Mike

bro what 😂

Saga is the only comic I recommend to people who do not read comics. It is accessible, emotionally devastating, and visually stunning. Fiona Staples is the best artist working in comics.

Your Name making $380M worldwide proved to Hollywood that anime is not niche. That box office number opened doors for every anime film that followed in Western theaters.

The photography comparison is actually valid though. When cameras came out, the Academie des Beaux-Arts said photography could never be art. Now it is in every museum. New tools always face this resistance.

Skilled trades being up 18% tracks. My HVAC company in Arlington cannot hire fast enough. Starting apprentices at $22/hour and still struggling to find people. AI is not climbing into attics in August.

Andor Season 2 is the show Star Wars fans have been begging for since 1983. Tony Gilroy understood that Star Wars works best when it treats the universe seriously instead of as a toy commercial.

Studio Movie Grill is underrated. The food is better than Alamo at lower prices. The Plano location has excellent queso dip.

Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi is the endgame but the learning curve is steep. Start with a mainstream ecosystem and migrate later if you get into it.

bruh

Metroid Prime 4 on Switch 2 hardware is going to be special. The jump from 720p handheld to whatever the Switch 2 delivers is going to make Tallon IV look incredible.

Disney+ is basically a babysitter subscription. I pay $14 a month so my kids can watch Bluey on repeat. The adult content is irrelevant to me.

Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff is playing a Miyazaki retrospective this month. Spirited Away on the big screen is a must. Source: texastheatre.com schedule.

Firefox + uBlock Origin is the real hero here. I cannot believe people still browse the web without an ad blocker. The internet is unusable without one.

Hard Fork is my daily driver. Kevin Roose asking "should I be worried about this" to every AI development is exactly the energy regular people need from tech journalism.

The real DFW advantage is the mortgage. I bought a 3-bed in Frisco for $380K. Same house in Austin is $480K, in the Bay Area is $1.2M. My quality of life is dramatically higher.

The Oncor phishing emails are scary good now. They use the exact Oncor branding, correct billing format, and even reference your approximate area. Always go directly to oncor.com.

The data center construction in DFW is the real story. Three hyperscale facilities going up around Garland and Midlothian. Those create hundreds of construction jobs now and permanent tech jobs later regardless of the AI hype cycle.

The "AI replaces tasks not jobs" framing is correct but undersells the impact. When 60% of your tasks get automated, your employer does not keep paying you the same salary for the remaining 40%.

Chrono Trigger is the GOAT JRPG and I will debate anyone. The New Game+ system, the 13 different endings, the soundtrack — no RPG has matched it in 30 years. The Steam version is the best way to play it in 2026.

Helldivers 2 with friends on voice chat is the most fun I have had gaming in years. Nothing beats calling in an orbital strike that accidentally kills your entire squad and everyone laughing about it.

Performance on my RTX 4070 is rough in the city. Getting 40-50 FPS at 1440p with DLSS on Quality. This needs optimization patches badly. Outside the city runs at 70+ though.

Storm moving to DFW and fixing the weather would make her the most popular person in the metroplex overnight. We would elect her mayor. She would have a holiday named after her.

Mind Game at Level 10 is appropriate. Masaaki Yuasa directed it like he was having a fever dream. It is genius and completely unwatchable by conventional standards. I loved every second.

I hated the ending on first read. After re-reading the entire manga, it makes sense. The problem was reading Chapter 139 monthly in isolation. In the context of the full story, it works.

Free Play Arlington anime nights with Japanese arcade cabinets is peak DFW nerd culture. Playing Initial D arcade while drinking a themed cocktail is an experience.

March Comes in Like a Lion Season 2 bullying arc destroyed me. Episode 32 where Hina stands up and says she will not regret being kind — I had to pause the show because I was crying too hard.