There is a fair bit of quality that can go into making a GOOD purely fun thing, and even when it’s pure schlock there’s no shame in that. Some times you want a steak, sometimes you want a burger. Both can be good or bad in their own ways, and neither is better than the other.

That’s a whole other set of problems, I know I’ve read articles about that too but a 15 second google didn’t find it.

If I remember right, the main issue isn’t the building shape like with skyscrapers, it has to do with power and plumbing. They’re only set up for a certain amount of usage of both, and residential is massively higher so you’d basically need to ripe it all out and do it from scratch. And considering malls are predomenantly just in the middle of empty land anyway, at that point you might as well just get the next bit over of empty land and do it from the get go with the appropriate infrastructure.

I’m currently working on Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price, an indepth dive on Vikings covering history, archeology, mythology, and so on. It’s decently well reviewed and at least seems really comprehensive but I have to admit I’m having trouble getting into it and I’m mostly just grinding out 10-20 page chunks at a time before I end up dropping it to do something else.

That was the last book I finished, and it was solid. The “getting the gang back together” part was fun, and the latter half just picked up from there. Without getting too spoilery I think the last character from her past showing up, and the more fantastical shift from there on, really added a lot to the enjoyment factor.

I think that was close to inevitable when they got bought out, though it is a huge shame. Even with an incredibly strong internal cutlure, they are under Disney’s corporate leadership and the fact they aren’t completely independent in terms of leadership, picking projects, and internal promotions means they’d tend to converge and be absorbed for all intents and purposes.

From the Mother of Learning side, the main character is an extreme introvert (which is actually handled moderately well, and has a legitimate in story reason though it doesn’t come up for awhile) and more than a bit misanthropic/arrogant. A big part of the appeal is seeing them deal with their issues and legitimately becoming a better person without it being rubbed in our faces or feeling forced.

The Great on Hulu is shockingly entertaining. My wife started watching it because she enjoys that mildly anachronistic and gorgeous/well produced trend lately and it sucked me in way more than I’d have expected.

I wish I could find the specific article about it, but it’s like a decade+ old and google isn’t cooperating. If I recall right though, Brave was the first film idea that Pixar put out which had entirely been conceived without the original core team at Pixar’s input. All the other stuff, even if it hadn’t come out when those people left yet, had been brainstormed by that group and their lack of involvement is why from that point on it all feels so much lesser than Pixar’s golden age.

I love hunting for 2nd hand everything, but especially books, so the somewhat lower hit rate for quality stuff in most places never really bugged me. If you’re doing it just because you happen to be where used books are and you like poking through things the hunt is it’s own reward, and so on.

Besides the standard classics like dedicated used book stores and the nicer Goodwills and so on, the main place I have a lot of success with good finds is bigger donated book sales thrown by libraries. I got lucky that I grew up by one of the biggest in the US that had a huge sale twice a year I could regularly hit up, but most everywhere has at least a few and you can always check book sale finder (which looks like a refuge from 90s era geocities, but is actually good) to check out what’s coming up in your area.