A Way-Too-Early Halloween at Shangrila Towers, Part 1 - Resident Evil (2026)

Spooky Season seems to come around sooner and sooner each year, and I am leaning into the madness with a series of Halloween-themed blog posts well in advance of the big night.  Today's entry is a review of Resident Evil, a high-profile horror movie that would normally release in October, but instead just released in theaters last weekend.

Zach Cregger's take on "Resident Evil" was controversial from the start.  When word got out that the film wouldn't use any of the characters or storylines from the long-running video game series, fans were rightfully skeptical of the whole project.  Was this just a Zach Cregger zombie movie with the "Resident Evil" name slapped on?

In some ways, the answer is no - Cregger's Resident Evil is perhaps the most faithful adaptation of the series ever, at least in terms of conveying what it's like to play a survival horror game.  The protagonist is a hapless everyman thrust into one gory predicament after another, and he struggles with all of the tropes of the series: limited ammunition, enemies that frustratingly won't stay down, and even a final act that takes place in a bioweapons lab and features a giant mutated monster.  It's a well-made, slick piece of entertainment that moves along briskly and features the gruesome creature design the series is known for.

It's a shame, then, that Resident Evil so often undermines its horror with humor.  I saw this same thing happen in Cregger's other big films, Barbarian and Weapons, and I was hoping he could tone it down given that he's adapting the OG horror videogame.  Comparing this to Resident Evil Requiem is like comparing an SNL parody to the real thing.

Rating: 6/10

Books: Gut

 

In Gut, Dr. Giulia Enders takes the reader on a whimsical tour of the human digestive system, all the way from stem to (ahem) stern. The original German title of the book was Darm mit Charme ("Charming Bowles"), and "charming" is a fitting adjective for the childlike fascination Dr. Enders brings to parts of the body that are usually unmentionable in polite conversation. Combine the playful prose with cartoonish illustrations by Dr. Enders's sister, and even gross topics like fecal transplants and gut microbiota become fun. 

You can get a sense of what the book covers from this TED talk Dr. Enders delivered back in 2017:

Music: Let's Roll

I know I said I love you, I know you know it's true

I've got to put the phone down and do what we got to do

One's standing in the aisleway, two more at the door

We've got to get inside there before they kill some more

Time is running out

Let's roll

Time is running out

Let's roll

Music: "Let It Be" (feat. Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr)

Dolly Parton's death last week fittingly set off a wave of memorials and tributes, but while she was world famous for her outsized personal style and Appalachian philanthropy, her musical talent remains her greatest legacy.  Dolly's stellar songwriting and bright warbling soprano meant that in her decades-long career, it seemed like every musician in America worked with her at one point or another.

Dolly's last full-length studio album, "Rockstar," featured collaborations with some great musicians, including Sting, Peter Frampton, Elton John, and the surviving two members of the Beatles for her wistful cover of "Let It Be":

Guns: S&W K-22 Masterpiece review

Introduction

There are some guns that you hope to pass on to your heirs, and Smith & Wesson's K-22 Masterpiece is certainly one of them.  This fine .22 LR revolver was first introduced during the Great Depression as a target and hunting piece (S&W called it the "Outdoorsman").  Both demand and production ramped up after WWII, and my example came from the early post-war era, around 1947.  How can you tell? Well, the gun doesn't have the old pencil barrel or blended rear sight, but it does have a "five-screw" frame (with screws in the top of the sideplate and the front of the trigger guard).  

At the time it came out, the K-22 Masterpiece was considered the best production .22 revolver in the world. But how does the 80-year-old K-22 stack up against modern guns? Let's find out.

Sights, Action, and Grips

As with most firearms back then, the K-22 Masterpiece came with simple black patridge sights, with a square pinned front sight and an adjustable rear sight.  They're pretty small (again, very common for a gun from the 1940s), but they are precise, and it's easy to get a clean sight picture.

After several previous owners and probably thousands of rounds, the blued finish on my gun is worn but the serrated double-action trigger is smooth, with a crisp and light single-action pull - maybe around 2 or 3 pounds.

My K-22 looks like it wears the original Circassian diamond magna grips with a target style square butt.  The grips provide a surprising amount of traction given how old and worn they are, and the gun remained very stable in hand in both double and single action fire.

Range Report

The K-22 is probably the best handgun around for training people who have never held a gun before. It's very easy to load and unload, and when shot in single-action, the light trigger makes getting good hits easy.  The full-size steel frame is a little heavy for smaller people, but it also makes .22 cartridges recoil like an air gun. Overall, the gun is so pleasant that I taught Mom to shoot with it about ten years ago:

Is the K-22 quite as accurate as modern semiautomatic handguns? Perhaps not, but it's accurate enough for my purposes.

12 rounds of Federal AutoMatch (the cheap stuff) at 20 yards:

18 rounds of Federal HV Match at 20 yards:

24 rounds of Winchester 222 bulk pack (40 gr.) at 20 yards: 

12 rounds of Remington Golden Bullet at 15 yards:

Functionally, the gun worked great, except for a few failures to fire (light strikes) when shooting in double action.  I attribute these occasional malfunctions to the 80-year old lockwork (I have no idea if the springs have ever been replaced).  Since I don't plan on using this gun for self-defense anytime soon, it's not that big a deal.

Conclusion

If you're tired of the quality control issues with the revolvers put out by Smith & Wesson (and every other manufacturer) nowadays, the K-22 Masterpiece is for you.  It hails from a time when it was commercially feasible to sell a full-size all-steel .22 revolver that required large amounts of hand fitting and polishing.  Those days may be gone now, but at least the guns remain...

Miscellany: TRUE Fitness Rō indoor rowing machine review

Our HOA finally renovated the community gym (just took them a few decades), so we've got a whole new set of equipment from TRUE Fitness: treadmills, stationary bikes, weights, elliptical machines, a stair climber, and, most critically, a rowing machine:

The gold standard of indoor rowers is the Concept2 RowErg, to the point where "erg" has become a generic shorthand for rowing machines. But the TRUE Fitness model one-ups Concept2 with some innovative features, including a magnetic brake/flywheel combo for wider variations in resistance levels, a convenient central pedal switch to change resistance levels on the fly, and a multipurpose handle that can be used like a traditional indoor rower, or swiveled hand-over-hand for a kayaking or canoeing motion.

Downsides? Well, there are still some question marks as to long-term durability (the TRUE Fitness rower uses a nylon belt instead of a chain drive like on the RowErg), and the foot pedal position doesn't seem as natural as other rowing machines.  Still, the machine is plenty good enough to allow me to row as a cross-training workout - maybe I can finally beat that half-marathon PR this winter.

Movies Leo Woodall Double Feature

We recently watched a couple of films starring English actor Leo Woodall, and we were quite impressed with the "rizz" he displayed onscreen.  Based on the strong performances in these movies, my guess is Woodall's career will break out like that of a fellow Londoner, Tom Hardy:

Tuner

This one has a lot of similarities to Edgar Wright's Baby Driver: a soft-spoken young man with hearing problems, a love of music, and a unique talent gets sucked into the criminal underworld by a semi-malevolent kingpin, with his civilian love interest caught in the crossfire.  Woodall shines here as the titular piano tuner-turned-safecracker, and he more than holds his own with the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Jean Reno.

Rating: 8/10

Tony

A biopic of Anthony Bourdain's formative teen years might seem like a bad idea, but Tony, directed by Matt Johnson (BlackBerry), is better than expected, thanks to the luminous Cape Cod setting, some slightly self-aware nods (there is a discussion of the proper pronunciation of bildungsroman), and Antonio Banderas's best performance in years.  The title role is played by a game Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers), but Woodall steals every scene he's in with his turn as a charming, roguish line cook.

Rating: 7/10

Food: Best of the Bay State - Massachusetts Restaurant Roundup

Like most cities, Boston has its fair share of great dining options, but eating out in Massachusetts as a whole can be hit and miss.  Here are the best places my friends and I found during our summer vacation:

Santarpio's Pizza - This Boston mainstay is well over a hundred years old.  If you go to the original location in East Boston near the airport, street parking will be hard to find (your best bet is to use their lot under the overpass, but it fills up fast).  While Santarpio's is best known for their pizza, they grill a variety of delicious meats, including this awesome Italian sausage.

Aama Lama - There are a fair number of Himalayan restaurants in the Boston metro area, and the best one we went to was Aama Lama, a tiny place in Malden. I don't profess to be an expert in this type of cuisine, but there were a whole bunch of Nepalese people eating there, and the food tasted great - delicious momo, pakodas, and sukuti.

Marylou's Coffee - I am old enough to remember when Barnie's Coffee ruled Florida malls, and stepping into Marylou's Coffee gave me that same feeling: sweet-smelling flavored coffee, piles of premade muffins and other baked goods, and a distinct pink decor that, while certainly corporate, was less generic than a Starbucks. More importantly, Marylou's brews some of the best flavored decaf iced coffee I've ever had, and, with dozens of locations in south Massachusetts and Rhode Island, it was not hard to find one.

KKatie's Burger Bar - Plymouth has a raft of decent-but-not-memorable restaurants downtown, so we opted for something a little more casual - KKatie's Burger Bar. It's a small, family-friendly local chain serving up good burgers and beer in the South Shore. The "frickles" (fried dill pickle chips and banana peppers) and fried green beans (not breaded) were unusual, and pretty good.

Coffee Obsession - The Shining Sea Bikeway provides easy biking access to Woods Hole along with beautiful ocean views, and Coffee Obsession's two locations smartly bracket the Bikeway: one location is at the start point in Falmouth, right near the bike rentals, and the other is at the endpoint in Woods Hole, right near the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. Both locations offer pretty good coffee and tea drinks, as well as public restrooms.

Ziggy's - Finding dairy-free almond milk ice cream is a chore anywhere, but we found it was especially hard near the beach in Plymouth. One happy exception was Ziggy's, which has been there since 1957. The ice cream was great, the location was convenient, and the people couldn't have been nicer.

Neptune Oyster - For our last meal in Boston, we wanted to go out with a bang, so we grabbed a table at Neptune Oyster, a Michelin Guide-recommended seafood restaurant that typically has a long line to get in. The raw oysters themselves were good, but the real standout was the lobster roll, which is probably the best in the city.

Miscellany: 2026 Chevy Trailblazer LT review - Fond of sand dunes and salty air

For our summer vacation, we toured Massachusetts...everywhere from the charming fishing port of Gloucester, to the hustle and bustle of post-World Cup Boston, to the winding roads of Cape Cod. While some places were accessible via public transit, we needed a car to realistically get anywhere outside the Boston metro area.  As such, we got a Chevy Trailblazer, a Korean-made subcompact crossover that took over the nameplate from the old Trailblazer SUV:

Our 2026 model had the "LT" trim, which adds several big features, like keyless open and a better stereo system. Unchanged from the base model is the buzzy 1.2L ECOTEC engine, which squeezes 137 hp and 162 lb-ft of torque out of three turbocharged cylinders.  The engine (paired with an unremarkable CVT) had just enough pep to deal with everyday New England traffic, but it's certainly not going to throw you back in your seat, and long-term reliability may be...questionable.

Suspension-wise, I found the Trailblazer's ride to be a little noisy and harsh - the car had a tendency to crash over bumps and uneven pavement, which were pretty common on Boston streets.  On the plus side, the car handled well in the surprisingly hilly Massachusetts terrain, even when rain intruded on the last day of our vacation.

In terms of interior space, the Trailblazer fit four adults comfortably, along with their personal items and carry-on bags, though rear storage is reduced by the included spare tire (still a welcome feature in this day and age):

The car was pretty easy to drive, too - the dashboard layout is simple, and there are still physical controls for things like audio volume and climate. The wireless Apple CarPlay implementation was just okay - I didn't experience the full-on crashes of my last rental car, but Google Maps navigation was a little laggy, especially when negotiating the twisty intersections around the Boston area.

All in all, while I would never buy it, I was happy with the Trailblazer as a rental (my friends even liked the Cacti Green paint), and it'll always remind me of old Cape Cod:

Books: The Witchcraft of Salem Village

Salem, Massachusetts has really leaned into its historical association with the witch trials, so much so that almost every business in the downtown area caters to tourists looking for kitschy, witchy souvenirs (my understanding is that the place is absolutely bustling during the Halloween season).

After my friends and I digested about a dozen witch and goth-related shops, though, I felt it was time to learn some of the real history behind the tragic trials that led to the execution of 19 people (with more dying in prison or rendered paupers in the end). There are a lot of accounts of the trials, some scholarly and some less so, but a good middle ground is The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson, author of The Haunting of Hill House.

The book is written for kids, so Jackson relates the events like a sad fable.  In her telling, the hysteria was caused by the lies of children, the pride and paranoia of adults, and the rigid doctrines of the Puritan faith.  There was also an absence of the basic tenets of the American justice system, such as the presumption of innocence and the confrontation of witnesses. My hope is that as long as we follow those procedural safeguards, nothing like the Salem witch trials could ever happen again.