Easy to use image generation and editing artificial intelligence software is here. Almost anyone — even Ron 😀 — can get amazing PHOTO results very quickly, just using their phone.
Me? I’m still waiting for FAST, EASY VIDEO editing A.I. software.
December 2025 here are 3 clips created in about 2 minutes each using Envato Image Gen (Google’s Veo series (specifically Veo 3.1), MiniMax Hailuo 02, ByteDance Seedance 1.0, and Kling AI.)
I first gave the software 2 still beach photos.
It created these 3 video clips from simple prompts.
Brad Parks is an award winning author I’d never read.
The Good Cop, deals with the subject of illegal gun smuggling and starts with the suicide of a Newark, New Jersey police officer.
A serious topic. But an entertaining, lighthearted read.
His novels are known for mixing humor with the gritty realism of their urban setting. Library Journal has called him “a gifted storyteller (with shades of Mark Twain or maybe Dave Barry).”[1]
The story can be seen as an early example of detective fiction with many of the sleuthing techniques of protagonist Walter Hartright being employed by later private detectives.
Problem is … the audio book is 28 hours long!
I only got through about 25% of that. Excellent and entertaining writing. I’m shocked it was so well done in 1860.
This book is focused on Michèle’s 10 years in West Berlin — one of the most unique and interesting cities of the world. She lived there 1976 to 1986. Moving only to marry her husband Garth.
If it wasn’t for Garth, she might still be living in Berlin. 😀
Formally controlled by the Western Allies (England, France, USA), West Berlin was surrounded by the Berlin Wall, built in 1961, and bleak East Germany.
German students going to school there could avoid military service. The counter-culture was artistic freedom and living life to the fullest. Nightclubs had no closing. A haven for hippies, punks, musicians (like David Bowie & Iggy Pop), Michèle, and her friends.
My Berlin Koffer is a time capsule of West Berlin between 1976 and 1986, a time when the city was literally an island of freedom in the middle of Eastern Europe, restricted by the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall.
After a few years of teaching in England and in France, Mimi is looking for a change in her life.
West Berlin in the 1970s offers affordable rents, a good university, part-time jobs, and an abundance of cultural events.
For a young, educated woman with plenty of room in her suitcase, the island of freedom seems to be the ideal place in which to settle.
It’s a long and winding road to learning German, studying for a master’s, and finding an interesting job, while enjoying cinema, theatre, music, art, as well as socializing with cosmopolitan friends and adapting to a new culture.
Will this extraordinary city which never sleeps enable Mimi to find what she wants and eventually fill her suitcase?
And if it ever overflows, will she ever be able to leave?
I’d been waiting for Michèle’s Berlin book because my first flight to Europe (1974, I believe) landed West Berlin. I recall that trip vividly. It was a really BIG deal for me. Checkpoint Charlie.
A Gymnastics tour organized by Hajo Elsholtz.
I’m wondering if German boyfriend Alex has a copy of this book. 😀
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones made a memorable cameo as himself in episode 9 where he shared a powerful, emotional monologue about how his early oil and gas ventures. His genuine emotion, including tears, made the scene incredibly impactful, with many feeling he stole the show from the main cast.
I understand there’s some truth to the depressing environment of the PetroToxin industry down there.
Landman is set within the world of oilfields in West Texas, where “roughnecks and wildcat billionaires are fueling a boom so big it’s reshaping our climate, our economy, and our geopolitics.”
The lead character, Tommy Norris (Thornton), can be abrasive, as is the out-of-town lawyer Rebecca Falcone investigating a fatal accident early in the season.
Rotten Tomatoes approval 78% based on 37 critic reviews. That sounds about right.
I can see why some wouldn’t like this show. The only positive role model for women is Paulina Chávez.
On the other hand, the men are pretty much all disreputable and/or immoral, as well.
Colm Feore as Nathan, an oil company attorney, is about the only man you can cheer for — aside from Billy Bob Thornton.
… a mystery/coming-of-age novel about college student Joe Talbert, who, for a class assignment, interviews Carl Iverson, a dying, incarcerated Vietnam vet convicted of murder
… only to uncover a complex, decades-old crime, all while juggling his own volatile family life and guilt over his autistic brother, Jeremy, leading to shocking truths about justice, lies, and heroism. …
Enjoying many Indian authors in the past, I gave it a go.
Good, not great, is my review.
It’s climate change dystopia.
In a near-future Kolkata (Calcutta), Ma, her two-year-old daughter, and her elderly father are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
After procuring long-awaited visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America.
But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma’s purse, containing their treasured immigration documents, has been stolen.
Set over the course of one week, A Guardian and a Thief tells two stories: the story of Ma’s frantic search for the thief while keeping hunger at bay during a worsening food shortage; and the story of Boomba, the thief, whose desperation to care for his family drives him to commit a series of escalating crimes whose consequences he cannot fathom.
Rick McCharles 