Adventures & What’s Up – March 2023

ADVENTURES

BABY UPDATE

Triple V is 9.5 months old now. This month did see a lot of fun times and some rough ones. Teething being a big one since he got his upper front teeth which felt like it took eons to actually erupt so the fussing and sleeplessness was pretty sporadic. He also is obsessed with walking about with support and sits with really good balance and has become much more creative in his mobility to pivot, army crawl and roll himself to wherever he needs to go. Plus, baby babble is in full power when he feels like it. The weather warming up also means daily strolls as long as the weather is decent. The exercise is doing good for both me and him. We did just have the 9 months follow-up, it was a pretty good time as he sticks to the higher percentiles in height but a more moderate one for his weight. Apparently, he’s still sticking to his curve so all’s good.

HYDROPONIC & INDOOR PLANTS

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37

With the end of March means my birthday just swung by and I hit the lovely 37 years old. Honestly, I stopped counting a while back. Especially with a baby nowadays, my days all just kind of blend together in some kind of routine of feeding, changing diapers and play time. Not exactly the most exciting birthday since I started it bright and early at the clinic for Triple V’s routine check-up and treated myself to some lovely delivery of soup noodles. I do feel the age a lot but then it might just be the postpartum weight still sticking around that makes me feel not quite as active. Luckily the weather is getting warmer so we do have plans to get back to hiking when the trails open up and doing more daily walks, who knows, maybe I’ll even get some weights going to build up some muscle mass although carrying a 20lbs baby everyday is quite the exercise. Probably should look into some yoga instead.

WHAT’S UP

Books

• Stephanie’s Ponytail
• Paper Bag Princess
• The Adventures of the Get Along Gang

Currently reading: My Illustrated Classics Collection

With the sporadic sleep schedule for a little while in March, my reading included mostly nighttime reading for Triple V. I didn’t bother to write the rereads since we cycle through his books on regular basis but just shared the ones that I hadn’t read or revisited until the past month. We are reading through a book I picked up during Boxing Day called My Illustrated Classics Collection and we’re going through some of the abridged classics like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island and The Wind in the Willows. Its a pretty fun read for myself since Triple V doesn’t really know what I’m reading, he just likes the reading to mellow him out for bedtime.

Movies

• The Witch: Part 1 The Subversion (2018)
• Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
• Scream 4 (2011 rewatch, Review)
• Scream (2022)
• White Snake (2019 rewatch, Review)
• Green Snake (2021)
• Enola Holmes 2 (2022 rewatch, Review)
• It Comes At Night (2017)
• I See You (2019)

Suffice to say that I have a lot of writing to catch up on. Lacking movie review writing inspiration can do that to a person. Luckily, it seems to be coming back a little more since I pivoted to working on game reviews which you can check out below.

I do have a really fun themed month coming up that will clear out some of these titles which is another reason why they haven’t been released yet. I might do a few of these rough guidelines to just do a certain number of a certain theme of films since writing everyday isn’t exactly feasible right now. I do choose sleep over writing nowadays.

Highlights of this month definitely goes to The Witch Part 1: The Subversion which was a pretty crazy ride of a film and Scream (2022 aka Scream 5). I’d say even Green Snake is a fun animated film. I See You also was pretty well executed which helped with delivering a shocking reveal.

TV

• Gilmore Girls (Season 5 rewatch, Review)
• Next in Fashion (Season 2, 2023)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 6 rewatch, Review)
• MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (Limited Series 2023)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 7 rewatch, Review)
• The Last Of Us (Season 1, 2023)
• Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life (Limited Series Rewatch, 2016)
• Cheat (Season 1, 2023)
• The Glory (Season 1, 2023 Review)
• Veronica Mars (Season 1 rewatch, Review)

Currently binging: Come Sing With Me S4, The Forbidden Flower, Infinity and Beyond: Bao Dao Ji,

Seeing as I’ve already mentioned my lack of writing inspiration, I continued on to rewatch the rest of Gilmore Girls. I can’t say it helped with the writing but it did make me very relaxed and happy. Its just so much fun to watch and I always notice something different, plus I’m listening slowly through Scott Patterson’s podcast I’m All In which talks about a lot of the little details about the show and its production which makes it all the more intriguing.

Its a no brainer than Gilmore Girls will always be a recommendation from me, I did finish some fun shows. The Last of Us is a pretty good video game adaptation. The few success ones that happen probably. I did think the ending of the season was a tad abrupt but it did leave some space to ponder I suppose. Review for that is in the works as we speak. I did want to get it done before this post went up but obviously that didn’t happen. What did happen was that I did get The Glory’s review out and also a big recommendation. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first few episodes and thought it was a little too heavy handed but it justifies itself really well the further the story dives. You can check out my pretty extensive review with probably some mild spoilers but mostly spoiler-free. I’ve also moved on to rewatching Veronica Mars from the beginning and that’s because the out of date person that I am didn’t realize that there was a revival season in 2019 so we’re working ourselves back there, plus I wanted to see whether it still held up which it definitely does.

Games

• Far: Lone Sails
• Paradise Killer (incomplete)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (incomplete)
• Chinatown Detective Agency (Review)

Currently playing: Norco

As mentioned above, other than TV, I did try to put some time into gaming. I played Far: Lone Sails which is a lovely little game. I won’t talk too much about it here but we recorded the discussion over on Game Warp. It will come out eventually. You can follow out podcast or the blog and you will be able to listen to it when it comes out, if you’re interested.

I did give Paradise Killer and Guardians of the Galaxy a test run before it left Game Pass. Both of them were pretty fun. I had a little health scare issue in the middle of that so the first person gave me some motion sickness for Paradise Killer. Love the game but I just had to stop and by the time I was feeling better, the game had already left Game Pass so I have my eyes peeled on a discounted copy probably after I get through some of the game backlog. I’ve started a few games that need to be finished as well so, not really a top priority. I do think the concept is pretty fresh and fun.

I did get the review for Chinatown Detective Agency out which I’d recommend to Carmen Sandiego fans like myself. Its a tad buggy which is its main flaw because everything else is pretty well executed. You can check out the in-depth review over on Game Warp.

I just started up Norco even if I should be finishing The Gunk but you know, the awards shows just went by and I wanted to check out Norco which I feel like I’ve only heard a lot of good things. As this post goes up late, the next batch of games leaving Game Pass is already here so I’m going to be wrapping up Life is Strange: True Colors before it leaves mid-April!

That’s it for this Adventures/Updates and What’s Up for the past month!
What have you been up to?

Tranquil Dreams Podcast #14: What’s Up 2021 Week 21

The next episode of Tranquil Dreams Podcast is here! I’ve finally gotten a routine down…kind of, considering there should be probably another episode coming out in a day or two to do a little catch up since I’m about a week or so behind.

This episode covers Week 21 of What’s Up 2021 as reading is still on hiatus and gaming hasn’t changed a lot compared to previous weeks or two. I do give my general thoughts on Army of the Dead and the adaptation of Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase while also giving an overview of my thoughts on the new volume of Love Death and Robots. Its a quick one this time.

Thanks for listening and hope you enjoy!

Related Links

Army of the Dead – Film Review
Love Death + Robots (Season 2) – TV Binge

Music in the Episode:
There It Is by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4519-there-it-is
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Listen to the Show:
Anchor
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Breaker
RadioPublic

Tranquil Dreams Podcast #11: What’s Up 2021 Week 18

Welcome to the next episode of Tranquil Dreams Podcast as we cover What’s Up 2021 Week 18. It’s a really quick one as this lands on the last week of April and coincidentally, the last week of work rush, meaning not a whole lot was done. Every section had a quick overview of the one or two things that that I managed to check out or currently doing. Nothing too special to discuss but some potential plans for some of the sections to talk about and an update on the binging situation. Hope you enjoy!

Related Links

Freaks – Film Review

Music in the Episode:
There It Is by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4519-there-it-is
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Listen to the Show:
Anchor
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Breaker
RadioPublic

What’s Up 2020: Week 40

Every week is going by so fast. I don’t know if its just being really busy with work or trying to focus on getting the Halloween movie marathon going on track this past week or its just trying to make it through day by day and not think about those record high pandemic case increase every day. Either way, Week 40 means 12 weeks until the end of the year. Judging from how quickly the year has gone by, its probably going to zoom by as well. Another film festival is just around the corner and I apparently hate free time so I’m trying to get organized so that things run smoothly with the movie marathon month as well but I’ll talk about that more in the “WATCHING” section. Let’s check out how the week went!

READING

Currently reading: To Reap the Spirit (The Dead Dreamer Series #3)

Started up the third book of The Dead Dreamer series To Reap the Spirit which has been accompanying me throughout the past year (if not less than that). Its been a fun world to dive into. I’m still very early in the book so I’m not going to say much about it yet but I went into this with high hopes so I’m hoping that it’ll live up to it!

PLAYING

Playing next: Simulacra

I’m not going to lie that gaming as really been in the back of my mind. Just generally running out of time when it comes to trying to start up a new game. Its a bit wild seeing as I haven’t changed my mind on what to play but really just haven’t sat down to do it. Although I do blame it on a few things. My constant replay of Julie and the Phantoms as background to work on stuff and the need to get stuff prepared for the movie marathon. I’ll get back to it but my mind is a little scattered…

WATCHING

• A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)
• By Night’s End (2020, Review)
• Day of the Dead (1985)
• Land of the Dead (2005)

Moving along with the movie marathon mostly this past week while having some picks for Movies and Tea working really well into what I need for this Halloween/Horror month. Aside from that, media accreditation for Festival du Nouveau Cinema came in and as Montreal moved into maximum alert meaning theatres are shut, they have gone completely virtual running from October 7th to 31st with an array of new age cinema that always has something interesting to discover every single year. I have a preliminary list set out to cover but the challenge is to see how on track I can be between festival coverage and the Halloween marathon!

As for highlight this week, it has to go to A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night! An incredibly unique take on a vampire film and another Spectrevision win! It’ll be part of a coming double feature and also happens to be part of production for Season 6 of Movies and Tea so I’m not going to talk too much about it here.

BINGING

• Julie and the Phantoms (Season 1, 2020)
• Count Your Lucky Stars (2020)
• Sing On! Germany (Season 1, 2020)
• Ratched (Season 1, 2020)

Currently binging: Love Signal 3, Go Newbies, The Journey Across The Night, Intense Love

I just can’t decide for this week which stood out more so I decided to just forget about choosing and highlight all three! I’ve been harping on about Count Your Lucky Stars the past week or two so I finally decided that I had to let it go and watched the last 2 episodes and I still think its a great series. Top 5 of the year from what it looks like. However, I did manage to finally get back into more Netflix series and finished (then finished another 2 times) Julie and the Phantoms. It brought some High School Musical vibes and then I realized that the director of HSM is responsible for Julie and the Phantoms so it all makes sense, right? Finally, I’ve had my eye on Ratched since I’m a big fan of Sarah Paulson and it didn’t disappoint at all. I want to add this one to the Halloween marathon rundown so I’m working on the TV binge sooner rather than later.

That’s it for this week’s What’s Up!
What have you been playing/watching/reading/binging?

What’s Up 2020: Week 38

Another week as passed and as things in real life is going slowly out of hand again where I am in terms of the pandemic as we are pretty much in the beginning of the second wave, its been just wrapping things up here and there and taking it a little slower in the past week. Let’s check it out!

READING

• Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (Review)

Currently reading: The Walled City

Back to reading some TBR from my own shelf and not reading commitments actually feels kind of nice. I actually have a lot of stuff sitting around on my book shelves waiting to be read like the entire trolley that I’ve dedicated to it so its a work in progress. Fangirl took a little while mostly because of having no time to read but once I found time, it was one that I blazed through. It was a lot of fun and I did like it quite a bit. The review is up already so you can check that out for all my thoughts on it.

I did start up a next novel inspired by a conversation that my husband and I had about Hong Kong’s Walled City back in the days and well, I happen to have a book called Walled City so figured, why not! I’m about 25% through and its been rather fun also. Its set on a countdown of days which what its for is still a mystery so we will see where it all goes from there. I should get through this fairly quickly as have to hop onto another book commitment for an upcoming blog tour.

PLAYING

• Luna

Currently playing: *contemplating Xbox Game Pass titles: Tell Me Why/Ori and the Will of the Wisps/Night Call/Wolfenstein Youngblood*

Like I said, wrapping things up, right? Got into some more gaming time and finished up Luna. Honestly, this game is really simple and really short so its all about dedicating the time to just do it one go. Its rather charming both in its art style and the story and narration although the game itself had some little one-dimensional puzzles but I don’t know if its more of an experience and not meant for deep gameplay since it is also geared for VR experience and probably more immersive as that than a normal gaming experience.

With Xbox Game Pass for PC leaving beta, its price is increasing to something I think its a bit high so I stopped by subscription finally since I wasn’t doing much with it anyways but there are some nice additions that I want to check out hopefully before the sub ends. Its just which one is what I’m contemplating for the next game as well as maybe some streaming. Its been on my mind for a few months so I probably should just do it. I have a general list above so let me know if you’ve played any of these and which you’d recommend.

WATCHING

• Michael McIntyre: Showman (2020)
• Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong (2015 rewatch, Review)
• Dr. Jason Leong: Hashtag Blessed (2020)
• Fantasy Island (2020)

While the stand-up comedy shows were both more entertaining than Fantasy Island, Fantasy Island is the only new actual movie that I watched this week. I did start another movie but fell asleep due to some funky insomnia last week so going to give that a go again. Fantasy Island is alright. The premise is better than the execution to be honest. Its definitely more thriller than horror. I won’t dive too much in it since I will be doing a review on it soon.

On that note, its not my highlight but my go-to rewatch is always Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong. Mostly because its a digital version and I can easily put it on whenever I want so its a good pairing and a fun little premise that I truly love more and more. Plus, its made me think about doing a month of just movies set outside of Canada since in this current state, there’s no travelling to other countries and we can only live through movies that explore other cities in their own movies. Could be fun, right?

BINGING

• The American Barbecue Showdown 2020 (2020)

Currently binging: Great Escape:Season 2, Love Signal 3, Handsome Siblings, Count Your Lucky Stars, Sing China 2020, Go Newbies, The Journey Across The Night

As some Chinese shows come to end or just fall of the map from my watch list for picking up later, I got back to some Netflix stuff. Of course, its always the food shows that I’m on track with. We checked out The American Barbecue Showdown which was really fun to watch and made us immensely hungry at the same time. I have a TV binge coming within the next week. On that note, some promising shows popped up Netflix in the last while that I’m hoping to check out, especially Ratched because I love Sarah Paulson in pretty much everything that I’ve seen her in and the premise looks really good.

As for variety shows, Great Escape S2 has only one side episode to wrap it up. Count the Lucky Stars was a true binge and I’ve caught up to the current episode and its probably going to do the pain in the ass thing where the final episode will get bumped to the following week just to torture its viewers a little more with the wait. But I can’t get enough of Jerry Yan and Shen Yue…the former is just fantastic, so much better than the Meteor Garden days, both appearance and acting skills. The new series that I started would be The Journey Across The Night which is a little bit of a horror psychological thriller sort of show set in Hong Kong and creepy hauntings and schizophrenia. I’m only 2 episodes in so it could veer off from my first impressions, who knows. Fingers crossed that it won’t.

That’s it for this What’s Up!
What have you been reading/playing/watching/binging?

What’s Up 2020: Week 37

Another week has gone by. A lot of last week was catching up, wrapping up, finalizing and then recharging and organizing. At the same time, as I had mentioned last time, I’m starting to get ready for next month’s marathon because I’ve learned from previous years that its not going to happen once the month starts so might as well start accumulating now, right? Yay to being organized..kind of…

READING

Currently reading: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Finally getting back into a teensy bit of reading. I’ve had some really bad luck with reading on the bus lately as I always end up being next to someone talking on the phone loudly so its not easy to make progress. Either way, Fangirl is pretty fun so far even if I’m still really early in the book like 20% in or so.

PLAYING

Currently playing: Luna, Cat Force

While I took a little to get myself organized, I’ve been playing Cat Force the most on mobile. Its full of cats and its Match-3 puzzle game and then they meow when they get matched up. Its all kinds of cute and I’m about 50ish levels into it right now. If I know myself, I usually cap out on Match-3 puzzle games at the most at 100 levels if nothing significantly new happens.

I do have a few PC games that I have lined up to play after I finish Luna. We are restructuring Game Warp to get some new direction so that we can get back on track somewhat in time. However, I do have some written pieces to go up soon.

WATCHING

• Girlfight (2000)
• Hairspray (2007 rewatch, Review)
• Skyscraper (2018)
• The Predator (2018, Review)
• Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
• Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)
• Dawn of the Dead (1978)
• Dawn of the Dead (2004 rewatch)

Its fairly obvious with this list that I’m starting to prepare for the Halloween Marathon at this point. Highlight franchise this year (a marathon structure that I didn’t do the past few years) is going to be the Living Dead franchise. Believe it or not, I’ve only seen Dawn of the Dead remake before out of the whole franchise so you know, catching up with that. There’s also other movies set up in between as you can see as well. It’ll be fun. Less festival coverage means more time to focus on doing a proper marathon this year. My awesome co-host did mention the whole 31 Days of Halloween or something, maybe I’ll do that as double features here and then use that as social media since I really just be promoting the blog better.

BINGING

• Chef’s Table: BBQ (Volume 1, 2020)
• Go Ahead (2020)

Currently binging: Great Escape: Season 2, Love Signal 3, Handsome Siblings, Count Your Lucky Stars, Sing China 2020, Go Newbies, The Irresistible

I finally finished Go Ahead which let me tell you is my 2020 favorite series so far. Tops the list right away. Its a different kind of family story; the cast is incredible; the story is really good and it had me hooked from beginning to end. There’s a few moments that gets me every single time. Its really a treat. Of course, it had to be my highlight series. I’m super behind on TV binge posts for C-Dramas so it’ll come out at some point but I won’t make any promises about how soon. Although to be fair, Chef’s Table taking the BBQ themed path is pretty decent also. Chef’s Table and Ugly Delicious kind of all ride on each other a little. Its still a decent 4 episodes to go through as a docuseries.

On that note, most of the currently is pretty much the same. I’m taking a mini break from Handsome Siblings as its getting really annoying when its not about the actual siblings or younger cast. I couldn’t focus for more than one episode at a time so I decided to give myself a breather and just start something new which happens to be Count My Lucky Stars that I had wanted to start when it first aired in August which at 5 episodes in had me hooked at the 2nd episode. I do say that nostalgia plays a big part seeing as people complain about the female and male leads age difference in real life but they are the new and old version leads of Meteor Garden and the best parts of the new and old respectively. I fangirled over Jerry Yan when Meteor Garden came out and in his 40s, he’s a different kind of handsome right now. Okay..I’m starting to fangirl here so I’ll stop.

In terms of TV though, Great Escape: Season 2 only has one episode left and probably some finale episode or something as they sometimes have, I don’t know right now but its sad to see that end although the next episode is one to look forward to as its a crossover with Who’s the Murderer. Everything else is fairly early or just in catch-up phase at some point so that’s all. Things are definitely settling down on the TV front which is great so I can get back on some Netflix or Shudder series.

That’s it for this week’s recap!
What have you been reading/playing/watching/binging?

What’s Up 2020: Week 36

Another week is gone and Fantasia Festival is behind us now! All the content is up at this point even if there was a week delay in getting mostly everything done. Next week, things should show some signs of returning back to normal as I start sorting through the backlog and what needs to be done as well, start planning for next month’s Halloween Marathon!

READING

Currently reading: Fangirl

I’m just going to confess right now that I did zero reading this week. None whatsoever. I was either watching movies for Fantasia or using every spare moment to write. I’ve also been going through some strange insomnia so it hasn’t helped the energy or productivity. Reading will resume as I do want to keep going with Fangirl once I’ve recharged my Kindle again.

PLAYING

Currently playing: Luna

The same for reading as gaming basically, which was pretty much expected. Luna is still the game that I’m going to return to very soon. I didn’t get much time for gaming.

WATCHING

• Homo ErecTattoos (short 2020)
• Bring Me Home (2019, Review)
• A Witness Out of the Blue (2019, Review)
• Legally Declared Dead (2019, Review)
• Perdida (2019, Review)
• Chasing Dream (2019, Review)

I ended the last few days of Fantasia Festival powering through a lot of on demand films. It was a bit intense but all the films were pretty fun to watch. My favorites for the week had to go to A Witness Out of the Blue followed very closely with Chasing Dream. Both had their own style that was a lot of fun to watch. Both of the films, I’d gladly watch again if I had the chance (fingers crossed that Netflix might pick it up).

Talking about Fantasia coverage, I do have to to say, the only post that hasn’t gone up is for Fantasia shorts round-up. There were some impressive short films this year that I saw and no doubt the one from this week’s recap, Homo ErecTattoos was incredibly unique.

BINGING

• Gagman (Season 1, 2020)
• Little Forest (Season 1, 2020)

Currently binging: Great Escape: Season 2, Go Newbies, Go Ahead, Chef’s Table: BBQ, The Irresistible, Sing China 2020, Handsome Siblings, The Coming One:SuperBand, BLK946

I finally sat down to finish Little Forest which was a charming little show. Its always relaxing to watch little kids with celebrity adults in nature. Plus, I liked the celebrities involved so I had a fun little dynamic. However, highlight show that ended would be Gagman. That show was a treat every single week. I can’t say that I’m particularly happy with the rundown of the Gag6 (top 6 Gagman/Gagwoman winners) since I’m sure there are other people there that would be much more entertaining but its an alright mix of people.

Some of these shows have kind of fallen into the background right now as I only have a pair of eyes that I can’t watch movies and TV at the same time. I have some general shows that I always like to catch when they release like Great Escape 2 which should be ending soon along with the Master Version (which I never list here but its a show with the same escape room with little changes but a younger cast which are pretty much have their own set of intellectual skills).

Go Ahead is one of my favorite dramas this year and its nearing its final few episodes so I’ve been saving up the episodes so that I can binge it in one shot since if its anything like other series, the last 10 episodes will be a torture to have to watch one or two episodes and then wait for the next day’s to release. Because of that, I finally started Handsome Siblings which has been made so many times that its hard to wonder whether it’ll live up to the last one, which it took a little while to get into but I’m about halfway and its starting to get into a rhythm that I like. Aside from that, I keep forgetting to talk about BLK946 which is a show about trends and fashion/design while I’ve also started watching Sing China 2020 which is like American Idol but the Chinese version but hey Nicholas Tse is a judge/mentor so I’m a little late to the party but better late than never.

That’s it for this week’s recap!
What have you been reading/playing/watching/binging?

What’s Up 2020: Week 30

Week 30 of the year everyone! Last week was a bit of a whirlwind. Not weather-wise since it was incredibly hot and increasingly stuffy. Good news is that I’m kind of back to some kind of normal so things are getting back on track a little on all departments. Plus, you will notice that a lot of variety shows wrapped up so the Binging department will be (hopefully) less crazy. I did also get some good news that I will talk about in My Weekly Adventures coming up at the end of this week…

READING

Currently reading: And Then We Vanish: Collected Stories

Finally got back to some reading as I decided that reading on the bus was the best thing to do. I finished 2 of the stories in this anthology and they are pretty decent. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the angle each of these stories will take. Hopefully, I will finish up soon as this is rather fun to read and I’m making good progress, and a review will be up soon.

PLAYING

• Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions – Revelations DLC

Currently playing: Gorogoa, Find Out

After going into some major gaming sessions of Glass Masquerade 2: Illusion, I’ve wrapped up Revelations DLC which had some pretty fun little puzzles and designs. It felt a little easier than the other DLC since it had more irregular pieces but at times, bigger pieces to put together. However, the art in Glass Masquerade 2 is so nice. The design of each puzzle and the story behind each one and little dialogue is fun. For now (unless they come out with more DLCs in the future), its done as I think about some games to move on.

Although, first priority is to get back into Gorogoa and finish that one up. On a side note, its not exactly just this week but the last month, I’ve been playing a mobile game called Find Out which is a rather quirky puzzle game which has a nice twist on hidden objects mixed with puzzle elements. Plus, it always adds free new levels.

WATCHING

• 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019)
• Deep Blue Sea (1999 rewatch, Review)
• The Night of the Living Dead (1968)
• The Night of the Living Dead (1990)
• One Cut of the Dead (2017)
• One Cut of the Dead Mission: Remote (2020)

As we try to get through the Living Dead franchise from the beginning slowly and having some shark week moments with 47 Meters Down: Uncaged and rewatching Deep Blue Sea, the movie that came out of nowhere as a random pick on Shudder is One Cut of the Dead. Its been a while that I’ve loved a movie this much. I have a review coming up so I won’t talk too much about it here but its a must see if you haven’t already. Its takes you for a seriously awesome ride. Its one that pairs really  nice to check out its free Youtube short movie as a project to bring happiness during this tough 2020 as everyone lives through this pandemic.

BINGING

• Twogether (Season 1, 2020)
• Love Timing 2 (Season 2, 2020)
• Woof Meow Story (Season 1, 2020)
• We Are Blazing (Season 1, 2020)

Currently binging: Great Escape 2, Little Forest, Super Nova Games 3, Gagman, Street Dance of China 3, The Coming One: SuperBand, Summer Surf Shop

Like mentioned in the beginning, a lot of shows ended in the past week, which is quite a relief since it was getting a little hard to track everything. I wrapped up Twogether on Netflix and while that was fun, I think it meant more for fans of Jasper Liu and Lee Seung-gi, although the show did make me want to catch up on some of their series that are on Netflix. We Are Blazing was a bit of a letdown, more that the team I was rooting for didn’t win but then I had already had a feeling who the winner would be and it was them. Its not that they are bad but its kind of a cop out in my opinion. The show overall had some issues but its a nice concept to expose all of these music groups of different forms and variety, especially with the sheer amount of boy or girl groups being created through the different shows on different channels.

Woof Meow Story and Love Timing Season 2 definitely were my faves which I felt sad to end. Woof Meow Story really excelled in the Woof story as the finale saw them working hard to find a suitable home for the stray dogs, and even had a follow-up on their current status. Because I wasn’t a fan of the Meow story part, Love Timing 2 overall was a much more fun reality show. I always liked their format the most out of all the different relationship reality shows and this time they changed it up to a more realistic level that took them after their love confession and acceptance to the final episode where they could go on a trip together and experience the outside world in a realistic world to consider their own lives and how it would be together in a weekend trip and then make another decision whether it was suitable still to be together or at least wanted to work hard to be together. A lot of these shows lack the grounded element and this show already had the merging life but living with everyone else in the show for 30 days so adding this final element does give it one of the more sophisticated structure and perhaps a more solid jumping spot for these different pairs. Two shows that I hope will return for another season in the future.

That’s it for this What’s Up!
This week has been a lot of fun and had some nice discoveries!
What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?

What’s Up 2020: Week 24

Welcome back to another week of What’s Up 2020 as we look back at last week. In terms of entertainment, I’m definitely doing a lot more of everything. My time management does leave a little bit to desire though as a lot of things sitting in the to-do list. The next two weeks is something of a crunch time at work, its only going to slow down from this point until July. Before we get ahead of ourselves, lets check out what’s up!

READING

Currently reading: Call Numbers: The Not So Quiet Life of a Librarian

I’m going to flat out say that I did some massive push on reading the last 2 weeks so I didn’t get around to much reading this week. I might have advanced a chapter or something. Not enough to say anything too significant at this point.

PLAYING

• Hidden Folks: On Tour

Currently playing: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

I actually 100% completed Hidden Folks. I wrapped up the On Tour DLC which was a lot of fun to do  and then realized that I hadn’t finished a previous level so went back to do that. Hidden Folks is always a fun and silly gaming experience that makes me laugh. Its just a black and white funkier hand-drawn version of Where’s Waldo but its just so silly with all the characters you need to find with the quirky clues that its always so impressive.

As for upcoming game to play, I HAVE TO start playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps as I’ve been pushing it back over and over again and I’m a bit tired of this unnecessary procrastination.

WATCHING

• Hush (1998, Review)
• Hannah Gadsby: Douglas (2020)
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
• I Kill Giants (2017, Friday Film Club)
• Humanoids From The Deep (1980, Review)
• Jigsaw (2017)
• Blood Machines (2019)
• I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

As you can see, the most abundant section goes to watching movies, which is something of a change in normal pacing as usually movie watching has been very minimal. I needed to catch up with it for upcoming double features and whatnot. I watched a few meh movies and then some odd ones as well but then one of these is for Movies and Tea. To be fair, I had some surprising hits like I Kill Giants, Jigsaw and I Know What You  Did Last Summer. I chose I Kill Giants for the Friday Film Club pick so you can check out the link above. I may have a more fleshed out review when I do the double feature. As fun as I Know What You Did Last Summer was, it was very much the expected 90s cheesy slasher flick that I enjoyed whereas Jigsaw had a few bad movie sequels in the first run so I had very low expectations for this 2017 continuation which turned out to be really fun to watch and I enjoyed it so much more than I thought I would.

BINGING

• Queer Eye (Season 6, 2020)

Currently binging: Go Fridge 6, You Are My Destiny, Me To Us, Produce Camp 2020, We Are Blazing, Woof Meow Story, Mr. Fox and Miss Rose

Nothing feels better when things around are fairly negative than a new season of Queer Eye. Season 5 of Queer Eye arrives at just the right time with 10 episodes in a new location, Philadelphia. Bingeworthy as always, of course and I’ll be getting the TV binge for this up soon.

As for the currently binging section, Me to Us is going to be ending soon and that one has really caught my attention. I have a band or two that I hope will win this whole thing in the final episode coming. At the same time, the newest addition to the list is Mr. Fox and Miss Rose that I was a little hesitant to start but has proved very light-hearted and binge-worthy. Its a little bit of a fish out of water story but also a little bit of gem-hunting schemes and mixed with some romance which blends pretty well together. I’m past the halfway point and its still going pretty strong so really looking forward to see where it will take the story. Everything else is still pretty fun to watch in the currently binging.

That’s it for this weekly recap!
What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?

What’s Up 2020: Week 21

Welcome to What’s Up weekly recap of Week 21 of 2020! Last week was somehow very busy or perhaps, its just that I had some writing slump as I’m trying to push through some TV binges and they take a little more writing motivation. Either way, it seems balance is the hardest to achieve in these categories on a weekly basis. This time, I’ve managed to get more reading during the week and now, movie watching is decreasing. I’ll talk more about it all in the different parts below!

READING

Currently reading: To Wake the Dead

I’ve been working hard on reading To Wake the Dead. So far, I’m almost halfway through the book and its been a pretty fun read. I can’t say that I’m quite as enamored with it as I was in the first book at the moment but its still a solid sequel. There’s still half a book to go and I’m in a semi crunch time to start up the next book so you should be seeing a review for this one sooner rather than later!

It sure feels nice to get back into some morning or evening reading time! Its been actually rather motivating and a nice change in pace to not stare at the PC monitor all day.

PLAYING

• Color Spots

Currently playing: Orwell, M.O.N.I.T.O.R.

Steam released their Spring Cleaning Event so I’ve been playing around their suggested games. After a little bit of a back and forth on what to review for the next Game Warp, we finally decided on Orwell and that’s what I’ve been playing lately. Its very weird because the event queued up a bunch of surveillance style games on my list including the free game MONITOR that I’ve played less than an hour of before it got hit with a bug that froze it (probably before a save point but I’m scared to go look to find out that I have to replay the section) so I had to shut it down.

On a fun note, I don’t finish a lot of mobile games unless its story-based but Color Spots has 100 levels of main game and 9 extra levels and I actually was having so much fun with this one that I finished all 100 levels and working through the bonus levels right now. I’d say that’s as close to finishing a mobile game as I’d get, right?

WATCHING

• Zodiac (2007)

Currently watching: Flavors of Youth

As the week ended, I had started up Flavors of Youth but didn’t finish yet. The very sad watching section consists of one movie. Maybe its the long Fincher movie that took a lot of energy to watch and then I just didn’t feel like watching anything. Its not the truth though but more that real life took over and I had to make choices and movie watching was put in the back burner. However, my first time watch of Zodiac (if you don’t count the unfinished first time watch that I dozed off and forgot to go back to finish it) was pretty good. I’m not a fan of the length but its a pretty good movie to say the least.

BINGING

• Oh! My Emperor (Season 1, 2018)
• X-Fire (Season 1, 2015)
• The Love Equations (2020)

Currently binging: Me To Us, Youth With You 2, Produce Camp 2020, Oh! My Emperor 2, Welcome Back To Sound, Yes I Do 2, Go Fridge S6

I’ve been on a Sean Xiao revisit lately since its been pretty much 2 months and I’m still stuck on The Untamed and a little bothered by the whole stupidity (my opinion on the situation) that he went through or is currently still “kind of” going through, I guess. Either way, I went back to watch the competition show that he joined that kickstarted his career called X-Fire and then went on to watch the TV series with the X-NINE boys called Oh! My  Emperor. I only finished Season 1 and needed to take a moment before continuing Season 2. Love Sean Xiao’s character but not a big fan of the main male lead though. The female lead though has already been in 2 Chinese dramas in 2020 so its inevitable that I’ll watch her in more shows and she’s actually rather fun to watch.

However, the highlight of the week goes to The Love Equations ending and its still such a sweet romance. Its a little quirkier than the previous sister series but this male lead is also rather memorable. I’d have to say that pros and cons in all three. I wonder how long they can make these series because its a nice break from those really dramatic ones, plus these ones usually stay around the 25 episode length which is a well-paced length.

Lots of TV going on so I’m losing track of when certain shows release their new episodes so I’m taking a little break from TV right now to catch up on all the series that I need to do TV binges for. Probably will go back to rewatch some of them in the background as I write or something (if I can stop rewatching The Untamed…).

That’s it for this weekly recap!
What have you been watching/reading/binging/playing?