wanted too much and tried too hard to be a movie for everyone. Too little time for too many characters, the humor was too forced and the teenager was loud and annoying. The majority of the movie felt a bit like TikTok: green screen scenes with CGI “grandiloquence” in quick succession, just for the sake of the scenes without any impact on the plot or the character arc (⭐️ 2/5).

🎧 “Making it so” – Patrick Stewart’s autobiography. I am listening to the audiobook version that is read by him. I have not fully finished it yet, but it is already a recommendation from me (⭐️ 4/5).

📺 Avatar: Season 1 – Feels realistic and extremely fake at the same time. I blame the weird color grading. The cast is really great, but they messed up the adaptation for the characters (especially Katara). As with all the new series and movies, it also suffers from “telling, not showing” and is too long (⭐️ 3/5).

📺 3 Body Problem: Season 1 – Really great video adaptation of the book with the same name. They are really smart though and also borrow from the other books where it makes sense. Finally a tv show again that understands “show, don’t tell” – haven’t seen that in a while (⭐️ 4/5).

📺 Halo: Season 1 – Other than that there is a Master Chief and an AI named Cortana, I do not know shit about the Halo franchise. Maybe that is a good thing, as I thoroughly enjoyed watching it (even though it was a bit too long, but I feel that is the issue with the majority of the shows at the moment). I am curious to see if the second season can keep up with the very good first impression (⭐️ 3.5/5).

📺 Modern Family: Season 1 to 3 – Currently rewatching this show. I always make it to season 3 or 4 and then other shows jump the queue and this one ends up on the back-burner. It stays there until I have forgotten everything, and need to start again. Not this time! (⭐️ 4/5).

🎙️ WR1014 Die Übernahme Ostdeutschlands – An interview in German with Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk about his life in the GDR. About East Germany and the re-unification process: the good, the bad and the ugly.

🎙️ WR1577 Walter Ulbricht – A follow-up interview with Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk in German about the life of Walter Ulbricht and the common misconceptions about him and the SED party in the GDR. At the end there is a little segway into ME/CFS, which Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk suffers from since 2014.

🎮 World of Warcraft – After I quit the game back in 2009, I would have never thought that I would enjoy World of Warcraft ever again. But here I am, more successful than ever in terms of gear level. Even running dungeons and raids for the first time ever. It really is true, it makes a difference with whom you play with – and I am very happy with the progress I made.