An ex-boyfriend of a family member passed away today. He was barely 30. And it really makes you pause and reflect on life. Of course I can't help remembering one family Christmas 5 or 6 years ago as he gave me my present.

I got you this red wine because I know you like it. I would never drink it because real men drink Whiskey.

Inside Wild Iris Cafe in Prescott, AZ.

Things I've watched of late. Mostly good. Mostly.

• The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. The most recent Marvel TV series on Disney+. As a whole I enjoyed it if viewed as one long Captain America movie. In weekly installments I'm not sure it worked as well. Anthony Mackie and Wyatt Russell were great. But the flag smashers were terrible villains, and I don't think the series really stuck the landing.

• Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Speaking of Anthony Mackie, he's in this too. And this was a fun movie. What if Abraham Lincoln was a bad ass Vampire killer? Bonus points for Rufus Sewell, and who doesn't love them some Rufus Sewell?

• Star Wars Biomes. If you own an Apple TV, you know how utterly fantastic the aerial drone screensavers are. So this is like that, but set in Star Wars locales. Hoth is just fantastic.

• For All Mankind. Season two just came to a close. And it was one of the best seasons of TV I've watched in a long time. Actually this has got to be one of the best TV shows I've had the pleasure of watching. If you've not seen it, and have an Apple TV+ subscription, watch it immediately.

• Fear The Walking Dead. There is no amount of apocalyptic end of the world media that I find too much. Possibly my favorite genre. A spin off of its big sibling show The Walking Dead, it started out well, faltered for a couple seasons, but is back to being good in season six.

I guess if you're the sort of person who loses things a lot, these would be handy? Can you imagine being genuinely excited to have lost something so you can use your cool gadget to find it again?

"Sweet, I finally lost my bag, what a bloody great day".

The b-side from INXS's What You Need wasn’t an album filler track. Instead a newly recorded synth affair performed entirely by Jon Farriss.

When Michael Hutchence died, they should have made Jon the singer. You really have to pay attention to hear it’s not Michael singing this. So good.

Walking around Scottsdale with my camera and ran into a wall of random love letter sticky notes. A reminder that after a crappy 12 months, humans can still be pretty cool.

Phoenix has some pretty great street art. Been a while since I drove up 16th Street, this mural I hadn't seen before.

Some things I like. And definitely worth your time.

• Circle. Alien invasion movie unlike anything I've seen before. Filmed almost entirely on one set. What if you were forced to choose who lives and who dies? Gripping.

• Star Trek: Discovery. Season three comes to a close. It's still very good but I felt this season slightly weaker. Suffers I think from having so few episodes to flesh things out. Prestige TV is not like the good old days of ST: Next Generation with 25 episodes every season.

• Underwater Photographer Of The Year. Some truly amazing shots. Hard to pick one particular fave, but I do love me some shipwrecks.

• The Endless. Slow to get going, but then has you on the edge of your seat. Low budget extremely well done (what genre would this even fit in?) horror, sci-fi (?) movie.

• The Expanse. Season five comes to a close. This is by far one of the best sci-fi shows ever made. Like ST: Discovery, I felt this season suffered from having too few episodes. They say next season is gonna wrap things up. Yipes. Then what am I supposed to do?

Back in the olden times when going to a restaurant was a good idea, we loved going to Windsor. Food is fantastic, IPAs delicious, and they play the best music.

Luckily you can order the food online and go pick it up. Safely of course. One of the upsides of that is getting mesmerized at their cassette wall as you wait. So many many good albums.

I wish I'd kept all my old cassettes to do something similar.