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iOS Apple Arcade ($5/month) Endless(ish) Cityscapes: Sim Builder is a real-time simulation game where you build a thriving city by carefully placing residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, along with roads, schools, garbage collection, and fire stations, and other amenities. I try to avoid referencing other games in these intros but it’s pointless to ignore SimCity – there are few simulation games more popular or influential. Indeed, the studio behind Cityscapes boasts of several former Maxis developers in their team who’ve worked on SimCity and The Sims.

The movie Civil War opens this weekend. It will be interesting to see the reactions. I wrote a much longer piece that I posted a few days ago, but a reader just wrote me to ask me what I thought of it, so here’s a review of sorts that isn’t too long to read. Civil War was supposedly conceived as a follow-up to Alex Garland’s previous film, Men. The only…

My wife and I recently went and watched Alex Garland’s dystopian drama Civil War, which I have to say, was way better than I was expecting. A cursory reading of recent history shows that there are different types of modern civil wars, from 1917 Russia, to 1930s Spain, to 1990s Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and to 2010s Syria. Often fought over ethnic, economic, religious, nationalist, and territorial issues. They are all brutal, dehumanizing, repressive, traumatic, and in the end, nobody really wins.

We all love dupes: Less expensive products that deliver the same results as their pricier counterparts. But nobody likes being duped. There’s nothing worse than realizing you spent a small fortune on something great, only to find out afterward there’s an equally great—and cheaper—option out there. I’ll be sharing some of my favorite product dupes in this new monthly feature. These finds brought me back in line with my budget without costing me the look or effect I was after.

The Cosmopolitan Globalist By Claire Berlinski Edited by essayist Claire Berlinski, this is Substack's top forum for the discussion of international news among readers and writers, around the world, who are concerned about the future of liberal democracy and the gathering storm of global war. ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjaS4wKKpnpqVp7mqutKkoA%3D%3D

Welcome back to Extra Sweet Things, the space for paid subscribers. Thank you as always for supporting the newsletter in this way! It’s not often that I’ll deep fry food. Not for any reason remotely related to health but mainly because of the effort, or at least perceived effort it requires. And hot oil can be a little scary. I love eating deep fried foods - fries, crispy fried chicken, churros, calamari and pretty much anything that’s been battered.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a human who cared more about baseball than I do. So it’s only fitting that I’ve never met a cat who cared more about baseball than Claude did. And he was around for half of my 38 years so far on Earth. From March to November every year, he’d join me on the couch for my evening wind-down, hooking a paw around my elbow like an o…

I have more thoughts on the Love Is Blind finale in the Hung Up chat, and my usual rankings will be finished before the reunion next week! Spoilers for the Love Is Blind season six finale below.If you made up Clay’s dad — and I mean if you designed a cartoonishly emotionally unavailable father for the finale of one of the top-streamed shows in the world — no one would believe you.

The Cleveland Guardians selected Zane Morehouse- RHRP in the 14th Round (428th overall)/in the 2023 MLB Draft. Zane Morehouse- RHRP Texas Age: 23; Ht: 6'4; Wt: 200 Throws: Right Rankings: MLB- 406 FSS- 506 WH- Round 11-15 Analysis: Willie Hood- Already 23 years old the right-hander has a starter's frame but lacks the command typical of a starter. It would not be surprising to see Cleveland try to work with Morehouse as a starting pitcher to work on a third pitch.